The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  I mentally thanked Travis for that timely information.

  Cashel blinked at me, sobering up now. “So? So what?”

  “So you might have delivered those killer chocolates, but only a police officer could have gotten a hold of the toxin to make them. Only your dad.” I gave him a firm look. “He’s going down for that. For everything.” I paused to make sure Cashel understood the implications. “He set you up, Cashel, by making you deliver that box of chocolates to Tansy.” Zach’s box had tested clean already. So had Albany’s and Ophelia’s. Tansy had been the sole target. “He won’t be able to protect you anymore.”

  Cashel digested that. Then his voice turned panicky. “I don’t need protection!” he blurted. “Melissa was an accident, anyway. I was only there that night to deliver something.”

  “To deliver drugs? For your truck-driving friend?”

  A nod. “By the time I got there, Melissa was already out of her mind, she was so high. She didn’t need anything else, believe me, but she wanted it, anyway.” Cashel chuckled darkly at the memory. “But I didn’t kill her! I didn’t!” His gaze begged me to believe him. “I just didn’t pull her head out of the punch bowl when she passed out in it. That’s it! That’s all. That’s not murder. I even thought she was joking at first.”

  I shuddered, imagining the horrible scene. “You should have tried to help her.” I raised my gaze to Cashel’s. “When you realized what was going on, you should have tried to save her.”

  Wild-eyed, Cashel disagreed. “If I hadn’t been there, Melissa would have died, anyway! It’s not like I held her head in the punch bowl on purpose or anything.” He offered his hands in supplication. “Come on, Hayden. Do I look like a murderer?”

  Just then? He absolutely did. I hoped that by now I wasn’t the only one who’d heard him confess to everything.

  Evidently, my horror at what he’d done showed, because Cashel’s scruffy face suddenly tightened with fury. He gritted his teeth, then grabbed my gloved hand. I was too surprised to prevent him from shoving those narcotic pills into my grasp.

  “You’ll never understand. I shouldn’t have told you a thing.” Cashel’s whole body trembled as he tried to force my hand to my mouth. “I just want all this to be over with!”

  I resisted, but Cashel was strong. His intoxication gave me a slight edge—enough that we were still struggling when the shed’s door burst open. I took my chance to drop those pills.

  Breathless and contorted from fighting against Cashel, I saw uniformed police officers rush in. Then Travis was there, looking stern. Danny too. I’m pretty sure my bodyguard buddy was the one who hauled Cashel away from me. I grabbed Danny before he could do something rash, like punch a murderer in full view of the Sproutes police force. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Danny saw. He frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “I am now.” I promised Travis the same thing. “You?”

  They both nodded.

  “All we had to do was wait outside while you extracted a confession.” Danny reminded me of the plan we’d made while at the hospital. “We had the easy part.”

  “The hardest part was not rushing in to help,” Travis said.

  I believed that. Outside, I saw a few more officers with Joe Sullivan. The chief of police had been handcuffed. Now, so had Cashel. It was a relief to watch them both being taken away.

  This time, the whole town had something new to gossip about—except it was true. Apparently, I’d learned from my friends, my concussed rant in Donna’s yard had caught the attention of certain critical members of the Sproutes police force. Combined with Danny and Travis’s questioning, that incident had caused them to come clean about a few things.

  With a little prompting from my financial advisor, the officers had admitted that they’d suspected Joe Sullivan of being crooked for years, but they hadn’t had the means to prove it.

  Thanks to the toxic chocolate box connection—and my chat with Cashel in the equipment shed, which had been recorded and listened to by the authorities—those honest, ethical officers now had the means to arrest, charge, and prosecute dishonest Joe and Cashel for their crimes. The shadows I’d seen under the shed’s door belonged to the officers, who had been moving around while setting up.

  It was over, I realized, with a wobbly sense of relief. I looked down at those scattered pills as two of the police officers marked them as official evidence. It felt surreal. Things hadn’t gone exactly as I’d planned, but in my line of work, I’m used to improvising.

  While the police took Cashel and Joe into custody, Danny and Travis and I headed out into the park. Its jolly atmosphere felt unreal, too; so did the sight of Ophelia and Albany, standing near the hot-cocoa hut, hugging each other. The sisters ignored everyone around them as they spoke together, united at last.

  I’d expected Ophelia to show up at the park—or at least to alert her dad that I suspected him of something. I’d hoped my talk of “leads” at the diner would raise doubts for her. I’d even hoped Zach might have jokingly mentioned our conversation about my amateur sleuthing activities to Ophelia during one of their photo shoots. However it happened, I’d been counting on Ophelia to serve as my backup plan for flushing out Joe.

  That seemed to have worked. What I hadn’t counted on, though, was that this crisis might bring together the two sisters. Yet that was exactly what seemed to have happened.

  “I told Albany you were staging an intervention with Cashel about his addiction issues.” Travis was watching Albany and Ophelia, too. “That’s why she wanted to come with you.”

  Aha. “That’s why she was so nice to me.”

  “She was nice to you because she likes you.”

  “I like her, too.” Despite myself, it was true. Especially after our recent car ride, when Albany had explained some things to me. I nodded, then glanced at Danny. “I guess we’re off to the police station, then? We’ll have to make statements.”

  My burly pal shrugged. “Making a statement is better than being arrested.” He nodded at the police officers, who were currently putting Joe and Cashel into cars. “You should have seen the chief’s face. He thought he was untouchable in this town.”

  “Yes, well . . . no one’s untouchable.” That was what I hoped.

  It was what I would always hope. That was what kept me going on my surprising new sleuthing path. I always had hope that justice could be done. If I could help with that, I would.

  If I couldn’t, then I’d be happy making amazing chocolates.

  We pulled ourselves together and went to wrap things up.

  Twenty-three

  There were three curtain calls on opening night for Christmas in Crazytown. The media showed up in droves to cover the event. They were united in their adoration of Tansy.

  “A revelation!” one news outlet raved. “Astonishing!” wrote another. Cheering fans lined the streets of Sproutes, hoping for a glimpse of their favorite star—who was now, everyone agreed, a bombshell with twice as much talent as anyone had ever suspected.

  Tansy reacted to all the brouhaha with enviable equanimity.

  “This is what I hoped for,” she told me backstage after the premiere, still in full stage makeup and breathing hard from her exertions during the final dance number. “I always knew I could do it.” Tansy smiled at Josh. “Especially with so much support.”

  The newspaperman beamed right back at her. “I’m just happy you’re okay.” His arm encircled her costumed figure tightly. “You really scared me with that hospital stay! That chocolate—”

  “Don’t say chocolate!” Tansy held up her hands to ward off any mention of it. “I’m never touching that stuff again.”

  As aversion therapies went, being food poisoned by chocolate was a pretty effective means of avoiding it. I doubted Tansy would have very many more midnight snack raids.

  I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Congratulations on your performance. You were fantastic,” I told her honestly. “I guess that ‘show must go on’
mentality is a real thing in showbiz?”

  “It is for me!” Tansy laughed. “I was opening this show if I had to crawl here! Besides, I had excellent care.” She aimed a besotted look at Josh. “Money and fame can’t buy that.”

  Her relationship with Josh actually seemed as though it might last. Partly, I gathered, that was because he’d proven he would stick by her, whether she was in a sold-out show or not.

  Fortunately, the show had gone on, though. And Tansy wasn’t the only one who’d pulled positivity out of adversity. On the other side of the Sproutes playhouse backstage area, I glimpsed Albany Sullivan talking with some reporters about her show.

  At her side stood Zach Johnson, who was looking adoringly at her. Apparently, my B and B’s host and Albany had rekindled their former relationship during the holidays. That was partly why, I’d learned courtesy of Travis, Zach hadn’t cleaned up the wassail punch bowl after the party. He’d been upstairs, tipsy from the celebration and intoxicated by being reunited with his long-lost Albany at last. Because of that, Ophelia’s blackmail attempt had wound up only bringing them closer together.

  Danny saw me watching them. “It’s too bad Cashel didn’t have the talent to write Albany’s book himself. He was already the family black sheep. Things couldn’t have gotten any worse for him. He might as well have enjoyed the fame for a while.”

  I boggled at my buddy. “You don’t really think that.”

  “And the money. The royalties would be nice, too.”

  “Danny!”

  “I’m kidding. But I can relate to the black-sheep thing.”

  “You’re not a murderer. That’s an important point.”

  “True.” Danny crossed his arms, then glanced at me. “I’ll bet Albany and Zach hooking up makes things easier for you.”

  “Easier for me?” I batted my eyelashes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s hard for you to carry on an infatuation with Harvard when you know it has to be one sided.” Danny nodded at Albany and Zach. “If the brainiac had been banging her, you’d—”

  “Danny!”

  “Have a different take on the situation, believe me.”

  I remembered the kiss that Danny and I had shared at the B and B. And his insistence that that kiss was about us. Not Travis.

  I scoffed. “If you’re suggesting that I have a thing for my financial advisor, you’re barking up the wrong tree.” Because I didn’t intend to admit any such thing. However true it might be.

  Danny gave a perceptive laugh. “I know what I know. But it’s all right. I still win Friendsmas, hands down.”

  “Look, it was a pretty good kiss, but Travis didn’t even—”

  “Have a chance to compete with you,” I’d been about to say.

  “If nothing else, I win for finding a home for Georgie,” my security-expert pal butted in. He gave me a look that said I should quit talking about my soppy feelings for Travis for the moment. “That cat is going to be completely spoiled with Josh.”

  “And Tansy,” I agreed. “She’s already buying little outfits and accessories. The two of them really took to pet parenting.”

  I was relieved that Donna’s cat was settled. I’d attended the memorial for Donna, along with what had seemed like everyone else in Sproutes. I wondered if the teacher and playhouse director had known how beloved she was. Tonight’s performance had been dedicated to her, with a special presentation by all the junior Nutcracker ballerinas, who’d carried white flowers.

  Still moved by that, I sniffled, then pulled myself together. Briskly, I looked at Danny again. I was surprised to find him frowning intently at me.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m waiting for you to say I win. I win Friendsmas.”

  Aha. “I knew it! You and Travis were competing about that.” It had all kicked off at the Sproutes Star Lanes bowling alley.

  Before I could address the issue, though, Travis turned up, looking extra handsome for the occasion in a dark fitted suit.

  “We weren’t competing to give you the best Friendsmas,” he informed me, obviously having overheard a bit of what I’d said.

  “But if we were, I won,” Danny put in. “I was the best. There was the Christmas-lights hayride, the Santa pub crawl—”

  “We were teaming up to make sure you wouldn’t run into too much trouble while investigating murders,” Travis went on staunchly. “Just the same way we always do.” He aimed a quelling look at Danny. “Also, I was part of the Santa pub crawl, so—”

  “So even if that doesn’t count, the cat counts double.”

  “It’s a Wonderful Life counts triple,” Travis countered. We’d finally caught a matinee together. “That means I win.”

  I held out my hands before their bickering went too far.

  “You know what? It’s not quite Christmas yet,” I told my two favorite men, with a smile. “You’ll both have more chances to wow me over the next few days. So let’s see what you’ve got!”

  I was kidding. But I still hoped they’d give it a shot.

  All around us, the cast and crew were dispersing, getting ready to head to the Christmas in Crazytown after-party. The general sense of exhilaration and merriment felt revitalizing.

  “You can start at the after-party,” I urged, grabbing Danny and Travis by the elbows so they could escort me. I’d broken out my one and only cocktail dress (a classic LBD) for the occasion. I didn’t want it to go to waste. “There’s going to be dancing!”

  “Dancing?” Danny grumbled. “No way. My, uh, retina hurts.”

  That was an excuse. I knew his eye injury was healed.

  “I’m pretty sure I have some accounts to review,” Travis put in, getting ready to make a break for it rather than rumba.

  But I wasn’t letting either of them off that easily.

  “There’ll also be a great big pot of my famous peppermint mochas for a crowd,” I coaxed. “Everyone loves those!”

  I’d developed the recipe for a certain never-to-be-named corporate consultee several years ago. It had begun with a melted peppermint mousse fiasco, but I’d managed to persevere and, to my client’s delight, create something entirely new. The version I’d made for tonight wasn’t identical (the original recipe was protected by copyright law and my own privacy guidelines), but it was close.

  “A treat for a crowd, huh?” Danny echoed. He harrumphed. “I’m still waiting for you to make good on the last time you treated an entire state to something and didn’t include me.”

  “Oh yeah?” I’d been waiting for my cue. I pulled out a small white bakery box and handed it to him. “Merry Christmas!”

  Danny took it. His eyebrows drew downward.

  Impatiently, I poked him. “Go on. I think you’ll like it.”

  He opened the box. Seeing its contents, he snorted with laughter. “It’s a three-dollar donut.” Looking at its perfectly round, chocolate-frosted form, he smiled. “You remembered.”

  You remembered me, I heard and nodded in agreement.

  I would always remember him. He was my closest friend.

  As the cast and crew continued chatting and filing toward the after-party—and Danny gamely took a bite of his long-awaited donut, after declaring that maybe he had changed some, too, and now liked sweets—I became aware of a certain “cat that ate the canary” look on my financial advisor’s face. Curiously, I turned to him.

  “Travis? What’s up?” I nudged him. “Can’t wait to dance?”

  He shook his head. “I can always wait to dance. Forever, if necessary.” He waved to Albany, gesturing that he would see her later at the party, then returned his focus to me. “I just remembered that I forgot to tell you something, that’s all.”

  Beside us, Danny raised his eyebrows in question. He hadn’t yet spit out his donut. That was an encouraging sign, I thought.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked my keeper, as thrilled as ever to hear his deep, seductive voice saying something to me. “What’s that?”

 
; “Just that at the charity auction yesterday,” Travis said with a distinct gleefulness, “I was the top bidder for Hayden’s chocolate houses.” I’d found time to finish them at the barn work space as expertly as I could. Technically, Travis was telling me. It was obvious this news was for Danny’s benefit, too. “So I think you’ll find that I win Friendmas this year.”

  Travis looked pleased. Danny looked disgruntled.

  And me? I’m fairly sure I looked positively merry.

  And why not? I’d helped to solve a murder and to take down a killer—and this time, I’d stopped a crooked cop, to boot.

  I’d overcome some pretty steep odds. I’d earned a record bid for charity. I’d seen two couples start on their way toward what appeared to be fantastically romantic Christmases together. I’d been on the inside at a sold-out, smash holiday show, too.

  Next, I had dancing all night long and peppermint mochas to look forward to. What wasn’t there to like about that?

  On top of everything else, Danny actually finished his donut and appeared to enjoy it. I raised my eyebrows. “It’s a Christmas miracle! You like sweets now, Danny?”

  My bodyguard buddy gave me a cryptic look.

  “I like you,” Danny said as an excuse for scarfing that donut. He tossed away the empty box. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  Travis glanced from Danny to me and then back again. He matched Danny’s enigmatic look with one of his own. I was sure that my financial advisor (and friend) knew there was something going on between me and Danny. But then Travis only shrugged.

  I stepped in decisively anyhow. I didn’t want to give anyone more time to think about things. It was better that way.

  “Hey, Merry Christmas!” I told them both.... Then we headed out together to put all the troubles behind us and enjoy the season.

  Recipes

  PEPPERMINT-MOCHA COOKIES WITH PEPPERMINT-VANILLA ICING & CANDY-CANE SPRINKLES

  Makes about 2 dozen cookies

  1¼ cups all-purpose flour

  ⅓ cup cocoa powder