Coconut Chocolate Murder (A Maple Hills Cozy Mystery Book 7) Page 3

  The old man began to explore the chocolate shop casually, the way a dog sniffs at a strange scent. “The person I am after is a killer, Ms. Bates. Your life will be in danger as you track this person for me.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said cautiously.

  “Second, whoever the killer is may know that I’m in town,” the old man continued as he stopped at the front counter and examined the chocolate display case. “I suppose if the killer knows that I have arrived, he or she might try to leave.”

  Nikki sighed. “Please do not ask me to go chasing across the country after your killer,” she said.

  “I don't believe the matter will end that way,” the old man confirmed. “It has been many years, and at this stage, because records show that I passed away several years ago, it's possible the killer assumes that he or she will live out of the rest of their life in peace. Not so.”

  “You're assumed dead?” Nikki asked curiously.

  “Yes, but as you can clearly see, Ms. Bates, I am very much alive and still very dangerous. Never forget that.”

  Nikki fought the urge to roll her eyes. “I've made a mental note of your threats,” she said in a steady voice.

  The old man tapped the front counter with his right index finger and began to stroll around the store. “Last, Ms. Bates,” he continued, “the killer should be between the ages of forty and fifty.”

  “That doesn't help me,” Nikki pointed out as she watched the old man circle her chocolate shop like a strange vulture searching for a certain piece of candy.

  He stopped at a wooden shelf and examined a line of strawberry chocolate candy bars. “I'm aware that I am not revealing information that is helpful,” he told Nikki in a low voice. “Ms. Bates, the police marked my wife's murder as unsolved and placed her case into the cold files. The killer—whoever he or she is—committed a murder and walked away like a gust of wind, leaving only a small trace of dirt behind.”

  “Explain,” Nikki said patiently.

  The old man continued to stare at the chocolate bars as a powerful gust of wind brushed up against the front door, rattling the bells hanging over the entrance. “The only piece of evidence left at the crime scene were a few letters my wife managed to scrawl on her bedroom floor with a tube of pink lipstick. It wasn't until last year that I was able to determine their meaning.”

  “What happened last year?” Nikki asked.

  “A computer program called 'Code Sword'. This program was created by the Department of Defense.”

  “The Department of Defense has programs to break codes,” Nikki pointed out. “I'm assuming this Code Sword program was invented for that purpose?”

  “Yes,” the old man explained, “but Code Sword was created to decode an ancient Japanese language used during World War II. The American government is very interested in breaking these codes which are currently in use once more.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said, making mental notes, “you plugged in the letters that were found written on the bedroom floor, left behind by your wife, and the program tossed the name of my town into your lap?”

  “Yes,” the old man replied. He raised his eyes up and focused on Nikki. “The data I retrieved from the Code Sword program gave me the name of this town.”

  “Why me?” Nikki asked. “And how do you know who killed Mrs. Grove?”

  The old man lowered his eyes back down to the chocolate bars and took one. “May I?”

  “Go ahead,” Nikki said. “Now please, answer my questions.”

  “If you find the killer, you will find the answers you need,” he informed Nikki, placing the chocolate bar into his right jacket pocket. “Ms. Bates, I have given you all the information I have. Now you must flush out the killer. The path you decide to take on your journey is your own.”

  “Can I at least know your wife’s name?” Nikki asked, refusing to allow her voice sound desperate.

  “Jane,” the old man said in a sad voice. “I will be in touch, Ms. Bates.”

  Nikki watched him leave through the back door and vanish. “Great,” she sighed miserably. “I've got to locate a gust of wind and find out who murdered Mrs. Grove... Happy autumn, Nikki.”

  Standing silently next to the front counter, Nikki listened to the strong winds howling outside. The winds seemed to be changing the world into a mysterious, dangerous whisper that would soon shatter into screams. She began to feel lost, isolated and strange. “All I need is a fedora, a long overcoat, a dusty office, and for everything to go black and white,” she whispered.

  She heard the front door open and saw Hawk appear. “Pop called,” he told her in a regretful voice. “We better get back to the station. A bunch of locals are arriving with their pitchforks and torches.”

  “The old man was in here,” Nikki told Hawk.

  “What?” Hawk exclaimed. “When? Where did he go? Are you okay?”

  Nikki raised her hand. “Slow down, big guy,” she begged. “Yes, I'm fine. But I've got my work cut out for me. Hawk, now I have to find two killers instead of one.”

  Hawk listened as Nikki revealed to him every word the old man had spoken to her. Rubbing his chin, he walked to the shelf holding the strawberry chocolate bars. “He took a candy bar?”

  Nikki nodded. “I know I shouldn't have let him take the candy, Hawk, but what choice did I have? I'm sure that old scarecrow had a gun hidden on his body.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “What do you make out of all this?” Nikki asked, walking up to Hawk and placing her head on his shoulder.

  Hawk gently patted the side of Nikki's face with a warm, caring hand. “I'm not sure, but I'm going to try and find out. Come on, we better get back down to the station.”

  Nikki locked up her store and drove back to the police station with Hawk. Sitting silently in the passenger seat, she watched the wind toss the leaves across streets and past cozy homes and buildings. But instead of feeling warm and secure in her small town, Nikki felt very afraid. When Hawk pulled his jeep into the parking lot at the police station, and she saw a crowd of angry people yelling at Chief Daily, she closed her eyes. “Oh, Hawk...”

  Hawk patted her shoulder. “Hey, now, you listen to me. You're a fighter. Don't you pay any mind to what these loud-mouths are screaming.”

  The crowd of angry people were yelling “Killer!” and “Murderer!” at Chief Daily, who was struggling to quiet them. Standing in front of the main entrance, he raised his hands into the cold air. “Everyone, listen to me—Ms. Bates is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now, you have every right to gather and protest... peacefully. Right now, you're disturbing the peace.”

  “Nikki Bates is a curse!” a woman in her mid-fifties yelled at Chief Daily.

  “Why are you protecting a killer?” a man hollered. “When voting season arrives, we'll vote in a man who will protect the people instead of a killer!”

  “Nikki Bates poisoned poor Mrs. Grove,” a second woman yelled. “That awful woman has brought nothing but darkness to our town!”

  Chief Daily narrowed his eyes and toughened his voice. “Now you listen to me. I am still the Chief of Police in this town. If you want to vote in a new Chief of Police when voting season arrives, do so. But for now, I'm the law, and I will not tolerate anyone—and I mean anyone—slandering another person. If Ms. Bates is guilty, she will answer for her crime. If she is innocent, I expect everyone standing here to leave her alone and keep your mouths shut!”

  The crowd of people stared at Chief Daily in shock. Never before had any one of them heard the man speak in such a harsh way. Expecting to bully a man who appeared to be a weak civil servant, they quickly learned that Chief Daily could become a fierce grizzly bear when pushed into a corner. One man, however, was undeterred. “Get rid of that woman!” he yelled at Chief Daily, “or someone else just might.”

  The man didn't see Hawk walk up behind him. Hawk grabbed the man, slung him down onto the sidewalk, and handcuffed him. “I don't like threats being made in my
town,” he growled.

  “You're... hurting me!” the man began to cry like the coward he was.

  Hawk snatched the man to his feet and shoved him toward Chief Daily. “The rest of you take a hike,” he ordered the crowd.

  “We have a right to be here,” a woman in her late sixties informed Hawk in an aggrieved voice.

  Hawk glanced back toward his jeep and then at the crowd. “Do you people really believe Nikki Bates poisoned Mrs. Grove? Come on, folks,” he said in a way that told the crowd they were acting like silly children. “Nikki Bates is an intelligent woman. If she wanted to kill anyone, trust me, she would carry off the crime so brilliantly that no one would ever be able to convict her. Why would she poison a woman with her own chocolate?”

  “Everyone knows you and that... woman... are an item, now, Detective,” the older woman snapped sourly at Hawk. “Perhaps it's time to request that you resign your position and relocate.”

  Hawk grinned. “Lady, Ms. Bates and I are going to grow old in this town. We're not going anywhere.”

  Nikki drew in a deep breath, got out of the jeep, and walked up next to Hawk. She studied the crowd with sad eyes. “I'm going to find the person who killed Mrs. Grove,” she promised. “But I need to make one fact very clear: I'm not going to find the killer to please anyone standing here. You see, the killer has murdered an innocent woman in an attempt to destroy my life. Now, I don't know how people in the north handle threats, but I don't take them lightly. I'm a fighter, and I intend to fight. If any of you don't like me living here and wish for me to leave, well, get over it, because I'm not going anywhere. This is my home now.”

  “You don't belong here,” a woman screamed at Nikki. “You're a curse!”

  “No,” Nikki replied calmly, “I'm not a curse, Mrs. Hetherington. I'm a woman who wishes to settle down and live a peaceful life. Right now there is a killer loose in this town who wants to destroy my life. I intend to fight. Now, you can all hate me and yell poisonous words in my face, but rest assured, I've dealt with worse than you.”

  “Are you threatening us?” the handcuffed man hissed at Nikki.

  “I'm simply pointing out that I will not be run out of town,” Nikki replied in a stable, stern tone. “If you people want a fight, I'll go twelve rounds with each and every one of you. I will not be bullied, and I will not tolerate anyone bullying the people I love and care about.”

  Chief Daily smiled at Hawk. Nikki was holding her ground against the worst the town had to offer—against people who were cold-hearted and believed the world revolved around their views and beliefs. Now those same people were challenging a momma lion who wasn't in the mood to deal with a bunch of whiny, weak mice that had nothing else better to do than chew holes in the cloth of truth, justice, and integrity. “Protest on the sidewalk across the street,” Chief Daily informed the crowd.

  Nikki held her ground. She locked eyes with them. The faces in the crowd stared back at her with hatred, but slowly, one by one, each person in the crowd walked away and went home. “I'll go book this guy,” Chief Daily told Hawk and pulled the handcuffed man inside.

  “I'll sue you for every penny,” the man yelled.

  “You can call your lawyer after I book you for criminal threatening,” Chief Daily told the man.

  Nikki looked at Hawk. “I made some fresh enemies,” she said miserably.

  Hawk looked down into Nikki's upset eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck and then looked around. “You know, Nikki, this town, like every town that is dotted across the map, is filled with the good and the bad. You have to have faith in the good, though. I counted ten people in that bunch, Nikki. Now if a hundred people had shown up, I might be worried. So what if ten whiny adults showed up here at the station to act like children? You backed them down, and they'll continue to back down because that's the kind of people they are... cowards.”

  “Maybe so,” Nikki agreed, “but the person who killed Mrs. Grove is deadly. Who knows, Hawk? The killer could have been anyone in that crowd of people.”

  “Maybe,” Hawk agreed, raising his eyes toward the gray sky overhead. “I'm going to sleep at your cabin tonight, okay? Your couch is pretty comfortable.”

  Nikki hugged Hawk's arm. “I was hoping you would,” she admitted. Biting down on her lower lip, she stood silently and then spoke: “The old man said that the woman who was murdered was named Jane. Hawk, I need you to do some digging and find out who this woman is. Maybe then will I be able to shed some light on the old man’s identity.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” Hawk replied. “I'll make you a deal. Tonight, I'll cook dinner at your cabin, and while you're making coffee and dessert, I'll make some calls.”

  “Sounds good. Tomorrow I'll need to start searching for the killers, but tonight I need to gather my thoughts together and make a plan of attack. I wish I could just go home and make some homemade cocoa and some peppermint chocolate, cuddle up with a good book, read, and fall asleep in my pajamas.”

  Hawk wrapped his arm around Nikki's shoulder. “Let's get inside. The temperature is dropping, and the wind is getting rough.”

  Nikki allowed Hawk to walk her inside the police station. Her little town was now a dangerous, dark alley with deadly claws lurking in its shadows.

  Chapter Six

  “Well?” Lidia asked Hawk impatiently.

  Hawk sat down at the kitchen table. For a few seconds, he listened to the screaming winds throwing sleet against the cabin. “I was on the phone a long time,” he finally said.

  Nikki brought Hawk a fresh cup of hot coffee. “Was your friend able to help?”

  Hawk looked across the table at Lidia and Tori and then up at Nikki. “Yes, she and her husband lived in Atlanta. They were there when you lived there, Nikki. Her name was Jane... Bates,” Hawk told Nikki.

  “Bates?” Nikki asked in a whisper. “Really?”

  Lidia stood up, walked over to Nikki, and pushed her bangs away from her eyes. “Honey?” she asked.

  Nikki glanced up into Lidia's face. “A possible member of my family could have been murdered,” Nikki said in a strained voice.

  “The last name is probably a mistake,” Tori insisted.

  Hawk shook his head. “My friend searched every cold case file with the name 'Jane' attached to it. The name alone wasn't much help.”

  “The lipstick letters,” Nikki said.

  Hawk nodded. “The lettering found scrawled on the bedroom floor was the ticket.”

  “What is the name of the deceased woman's husband?” Nikki asked.

  “Oliver Bates. He went missing last year while hiking in Chile. His body was never found,” Hawk explained.

  “Last year was when the old man—I mean, Oliver Bates—came into contact with the Code Sword program,” Nikki told everyone. Refusing to sit like a crippled child, she forced strength back into her legs and stood up. “Hawk, what is the last known address of Oliver Bates?”

  “191 Greenview Drive, Atlanta, Georgia,” Hawk said and waited for her response.

  Nikki nodded. “And what was the address where the murder took place?” she asked.

  “Same address,” Hawk informed Nikki. “191 Greenview Drive is the address of an old plantation-style home. The place is now being used as an art museum.”

  “Did Oliver Bates sell the house before he faked his death?” Nikki asked. Walking to the kitchen counter, she picked up a cup of hot chocolate and took a sip. Lidia and Tori watched Nikki transform into a sharp, alert, confident detective, yet Lidia also noticed a deep, strange fear hidden in Nikki's beautiful eyes.

  “Yep,” Hawk replied and sat back down. Picking up his coffee cup, he took a sip. “The man also cashed out his stocks and other investments. All in all, he walked away with enough money to live the rest of his life in luxury.”

  Nikki bit down on her lower lip. Oliver Bates isn't planning to remain in America, she told herself. Looking at Hawk, she studied his eyes. “The last name and location could be a coincidence,” she said.<
br />
  “It could be. The name Bates isn’t that uncommon, after all.”

  “Right,” Nikki agreed. Studying the cup of hot chocolate in her hands, she closed her eyes and listened to the howling winds. A powerful cold front from Canada was pushing into Vermont with icy fingers. The ten-day weather outlook had been changed. Instead of cool autumn temperatures with clears skies, the weather was now calling for icy temperatures filled with sleet and freezing rain that would eventually change into snow. Hearing the sleet hitting the kitchen window, Nikki shivered. “I don't know what's happening,” she whispered, “but I'm going to find out.”

  Hawk watched Nikki leave the kitchen. Lidia and Tori shook their heads at Hawk when he began to follow her. “Let Nikki be alone,” Lidia told Hawk in a kind voice. Sitting down, she picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip. “This Oliver person, he's connected to Nikki somehow?”

  Tori cast her worried eyes at Hawk. “Please, the truth,” she pleaded.

  Hawk looked at his coffee. “It's possible,” he explained in a careful voice. “The last name, the location, the man showing up at the chocolate shop... It’s an awful lot of coincidence.”

  Lidia looked at Tori and then back at Hawk. “How bad is this situation, Hawk?”

  “Oliver Bates is forcing Nikki to locate the person who murdered his wife. He claims if Nikki accomplishes her task, he will tell her who murdered Mrs. Grove and even send her enough evidence to seal the case.” Hawk scratched his chin. “But my gut is telling me that maybe the person who murdered Mrs. Grove just might be the same person who killed Oliver Bates’ wife.”

  “How is that possible?” Tori asked, confused.

  Hawk picked up his coffee cup. “I've been kicking the ball around some, and I think that the killer knows Oliver Bates is onto him... or her. The killer could also know that Oliver Bates might try and contact Nikki for help. So what does he—or she—do? Attack Nikki and try to have her arrested for murder.”

  “If Nikki is out of the picture, then she can't track down the killer,” Tori said.