Tea Room Toxin: Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mystery #5 (Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries)

by Brianna Bates

  “Hey, Roger,” Missy said.

  “Hello.” He regarded her strangely, not understanding why she’d come up to talk to him.

  She’d already planned out what to say. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” He opened the door to his car. “Thanks.”

  “Even though you guys were separated, I figured this had to be difficult for you too. Especially since you remained so close all these years and lately.”

  He had one foot in the car. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The tea room,” Missy said. “I know you were the angel investor, so you must have been working very closely with Tonya. And Noreen.”

  She made sure to keep her voice level, but she could tell by his reaction he’d picked up on the subtext. He’d been having an affair with Tonya while she was dating Grant, at a time when the man was getting ready to propose.

  Roger’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know what an angel investor is, Missy?”

  She chuckled nervously. “Not really.”

  He nodded like he’d expecting to have to explain it to her. “That’s someone who has the money to start a business but wants no parts of running it.”

  “Oh.”

  “So to answer your implied questions, I haven’t been working closely with Tonya while she was getting the tea room up and running. I basically handed her some money and asked that I see a return on it in the future.”

  Roger’s eyes drifted away from her, and Missy glanced over her shoulder to find Grant walking by. The two men stared at each other, their eyes saying everything their lips weren’t. They looked ready to duke it out. Missy waited till Grant had gotten far enough away, and Roger finally looked back at her.

  “It must have been a lot of money, though,” Missy said, not willing to let it go. “Even if you weren’t going to actively run the business, you still probably spent a lot of time with her recently talking about it. I mean, I won’t pretend to understand business like you do but I would have thought—”

  “No, you don’t understand business obviously. Goodbye, Missy.”

  Roger got into his car and shut the door. He fired up the engine and pulled out of there, the tires inches from her toes. She watched him blow past people as they stepped into the street, his tires squealing as he turned at the exit to the cemetery.

  Missy hurried back to Noreen’s car, where her friend was helping her mom get in. Candy sat stiffly in the passenger seat, while Noreen closed the door and folded up the walker to put it in the trunk.

  “How did it go?” Noreen asked.

  “Everybody seems guilty,” Missy said. “Did you know Grant was going to propose?”

  Noreen’s eyes popped. “No.”

  Missy nodded. “He’s had the ring for two months. Do you know if Tonya and he were planning on going on a big trip or anything? Because I couldn’t think of any other reason to wait.”

  Noreen thought about it. “No. We just opened. Tonya wasn’t planning on going vacation. She planned on being here.”

  Missy nodded. “That’s what I thought. So why is Grant walking around with a ring for that long?”

  “He had second thoughts,” Noreen said. “Maybe he found out…?”

  “You should have seen the exchange between him and Roger. They were ready to kill one another.”

  Noreen pieced it together. “So maybe Grant found out and decided not to propose?”

  “But then he stays with Tonya?”

  “Maybe he just found out?”

  “Maybe.” Missy still didn’t think it made sense. “But why come to the grand opening if you’re that angry with Tonya?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long were Tonya and Roger having an affair?”

  “Missy, honestly, I wouldn’t call it an affair.”

  Missy took a deep breath and remained calm. She should have realized Noreen was going to excuse Tonya’s behavior as opposed to calling it what it was.

  “I didn’t mean anything,” Missy said. “I’m just trying to get a timeline.”

  Noreen closed the trunk. “I don’t really know. She was vague about it.”

  “When did she first mention anything to you?”

  Noreen lowered her voice as more people made their way to their cars, not wanting anyone to overhear. “She and Roger went out to dinner to discuss the tea room and had a lot to drink. One thing led to another and…it just happened. I think that was it. At least, that’s what she told me.”

  Missy had a light bulb moment. “When I mentioned Roger having worked closely with Tonya on the tea room, he denied it. He said he basically just handed a bunch of money over and let Tonya manage the operation.”

  Noreen made a face. “We were both managing the operation, Miss.”

  Missy held out a palm. “I know, I didn’t mean anything. I was just repeating what he’d said.”

  Noreen shook her head. “I knew it. I knew that guy didn’t think much of me. Tonya denied it of course, but I knew.”

  Missy wanted to say that was how she’d always felt when it came to Tonya and Noreen. Her friend had refused to see how much Tonya disliked Missy. But now wasn’t the time.

  “What about Emile?” Missy asked. “I didn’t see him.”

  “He came to the viewing but not the funeral,” Noreen said. “Which is strange, right? If you’re going to take the day off from work, why not come to the funeral?”

  “Maybe he didn’t really want to be here. Maybe he used the funeral as an excuse to take the day.”

  “I don’t know.” Noreen looked through the rear windshield. “Miss, I’ve really got to get Mom home. She’s not doing well today. They just can’t get her meds right…” Noreen shook her head. “Let’s meet up later, okay?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Missy was late getting to the bookstore.

  “Hey, Missy.” Brett smiled. “I’m glad you came back.”

  “I need the money.” No point in lying.

  She dropped her stuff in the back and went into the bathroom. The bags under her eyes screamed a poor night’s sleep. Splashing some water on her face, Missy thought about what she’d learned today. Everyone she’d talked to had a reason to kill Tonya. She wanted to consider that progress, but to her it felt like running on a treadmill: a lot of hard work to go nowhere.

  Emile Krauss was next on her list. During the school year, she could have just shown up after class to talk to him. But since it was summer, she’d have to find another way to talk to him.

  When she came out of the bathroom and returned to the main room, another person had come into the store. Unfortunately, Detective Evanski wasn’t a customer.

  “Good afternoon, Melissa.”

  The detective was dressed in a formless grey jacket and dull black pants that had been through the washer one too many times. Missy smiled.

  “Hello.”

  Brett cleared his throat. “Missy, the detective wanted to see you.”

  Evanski’s eyes were glued to Missy.

  “Okay. Should we go outside?” Missy asked.

  “That’s fine.”

  Missy told Brett she’d be back in a few, though she really had no idea how long this was going to take. On the bright side, Detective Evanski would have arrested her already if that was what she was here to do. So the Castleton police were still fishing.

  Outside, the day was bright and getting hot. Missy led the detective away from the store and toward the shade under the trees by the roadside. Long ago, someone had put a bench there. The boards were warped and sagging in the middle. Missy never thought for a moment she’d miss this bench…but she was going to.

  The detective remained standing. With her eyes on Missy, she took her notebook out.

  “I wanted to go back to something we discussed yesterday,” Evanski said.

  Missy remembered to smile. “Sure.”

  The detective peered down at her notebook as if trying to recall a certain detail. “When we asked you about yo
ur relationship with Tonya, you said you two were always civil. Do you remember saying that?”

  Missy nodded, unsure where this was going. “Yes.”

  “How do you define civil, Melissa?”

  Missy felt a lead ball forming in her stomach. Obviously, the detective had something but Missy couldn’t think of what. Sure, she and Tonya had had their disagreements in the short time they’d known each other, but nothing serious had ever happened between them.

  “We were polite,” Missy said. “Even though it was obvious we didn’t care for another.”

  “Did you ever fight?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say we ever fought.”

  “Well, what would you say?”

  Missy couldn’t tell if the detective actually had information or if she was just fishing. She decided to make Evanski work for it, whatever it was.

  “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “Here’s what I’m asking.” Evanski uncapped her pen. “You and Tonya got into several disagreements.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  The detective ignored her. “Did Tonya once help you when you had car trouble?”

  Missy recalled the day vividly, because it was the last time she’d investigated a murder herself. On her way to the crop one Saturday morning, her old truck, brimming and overstuffed with scrapbooking supplies, had died about ten minutes from the event. She’d called Noreen—not Tonya—for help, but since Noreen’s car was small and already filled with her own things, Noreen had suggested Tonya. The other woman had a large, luxury SUV with plenty of space to transport Missy’s supplies.

  “I called Noreen, but she didn’t have enough room in her car. She asked Tonya to help, who was kind enough to come out and get me.”

  “And at the crop that day, didn’t you and Tonya argue?”

  Missy thought about it. “I don’t remember arguing with her.”

  Evanski flipped to another page in her notebook. Missy was beginning to sweat, and it wasn’t from the warm summer sun.

  “You and Noreen had a heated discussion about Tonya, minutes after the woman brought you to the school. Didn’t you?”

  Missy vaguely remembered the exchange, but couldn’t recall the exact words.

  “I think I talked to Noreen about how obvious it was that Tonya didn’t like me.”

  Evanski nodded once. “You called her a bitch, didn’t you?”

  Missy frowned. She’d had a conversation with Noreen and Noreen only about Tonya. And she couldn’t picture Noreen purposely sharing this information with the detectives. Unless Noreen said it without thinking.

  Or…

  Did Noreen think Missy was guilty?

  No. She couldn’t. She’d made that clear already. Noreen had offered to help Missy clear her name.

  Unless that was a double bluff.

  “Melissa,” Evanski said. “You called her a bitch, didn’t you?”

  Missy honestly didn’t remember that. In her mind she thought back to that awful day, when they’d found one of her friends murdered in the hallway…who else had been there?

  “No, I don’t remember calling her that,” Missy said.

  Evanski grunted. “And when you found out that your friend had been killed that day, you immediately started harassing Tonya, didn’t you?”

  Missy shook her head. “Not at all. I asked her questions just like I asked everybody else questions.”

  “The police were already there. In fact, the police were there before you found out about the murder. Before you and Tonya found out about the murder.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that Olivia had died before I got to the crop. Tonya was just as good a suspect as anybody else.”

  “Really? How many crops had Tonya been to before that?” Evanski asked.

  “Who told you all this?” Missy blurted out, which was the worst thing she could have said.

  Evanski didn’t answer. “How many crops, Melissa?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe two or three before that?”

  “And Tonya had literally no other contact with the deceased other than those two or three times?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did Tonya and the deceased ever talk, to your knowledge?”

  “I don’t know…they probably did. It was a small group.”

  “A few days later, you ran into Noreen and Tonya at the bar, didn’t you?”

  Missy couldn’t believe how much information this detective had dug up on her in less than a day. It was unnerving.

  “Yes.”

  “And Noreen asked you to join them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you?”

  Missy almost asked to speak to her lawyer—not that she had one yet. “No.”

  “Why not? Your supposed best friend, Noreen, was there.”

  “I was investigating a murder,” Missy said, which was true enough.

  “You were talking to a potential suspect at the time, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “What time did you leave the bar?”

  “How can you expect me to remember that when I probably wasn’t even paying attention to the time?”

  “Let me put it like this. When you left, were Noreen and Tonya still at the bar?”

  This was getting dangerously out of control. “Yes.”

  “So it wasn’t your so-called murder investigation that got in the way of your spending time with the other women?”

  Missy felt her heart beating. “There was nothing so-called about my investigation. I was the one that solved that crime, detective.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “The only reason I was at that bar was to question the suspect. I’m not a bar-girl. When the conversation was over, I wanted to get home.”

  “Your decision had nothing to do with Tonya?”

  “I already told you: we didn’t care for each other. So why would I choose to spend my free time with her?”

  Evanski closed her notebook and said nothing. But her eyes told a different story. The woman was certain Missy was guilty now.

  “I didn’t kill Tonya,” Missy said.

  “If I talk to Noreen and ask her about that night at the bar, will she give me the same story?”

  “Go ahead and talk to her,” Missy said.

  Evanski nodded. “I will probably have more questions for you, Melissa.”

  ***

  “Hello, Paul?” Missy said.

  On the other end of the phone, Missy heard what she thought sounded like a zipper being pulled. She shuddered at the mental image that came to mind.

  She could hear the private detective’s smile in the man’s voice. “Missy DeMeanor. How are you, girl?”

  Missy had planned on never contacting Paul I.S. Gold again, after they briefly worked together on a murder investigation in which Noreen of all people was the prime suspect. The private detective was a self-proclaimed chubby-chaser and had taken every opportunity to hit on Missy and do many inappropriate things with his eyes.

  But, desperate times called for desperate measures, as they said. Missy needed information and couldn’t go through Tyler to get it without putting him at risk.

  “I’ve been better, Paul.”

  “Ohhhh. Yeah, I heard. Somebody poisoned your arch-nemesis so the keystone coppers in Castleton are looking at you.”

  Missy had to consciously keep her voice down. Nobody had come into the store, but Brett was back in his office with the door open.

  “No, Paul. We were not arch-nemeses and there’s no reason for them to look at me.”

  He laughed, and she could see him doing that annoying head-bopping thing he was so fond of. “That’s not what I heard, big girl. I heard—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What? I called you girl.”

  “You said big girl.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  “So…that’s a compliment in m
y book.”

  She was this close to cursing him out, which was saying something because Missy hadn’t cursed in about ten years. If she wasn’t suspected of murder, she would have told him to go pound sand.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I was calling to ask you a favor.”

  “Dinner and a movie and then dessert? I’m there.”

  “I’m engaged, Paul.”

  “All the good ones are always taken.” He was quiet for a stretch. “Is your boyfriend into—”

  Whatever he was going to ask, she didn’t want to hear it. “My fiancé is Tyler Brock.”

  “Oh. Oh. Okay. Okay, I didn’t mean anything.” His voice got higher in pitch than hers. “How can I help, Missy?”

  “I’m trying to get an address on someone over in Castleton.”

  “Who?”

  “Emile Krauss.”

  “The chemistry teacher?”

  “Yes, do you know him?”

  “All too well.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I had to get tough with him.”

  Missy couldn’t picture Paul I.S. Gold getting tough with anybody at five-foot six and one hundred and twenty pounds.

  “What happened?”

  “This was a couple years back. His ex hired me because she felt like he was stalking her.”

  Missy’s mind went into overdrive. So Emile Krauss, chemist, once involved with Tonya, had been a stalker?

  Paul continued. “He was smart about it, though, showing up at the same public places and making it look coincidental. It creeped her out. I got a lot of dirt, good photos and surveillance, but the judge didn’t think it was enough for a restraining order. So one night he and I had a conversation.”

  “Is he…dangerous?”

  “Not as dangerous as me, baby.”

  Missy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Not alone, Missy. Let me come with you.”

  “Paul, if he sees you coming he won’t talk to me.”

  “Ah, good point. He’ll be scared of me.” Paul hmmed. “How about I set up a surveil? That way I can keep my eyes on you.”

  Missy almost vomited in her mouth. “That’d be great, Paul. Any chance we can do this tonight?”