Cocoa Conviction (A Mission Inn-possible Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Rosie A. Point

  Jacinta scrambled to start her recording.

  “Georgina Franklin is the best employer I’ve ever had. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Jacinta hit the screen a second time with a vicious stab of her thumb. “Very helpful,” she sneered.

  “Is there a problem here?” Smulder came around the corner, his overalls smudged with dirt. Had he been out searching for eggs already? He knew about the murder, we’d had to tell him, what with the commotion going on. I hadn’t wanted to, of course. He would only try to direct me away from investigating it.

  “I remember you,” Jacinta said, pointing a finger. “You’re the handsome man who took Charlotte out of my office. Is that correct? What’s your name, cutie?”

  Smulder ignored her, turning to me instead. “Is she giving you trouble?”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Handle it,” Jacinta laughed, extending her phone again. I pictured snatching it out of her hand and bopping her on the head with it. “Charlotte, I’m just here to talk about the suspicious activity in the inn. There’s no need to act like—”

  “You’re writing an article,” Smulder said, stiffly.

  “Yes, sir, I am. Do you have any comments as an employee of Miss Georgina Franklin? Any complaints you’d like to share?”

  “You’re aware that the police are on the premises?” Smulder countered.

  “Of course. That’s why I’m here.”

  “And, as I understand it, Charlotte has asked you to leave. That correct?”

  Jacinta dragged her tongue over dry lips.

  “Charlotte, who’s acting in the best interests of the owner of the inn and happens to live and work here, has authority to ask you to vacate the premises.”

  Suddenly, Jacinta wasn’t as full of vinegar.

  “If you don’t leave within the next,”—Smulder checked his watch—“two minutes, Charlotte will call the police out here and open a case of trespassing against you. And if you think Georgina wouldn’t want to follow through with that, you’re mistaken.” His icy stare could’ve frozen a pot of boiling caramel.

  Jacinta fiddled with her phone. She glared and tugged at her handbag.

  “One minute and fifty seconds,” Smulder said.

  With a grunt, the editor of the Gossip Rag charged off down the road toward the exit.

  “I could have handled it,” I muttered.

  “No, not really,” Smulder replied. “You were too emotional, Charlotte. You get that way about the inn.”

  “No, about Georgina.”

  “Right.” Smulder nodded. “Georgina.”

  Gravel crunched behind us. Detective Crowley walked down the pathway, stopping at my side. “Miss Smith, mind if I borrow you for a moment? I have a few questions to ask you regarding the case.”

  “Sure.” Whatever he asked would give me more information about the direction they were investigating in. I followed Crowley off under the trees, heading toward one of the many benches Gamma had had erected in the garden for guests. I glanced back and found Smulder watching us, a frown on his usually smooth forehead. The minute our gazes met, he walked off in the direction of the greenhouse.

  19

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt you,” Detective Crowley said, his notepad on his lap.

  Dappled light spread over the grass and our bench, the canopy above our heads whispering every now and again as a spring breeze brushed through the leaves. Gamma had emerged from the inn in the distance and stood with Lauren seeing off the last of the partygoers. The garden was a mess—the trestle table with snack bowls and wrappers, eggs poking from between the leaves of bushes. An Easter egg had been positioned precariously on the roof of the greenhouse.

  “I was just helping hand out the party packs. What do you need to talk to me about?” Had my statement not been clear enough?

  “I received the manifesto of the current guests from Miss Franklin,” Crowley said, “and the numbers and names of those who attended the party from Miss Harris, your chef.”

  “Good, OK.”

  Crowley made eye contact and stayed silent for a while. It was an interrogation technique I’d been taught in my training. Remain silent, place pressure on the suspect until they spoke of their own accord. A lot of the time, people wanted to fill awkward silences because they couldn’t stand the quiet.

  I wasn’t one of those people.

  I sat back, waiting.

  “I’ve spoken to almost all the guests on the second floor,” Crowley said, at last. “I wanted to know if you had any information about the ones I didn’t get to speak to.”

  “Sure. What are their names?”

  “Gracie Bolton and Kieran McIver.”

  Surely he had spoken to them after Bob had been murdered. Gracie was his only living relative. “They’re not in the inn?” I asked.

  “Not at the moment.”

  “And did you ask Georgina where they might have gone? She would know.”

  “She doesn’t,” Crowley said. “I already spoke to her. The problem is, no one seems to have seen them.”

  Did that mean they were persons of interest in the case? Or just that Crowley was covering his bases. What if Gracie and Kieran had been working as a team to take down both Bob and Leanne? It was clear Leanne wasn’t the one who had done it. She’d been killed too. Unless, of course, she’d had a partner in crime and that partner had turned on her.

  I kept my expression blank as the thoughts jostled through my head like apples in a cart.

  “I haven’t seen them either,” I said. “But I do know that Gracie is wheelchair bound and that they often go for walks through the town. Kieran pushes her.” I mimed the action. “So that might be where they are.” Maybe the screams of the children had disturbed them?

  Or they murdered Leanne.

  But, no, that didn’t make sense. The person who had done it had to have been wearing rings, and that was Trinity.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know where they are.” I offered Crowley a smile, trying to butter him up so the next part of what I had to say wouldn’t come off too harsh. “But have you spoken to Trinity?”

  “Trinity? Trinity Malone?” Crowley asked.

  “Yes, her.”

  “I’ve spoken to her, yes.”

  “Oh, OK.”

  “Is there something you think I should know?” Detective Crowley’s pen was out and hovering over his notepad.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Trinity and Leanne got into a fight on the day that Trinity’s daughter disappeared.” Crowley knew all about it, as he’d been one of the officers who had turned up to help. “She accused Leanne of having taken her daughter, barged into her room and went through her things. She wasn’t acting… normal. She didn’t seem as concerned over her daughter as she was over looking through Leanne’s things.”

  “I see.” Crowley scribbled down notes. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  “I’ve already mentioned that Trinity and Bob had a fight over a cat.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no. That’s it.” I was on the brink of telling him about the bruising and the rings, but he would work that out by himself. He was a detective. And if he’d seen Trinity earlier in the week then surely he’d seen the rings on her fingers too. He would work it out.

  Or he wouldn’t, and Gamma and I would end up solving the murder by ourselves. It was serious now. Once again, the inn had been implicated. We were just lucky that the detective wasn’t interested in us this time. Possibly because I hadn’t handed the victim a poison-spiked cupcake.

  Man, was I glad that was in the past.

  An idea popped into my head. “Detective Crowley,” I said, “may I ask you a question?” More flies with honey.

  “Sure, yeah, of course.” He grinned at me, and, once again, I found it slightly disconcerting. He was usually so suspicious. Why was he being nice now? Was it a tactic to get me to talk, and if so, about what?

  “Now that both Bob and Leanne are dead, who inherits
Bob’s fortune?” I asked.

  Crowley’s pen was brought to a standstill by the question. “You know about Bob’s fortune,” he stated.

  “Everyone in the inn and in Gossip does. It’s not exactly a secret. He stayed here for ages and he wasn’t shy about bragging about his money.” Not true, but Leanne had certainly bragged about it to us, and a lot of others in town knew.

  The excuse seemed to satisfy the detective. He clicked the end of his pen and put it in his pocket then did the same with the notepad. “It depends on what’s stipulated in the will, but likely, it would be the next of kin.”

  Had Bob put Gracie in his will? Was that something he might’ve done? Inserted a clause that if Leanne passed, all the money would go to his aunt? Had Leanne even be in line for the money in the first place, or had she been about to fight for it?

  I had no idea whether the group of players had ever met with the solicitor of Bob’s will in the first place.

  “Don’t worry about the case, Miss Smith. You leave that up to the professionals,” Crowley said.

  I gave him a saccharine smile then excused myself. He thanked me for my time and we went our separate ways—me heading for the inn, which may or may not have been harboring a murder, and him for his car, which definitely wasn’t.

  20

  Moonlight streamed through the slit between my curtains and slashed across the end of my bed in a silver line. I fixated on it, sitting up against the decorative headboard, Cocoa Puff curled up in my lap.

  My lights were out, but sleep had evaded me. Or I had evaded it. The jury was out on that one.

  I stroked Cocoa’s fluffy head and was rewarded with deep, satisfied purrs. If only life could be as simple as it was for him. He was loved and fed, and he got to curl up in someone’s lap at the end of the day. No evil ex-husbands or enemy agencies to contend with. No murders to investigate. No covers to hide behind.

  You’re getting soft. Since when do you complain so much about your lot in life? You chose this.

  It was true. Maybe I was just morose because I couldn’t figure out what had happened to Leanne. The horrifying though that if I had solved Bob’s case sooner, she would still be alive, had popped into my head after dinner and had taken up residence. Shoot, it had already built a log cabin, a porch swing and a sign saying ‘Property of Nasty Thought’ in my brain.

  “This is silly,” I said, softly. “I shouldn’t be awake.”

  Cocoa’s purrs went on, uninterrupted.

  The clock on my nightstand told me it was already past 1 am. I had to wake up early and help Lauren cook breakfast and clean the mess from the Easter egg hunt in just five hours.

  If I was going to catch any sleep, I’d have to get some warm milk to send me into dreamland. That was my grandmother’s fix-all trick. Can’t sleep? Warm milk. Sore stomach? Warm milk. Nothing stopped a kid from complaining in their tracks than the thought of having to drink another glass of warm milk.

  I’d always secretly thought that it was a tactic on my Gamma’s part to keep me from complaining as a kid.

  I shifted Cocoa off my lap, got up and headed out of my bedroom and down the stairs. The inn was eerily quiet at this time of the night, but I preferred the silence to the chatter of guests who usually had nothing but complaints about my cleaning.

  A creaking stopped me on the ground floor of the inn, and I reached over and clicked on the lights. The buttery yellow light from the lamp above illuminated the trinkets on the table in the hall, and showed me my tired reflection in the grand mirror above it.

  Nothing seemed out of place.

  But there had definitely been a noise.

  “Hearing things,” I muttered.

  Maybe I was so tired I’d started hallucinating?

  I made for the kitchen and the low creeakk came a second time. Much louder.

  My muscles tensed and my mind ran through the gamut of possibilities. The murderer. Kyle. One of the guests. An enemy spy come to find me. Smulder?

  I sought out the source of the sound.

  The library door was open. The lights were off inside.

  I lifted a decorative candelabra—stainless steel—from an end table and walked over, holding it at the ready. I nudged the door open with my toe, reached in and clicked on the library’s lights.

  There wasn’t a soul in sight. I was drawn on by a low scratching noise. It came from near one of the bookcases, and I crept toward it, placing one foot in front of the other as silent as a whisper. I rounded an armchair, brandishing my candelabra and found…

  “Sherlock!”

  The calico kitten skittered around at the base of the bookcase, scratching at its end. And the strange smell I’d caught a whiff of earlier in the week, the one I’d been so sure was Smulder’s secret admirer, hung on the air.

  Nicole didn’t smell like that, did she?

  No, this too-sweet flowery smell was recognizable from a block away.

  I set down the candelabra, then checked under the armchairs and tables—on the brink of losing my mind—then grabbed Sherlock. He meowed and clung to me.

  “What are you up to, kitty?” I asked. “You shouldn’t be out here.” I stroked his furry ears then carried him to the door and out into the hall. I made for the kitty center and stopped in my tracks.

  That door was open too!

  What on earth?

  Had Gamma left it open? None of the other assistants had the key—they all exited and entered through the back of the center. They never came through this door into the inn. Unless Gamma had taken to sleepwalking?

  I entered the center, switching on the lights in here too. Sleepy kittens blinked at me from their warm blankets or the cat tree. Apparently, Sherlock was the only one who was into night time adventures. I set him down, shut the door, and went over to the incubator room.

  Marietta sat watching something on her phone, waiting for the next feeding time for the baby kittens.

  I waved at her, and she plucked an earphone out of her ear. “Hello, Charlotte. Is everything OK?”

  “Marietta… was Georgina in here earlier?” I asked.

  “Much earlier, yes.”

  “And no one else? There was no one else in the kitten center this evening apart from you?” I asked.

  Marietta gave me a quizzical look. “Yes, it’s just me on duty.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks.”

  If she was curious about why I’d asked, she didn’t show it. I waved goodnight and headed back through the door to the inn. I’d have to go upstairs, grab my key and come down and lock up again. Then tomorrow, Gamma, Lauren and I would have to have a talk about this.

  At least, we had one mystery solved—Sherlock the kitten wasn’t an escape artist. He was taking advantage of the open door. But who had opened it?

  I made my way back up the stairs, but a thump from the second floor grabbed my attention. I stalled on the landing, my hand on the polished balustrade. Instead of heading directly to my room, I took the second flight of stairs.

  Another noise echoed from above.

  Muffled voices reached my ears, as I passed Leanne’s now-sealed room. The police had finished up in there, but they didn’t want anyone tampering in case they needed to come back this week.

  “—leave.” A male voice.

  Coming from Aunt Gracie’s room.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Kieran. One night of insomnia doesn’t mean we have to pack up and run,” Gracie said, sounding more tired than I remembered her.

  I stopped outside their suite room door.

  “—sign,” Kieran was saying. “If you can’t sleep now… Gracie, you’re not comfortable here. We should leave.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Gracie insisted. “You’re being impossible. There’s no reason for me to leave. No reason to hide. If the police have questions for me, I’ll answer them. I’ll tell them everything they need to know.”

  “So you can’t sleep, but it’s not because of that detective?”

  “It’s because
I’m an old woman,” she said. “And soon, I’ll be sleeping indefinitely.” Gracie laughed. “Relax, Kieran. Put the suitcases back in the closet. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  The conversation died down after that, and I backed away, my ears burning red hot.

  Kieran and Gracie up at 1 am, worried about the police. Good heavens, the mystery had thickened to the consistency of clotted cream.

  21

  “You’re sure it was unlocked?” Lauren asked. “Wide open?”

  “The door wasn’t wide open, it was ajar,” I said. “But yes, it was unlocked. Definitely unlocked. Are you sure you didn’t do it?”

  “I left after we finished dinner, Charlie. How could I have opened it?” Lauren tugged on her fiery red pigtails. “I wouldn’t unlock the kitten center without closing up after myself, anyway.”

  “I’m not accusing you. I’m just perplexed.” I put down the frosting bowl and my spatula, frowning at the cupcakes I’d already completed. We were making lunch, and having an excess of cupcakes on hand was always a good idea. Even after the guests finished one of Lauren’s delicious savory lunches, they wanted something sweet afterward.

  And thanks to Lauren’s guidance and her fantastic cupcake recipes, my baking had improved and the cocoa cupcakes had turned out OK. At least, this batch had.

  “I wonder who opened it.” Lauren paged through her recipe book. “I mean, if it can only be one of the three of us, maybe it was Goergina. Or you? And then you lost your memories afterward or something like that.”

  “I thought sleepwalking.”

  The chef nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly.”

  “I’d like to think that.” I petered off.

  “Think what?” Gamma strolled into the kitchen, her apron already tied on. She bustled over to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup.

  I told her about the open doorway last night, the escaping Sherlock, and how Marietta said she hadn’t seen anyone in there, apart from Georgina herself, of course. “Lauren left after the dinner service,” I said, “so it wasn’t her. Which leaves either you or me.”