Authors: Chris Cavender
Rest in Pizza (10 page)
“I’m sorry,” she said, “But I’m going to have to ask you to leave now. I’m afraid Patrice had a little too much to drink, and now she’s feeling a bit under the weather.”
Like that was some kind of news flash. “Can we help?” I asked.
“No, Oliver and I can take care of it ourselves.” I wasn’t sure either one of them was capable of doing much, but I couldn’t very well insist that they allow me to lend a hand.
“We’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’m sure,” I said as I stood.
“I’m afraid that won’t do. We’ll be busy making arrangements,” Jessie said, “But we’ll see. Thanks for the pizza.”
The funny thing was, she didn’t sound drunk at all as she ushered us out of the suite. Had she pretended to be hammered to see what we were up to, or had something happened in Patrice’s room that had sobered her up?
I honestly couldn’t say.
On the drive back to Timber Ridge, Maddy asked, “What did you make of that little scene back there?”
“They were a mess, weren’t they?” I swerved to avoid a squirrel, and then asked, “Was Jessie really drunk when we got there?”
“I’d say without a doubt,” Maddy replied. “She seemed to sway just the right amount, and I could smell liquor on her breath when I gave her a slice of pizza.”
Maybe I’d been wrong about her. “Then what sobered her up so fast? Could Patrice have said something to her out of our hearing that shocked her sober?”
Maddy took a moment before she answered. “I don’t know. I can’t quit thinking about what Oliver said. What did he mean about family business? Benet’s not from around here. I saw his bio on the back of his cookbook. He grew up in Atlanta, and from the sound of it, it’s as close as he ever got to our part of North Carolina.”
“There’s something there, though,” I said as I tapped my steering wheel. “We need to do a little more digging into that.”
“You know me,” Maddy said. “I’m all for it, but I’m not exactly sure how we should go about it. What did you have in mind?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “But give me some time. I’m sure that I’ll be able to come up with something.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that you will. You’re kind of gifted that way, aren’t you?”
“Is it a gift, or really a curse?” I asked with a slight smile.
“I guess that all depends,” Maddy said.
My cell phone rang, and I reached for it, but Maddy was quicker.
“Eleanor Swift’s phone,” she said with a smile before I could protest.
Whoever it was, the call ended rather quickly. “Yes. Yes. I understand. Okay. Fine.”
That was all she said during the course of the telephone call, and after she was finished, she put my cell phone back where it had been without saying a word.
I gave her a full ten seconds until I asked, “Care to share what that was about with me?”
“It was Kevin Hurley,” she said.
“What did he want?” I had visions of having the Slice quarantined so long that I lost my business, and realized that it was a very real possibility, given the razor-edge of a profit margin I worked under.
“Don’t worry. You’ll like hearing this. He said they finished up with their investigation sooner than he expected, so we can have the Slice back now if you want to reopen. He’s leaving the key at your place.”
Maddy frowned as she delivered the last bit of news, her smile dying quickly.
I glanced over at her and asked, “What’s wrong with that? You should be happy we got the Slice back. It’s good news, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of beat, and you’re going to want to open tonight, aren’t you?” she asked as she glanced at my clock dash. I looked myself, and saw that it was almost nine.
“You know what? Forget it. It’s not worth our time to go to all of that trouble for an hour or two,” I said, “Even if we stay open late. We just found the body this morning. I think folks might need a little time to get over that, don’t you? As a matter of fact, I was thinking about staying closed tomorrow, too.”
Maddy looked at me sideways with clear confusion on her face. “Who are you, and what did you do with my sister?”
“What do you mean?”
“Eleanor, I’ve never known you to pass up the opportunity to make a buck.”
I shrugged. “It appears that finding a dead body in my dining room has that effect on me. Who knew? So, what do you think? Should we open tomorrow, or not? If we keep the doors closed another day, we should be able to get a lot more snooping in.”
Maddy thought about it, was obviously tempted by the prospect, and then said, “I’m just worried about the message it sends if we don’t reopen. We don’t want folks in town to think we’re doing it because we’re guilty of something, do we?”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said with a sigh. “But I meant what I said before: we aren’t going to do it tonight. I’m every bit as worn out as you are. Why don’t we just call it a night? That way we can make a fresh start in the morning.”
“That sounds like a great plan to me,” Maddy said. “I might call Bob and see if he wants to come over. Are you calling David?”
I considered it for a moment, and then said, “No, I’m going to take a long, hot bath, and then I’m going to bed.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. She grabbed her cell phone, and after a brief conversation, she hung up, still frowning.
“What did Bob do, turn you down?” I asked, never believing that it was even in the realm of possibility.
Maddy nodded. “That’s exactly what he did. Bob just told me that he hadn’t realized that I’d be free tonight, so he agreed to play poker with some friends.”
“That doesn’t bother you, does it?” I asked my strong-willed, independent sister, surprised that she was acting as though it did.
“Of course not,” she said as she put her phone back in her bag. “He should spend some time with his friends.”
It didn’t ring true to me, but I wasn’t about to say anything else about it. I had enough to deal with on my own without taking Maddy’s problems on, too. She acted so aloof most of the time that it was hard to read her, even for me. I didn’t envy Bob the task he must have had figuring out what was on my sister’s mind.
As for me, the note I’d found from Joe had hit me harder than I realized, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend time with another man. I’d call David tomorrow, but for tonight, I just wanted to be alone with my memories.
When we got back to my place, Maddy got in her car and left, and I went inside to clean up the mess we’d made making pizzas. It delayed my bath a little, but I knew that there was no way I was going to feel like doing it in the morning.
I had enough to do tomorrow as things stood now without adding more chores to my schedule. I had a pizzeria to open, and if things went well, I might still have enough time to investigate a murder.
Chapter 9
“T
here, that should do it,” Maddy said as we finished mopping the floor in the dining room of the Slice the next morning. We’d come in early to set things right again, but I had my doubts that anyone would even show up after there’d been a murder there so recently. We’d done everything we could to cleanse the memory of it away, and if scrubbing the place down counted for anything, we should be set. I knew that wasn’t the case, though, so for good measure, we mixed the tables up so much that even I couldn’t pick the one out where Maddy and I had found the murdered chef. The police, for whatever reason, had taken only the chair he’d been pinned to, but that was just as well as far as I was concerned.
here, that should do it,” Maddy said as we finished mopping the floor in the dining room of the Slice the next morning. We’d come in early to set things right again, but I had my doubts that anyone would even show up after there’d been a murder there so recently. We’d done everything we could to cleanse the memory of it away, and if scrubbing the place down counted for anything, we should be set. I knew that wasn’t the case, though, so for good measure, we mixed the tables up so much that even I couldn’t pick the one out where Maddy and I had found the murdered chef. The police, for whatever reason, had taken only the chair he’d been pinned to, but that was just as well as far as I was concerned.
I didn’t need any reminders, myself. My sister and I had decided to change the layout of the dining room dramatically so nothing occupied the space where the murder table had been, and I wasn’t sure that I was all that fond of the new arrangement. In general, I wasn’t all that big a fan of changing anything that Joe and I had so carefully created, but then I realized that it was silly trying to keep things the same as they’d always been. This place was an ongoing business venture, not a shrine to the past.
Maddy stood back and looked at the results. “I like it. It’s quirky,” she said.
I took in the new arrangement and asked, “What exactly makes it quirky in your mind?”
“It’s something you have to be able to recognize on your own without explanation,” Maddy said a little condescendingly.
“You don’t know either, do you?” I asked with a smile.
“I don’t have a clue,” she said with a laugh. “It just seemed like the thing to say,” she added, matching my grin.
As I studied the dining room one last time, I realized that I was as satisfied with the arrangement as I was going to be. It was time to get back to work—not cleaning, but getting ready to serve pizza and sandwiches to whoever was brave enough to come in after what had happened the day before. “Are we ready to go ahead and start our prep work in the kitchen? I doubt that we’re going to be overrun with customers. As a matter of fact, I’m not entirely sure that anyone’s going to show up at all.”
Maddy shook her head. “Eleanor, never underestimate the taste of the general population. Unless I miss my guess, we’re going to be jammed; trust me. Is Greg coming in early?”
I thought about the work schedule I’d posted a few days ago, and then nodded. “He’ll be here when we open, so we’ve got that covered, just in case.”
Maddy nodded. “That’s good, because we’re going to need him. We should make extra dough, too.”
My sister was convinced that there would be a mad rush of diners, but I had some serious doubts about that myself. But honestly, what would it hurt to indulge her? “I still think you’re probably wrong, but if I make a double batch of dough, I can freeze it along with the dough I made yesterday morning before ... you know. It wouldn’t hurt to have some extra put back, just in case, so I’ll make enough fresh dough this morning to give us a good supply. How are the veggies?”
That was Maddy’s area of responsibility, telling me when we needed to order more, and how much. “We should be set. We’ve got a delivery coming tomorrow, but if we run out, I can always go to the store and get whatever we need to hold us over.”
“Then let’s get busy.”
As my sister and I worked in back, Maddy prepping the veggie toppings and me creating the dough that would soon become crust, we chatted about a great many things, but the topic we discussed most of all was, unsurprisingly, who we thought might have killed Chef Benet.
“The first question is,” I said as I started setting out my ingredients, “why would anyone want to kill him?”
“You actually met the guy, right?” Maddy asked as she cut up fresh green peppers. “Hang on, I know you did, because I saw you arguing with him myself.”
I had to give her that. Benet hadn’t been the nicest man I’d ever met. “Granted, he wasn’t very pleasant, but I have to believe someone had a better reason to kill him than just because his personality was a little grating.”
“Well, why do people commit murder, anyway?” Maddy asked. “There are only two reasons that I can think of off the top of my head—love and greed, right?”
“That’s a little too simplistic for my taste,” I said as I started measuring out the ingredients for the dough.
She finished cutting the green peppers and started on the mushrooms. “Hey, I’m willing to listen if you’ve got anything better to add to the conversation. Go ahead, be more specific.”
I thought about it for a few seconds, and then said, “His murder could have been related to his business, his family, or his love life.”
“Who exactly does that broad list leave out?” she asked. “You’re adding more people to the list, not subtracting from it.”
“Hey, I never said this was going to be easy,” I said as I flipped the mixer on and raised my voice so that Maddy could hear me over the motor. “No matter how we look at it, his wife has to be our first suspect. After all, you’d have to believe that she had the most to gain from his death, especially if there’s insurance, which I’m betting there is. I wonder how much Benet made with his TV show and his books.”
“I don’t know about that,” Maddy said, “but I have to wonder if the woman is even physically capable of killing him that way. Do you honestly believe that Patrice is strong enough to drive a knife clear through the man? I wouldn’t think that it would be easy. It would have to take someone really strong.”
“Or really motivated,” I added. “I keep my knives sharp, but not that sharp. Still, if Patrice thought that her husband was cheating on her, she’d have incentive, at least in her own mind.”
Maddy nodded as she moved the cut mushrooms into the covered bowl where they’d stay in the refrigerator until we were ready for them. “So, she tops our list, but we’re not going to stop there, are we? We can’t forget Oliver and Jessie. They each had their own reasons to want to see the man dead.”
I nodded as I turned the mixer off. The silence that followed was a nice change of pace from the mixer’s powerful motor. Had it actually been getting louder lately, or was it just my imagination? I dreaded the thought, and the expense, of replacing the floor unit, but I’d have to find a way to do it somehow if the motor ever died. Mixing as much dough as I needed every day by hand would be a nightmare. I’d find the money, one way or another, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. “It’s true that Benet treated his assistant like dirt, but Oliver wasn’t going to be around much longer. He hinted that if he didn’t get his big break soon, he was going to quit anyway, so why kill his boss?”
Maddy said, “Maybe he thought that the only way he’d ever get on the air was by taking Benet off himself.”
I just shrugged. “Oliver knew that he wasn’t going to get his own show, no matter what happened, remember? On the other hand, if Jessie had died instead of Benet, Oliver would be at the top of my list. Jessie spanked him pretty thoroughly, didn’t she?”
“She did. Then what would her motive be to kill Benet? He was her bread and butter at the network,” Maddy said.
“We can’t forget the fact that he was leaving,” I noted. “She could have easily been mad enough to kill him.”
“Agreed,” Maddy answered. “That leaves us with the odd ‘family business’ clue we got from Oliver, and Patrice’s conviction that Benet was having an affair. A scorned mistress can be just as dangerous as a neglected wife.”
I pulled the beater out and covered the mixer so the dough could raise, and then said, “So, we’ve got two more suspects. The only problem is that we don’t know who they are.”
“Or have any way to find out,” Maddy added. “But besides those few minor difficulties, it’s going to be a piece of cake.”
“Hey, give us a little credit, Sis. We’ve done it before,” I said, reminding her of some of our past exploits.
“Not without a little help from our friends and loved ones,” Maddy said. “You can’t exactly call up your buddy Art Young at the moment, can you?”
“Not unless it’s an emergency,” I said reluctantly. “It sounds as though he’s got problems of his own.”
“I don’t even want to think about what they might be,” she said as she shivered a little, though the kitchen was plenty warm enough.
I knew that my sister was not Art’s biggest fan by any stretch of the imagination, so I decided not to add anything to that particular conversation. “At least we still have David and Bob.”
Maddy frowned for a second, and then she took a particularly vicious slice at a poor defenseless onion she’d been chopping. “I’d rather not ask Bob at the moment, if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s fine by me,” I said. “Honestly, the more I think about it, I’m not exactly sure what we could ask them to do to help out, anyway. Why don’t we keep digging on our own before we start bringing other folks into it. For now, we should both just focus on what we do best.”
“Get married?” Maddy asked with a smile. “Between the two of us, we’ve done it five times.”
I shook my head, though I smiled a little. “That may be true, but I’m responsible for just one of those trips down the aisle.”
“I know, I’m the romantic of the family,” Maddy said. “Don’t worry. I’ll wait until you catch up.”
I rolled my eyes, but just a little. “You’re in for a long wait, then.”
“That’s something I could live with, no problem at all. Okay, if you weren’t talking about getting married again, what did you have in mind that the two of us are supposedly so good at?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of selling some pizza and subs,” I said.
“You know what? I like your idea better,” Maddy said.
“Have you honestly had your fill of holy matrimony?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light. Maddy usually joked about her four trips down the aisle, but lately she hadn’t made any self-deprecating cracks about it, and this was the first time she’d opened up in ages.
“There are too many factors that are out of my control, and too few I can change myself. The short answer? I’d have to say, who knows?”
It was an odd response that I wasn’t at all certain I wanted to dig any deeper into. Maddy and I had our differences from time to time, as nearly all sisters did, but in the end we were there for each other when it counted. It was okay if I didn’t know every opinion she held, and I was fairly certain she felt the same way about me. If she did decide to talk about what was troubling her, I’d be there, ready to listen. And honestly, it was just about the only thing I knew that I could do these days.
We left it at that, and before I knew it, it was time to open our doors and see if the public awaited, or if Maddy, Greg, and I were going to have the chance to catch up on our cleaning.
In the end, I just hoped that someone besides Greg Hatcher showed up.
Half an hour later, Maddy came back to my busy kitchen with another three orders. We’d had a crowd from the very start, to my amazement. I had to give my sister credit. She hadn’t said one “I told you so”; at least not yet. “And you were afraid folks would stay away because of the murder,” she said.
“I’ve got to say, I have to wonder about their motives,” I replied as I started on another thin-crust pizza.
She looked at me oddly. “Who cares? They’re spending money, and we missed an entire day of sales yesterday, don’t forget that,” Maddy said as she plated a pizza for me and cut it into slices to prepare it for a customer.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about the bottom line now,” I said. That was just too much to take in.
“Hey, I draw a paycheck here, too, remember? I care about the Slice doing well enough to keep a roof over my head and keep me fed.”
“Don’t worry. I can’t imagine that either one of us is going to miss any meals,” I said as I finished the pizza I’d been working on and slid it onto the conveyor. It was at times like these that I loved the convenience of the conveyor oven Joe and I had purchased when we’d decided to open A Slice of Delight. The pizzas went in as a combination of raw dough, sauce, uncooked toppings, and shredded cheese, and they came out transformed into pies full of bubbling goodness, the crust baked, the sauce heated, the toppings cooked, and the cheese melted into a delicious covering for it all. The best part about it, at least in my mind, was that once something got on the conveyor, it didn’t need any more attention from me until it was time to plate and serve.
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