Hearty Homestyle Murder: Book 9 in The Darling Deli Series (6 page)

Detective Jefferson opened the door to the interview room, jolting her out of her reverie. He waved her over.

“You can go, Moira. Just stick near your phone and be ready to come in again if we need anything else, all right?”

She nodded. “Detective Jefferson… can you tell me if I’m actually a suspect in this case?”

He hesitated. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call you a suspect. We’re still in the beginning stages of the investigation, and haven’t even gotten full reports back from the lab yet. My advice is to keep your head down, and to contact us immediately if you remember anything else. You have my number; feel free to call me at any time of day or night if anything, no matter how small, comes back to you.”

“I will,” she promised him. He smiled.

“Thank you for your cooperation. Hopefully this will all be over before you know it. Until then, just stay safe and stay out of trouble.”

He followed her through the door, then walked with her through the halls until they reached the door to the parking lot. He said goodbye with a nod, and she was free to go.

“Do you want to order pizza or Chinese?” Candice asked, her phone in her hand. “I’m starved; either one sounds good to me.”

“I don’t have a preference,” Moira told her daughter. “It’s your choice.”

The young woman made a face, then considered the Chinese takeout menu again.

“I think I’ll go with Chinese. They don’t deliver, but they’re only like five minutes away, and I really love their noodles. Do you know what David will want?”

The local Chinese food place, Hong Kong Fortunes, was one of the private investigator’s favorite places to order food. The long-time bachelor nearly always ordered the same dish, so Moira was confident.

“He’ll want the Kung Pao Chicken, medium spicy,” she told her daughter. “And I’ll take the sesame noodles with shrimp. Here, hand me my purse—I’ll pay.”

“I’ve got it,” Candice said with a smile. “You paid for my food for the first eighteen years of my life. I think I can return the favor for this one meal.”

Chuckling, Moira let her daughter win and returned to the article that she was reading on her tablet. The article, from the Maple Creek newspaper, speculated on why the mayor’s son had been killed. The reporter had managed to dig up every piece of dirt on the young man, as far back as his high school detentions. According to the reporter, each infraction could be the reason for his murder, including the time he had gotten a ticket for going ten miles per hour over the speed limit in a school zone. Although she couldn’t take the piece seriously, reading it still made Moira uncomfortable. Reuben’s death was one of the highest profile murders that Maple Creek had ever had, and the public would be quick to blame anyone who seemed even slightly connected to the murder. What would happen if this same reporter got wind of her interview with the police?

“All right, I ordered our food. I’m going to drive over to get it. Do you want to come along?” Candice asked.

“Sure.” Moira shut off her tablet and forced a smile onto her face. “Let’s go. I’m pretty hungry too.”

And hour later she, Candice, and David were sitting, stuffed, around Candice’s kitchen table. Styrofoam trays and plastic forks were strewn about, but there weren’t many leftovers. Hong Kong Fortunes was one of the best Chinese restaurants around. Moira was glad that it was in Lake Marion and not Maple Creek; if it was any closer to her house, she would probably stop there for dinner more often than she should.

“Have you heard from anyone about Keeva yet?” David asked as he began piling the trash together.

“No,” she told him. “Not even a single phone call. No one seems to know whose she is.”

The Irish wolfhound had settled in nicely at Moira’s place. She got along well with both Maverick and Diamond, and hadn’t so much as chewed up a single shoe. She was about as perfectly behaved as a dog could be, and the deli owner would be sad to see her go.
If no one ever claims her, I’ll probably keep her
, she thought. Maverick could use a friend, and after Martha picked Diamond up in a few days the house would be considerably more quiet.

“She seemed like a great dog when I met her,” Candice said. “I wonder why her owners aren’t looking for her.”

“Maybe her owners live in another town and lost her while they were traveling,” David said. “Maybe you should post her online. There are some websites dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their owners.”

“I’ll help you,” her daughter volunteered. “Just send me some pictures of her, and I can post her online for you.”

“Sure. Whatever it takes to find her owners,” Moira said, though she found herself selfishly hoping that Keeva remained unclaimed.

“How have things been going with you?” she asked David. “Any interesting cases?” She hadn’t seen him since the weekend; between taking care of the three dogs, working at the deli, and worrying over her police interview, she had had hardly any time for a social life.

“Nothing new.” He hesitated. “Well, I did have an interesting meeting with a potential client.”

“What about?”

“It was with Mayor Willis,” he said. “He wanted to hire me to investigate his son’s murder… but once he learned that I was involved with you, he left in a huff.”

“Oh my gosh, really?” Moira was stunned. She understood that Mayor Willis was a grieving parent, but how could he honestly think she had something to do with Reuben’s death? If she was right and it was the gumbo that had been poisoned, she supposed that she could see how he might be suspicious, but would the police really have shared that information with him? “I’m so sorry, David. I hate to be responsible for you losing business.”

“It’s not your fault, Moira. Don’t feel bad. After you told me that he had hired you to cater a party for his daughter, I assumed that he must like the deli. His reaction shocked me.”

“He canceled the catering a few days ago,” she said with a sigh. “He said that the party had been moved back, and he was going to hire a different caterer. He mentioned then too that he blamed me for his son’s death. I had already bought the extra food, so it was definitely a blow to my wallet, but I’m sure I’ll be able to sell most of it. I’ll just have to run a sale for a few days.”

“That’s not fair,” Candice cut in. “If he hired you to cater and you already ordered extra food for it, he should still pay for it even if he changed his mind.”

“Normally I would agree with you,” she told her daughter. “But with what he’s going through… well, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. He lost his son. He doesn’t need anything else to deal with on top of that. I’ll manage; the deli will be fine.”

“That’s admirable of you,” David said. “But I don’t think it would be wrong to ask him to at least pay for the extra food that you already ordered for the party, especially since he was rude about it. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him walk all over you. He’s the sort of man who might take advantage of that.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I don’t want to cause more drama. It’s bad enough that I had to speak to the police once already.”

“Do you think they really suspect you?” Candice asked. “Shouldn’t Detective Jefferson know by now that you would never hurt someone?”

“I think he’s trying not to let his personal feelings get in the way of a case,” she told her daughter.

“He’s a good detective,” David added. “I think he’ll be fair to your mother, but he can’t ignore the fact that she was connected to his death. One of my contacts at the crime lab confirmed that Reuben’s bowl of gumbo was the only one that was poisoned. Your guess was right, Moira.”

Moira paled. Even though she hadn’t done anything wrong, she couldn’t help but feel terrible knowing that the gumbo that Darling’s DELIcious Delights had entered in the contest had been used to kill somebody.

“I have no idea how that could have happened,” she said. “I feel horrible, but I certainly didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“The killer would have had to poison it while the bowls were being ladled out, after you handed the gumbo off to Sandy Keller. She’s the woman who was volunteering to help with the contest. Are you sure you didn’t see anything suspicious around the soup table?” he asked.

“Not that I remember. I’m guessing the police already interviewed that woman?”

“Most likely, yes.” David nodded. “I’m sure they have quite a few suspects lined up; what they’re lacking is physical proof to tie someone to the crime. Without proof, unless the killer confesses, they won’t be able to do anything. That’s why it’s so important to figure out when and how the poisoning happened. Somebody would have had to slip the poison into the gumbo without drawing attention to themselves… somebody who wouldn’t have been out of place in the tent. It’s likely it was one of the three judges or volunteers. You’re certain you don’t remember anything like that? You didn’t happen to glimpse someone pouring something into a bowl of soup?”

She remembered Darrin slipping the tiny unlabeled bottle into his pocket. Was it possible that… no, Darrin wouldn’t kill someone—of that she was certain. Bringing attention to him wouldn’t do anything but waste everyone’s time.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I keep thinking back to that day, but I don’t remember seeing a single thing that seemed out of place.”

Moira opened her eyes to a pale grey morning. Her sleepy brain wondered for a moment what had disturbed her. Then she registered the vibrating of her phone. She must have forgotten to turn the ringer back on when she got home last night; she was surprised that the humming sound had woken her.

“Hello?” she asked groggily, her eyes searching out the glowing numbers of her alarm clock as she spoke. It was just a few minutes past seven. Way too early for most people to be calling unless there was some sort of emergency.

“Ms. D, it’s Darrin,” the young man said. “I’m at the deli and, well, you’d better get down here.”

She dressed hurriedly, let the dogs out, fed them breakfast, then left.
When will I catch a break?
she wondered. According to Darrin, someone had sprayed graffiti across the deli’s front windows. He had seen it when he got there to open for the morning shift. She had told him to report it to the police, although she was reluctant to have another encounter with either of the two detectives.

Her heart sank as she pulled into the deli’s parking lot. Someone had spray-painted the words “poison” and “killer” in large blue letters across each of the large picture windows that fronted the deli, along with a skull and crossbones symbol. She knew as soon as she saw it that, unless the vandal had used water-soluble paint, she would have to close the deli for the day while she figured out how to remove the ugly words.

“The police will be here soon,” Darrin told her.

“Oh my goodness…” She stared at the deli, shocked and hurt at the sight of the graffiti. Who had done this? And why? Her shock and hurt began to turn to anger. She hadn’t done anything wrong, so why was she being treated like a criminal?

“Do you think they’ll be able to catch whoever did it?” Dante asked.

“I don’t know. Probably not. Not unless whoever did it was caught on camera, but I don’t think the camera above the register has a good enough view out the windows.”

She checked the app on her phone that was linked to the deli’s single video camera. A small portion of the window was in view, but whoever had committed the crime had done it in the middle of the night. They were nothing more than a dark silhouette against the orange glow of the streetlights. Nothing about the person’s shape or movements stood out to Moira, so she saved the video in hopes that the police might be able to get something useful from it.

A few minutes later a single cruiser pulled into the parking lot. The officer got out, shook Moira’s hand, and introduced himself as Officer Brown. He glanced towards the deli with a frown.

“What I’ll do is take some pictures, if that’s okay with you. Then we’ll run through some basic questions. I’ve got to be honest with you, though. Chances are we aren’t going to be able to track down whoever did this. I suggest you get some security cameras and motion-activated lights to prevent this sort of thing in the future.”

The entire thing took only a few minutes. Moira explained to the officer what had happened at the fair, and asked him if he thought anyone at the police station had been sharing sensitive information.

“We’re professionals, ma’am,” he said, affronted. “We don’t go around spreading rumors. It sounds to me like you made an enemy somewhere along the line. Now, I don’t want to frighten you, but you should be careful and keep your phone close by in case of an emergency. You never know what people are capable of.”

“Do you really think that whoever did that,” she gestured towards the deli, “might actually want to hurt me?”

“It’s possible,” he said, nodding. “Just be careful. Do get those security cameras and lights if you can. Visible security measures go a long way towards preventing a crime.”

Moira watched as the officer drove away. She felt a bit foolish for assuming that her call to the police station would warrant a visit by the town’s two detectives. Officer Brown had been nice enough, though she wished he would have done
something
more to figure out who the vandal was. Couldn’t he have dusted for fingerprints at the very least? She glanced over at Darrin, who had brought a bowl of warm, soapy water and a sponge out of the deli and was futilely scrubbing the windows. Whatever sort of paint the vandal had used wasn’t coming off easily.