Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder (5 page)

“You didn’t.” He looked over at our two remaining customers and asked, “So, how do we get them to leave?”

“It’s usually not a problem,” I said. The few times it had happened before, Maddy and I had simply waited them out.

Josh said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

Before I could stop him, he walked over to the table, said a few words, then the couple who’d been eating threw a twenty on the table and hurried out.

“What did you say to them?” I asked.

“I told them the health inspector was coming by, and we had a ton of code violations we had to take care of before he got here.”

“Josh, you can’t do that.”

I looked at him and saw that he was laughing. “Relax. I just let them know we were closing, and invited them back some other time.”

“What else did you say to them, Josh?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I implied that the city was towing cars in the parking lot, but if they thought I meant their car, it’s not my fault, is it?”

“In the future, we’ll have to figure out a better way to handle it,” I said.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” He grabbed the twenty, then handed it to me. “Looks like a nice tip.”

“Don’t kid yourself. It will barely cover their tab,” I said.

“Sorry about that. I won’t do it again.” Then he hit me with that puppy-dog look that had worked so well for his father. It was just too bad for him that I was immune to it by now.

I swatted him with my dish towel, and then said, “No more stunts like that, or you’ll be back on the unemployment line. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said contritely. I hated being called “ma’am,” but I couldn’t very well correct him, so I let it slide.

He looked around the pizzeria, and then asked, “What kind of jobs do you have for me when you’re gone?”

“You can take out the garbage, and then hose down the inside trash cans. After that, there are a few cases that need to be unloaded, and the storeroom could use a good mopping.”

“Wow, that all sounds too much like work.”

“Then don’t do it, Josh.”

“I was just kidding,” he said in protest.

“Too bad I’m not in the mood for it today. I’ve changed my mind. Don’t bother signing in.”

“You’re firing me on my first day back?” His expression had turned from light and playful to full-on despair in an instant.

“No, you can come back at three when we reopen.” The relief was evident in his face, until I added, “But you’ve got to take this job seriously. I’m not in the mood for your antics.”

“I’m sorry, Eleanor. I guess I’m just a little giddy being back at work.”

The boy was starting to drive me as crazy as his father did. “Forget I said that. I don’t need any robots working for me, so don’t start, understand?”

“I do.” He looked suitably contrite as he added, “Dad told me what happened last night. I should have realized you’d still be shook up by it.”

“Anybody would,” I said, just a little mollified by his new attitude. “It’s not pleasant being robbed at gunpoint.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” He looked around the dining room, then added, “Are you sure I can’t get to work on those trash cans now?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “Go on, take off.”

Josh shrugged, and as he headed for the door, he called out, “I’ll see you at three, then.”

Maddy came out a second later and saw Josh retreating. “Did he decide not to work, after all? I thought Josh wanted to come back to work here.”

“He does, but I told him to take off until three. That’s when he’s supposed to be out of school anyway, so it shouldn’t be any kind of hardship for him. I thought about giving Josh some of Greg’s work, but he’s paying his way through college, not saving up to buy a pickup truck.”

“What happened to his MINI Cooper?” she asked.

“Marybeth took it away from him so he couldn’t run away again.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Mandy said. “If I were Josh, I’d never drive that car again.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what he told me.”

Maddy smiled. “Great minds think alike, what can I say? I took care of the kitchen, so we’re free for an hour. More like fifty-seven minutes,” she added as she glanced at the clock. “What did Josh say to our customers, anyway?”

“You saw that?”

“I was peeking from the kitchen.”

“He implied that they were towing cars in the lot, and that our customers were in imminent danger of losing their transportation.”

“At least they’re gone,” Maddy said. “So, what are you going to do on your break?”

“I really should go shopping for a new safe,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I should cut down on my chocolate cake intake, but I don’t see that happening, either.”

“What’s going on? What did you have in mind?” I asked my sister. She was a genius at getting me in trouble, or into awkward situations at the very least.

“I think we should arm you,” she said.

“I’m not carrying a gun around in my purse. I’ve got pepper spray.”

“For all the good it did you. Do you want to get robbed again?” Maddy asked.

“You know the answer to that, so why ask it? Do you honestly think that if I have a gun, it will make things any better?”

“Dad always thought so,” Maddy said, something I knew to be true. Our father had been a firm believer in having weapons to defend his family and his home, and growing up, we’d been taught a healthy respect for them.

“That was his choice, and going around town unarmed is mine,” I said, knowing that the decision was right for me. “But if you want to go Smith and Wesson shopping, by all means, don’t let me stop you.”

Maddy pursed her lips. “So let me get this straight. It’s not the self-defense you have a problem with, it’s doing it with handguns, is that right?”

“I guess so,” I said after thinking about it for a few seconds. “What other option does that leave me?”

“I’ve got something that might help, if you’re really interested. I know it’s worked wonders for me.”

Sometimes my sister could be really cryptic. “What are you talking about, Maddy?”

“I think we should check out a site I like on the Internet.”

“You know my old computer died,” I said. “Josh talked me into getting a new one, but it won’t be here for a few weeks.”

“That’s no problem. I’ve got my Dell XPS in my bag.”

As she got it out and set it up on one of the tables, I asked, “Don’t you need a phone line for that, or something?”

“Eleanor, how do you manage? It’s the twenty-first century. We’ll do what everyone else does and steal someone else’s signal.”

“I don’t feel good about that,” I said.

“It’s not actually stealing. Someone around here has Wi-Fi, so we’re just borrowing a little access.”

“I’m not sure I agree with your ethics.”

“Don’t worry, this will just take a sec,” she said as she connected to the Internet. “Look at this,” Maddy said as she stared at the screen ten seconds later. I didn’t want to peek, since I still wasn’t sure it was proper, but my curiosity finally got the better of me.

I don’t know what site she pulled up, but if it was any indication of what was out there, it was hard to believe everyone wasn’t going around armed with at least something. There was an array of stun guns, Tasers, pepper sprays, knives, collapsible batons, crossbows, slingshots, and a few things that I couldn’t even dream what their functions might be.

“Shut it off,” I said.

“It’s a part of living in the modern world, Eleanor. The sooner you face that fact, the safer you’ll be.”

“I don’t want to overreact because of what happened last night,” I said. “I got robbed, and it shook me pretty badly, but I’m not going to go around armed to the teeth.”

“It’s your duty to protect yourself,” Maddy said.

“What if I’d had a stun gun like you carry around all of the time?” I asked. “He had a real one, and I’m not about to start carrying around a revolver in my purse to match weaponry with him.”

“Don’t be silly,” Maddy said.

“At least you’re willing to see that much.”

“You’d have to carry an automatic,” Maddy replied.

I pushed the lid down on her computer. “I’m done talking about this.”

She lifted the top back up. “You’re making a mistake.”

“It won’t be the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last,” I said.

“Okay, but have you ever really looked at my stun gun? It’s really kind of neat.”

“I don’t know how it could be.”

Maddy reached into her oversized bag and pulled out the thin black rectangular box, about four inches tall. There were two small probes coming out of the top of it.

“I’ve seen it before,” I said.

“But we’ve never really talked about it. Eleanor, this might not look like much, but it’s pretty powerful for its size, and it runs on a nine-volt battery,” she said proudly.

“And you actually think that’s enough to stop someone from attacking you?”

“It puts out eighty thousand volts, Eleanor. It will do the job. Here, why don’t you take this one? I’ll get myself another one.”

“Thanks, but I’m not interested,” I said, afraid to touch it. “I’ll stick with my pepper spray.”

As I started for the door, she asked, “Where are you going?”

“I need a little fresh air. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

I walked out of the Slice before she could stop me.

It was a beautiful afternoon, but my sister had nearly spoiled it for me. While it was certainly true that I’d hated how helpless I’d felt the night before, did she really think having one of those gadgets of hers in my purse would have changed anything? The only way it would have done any good at all was if my attacker hadn’t been armed. If that were true, I’d either fight him or run as fast as I could. The old “fight or flight” worked just fine for me. At least my job allowed me to wear blue jeans and tennis shoes, both conducive to bolting, should the need and the opportunity ever arise again.

I found myself wandering around the brick promenade in front of the shopping complex of buildings. I didn’t do that nearly enough, staying safe locked up in my kitchen and only commuting back and forth to the alley, where I stowed my car. There really was a lot to offer to the citizens of Timber Ridge in our little shopping complex.

I walked past Paul’s Pastries, thought about going in to see how he was doing after last night, and then I realized that food wasn’t the comfort I needed at the moment. It would be too tempting to bury my feelings in a chocolate éclair. I glanced at his door and saw that Paul had changed his hours. He was shutting down half an hour earlier than he had in the past, and I realized that if I was ever going to get another treat, I’d have to do it during the first part of my break, and not the latter. The display cases—normally overflowing with donuts, pies, and cakes—now stood bare.

For some reason, the shop looked haunted to me, like the shell of something that used to be alive.

Last night had evidently hit me harder than I’d realized.

Right beside Paul’s place was a storefront that gave me shivers, even on my best of days. It had housed a clothing store, but the owner had long since departed for the warm climate of Florida. No one had rented the store since, and a cluster of naked mannequins stood in the center of the shop, as if they were gathered for a meeting on how best to overthrow the world. It was bad enough in the daytime, but the security lights inside at night gave them all a weird, otherworldly appearance that never failed to make me pick up my pace whenever I walked past the window.

Slick’s Sports was on the end of the row, closest to the side street that ran perpendicular to our shops. Slick was a balding middle-aged man with a full beard. He’d kept in shape throughout the years, and I often saw him running past the Slice, at all times of day and night.

He was adding clothing to a sales rack in front of the shop as I walked past.

“Eleanor, have you finally come to get some running shoes?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But I see you keep at it all of the time.”

“That’s how I stay so fit,” he said as he slapped his flat belly under his shirt. “I run six days a week, and I couldn’t imagine what my life would be without it.”

“At least you take one day off,” I said, trying to be funny.

“That’s when I ride my bike,” he said. “It’s good to work different muscles every now and then.” He lowered his voice, and then added, “Sorry to hear about your trouble last night. I’ve been thinking about it, and if you’d like me to walk you to your car at night when you close, I’d be happy to do it. All you have to do is call.”

“I appreciate the offer,” I said, “but I’m not sure what your wife would think.”

Slick and his wife had three grown sons, and had been married, in Slick’s teasing words, “all their lives.”

“It was her idea in the first place. She was a big fan of your husband.” He hastily added, “So was I. You know that.”

“I do,” I said. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine. I’m getting a safe to keep my deposits in until I can bank the next day, so it won’t be a problem.”

“That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all day. Come on in.”

I glanced at my watch and saw that I had just ten minutes left of my break. “I’d love to, but I’m kind of pressed for time right now.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got a safe you might like,” he said.

“Since when did you start carrying safes?”

“We live in the North Carolina Mountains. Some of my customers have guns, so I started carrying them as a service.”

“I don’t need to store any firearms,” I said.

“I know that, but I’ve got the perfect unit for you. I’ll give you a merchant’s price break, so you can’t pass it up.” We had an informal agreement among shop owners to give each other discounts as a way of fostering team spirit and a sense of community on the square. Paul and I sometimes got the worst end of the deal, since we offered perishable items, but most folks were good not to take advantage of us. And if they did, they’d suddenly find their food arriving at their tables a little later every time, with some toppings appearing and disappearing like magic. It didn’t take long for anyone who abused the system to get the point.

“I’m not going to take advantage of you,” I said. “It wouldn’t be fair to you, since you rarely get pizza at my shop.”