Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Brianna Bates

  She moved closer and stood next to him. Again, she checked her phone like she was waiting on a text. Though in truth, it had been…a year?...since she’d gone out for drinks with a friend.

  “You and Tonya must have been close,” Missy said.

  He nodded. “You probably already know this from the gossip train.”

  She shrugged, like she hadn’t meant anything. “That’s what I heard, yeah.”

  “We worked together, one thing led to another, we were together awhile…and then we weren’t.”

  Missy listened intently. There was a tone in his voice, somewhere between regret and bitterness she thought.

  “But you must have remained good friends. I mean, I can’t imagine showing up to celebrate one of my ex’s big accomplishments.”

  He finished the first cigarette and without hesitation went in for another.

  “Yeah, we were good friends.” He shook his head as he lit the cigarette. “I had a lot of trouble getting over her.”

  “She was really nice.” Missy wondered if he believed her.

  “You think so?” he asked.

  Missy thought it a strange question. Her eyes instinctively wandered across the street, to the van where Paul I.S. Gold was hiding and watching them.

  “Yes,” Missy said.

  He smirked and looked away, as if trying to hide his smile. For all his complaints of gossip going around about him, he must have known a thing or two about her as well.

  “I can see why the break-up must have been difficult.”

  “Difficult.” He almost spat the word out. “I had a great job, and I was willing to throw that away. I lost my job for her, and then I lost her. I had nothing.”

  “I didn’t know any of this,” Missy said. “I’m sorry.”

  He eyed her like he didn’t believe her. “Anyway, I hit rock bottom and used alcohol as a crutch. Pretty soon I couldn’t stop.”

  This guy was checking all the boxes for her. Bitter ex-lover, chemistry teacher.

  Krauss nodded. “But she knew my sponsor. She convinced me to come here. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “That’s great.” Missy smiled. “So what do you do now?”

  He smiled. “Chemistry teacher.”

  “Oh wow.” Missy lowered her voice. “So you must know…”

  “Know what?”

  She shook her head. “Forget it, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Brought what up?”

  She pursed her lips. “Have you heard the rumor about how Tonya…”

  “Poison.”

  “Do you think that’s true?”

  He looked at her a long time.

  “I mean, I don’t,” Missy said. “Poison is what happens in bad murder mystery novels, isn’t it?”

  He was still looking at her, his expression deadly serious. “It can happen.”

  “Okay.” She smiled. “But how realistic is it? Not anybody can get their hands on…I don’t even know what.”

  Krauss took another drag on his second cigarette, before dropping and stamping it out. “There are plenty of ways to poison somebody.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded matter-of-factly. “There are toxins available to the public. Anyone in that tea room is a suspect.”

  She wanted to mimic him, so she purposely used his expression. “What kind of toxin do you think did it?”

  He thought about it. Missy couldn’t tell if it was an act or not. “I’m a chemistry nut, but this is definitely not my area of expertise.”

  She smiled. “I’m not asking you testify in a court of law.”

  He grunted, like he wasn’t sure. “It had to be fast-acting. Muscarine or botulinum maybe.”

  “Could those substances be put into her cup of tea?” Missy asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly.

  “And if they were, wouldn’t she notice it?” Now that Missy thought about it, she recalled Tonya making a face when they’d toasted, like the tea had tasted bad or funny to her.

  “I don’t know.” Krauss pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “And I have to hit the road.”

  “Oh,” Missy said. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

  He leveled his suspicious eyes on her. “Why are you asking?”

  “No reason.” She smiled. “Just making conversation.”

  He nodded but she could tell he didn’t believe her. “You wouldn’t be out here to interrogate me, would you, Missy DeMeanor?”

  “No.” She laughed like that was ridiculous.

  He took a step closer. “You sure about that?”

  Her laugh came out a bit strangled this time. “Emile, I told you. I’m meeting someone at Jake’s.”

  “Jake’s, huh?” He wasn’t a tall man or a broad man. But he was still a man. “Why in the world would you drive a half hour to Castleton for a drink? There are plenty of places in Grove City.”

  “Change of scenery,” Missy said. “And, plus, my friend.”

  He got even closer. She wanted to take a step back, but also didn’t want to give him any power.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  She took out her phone, pretending to get a text. “They’re here.” She smiled when she looked back. “Emile, I’m sorry about Tonya. I understand how upset you must be, and I’m sorry I brought all that to the surface.”

  He reached for her phone, but Missy turned away. His hand latched onto her arm.

  “Who’s your friend, Missy?”

  She tried to sound as tough as possible. “Take your hand off me!”

  “I don’t need any trouble, lady. I’ve needed years to get my life back together.”

  Krauss’s face was inches from hers. She looked into his bloodshot, angry eyes and saw the anger burning inside him.

  “Let go of me.”

  He shook his head. “Who is your friend?”

  “I am.”

  Missy never thought she’d be happy to see Paul I.S. Gold, but she was. The tiny, otherwise unremarkable man bounded across the street. He held his hands up as he walked right through traffic and marched his way over.

  Krauss immediately let go of her arm. His eyes went wide.

  “Oh, Gold, I’m sorry…I didn’t know…”

  “Shut up, Krauss!” Gold stood beside Missy and put his arm around her, which was a bit comical because she had a few inches on Gold.

  Krauss had a few inches on him also, not to mention probably fifty pounds. But for whatever reason, the recovering alcoholic and chemistry teacher was terrified of Gold.

  He held out his palms and started moving away. “Sorry, Gold…but how was I supposed to know? I thought—”

  Missy squirmed under Gold’s touch as his hand began to drift south. But she didn’t move away to keep up the act.

  “You thought what?” Gold challenged. “Missy’s one of the nicest people in the world. You thought what exactly?”

  Krauss was walking backwards now, his palms still out. “My mistake, Gold. I just assumed she was here to, you know, interrogate me because she solved all those other murders…”

  “Apologize to the lady!” Gold yelled.

  “Sorry, Missy. Sorry.”

  When he was thirty feet away, Krauss finally gave them his back and hustled to an old truck that reminded Missy of hers. The man fumbled with the keys when trying to unlock the vehicle.

  Once Krauss was in and pulling away, Missy stepped out of Gold’s reach. His hand had continued to drift down her back.

  “Thank you, Paul,” she said. “That was about to go bad.”

  He shrugged like it was nothing. “That’s why I’m here. I told you that guy was scared of me.”

  “Yes.” She shook her head, still in disbelief. “You must have really taken care of him.”

  “Yeah.” Paul looked over his shoulder. “Say, I liked your cover story. Maybe you and I should…”

  Missy really didn’t want to get a drink with Gold. But the guy had stepped up and saved her
tonight. She owed him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The waitress brought Gold’s stout and her vodka sour. Missy sipped the drink and nearly spit it out. It was about ninety percent alcohol.

  “Pretty good, right?” Gold asked, as he chugged half his stout. After putting the pint glass down, he thumped his chest a few times. “God, I love the adrenaline rush. Know what I mean?”

  Missy was doing her best to calm down after the argument with Krauss. Gold, on the other hand, was thriving off it.

  “Yes.” She smiled politely and tried the drink again. The vodka overpowered everything else and she put it back down. “Thank you, Paul.”

  He waved her thanks off. “Don’t worry about it. You and me are partners, right? That’s what partners do.”

  “I think Krauss poisoned Tonya.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Okay. Walk me through it.”

  Missy nudged her drink aside and rested her elbows on the table. She filled Gold in on the details of Krauss and Tonya’s history. “She basically ruined his life.”

  “Yeah.” Gold frowned. “But then she kind of saved it too, didn’t she?”

  “Saved is a little strong of a word.”

  Gold drained his stout and began rudely waving at their waitress, who was over at the bar. “She got him into AA. That turned his life around.”

  “AA turned his life around. Not Tonya. Just because she talked him into joining doesn’t make up for how she dumped him when he was at a low point in his career.”

  “I don’t know, Miss.”

  “I was there. You weren’t. I got a better read on his body language.”

  Gold nodded, but she could tell he didn’t really agree. They sat in silence for a moment, as the waitress came back with another stout. The waitress smiled flirtatiously with Gold.

  “What are you doing later, Paul?”

  Missy couldn’t imagine anybody being interested in Gold. The man was short and with the right outfit and glasses would have looked like a pedophile.

  Gold smiled back politely at her. “Sorry, Cheryl. I have to get home early tonight.”

  The waitress frowned, very disappointed. “I thought maybe we could…”

  He shook his head. “I think of us as friends, Cheryl.”

  She smiled sadly. “Alright, Paul. Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  As she walked away, Missy sat in stunned silence. The waitress was tall, blond, attractive and probably cut a great figure in a bikini. Why Paul I.S. Gold would turn her down was beyond Missy.

  “Not my type,” he said, reading her mind. “Cheryl’s very sweet, but you know what I like.”

  She blushed under his stare. His eyes took her in.

  It’d been a long couple of days. Under normal circumstances, Missy would have said good night and gone home. But now Gold had piqued her curiosity. Plenty of men like him, self-described “chubby-chasers” had gone after her through the years. But she’d never understood the psychology.

  Surprisingly, she found herself asking the question. “Why do you like bigger women, Gold?”

  “What’s not to like?” He winked at her and it was slightly creepy. “When I was a boy, I wanted a girl. Now I’m a man, I want a woman.”

  “Oh.” Missy was already regretting opening this door. She looked down at the drink she didn’t plan to touch again.

  Gold went on. “Women aren’t supposed to look like stick figures. They’re supposed to be curvy. They’re supposed to be soft and…”

  His eyes almost crossed as he talked about big women. For some reason, it did not gross Missy out. She wondered if Tyler thought the same way. His ex-wife had the body of a supermodel though, very different than what Missy looked like. Perhaps Tyler liked all kinds of women…or maybe he was just making an exception in Missy’s case because he truly loved her?

  “Most men like big women,” Gold said, again reading her mind. “Believe me. They’ve been programmed to think otherwise, but deep down they’re just as attracted to a curvy woman walking down a beach in a bikini as a size two slinking around.”

  “Really?” Missy wasn’t so sure.

  Gold nodded, like he was an authority. “Abso-damned-lutely. With all the fat-shaming, though, most guys are afraid to publicly admit they like bigger women.”

  Missy was intrigued, but also reluctant to continue the conversation. There was no telling which direction it would go with Gold, though the house money was on awkward.

  “It’s one thing to like big women, but it’s another to prefer big women.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. It’s no less arbitrary than preferring brunettes to blonds, or redheads to brunettes, or legs to—”

  She held a palm up. “Okay, Gold. I get the point.”

  He nodded. “It’s a shame your weight has made you feel awkward.”

  She was about to protest, but he was speaking the truth. Though she didn’t constantly obsess over her figure, it was something she thought about often enough. And way back in high school, even though she’d been athletic she was still the heaviest on the team. She’d never enjoyed the locker room after a game.

  “You get used to it after awhile,” Missy said. “But the teenaged years are not forgiving.”

  He nodded sadly. “Wish I’d known you in high school.”

  Gold finished his second stout. Before he could go on about bigger women and they could delve deeper into her past or psychology, Missy decided to refocus the subject on Krauss.

  “I really think he did it,” she said. “He has motive and he’s a chemist. He probably knows more about poison than anybody else in that tea room.

  Gold made a face. “I don’t know, Miss.”

  “Come on, Gold. He and Tonya have a complicated history, and he has plenty of reason to be bitter about it.”

  He rocked back and forth. “Usually you’re spot on with these things, but I was listening. I got the sense Krauss still cared about her.”

  Missy was about to give her drink another try, now that the ice had melted a little bit to water it down. But then she processed what Gold had said.

  “What?”

  “I said, I got the sense Krauss still cared—”

  “No. Before that. You said you were listening.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said sheepishly.

  “You were in your van. How were you listening?”

  Gold developed a fascination with his empty pint glass. “Through the transmitter.”

  “What transmitter?”

  “The one I put on you.”

  “Where?” Missy felt like she’d been violated. She looked down at her shirt, like she was looking for a poisonous insect that had just landed on her.

  Then she saw it: a tiny black dot.

  It was nestled right in the middle of her chest.

  “HOW DID THIS GET HERE!”

  At her outburst, the patrons sitting at nearby tables all whipped their heads around to look at them.

  “Take it easy, Miss,” Gold said, keeping his voice low. “It was just a safety precaution.”

  “How did this get here?”

  The man had somehow put a transmitter right between her…

  “When you weren’t paying attention, I put it there,” Gold said. “Standard operating procedure.”

  Missy asked, “Does standard operating procedure include not telling me I’m on a wire?”

  He nodded. “Actually, yeah.”

  “Actually, yeah?”

  He nodded again. “That way you’re not thinking about me listening, you’re just reacting naturally to the conversation.”

  She got up. “I don’t believe this, Paul. You put this thing on my body.”

  Missy ripped it off her shirt and dropped it into her vodka sour.

  “Whoa! Don’t do that! Now it’s ruined.”

  “I want you to destroy the recording, too,” Missy said. “You know, Gold, just when I think you’re an okay guy, you go and do something like this.”

  Missy stormed o
ut.

  ***

  Driving home, Missy went over her conversation with Krauss. As angry as she was with Gold, she had to admit he had a point. Krauss had just as much reason to hate Tonya as he did to be grateful to her. Though his life had spun out of control after their break-up, it was Tonya who’d brought him back from the brink.

  Still, though, she couldn’t ignore the fact that Krauss was a chemist of all things and Tonya had been poisoned.

  On her way home, Missy drove past WiredFit guiltily. A day had turned into two, into three, and now into four. Pretty soon, it would be habit again not to exercise. She really had to get back.

  Tyler called her when she was five minutes away to let her know he’d gotten caught up at the police station. He wasn’t sure when he’d be home.

  Cody was waiting for her at the door. The Irish setter wagged her tail wildly and led Missy to the back door. Missy let the dog out and then microwaved some leftovers. She went outside and sat on the patio while the dog rolled around in the grass.

  In her mind, Missy went over her short conversations with the chief suspects at the viewing that morning. Again, she was overwhelmed by the fact that all of them had a reason to kill Tonya. And, Missy was still too worked up from her earlier conversation with Detective Evanski to make sense of anything.

  Cody stopped rolling around and started barking. Missy had learned on her first murder investigation to listen to the dog, since Cody was good at spotting trouble. Missy looked right and saw headlights lighting up her detached garage. Somebody pulling into the driveway.

  Missy got up and instinctively reached inside the back door to grab the baseball bat she kept there. Ever since she’d been attacked at her home, she kept plenty of makeshift weapons handy though she’d never learned how to use a gun.

  The car’s brakes squealed and the lights went out. Missy tiptoed to the edge of the house and peered around the corner. A four-door sedan had parked behind her truck. At first she worried it was Evanski or Bryant come to question—or worse, arrest—her. But a woman with hair longer than Evanski’s got out of the car.

  “Alison?” Missy asked.

  “Oh!” Alison jumped, not expecting to see Missy come out from around the back of the house. “You scared me!”