by Carol Durand
He shook his head in sad disbelief. “So that’s why they’re calling a meeting of the campaign staff,” he sighed.
“I’m afraid so,” Missy nodded.
“How’s Grayson?” Chris asked, putting on his canvas apron.
“Not too well, I’m afraid,” she replied, clearly worried about the young man.
“Well, with the way he looks and all, you gotta figure the cops would be taking a hard look at him first,” he mused, tying a knot at the back of his waist and heading for the sink to wash his hands before stocking the cases.
Missy and Cheryl drew in a collective sharp breath.
“What an awful thing to say, Chris. We all know that Grayson wouldn’t hurt a fly!” Cheryl came to the assistant’s defense. “In fact, the other day, there was a spider in the eating area, and when I asked him to take care of it, he scooped it up in a cup and put it outside rather than squishing it like most people would’ve done.”
“Hey, I live in the real world,” he shrugged, undaunted. “When you choose to look like that, with long hair and piercings and tattoos, people look at you differently, that’s all I’m saying. I’m not going to argue whether the stereotypes tend to be true or not, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Well, fortunately, those of us who know and love Grayson, won’t be judging him by such ridiculous measures,” Missy raised a disapproving eyebrow at Chris, who turned away quickly, heading for the unfrosted trays and the bowls of frosting.
“Hey, what’s our Cupcake of the Day supposed to be?” he changed the subject, examining the unfrosted cakes that had been pulled out of the oven earlier.
“Mango Madness,” Cheryl replied dully, unaware before this morning of just how appropriate having a Cupcake of the Day with “Madness” in the title would seem. “The frosting is in the bowl on the right, use the fluted tip,” she directed, looking at Chris thoughtfully, then exchanged a glance with her boss.
“Well team, you guys can carry on here, I’m going to go see how Ben is managing, and maybe pop by Echo’s store for a dish of Vanilla Bean Rice Dream,” Missy said, reaching for her purse.
“I think that ice cream is entirely warranted under the circumstances,” Cheryl agreed. “We’ll be fine here, don’t worry. If it gets really busy after Chris leaves, I’ll call you,” she promised.
Chapter 8
“How well do you actually know Grayson?” Chas asked Missy, his eyes locked on hers. They were having a quick dinner at their favorite crawfish café, before Missy went home to the girls and Chas spent another long night at the office, trying to solve the Kingsman murder.
“Quite well,” she frowned at the fact that the detective would even ask such a thing. “Not only have I worked side by side with him for more than a year, we’ve had some very in-depth conversations about important things,” her tone was strident. She hated having the finger of blame pointed at Grayson. While it was true that he was the artist who created the rendering of Judge Kingsman that the man’s wife had nearly destroyed, he certainly wasn’t concerned enough about the incident to have then murdered the candidate. It made Missy wonder the mayor hadn’t been pulling strings behind the scenes to shift the focus away from himself and onto poor Grayson.
She sighed, dropping her head into her hands in frustration. “Look, Chas, I may be just a cupcake artist, but I really don’t think that it takes a rocket scientist to figure out who the most obvious suspect should be. There’s only one person in this town who would have the motive to kill Judge Kingsman, and that’s his opponent, Felton Chadwick!” Missy insisted vehemently.
“Questioning my intelligence these days?” Chas raised his eyebrows with a slight smile.
“Oh, honey, you know I didn’t mean it like that, but doesn’t it make sense?” she persisted.
The detective took a deep breath. “When dealing with a public figure like Felton Chadwick, we have to be very careful, Missy. This man holds a lot of power in this parish, and we can’t even consider making an accusation for a capital offense until we have far more than just a suspicion to go on,” he said in a low voice.
“So you think he did it too?” she asked, excited that he had seen her point.
“I didn’t say that, but I will agree that he would probably be the most logical choice. People have killed for much lesser positions of authority,” Chas admitted, carefully.
“What can we do to make sure that they stop being suspicious of Grayson?” Missy asked.
“Sweetie, there’s nothing you can do. I have my best men on this, and we’ll get it taken care of,” he assured her. “Don’t forget, when Grayson comes under scrutiny, you’re not immune either,” he warned.
“Why can’t things just go back to being normal?” she asked plaintively.
“Why indeed,” her fiancé agreed, kissing her hand.
They changed the subject at that point and made an effort to talk about anything other than the Kingsman murder – their upcoming wedding, Ben’s graduation party, and hiring new managers for Missy’s business. It was refreshing to take a brief escape from reality, while munching on some good ole fashioned Southern comfort food, but their respite was abruptly cut short by the ringing of Missy’s phone.
The caller ID showed that it was Samantha Lemmon, a member of the Burgundies and Books book club to which Missy belonged. She had gotten to know the young ER nurse better over the past few months and considered her to be a good friend, so despite the fact that she was enjoying Chas’s company enormously, even under the current circumstances, she took the call.
“Hi Sam,” she said with a smile after pushing ‘Accept’ to take the call.
“Missy, oh my goodness, I’m so glad that you answered,” Sam said in a hushed tone.
“Oh my, why? What’s wrong, Sam?” Missy’s heart began to pound within her chest, an overwhelming premonition of doom seeping into her soul.
“I’m not supposed to tell you this, okay, but I know that you would want to know…” her voice was nearly a whisper.
“What is it, Sam?” Missy interrupted, worried. “I won’t tell anyone that you told me.”
“An ambulance just came in a few minutes ago…Grayson was on it, and he didn’t look good, Missy, I’m so sorry,” the young nurse confided.
“What?” the color drained from Missy’s face, and Chas reached for her hand, concerned. “Is he…?” she couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.
“No, at least not the last time I checked. He’s in surgery, I’ll try to keep you posted, but I have to go now. I’m really sorry, but I have to go,” she whispered. Dial tone.
Missy was shaken and stunned. Chas had seen her reaction and signaled for the check, so he was able to spirit her from the restaurant before the storm of tears that threatened swept her away. She told him what the phone call had been about, lamenting that, since she wasn’t actually related to Grayson, she wouldn’t have access to any information about him.
“You won’t, sweetie, but I will,” the detective assured her, his jaw set.
“I don’t even know what happened to him,” Missy murmured, tears flowing freely.
“I’m going to drop you off at home, then I’m going to find out,” he promised. “As soon as I know something, I’ll call you."
Chapter 9
Chas Beckett strode into the Emergency Room on a mission. He too had grown to know Grayson over the last year, and was concerned about the young man whom his fiancée loved like a son. Spotting an officer hovering near the intake desk, he made a beeline to him to find out what had happened.
“Were you at the scene for the last ambulance that came in?” he asked the cop, one of his own guys that he knew well.
“Yeah, we got there before the EMT’s, it was pretty messy,” he said, lifting up his pant leg slightly to show the blood spatters on his shoe.
“What happened?” Chas inquired casually, sounding much more calm than he felt at the moment.
“Assault with Intent is what we’re probably look
ing at. The kid was so beat up that he could hardly talk, broken bones, internal injuries, you name it. The only thing he kept saying that we could even understand was “red pickup truck,” the officer filled him in.
“Is he going to make it?”
“Tough to say. Hope so,” the officer shrugged and shook his head.
“Suspects?”
“Not yet, we sent a few units to comb the area for a red pickup truck, but nothing turned up.”
“Where did the attack take place?”
“In the little alley behind the cupcake shop over on Main. Kid was in a sleeping bag by the back door. There was a woman walking her dog who found him and called us,” the officer explained.
“Did she see anything?” Chas frowned, wondering why Grayson had been sleeping behind the shop.
“Nahhh…nothing but a bloody kid, clutching his sleeping bag. She stayed with him until we got there, then left after we took her statement.
“Has the next of kin been contacted yet?”
The officer puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath slowly. “Yeah, and boy is that one a winner. We found the kid’s mama after running his ID, and when we called her up, she ranted and raved about how much trouble he was and how she had thrown him out because she didn’t need bad influences in her house – she sounded drunk as a skunk, but when we told her that her bad seed was in the hospital fighting for his life, suddenly she’s Mother of the Year and needs a ride to the hospital. What a piece of work,” he shook his head. “I sent a unit to go pick her up and bring her here, there’s no way in the world I’d let her behind the wheel of a car the way that she was slurring.”
“Any idea how long he’ll be in surgery?” Chas asked, looking at his watch.
“Nope, I’m just waiting here to see if we need to find a raging bully or an actual killer. Looks like it could go either way,” the cop replied.
“Understood,” the detective nodded. He was about to say something else, but before he could open his mouth to speak, a woman who could only have been Grayson Myers’ mother came bursting into the waiting room.
“My baby, my baby,” she brayed, oozing tears and snot and reeking of cheap beer.
Petaluma Myers had to have been pushing fifty, and wore faded denim cut-off jeans, a t-shirt featuring an ad for a heavy metal concert in the late nineties, and filthy bubble-gum-pink shower shoes. Seeing the police officer standing with Chas, she lurched her way over to them, entirely unable to walk in a straight line, and flipping her bleached blonde hair with black and grey roots coquettishly over one bony shoulder, she appraised both men, but addressed herself to the uniformed one.
Wiping her nose with the hem of her shirt, and “accidentally” baring more than her share of midriff, she gazed pathetically at the officer.
“Where’s ma son? I wanna to see ma baby,” she sniffed, staggering sideways so profoundly that both Chas and the uniformed cop reached out to steady her.
“Your son is in the operating room, ma’am, the doctors will come out to talk to you when they’re done,” the officer told her, the tang of chronic alcohol intake that emanated from her stinging his nostrils.
“Wha did he do?” she slurred. “Was it his fault? Cuz, I’ll kick his…”
“No, it wasn’t his fault,” the cop interjected, before Grayson’s mother said something that might end up landing her in jail.
“Oh good,” she nodded unsteadily, looking at the floor. “I doan feel so good…” she muttered, looking a little green.
“I’m going to leave you with this,” Chas looked at his colleague apologetically and headed for the door. “Keep me posted.” He heard the unmistakable sound of retching and a liquid splat on the sterile hospital floor as the doors whooshed shut behind him. He sympathized with the officer, and made a mental note to buy the guy a steak sometime soon.
**
“So how is he?” Missy demanded, burying her face in Chas’s chest when the detective came over after leaving the hospital. “What happened? Is he going to be okay? Was there an accident?” she continued to ask, terrified of the worst.
Her fiancé wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, waiting for her to stop asking questions so that he could try to answer a few of them. She realized what she was doing and pulled back a bit, taking Chas’s hand and pulling him over to the couch, where she had wine waiting.
“He’s still alive at this point, but I don’t know what his prognosis looks like. He was in surgery while I was there, and I left word that I want to be notified with updates on his condition,” the detective explained gently, pouring his distraught fiancée a glass of Merlot. He handed her the glass and continued.
“He was assaulted, profoundly so, and suffered broken bones and internal injuries, but I don’t know the extent of them.”
Tears streaked down Missy’s cheeks and she took a swig of her wine, trying to absorb the information without breaking down entirely.
“Do they know who did it? Did he say anything?”
“He was pretty incoherent, from what I understand. The only intelligible thing that they could make out was that he kept repeating “red pickup truck.” Chas took a small sip of his own wine, thinking that he might have to investigate the murder of Grayson Myers tonight if the poor kid didn’t make it through surgery.
“There’s no way to tell who did this to him, but I would guess that it’s someone who was trying to send a very clear message,” the detective said grimly.
“What kind of message?” Missy asked wide-eyed.
“Either it was a bunch of Judge Kingsman’s supporters who were furious and looking for revenge, or, more likely, Mayor Chadwick whispered in the ears of a few thugs and made a few suggestions,” Chas’s jaw muscles flexed.
“Do you think he would do that?” Missy was horrified.
“He’s a very powerful man, who will do whatever he needs to do to stay on top,” the detective set down his wine glass. “I’d bet my last dollar that he’ll be giving a press conference in the morning and saying something about how the fine citizens of LaChance saw the opportunity to exact justice for the murder of an innocent and followed through on it,” he predicted, disgusted.
Chapter 10
Missy switched off the television, utterly disgusted. Chas was right, she had just been watching the mayor’s press conference regarding the “tragic retaliation,” that had been visited upon a “person of interest” in the Kingsman murder case. The conniving man even had the audacity to say that, “While I completely understood the impulse to impart justice, I cannot condone for an instant the concept of citizens taking the law into their own hands.” He furthered cautioned other would-be vigilantes to refrain from further action in order to give “our fine law enforcement professionals” the opportunity to do their jobs. He sounded rational, magnanimous and entirely false in Missy’s opinion, and she had half a mind to march right down to his office and call him out on it.
Chas prudently pointed out that it was far more important for her to focus on staying as far away from Felton Chadwick as possible until the murder was solved once and for all. He honestly hoped that she didn’t position herself as his next target for speculation. Grayson was still in the ICU, and Detective Beckett felt that if the youth ended up dying, the mayor would most likely pull as many strings as he had to in order to have Grayson declared the murderer and subsequently have the case closed, with no one the wiser. If the young man pulled through, however, the mayor might either go after him again, or might target Missy, which was why Chas needed to solve the case while Grayson was alive and, for the moment at least, safely tucked away in the hospital. An armed guard had been posted and would remain outside his hospital room for the duration of his stay, or until the crime was solved.
Missy was upset that she couldn’t go visit Grayson in the ICU. She understood why, but if only she could see his face, even if it was mangled and broken, at least she could see the rhythm of his breathing and know that, at this moment in time,
he was alive. Samantha Lemmon had been keeping her informed as to his condition, as well as regaling her with tales of Petaluma Myers’ interactions with doctors, the nursing staff and the security guards. Apparently, no one had yet seen Grayson’s mother sober, and her tendency to regurgitate her most recent libations was legendary. According to Sam, the nurses on Grayson’s floor drew straws to see who had to deal with her when she either passed out or vomited.
“Can’t they just put her in a treatment program?” Missy asked, frustrated on Grayson’s behalf.
“Not unless she commits a crime or checks herself in willingly, and believe me, we’ve tried. It’s not going to happen,” Sam said sadly.
Missy felt like she was caught up in a hellish limbo. The mayor made his speeches, Grayson held on to life by a thread, and thus far, no progress, as far as she could tell, had been made on the investigation. She needed a break, she needed to step away from the drama in her life and breath, she needed ice cream with Echo. Driving over to Dellville, her spirits lifted a bit at the thought of quality time with her best friend. Her heart dropped to her knees however, when she pulled into the parking lot of Sweet Love, the vegan ice cream shop. Surely there must be some mistake…there was a For Sale sign stuck in the patch of grass out front.
In such a hurry that she forgot to even lock her car, Missy dashed into the little shop, terrified that the sign might have been placed there intentionally.
“Hey girlfriend!” Echo smiled when Missy came blazing into the shop, wild-eyed and breathing hard.
“Echo, did you know that there’s a For Sale sign in front of the shop?” she asked, ignoring her friend’s greeting.
“Of course I know, silly, I put it there,” she replied, then, seeing Missy’s face, she picked up a clean ice cream scoop. “You need Vanilla Bean,” she prescribed, knowing that this wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. She came out from behind the counter, bowl in hand and gave her stunned bestie a big hug. “Come, sit,” she directed, walking over to a table, trying to entice Missy to move with a bowl of her favorite treat. The traumatized woman sat numbly across from her friend, too shocked to utter a sound.