Mango Madness Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 15 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (5 page)

Missy
had been incredibly relieved that when she had visited Grayson. He looked
battered, bruised and torn, but was clearly alive, despite not being able to
smile because of the stitches in his face. She had stayed with him until
visiting hours ended, stroking his hair back from his forehead and lightly
resting her hand on his one intact arm because his hands were a mess of cuts,
bruises and broken bones. Petaluma alternated between snoring loudly in the
chair in the corner and casting hateful glances as Missy behind her back.
Grayson didn’t want his mother to be in the hospital with him, but the one time
that he’d tried to communicate that fact, she’d thrown such a hysterical fit
that he decided to just silently endure her presence. When Missy left the
hospital, he’d been sleeping, and she fervently hoped that the troubled woman
who had birthed him wouldn’t disturb him.

“How
was he?” Chas asked, over fettuccini at their favorite Italian restaurant.

“As
good as can be expected, I suppose. He was still pretty out of it on pain meds,
and he couldn’t smile because of his stitches, but it seemed like he was glad
to see me,” Missy replied, sad to see Grayson suffering, but ever so grateful
that he had survived and would be back to normal at some point. Thankfully, his
left hand was merely cut and bruised, not broken, so his artistic endeavors
shouldn’t be impacted, which was very good news indeed.

“I
have to warn you, I’m waiting on a phone call, regarding some lab results, and
once it comes in, I’ll most likely have to go and arrest someone,” Chas said
mysteriously, twirling pasta around his fork.

“The
mayor?” Missy leaned forward and whispered.

“No,
actually…it’s…” he stopped abruptly as his phone rang. He glanced at the screen
quickly. “This is the call I’ve been waiting for,” he said, hitting the
‘Accept’ button.

“Detective
Beckett,” he answered. “Yes. And was it? Conclusively? Get me the warrant, and
meet me at his home address, I’m headed out now,” Chas hit End and stood to go.
“I prepaid for dinner because I knew that this might happen. My apologies
beautiful, do you mind taking a cab?”

“Not
at all, but Chas…who are you arresting?”

“I’ll
stop by your place tonight after he’s booked and tell you all about it,” the
dashing detective promised, kissing his future bride.

**

“Chris??”
Missy was astounded. “Chris was the killer? But…how? Why? And how on earth did
you figure that out?” she demanded. “All this time, I thought it was the
mayor!” She had pounced on the detective, peppering him with questions the
moment that he’d walked in her door. Dressed hastily in the first set of yoga
pants and t-shirt that she could find after jumping out of bed that morning,
she poured them both coffee and sat expectantly at the breakfast bar in her
kitchen.

Chas
shook his head. “The mayor is much smarter than that. He might lie, cheat,
bribe or torture to hang on to his power, but he wouldn’t kill someone, or on
the off chance that he had to, he’d never do his own dirty work,” he explained.
“That day that I walked in, when Celia Kingsman was pelting you and Cheryl with
cupcakes, I went to the rest room afterward to clean some of the frosting out
of my suit coat…” he began.

“Oh,
right! Did it come out?” Missy interrupted.

“Yes,
my dry cleaner is a wizard,” he said absently, returning quickly to the topic
of importance. “…and when I came out of the bathroom, Chris nearly ran me
over.”

“Okay…”
Missy said, listening intently.

“He
held his hand out to me to shake it, and I noticed that it was pretty significantly
bruised, with lots of little nicks and cuts – the kind of nicks and cuts that
come from hard impact against things like teeth,” Chas said grimly. Missy
gasped, putting her hands over her mouth.

“So…on
a hunch, I decided to go out the back door, and sure enough, there was a red
pickup truck. I ran the plates and confirmed that it belonged to Chris. His
fingerprints were on file from when he stole from you last year, so I had the
lab run them against the prints in the back of the van, on Chester Kingsman’s
cuff links and on the murder weapon and they were an exact match.”

“Ugh,”
Missy said, chilled to the bone at the thought that a trusted employee, whom
she’d been gracious to and had given a second chance, not only betrayed her,
but was a murderer. “I probably don’t want to know, but…what was the murder
weapon?” she grimaced.

“An
ice pick, that’s why we suspected Grayson. It was nearly identical to the one
that your team uses to chip ice from the inside of your freezers, but when we
tried to match it against the one that was still in your shop, where it was
supposed to be, it was from a different manufacturer, and it had Chris’s prints
all over it,” the detective explained.

“But
Chris had his entire future ahead of him, and he was a Criminal Justice grad
student – he should’ve known that he wouldn’t get away with that!” she
exclaimed, puzzled.

“From
what he said once we’d handcuffed him, he thought his knowledge of Criminal
Justice would help him get away with it. He complained about the quality of his
education,” Chas shook his head in disbelief.

“He
confessed?” Missy was astonished.

“I
think he was so disgusted with himself for having been given a second chance
and throwing it away, that he just wanted to ‘fess up,” her fiancé shrugged.

“But
why did he do it in the first place?” she asked, baffled.

“Well,
that’s an entirely different facet of the story. Chris had apparently been
romancing Celia Kingsman for quite some time – that’s why he volunteered to
work on his campaign, because he’d get to see her more often, and there’d be
more opportunities to slip away together without anyone thinking a thing about
it,” the detective raised his eyebrows at the scandal. “He had overheard you
and Grayson talking about the debate event and figured it was the perfect
opportunity to eliminate Judge Kingsman and frame Grayson for it.”

“Grayson
wouldn’t hurt a fly and everyone knows it, why would Chris try to frame him?”
Missy frowned at the unfairness of it all.

“It
seems that in his world, people who look and behave differently, make easy
targets. Personally, I think he was intimidated by Grayson’s refusal to
conform,” Chas guessed.

“Was
Celia in on it with Chris?”

“Celia
had no idea that Chris killed her husband. Like everyone else, she thought that
Grayson had done it, or perhaps the mayor, but that was a long shot in her
mind. So, apparently, last night, after you left Chris to close up the shop, he
emptied the cash register and fled to the Kingsman mansion, hoping to get Celia
to run away with him. When she found out that, not only was he just a poor grad
student, but that he was the villain who had killed her meal ticket as well,
she pushed a secret button on her nightstand to call her private security
guards, and by the time we got there with a warrant for his arrest, they
already had him cuffed.

“Wow,”
Missy was amazed. “He stole from me again? I guess I’m just a really bad judge
of character,” she shook her head sadly.

“Oh,
I don’t know,” he teased, moving in for a kiss. “You chose me.”

“I
may have a buyer,” Echo said excitedly as she sat down across from Missy in
their favorite corner of
Crème de la Cupcake
.

Missy
put down her coffee cup. “Don’t sound so happy about that, I’m still trying to
come to terms with the fact that I won’t be seeing you every day,” she said
ruefully.

“I’ll
be here for all of the important stuff,” the California girl reminded her best
friend.

“I
know,” Missy said glumly. “I’m trying to be happy for you, but I just want to
selfishly keep you here,” she admitted.

“I
know, honey, I’m going to miss you too,” Echo said softly. They blinked
rapidly, then both looked down, took a bite of their cupcakes and washed it
down with coffee, having a moment.

“So,
on a happier note, how are things going with the wedding planning?”

It
seemed as though anytime Missy even heard the word wedding these days, it
struck a chord of fear in her heart.

“Logistically,
everything is in place,” she said carefully, avoiding her friend’s eyes.

“And
what’s bothering you?” Echo probed, tilting her head, compelling Missy to look
at her.

“It’s
just…this is huge, Echo,” she murmured, overwhelmed. “I mean, this isn’t just
“should we do pizza or Cajun tonight?” – it’s spending the whole rest of our
lives together, you know?” her eyes were wide.

“You
love him, right?”

Missy
blushed. “Of course I do.”

“And
he loves you…?”

“He
says he does,” she made a face.

“Have
you known him to be a liar?” Echo looked at her pointedly.

“No,
of course not, but…he’s so…”

“Oh,
trust me, honey, I know. He’s handsome, intelligent, classy, wealthy, and the
sweetest guy ever, right?”

“Exactly!”
Missy exclaimed. “What on earth would someone like that want with me?” she
worried.

Echo
shook her head with a smile. “Well, first, I think anyone who has ever been in
love has felt that way about their significant other, and, second, you’re
pretty darn terrific yourself, girlfriend.”

“Of
course
you
would think so, you’re my best friend,” she pointed out. “I
would hope that makes you naturally biased.”

“True,
but Chas is your best friend too,” she reminded her. “That man sees you for all
the good and wonderful things that make you who you are, just like I do. Think
about it – you took over your parent’s business at seventeen after they died,
you put yourself through school while running a successful business, you
volunteer in the community, you’ve created a family out of your staff, and you
have the best gal pal in the whole world,” she teased. “What’s not to like? Did
you ever stop to think that, by not feeling like you’re good enough for him,
you’re questioning his taste and intelligence? Does he seem to be a man who’s
lacking in either of those qualities?” she demanded, practically.

Missy
was silent for a moment. “Hmm…I never thought about it that way,” she nodded.

“You
have a classic case of cold feet, my dear, so put on your figurative bunny
slippers and get over it,” Echo advised, patting her hand. “He loves you, you
love him, you’re getting married in two weeks, end of story.”

Two
weeks. In two weeks Missy would become Mrs. Gladstone-Beckett. She giggled when
she thought of her new name, it reminded her of a medieval princess, but she
had to admit that she loved the thought of adding Chas’s name to her own. She
loved him with all of her heart, and Echo was right, she just had to get past her
jitters and sally forth.

**

Ben
and Cheryl had smiled secret smiles, indulging their boss’ need to be in
perpetual motion to work through her stress over the past few weeks. She’d
breeze in to her shops, bake like a madwoman, then disappear to make wedding
arrangements, leaving them shaking their heads in amusement.

Missy
was standing in the kitchen, creating a new Cupcake of the Day flavor, a
Chocolate Cheesecake Dream that was sure to be a hit. She made dense, moist,
dark chocolate cupcakes, filled them with vanilla bean cheesecake cream and
topped them with dark chocolate mousse frosting, drizzled with a red raspberry
reduction. Seeing Cheryl enter the kitchen, she put down the spoon with which
she had just applied the finest drizzle of raspberry and held one up excitedly.

“You
have to try this!” she exclaimed holding the sublime example of cupcake art out
to her manager. “It may very well be the best one yet.”

Cheryl
grinned at Missy’s bright-eyed enthusiasm and took the cupcake. “You have a
visitor out front,” she said, wiping a smudge of flour from her boss’ cheek.

“Oh?”
Missy said, reflexively wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. Cheryl’s mouth was
too full of cupcake for her to elaborate, so she told her that she’d just go
see who it was.

Missy’s
sunshine smile faded when she saw who waited for her on the other side of the
counter.

“Mayor
Chadwick,” she greeted the rotund man in the pinstriped suit tonelessly.

“Good
morning Melissa Gladstone,” he greeted her as cheerfully as ever, choosing to
ignore her return to addressing him formally, rather than by his first name. “I
came down here today, little lady, to apologize for my improper assumption that
you or your young helper had something to do with the tragic and untimely death
of my opponent,” Felton spread his hands magnanimously, and Missy wondered how
it was that he made even an apology sound like some sort of campaign speech.

“It’s
fortunate that the real killer was found and is in custody,” Missy replied
coolly, not letting him off the hook by gratefully accepting his well-staged
apology.

“Indeed.
That detective of yours is a fine example of a law enforcement professional,”
the mayor nodded. “So now that we have all of that nastiness behind us…” he
began, rubbing his hands together.

Of
course. The mayor hadn’t actually come in to apologize to her, he’d come in
because he needed something and figured that she wouldn’t have given him the
time of day without an apology. That would be a correct assumption on his part.

“What
do you need, Mr. Mayor?” she sighed, cutting to the chase.

“I
have an event coming up in three weeks that I…”

“Let
me stop you right there,” Missy held up a hand, startling the official who
certainly was not accustomed to being interrupted. “Chas and I are getting
married in two weeks, and will be on our honeymoon after that. If you have an
event in three weeks, you’ll have to discuss the details with my manager,
Cheryl, and she’ll let you know whether we’re booked already or whether she can
take your project on,” she directed.

“Married?
Well now, congratulations are in order!” he exclaimed. “I don’t believe my invitation
has arrived as yet,” he looked at her pointedly.

“Really?”
she raised an eyebrow at him. “Imagine that.”