Mango Madness Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 15 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (4 page)

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 looking 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.

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.

“Remember
a few weeks ago, when I told you I was homesick for California?” Echo asked,
receiving a slow nod for an answer. “Well, I decided that, as much as I try, I
can’t forget my home. Louisiana is wonderful and beautiful and the people are
all so sweet and I love you to death, but California is home, so I’m moving
back,” she explained gently, pushing Missy’s bowl of ice cream closer to her.
The sad and stressed out woman looked mutely down at the rapidly melting treat
and burst into tears.

“Why
is everything going wrong?” she cried, all the stress and tension that she’d
been carrying breaking free in a flood of emotion. “Grayson might die, and if
he doesn’t die, he might go to jail, and if he doesn’t go to jail, I might,
even though it’s all the mayor’s fault, and Ben and Cheryl are moving away and
taking my god-daughter with them, and now you’re moving away and my whole life
is just falling apart,” she wailed, putting her head in her hands and sobbing.

“Missy,
hey…” Echo hurt for her dear friend. “I’m not going away forever, I’ll come
back to visit, and I’ll definitely still be your Maid of Honor when you marry
Mr. Wonderful,” she came to stand by her heartbroken friend, then knelt by her
chair, stroking her back while she cried.

“What
am I going to do without you? How on earth am I going to cope with my crazy
life?” she murmured, her breathing punctuated by hiccups from her tears.

“Well,
we can Skype a lot, and I promise I’ll come visit too. You know we can’t stay
apart for any length of time,” Echo grinned fondly, grabbing her friend and
wrapping her in a warm hug. “I love you, girl. That’s never going to change.”

“Promise?”
Missy asked weakly.

“Promise.”

Missy
had been working off her angst by baking non-stop, and had just turned off the
mixer in the kitchen at the LaChance shop, when she heard Cheryl call out, “Ms.
G!” from the front. Hearing the distress in her manager’s voice, Missy sprinted
to the front of the store, narrowly missed by an object that went flying by her
head.

She
saw Cheryl cowering in a corner behind the counter, covered in cupcake and
frosting and was startled when a Purple People Pleaser cupcake splatted against
the side of her head. Her gaze found the source of the barrage, a very angry
Mrs. Kingsman. She had positioned herself next to all of the top-of-the-counter
covered glass plates and was firing fresh cupcakes at Cheryl, Missy, and
anything in her path as hard as she could.

“Mrs.
Kingsman!” Missy scolded. “Stop it right now,” she ducked as a series of three
cupcakes in a row headed her way. “I know you must be upset, but this is not
how adults handle these things,” she popped up to say, then ducked again as
Celia Kingsman reloaded.

“Your
dreadful little punk-rocker employee killed my Chester,” she screamed,
red-faced.

“No,
he didn’t Mrs. Kingsman, I promise you that,” Missy stuck her head up for a bit
too long and got thwacked right in the forehead with an Apple Caramel Crisp
cupcake, the sticky topping gluing her curls to her face. Brushing aside the
mess, she tried again. “This isn’t going to solve anything, please stop,” she
pleaded, really not wanting to have to call the police.

“I’m
not going to stop until I feel better, and that could take a while,” Celia
shrieked. “Chester may have been a fat, pompous, jerk, but he was all I had,”
she seemed to deflate, still holding two cupcakes in each hand.

“I
know, and I’m really, terribly sorry for your loss, but it had nothing to do
with Grayson or my store, so why don’t you just put those cupcakes down and go
home and we’ll forget this ever happened, okay?” Missy spoke softly, trying to
calm the agitated widow.

“Never,”
she raged, plowing Missy squarely in the face with a Margarita Madness cupcake.

Just
then, as Missy stood there, too stunned to move, wiping frosting out of her
eyes and hair, the bell over the door jangled, distracting Mrs. Kingsman from
her task as Chas walked in. Quick to assess the situation, he walked right up
the the widow, his hands held out in a conciliatory manner.

“Okay,
now, let’s all just calm down,” he said, in a slow, soothing voice.

“Everyone
needs to stop telling me to calm down,” Celia Kingsman screeched. “You calm
down!” she hissed between her teeth, crushing the remaining cupcakes in her
hands into the front of the detective’s Savile Row suit. Even before inheriting
a third of his late father’s fortune, Chas had always dressed well. This one
would make his dry cleaner really wonder. “Take that!” she said as her parting
shot and stormed from the shop. Missy and Cheryl came out from behind the counter
and the three cupcake-covered friends observed Celia get into her silver
European car and drive away. Cheryl and Missy looked first at each other, then
at Chas, and burst into laughter.

“Oh
gosh, look at this mess,” Missy surveyed the damage when the gales of laughter
had passed. Chas, none too amused, had gone to the employee bathroom to see if
he could salvage his shirt and suit coat, his tie was clearly a total loss.

“I’ll
get some trash bags and cleaning supplies,” Cheryl said, heading toward the
back and nearly mowing over Chris, who was coming in to start his shift.

“Whoa,
did you guys have a food fight?” he chuckled, glancing at the mess on the
walls, the floor, and the people in the shop.

“It’s
a long story,” Missy sighed. “Will you please go grab the push broom and start
on the floors?”

“No
problem,” Chris grinned, still confused. When he turned, he nearly collided
with a slightly damp Chas.

“Hey,
Detective, how ya doin?” he asked cordially, extending his hand for Chas to
shake.

“A
bit better now that I no longer have Margarita Madness squished into my suit
jacket,” he replied dryly, giving Chris a strange look.

“I
don’t even want to know,” the young man laughed, heading for the kitchen.

“Hey,
beautiful,” the handsome detective called out to his fiancée, walking over to
her. She stood, wiping sticky hands on the front of her apron. “You look
delicious, but something just came up and I need to get to work. Dinner later?”
he asked. She nodded and kissed him, passing along a smear of vanilla buttercream
frosting that had been on her lips. “Yup, delicious,” he nodded, heading for
the kitchen.

“Where
are you going?” she asked, puzzled because he had come in the front door.

“Just
want to check out the scene of Grayson’s attack one more time,” he explained
easily. That struck Missy as a bit odd, but she was entirely too busy at the
moment to dwell on it.

She
had heard earlier in the day that Grayson had finally moved from the ICU and
was now recovering in a regular room, but still had an armed guard around the
clock, just in case. She had planned to go see him right after work today, but
now she’d have to go home and shower first. With Chris and Cheryl’s help, she
had the mess cleaned up in short order, but decided to close for the day
anyway, since she and Cheryl were such sweet, sticky messes. Her sensitive skin
was beginning to get irritated, and she knew that if she didn’t get home and
shower soon, she’d develop hives.

“We
don’t have to close. I can handle the afternoon traffic,” Chris offered.

“Are
you sure?” Missy asked, thinking it over. Chris had closed for her on more than
one occasion since his mistake with Echo’s sister, and had been perfectly fine,
so she knew she could trust him.

“Of
course,” he replied. “There’ve been quite a few times when Ben has left me
alone at
Crème de la Cupcake
during the slow time in the afternoon, it’s
a piece of cake…no pun intended,” he joked. “But seriously, I’ll be fine, you
two can go do what you need to do,” he assured her.

“Thanks
so much, Chris, you’re a lifesaver! I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated
you stepping up and contributing at both stores while Grayson recovers, it
means a lot to me,” she smiled at the young man, making him blush.

“Don’t
worry about it, I’ve got this,” he said, turning his attention to the push
broom.