Strawberry Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 13 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (5 page)

Adrenalin
coursed through Echo’s veins as Frank Capetti advanced toward her with a
determined grimace after dropping the smart phone into his pocket. Pushing
against the sturdy man’s chest, she quickly sidestepped him and ran to the
door, hoping that he was bluffing, but finding, unfortunately that he was not.
The locks were fully engaged and couldn’t be opened manually. Leaning her
forehead against the cold metal door, she felt him draw near.

Coming
up behind her, Frank spoke, his voice low and deep, in her ear, “I may be many
things, but a liar isn’t one of them.” He grabbed her by the upper arms, his
fingers digging into her flesh and spun her around to face him.

“Oh
really?” Echo was so furious that she ignored the pain of his grasp. “How about
the lie that you’re just a laid back text book writer? How about telling me
that you really care about me? How about dragging me out to the middle of
nowhere and calling it a vacation? Did you tell the truth about all of those
things?” she challenged him, throwing caution to the winds. “Just why exactly
are we here, Frank? If that’s even your real name.”

“Why
are we here?” he gave a sinister chuckle, then thrust his face into hers, so
close that she could feel the heat of his breath. “Because sometimes, I just
need to disappear,” he growled, causing Echo’s pulse to race as she realized
just how much danger she might actually be in.

Frank
raised his hand as though about to strike and fate smiled upon Echo in the form
of a doorbell chime.

“Echo,
honey?” A sweet, feminine voice called out. “It’s Marilyn from SubLime Sweets –
you left your address book at the shop when you were filling out your post
cards.”

Echo
screamed, “Help meeeee! Call the po…” before Frank could clamp his hand over
her mouth, and when he did, she banged her fists and kicked her feet against
the door, hoping that Marilyn, the owner of a Key Lime Pie shop that she had
visited, could hear her.

“That
was not a smart thing to do,” he hissed in her ear, his hand still covering her
mouth, making it difficult for her to breathe. He had her hands pulled up
behind her shoulder blades and propelled her into the kitchen, where he opened
a drawer. Echo trembled and cried, hoping that he wasn’t reaching for a knife.
He pulled a roll of duct tape out, tore off several strips with his teeth, and
quickly bound her hands behind her, slapping a large piece over her mouth just
so he wouldn’t have to listen to her pleas for mercy. Shoving her into a dining
room chair, he taped her legs to the legs of the chair and left her there.

“You’re
actually lucky you know. I don’t have time to beat the attitude out of you
because you opened your loud, stupid mouth and the cops will be here any
second,” the man who had just the week before held her tenderly and spoken soft
words of affection, sneered at her with utter hatred.

Echo
regarded him with big, tear-filled eyes that were wide with fear. He raised his
hand to slap her and she winced, trying to shy away. He dropped his hand and
laughed at her reaction.

“Don’t
think that this is over yet, little Miss Granola, because it’s not. Not by a
long shot,” he threatened. Hearing sirens in the distance, he grabbed his pre-packed
suitcase and ran, leaving the front door wide open. Nausea rose up within Echo,
and she was terrified that she’d get sick behind the duct tape and drown.
Fortunately, in a matter of minutes, four patrol cars pulled up and officers
burst into the home, guns drawn.

One
apologized to Echo, instructing her to brace herself against the pain, and
quickly ripped the duct tape from her mouth so that she could speak. “Are you
all right, ma’am?” he asked, peering down at her as he worked to free her arms
and legs. Echo nodded.

“Just
shaky,” she replied.

“Is
your attacker in the house, ma’am?”

“No,
he ran out the front door just before you guys got here. He’s driving a blue
rental car.”

The
officer turned aside and spoke into a microphone attached to his shoulder, then
resumed working on the duct tape. “Do you need an ambulance or medical care?”

Echo
shook her head. “No, he threatened me, but he didn’t do anything other than
grab my arm and throw me around a little bit before he taped me up,” she
explained, shuddering.

“Did
you know your attacker?” the officer asked, finally freeing her hands after
carefully cutting through the tape with a knife.

“Yes,
although quite obviously not as well as I thought I did,” she said sadly. “His
name is Frank Capetti.”

The
officer replaced the knife he had used in the holster on his belt and stared at
her for a moment, then turned away again, walking a short distance away and
speaking into the microphone. “Frank Capetti?”

Echo
nodded.

“What
was the nature of your relationship with Mr. Capetti?” he asked, searching her
eyes.

“I
thought he was my boyfriend, but now it really seems like he was just using
me,” she admitted, embarrassed.

The
officer looked at her with sympathy, then snapped a set of handcuffs on the
delicate hands that he had just freed, telling her that she was under arrest
for assisting a fugitive and reading her rights.

Chas
Beckett breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Frank Capetti had been
captured in Florida, and made arrangements to travel down personally to
extradite him. He was sad to hear that Echo was also in custody, and alarmed
that Missy was nowhere to be found. It had been his hope all along that when
Capetti was located, his trail would lead the authorities to Echo and Missy as
well. Something didn’t feel right about this whole thing, and Chas Beckett was
determined to get to the bottom of it.

“Where
is she?” the typically cool-as-a-cucumber detective growled, getting in Frank
Capetti’s face.

“I
told you, the last time I saw that chick was when she was nagging at me for
being late, even though I wasn’t,” the prisoner shrugged, unmoved.

Beckett
slammed his hands down on the table in front of the seemingly unflappable
Capetti and snarled, “You need me to refresh your memory, tough guy?”

Detective
Bernard Cortland of the Key West PD had been standing silently by, watching the
interaction, but felt that it was time to intervene. Clearly Beckett had a
personal interest in the missing woman, but Cortland wasn’t about to let him
get out of hand. A loser like the one sitting in chains and orange garb in
front of them wasn’t worth trashing the career of a good cop.

“Alright,
buddy, let’s take it down a notch,” he said in a low voice, placing a hand on
Chas’s arm. The subtle reminder was all that the seasoned detective needed to
return to his professional demeanor. Swallowing his fear and frustration, he
sat back down, his sharp, cobalt-blue eyes narrowed as he regarded Capetti.

“Get
him out of my sight,” Beckett growled, never breaking eye contact with the
professional criminal. Detective Cortland nodded to a uniformed officer who
grabbed Capetti by the bicep and led him from the room.

“What
do you think?” Cortland asked Chas after the door closed behind the prisoner.

He
sighed deeply before responding. “I think he’s telling the truth. I think he
actually has no idea where Missy is, which means I’ve been chasing him all this
time when I should have been looking for someone else,” he shook his head,
worried and drained.

“What
about the murder charges?” Bernard persisted.

Chas
shrugged. “I really don’t know. The evidence at the scene doesn’t match. If he
did it, he was beyond careful, and I don’t know if we have enough to make a murder
charge stick,” he admitted.

“Isn’t
there a witness?” the Florida detective asked.

Nodding,
Chas replied, “Yeah, there’s a witness, but all he saw was the perp in the
vicinity of the scene around the time of the killing, he didn’t witness any
actual interaction between the victim and the perp, other than an argument that
they’d had earlier in the day, so even that’s weak,” he dropped his pen down on
the notepad in front of him, frustrated, and rubbed his forehead.

“You
look like you could use a good night’s sleep,” Cortland observed.

“Nahhh…just
a couple of cans of cola – it’s what’s been getting me through the late nights
for the last couple of weeks, no reason to quit now.”

“Well,
come with me. I’ll hook you up with a couple of colas and a computer and you
can do whatever you need to do,” Bernard offered, heading for the door. Beckett
followed, so tired he could hardly think.

“Thanks,
it’s going to be a long night.”

Echo
looked pale and thin in the baggy orange coverall that she wore, but brightened
immediately when Chas walked into the interrogation room.

“Chas!
Oh my gosh, it’s so good to see a familiar face. Are you here to take me back
to Louisiana?” she asked as he sat down across from her.

“Not
yet,” he answered quietly.

Seeing
the look on his face, Echo knew immediately that something more than her arrest
had gone terribly wrong. “Chas, what is it? What’s going on?” she asked, eyes
wide with fear.

Beckett
drilled her with a glance. “When you and your criminal boyfriend disappeared, Missy
was worried and went looking for you. She found your spare key, went in the
house to look for you and hasn’t been seen since. There were blood spots on
your bedroom rug and on your back porch,” he told her gravely, with more than a
trace of accusation.

“Oh
no! Oh gosh, I feel awful. Poor Missy – we have to find her,” Echo exclaimed.

“That’s
what I’ve been trying to do ever since she disappeared. I was hoping that
Capetti had taken her, so that when we found him we’d find Missy. Now I have
absolutely no idea where to even start looking.”

“What
can I do to help?” Echo asked, worried.

“You
have your own troubles to worry about, I’m afraid,” Chas frowned, flipped
through the papers in her file. “Frank Capetti has a rap sheet a mile long, and
because you left the state with him when a warrant had been issued for his
arrest as a murder suspect, you’ve been charged with assisting a fugitive.”

“But
I had no idea,” she protested, looking scared. “Frank just came over, told me
that I needed to withdraw some money and that we were going to go on the
vacation that we’d been talking about because he needed a break.”

“Didn’t
it strike you as odd that a man who had just accepted a second job suddenly
needed a break?” Chas raised his eyebrows.

Echo
blushed and looked down at her hands. “I thought he was just saying that so
that I would agree to drop everything and go on a romantic adventure with him,”
she admitted. “I was so blind…”

“It
happens,” the detective said. “Capetti is pretty skilled at wooing women into
doing what he wants and then hurting them.”

“I
found that out the hard way,” she replied, tears filling her eyes. “So who did
he kill?”

“A
cameraman that had been working on the show. His name was Brad Parker.”

She
thought for a moment. “Oh, I think I remember him. Nice guy. How awful,” she
shook her head. “But why would Frank kill him?”

“There
were witnesses who saw the two of them get into a mild argument about you on
the day that he was killed, and later that evening, a witness placed Frank at
the crime scene.”

Echo
frowned, remembering. “Yeah, Missy told me about that, but wait…Frank couldn’t
have killed the cameraman,” she looked at Chas wide-eyed.

“Why
not?” the detective demanded, leaning forward.

“Because
when Frank left the cupcake store, he made his deliveries, then came straight
over to my house and was…occupied for the rest of the evening. He couldn’t have
been at the crime scene that night,” she explained, embarrassed.

“Then
why would a witness have come forward to place him at the scene?” Chas asked,
trying not to sound suspicious.

“I
have no idea. Maybe he had a grudge of some sort against Frank,” she shrugged,
honestly baffled. “Who was the witness?”

“Leonard
Koslowski,” Beckett answered, watching her carefully for a reaction. “Ring any
bells?”

Echo
nodded slowly. “Yes, it sounds familiar, but I don’t know why. Do you have a
picture?”

“Hang
on a second,” the detective replied, grabbing another file folder from his
valise and paging through it. “Here we go,” he said, sliding an 8x10 across the
table to her.

Gasping
and covering her mouth with her hands, Echo’s eyes flew open wide. “Oh my gosh!
It’s Lounge Lizard Leonard!” she exclaimed.

“Lounge
Lizard Leonard?” Chas blinked at her.

“Yes!
He’s come by my store for ice cream every day since the day that I opened. He’s
awkward and leering and makes me feel uncomfortable when he asks me out at
least once a week. I’ve even noticed him following me into the cupcake shop and
hanging around when I go over to visit with Missy, so it totally makes sense
that he might be jealous enough of Frank to try to frame him,” she said
excitedly.

“But
then, who killed Brad?” Chas asked, rhetorically.

Echo
answered him anyway. “Maybe Lounge Lizard Leonard.”