A Sleuth Is Born Read online

  A Sleuth Is Born

  A Betty Snickerdoodle Mystery (#2)

  Pepper Frost

  Working Strategy

  ©2019 by Pepper Frost.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-970044-01-0 (Paperback edition)

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the author, except for brief passages quoted in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  To contact the author, please visit pepperfrostauthor.com. Or email her at [email protected]

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  For Kate Cole, a bluffer with a heart of gold.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Also by Pepper Frost

  Chapter 1

  In scruffy slippers and a threadbare nightie nearly as old as she was, Bea Sickles stared through the sunlit picture windows of her cozy suite. The view outside Betty Snickerdoodle’s Christmas Inn & Ranch—the inn she owned and now called home—was undeniably breathtaking.

  Thanks to late-fall rains, Napa Valley was blanketed in bright emerald green. Cheerful Christmas decorations had been lovingly tacked to practically every nearby structure. Wisps of fog floated above the miles of picturesque, rolling vineyards that surrounded the Inn’s grounds, and snow caps dotted the mountains that bordered the valley.

  What a precious wine country Christmas scene, thought Bea. Just sprinkle in a few magical falling snowflakes and you can crank my crabby right up to 11! She reached above her messy helmet of thin gray hair and snapped the drapes shut with a force that belied her age and tiny size.

  Her current mood aside, Bea had no gripe with Christmas. How could she? Christmas had been very, very good to her. Over more than 20 years, she’d written dozens of bestselling Christmas romance novels under her Betty Snickerdoodle pen name. Her sweet holiday stories had made her a wealthy woman. Not bad for a second career, especially one started at an age when most people are longing to retire.

  In fact, the wild success of those books enabled her to buy the Inn and—with the help of her brilliant young business partner, Angela Garcia—pursue her vision of a Christmas-themed destination for Betty’s fans.

  But despite her gift for writing about them, Bea was not much like her Christmas-spirit-filled characters. She relied on her prolific imagination to build the world of Treacle Town and invent all the little dramas its inhabitants experienced. Her creativity and flair for sweet tales of love and the holidays had never once failed her—until now.

  “My muse is on snooze!” Bea whined aloud. She was experiencing her first bout of writer’s block, and the timing couldn’t have been worse.

  The inaugural BettyCon conference, planned to coincide with the Inn’s grand opening, was just a few weeks away. More than 100 Betty Snickerdoodle superfans would flock to the Inn to celebrate their love of Betty Snickerdoodle and Treacle Town. To help make the occasion even more special, Bea had told Angela she’d write a brand-new Betty story. The ardent fans at BettyCon would be thrilled to be the first to read it.

  She’d assumed that dreaming up a new tale would be a piece of cake—just like always. Who knew a blank page could be an instrument of torture?

  Inspiration should have been easy to find. Every decoration in her suite, like all the rooms in the Inn, was drawn from Betty’s world—from the murals inspired by vintage wrapping paper, to the red-ribboned wreath above the suite’s fireplace, to the gingerbread candles that gave the bathroom its glorious scent of spiced molasses.

  Bea was practically soaking in the spirit of Christmas. Still, the ideas just weren’t coming.

  Bea sighed and shuffled back to her computer to try again. But her gaze was drawn away from the screen to the perfect little Christmas tree on the back corner of her desk. Someone had placed it there so thoughtfully. Someone had decorated it with such care! She stretched her crooked fingers toward the jingle-bell ornament dangling from one of the branches—an exquisitely scaled-down bauble that tinkled sweetly as the desk moved—then she flicked it, sending it sailing into the air. It crashed onto the hardwood with a defiantly cheerful jingle. Somehow, it didn’t even break.

  Be quiet, would ya? I’m trying to think.

  It was rare for anything to upend Bea’s steely self-confidence, but negativity had somehow taken the reins of her imagination. What if my Betty-writing days are behind me? she wondered morosely, until the sound of a bell interrupted her budding pity party. She looked down at the silent, motionless ornament on the floor with scorn—then let out a hearty cackle when she realized the sound had come from her laptop.

  A message on the screen said, “Betty Snickerdoodle has seventeen new book reviews.”

  Hmm. Didn’t Angela always say fans have great ideas for Treacle Town? Let’s see what Betty’s loyal supporters have to say!

  Bea clicked on the sales page for Treacle Town ♥︎ Christmas, Betty’s newest release. She and Angela had decided to offer it for free, as a gift to fans.

  What on earth? The page was filled with new reviews all right—terrible ones. Every one of them emblazoned with a symbol Bea had never even seen before: the dreaded one-star rating.

  “I think this might be fake literature. What ever that is. Loser literature. Just don’t,” read one.

  Said another: “I dont like Betty and I dont like Christmas. There r already 2 many books about that stupid holiday!!”

  “The book is bad. Dumb people falling in love at Christmas and getting a second chance. Yes, I know thats all it claims to be. It should be more exciting. Betty is a loser.”

  “No book deserves so many five stars. I’m giving it one. Who died and made Betty Snickerdoodle the Queen of Christmas? Don’t give Betty any more money. Yes I know its free. So what. Don’t be a loser.”

  “I wish I could give it zero stars. I think it should be banned. Its terrible. And its way too short!!”

  That last one burned Bea up the most.

  She interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms in front of her. After pantomiming a few flamboyant piano strokes to warm up her creaky joints, Bea clicked the “author reply” link.

  Dear Birdbrain,

  You complain that you don’t like my book, yet it’s also too short. Are you unhappy when it rains, and even more so when it stops? At restaurants, do you gripe about receiving too little of a food you dislike?

  Have you ever wished for a longer vacation—in prison?

  My books are not written for dodos like you.

  As for banning, you might be onto something. Why don’t you go ban yourself.

  Most sincerely,

  Betty Snickerdoodle

  Bea reread her work, pleased. But as she was about to
click “post,” a pesky memory popped into her head.

  “Bea,” she heard Angela saying, “If we get a negative review, promise me you won’t reply. It’s OK to say thank you for positive ones. But we don’t engage with negative ones.”

  “If you say so,” Bea recalled responding, not thinking much about it. Bea didn’t care much, or know much, about social media. Plus, the stakes were low. Betty Snickerdoodle had never received anything but glowing reviews.

  “But Angie, I’m curious. Why can’t we reply?”

  “It’s a well-known best practice in social media marketing,” Angela had declared. “You can’t win if you engage with haters.”

  Being told she couldn’t win or couldn’t do something because of some rule summoned Bea’s resistance faster than a can opener calls a cat. But she’d put Angela in charge of such matters, and she’d promised she wouldn’t reply. So she wouldn’t. She didn’t have to be happy about it, though.

  Grrr, she thought, scrolling back through the idiotic reviews. Angela couldn’t have imagined reviews this stupid when decreeing “no replying” would be company policy.

  Bea backspaced through her reply, one letter at a time, scowling.

  Click. Click. Click. Sigh.

  Click. Click. Click. Sigh.

  But as she deleted her snarky reply, she noticed something odd. The bad reviews all appeared under different handles, yet seemed… similar, somehow. She puzzled over it for a moment, furrowing her silvery brows.

  “Eureka!” she exclaimed. For weeks, an idea had been germinating in subconscious. Now, it seemed, was its time to sprout.

  “Rebecca,” she announced, awakening the tubular internet speaker in the corner. The lights on top of it signaled it had come to attention. “Call Pat Rogers.”

  “Calling Pat Rogers, private investigator,” purred the tube’s silky artificial voice.

  Pat answered with a gruff hello.

  “Pat, it’s Bea Sickles—you know, Betty Snickerdoodle. I’ve got a problem and you can help. It’s my Christmas-story mojo—I seem to have lost it.”

  “My job involves finding lost things, Bea… but I wouldn’t know where to begin to find a lost mojo,” Pat said. She was trying to sound nonchalant to disguise her surprise. The only time they’d met, she’d accused Bea of burglary and stranded her in San Francisco. The incident hadn’t left Pat with the impression she’d made a friend.

  “Ha! Good one, girl,” cackled Bea. “You’ve improved my mood already. So here’s my idea. My Christmas muse is on the lam, maybe for good. I need a new genre. I’ve been thinking about mysteries, like that Jessica Fletcher. But I don’t know how to solve crimes. I need a fast tutorial on detecting—and you’re just the gal to provide it.”

  “I’m flattered, but why am I just the gal?”

  “Primarily because you’re the only detective I know,” Bea said. “Besides, Charlie trusts you.” Pat had an office right next door to Bea’s longtime agent and friend, Charlie Carter. In fact, it was Charlie’s office Pat accused Bea of breaking into.

  “Are you around over the holidays? If you come to the Inn on the 21st and stay a few days, I’ll pay you double your day rate. What say you?”

  “Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “I’ve even got a little mystery for us to practice on. I’ll tell you about it when you get here.”

  This whodunit thing will be a gas, Bea thought. She was looking forward to inventing some obnoxious characters and killing them off. In the sugar-crusted Christmas utopia of Treacle Town, everyone lived happily ever after forever, regardless of how annoying they were.

  Nothing invigorated Bea like a plan. She decided to start by checking out her mystery novel competition. But first, a little exercise to get the blood flowing.

  “Rebecca, Play ‘Watching the Detectives.’ Louder!” She danced around her suite with her characteristic ungainly abandon. As the song ended, she flopped down on her bed, laughing.

  The internet tube flashed to life again. Three soft boop-boop-boops came from its speaker.

  “Angela calling,” Rebecca announced.

  “Bea, you decent?” asked Angela.

  “No. I’m great. Surely you know that by now.”

  “You know what I mean. Are you dressed? I’ve got big news. How soon can you meet me in the ballroom?”

  “I’ll come right now if I can wear my nightie.” Bea hopped down from her chair, checked out her pint-sized profile in the full-length mirror, and let loose a bark of laughter at her own appearance. The fabric of her cotton nightgown was so worn and thin, the floral print was barely visible. “On the plus side, it’s my most opaque one.”

  “I can wait. How about you put on street clothes and I’ll see you in 15 minutes? And don’t forget proper undergarments.”

  “Sure thing, girlie.”

  Her news can’t be as exciting as mine, thought Bea, pulling her brown stirrup pants up to meet the band of the bra she’d reluctantly put on. But I must find the right moment to tell her, and the right way, too, or she’ll get upset and worry that a new genre would be too big a gamble. For such a smart and ambitious young person, Angela was a real fraidy-cat sometimes.

  On top of a dingy mock turtleneck, Bea added a tasteful Christmas-themed cardigan—one of Angela’s recent acquisitions for the gift shop. It had a classic Fair Isle snowflake design, with antique metal buttons on a deep carmine background.

  “Sweet. Classy. Bo-ring,” she said to the mirror, shaking her head. She shrugged. “Angie will love it.”

  She stepped into her sheepskin boots, smoothed her bob with a swipe of a brush, and grabbed her cane. As she slammed the suite’s door behind her, the jingle bell decoration someone had hooked on the peephole chimed softly.

  “Chime all you want, bell,” cackled Bea. “Your Christmas spirit won’t bring me down now!”

  Chapter 2

  “Please sit down, Bea,” Angela said. She’d pulled a few of the chairs off a stack that sat on the side of the Inn’s large, mostly empty ballroom. She looked pretty as ever, but all business, too, her thick, brown hair in a bun held in place with a pencil. Her expression suggested she had big news to share. “I’ve got something to tell you. I think it will make you feel better.”

  “Better than what?” said Bea.

  “You—you’ve seemed out of sorts lately. Have you been feeling bad about everyone leaving for the holidays?”

  Bea had not confessed to Angela the trouble she’d had writing the new book she’d promised—and she wasn’t about to cop to it now.

  “Angie, how come you don’t know by now I don’t have feelings. It’s deeply disappointing.”

  “Disappointment is a feeling.”

  “It’s just a logical reaction to my reasonable expectations not being met.”

  “Prickliness is also a feeling. Shall I tell you my news?”

  “Prickliness is a trait, not a feeling. You’re confused about feelings, Angie. But don’t worry, I still love you.”

  “Love is a feeling!” Angela laughed.

  “You know that’s not how I meant it. I’m responding appropriately to all you’ve done to make Betty a big success. And to all the fun we have together.”

  “Desperation to win an argument is a feeling. And it’s irrational.”

  “Low blow.” To Bea, ‘irrational’ might be the ultimate insult—particularly when delivered along with superior logic.

  “OK,” Bea sighed. “Let’s hear the big idea. No, wait, let me guess: Bea, it’s the perfect time to write a new Betty book! It’ll be great to have for BettyCon! Bea, you’ll have the entire Inn to yourself! It will be so quiet! Blah blah blah. I heard you the first ten times.”

  “I’d love to have that new Betty book, but that’s not what I was planning to tell you.”

  “Good, because I’ve got a new plan for our quiet time, and I’m looking forward to it.”

  “That’s too bad, because it looks like we’ll have less quiet time. I’ve booked us
a nice piece of business. I think you’re going to be excited about it,” Angela said, beaming.

  “Go on.”

  “It’s a private three-day poker tournament for multimillionaires—an exclusive, high-stakes getaway. The client thought that since we’re not open yet, we’d keep her event low-profile. Protecting her millionaires’ privacy is her big concern. No one knows about the event—it’s a super-exclusive, invitation-only thing.”

  Bea’s eyebrows ascended to the fringe of her bangs. Angela squared her shoulders, sat up a little straighter, and forged on.

  “I don’t have to tell you there’ll be lots of cash on hand for the poker. Thousands of dollars—that’s another reason we have to keep it low-profile. Oh, and it’s for charity. Isn’t it exciting? It will be like a practice run for our official opening next month. I call it our Christmas bluebird—a fantastic piece of business that dropped right into our laps.”

  “Might be a special gift from Santa,” Bea said. “More likely, we’re getting a scam in our stocking.”

  “What?” Angela grumbled.

  “Angie, who plans a big, secret charity event with only a few days’ notice—right before Christmas? Especially an event for high-rollers.”

  “Well, Bea, maybe you should let me finish. She didn’t just start planning it. She said she’s been doing it for years. But her regular venue—a lodge up in Paradise—burned down in that wildfire. She figured she’d have to cancel at this late date, but, luckily, she heard about our Inn.”