Creamsicle Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 11 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (5 page)

Officer
Parsons’ supervisor had taken over Missy’s arrest, for her own safety. She
heard nothing while her rights were being read to her, merely nodding whenever
his monotonous litany paused. She moved mechanically, ducking her head when
told to sit in the back of the police cruiser outside of the hospital. Her
hands were limp as she was fingerprinted and booked, and once in her holding
cell, stripped of her personal belongings as well as her belt and shoe laces,
she curled up on a concrete bench in the corner, knees to her chest, head down.

When
she had been asked if she’d like to make a phone call, she’d silently shaken
her head. Echo already knew she was headed to jail, Chas, if he was still
alive, probably didn’t care, and Cheryl and Ben would be contacted by Echo in
the morning. Ivana Cherie wouldn’t be getting her trio of cupcakes in the morning,
and it was just as well. Missy couldn’t stomach the thought of the vile
murderess, much less the sight of her. She knew in her bones that the diva had
killed Ian, and stabbed Chas just so that she could blame it on Missy, but
because of her stardom and put-upon air of innocence, everyone believed the
actress’s story, even those who had been in a position to know better.

Tears
stung her eyelids as she thought of Chas – his smile, his sincere blue eyes,
his quick wit. She had missed him so much the past few weeks, but it had been
prudent to avoid him so that she could do some investigating of her own, and
now none of it mattered. She hoped that he recovered and had a good life, even
after Ivana was tired of toying with him, but she grieved for the love that she
had lost. It was ironic really, just when they’d become comfortable in their
feelings for one another, fate had ripped them apart.

At
some point, in the wee hours of the morning, Missy must’ve drifted off to
sleep, scared and alone. She woke with a start as a nightstick clanged against
the bars of her cell.

“Gladstone!”
a policewoman called out, sounding bored. “Visitor,” she announced when Missy
raised her head slowly.

A
pale, thin man who looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties, with longish hair and
a chin beard, stood nervously on the other side of the bars, and after
emphasizing the rules for interaction, the policewoman left him alone, shifting
from foot to foot.

“Uh,
hi, Miss Gladstone,” the young man said, looking all around. He’d either never
been inside a jail before, or perhaps had a really bad experience in one, he
was clearly uncomfortable. When Missy merely stared at him blankly, he
continued. “I’m, uh, Sebastian Nickles. I’m the props assistant for
Whispers
of Blood,
and I…” he broke off when Missy stood suddenly and approached the
bars, standing a few feet away, as though he might bite. “Uh, anyway, I never
met you before, and I know that everyone is saying that you killed Ian, but
um…I just wanted to say that I don’t think that you did,” he finished
awkwardly.

“What
makes you think that?” Missy asked warily in a faint voice.

“Because,
I, uh, I think I know who did it,” Sebastian glanced about as though fearful of
being overheard.

Missy’s
eyes widened, her thoughts clearing for the first time since she’d heard that
Chas had been in an accident. She moved to the bars and gripped them so hard
that her knuckles turned white. “Who?” she whispered.

“So,
you know the night before Ian was murdered? Well, I was the one who was
responsible for all the props, and I watched over them almost the entire time.
We do that specifically so that accidents like this don’t happen,” he
explained, his eyes darting back and forth between Missy and the door.

“What
do you mean that you were there almost the entire time?” Missy asked, her voice
scratchy with thirst.

“The
Props Master was gone, looking for a saddle for like, the entire day, so I
didn’t have any breaks or food or anything, so Ian came by and asked if
anything, but I said no. He talked a little bit about you, he had a major crush
on you,” the young man blushed a little. “He said that you had just left, and
that he had been hoping that you could stay for the big shoot-out scene that
was coming up.”

Ian’s
crush was news to Missy, she thought that he was just being nice to her.

“So
then Ian went to get some dinner before his big scene, and I was standing
there, like, dying of hunger, and Buckman, the director, walks in,” Sebastian
continued, speaking quickly.

“Was
that unusual?” Missy was slowly returning to normal levels of interaction, her
analytical brain coming back online.

“For
him to come in? Yeah, definitely. He’s way above my pay grade. So he comes in
and tells me I’m working way too hard, and he actually orders me to go take a
break. I tried to push back, because I know that I’d catch hell, s’cuse my
language, when the PM came back, if I even thought about leaving the props
room, but Buckman wasn’t having it, so I took a ten minute break and when I
came back, Buckman was gone.”

The
door behind Sebastian opened. “Five minutes,” the policewoman who had brought
him in warned. He nodded at her and waited until the door was closed again to
continue.

“That
left the props room unattended, I don’t know for how long,” he admitted,
seeming embarrassed.

“Did
you tell that to the police?” Missy asked, feeling a glimmer of hope.

“No
way,” he shook his head vehemently. “I’d never get hired for another production
ever again if it got out that I had made a rookie mistake like that.”

“But
it wasn’t your fault – Buckman ordered you to do it, right?”

“Yeah,
I guess. But if I told the police that, and they went after him and he didn’t
do it, I’d really be screwed, pardon my language,” Sebastian worried.

“Sebastian,”
Missy put her face through the bars. “If Buckman did it, you have the chance to
catch a killer, and if it wasn’t him, then he may be the only person who can
identify the real killer,” she insisted urgently, needing to get her point
across before their time together ran out.

“Yeah,
maybe,” he shrugged, uncertain and still uncomfortable.

“Sebastian,
please. My freedom is at stake here and I’m innocent. You have to tell the
truth, it’s important,” she implored.

“Uh…well,
I…” he floundered.

“Time’s
up!” the guard announced, holding the door open for Sebastian to leave.

“Tell
them Sebastian, please!!!” Missy called after him, slumping against the bars
when he left.

Echo
held Missy’s hand through the bars, tears streaming down her face. Seeing her
sweet, innocent friend locked up like a dangerous animal was almost more than
she could bear, but she came with potentially good news.

“So,
Joe, you know, the reporter that I’m seeing, he went to the movie site to try
to see what he could find out, because I told him what you had told me and he
agreed that the whole thing sounded pretty darn fishy. Anyway, he met one of
the security guards and struck up a conversation. Apparently, part of the
evidence that they have that points to you as the murderer, is a check-in sheet
that shows you arriving just before the murder, and leaving just after,” she
said, speaking in low tones.

“But
that’s impossible,” Missy exclaimed. “When I left that afternoon, I never
returned that night!”

“Yup,
I know. Joe got the guard to confess that Buckman, the director dude, had come
by that night and demanded to see the check-in list. When the security guy gave
him the list, he turned his back like he was just looking at it, but the guard
could tell that he was making marks on the sheet. He gave the clipboard back to
the guard and said that if he told anyone that he’d asked to see the list, he’d
never work in Hollywood again,” Echo explained.

“So,
Buckman put the check marks by my name, making it look like I’d come in when I
wasn’t even there,” Missy deduced. “But why would the security guard tell Joe
all of this and not the police?”

“Well,
at first, he was scared of losing his job, but when he found out that Joe
wasn’t a policeman, he opened right up,” her friend smiled.

“Why
would Buckman kill his leading man though, that makes no sense?” Missy was
baffled.

“Actually,
it makes more sense than you think,” Echo raised her eyebrows knowingly.
“Buckman was in love with Ivana, and the way that she was guaranteed to get a
major role in every one of his films was to string him along with promises that
whenever she and Ian broke up for good, she’d be all his.”

Missy
gasped. “Buckman killed Ian because he thought that Ivana would come to him
once Ian was gone?” she was incredulous and furious at the senseless killing of
her friend.

“Exactly,”
Echo squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, Missy.”

“But
then, who stabbed Chas?” she said, eyes wide.

“Buckman.
Think about it, with all the time that Ivana had been spending with Chas…” Echo
noticed Missy wince at that. “Sorry…but Buckman probably thought that she had
replaced Ian with Chas, so he wanted to eliminate him as well, and knew that
Ivana would continue to blame you, so he’d never get caught,” she explained.
“The police are probably finding out right about now that the fingerprints on
the knife and the gun don’t match yours because you didn’t handle either of
those items. Joe clued them in as to what the guard said, and they’re checking
up on the story.”

“That,
plus what Sebastian told me about what Buckman did in the props room should
give them enough to go after Buckman,” Missy said, hope stirring within her at
last.

“And
then we’re going to get you out of here and feed you copious amounts of Vanilla
Bean Ice Dream,” her friend promised, giving her hand a squeeze.

**

Missy
stood on the sidewalk in front of the jail, blinking in the sunlight as Echo
and Joe brought the car around to pick her up. She had been freed, finally
after spending two days in a holding cell while the police received new
information that exonerated her. While it was a relief to be free and have the
newspaper release a big article proclaiming her innocence, she was still
gripped by the tattered shreds of despair. Chas was alive, but had not regained
consciousness, and due to her altercation with Ivana in the Intensive Care
hallway, she had been barred from visiting. Staying away from the hospital was
probably a good idea anyway, if Officer Parsons was still standing watch. Missy
had a very special piece of her mind that she’d like to share with that nasty
man. She realized that he was just trying to protect Chas, but his treatment of
her was inexcusable.

Joe
and Echo roared up to the curb in Joe’s sleek new sedan, because Echo didn’t
own a car, not wanting to increase her ecological footprint.

“Get
in quickly,” the handsome reporter with jet black hair and chocolate eyes
commanded.

Missy
obeyed without question, but once inside, demanded to know what was going on.

“Buckman
disappeared,” Echo said, clearly upset.

Missy
gave her a blank look, somewhat relieved that the evil man was gone.

Her
friend shook her head, frustrated that Missy didn’t understand. “Sweetie, he
wants to pin the murder and attack on you. If he’s disappeared, you’re in
danger,” she explained.

Missy
timidly approached the door to the hospital room in which her beloved rested.
He had finally regained consciousness and had immediately demanded that she be
given access to him. She had encountered Officer Parsons in the hall, bestowing
a scathing look upon him, and he’d refused to meet her gaze, but now she stood
in the hall, heart pounding. She wanted to see that he was safe and breathing
and going to live, but she couldn’t bear the thought of hearing him say that he
no longer wanted to see her. It was a moment of truth, and she was terrified,
but realized that she should get it over with sooner rather than later. Taking
a deep breath, she entered the door.

Chas
appeared to be dozing, his handsome face pale, but clearly alive, and relief
flooded through Missy at the sight of him. His eyes fluttered open, as though
he felt her presence, and he beckoned to her by holding out his hand, covered
in tape and pierced with an IV line. She walked slowly to his bedside, the
touch of his hand enclosing hers nearly causing her to dissolve into tears on
the spot.

“Hey
you,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Hey,”
Missy replied, tears beginning to fall.

“You
haven’t kissed me yet,” he observed, looking at her seriously.

“I
didn’t think you’d want me to,” she admitted, her breath hitching a bit.

He
frowned, blinking sleepily. “That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t I want a kiss from my
girl?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused.

“I
didn’t know if I was still…your girl,” her breath hitched again as her tears
flowed freely.

“C’mere,”
he directed, patting the bed beside him. Missy sat carefully, moving tubes and
wires out of her way. “I never believed Ivana when she said that you had killed
Ian. Like you, I thought that she had done it, so I figured if I played to her
colossal ego, that I could get her to confess. I pretended to be infatuated
with her, and she apparently used me to try to make Paul Buckman, the director,
jealous. Looks like it worked,” he winced, shifting against the pain where he’d
been stabbed. “I came to your house that day to ask questions because Ivana had
presented me with a pair of panties that she swore were yours. She ‘found’ them
under Ian’s bed. After I talked to you, I kept track of your movements, and
when I knew you wouldn’t be home, I used my key to get into your house,” he
confessed, contrite.

Missy’s
eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“I
looked at the notes about your investigation that you had stuffed into the
kitchen drawer, and they made a lot of sense. Then, and I’m embarrassed to
admit this…I went upstairs to your dresser, and opened all of the drawers. Know
what I found?” he asked, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. She shook
her head.

“I
found four drawers that were as neat as a pin, and entirely organized, and one
drawer, your underwear drawer, that looked like it had been rummaged through by
someone who doesn’t care as much for neatness as you do. I knew then that Ivana
had sent someone to steal a pair of your panties to try to sway me.” He gazed
into Missy’s eyes, drowning her in pools of azure blue, and reached up slowly
to touch her face.

“I
pretended to like Ivana, which wasn’t easy to do when I was so entirely in love
with you. I had to do my job, Missy. I had to be remote and pretend not to
care, when that was the furthest thing from the truth. I never stopped loving
you, and I never will,” he promised as tears rolled down her cheeks anew. “Now,
kiss me woman,” he ordered with a tender smile.

Missy
leaned over and brushed her lips against his, relieved that her world hadn’t
come crashing down after all.

**

Chas
had to stay in the hospital for a few more days, just to make certain that no
infections developed, and that he’d be able to function somewhat normally when
he returned home. Missy carried a balloon bouquet and a large order of crawfish
etouffee from their favorite Cajun restaurant to help make his time in
confinement more pleasant. Stepping off the elevator, she was startled by a
melee in front of Chas’s door. Paul Buckman was being wrestled to the ground by
two hospital security guards, one of whom then handcuffed him and dragged him
to his feet by one bicep. Nurses were bustling in and out of Chas’s room and
Missy sprinted to the door, giving the men scuffling on the floor a wide berth.

“Chas,
what happened? Are you okay?” she called out, unable to get past the nurses
surrounding him.

“Ma’am,
I’m going to have to have you wait in the corridor,” a thick-waisted nurse said
firmly, taking her arm and leading her out in a hurry.

“But…what’s…”
she began, terrified.

“I’ll
update you soon,” the nurse interrupted, closing the door behind her.