Peppermint Chocolate Murder (A Maple Hills Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 2

  “The mayor solved the murder by confessing to the woman he went to kill,” Nikki corrected Lidia.

  “You're not going to take any credit, are you?”

  “I was...a little green,” Nikki confessed. “I did get my feet wet, though, and that felt nice.”

  “So let your feet dry off,” Lidia begged. “Honey, let Hawk do his job. You have a nice store that's doing very well. A lot of the locals have been in wanting to see you, too. You're a big hit. Your place as a permanent resident here is sealed.”

  “A man from Atlanta, Georgia, has been found dead,” Nikki emphasized to Lidia. “If this gets out, people are going to look directly at me, and Hawk knows that. He's being calm, but he knows that soon I'm going to be the number one suspect. On the last case, I acted in order to protect myself before I learned all the facts. Lidia, I have to protect myself on this case, too.”

  “I have to admit, it is a little strange, since you moved here from that area,” Lidia told Nikki. “If I didn't know you the way I did, I openly admit that I would suspect you, dear.”

  “Exactly,” Nikki pointed out. “Lidia, I need you and Tori to go out to the lodge, pretend you want a room, and look around. I can't take a chance getting caught out there. If I'm seen at the lodge, then I'll be tagged for sure.”

  Lidia stared at Nikki for a long time and then stood up. Quickly closing the office door, she looked at her employer as if she were insane. “Honey, a man has been found dead, and you're asking Tori and me to place ourselves in harm’s way?”

  “Kinda,” Nikki admitted nervously. “Lidia, I need you and Tori to go to the lodge and pretend to be tourists on your way to Canada. Let me explain why.” Lidia listened as Nikki described the young man she had seen at the lodge. “I need for Tori to be a little...well, flirtatious.”

  “Assuming that young man even comes to the front counter,” Lidia pointed out.

  “Yes,” Nikki agreed in a heavy voice. “There is no guarantee he'll even be around. But if he is, I need for you two to see if he acts mentally ill the way Hawk described.”

  “And you think this young man is the killer?”

  “I'm not sure,” Nikki confessed. “One step at a time, okay? I'll watch the store...and I’ll throw in a bonus!” she added, hoping to bribe Lidia into agreeing.

  Hearing a knock at the office door, Lidia turned and opened it. Tori peeped her head in. Again, Nikki couldn't get over how beautiful the young woman was. But as always, Tori was wearing a small t-shirt over a pair of jeans and looking defeated and sad. “It's kinda busy out here; I need some help,” she told Nikki in an apologetic voice.

  “Of course, dear.” Lidia smiled and hurried out into the store.

  Tori turned to follow, but Nikki called her into the office. “Yes, Ms. Bates?” Tori asked nervously.

  “Tori, honey...” Nikki began to speak, wondering how she was going to convince the young woman to risk the halls of homicide, “can you keep a secret?”

  “A secret?” Tori asked. “I...yes, I can keep a secret.”

  Diving into dangerous waters, Nikki explained to Tori about the man found dead at Elk Horn Lodge, and then, diving into deeper waters, she explained to Tori the favor she needed. “I know I'm asking a lot, but I don't see any real danger in this. I'm sure you and Lidia will be fine.”

  “A man from Atlanta,” Tori whispered, “Nikki, that's where you're from.”

  “I'm actually from a town north of Atlanta, but yes, I lived in Atlanta before moving to Vermont,” Nikki admitted.

  “My goodness, everyone will think you're involved somehow. I mean, your name is all over town. There's some people who are upset that you had the mayor arrested. They're claiming he had a nervous breakdown and didn't deserve to go to jail. Other people are happy about what you did…well, most people, as a matter of fact,” Tori explained, keeping her eyes on the ground.

  Gently, Nikki stood up, walked to Tori, and lifted her chin with her finger. “Dear, don't be shy or afraid to look me in the eyes. I'm your friend. I care about you.”

  Tori blushed and quickly looked down. “I know,” she said in a shaky voice.

  Unable to help herself, Nikki reached out and hugged the young woman. “Oh, I wish you were my own daughter,” she said. “Let's just forget my idea of sending you and Lidia out to the lodge, okay?”

  Shocked that Nikki was hugging her, Tori felt something inside her heart move. Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and hugged Nikki back. “I'll go to the lodge,” she announced. “We have to help you.”

  “Are you sure?” Nikki asked, letting go of Tori and looking her in the eyes.

  Tori nodded her head. “Ms. Bates, you have been very kind to me. I...really like you. Please, let me help you.”

  “Such a brave girl,” Nikki said and hugged Tori again. “Okay, here's what I need you to do. This young man might actually be mentally ill, or he might be simply pretending to be mentally ill. All I need for you to do, if he's there, is to flirt with him some. Don't throw an entire bottle of perfume at him, but spray some in the air and see how he reacts.”

  “I'll do my best,” Tori promised.

  “I'll wait here at the store,” Nikki said and walked Tori out of the office.

  Lidia was helping a customer. When she saw Tori's face, she sighed miserably. After helping the customer and ringing up a sale, she walked to Tori, took her hand, and told Nikki they would be back before closing time. Nikki watched Lidia and Tori leave, said a quick prayer for their safety, and then began attending to the customers in her store. It wasn't long before she got caught up in the motions of dealing with customers, handing out samples, bagging chocolates, and ringing up sales. For a few hours she completely forgot that earlier in the morning she had seen a dead body.

  Chapter Four

  Lidia eased her car up to the front lobby of the lodge. Scared, tense, and worried that she was placing Tori's life in danger, she turned off the ignition. Taking in a deep breath of the strawberry car scent hanging on the rear-view mirror, she studied the front lobby. “We're just checking the prices,” she explained. “We get in there and then get out.”

  Tori let her eyes walk around. The lodge was beautiful. Every fiber in her being wanted to rush to the lake and go swimming. “It's so beautiful,” she said.

  “Beauty can be deceiving,” Lidia warned Tori. “Okay, we can't sit all day. Let's go, but if anything happens, you run, do you understand me? I won't let anything happen to you. I've grown very fond you, Tori.”

  Tori looked at Lidia. She had no idea that the woman cared for her so deeply. “We'll be okay,” she promised.

  Getting out of the car, Tori walked with Lidia up to the lobby entrance. Giving Tori a 'use-caution' eye, she pulled open a wooden door and stepped through. Tori followed. Together they entered a cozy front room that had a magnificent stone fireplace. Walking across a soft brown carpet hugging log walls, Lidia and Tori both were captivated by the appealing atmosphere and rustic design. “Beautiful,” Lidia whispered.

  “It sure is,” Tori agreed, taking it all in. The smell of pine was thick in the air, mingled with the scent of fireplace smoke from the previous winter.

  Lidia quickly nudged Tori with her elbow and nodded at a wooden front counter. The young man Nikki had seen step outside the lobby earlier stood up from a black office chair. “Help you?” he asked in a voice that seemed far too impolite, Lidia noticed.

  “Yes, my niece and I are going to vacation in this area for a week, and we're checking prices,” Lidia said approaching the counter and drawing the young man's features into her memory. The face staring across the front counter at her did not appear to be the face of someone who was mentally ill… or did it?

  Tori quickly jumped into character. Offering a cute smile, she forced her eyes to make contact. “It's very nice here. I love the lake.”

  “Yeah, the lake is nice,” the young man told Tori, taking in her beauty the way a wolf looks at an innocent rabbit. “Listen, ladies, w
e're expecting a large group in a few days. We don't have any vacancies. Try someplace in town, okay?”

  “Oh, but the lake, Aunt Milda,” Tori pouted, throwing a fake name into the air.

  “Well, I'm sure we'll find a nice hotel to stay at. This one does seem a little out of our budget,” Lidia told Tori. “We're sorry to have bothered you.”

  “No bother,” the young man said and smiled at Tori. “Maybe we'll see each other around?”

  “Maybe,” Tori smiled back. Walking back outside with Lidia, she quickly got in the car. Lidia, not wanting to seem suspicious, eased away from the lodge and raced back toward town. “What a jerk,” Tori said in a disgusted voice.

  “He's not mentally ill,” Lidia pointed out, “not in the sense Hawk wants Nikki to believe.”

  Tori sunk down into her seat. “Ms. Bates is in real trouble, isn't she?”

  Regretfully, Lidia nodded her head yes. Easing her foot off the gas pedal, she slowed down to the prescribed speed limit. Looking out at the beautiful landscape, she knew that once word got around about the death of a man from Georgia, Nikki Bates would be in some serious hot water. “That woman has a dark cloud following her.”

  “She's so nice,” Tori told Lidia. “She...hugged me. I haven't been hugged in a very long time.”

  “That woman would adopt you if she could,” Lidia pointed out. “The question is, what do we do now? Tori, honey, I'm getting to be an old lady. I can't become involved in dangerous things like this. I have Herbert to think about. I have our future to think about and...I'm sitting here making up a bunch of miserable excuses as to why I shouldn’t help a friend.”

  “We'll help Ms. Bates,” Tori promised Lidia.

  Lidia didn't speak again until she and Tori were safely back in the store. When they walked in, they found Chief Daily talking to Nikki. “Just come down to the station when you close up,” he told Nikki, and he walked out of the store, indifferent to the customers and how his presence might affect them.

  “You handle the customers,” Lidia told Tori and pulled Nikki into the office. “What did he want?”

  Nikki closed the office door. “He wants to question me,” Nikki told Lidia, shaking her head. “You're back earlier than I thought you would be.”

  “Your mystery boy was sitting behind the front counter,” Lidia explained. “Nikki, honey, that boy isn't at all the way Hawk describes him to be. In fact, he's very handsome and, as you said, appears to be very smart. Except for acting like a wolf toward Tori, he was a cold fish, too.”

  “So he's pretending to be mentally ill, but if he was sitting at the front counter...” Nikki began to think as she paced around the cramped office. “Mr. and Mrs. Snowfield may be hiding his little act...”

  “I didn't see them,” Lidia told Nikki sitting down at the desk. “The boy did mention something about a ladies’ group that was due to arrive in a few days.”

  “He did?” Nikki asked. “That's very interesting. I might have to take a look at that guest list. I'll ask Hawk to get the list for me.”

  Lidia gave Nikki a concerned face. “Chief Daily appeared very sour when he walked out of here, honey. The man may be a nit-wit, but he is still Chief of Police, and that position comes with certain powers.”

  Nikki returned Lidia's concerned looks with knowing eyes. “I have Hawk on my side, and he'll help me balance the scales some. That's what friends are for, right?”

  “We both know Hawk wants to be more than just friends with you,” Lidia pointed out. “You could do worse, dear. Hawk is a good man.”

  “I'm not ready,” Nikki reiterated. “Lidia, I loved my ex-husband. I explained to you how we met. It was love at first sight. At times I want to call him just to hear his voice, and at other times I want to strangle him. I know our marriage has dissolved, and I'm...accepting that truth. Even if I were still married, I wouldn't be happy. My ex-husband has moved on with his life, and so have I, but old wounds take time to heal. My heart isn't ready to open up to the notion of allowing someone else into my life. I agree that Hawk is a nice man, but if he cares about me, he'll be my friend.”

  “Give it time,” Lidia said and offered Nikki a loving motherly smile. “So,” she said taking a deep breath, “I guess I better get back into the ball game and go help Tori with some of our customers.”

  “Thanks,” Nikki said and quickly hugged Lidia. “I'm going to go home and grab a bite to eat before I go see Chief Daily.”

  Lidia didn't believe Nikki. “Where are you really going?” she asked, concerned.

  “Honestly, I'm going home,” Nikki promised. “I need some time to think matters over. If I know Hawk, he'll be at the police station when I arrive. I'm guessing he's going to ask me to eat dinner with him...as friends. At least I hope he does. I need to find out what he's come up with so far.”

  Chapter Five

  After leaving her store, Nikki eased through town as quietly as possible, admiring the relaxed tourists roaming from shop to shop, standing outside on the sidewalks, holding small dogs on tight leashes, sipping cold drinks, talking, laughing, and enjoying life. Even though Nikki knew there wasn't a person in the world who didn't have a problem or two, the tourists she passed seemed to be without a single care or concern. Thinking back to the trips she had taken with her husband when they were first married, Nikki remembered walking around cozy little towns the same way the tourists in her town were doing...just walking hand-in-hand with her husband, forgetting all her cares, melting into the moment.

  Feeling tears begin to well up in her eyes, Nikki pushed her old memories away and packed them back in a tight trunk where they belonged. “Let's focus on the case at hand,” she told herself as she drove out of town.

  Back at her cabin, Nikki sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of hot cocoa. Sure, it was hot outside, but cocoa always lifted her sad mood. Taking careful sips, she savored the creamy taste of the cocoa mixed in with a little milk. Closing her eyes, she stretched her ears to hear the sounds of the soft jazz playing on her computer in the living room. “Okay,” she whispered, “let's think. A man from your part of the country was found dead in a room three miles from the Canadian border with an empty suitcase. The man lived in a posh part of Atlanta, drove a very nice BMW, and dressed to impress. But all that is a farce, isn't it?”

  Nikki walked her mind back to the lodge, wandered up to the parked BMW, studied the car for a few minutes, and then crept inside the Deep Woods room. Walking up to the bed, she cast her eyes down onto the face of Mr. Johnson. “What were you doing here?” she asked, examining the man's peaceful slumber. “You were here to accept money, or drugs, and then drive into Canada, but how would you have crossed the border?”

  Nikki bit down on her lower lip. “I need to see the border,” she said.

  Forcing her body to remain seated, Nikki calmly sipped her hot cocoa. Not having seen the Canadian border that sat north of her new town, she wasn't sure what to expect. The road leading up to the border was a simple two-lane back road that exhausted snow plows during the winter season. “If I was in a hurry to cross into Canada as quietly as possible, I would take a back road, too,” Nikki said, finally standing up. Walking to the kitchen sink she rinsed out the cup, hurried to the bathroom, and then made tracks toward the front door. Right before she could open the front door, someone knocked.

  Startled, Nikki stepped back. Feeling her heart racing, she carefully called out, “Who is it?”

  “Hawk.”

  Relieved, Nikki opened the front door, but to her disappointment, Chief Daily was also standing on the front porch. “Out here,” he told Nikki in an impatient voice.

  Nikki looked at Hawk. Hawk gave her a 'this is important' look. Closing the front door behind her, with her purse in hand, Nikki stepped out onto the front porch. “You didn't have to come to my home. I told you I would make a trip to the station at the set time,” she told Chief Daily in an annoyed voice, hoping that her demeanor hid her worry.

  “Ms. Bates, my son ran
Mr. Johnson through the system,” Chief Daily said in a rough voice. “It seems that this Mr. Johnson is a ghost. We can't even get anything off the man's prints, for crying out loud.”

  “Not a thing,” Hawk told Nikki, supporting Chief Daily's statement. “The driver’s license has to be a fake. The BMW was stolen. Seems we have a shadow on our hands.”

  “What about the address on the driver's license?” Nikki asked and then realized she had said too much.

  “What?” Chief Daily asked gritting his teeth. “How do you...” Looking at Hawk with angry eyes, he shook his head. “I should have known.”

  “The address belongs to a house that burnt down eight days ago,” Hawk told Nikki, ignoring Chief Daily's anger. “Nikki, I can't even get a facial recognition match on this guy in the system. Whoever this guy is, he's a John Doe right now.”

  “Where were you last night?” Chief Daily fired at Nikki. “I want answers, do you hear me?”

  “Not in that tone of voice,” Nikki fired back. Having dealt with her share of angry policemen in the past, she wasn't about to back down from Chief Daily, even though she was worried about her own situation. “You can speak to me with the proper amount of respect or leave my property at once. This is America, and I still have my rights under the Constitution. So unless you're placing me under arrest, you can shove it in your eye, Chief.”

  Hawk grinned and then wiped at his lip with his finger. Glancing at Chief Daily he watched the man's face turn red as a firecracker. But what could he do? Nikki was right. Hawk knew that his Pop was walking on thin ice, and if he wasn't careful he was liable to have a harassment case thrown at him. “Ms. Bates,” Chief Daily said lowering his tone while taking deep breaths, “where were you last night between midnight and three o'clock?”

  “Here, making chocolate,” Nikki answered Chief Daily in a calm tone. “I made peppermint chocolate fudge until...oh, two o'clock, and then I went to bed. I slept until eight. Hawk arrived at nine for morning coffee.”