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

  Walking away from the front lobby, Jason Snowfield took an open trail leading to the lake. Walking past beautiful trees playing in a soft breeze, he kept his face hard and focused. He had buried the stolen money in a safe location, but what worried him was one simple fact: A man had been killed, and the killer was still loose. Not sure if the killer wanted the money or not, Jason worried that the lodge was being watched by hidden eyes. Pausing on the trail, he searched the landscape for any sign of human eyes. Only the sound of the breeze playing in the trees answered back. “You're around,” Jason said in an angry but worried voice, “I know you're watching.”

  Reaching the water’s edge, he once again paused. The lake stood before him, open, clear, deep, and breathtakingly beautiful. He looked toward the wooden dock and counted the paddle boats and canoes. Every one of them was accounted for. The waters of the lake gently swayed. Soft ripples cruised the top of the lake like sleepy old men searching for shade to nap in. For a few minutes, Jason forgot about his worries as old memories strolled into his mind. Memories of being young and taking cold swims in the lake. Life was good then...good until criminals forced his lodge to be a go-between station for gun-runners. But now he had the money. He and Norma could leave the lodge and vanish without ever being found. “You can't track cash,” Jason whispered.

  “Can't you?” a voice asked.

  Startled, Jason swung around. The last thing he saw was a hand swinging a hammer at his head, and then the world went dark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In town, Nikki gave free samples of her famous peppermint chocolate to the customers in her store. Periodically checking the cow-shaped clock hanging on the back wall, she waited anxiously for closing time. She didn’t want to put Zach in a precarious situation, so she had asked him to leave the guest list hidden in one of the canoes at the lake’s edge. “The blue canoe,” Zach had told her. Also, after eating breakfast, Zach had confessed that he believed his grandfather had buried the money in a cave at the far back of the property. Of course, that confession didn't come without strings. Tori now owed Zach a date.

  “Thank you, come again,” Nikki smiled and waved at a middle-aged couple wearing tan shirts. The couple waved back, leaving with a bag stuffed full of chocolates that had cost them a small fortune.

  “Almost closing time,” Lidia told Nikki, watching the couple leave the store. “Whew, what a morning and afternoon! We're almost completely sold out. I checked the cooler, too, and would you believe we're running low?”

  “A new shipment will be arriving tomorrow, and I'll find time to make some more homemade chocolates,” Nikki told Lidia waving for Tori to lock the front door. Taking a deep breath of air filled with chocolate, Nikki slowly exhaled. “We'll close twenty minutes early, girls,” she said. “I'm bushed.”

  “I am, too,” Lidia said gratefully. “My feet are barking. Herbert is grilling steaks tonight. I'm going to go eat, soak my feet, do a crossword or two, and go to bed.”

  “You promised to take me to my aunt's house first,” Tori reminded Lidia in a nervous voice. “I'll pack as quickly as I can. I promise.”

  “You take your time, honey,” Lidia told Tori and patted her hand. “Just as long as this old woman's backside is sitting down, I'll be fine.”

  “Oh,” Nikki said and hurried to her purse. Returning with her house key, she handed it to Tori. “I'm not sure what time I'll be back. Hawk and I are going out to the lodge to look around tonight. You can leave the back door unlocked. We'll get an extra key made tomorrow.”

  Tori looked at the house key. For once in her life, she felt welcomed and loved. Taking the key from Nikki, she thanked her. “I promise to stay out of your hair.”

  “If you do that then I promise to get into yours,” Nikki joked. “Sweetie, my cabin is your cabin. You make it into your home, and that's an order. Don't tip-toe around and think you have to walk on eggshells, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tori promised. “I guess I'll go sweep.”

  Hearing someone knock at the front door, Lidia sighed. “Let me see who that is.”

  “It's Hawk,” Nikki said, not understanding how she knew. Shaking her head, she tried to explain the funny feeling that entered her stomach as soon as she heard Hawk knock on the front door.

  Lidia unlocked the front door and let him in. “Thank you,” he said, immediately overpowered by the smell of chocolate. He liked Nikki's store. The place was cozy and quaint, simple but inviting. “Got time to talk?”

  “I'll start the paperwork,” Lidia told Nikki.

  “What have you found out?” Nikki asked Hawk, easing him toward the front door.

  “Veronica Greendale is what,” Hawk informed Nikki, “Greendale's wife.”

  Nikki nodded. “Well, don't keep me in the dark—out with it!”

  “Henry Greendale suspected that his wife was...well, fooling around on him. So he hired a private investigator, someone he knew in his own security firm.”

  “How did you find this out?” Nikki asked in a curious voice.

  “I made some calls,” Hawk replied. “So it turns out that Mrs. Greendale is stepping out on the side.” Hawk pulled a photo out of his front pocket. “Look familiar?”

  “Our John Doe,” Nikki said, staring at a photo of a woman with grayish-red hair sitting at a table and sipping wine with the man found dead at Elk Horn Lodge the day before.

  “The women's club coming our way? Guess where they are coming from, and guess who’s a member.”

  “Atlanta, Georgia,” Nikki answered. Hawk felt excitement burst through her veins like hot lava. But then she began to wonder about something. “Wait, why come here with a women's club? Why not just come alone and then escape over the border?”

  “Some very prominent women are members of that women's club,” Hawk explained. “I managed to get some names. It seems like Mrs. Greendale isn't who we think she is.”

  Nikki attempted to follow Hawk. “I don't quite understand what you—” And then she understood. Feeling a light bulb go off in her head, she slowly nodded. Focusing her eyes back on the photo she looked hard at Veronica Greendale. “She's a killer.”

  “No, I don't think so. Our John Doe was the killer,” he explained. “That's why I can't find anything on him. Now here is where things get interesting. I think Henry Greendale was catching onto something he wasn't supposed to—maybe at the bank his firm assigned him to—and he was killed. I think Mrs. Greendale paid our John Doe to kill her husband, but something went wrong, and the guy had to get out of town and fast.”

  “What went wrong?”

  Hawk shrugged his shoulders. “I'm not saying anything did, but a sloppy trail was left.”

  “Go on,” Nikki told Hawk.

  “The driver’s license leads me to believe that our John Doe needed a false identity in order to cross into Canada. My guess is the photos of Mrs. Greendale sipping wine with Mr. Six Feet Under are probably times they met in order to agree on a price and time to kill her husband.”

  “But there are some loose ends,” Nikki pointed out. “Why did the driver’s license have Mr. Greendale's address on it?”

  “Nikki, I don't know. I'm telling you what I have so far. We have a connection between Greendale's wife and our John Doe along with a lot of speculative ideas. What we don't have is the money.”

  “Hawk,” Nikki said nodding her head, “you said some very important women are members of the women's club due to arrive here, right?”

  “Some of Atlanta's finest,” Hawk confirmed.

  “Is it possible Mrs. Greendale is luring them here to be killed?”

  “I considered that. The reservation was made two weeks before Henry Greendale was killed, about the same time he started having his wife investigated,” Hawk explained. “Nikki, when that woman gets here, we have to let her lead us to the killer.”

  “I agree,” Nikki told Hawk. “In the meantime, we have to find the money.” Nikki went into detail about the cave Zach believed his grandfather had buried t
he money in. “He's not a bad kid, Hawk. He just needs someone like you, a good man, to take time with him.”

  “Yeah,” Hawk said and rubbed the back of his neck, “I'm not too good with the younger generation, Nikki. Anyways, listen, I'm going to grab a bite to eat and then grab a few hours of sleep. I'll pick you up around midnight, okay?”

  “I'll be waiting,” Nikki promised. She could see that he was completely exhausted. “Get some rest.”

  “I will,” Hawk replied, giving Nikki a look that clearly warned her to stay in town. “Midnight, got it?”

  “I got it, I got it,” Nikki said throwing her hands up into the air. “Now will you go get some rest before you fall over?”

  “One more thing,” Hawk pointed out. “Rumors were floating around Atlanta that she was becoming very cozy with the mayor. I think that's who Greendale thought his wife was stepping out with. I talked with the mayor, and he told me that it was true—he and Mrs. Greendale did have a few drinks together, but when things started to turn serious, he dropped her like a hot rock. Soon after, Mrs. Greendale joined the women's club, the same club the mayor's wife attends.”

  “Very interesting,” Nikki replied. “When I lived and worked in Atlanta I was kinda given a black mark at City Hall, so I never got much information from the mayor's office. It was always known the mayor was a man with wandering eyes and that his wife was only a 'political' wife. Men like that disgust me, so I never wasted my time on him.”

  “Whatever is going on,” Hawk told Nikki, “until it ends, the body count will rise unless we stop it. I don't have all the answers yet, and I admit, I am stuck over our John Doe having a driver’s license with the same address as Henry Greendale, but I'm sure the answers will come. See you later, okay? Oh, and I finally got the autopsy report—heart attack. Dead end on that one.”

  Nikki let Hawk out and locked the door behind him. The new information had her mind running around a maze, bumping into dead ends here, making a little progress there. Nibbling on her lip again, she walked into the back office and leaned against the wall. “Lidia?”

  Lidia held up her right hand. She was counting the cash drawer down. “Don't make me lose count,” she begged.

  Nikki nodded her head and waited. Why would a dead man have the address of another dead man on a fake driver's license, she wondered? And if the John Doe found at the lodge was a professional killer hired by Mrs. Greendale, why would he escape Atlanta with her husband's car and a fake driver's license with her husband's home address on it? Confused, Nikki watched Lidia fill out a bank deposit slip. “All done?”

  “All done,” Lidia said placing the deposit slip into a bank bag holding the daily sales cash. Closing the bag, she looked up at Nikki. “What did Hawk want?”

  “He had some new information on the case,” Nikki told Lidia and slowly explained about the photo, adding in the new information as carefully as she possibly could.

  “Oh dear,” Lidia said, feeling as if someone punched her in the stomach. “My, this is serious. And you believe this Mrs. Greendale woman is luring those poor women here to kill them?”

  “Maybe not all of them. I just wonder if she knows if her hired killer is dead. If she does, she might not even show up…or cancel the reservation altogether. Hawk also believes something went wrong in Atlanta, and the killer had to leave town fast. I wonder...”

  “Wonder what?” Lidia asked, regretting that she had to ask.

  “Well,” Nikki said, leaning up against the wall, “I wonder if the bank Henry Greendale's firm assigned him to has anything to do with this. I'm sure the suitcase I saw in the room at the lodge had been filled with money. If Mrs. Greendale paid a killer to murder her husband, how did she get the money?”

  “Honey, you're chasing your tail,” Lidia pointed out.

  “Maybe, but maybe...just maybe, Henry Greendale isn't dead,” Nikki told Lidia.

  Lidia felt her blood turn cold. The idea of a dead man walking around spooked her to the bone. “Honey, I don't like horror movies. I don’t even like bug spray commercials, okay? The last thing I need to think about when I'm falling asleep is a glowing body walking around in these woods.”

  “What I mean is,” Nikki corrected herself, “maybe Henry Greendale wasn't killed after all. Maybe the killer murdered someone else, set the house on fire, and then realized that his victim was still alive, and that's why he had to leave Atlanta in haste.”

  “You would know better than me,” Lidia admitted. Standing up with the bank deposit bag, she walked over to Nikki. “I'm going to the bank, help Tori get situated, and then go spend time with my grumpy husband who still thinks you’re a nut. Now, since I have the only car, you're coming with me. I know you're up to something because you gave Tori your house key. If you refuse to come with me, I'm going to call Hawk.”

  “Beats walking,” Nikki caved in, reading the seriousness in Lidia's eyes. Unable to break away from the powerful stare of a woman who loved her like a mother, Nikki confessed her intentions. “Okay, fine, Mrs. Snowfield has been asking people about me today. The new girl over at the paper came in and told me this earlier. I was going to see if I could locate her in town.”

  “When I walked down to the Jukebox to get us a burger earlier I saw a woman standing across the street watching the store,” Lidia told Nikki. “Now listen, dear, for now, go home. You and Hawk are going to play spies tonight anyway, so do this old lady a favor, go home and give me peace of mind for now.”

  “Okay,” Nikki promised. “I guess if the Snowfields want to meet me badly enough, they will. After all, Mr. Snowfield has already said hello.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nikki was back at her cabin a few hours later, standing on her front porch and waving goodbye to Lidia. Inside, Tori was in her room, unpacking her belongings. Yawning, Nikki closed the front door and walked into the kitchen. Deciding on coffee, she made a fresh pot and sat down at the kitchen table.

  As Nikki drank her coffee, Norma Snowfield started to become worried about her husband. Pulling her long gray hair into a ponytail, she walked out of the lobby and headed toward the lake. The day was growing tired, and night was beginning to pull the light of the sun down below the horizon. Norma always liked the nighttime. She especially liked it when it rained. And the way the sky was looking overhead, a good storm was brewing. It would be raining by midnight, she guessed. “Jason, where are you?” she called out as she neared the lake. With the wind picking up from the approaching storm, the lake was slowly beginning to turn choppy. Norma heard the paddle boats and canoes bumping against each other.

  Looking up into a dark gray sky, she became even more worried. It wasn't like Jason to stay out too long. Even when he had numerous chores to do, he always checked in with her at least every hour. “Jason?” she called out again, looking around. “That darn man and his fool ideas,” she said, thinking about the stolen money, “why didn't he leave that money alone?”

  “That's a very good question,” a voice said.

  Nearly jumping out of her skin, Norma spun around as fast as she could. The last thing the wife of Jason Snowfield saw was the same hammer that killed her husband before it smashed down onto her head. Throwing the hammer into the deep lake, the killer grabbed Norma's body and pulled it into a small but wide cave. Dropping the body onto the damp earth, the killer squatted down with narrowed eyes. “Now we wait.”

  “So sweet,” Nikki said, looking down at Tori. Sleeping peacefully with a blue sheet wrapped around her, Tori let out a little snore. “Sweet baby.” Bending down, Nikki wiped Tori's bangs out of her eyes and then kissed her forehead. “Sleep well.”

  Closing the door to the guest room, she rejoined Hawk in the living room. “Tori is asleep.”

  Listening to the heavy rainfall outside the cabin, Hawk debated on whether to take a trip out to the lodge or wait. “With this storm—”

  “We're going to the lodge,” Nikki interrupted. Picking up a dark green raincoat she had laid across the arm of the cha
ir, Nikki used her eyes to order Hawk to get up from the couch. “The rain will help hide us,” she said, putting on the raincoat.

  “Stubborn,” Hawk said, walking to the front door and yanking his black raincoat off the wooden coatrack that was, like everything else in the cabin, very stylish. Having no sense of style whatsoever, Hawk wondered how Nikki made her cabin appear stylish and intelligent yet at the same time inviting and welcoming. “All right, let's go, Nancy Drew.”

  “Watch it,” Nikki warned Hawk as she elbowed him in the stomach. Opening the front door, she peered out into a dark and stormy night. Every mystery novel that she had ever read came alive in her imagination. Dark and stormy nights were what brought true mysteries to life. In her mind she saw an insane Dr. Frankenstein yelling 'It's alive...it's alive!' while standing in a creepy lab in some old castle. “Perfect night.”

  “Yeah,” Hawk said, closing the front door behind Nikki, “all we need now is a picnic basket and some cheese.”

  “Funny,” Nikki said and elbowed him in the stomach again. “Are you sure your cop friend won't leave Tori?”

  “Max knows his orders,” Hawk assured Nikki. He peered out into the rain and spotted a parked cop car across the street. “He's probably eating a donut and listening to the game.”

  Feeling a powerful gust of wind spray rain in her face, Nikki raised her hands up to her eyes. Not wasting another second, she ran off the porch and hurried to Hawk's jeep. Hawk shook his head and followed after Nikki. Crawling up into the driver's seat, he buckled up and slowly backed out of the driveway. “Don't expect me to break any speed limits.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Nikki agreed, watching the windshield wipers fight with the rain. Leaning forward she pushed the defrost button. “So I was doing some thinking, and I think I know why the address on our John Doe's fake license matched the real address of Henry Greendale.”