Raspberry Creme Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 14 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (4 page)

Missy
was more than a bit startled when she returned from her morning walk with the
dogs and saw a police cruiser sitting in front of her house. As she approached,
a uniformed officer, that she remembered having met at Chas’s annual department
barbeque, got out of the car and met her on the sidewalk, raising a hand in
greeting.

“Hi
Larry,” she said, rather breathlessly, having speed-walked home to give the
dogs a chance to stretch their legs.

“Ms.
Gladstone,” he nodded, looking bothered.

“Is
something wrong?” she picked up on his mood and a tickle of dread grew inside
of her.

“It’s
Chas Beckett,” he answered quietly. “He’s been injured in the line of duty.”

Missy
was so horrified that she nearly dropped the leashes. “Chas? What happened?
Where is he? Is he okay? Did he get shot? What’s going on?” she demanded, her
eyes filling with panicked tears.

The
patrolman held up his hands to stop the flood of questions so that he could
speak. He knew that Missy was the emergency contact on file for Beckett, and as
such, could be told the particulars of the detective’s condition. “He’s in the
hospital. He came in late last night with a gunshot wound to his left shoulder,
and went immediately into surgery. From what the doctors say, the surgery went
well, and he should make a full recovery.”

“Oh,
thank goodness!” Missy went limp with relief, nearly toppling to the sidewalk.
Putting an arm out to steady her, Larry continued.

He’s
in and out of sleep right now because of the pain meds, but when he’s been
coherent, he’s asked for you.”

Missy
looked down at her yoga capris and sporty t-shirt, deciding that she didn’t
care what people at the hospital thought of her, she wasn’t going to waste time
showering. “After I put the dogs inside, will you take me to him?” she asked,
receiving an instant yes.

**

Chas
Beckett woke up feeling as though he’d been in the desert for quite some time.
He had a wicked case of cottonmouth and felt weak and lethargic. Blinking
several times to clear his vision, he noticed that there was a lovely blonde
mop of hair resting on the bed beside his right hand. He moved his fingers to
caress a stray curl and Missy bolted upright, her face tearstained.

“Chas,
you’re awake! I was so worried,” she stood, caressing his cheek and kissing his
forehead.

“All
in a day’s work,” he smiled wanly, his voice hoarse.

“You
sound terrible,” she frowned. “Can I get you anything? Some water maybe?”

“I’d
really love a Coke,” he replied, receiving a look of astonishment.

“But…you
never drink soda,” Missy said, wondering if he had a head injury as well.

“Special
occasion,” he rasped.

“Okay,
honey. Let me go tell the nurse you’re awake, and I’ll bring you a Coke when I
come back,” she promised, hurrying from the room. True to her word, she
returned moments later, soda in hand, and held the straw to his lips.

“Ah,
that’s what I needed,” Chas said, clearly enjoying the drink and sounding more
like his usual self.

“Sweetie,
how did you get shot?” Missy asked. “This didn’t have anything to do with
Sally’s murder did it?” she worried.

“No,”
the detective took another long pull of soda before continuing. “This was
another case entirely. Drugs. Bad characters, the usual. I was on a stakeout
and the ringleader surprised me. It didn’t go well for him, he’s in custody
now, but I was wounded while we scuffled for his gun. I’m so disappointed with
myself though,” he frowned.

“Disappointed?
Why?” Missy was puzzled.

“Because,
since my cover was blown and the main contact was arrested, we stand little to
no chance of busting the others who are involved in the drug ring, unless of
course Chartreaux cuts a deal and rats them out, but I seriously doubt he’ll do
that,” Chas sighed.

“Wait…did
you say Chartreaux?” Missy’s eyes grew wide.

“Yeah,
why?” Chas instantly became alert.

“Samantha
Lemmon has a cousin named Pierre…and I think she said his last name was
Chartreaux.”

Missy
spent most of the next week at Chas’s bedside, keeping him company while he
convalesced, and was thrilled when the doctor came in on Wednesday and said
that he would be allowed to go home the next day. In between visits, she’d been
doing a lot of cooking, preparing and freezing meals for the injured detective
so that when he came home, he could at least eat with minimal effort. She’d
made all of his favorites, and planned to bring him a Cupcake of the Day every
day until he was able to go back to work.

Missy’s
best friend, Echo, who owned a vegan ice cream shop across the street from
Crème
de la Cupcake,
had donated several different flavors of her frozen treats
made with herbs that she swore would aid in the detective’s healing process.
The laid-back, former Californian was convinced that, if her ice creams
couldn’t exactly cure all ills, it would certainly make convalescing much more
pleasurable.

After
much cajoling, and a stern warning from his doctor, Chas allowed Missy to drive
him home, rather than driving himself, and she stayed with him until his eyes
began to droop after dinner. She tucked him into bed, listening for his deep,
regular breathing before heading to the kitchen to clean up and put their
dishes in the dishwasher. She hung up the damp dishcloth to dry and turned out
the lights, slipping out the front door. She had let Chas know earlier that
she’d be back to have breakfast with him, but in the meantime, she wanted to
get the dogs home and in their own beds, and have a complete night’s sleep
herself before taking care of her favorite patient tomorrow.

Pre-occupied
with thoughts of Chas, Missy was in her own little world as she pulled her car
into the garage. Apparently the garage light bulb had gone out again, and she
fumbled in the dark to open the door and let the dogs out. When she opened the
side door of the garage, that had a little sidewalk leading from it to the back
porch, the dogs took off for the front of the house rather than trotting
obediently to the porch as they normally would.

“Hey!”
Missy called out, concerned at their odd behavior. They ran directly to the
front of the house, allaying her fears that they might accidentally dash out
into the street, but their behavior became even more strange when they got to
the front porch. Bitsy seemed to hide behind Toffee, who was standing at the
porch stairs sniffing the bottom step. The sweet-natured golden retriever put
her nose in the air and sniffed, then started growling and barking loudly.
Missy hurried over to see what all the commotion was about and stopped short
when she saw a dark liquid that had apparently flowed from the porch, down the
steps, pooling at the bottom.

Pressing
the icon for the flashlight app on her phone, Missy illuminated the scene,
horrified to discover that the liquid was a deep red color. It looked as though
there had been a horrible accident of some sort on her porch, but when she
shone the light up onto the porch itself, she didn’t see anything resembling a
hurt person or animal. The light glinted off of something lying on the porch
and Missy peered into the darkness, trying to get a closer look. When she saw
what the object was, she shook with relief. It wasn’t blood on her stairs,
someone had broken a bottle of red wine, and its contents were what had
dribbled down her steps. She wanted to investigate further, but didn’t want her
furry girls to slice their paws on broken glass, so she snapped their leashes
onto their collars and led them to the back porch, putting them inside. She
turned on the porch light, and when she stepped out to survey the mess, her
breath caught in her throat. Whoever had broken the two bottles of wine on the
porch, had used the dark liquid to write on the butter-yellow siding of her
house.

“Burgundies,
Books and B**ches,”
the cryptic message read, making Missy’s
heart pound. Why on earth would Samantha have done this after Missy had been so
nice to her? She wondered if this had anything to do with the arrest of Sam’s
cousin, Pierre, and looked around warily. She didn’t want to disturb Chas’s
sleep by calling him. He wasn’t even close to getting back to work yet, but knowing
that she had to report the incident, she dialed 911 and looked to see if any
more damage had been done while she waited for the police to arrive.

The
forensics team picked up the shards of glass and took samples from the
lettering on the house, discovering that there was indeed blood mixed in with
the cheap Merlot that was splashed all over the front of the normally tidy
yellow Victorian home. Apparently, the vandal had sliced into flesh with a
broken bottle piece and had helpfully left some DNA behind. The police were
underfoot for several hours, scouring the area for clues and collecting
evidence, but when they finally left, just as dawn was breaking in the east,
Missy couldn’t bear to leave the mess that had been made, and sacrificing
precious hours of sleep, she hooked up her hose and brought out a bucket of
warm, soapy water to clean off the house and porch.

As
Missy hosed the wine off of the floorboards, she noticed a glimmer of something
right next to one of the rockers of her porch glider. Bending the hose over on
itself to stop the flow of water, she knelt down and brushed across the sparkle
with her finger, feeling something small and hard. Bracing her shoulder against
the side of the glider and pushing with her legs, she shoved it aside about an
inch and picked up the object that had been catching the light, a diamond
earring. It wasn’t one of hers, and she wondered if it might belong to whoever
had vandalized her porch. She tucked it into her pocket, deciding to talk to
Chas about it when she went over to cook his breakfast.

Missy
had just dumped the bucket of dirty water and returned it to the garage when
her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Seeing that it was Ben calling, she
answered, and was dismayed to hear that the rear entrance to her Dellville
store had been similarly vandalized. She hung up feeling drained and defeated
after instructing Ben to call the police. Glancing at her watch, she decided
just to stay awake and drink a pot of coffee before going to Chas’s, rather
than trying to catch just an hour or two of sleep. Just when she had thought
that life was so good, things seemed to be going wrong in every direction.
Well, every direction but one…she still had the courageous and kind-hearted
Chas Beckett in her corner, and as long as that was true, life couldn’t be all
bad.

“Should
I be worried?” Missy asked Chas as she snuggled up to him on his luxurious
leather sofa, having brought him up to speed on recent events and giving him
the earring to submit for evidence.

The seasoned
detective sighed. “Normally, this kind of vandalism is committed just for the
sake of destruction, or as a sign of rebellion, but in your case, the message
seemed more than personal, so it’s hard to say. Why don’t you and the girls,”
he gestured at Toffee and Bitsy, who were snoring softly on their pink fluffy
bed in the corner of the living room, “just stay here until this all blows
over? You know you’re always more than welcome. I love having you here.” He
kissed the top of her head as she rested her cheek on his chest. “I’d love it
if you were here all the time, actually,” he commented, trying his best to
sound casual.

“What
do you mean?” Missy asked, going suddenly still, almost as though she were
holding her breath.

There
was a pregnant pause. “I…don’t know. Must be the medicine talking,” Chas
shrugged, then winced at the sharp pain that the simple movement had caused.

Missy
relaxed against him once more. “I like being here too,” she murmured. In a few
minutes, she heard his breathing slow and deepen, indicating that he had gone
to sleep, and she gently extricated herself from the circle of his good arm, so
that she could make the trip to Dellville, check on Ben and the store, and hang
out with Echo over a bowl of Vanilla Bean Rice Dream.

**

“So
do you think he wants you to move in with him?” Echo asked, her eyes wide.

“I
have no idea,” Missy shrugged, spooning her Vanilla Bean treat into her mouth
at an alarming rate. The stress of the past couple of weeks had caught up with
her, and she wanted nothing more than to linger in the safe cocoon of her
friend’s shop, stuffing her face with ice cream.

“Well,
do you want to move in with him?” Echo persisted, living vicariously through
her best friend’s relationship.

“I
don’t know that either,” she replied, pinching the bridge of her nose as the
ice cream gave her an icepick to the brain.

“Well,
if you don’t want to, I’d certainly be happy to take your place,” her friend
teased. “Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome wouldn’t know what hit him,” she giggled.

“Chas
is the least of my worries. There’s a killer running around out there
somewhere, and I might be the next victim on her list,” Missy lamented.

“Her?
You think a woman killed someone?” Echo raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Wouldn’t
be the first time, and in this particular case, the female victim didn’t seem
to have any enemies and only had female friends,” Missy sighed.

“Wow,
that would be awful to have one of your friends turn on you. What a horrible
betrayal,” she shook her head. “So who do you think the killer is?”

“A
younger gal named Samantha Lemmon,” Missy confided. “She’s a nurse at the
hospital, but I think she’s on administrative leave until the case is solved.”

Echo’s
spoon fell from her hand into her ice cream bowl and her mouth hung open in
shock.

“What?
Echo, what’s wrong?” her friend asked, alarmed.

“That
can’t be right,” she shook her head in disbelief. “Samantha Lemmon has recently
become a very good friend of mine, and I know her well enough to tell you that
she’d never hurt anyone.”

Missy
sat back in her chair, nonplussed. “How is it that you and Samantha Lemmon have
become friends?”

“She
started coming into the shop a few weeks ago. She looked pretty beat up by life
and seemed sad, so I talked to her every time she came in – about life and art
and everything and nothing. We have a lot of things in common, and I can tell
you without a doubt that there’s no way that girl is a murderer,” Echo
insisted.

Suddenly
disinterested in her ice cream, and not wanting to argue, Missy let the subject
drop by simply replying, “Well, that may be the case, but if Sam didn’t murder
Sally Higgins, then I don’t know who did.” She was now glad that she hadn’t
told Echo about the earring that she had found, or about more specifics of the
case. It was frustrating – Chas was recovering, so she didn’t want to burden
him with her worries, and now, her best friend had befriended the woman who was
potentially plotting her death, so she couldn’t talk to her either. Weary after
a long couple of weeks dealing with fear and drama, she made her way back home
and crawled under the covers for a very long nap.