Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Brianna Bates

She was immediately worried about the cabinet, but then thought about it some more. She and Switzer had agreed on a price over the phone, so technically she hadn't removed any of Gordon’s belongings. The cabinet belonged to her.

  Gordon sensed her uncertainty and pressed on. "Because that would be theft. According to you, Gordon was dead when you found him. That means anything—even the items he had out for the garage sale—are now the property of the estate and must be disposed of according to probate law."

  Missy was smart but knew she would lose in a verbal argument with Gordon Block. He was a high-powered attorney and made his money successfully arguing with people all day long. Better not to get into it with him. Switzer had made her an offer, she'd accepted, everything was fair and square relative to the cabinet.

  "I didn't take any of Mr. Switzer's belongings."

  Gordon regarded her skeptically. He had the perfect face for it. Square jaw, stern mouth, piercing grey eyes. With that stare, he had probably made many witnesses crumble on the stand over his career.

  He was also a big man and kept in shape. Missy recalled what Florence had said earlier: Gordon had started out as a bodybuilder and still looked the part. He was big and broad, with massive muscles moving under his shirt and his arms stretching the sleeves. If she looked up intimidating in the dictionary, she would have probably found a picture of Gordon next to the definition.

  Loretta, as much as Missy hated to admit it, was in spectacular shape for her age and disarmingly pretty. She knew that Loretta had entered all the local beauty pageants in her teens and twenties, winning many of them. She'd had some work done for sure, but still she looked good.

  "I hope you didn't," Gordon said. "Because like I said that would be theft."

  "Yeah, heard you the first time."

  Cody stopped barking and broke into a low, menacing growl. Even Missy was beginning to get nervous, fearful that Cody would attack. She patted the dog's head and rubbed her back, noting that Cody’s hair was on end.

  "Okay, Cody, take it easy, girl."

  The dog continued to growl and it was enough to break Gordon's stare.

  The man folded his beefy arms and looked at Loretta. "It was your idea to come out here, I'll be in the car."

  Like a petulant child, Gordon got back into the Tesla and slammed the door shut. Cody finally stopped barking but her body language was still defensive as she kept close watch on their visitors.

  Loretta stepped forward. "I came to talk to you about Albert. Can we go inside?"

  "It's pretty late and I have to get up early tomorrow," Missy said.

  "Fine." Loretta's voice turned icy. "I talked to the police so I know everything. At least, I know everything you told them."

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "Did you talk to Albert before he died?"

  The last thing Missy felt like doing was submit to Loretta's questioning. It had been a long day and being suspected of murder was getting old. "Are you working for the police now?"

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "That's right. I didn't."

  Loretta folded her arms. Her eyes became tiny pinpoints on her face. "I heard they arrested your mother."

  Missy said nothing.

  Loretta stepped closer. Cody tensed. Missy rubbed the back of her neck to calm her.

  “They arrested your mother, but you were the one that admitted to being at the house.”

  “Are you about to make a point?” Missy almost wanted Cody to attack. After what Mom had told her this morning about Loretta essentially torpedoing Dad’s opportunity to go into business for himself, she was ready to lash out herself. The injury might have occurred twenty years ago, but Missy was just feeling it for the first time now and it was acute and painful.

  If she felt this strongly about it, Mom must have raged…as her nails dug into her palms, she could understand how Mom had lost her temper all those years ago. How a shouting match had turned physical. They had almost lost everything as a result. It might have taken Dad ten years to commit suicide, but now that Missy was an adult and facing the grown-up problems of employment and mortgages and loneliness, she understood how this missed opportunity had damned him.

  Loretta was very close now. If it hadn’t been for Cody, she would have been right in Missy’s face.

  “I’m about to make several points, actually. First, your family has a history of violence.”

  “How dare you—”

  “Second, it was your mother that tried to kill me all those years ago.”

  “After you robbed us of financial security, I’m sure you provoked her.”

  “Third, your father was mentally ill. I don’t know if he passed any of that along to you, but he clearly had issues. What type of woman marries a man like that? Someone that’s well-adjusted and content? No. What type of daughter would he have?”

  “Me.” Missy put her hands on her hips. “I own my own home. I’ve always been employed, never been in trouble, and I have great friends.”

  Loretta looked right down her nose at Missy. “Never married either. No children. As for your employment, you’ve always worked at a bookstore. That hardly qualifies as a career. And judging by the state of your house I’d say you’re having trouble making your mortgage.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “And look at you.” Loretta smiled wickedly. “You want to hit me right now, don’t you?”

  “Yes, because you’re a raving bitch.”

  Loretta threw her head back and laughed. It was an ugly sound.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “What’s so funny?” Loretta stopped laughing and looked at her. “I actually came to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Albert was such a pain. Everyone in town thinks he’s this sweet man who let me push him around, but he was really not a nice man. Now I don’t have to deal with him anymore, thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  Loretta stopped smiling. “He had a lot of my personal effects. If you took anything while you were there, you’re going to regret it.”

  It took everything in Missy’s power to not shake with rage. Loretta was such a vicious, vile creature. She kept quiet, afraid if she spoke she’d just explode.

  “I heard that you spoke to him on the phone before you got there,” Loretta said when she didn’t get an answer. “What did you talk about?”

  “About you, actually.”

  Loretta’s eyes went wide like she hadn’t been expecting that answer. Missy smirked, happy to get under her skin.

  “Liar,” Loretta said.

  Missy nodded. “It’s true. He told me all about you.”

  Loretta looked back over her shoulder at Gordon, who was sitting behind the steering wheel. He perked up when their eyes met. Missy wondered what the look was supposed to mean.

  “You’re full of shit, Melissa DeMeanor.”

  Missy didn’t know why Loretta was so upset, but she didn’t want to waste this opportunity. “He apologized for backing out of the deal with my father. He told me how he should never have listened to you, and that he did it for all the wrong reasons.”

  Loretta’s arms were shaking.

  Missy smiled. “Now get the hell off my property, before I file a restraining order against you.”

  The shaking spread to Loretta’s whole body. Missy watched her, smile on her lips, as Loretta finally turned and stalked back to the car. She slammed the door and Gordon reversed out of the driveway before Loretta could even get buckled in. Cody started barking again as the car sped away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning Missy woke early. While she’d been asleep, Cody had snuck onto the bed with her, and now the blanket was covered in red dog hair.

  “Cody, you and I are going to have to have a talk. When all the late craziness is over.”

  Cody responded with a thump of her tail against the mattress.

  Missy took a quick shower. She really needed to wa
sh her hair but that was such a process and she didn’t have the time. Coming out of the shower, she examined her full profile in the mirror on the back of her door. God, she really needed to get to the gym but that would have to wait.

  Her capris felt tighter than usual as she pulled them on. It was probably the stress of the last few days. She remembered finals week in college. Even though she’d barely eaten and studied around the clock for her exams, she never lost any weight. Stress could add pounds.

  Missy pulled her hair back into a ponytail yet again and headed out the door. She really needed to see Mom and take Cody to the vet. She hoped to get both things done before she had to be at work at ten.

  Daphne Roberts was sitting on her porch when Missy pulled up. They had graduated the same year in high school and run in completely different circles, but these days they were good, if not close, friends. Daphne had gone to veterinarian school in Ohio, earning her medical degree before coming back to Grove City about five years ago to take over Dr. Sleeper’s old practice.

  Missy parked in her gravel driveway and hopped out, Cody in tow. The Irish setter raced to see Daphne like they were old friends.

  “Well, hello, Cody.” Daphne crouched so her face was just about even with Cody’s, and she petted the dog. “Glad to see you’re in good hands.”

  Daphne stood to greet Missy. She wore a t-shirt and scrubs and looked like she’d lost some weight recently. Missy couldn’t help but feel envious and almost wanted to ask her if she was on a diet, but she had more important things to worry about.

  Like exonerating her mother.

  Missy gave Daphne a hug. “Thanks for seeing us on short notice, it means a lot.”

  Daphne smiled. “It’s the least I could do. I’m so sorry to hear about your mother.”

  “Yeah…” Missy didn’t really know what to say. Twenty-four hours ago she would have sworn Mom wouldn’t have been capable of hurting anybody. But after her own near-assault yesterday, she wasn’t so sure. If pushed hard enough, people were really capable of anything. But it still didn’t make sense for Mom to wait twenty years to murder Albert when it was Loretta that she really blamed.

  Daphne squeezed her shoulder. “Everything will be okay. Your mother is the nicest woman in the world.”

  Missy smiled but said nothing.

  “Now let’s get Cody inside, okay?”

  Missy and Cody followed Daphne inside the house. Daphne used the first floor as her office and led them through a waiting room filled with doggie treats. Cody refused to go into the exam room till she got a few snacks. With her stethoscope, she listened to Cody’s breathing and heartbeat. Then she checked the dog’s teeth.

  “Okay, Cody, looking good.” Daphne looked up at Missy. “Where did you say she was hurt?”

  Missy stooped and pointed. She could tell Cody was tensed up.

  Daphne gently touched the dog’s side near her back hip, and Cody whimpered.

  “Oh my,” Daphne said.

  “Is it bad?”

  Daphne didn’t answer. Her fingers continued to softly probe the dog’s flank for a moment. Then she stopped and sighed.

  “I’ve only practiced ten years but I’ve seen more than enough of these to last a lifetime,” Daphne said.

  “What?”

  Daphne reached into her pocket for a treat and offered it to Cody. The dog gently took it, chewed twice, and swallowed it all one gulp. Daphne petted her and ran a hand down her spine, careful not to go near the injured area.

  “Missy, somebody hit her. My guess would be a foot.”

  Missy covered her mouth. It had to be the killer. Obviously Cody had intervened, hoping to save Albert’s life. Her bravery had earned her this injury.

  “Is anything broken?”

  “I won’t know till we take an x-ray.”

  Daphne and Missy took Cody into another room and got her set up on a metal table. The vet explained she needed Missy to keep Cody very still. She stayed right next to Cody while Daphne set the machine up. The dog barely moved, even when the machine started making loud noises as it snapped pictures of her.

  “Just give me a moment,” Daphne said.

  Missy gave Cody a couple more treats while they were waiting and rubbed behind Cody’s ears.

  “I wish you could talk, girl. Then you could just tell me who the killer is.”

  Cody barked and thumped her tail against the metal table. She had bad dog breath, but Missy didn’t mind. She’d never had a dog but was getting used to this. She was surprised to find how much she enjoyed taking care of a living thing and for the first time in her life she felt sad about not having any children yet. The emotion totally blindsided her. Missy wasn’t even married, wasn’t even close to married.

  Daphne returned with two films. She walked to the other side of the room and turned on the light boxes then hung the films. Waving Missy over, she turned to study the x-rays.

  Missy watched over her shoulder, studying the dog’s bones. She’d broken an arm in grade school and remembered her own x-rays. Dog bones looked no different than human bones, really.

  “Here.” Daphne pointed. “You see that tiny black line on the rib?”

  Missy would never have noticed it if Daphne hadn’t pointed it out. But once she saw it, she could tell it was bad.

  “Broken?”

  “Hairline fracture in one of Cody’s ribs.”

  “Oh-my-God. She has a broken rib?”

  Daphne nodded. “Poor girl.”

  “But she’s been up and down on all the furniture, in and out of the car…I mean, you’d never know she had a broken bone.”

  Daphne turned off the light boxes and pulled down the x-rays. “Dogs are very stoic compared to us humans. They don’t exhibit too many outward symptoms of pain or trauma.”

  “What can we do?”

  Daphne offered Cody another treat, which the dog lapped up greedily. “Give her some meds to ease the pain. Unfortunately there’s not much I can do about a hairline fracture in one of her ribs. She just needs time to heal it herself.”

  Missy felt awful. Here she’d had Cody all over the last couple of days and the dog had been in serious pain.

  “Come on,” Daphne said. “I’ve got what you need in the store room. Let’s get her started right away.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Missy drove very carefully to the police station and tried to avoid any and all bumps in the road. Cody was stretched out on the seat next to her, and she didn’t want to jostle the dog now that she knew about the broken rib. Poor girl.

  She made it to the police station around nine-thirty. It wouldn’t give her much time with Mom, but at least she could squeeze in fifteen minutes. Then on her first break, she could call a couple attorneys she knew to get Mom out of here.

  Grove City’s police station was tiny. It was basically a wide open floor, two offices, one room for questioning, and a cell in the corner that constituted the jail. Missy didn’t know what the police did when they had to arrest several people—it looked like there was no space for it.

  She rolled the windows down and asked Cody to stay put in the truck. Fully expecting Cody to disobey her command, Missy was surprised when the dog didn’t move a muscle and stretched out even more on the front seat of her truck. Must have been the meds kicking in.

  Missy strode into the police station. Small town, so she knew everybody that worked here. Renee was staring at her cell phone when Missy came in. She had been a few years ahead of Missy in school and had been a bully. When she looked up from her phone, she wasn’t surprised to see Missy.

  “I’d like to see my mother now.” Missy looked past Renee into the back. She could see the two glass offices along the side of the floor. One belonged to Chief Brody, the other to Tyler.

  “Have a seat, Melissa.”

  Missy didn’t sit. “And when I’m done with her I’d like a word with the chief.”

  Renee smirked. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

  Missy was pretty
sure the chief was available. She could see him sitting in his office, kind of zoned out in front of his computer.

  She started puzzling over where Mom had been that day and who she might have been seeing. As far as Missy knew, Mom had never dated again after Dad’s passing. So Missy was having a hard time accepting what was probably the most obvious explanation: Mom had been seeing a man and didn’t want anybody to know.

  And why wouldn’t she want anybody to know? Because—

  Next thing she knew, her mother emerged from the back of the station. Tyler followed along behind her. Missy noted she wasn’t wearing cuffs and was carrying her jacket. If Missy didn’t know any better, she would have thought Mom was leaving.

  “Okay, Mrs. DeMeanor, you’re free to go,” Tyler said, loud enough for Missy to hear.

  Her jaw dropped. “Mom, you’re getting out?”

  Her mother didn’t look too happy about it. “Yes. Would you mind driving me home, dear?”

  Missy was ecstatic but Mom looked like she wanted to die. “Of course, Mom. I’m just going to have a word with Tyler first.”

  “I’ll be outside.”

  Missy waited till her Mom had left the station before addressing Tyler. This morning he hadn’t shaved, and Missy noticed that some of his stubble had grey in it. It aged him but looked good on him.

  She felt Renee’s eyes on them both. “Uh, can we talk in your office?”

  Tyler nodded. “Sure.”

  She followed him back there. Through the glass windows of his office, Chief Brody watched her the whole way. She could tell he suspected her of the murder. Once they reached Tyler’s office, he stepped aside to let her go first then closed the door. His office was neat and had some pictures of his parents in it. She noticed a few old newspaper clippings, all of them probably articles about some of his athletic feats in high school.

  “Melissa, what would you like to talk about?”

  She sat down opposite him. She had come here looking to raise hell, but Mom’s release had kind of taken the wind out of her sails.

  “You didn’t, uh, have to arrest Mom.”

  “Melissa.” He sat forward and shook his head. “She gave me no choice.”