A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery (6 page)

“Should I call the paramedics?” I asked.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

The next thing I heard was Greg.  “Victoria?  Is it really true?”

“It is,” I admitted.  “Greg, could you come back to the diner?  I need you.”

“I’ll be there before the sheriff gets there,” he said, and then hung up before I could say anything else.

He didn’t actually beat Sheriff Croft, but he did make it The Charming Moose twenty seconds before the paramedics arrived.

“You can’t come in here right now, Greg,” the sheriff told him as he met him at the door. I was sitting at one of the booths, wishing that I had something stronger than sweet tea in my glass.  I was normally pretty much a teetotaler, but I could have used a sip of a little liquid courage at the moment.

“Just try to stop me,” he said as he shoved past the sheriff.

“At least stay out of the kitchen,” Croft said.

“I have no interest in going back there,” he said as he slid onto the bench seat beside me and wrapped me in his arms.  “Are you okay?”

The tension I’d been experiencing suddenly began to slip away from me, and I felt myself melt into my husband’s arms.  I was as independent as the next gal, some said even more so, but I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t feel good having him hold me.

“I’m better now,” I said.  I pulled back and looked at him.  “Greg, it was awful.”

“I’m sure it was,” he said.  “How did he even get in there?”

I had a question to ask him, and I didn’t see any way around posing it, but I had to, and before the sheriff got around to it.  “Did you unlock the back door today for any reason?”

“Let’s see.  Yeah, I had a special delivery for the freezer about four.”

“We weren’t supposed to get any orders today,” I said.

“Remember?  I promised Larry Evans that we’d take a pallet of ice cream to hold for him while his freezer’s getting fixed.  He doesn’t want folks to know that he’s having trouble, so it’s pretty hush-hush.”

“With that goose ice sculpture we’re keeping, too, I’m amazed that we have room for our own supplies.”

“Brian Wright made it for practice a week early before Sally Ann Culver’s wedding.  Is it his fault that it turned out so beautifully on the day of the murder?  It’s a real work of art.”  He paused, and then added, “It’s a swan, by the way, not a goose.”

“I don’t care if it’s a replica of the Empire State Building, it’s taking up too much room in our storage area.”

“Why are you suddenly so interested in what’s in our freezer, and when it got there?”  Before I even had the chance to answer, he did it for me.  “I left the back door unlocked after they brought the ice cream and the sculpture in, didn’t I?”

“There was a catch in the latch when I shut it, but Greg, I’m not accusing you of anything,” I said.

He shook his head as he answered, “You don’t have to.  I failed to lock up, and someone must have followed Lance into our freezer.  Why he was there in the first place is beyond me, but what I want to know is, when did they have time to sneak in?  I barely left the kitchen all day.”

“Think about it.  Did you ever leave the back for more than a minute or two?  We know that door was unlocked between four when you took that delivery and seven when I found it and locked it back.”

He considered it, and then nodded.  “You and I were eating dinner out front between five and five thirty.  While we were out in the dining room, someone killed Howard Lance in our freezer.  Victoria, I’m never going to be able to forgive myself for this.”

It was my turn to console my husband.  “Greg, that’s crazy, and you know it.  You left a door unlocked and had dinner with your wife.  You didn’t have any more to do with killing Howard Lance than any of the rest of us.  Whoever decided to murder him could have done it just about anywhere that the opportunity arose.  The fact that they chose our freezer to make one of us look guilty just makes me angry enough to spit fire.  The killer tried to put this on us on purpose, Greg, and I’m not going to stand for it.”

He accepted what I said, and then nodded in agreement.  “That goes double for me.  This might not have been my fault, but I’m not about to let someone else try to pin a murder on someone in our family.  We need to call Moose, and I mean right now.”

I was about to do just that when I looked up and saw my grandfather marching quickly to the diner that had been named after him.

It appeared that we weren’t the only ones who were livid about where the killer had chosen to strike.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Moose asked as he barged into the restaurant past the flashing lights of the police cars and the ambulance.

The sheriff was just coming out of the kitchen area, and I noticed that there was a slight hitch to his step as he turned to face my grandfather.

“There’s been a murder here, Moose,” he said calmly.  “No one’s allowed in the kitchen until my team is done in there.”

“You can’t tell me what to do in my own diner,” my grandfather said loudly.

I decided to get between them before Moose said something that we’d all live to regret.  “Leave him alone.  He’s just doing his job, Moose.”

“Are you telling me that you’re on his side?” my grandfather asked, clearly amazed by my reaction.

“I’m with you, one hundred percent, and you shouldn’t even have to ask that question, but I’m the one who found the body, or did no one tell you that?”

“What?” he asked, crumpling a little.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.”  Moose wrapped me up in his arms much as my husband just had.  It wasn’t a rare response from Greg, but my grandfather wasn’t much of a hugger.  “Are you alright, child?” he asked softly as he stroked my head gently.

“I’m fine,” I said, though it was clearly not the case.  “There will be plenty of time to deal with this in our way once the police are finished here.”  I turned to Sheriff Croft and asked, “When will that be, exactly?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say that it will be at least twenty-four hours,” he said.

Moose was about to explode again when I beat him to the punch.  In as gentle a voice as I could muster given the circumstances, I asked him, “Are you sure you can’t release it before that?  It’s how we make our living, you know.”

The sheriff considered it, and then nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do.  Maybe we can give it back to you by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“Eleven would be better,” Moose said strongly.

“But we’ll appreciate whatever we get,” I said before the sheriff could change his mind.  “Moose, can I see you outside?”

“What?  What can you not say in here?”

“Just come with me,” I said as I took his hand.  Greg raised an eyebrow in my direction, but I shook my head.  I had to do this on my own.

Once we were outside, I asked, “Moose, what were you thinking just now?”

He looked surprised by my tone of voice.  “What are you talking about?”

“This is not the time to bluster and bully.  We need the sheriff on our side, and your demands aren’t helping any.  We’ve got to play this cool and not cause any waves.  Do you understand me?”

“Nobody tells me what I can and cannot do with my diner,” he stated firmly.

“Whose diner is it?” I asked softly.

“I know you’re running the place now,” he said reluctantly, “but don’t forget, I started it in the first place.”

“I’m not disputing that,” I said as I put a hand on his chest.  “But neither one of us can afford to have an attitude, not right now.  If you can’t behave yourself, you might serve the family best by going home right now and letting cooler heads prevail.”

He laughed at that, not the reaction that I was expecting at all.  “Are you threatening to throw me out of the diner I started, Victoria?”

“Me?” I asked as innocently as I could.  “We both know that I’d never do that, Moose.”

He just shook his head, but I saw that the wry smile was still there.  “Fine.  You’ve made your point, and I get the picture.”

“So, you’re going home?”

“Not on your life,” he said with a laugh, “but I will promise to try to behave myself.”

“Thank you,” I said as I reached up and kissed him.

“You’re a great deal like your grandmother.  You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s just about the nicest thing you could say to me,” I admitted.

“And don’t I know it.  Now let’s get back inside before that husband of yours dies from the curiosity building up inside him.”

I glanced in at the booth where Greg was still sitting and saw that he was so close to the edge of the bench seat that he was in real danger of falling off altogether.  Looping my arm in Moose’s, I led him back inside, and as he took a seat across from where Greg was sitting, I found my husband staring at me with something akin to awe.  I winked at him, but did my best not to let Moose see it.  We were all on dangerous ground at the moment, and I didn’t want to do anything that might disturb the delicate balance we’d just hammered out.

Mom and Martha came into the diner a few minutes later, and we were all sitting around our largest booth when Sheriff Croft came out of the kitchen.

“I see you’ve called a family meeting,” he said as he nodded to my mother and grandmother.  “Ladies, it’s nice to see you both, despite the circumstances.”

“You as well,” Martha said. 

I thought about chiding the sheriff for not looking at me when he’d said the word ‘ladies,’ but then I took to heart the lecture I’d given Moose.  I decided to let it slide, much to my husband’s surprise.  Well, it didn’t hurt to throw him off every now and then, either. 

“This is a terrible tragedy,” my grandmother said.

“It’s unfortunate,” Croft agreed.

“How are you planning on getting the body out?” Moose asked.

“Moose,” my grandmother said, admonishing him gently.

“Hey, it’s not going to do our diner’s reputation any good for any of our customers to see a corpse being wheeled out of the place, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Don’t worry.  We’ve got that covered, Moose.  I asked the ambulance to move around back, and after we get a few more photos and some more video footage, we’ll be removing it out the back door.  I’m glad you are all here.  I’ve got some questions to ask.”

“Not without an attorney present,” my father said.

“Joe, we have nothing to hide,” Moose said.

“I appreciate the fact that you feel that way, Dad, but I still think it couldn’t hurt to be represented before we start answering questions.”

My grandfather just shrugged, and then he said something under his breath.

I caught it, but I was certain my grandmother had not.

“What did you just say?” she asked Moose.

When he didn’t answer, I said, “He mentioned that Holly advised the same thing.”

Moose stared at me a second, and then said, “Rat.”

“Hey, if you don’t have the guts to repeat it, don’t say it in the first place,” I answered.

“Are we talking about Judge Dixon?” Sheriff Croft asked, clearly surprised by this turn of events.

“She’s our legal advisor,” Moose said.

“So, it appears that we’re at a stalemate, Sheriff,” Greg said.

He sighed loudly, and then said, “Folks, I’m not trying to railroad you all into anything.  There are just some things I need to know so that I can move forward with my investigation.”

“Are you offering us immunity?” my mother asked softly.

“What?  No, of course not.”  He seemed to think about it for a moment or two, and then said, “How about this?  I’ll ask you questions all at the same time.  You can confer among yourselves if you’d like before you answer me.  This is all pretty innocent.”

“For a murder investigation, you mean?” I asked.  I looked around at my family, and said, “I’m game if you all are.  What do you all say?”

Everybody nodded their assent, with the exception of my father.

“Motion carried,” I said, and then shot a look of condolence toward my father.

“It’s on your heads,” he said.  “Don’t say that I didn’t try to warn you.”

“You won’t hear it from me,” Moose said, which I suspected was a big fat lie.  My grandfather happened to conveniently forget the things he wanted to, while remembering in perfectly crisp detail those things that fell in his favor.

“What’s your first question?” I asked the sheriff.

“When did any of you last see the deceased?”

“That had to be when I found his body in the freezer,” I said.

“That’s not what I meant.  When was the last time any of you saw him alive?”

“Hang on a second,” Greg said.  “Don’t answer that, Victoria.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I think it might be easier if we just tell him what we figured out while we were sitting here together waiting for him.”

I thought about it, and then nodded.  “You’re right.  Go ahead and tell him.”

Greg explained, “Sheriff, I had an ice cream drop-off earlier today around four, so I had to open the delivery door.  I thought I locked it back when they left, but the latch must have caught on something, and it was still unlocked when Victoria and her mother discovered my mistake around seven.”