“Congrats,” Bryant said. “So do we.”
Missy shook her head. “I need to make my one phone call. Right now.” She just hoped she could still get her hands on the proof.
“Who are you going to call?” Bryant asked. “Tyler can’t help you in here.”
Missy smiled, for the first time feeling a little hopeful. “I’m not calling Tyler.”
Bryant frowned and looked uncertainly at Evanski. “Then who?”
***
“Yellow?” Paul I.S. Gold answered.
Missy breathed a sigh of relief. At least Paul had answered.
“Paul, it’s Missy. I—”
“Hey, I heard you were arrested. Guess that was just a rumor?”
“I’m at the police station right now. I’m calling about the recording you made of my conversation with Emile Krauss—”
“Sorry, Missy. I’ve been meaning to erase it ever since you asked—”
She wanted to shout with joy. “That’s okay, I need—”
But he was ignoring her. “I’m sitting in front of the computer right now, it’ll only take me a minute to pull the file up.”
“Paul, I need you to send that file to—”
He wasn’t listening. “I’m real sorry, Missy. I’ve just been so busy with work that I didn’t get a chance. I really meant to get rid of it.”
“PAUL, LISTEN TO ME!”
“What?”
Everybody in the police station was staring at her, but Missy didn’t care. Her smile stretched from ear-to-ear. She knew this recording didn’t exonerate her, but at least it would cast some doubt in the detectives’ minds.
“Paul, please email that file to Detectives Evanski and Bryant of the Castleton Police Department.”
“Are you sure, Missy? I know you asked me—”
“Yes, Paul. Just do it. And thank you for making that recording.”
“Missy, are you feeling okay?”
Chapter Twenty
Missy opened the door, and Cody jumped out of the truck and bounded for the entrance to Do Re Tea. Noreen must have seen them coming, as she opened the door immediately to let the dog in.
“Hey, Miss.” Noreen gave her a big hug on the front walk.
“How’s it going?” Missy asked.
“Thanks for coming in on your day off. I promise this will be fast,” Noreen said.
“It’s no problem.” In truth, Missy felt a little guilty taking the day because the tea room had been soooo busy ever since the health inspector had let them reopen. She looked around at the parking lot. “I could stay. This might be the fullest I’ve ever seen the lot, other than the grand opening.”
“No, no,” Noreen said. “We’re good. I’ll get you in and out. I just need you to drop the tea sample at the grocery store. Okay?”
Missy was about to protest, but she really did need a day off. “Thanks, Nor.”
They headed for the entrance. Considering how many cars were in the driveway, there must have been about a hundred people inside but the tea room was very quiet. Missy thought that was a little strange.
“I think we’re going to make it, Missy.” Noreen stopped in front of the door and rested her hand on the handle. “I really do.”
Missy smiled. “I’ve got a good feeling about this place. But I still feel like—”
“Don’t,” Noreen said. “Enough guilt. You didn’t kill Tonya. Emile Krauss did. I needed your help and that’s why you’re here.”
“Okay, okay.” Missy held out a palm, signaling her surrender on the argument.
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
Noreen smiled. “I’m so happy we’re working together again.”
“Me too.”
Noreen opened the door. It was darker than usual inside. Missy wondered why Noreen had closed the curtains and kept the lights dim. She stepped into the tea room—
“SURPRISE!”
Missy nearly had a heart attack.
Do Re Tea was filled with people she knew from Grove City. The tea room was decorated with streamers and confetti and it took her brain a moment to process what one of the banners said.
Congratulations Missy & Tyler
Noreen was throwing her an engagement party.
Missy looked back at her best friend and gave her a big hug. Missy hated being the center of attention, but really appreciated all the trouble Noreen had gone to. The two women cried happy tears as they hugged.
“How did you get this set up so quickly?” Missy asked.
“I knew how much you’d gone through and thought it was important we have a big celebration. It just seemed right. And perfect timing too. They sentenced Krauss this morning, I heard.”
Missy nodded, her mind drifting to the chemistry teacher.
Emile Krauss had remained friends with Tonya ever since their break-up. When he’d heard about the tea room, he went to work researching various brewing methods. He’d wanted to help Tonya in a way only he knew how—through chemistry. After experimenting in his own basement, Krauss had approached Tonya with many ideas for improving the brewing process. This would translate into a unique taste that would not raise costs significantly and would give her an advantage over other local tea rooms and coffee shops.
According to Krauss, Tonya had been very receptive to the idea and had implied he’d get a piece of the ownership in exchange, but at the eleventh hour she’d reneged on that deal. Of course by then, the genie was already out of the bottle. He’d shown Tonya what to do, so she had the benefit of his knowledge without giving anything up.
In addition to that, Krauss claimed that their romantic relationship was beginning to reform. According to him, they spent many late nights together working on ways to improve the process.
Missy doubted very much that things were heating up between Tonya and Krauss, as Tonya had been in the middle of a big triangle with Grant and Roger. But Krauss swore to it.
When Tonya refused to bring him in to the business, reneging on an implied deal, and had coldly rejected his advances, Krauss had had enough. As he told Detectives Evanski and Bryant, he’d been on the Tonya roller-coaster one too many times, and these insults and injuries would be the last. Sure, she had saved his life by getting him into AA. But it was Tonya in the first place that had put him there. And then when he’d tried to repay the favor by improving her bottom line, she had taken his knowledge without offering anything in return.
Though Krauss’s story was told in the most favorable light to himself, Missy also didn’t doubt that Tonya had been underhanded with him. She’d been unfaithful to her long-term boyfriend with her cad of an ex-husband, and clearly she’d gotten something out of Krauss. Missy would never know the whole truth here—nobody would—but it was time to move on. Along with her best friend, she had a tea room to run.
Missy pushed all the ugly thoughts of Krauss and Tonya away. She saw Tyler work his way through the crowd, a big grin on his face.
“What are you doing here?” Missy asked. “You brave, brave man.”
It was a roomful of women, but Tyler looked comfortable enough.
“I want to see what kind of wedding gifts we get,” he whispered and followed it up with a wink.
She kissed him and they embraced to a chorus of ohhhh’s and ahhhh’s.
“Alright, alright. Enough.” Noreen pulled them apart. “Let’s get this party started.”
Noreen forced Missy into a high-backed chair in the middle of the room, while tea and coffee cake were served. Then began the long ritual of opening presents. Noreen took notes to keep track of the gifts and the givers.
Missy laughed harder than she had in a long time, all day long. During a quiet moment, Noreen pulled her aside.
“So did you ever figure out who put Tonya’s sorority pin in your house?” Noreen asked.
Missy smiled ruefully. “My first thought was Alison.”
“Alison Breckmyer?” Noreen couldn’t believe it.
“She stopped over one n
ight out of the blue. She pretended like it was a social visit, but she was there to question me.”
“What? She was Missy DeMeanor-ing the one and only Missy DeMeanor?”
Missy laughed. “Yeah. She went inside to use the bathroom, and Cody started acting strange. That dog has great radar.”
“You can say that again.” Noreen shook her head. “So she was just looking to frame you because…?”
Missy nodded. “I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense unless Alison is mental. And even if Alison is crazy enough to want to frame me, she’d have to get her hands on the pin somehow—and how does she do that?”
“Right.”
“There was another person who thought I killed Tonya and was probably looking to help the cops out.”
“Beth,” Noreen said.
Missy nodded. “Tonya’s sister seemed crazy enough to plant evidence, and she was around Tonya right after…Beth could have taken the pin easily.”
“But how did she get it into your house?” Noreen asked.
“She didn’t.” Missy held up her purse. “She bumped into me after the viewing and almost yanked my purse out of my hands. She probably used the bump to distract me.”
“What a…” Noreen shook her head.
“It’s impossible to prove,” Missy said. “Beth could always just say that the pin must have fallen out of her hand or off her clothes and that it was an accident. So what are you going to do?”
When Missy thought she was done with the presents, Tyler came up to her. He had a sly grin on his face, like he had something up his sleeve.
“I know that look,” Missy said.
“I got you something too,” he said.
She shook her head. “You didn’t have to give me anything, Tyler.”
“I wanted to.”
“I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
“Luck is the residue of design,” he said. “I know you didn’t feel like you solved Tonya’s murder, but if it weren’t for you, the police wouldn’t have been able to put all the pieces together and arrest Krauss.”
She smiled. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“I mean it,” he said. “You would be in jail right now, if you had just sat down and done nothing about it. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Tyler.” She gave him another peck. “Now what’s this present I keep hearing about?”
He laughed. Tyler raised his arms. “This.”
“What?” She didn’t understand. “You got me something invisible?”
“No.” He laughed again. “The tea room.”
She was speechless. “What are you talking about?”
“I saved up over the years, and with the sale of the house I have enough so you can buy in.”
“Tyler…”
“Before you protest, just let me say this. Shut up.”
She did a double-take. “Excuse me?”
He kissed her hard before she could follow-up with any questions or protests. It made her a little dizzy.
He smirked when he pulled away. “I said, shut up. I want to do this for you, so that’s the end of it. You’re your own boss, Melissa.”
“I love you, Tyler Brock.”
**************
THANKS FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed Tea Room Toxin, the fifth in the Missy DeMeanor cozy mystery series. I’ve got plenty more adventures for Missy, Tyler, Cody, and Noreen so if you enjoyed this book, please check out these other titles as well:
Flea Market Fatal (#1)
Book Club Bloodshed (#2)
Diet Club Death (#3)
Scrapbooking Slaying (#4)
Tea Room Toxin (#5)
If you have a spare moment, please let other readers know you enjoyed the books by leaving a review on Amazon.
And if you’d like a FREE BOOK, please sign up for my Newsletter here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brianna loves mystery, hunky men, and crafts, but not always in that order. She has long yearned to write a cozy mystery series but always struggled to find the time between raising children, trying not to blow up the kitchen, and taking care of her rescued dogs. In her fleeting spare time, she enjoys scrapbooking, reading mysteries, trying out new recipes, and binge-watching TruTV. She and her family live in Pennsylvania.
Feel free to tell all your Facebook friends about her books ;-)
For more information, visit her website: www.briannabatesauthor.blogspot.com.
ALSO BY BRIANNA BATES
MISSY DEMEANOR SERIES
Flea Market Fatal (#1)
Book Club Bloodshed (#2)
Diet Club Death (#3)
Scrapbooking Slaying (#4)
Tea Room Toxin (#5)
MARLENE AMBROSIA, WITCHY WIZARD COZY MYSTERY SERIES (coming soon)
The Once and Future Scream Queen
Tea Room Toxin. Copyright 2016 by Brianna Bates. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: March, 2016
Tea Room Toxin: Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mystery #5 (Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries) Page 14