The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  “Toxin?” I repeated. “As in food poisoning?”

  Josh nodded. “We both ate the same things yesterday, though, and I’m fine.” He pulled something from a hospital-issued plastic bag. “I did find this in the trash. Tansy was collapsed on the floor next to it. It’s the only thing we didn’t both eat. I’m not sure if Tansy had any of it—you know how she is with constantly dieting—but I brought it with me, just in case the doctors needed it.”

  It was an elaborately wrapped box of chocolates. Or at least it had been at one time. Now it was a raggedly unwrapped, empty box of possible poison.

  I couldn’t believe it. Had Tansy been the Christmas killer’s target all along?

  If so, Donna’s death did not fit the pattern at all.

  “All that was left were chocolate-covered cherries,” Josh told us. “Tansy doesn’t like those. They were in the trash.”

  “And the rest of the box was gone?” I asked Josh. If Tansy really had been struck with food poisoning—and she definitely seemed to have been—not eating every last morsel of chocolate might have saved her life. “Do the police know about this?”

  “About the candy? No. No one’s been here to ask any questions. The hospital tested the contents of Tansy’s stomach. That’s how they knew what was wrong with her,” he explained. “They think she’ll pull through all right, but . . .” Josh’s face crumpled. He gave Danny a shamefaced look. “I’m sorry. I thought I had it under control. Everything was fine! If this was Tansy’s stalker, he definitely chose the right moment to strike.”

  When Danny wasn’t on duty. I imagined we were all thinking it. I didn’t want to say so. I felt responsible enough already.

  If I hadn’t gotten concussed . . . That probably wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway, I realized. Danny wasn’t aware of Tansy’s binge eating. He wouldn’t have been able to stop her.

  I envisioned the actress sneaking into Josh’s kitchen in the middle of the night, indulging in those chocolates, picking out the chocolate-covered cherries . . . then falling ill mid-nosh.

  She must have been trying to hide the evidence in the trash when Josh found her. I figured there must be several other chocolates that Tansy hadn’t eaten but had thrown away in a rush. I knew she struggled to manage her consumption of treats.

  When we’d spoken about it, I hadn’t imagined this.

  “I don’t think it was Tansy’s stalker,” I told Josh and Danny. “I think it was the Christmas killer—the same person who attacked Melissa Balthasar, and maybe Donna Brown, too.”

  Both men frowned at me.

  “I thought Donna fell,” Josh said.

  But I didn’t have time to argue about it. Because I’d been staring contemplatively at that unwrapped box of toxic chocolates, bothered by a niggling detail. I’d just recognized what it was.

  “Can I borrow your car?” I asked Danny. “There’s something I have to do, and I assume you’ll want to stay here with Tansy.”

  My friend handed me his keys. “Have it back by midnight.”

  “Or what? It’ll turn into a pumpkin?”

  “Or I’ll come looking for you myself.” Danny’s attention focused tellingly on Tansy, then me. “This could have been you.”

  Did he always have to go there? “It’s not, though.” I gave Josh another hug. “This isn’t your fault. Hang in there, Josh.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for coming, you two.” His distraught gaze sought out Tansy. He sighed. “Tansy’s going to be so bummed if she doesn’t recover in time for the show’s premiere. She was counting on Christmas in Crazytown to change her image.”

  That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Whatever else happened, it always came down to the holiday show based on Albany’s outrageous memoir. I thought now that was the key to it all.

  Before I could deal with that, though, I had something else to do. I waved to Danny and Josh. “See you two later!”

  As I left Tansy’s hospital room, I wasted no time taking out my phone. First, I called Ophelia. I had to meet with Albany’s little sister, and I had to do it right away. Then I phoned Travis. My financial advisor answered immediately.

  “I was just about to call you.” His deep, husky voice held a note of accomplishment. “I have news about Melissa’s rehab.”

  That could wait. “I have news about the Christmas killer.” But first . . . “Does Albany have a box of chocolates anywhere?”

  I described the unwrapped box that Tansy had eaten from. It was easy to do, because it matched the box I’d taken from the B and B’s kitchen. I was still carrying it, like a live bomb, in my tote bag. I heard Travis and Albany confer in the background. Good. That meant that my friend’s memoirist pal was all right.

  My keeper came back on the line. “Yes. It’s here.” He confirmed the wrapping’s details. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  I told him about Tansy. An instant later, Travis put me on speakerphone. I could hear Albany’s distressed voice.

  “We’re going to have to cancel the show again!” she wailed.

  I wished she was worried about the lead actress in her holiday show, rather than its (repeatedly) deferred opening.

  But the fact that Christmas in Crazytown had been canceled again and again was important. So I overlooked her attitude.

  “Don’t eat any of that candy!” I ordered Albany and Travis. I spoke to Albany briefly about the things Zach had told me. Then, to Travis alone, I added, “Trav, can we talk privately?”

  He agreed.

  When he came back on the line, on his own, I got down to business. “You’ve got that box of chocolates, right?”

  “Of course I do. It’s safely sequestered.”

  “Well, unsequester it and turn it over. What do you see?”

  After a few tense seconds, Travis told me. I wished I was surprised by the result, but I wasn’t. Not this time.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Talk to you later?”

  “I haven’t told you what I found out about Melissa’s rehab stays,” Travis objected. “There was definitely more than one.”

  While I braved the snowy winds in the hospital parking lot, he explained that Melissa Balthasar had had a legitimate drug addiction problem. She’d been in treatment multiple times.

  “But Melissa didn’t just use her rehab stays to get better. She used them to make connections, too.” Travis told me about the financial trail he’d followed to uncover that information. “In essence, Melissa used those exclusive Malibu rehab centers as personal lead generators. That’s how she scooped everyone. That’s how she rose to the top so quickly, too.”

  “By taking advantage of people in treatment?” I got into Danny’s rental car, feeling disgusted. “That’s awful.”

  “By taking advantage of talented people in treatment,” Travis specified. “That’s how you get to the story first—while it’s still being formed. Or, in certain cases, while it’s winding down to its tragic conclusion. It’s unethical but expedient.”

  That must have been how Albany’s “lightly fictionalized” memoir came about, I assumed, its potential contents whispered about to Melissa while she was trolling rehab centers for projects to produce.

  “Color me unimpressed.” I pictured Melissa Balthasar in group therapy, coolly evaluating her fellow rehab inpatients, deciding who had the best story to sell. Roger was right. His wife had been a real shark. “Thanks for digging, Travis.”

  “Just playing my part. I’ll keep an eye on Albany.” There was a pause. “She’s calling everyone in the production now, to let them know there might be another show cancellation.”

  I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. For Tansy’s sake.

  “While Albany’s doing that, can you do me a favor?”

  I needed to know what was in those chocolates that had made Tansy ill. Exactly what was in them. If Travis could obtain that information . . .

  “I’m on it,” my keeper promised. His voice lowered. “Hey, be careful out there, all right? Call me if yo
u need me.”

  “Hey, I’m not crazy. I’m not going to rush into trouble.”

  “You’ve been known to do that before,” Travis reminded me.

  “There were extenuating circumstances then.” And I’d been a first-time sleuth. This time, I hoped, things were under better control. “Thanks for having my back, though. I appreciate it.”

  “Always,” Travis said. “You know that.”

  The warmth in his voice made me smile. Suddenly, I felt a little bit glad that things hadn’t gotten out of hand between me and Danny last night. Travis really would have known eventually. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to change our relationship that way.

  I hung up the phone, then drove straight to my meeting place with Ophelia: the local diner in scenic downtown Sproutes.

  Twenty-one

  As I’d requested, Ophelia had brought her wrapped box of chocolates. Of course, it was identical to Tansy’s and Albany’s.

  It was identical, too, to the box I’d found in the B and B’s kitchen with Danny earlier—the one now stashed in my tote bag. I’d recognized its distinctive embossed foil paper and glitzy velvet ribbon. I’d remembered seeing them hours earlier, when Ophelia had held a matching package while canoodling with Zach. Then, its gaudy decorations had caught the light perfectly.

  Now, they did the same as Ophelia waited in a booth for me. I glimpsed her through the diner’s window as I hurried up the sidewalk, shivering in my warmest clothes and moto boots.

  There was nothing like murder to lend a chill to the air.

  Inside the diner, it felt warm and welcoming. Classic Christmas pop music played; the long counter and cash register were both adorned with holiday lights. I strode past booths full of hungry Sproutesians, nodding and waving to people I knew.

  When I reached Ophelia, she was frowning into a cup of hot cocoa. Her face looked pinched with lack of sleep.

  I tucked myself into the booth opposite her. The fragrances of hot cocoa and marshmallows rose to meet me. That familiar aroma wasn’t entirely pleasant; I felt too queasy for that. After all, I still hadn’t eaten anything. I’d been too worried about Tansy. Now that I’d arrived at the diner, I wasn’t hungry.

  Ophelia noticed my perturbed expression. “Oh! Do you want one?”

  I considered it and felt even worse. I waved away her offer. Ordinarily, my love of hot chocolate is second only to my fondness for a delicious peppermint mocha. Not today, though.

  In fact, the idea of hot cocoa seemed oddly repugnant. I felt a niggling sensation in the back of my mind, like there was something I’d promised to do and later forgotten. I set aside the feeling.

  “I need to meet with your dad, Ophelia,” I said instead. “I think you’re the only one who can help me get to him.”

  “My dad?” She blinked in surprise, then set down her phone on the table between us. “What’s he got to do with any of this?”

  I’d told her about what happened to Tansy. I’d warned Ophelia not to eat any of the (potentially) tainted chocolate herself. So what did Ophelia’s dad have to do with any of that?

  To answer her question, I flipped over her box of chocolates. I pointed at the label affixed to its underside.

  “These chocolates were community gifts from the Sproutes Police Department. That’s their insignia.” I’d recognized it from my brief stay in the clink. “And that’s your dad’s name right underneath it.”

  You’ve probably guessed it already: Joe Sullivan. Chief of police.

  The reason I hadn’t been able to reach the Sullivan family patriarch was that he’d been dodging me on purpose. Joe Sullivan really was a workaholic, just as depicted in Albany’s memoir. He really was busy, just as everyone in town insisted.

  But Joe wasn’t busy doing what everyone thought he was doing. And, as they insisted, the police investigation into Melissa Balthasar’s murder would have been very different if Joe had been there that night. He hadn’t been, because he’d been too busy covering up the crime. I was sure of that now.

  But I still needed a way to get close to him. How was I supposed to take down the crooked chief of police? Especially in a town as close-knit as Sproutes? I needed subterfuge.

  Ophelia looked trapped. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  She slid out of the booth, abandoning her hot cocoa and almost colliding with the concerned-looking server in her haste.

  “Are you all right, honey?” The waitress put her hand on Ophelia’s arm. She gave her an uncertain smile, then glanced at me. Her eyebrows drew downward. “Is there a problem here?”

  Suddenly, I felt acutely aware of my status as an outsider. Not to be paranoid or anything, but the Sullivans were a big deal in Sproutes. The whole family was known. Albany was famous. Cashel was infamous. Linda was admired as the editor of the Sentinel newspaper, and Joe was universally beloved. Ophelia was the odd one out, but her influencer account was changing that.

  “No! I’ll, uh, be right back.” Ophelia bolted, head down.

  The server’s suspicious gaze returned to me. I had the bizarre feeling she was about to sound an alarm. Alert! There’s a secret sleuth here, stirring up trouble. She doesn’t even like hot cocoa! I imagined the whole diner full of people rising up, pitchforks at the ready. But that was silly, wasn’t it?

  Nobody brings a pitchfork to a small-town diner.

  “So.” She whipped out her order pad. “What would you like?”

  Whew. There would be no mobbing of outsiders today in Sproutes, I guessed. I ordered a black coffee, then shakily executed the rest of my plan while the server went to fetch it.

  As I’d hoped, Ophelia had left in such a hurry that she abandoned her cup of hot cocoa and her cell phone, too. It lay right there on our booth’s table. She’d always kept it at the ready during our photo shoots. I’d hoped she would today, too.

  I had no compunction about snooping. Within seconds, I had the information I needed. When Ophelia came storming back after realizing she’d left her precious phone behind, I was ready.

  I held up her screen. “You’ve been blackmailing Zach.”

  Ophelia took one look and caved. “He deserved it,” she informed me as she flopped herself onto the opposite side of our booth. She rolled her eyes. “Zach could have just helped me. I literally asked him to. I said please! But he was so selfish! He didn’t think about me at all. I had to do it, you know.”

  What she’d “had to do,” I’d had a hunch, was snap several grisly photos of Melissa’s murder scene, then later upload them via a secret account. Ophelia had watched them go viral, then had made another demand on Zach to cooperate with her. After he’d agreed, she’d closed that account. Shortly thereafter, most of the social-media frenzy about Melissa’s death had died down. I’d thought that was because of Roger’s influence. It turned out, it had been Ophelia’s influence—coupled with Roger’s, of course.

  The producer was still a Hollywood big shot. He still held sway over certain media outlets. Because of that, Roger had unwittingly helped Ophelia conceal what she’d done to Zach.

  “You should have deleted the photos from your phone.” I thumbed through a few more images, then brought up another social-media account: Zach’s account for his B and B. “You’ll need to learn to manage your resources better if you want to match Zach’s popularity someday. I mean, look at all these sponsors!”

  I showed her a few of the posts on Zach’s account, all of them featuring merchandise and paid publicity from well-known corporations. Those companies were interested in Zach’s travel-savvy readers, a demographic keen to experience new things—and averse to frequenting traditional advertising channels. For the privilege of reaching them, those businesses tended to pay well.

  Ophelia made a haughty face. “Zach’s a sellout.”

  “If so, he’s a popular sellout.” I accepted my coffee from the server with a thank-you, then blew on it as I contemplated Zach’s perfect images of idyllic Christmastime bed-and-breakfast stays in Massachusetts. “Ten mil
lion followers strong.”

  I’d finally remembered to look up my host’s Web site for his B and B. What I’d found had astounded me: an entire community of people who were interested in Zach’s take on small-town living.

  His latest posts featured the deceptively romantic images that he and Ophelia had posed for last night in the B and B’s snowy yard. She was described as “a friend.” I knew better. I knew now that Ophelia was a thorn in Zach’s side.

  “Sure, he’ll take money to pimp all those products, but he won’t lend a hand to his ex-girlfriend’s little sister!” Ophelia snorted, then gave an infuriated pout. “That’s not okay! We were practically family when Zach and Albany were going out. He could have spared a little cross-promotion, just enough to bring attention to my accounts. It wouldn’t have hurt him one bit!”

  “But letting Zach’s followers know that someone had gotten murdered at his B&B would have hurt him, is that it?”

  I didn’t need Ophelia to answer that. I already knew.

  “You published those photos, but you cropped them first,” I theorized. “It was impossible to see exactly where Melissa had died. None of Zach’s followers connected her death with the B and B, so there was no commensurate fall in traffic. But if Zach hadn’t agreed to help you, you were planning to publish the originals.”

  “It was only a threat. I never did anything wrong.”

  That was debatable. No, wait. It wasn’t. It was awful.

  “Blackmailing someone into helping you isn’t exactly ‘right.’”

  “It was only encouragement! Besides, Zach’s online image was a lie, anyway!” Ophelia protested. “It’s all editing and props and excellent camera angles. You’re staying at his B and B. You know it’s nothing special. But his stupid followers—”

  “Did they at least visit your site? Did they follow you?”

  “Some did,” Ophelia told me vehemently. The look on her face said otherwise. Not enough had. “It was worth it.”

  “Was it?” I pressed. “Or was it something you were just a little bit sorry for?” I sipped my coffee. “Albany knew, you know. She and Zach are still close. He told her about you.” I remembered seeing them laughing and talking at the B and B’s front desk that day. “He wasn’t blowing you off. He just didn’t want to commit to helping you until he got Albany’s okay.”