Christmas Cocoa Murder

by Carlene O'Connor

  “Perhaps we should hear her out,” I said. “Let her explain herself. It’s not like she can go anywhere.”

  “I agree,” Carol said. “We can’t condemn her yet, not until we know all the facts.”

  Both men stopped advancing, though neither looked happy about it.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and moved to stand next to Rita. I took her hand and squeezed it to let her know I was still on her side.

  “All right, then.” Yuri crossed his arms and tapped his foot. “If you didn’t do it, explain to us how the mug got into your room.”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know,” Rita said. “It wasn’t there when I’d searched the room earlier, I’d swear to it. Someone must have planted it there after we escaped!”

  Bob snorted. “Who would do something like that?” he asked. “This isn’t some movie.”

  “The killer might have,” Carol said. “History is rife with people planting evidence in order to frame someone else for their crimes.”

  “Rita didn’t have the opportunity to swap the mugs,” I insisted. “She didn’t escape her room until after Lewis was discovered.”

  “As far as you know, she didn’t,” Troy said. “She could have gotten out early, killed Mr. Coates, and then snuck back in.”

  “I never would have done such a thing!” Rita said. “Krissy is right. I never left my room, not until after he was found.”

  “I think we should tie her up,” Yuri said. “Keep her from hurting anyone else.”

  “And if she didn’t do it?” Carol asked. “Then you’re detaining an innocent woman.”

  “Better than leaving a killer run free,” Bob said.

  “That’s enough!” I shouted. “This is getting us nowhere.” All eyes turned to me and I lowered my voice. “Rita was talking the entire time she was in her room. If she would have left to kill Lewis, I would have noticed.”

  “And why should we believe you?” Yuri asked. “You’re her friend. You could be covering for her.”

  “Maybe she’s in on it too,” Troy said.

  “If Rita killed Lewis, I wouldn’t protect her,” I said. “I’d turn her in to the police myself if I had to.”

  “What?” Rita turned hurt eyes on me. “I can’t believe you’d abandon me like that. After everything I’ve done for you . . .” She sniffed as if genuinely hurt.

  “I’m not abandoning you,” I told her before turning back to the group at large. “She’s innocent. Yes, I know her, which means, I also know she’s incapable of hurting anyone. Something else is going on here.”

  Glares were shared around the room. Yuri, Troy, and Bob were watching Rita like they thought she might sprout horns and a tail at any moment. Jerry stood quietly alone against the wall, not meeting anyone’s eye.

  Only June and Carol seemed sympathetic toward Rita, though June would likely side with whatever Troy decided. The mere fact that the men wanted her to be guilty was going to make this harder than it should be.

  But at least they weren’t tying her up with Christmas lights just yet. I had time to make things right.

  “Did you touch the mug?” I asked Yuri.

  His scowl moved from Rita to me. “No. I’m smarter than that.”

  “Good. Did anyone have mittens in their room?”

  “I did,” June said, raising her hand. When everyone looked at her, she reddened.

  “Could you get them for me?”

  “Why?” Troy asked, holding June tight so she couldn’t do as I asked. She looked uncomfortable in his grip, but didn’t complain.

  “We should investigate the mug,” I said. “We can’t check it for fingerprints here, but maybe there’ll be some clue on it that will help us figure out who actually killed Lewis Coates. The mittens will allow me to pick it up without leaving prints of my own.” And would hopefully protect any that were there for when we could finally call the police.

  Troy didn’t look convinced, but he let June go. She gave him a worried look before she hurried into her room to find the mittens.

  “We all need to remain calm,” I said. “If we keep throwing accusations around before we have any sort of proof of who is actually guilty, we’re only going to make things worse.”

  Jerry chuckled and shook his head. As a target of similar accusations, including ones from me, it was no wonder he found my words amusing.

  June returned with the mittens then. They were thick, nearly full-on snow gloves, and were a size too big for my hands, but I pulled them on anyway.

  “Show me,” I told Yuri.

  He shot Rita one more sharp glare before he turned away. “In here.”

  Rita’s room was a mess. The knickknacks, which had sat upon the shelves at the start of the escape room, had been knocked to the floor. Whether by Rita during her search, or when Yuri had entered her room to look for the mug, I didn’t know. I had to step over a broken ceramic reindeer on my way in.

  “Where?” I asked, appalled by the mess. If Lewis hadn’t been murdered, seeing the destruction might have killed him.

  Yuri pointed to the corner where a red sleigh leaned against the wall. “Behind that.”

  I crossed the room and knelt beside the sleigh. It was one of those smaller ones that are more often referred to as a sled, but it amounted to the same thing. It could fit two sitting adults, maybe three if they were small and were smooshed together.

  Thanks to the Christmas lights on the wall above, and the slats of the sleigh itself, there was light sifting in behind it. The mug sat on the floor, half covered by a baby’s blanket, the kind with an animal head on one end. This one was a polar bear. Its wide black eyes stared back at me, almost accusingly, as I brushed it aside so I could pull the mug out from behind the sleigh.

  As I rose, I noted the mug was indeed a match for the others in the central room. Using just my fingertips on the handle, I carried it out into the main room, where everyone else was waiting. I moved to stand where the light was best and turned the mug over in my hand.

  “Well?” Bob asked.

  The inside of the mug glimmered faintly as I looked inside it. The number 7 was written in black ink inside, on the bottom, but it was the shimmer that I was most interested in.

  I ran a finger along the inside of the mug. “It’s damp inside.” The mittens were black, with a wreath design on the back, so I couldn’t see much in the way of color. I brought my finger up to my nose and sniffed. “Chocolate.”

  “As in hot cocoa?” Carol asked, even as she took a step away from Rita.

  I nodded and spun the mug around in my hand a few more times. “There’s nothing else on it that will tell us who might have hidden it in Rita’s room.” I’d been hoping for a clue of some sort, but, apparently, our killer was smarter than that. “It does tell us something important, though.”

  “What’s that?” Yuri asked.

  “The mug was swapped after Lewis filled it with hot cocoa. That means Carol didn’t make the change when she came in here before the event started.”

  Carol’s hand fluttered to her chest and a relieved look came over her face. “I told you I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Just because she didn’t do it then, doesn’t mean she didn’t do it later,” Bob said. “She was the first out of the room.”

  “As far as we know,” I said, glancing at Jerry. “What we do know is that the mug was on the table with the others when Lewis came in to fill them. Afterward, he led us to our rooms, where we entered, alone. During that time, someone snuck out and swapped the mugs before anyone else escaped. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “It has to be her,” Troy said, pointing at Rita. “The mug was in her room. She snuck out, swapped them out, and then took it back to her room to hide it.”

  “We can’t be sure of that yet,” I said. “What we do know is that Lewis must have seen the mug. I don’t see a camera anywhere, but I imagine he had a way to keep tabs on us.”

  June’s eyes widened as she looked around the room.


  “If he was watching, then wouldn’t he have seen who swapped the mugs?” Jerry asked.

  “It’s possible,” I said. “He could have been watching the whole thing, including the swap.”

  “And what?” Carol asked. “He came in to investigate?”

  “He’d almost have to, wouldn’t he?” I said. “Someone messed with his game. He might not have thought it was anything sinister, just a prank, but he would have come in to see why the mug was changed out.”

  “If he wasn’t watching, he wouldn’t have known to come in,” June said.

  “Which brings us back to the idea that perhaps Lewis wasn’t the intended victim,” Yuri said.

  All eyes swiveled to Jerry.

  “I didn’t do it!” It came out as a whine. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “I need a box,” I said. Just holding the mug was giving me the heebie-jeebies. It might not have been the murder weapon, but it had played a role in Lewis’s death. “Something we can use to store evidence for the police.”

  “One sec.” Carol vanished into her room and returned a moment later with a holiday-themed popcorn tin. “Will this work?”

  I took the tin from her and checked inside to make sure it was empty. “It’s perfect.” I carefully placed the mug inside, standing it up so the hot cocoa remnants wouldn’t leak out. I then went to Lewis’s body. Using the rim, rather than the booby-trapped handle, I picked up the murder weapon and set it inside with the other. After a moment’s thought, I added both mittens, just in case I’d gotten something on them when touching the mugs.

  “You’re probably contaminating evidence putting them together like that,” Bob grumbled, but he didn’t make a move to stop me.

  Carol handed me the lid to the tin and I sealed it closed. I placed it in a corner where we could all keep an eye on it. If the killer decided to try to dispose of it, someone would inevitably see them.

  Once that was done, I turned to face Yuri. “When did you escape your room?” I asked him.

  “Me?” he asked. “Why?”

  “I know for a fact Rita didn’t kill Lewis.” Both Bob and Troy made disgruntled sounds at that, but I ignored them. “Which means, someone else did.”

  “And you think it was me?” Yuri asked with a laugh. “Why would I kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “And I never said you did. But instead of us standing around, accusing each other of murder, don’t you think it would be best if we all explained how we couldn’t have done it?”

  Yuri narrowed his eyes at me, as if suspecting I had ulterior motives, which, admittedly, I did. I wanted to take the heat off of Rita, and, hopefully, get to the bottom of this mess before someone did something stupid.

  “I didn’t pay attention to who escaped before me,” he said. “All I know for sure was it was after Carol screamed, but before a lot of you got out.”

  “Was anyone with you when you went into Rita’s room?”

  He opened his mouth, and then closed it again without speaking. Instead, he crossed his arms and glared. He knew exactly why I was asking.

  “If we assume Rita had nothing to do with the murder, then that means the mug was planted, right?”

  No answer, not that I expected one.

  “Since you knew the rooms were going to be searched, it isn’t hard to imagine you grabbing the mug and taking it into Rita’s room to hide it. Then, while the rest of us are searching elsewhere, you conveniently find it, putting her in the crosshairs.”

  “I did no such thing,” Yuri said.

  “You were alone in there,” Bob said.

  “That doesn’t mean I hid the mug,” he said. “I found it, that’s all. Besides, when would I have retrieved the mug anyway? I didn’t go into my room, and I surely wasn’t carrying it around with me this entire time.”

  It was my turn to open my mouth and then close it without a word. His shirt fit snugly around his torso, and his pants were likewise tight. There was no way he could have hidden a bulky mug on him; none of us could have.

  “You could have hidden it in the room here,” June said. Her voice was small, frightened, as if she was afraid that accusing Yuri of anything might turn her into the next target. “And then grabbed it when no one was looking.”

  “Impossible,” Yuri said. “I might have gone into the room by myself, but he saw me do it.” He pointed at Bob. “He knows I didn’t have time to dig the thing out from wherever you think I might have hidden it before starting my search, not without getting caught.”

  “That’s true,” Bob said.

  “Maybe we should focus on who had an opportunity to swap the mugs in the first place,” Carol said. “That’s the most important element here, don’t you think?”

  As much as I’d hoped to find a clue on who hid the mug in Rita’s room, Carol was right. If we figured out who wasn’t where they were supposed to be while the rest of us were trying to escape our individual rooms, then we’d likely have our killer.

  My gaze swept across the room, hoping to glean something from the faces of the people there. Rita looked both worried and annoyed to have been thrust into the focus of the investigation, but was thankfully not in any more risk, as of yet. Yuri looked angry. June and Troy were clutching at one another like they feared they’d be torn apart.

  Then, as my eyes passed over Bob, I was once again reminded of his delay in answering me when we were trapped in our initial rooms. He’d said it was because he couldn’t find the mic, but they weren’t exactly hidden. As soon as he heard my voice, he’d know where to look.

  Bob’s head turned my way, as if he could feel my stare. His eyes were bloodshot, narrowed. We maintained eye contact for a good five seconds before he spoke.

  “I need a moment to clear my head,” he said, before he turned and walked into the room he’d been locked in earlier. He pushed the door closed, but not all the way, so it didn’t lock.

  “What are we going to do?” Carol asked.

  I stared after Bob, and then made up my mind. “Bob’s right. We all need to clear our heads. Let’s take five minutes to think things through.”

  No one seemed happy about it, but that was none of my concern. I had other reasons for wanting a few minutes without everyone breathing down my neck.

  Making sure no one was watching me too carefully, I crossed the room, and then slipped into the room Bob Mackey had vanished into a moment before.

  Chapter Seven

  Bob stood at the far end of the room, shoulders hunched. His back was to me, so I couldn’t tell what he was doing, though I assumed it wasn’t anything good. A small, ceramic Christmas tree sat on a table next to him. Its plug hung over the edge of the table to dangle just above the floor.

  “Couldn’t take it,” Bob said, glancing back at me. The look in his eye told me he wasn’t surprised I’d followed him. He patted his suit jacket pocket before he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and turned. “The blinking. The lights. They made my head hurt.”

  “Do you need to take something?” I asked. I had ibuprofen in my purse, which I couldn’t get to anyway, but I hadn’t intended the question to be taken seriously.

  Bob’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was pained, almost self-deprecating in nature. “Oh, I already have everything I need. I’m just not sure it’s actually helping anything. It rarely does, to be honest.”

  We stood facing one another from across the room in tense silence. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of his whereabouts during our initial escape without sounding accusatory. Out in the main room, I could hear the others talking amongst themselves. No one was yelling, which I took as a good sign.

  Bob ran a hand over his mouth, and then looked at it like he expected to find something there. “What is it you want from me?” he asked. “You didn’t follow me in here because you wanted to admire the view. Might have thought it possible a few years back, when I was younger and fitter, but not now.” His laugh was bitter.

  “I
wanted to ask you a few questions about earlier, when we were escaping these rooms.” I indicated the overly jolly room. “For clarification purposes.”

  Bob blinked at me. He, otherwise, didn’t respond.

  Okay, then. There was something going on with him, something I couldn’t pinpoint. This wasn’t the same loud man who’d shouted down his coworker. A darkness hung over him, and I had to wonder if it had something to do with Lewis’s murder.

  “Do you remember when we were trapped in our individual rooms, how I talked to you through the mic?”

  “I do. You needed Christmas trees.” He nudged the ceramic one next to him with his elbow.

  “I did. But when I first tried to talk to you, you didn’t respond right away.”

  Another long blink before, “And? I already told you what happened.”

  “You did,” I said. “But I don’t quite buy it. It should have only taken you a couple of seconds to find the mic and respond, but it took nearly a minute.”

  Bob grunted a laugh and ran his fingers through his hair before looking to the ceiling. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here. Dark is better. Dark is safer, yet I was so sick of movies and alleyways. I thought . . . Honestly, I don’t know what I thought. I needed somewhere to go, and this sounded like something that might help, I don’t know, ease my mind.”

  “Ease your mind? What do you mean by that?”

  Bob’s gaze dropped to mine. That self-deprecating smile was back. He reached into his inner suit pocket, causing me to tense, but it wasn’t a weapon he pulled free.

  It was a flask.

  “Wife hates it.” He unscrewed the cap and took a long pull from the flask before capping it. “I hate it. But you know how it is. Once you start, it’s not like you can just up and quit. Mouth goes dry, and mind gets stuck on repeat. Can’t help yourself.”

  He stared at the flask before tucking it back into his pocket.

  “I’ve never hit my wife, or gotten too drunk to stand. But the smell, it sticks with you. No matter how many mints I eat, how much mouthwash I use, it’s there. And then my health . . .” He shook his head, then spread his hands. “Look at me. I’m sure it’s slowly killing me—these things always do.”