A Mouthful of Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery Book 4 (Frosted Love Mysteries) (3 page)

BOOK: A Mouthful of Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery Book 4 (Frosted Love Mysteries)
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Chapter 7

 

Missy
sighed deeply in annoyance. “Well, now I know what Toffee was growling about
last night,” she grumbled aloud as she surveyed her car. The air had been let
out of all three tires, and her little blue car was, for the moment, immobile.
She made a quick call to Ben to let him know that Cheryl would have to help him
open this morning, because she was going to be late, then she called a tow-truck
to have her car transported to the tire center. Happy that the air had just
been released, rather than the tires themselves being destroyed, Missy pulled
out of the tire center and headed for work. The entire process had taken a
couple of hours, so Cheryl and Ben would still be in the midst of the morning
rush when she arrived.

The
cupcake of the day, Bittersweet Chocolate with Espresso filling and Buttery
Pecan Crème topping, was quite the hit, and Missy had to pull two more trays
out of the back when she arrived, jumping into the fray. Exhausted after the
morning rush finally cleared around 1 p.m., she, Ben and Cheryl sat around a
table in the seating area to recover for a moment before restocking.

“Whew,
what a morning!” Cheryl exclaimed, stretching her arms over her head.

“I
think it’s getting busier every day,” Ben added.

“Well,
when we get the LaChance store up and running again, that should thin the crowd
a little bit at least,” Missy mused.

They
handled the handful of customers who appeared prior to closing time, then Ben
and Cheryl headed home and Missy stayed to take an informal inventory, planning
to attend Echo’s grand opening of Sweet Love at 4:00. When her inventory was
complete, Missy glanced at her watch and saw that it was nearly 4:00, so she
decided to go over a bit early and beat the rush, hoping optimistically that
there would actually be a rush. She opened the door of Sweet Love and was
immediately struck by two things: the first – that it smelled absolutely
wonderful in the shop, and secondly, that her friend Echo was flirting madly
with a man who had his back to the door. Echo spotted Missy and called out to
her.

“Missy!
Come in, come in!” the man turned around and Missy’s heart sunk. “Do you know
Ian? He’s from your town, I think. Isn’t that right, Ian?”

“Yes,
we’ve met. Look, I don’t want to interrupt, I can come back later,” Missy said,
backing toward the door.

“You’re
not interrupting at all, I was just about to fix Ian a triple cone. What would
you like?” Echo asked, dragging Missy to the counter where Ian lounged
insolently.

“Just
a scoop of Red Chile Pepper Carob, please. To go,” she added as an
afterthought.

“To
go? Really? I was kind of hoping that you could stick around for a bit – we can
hang out and talk…”

Missy
shook her head. “I really can’t, I have some things I have to take care of this
evening,” she lied, just wanting to be on her way. “I’ll take a rain check
though.”

“Fair
enough,” Echo smiled at her new friend and then turned her attention to Ian,
handing him a giant waffle cone, filled with three different flavors of frozen
goodness.

“Thank
you kindly,” he purred at her. “You think about what I said, darlin,” he winked
and turned to go. “Hey, Melissa Gladstone, you need a ride home?” he teased,
knowing that she clearly disapproved of him.

“No,
I’m good, thanks Ian,” she replied, as pleasantly as she was able. She
pretended to be fascinated by the variety of flavors displayed in the glass
freezer case, patently ignoring him as he sauntered from the shop. Echo scooped
up her treat and handed it to her in a brightly colored recycled paper bowl
with a biodegradable plastic spoon.

Missy
spooned a small bite of the creamy, deep brown frozen dish with tiny red flecks
into her mouth and was utterly astonished. “Oh my gosh, Echo! This is amazing!”
she raved, spooning in another bite. “It’s rich and sweet, with just a tiny
zing of heat, wow!”

Echo
beamed at her new friend’s praise. “See, I told you! I hope everyone else feels
the same way.”

“I’m
sure they will,” Missy nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll do a review for you in
the local paper, and let everyone know how fantastic this stuff is.”

“Hey,
I have an idea,” the happy ‘ice cream’ maker said. “How about you come over on
Sunday afternoon, after both of our stores close, and you can taste-test
several different flavors to mention in your review?”

“Sounds
fabulous and fattening,” Missy mumbled through a mouthful of carob. “Count me
in!”

Chapter
8

 

Significant
progress had been made toward the rebuilding of Missy’s Muffins and More shop
in LaChance. Her contractor estimated that she might actually be able to reopen
by the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which would be perfect timing – the
holidays were her busiest time of year by far. Orders flooded in beginning as
early as September for holiday parties, gift boxes and baskets, and special
occasions of all kinds. She had made Christmas trees out of stacked cupcakes,
as well as designs that stretched across table tops for several feet. Once she
knew when this location would be ready to open, she’d have to collect
applications for someone to work in both the Dellville shop and the LaChance
shop. She planned to have Cheryl manage the Dellville store and Ben would go
back to managing the LaChance location. The inseparable duo would be
disappointed at not being able to work together anymore, but since they saw
each other practically every day outside of their workplace, it wouldn’t be
intolerable.

Missy
was pleased with both the progress of the LaChance shop and the performance of
the Dellville shop, but everything in her life was overshadowed by the fact
that Cora Nesbitt’s murder was still unsolved, she was still classified as a
person of interest, and she saw police cars cruising slowly by her house at
times, as though keeping an eye on her. Detective Johnson had treated her
report of having seen the scruffy-looking man near her shop with extreme
suspicion, remarking that the sighting had certainly been ‘convenient,’ which
infuriated Missy to no end. She had not made it up, she really saw and chased
the man, and if he had nothing to hide, why had he run?

When
she parked in the back of the Dellville store, arriving early, even before Ben,
Missy saw a bushel basket brimming with peaches sitting next to the back door. She
unlocked the door, balancing the basket on her hip, and felt a trickle of peach
juice soaking through the thin fabric of her white linen capris. Sighing, she
knew that she wouldn’t have a chance to go home and change, because it was
Cheryl’s day off and Ben couldn’t handle the crowds that would undoubtedly be
showing up on his own. Once inside, she set the bushel basket up on the kitchen
counter and grabbed a towel to try to sop up some of the peach juice on her
pants. She was perplexed when she saw that the juice was tinged with red, but
made the best of it, wetting the towel and trying to clean it off with a bit of
dish soap. She didn’t get nearly as much of the icky stain out as she would
have liked, but gave up and waited for it to dry, thinking she could use stain
remover before laundering them at home.

She
dumped the peaches into one of the stainless steel commercial sinks so that she
could wash them and dispose of the ones that had split open and were leaking
juice. After dumping the basket, she looked in the sink, horrified and unable
to believe what she was seeing. There, in the midst of the pile of plump, ripe
peaches, was a severed finger, with a half-moon of dirt under the nail. Missy
felt faint, but knew that this was certainly no time to swoon. She made two
phone calls, the first to Ben, to let him know that he needed to call Cheryl in
on her day off, the second to Detective Johnson, for obvious reasons.

Missy
had requested that the police park in the rear of the building, so as not to
alert customers that something was afoot, and soon, two uniformed officers,
followed by Detective Johnson and a forensics tech came in the back door. The
poor woman was white as a sheet, and Ben made her sit down and drink some
coffee when he came in, as police swarmed her kitchen. Every time she looked
down at the ugly stain on her capris and realized that it was blood mixed with
peach juice, she had to fight the nausea and revulsion that rose up within her.
The forensics tech swabbed her pants, and she turned her head away, not wanting
to think about it.

“So
what happens now?” she asked Johnson, as his team wrapped things up and
prepared to leave.

“Now
we test the digit for DNA, blood type, the works, we’ll get a soil sample from
underneath the nail, and hopefully that’ll help us determine who it belongs to.
We’ll also be contacting local hospitals to see if anyone has come in with a
missing finger. Once we find the owner of the finger, we’ll be able to get more
information about how it ended up in your peach basket.”

“Should
I be worried? Do you think this is some sort of a threat?” she worried.

 Johnson
looked at her for a long moment before replying. “Miss Gladstone, if I find out
that you somehow put the finger in the basket to throw suspicion on someone
else, you should be very worried indeed.”

“You
think I did this?” Missy was appalled. “I am a law-abiding citizen who has done
nothing wrong, and I will not have you stand there and falsely accuse me. You
are welcome to leave, Detective,” she directed, opening the door, eyes flashing
fire and fury.

Johnson
moved to the door at a leisurely pace. “Interesting that the victim’s blood is
on your pants,” he mused, on his way out.

“I
already explained how that happened, Detective. Goodbye!” she slammed the door
shut, locking it behind him. She was so angry that she shook, from head to toe.
Ben advised her to get out of the store for a while, until she recovered a bit.
She had concocted a vegan flax seed breakfast muffin that she wanted Echo to
try, so she decided to take her one and headed across the street. Maybe, once
her stomach settled a bit, she’d try another ice cream flavor.

“Hello?”
Missy called out, entering the deserted shop. Echo didn’t open for several
hours yet, but had a habit of leaving the front door unlocked.

“Back
here!” she heard her friend’s voice from the back room.

Wading
her way past stacks of eco-friendly paper products, she wound her way to the
kitchen, where Echo was on her hands and knees with a bunch of towels, mopping
up a mess. Moving closer, Missy gasped.

“Echo!
What happened?” she said, seeing the pool of blood seeping into the towels, the
coppery smell nauseating her even further.

“Clumsy
me,” her friend chuckled. “I spilled an entire bowl of raspberry puree. Why
don’t you have a seat up front, I’ll be out shortly.” Missy nodded, thankful
that her original impression had been incorrect. She rationalized that she must
have imagined the smell of blood after her traumatic morning.

She
sat at a table for two in the corner, placing the white paper bag with Echo’s
muffin in it at the seat across from her. Her friend soon came bustling back
into the seating area, holding a paper towel around one finger. Missy’s heart
nearly came out of her chest, until she noticed that the unfortunately clumsy
woman still had all fingers firmly attached, she had just hurt herself somehow.

“What
happened?” she managed to ask, sounding somewhat normal.

“I
cut myself on a can lid this morning, it’s nothing really,” she dismissed her
friend’s concern with a rueful laugh and a wave. “Would you like some herbal
tea? I have an organic chai that is just to die for,” she offered.

“That
would be nice,” Missy nodded. “I’ve had a rough morning. I brought you one of
my new vegan creations to try,” she rattled the bag.

“Awesome,
I’m starving!”

Echo
brought their tea, and she wasn’t kidding, it was the best tea that Missy had
ever tasted, and it soothed her somehow. Or, it may have just been the company
of her feisty, irreverent friend that raised her spirits, but either way, she
was feeling much better than when she had come over, managing to forget, both
about the finger in the peach basket and the pool of raspberry puree that
smelled like blood.

“Oh
Missy, this muffin is the best,” Echo raved, her mouth full of moist muffin.
“I’m seriously going to buy a hundred of them and live off of them for the next
few weeks.”

“Let
me try some more vegan recipes before you commit to a hundred of this
particular one,” she teased, pleased that her creation was a success.

“Good
idea,” she nodded, still chewing. “Want to try another flavor?” she asked
gesturing to the glass fronted freezers behind them.

“Well,
since you twisted my arm, I guess I’ll have to,” Missy grinned, standing to
peer into the cases.

“Pick
any one you’d like, or more than one, whatever,” Echo waved breezily, still
enjoying her muffin and tea.

“Coconut
Dream sounds intriguing,” she pointed at a tub of snowy white frozen fluff.

“You’re
gonna love it!” She got up with a flutter of her skirt and a jangle of
bracelets to dip some of the creamy concoction into a bowl for Missy, the two
enjoying each other’s labors of love together.

BOOK: A Mouthful of Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery Book 4 (Frosted Love Mysteries)
9.83Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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