Rest in Pizza (14 page)
Authors: Chris Cavender
Greg came back at that exact moment and collected it, as though he somehow knew that it was ready. It was a knack that most of my people acquired over the years. They could judge the time it took something to run through the oven nearly as well as I could.
“Hey, David,” Greg said as he grabbed the sub and left.
“Hey,” David said to the closing door.
“You’ve got to be quick around here,” I said with a smile.
“So I see.”
After our pizza came out, I prepped it to serve, and then slid it in front of David. “We can eat back here, if you’d rather.”
“You don’t mind?” he asked. It was pretty clear that was his preference.
“No, it’s fine with me.”
“Let’s do that, then.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “You can set the table. There are plates over there, glasses here, and tableware if you need any.”
“For pizza? You’re kidding, right?”
“Hey, everybody’s different,” I said as I retrieved two sodas from our kitchen fridge. Maddy and I liked to keep some chilled there so we didn’t have to go up front if we were eating during business hours.
David took a slice, and then had a quick bite. “Man, that’s good.”
“You approve?” I asked, and then took a bite of my own.
“You bet I do.”
As we ate, I had to stop now and then to take care of business, but David didn’t seem to mind. Why should he? He had a hot pizza in front of him, plenty of soda to drink, and my sparkling conversation.
The only problem might be ever getting him to leave.
After we finished eating, David stood and reached for his wallet. “That was good enough to pay for.”
“Put that away, silly. I’m not going to charge you when I feed you. This was a date, remember? There’s got to be some advantage to dating me.”
He smiled. “Oh, that’s just one part of it. Since everything’s on the house, I’ll be back in an hour when you close up for another bite.”
“Okay, maybe I should clarify that,” I said, matching his smile with one of my own. “I won’t charge you once a week, but the rest of the time, you’re running a tab.”
“Sounds fair to me. May I have permission to kiss the chef?”
My smile must have faltered a little as he said it. “Eleanor, I’m so sorry. That was a colossally bad choice of words.”
I’d just managed to forget about Chef Benet’s murder, but his slip of the tongue brought it all back to me. “It’s fine,” I said as I gave him a quick peck.
He knew better than to apologize again, instead making a quick exit.
I knew that no matter how much I wanted to just wish it all away, there was no getting around the fact that it was time to step up our investigation of Benet’s death. I wasn’t at all sure how long most of our suspects would be available, but Maddy and I needed to make the most of it while they were around. We needed to talk to Janet first, but after we were finished with her, it was time to tackle the out-of-towners again.
I decided to focus on one thing at a time, though, and at the moment, I needed to think about pizza.
At least that was how I felt until an unwanted visitor came into the Slice and took that option away.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to grab a slice of pizza or to see your son,” I said as the police chief walked in.
“Sorry, it’s about Benet’s murder.”
“I was afraid of that,” I said. “What about it?”
“I need to know the last time you saw him,” the police chief said.
“Do you mean before I found him pinned to one of my chairs like some kind of bug?”
Kevin Hurley nodded. “Sorry, I should have known that I needed to be more exact in my wording to you. Your sister said the exact same thing, as a matter of fact.”
Good for Maddy. “I guess neither one of us likes being considered a suspect in a murder case.”
“Who said you were a suspect?” Chief Hurley asked.
“Come on, neither one of us is that stupid. Maddy and I found his body in our dining room, and we weren’t big fans of the man, either. It’s not a big step thinking we might be in your sights.”
The police chief sighed, and then leaned against the wall. “Eleanor, I might have suspected you in the past, but I don’t think you or your sister killed Benet.”
That was a revelation to me. “Are you kidding? Why not?”
He smiled wryly, and I saw a shadow of that boy from high school a long time ago that I’d fallen for. “Are you trying to talk me into something here?”
“No, sir. We didn’t do it. You have my word on it.”
The police chief said, “So, tell me. When did you see him? How many times, where, and under what circumstances since he came to town?”
“That’s a lot of questions all at once,” I said. “Any chance you might answer one or two of mine after we’re finished?” I needed information, and I had no other way of getting anything about the official police investigation without Kevin Hurley’s help.
“Eleanor, we’re not playing Twenty Questions here.”
“I’m not asking you to give away state secrets,” I said. “Would you at least keep an open mind and think about it?”
“Okay, I’ll consider your questions after we’re finished here, but I’m not making any promises.”
“That’s good enough for me.” I thought about it a few seconds, and then said, “Let’s see. The first time that I saw him was at the bookstore, where he had a temper tantrum and antagonized his producer, his wife, and his assistant in the span of about three minutes.”
Chief Hurley nodded, and then asked, “What about Cindy or her mother, Janet?”
That was interesting. “Do you think one of them might have done it? As far as I know, Janet wasn’t even nearby when Benet arrived. At least I didn’t remember seeing her there.”
“Cindy was around, though, wasn’t she?”
“She was,” I admitted. “She admitted to me that she was worried that Benet wouldn’t follow through with the demonstration and the signing, and she thought it might ruin her.”
Hurley jotted something down in his notebook, and then said, “So, she had a motive to kill him if he’d gone back on his word.”
I shook my head. “No way. Cindy wouldn’t gain anything by doing that, and besides, you’ve known her as long as I have. That girl doesn’t have the least bit of a temper as far as I know. It couldn’t have been easy being raised without a father, and a lot of kids might have turned out bad under the circumstances, but Cindy never did, as far as I know.”
“That’s right, as far as you know,” the chief said.
“What does that mean?” I asked him. “Does she have a police record?”
“No,” the chief of police admitted, “but there were stories that she burned down the Johnson barn when she was a kid.”
“I still don’t believe it,” I said, “and you should know better yourself than to listen to those lies.”
“I’m just trying to get the facts straight,” he said. The way he sighed, it sounded as though the police chief had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I didn’t envy him his job one bit.
“I can’t see Cindy killing Chef Benet,” I said flatly.
The chief kind of shrugged, and then asked, “And you didn’t see Benet fighting with anyone else?”
“That’s right,” I said quickly, and then hesitated. “Wait a second, it’s not, but it doesn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything.”
“What didn’t?” Kevin asked, his interest clearly perking up.
“He and Paul were arguing about the proper way to make pastry when I found Benet at the bakery.”
“Were they having a nice discussion, or was there yelling involved?”
I knew that I was burying Paul with my account of things, something I didn’t want to do. “I think it was just two professionals with different points of view.”
“Were they yelling?” Kevin repeated.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“I’ll talk to him,” the chief of police said as he jotted that down as well.
“Tell him that I’m sorry I threw him under the bus when you do,” I replied.
“Eleanor, you didn’t throw him anywhere. I’ll talk to Paul next, and most likely, I’ll be able to rule him out as a suspect. After all, he was probably still at the bakery when Benet was murdered. I need an exact time when you left him alone in the dining room.”
I thought about it, and then told him, “At two o’clock, he was alive.”
Kevin nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. My medical examiner told me Benet was murdered between two and three, as near as he can tell.”
Maddy and I had already figured that one out for ourselves. “This might be a stupid question, but are you sure the knife is what killed him?”
The police chief looked amused by my question. “Well, I can tell you for sure that he wasn’t electrocuted.”
“He could have been poisoned, though,” I said.
“Why would someone take a chance on being seen knifing the man if they’d already poisoned him?” the chief asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “When a chef is murdered, doesn’t poison come to mind first thing?”
Chief Hurley shook his head. “Not when one of your blades is driven all the way through him.”
I shrugged. “I just thought you might want to be thorough. After all, enough people wanted the man dead. Who’s to say there was just one murderer and one attempt on the man’s life?”
Chief Hurley bit his lip, and then grabbed his radio. “Tell the M.E. I need to see him. Yes, right now.”
He put his radio back on his belt, and then said, “It’s probably a wild goose chase, but I’ll ask him if he ran a toxicology screen.”
“It was just a thought,” I said.
“I’m not sure I’m all that thrilled with the way your mind works, if that’s the kind of things you’re thinking about,” he said.
I shrugged. “Maybe Maddy’s mystery novels are finally starting to rub off on me. Have you been able to eliminate any of the suspects?”
I wasn’t sure Chief Hurley even realized that I was pumping him for information, but while he was in a talkative mood, I was going to take advantage of it. “No, everyone was in and out of that bookstore so much, even Cindy could have done it.”
“You don’t think that, though, do you?” I thought about what we’d been talking about, and wondered if her previous relationship with Benet may have had more to it than she’d told me.
“At this point, I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I’m still collecting information.”
And here I was, holding some out on him. I couldn’t keep what I knew from the chief of police any longer, even if it meant pointing him in Cindy’s direction.
“Did she tell you that she and Benet had an online relationship before he came to town?” I asked softly.
It appeared that Kevin thought I was teasing him at first, but then he saw the look on my face. “Are you serious?”
“They weren’t doing anything icky,” I said, “but they chatted a lot online.”
“I need to see her computer, then,” the chief answered, suddenly losing all interest in talking to me.
“I’m sure that it doesn’t mean anything,” I said, but it was too late.
He was already gone.
Good job, Eleanor. You just put the chief of police on the trails of two friends.
I didn’t know if I’d thrown them under the bus, but I surely hadn’t done them any favors. Then again, if Chief Hurley found out some other way, it might be even worse for them. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was better to get everything out into the light, examine it, and then see what merited a closer look.
I was still wondering if I’d done the right thing when Maddy came back to pick up a pizza.
“What did you say to Hurley?” she asked as she grabbed the pie.
With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I told her everything we’d discussed.
Maddy whistled softly to herself. “Wow, you didn’t tell him anything about me, did you?”
“Of course not,” I answered.
“Okay. Just remind me to stay on your good side.”
I started to throw a towel at her, but then changed my mind.
“Deliver that pizza,” I said, “and let’s start wrapping up around here. We need to talk to Janet, and then we need to get our rest.”
“Any reason in particular?” she asked.
“You bet. We have a big day tomorrow.”
“Yeah? What did you have in mind?”
“I think it’s time we start asking some hard questions, and I want to start with Jessie, Oliver, and Patrice.”
Chapter 13
“H
i, Janet. It’s Eleanor and Maddy from the Slice. Can we come in? We brought you a pizza.” I’d had the idea at the last second before we left the pizzeria to make something for Janet to help get us inside. I knew Janet loved a thin-crust pepperoni pizza late at night, since she ordered one about once a month from us.
i, Janet. It’s Eleanor and Maddy from the Slice. Can we come in? We brought you a pizza.” I’d had the idea at the last second before we left the pizzeria to make something for Janet to help get us inside. I knew Janet loved a thin-crust pepperoni pizza late at night, since she ordered one about once a month from us.
“I didn’t order anything,” Janet said, looking a little shaky and confused as she opened the door. From her red eyes, I had a feeling that she’d been crying for some time. It was no wonder, given all that had happened lately.
“We had a customer who changed his mind, but he’d already paid for it,” Maddy lied. “Of course we thought of you. It just came out of the oven, so if you want it, it’s all yours, on the house.”
“It’s sweet of you to think of me,” she said as she looked at the box, “but I couldn’t. I’m too upset right now.”
“You still have to eat, don’t you?” I asked. It was important that we speak with her now. I knew that, and I hoped that my sister did as well.
“I suppose you might as well come in,” she said, but I could tell that whatever was upsetting her was weighing heavily on her mind.
I’d had my fill of pizza, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. It was most likely the warmest invitation we were going to get. “We’d love to,” I said as I took off my coat, and Maddy did the same as we stepped inside. The weather had taken a sudden cool turn, and it was nice to be able to wear a jacket again.
“We might as well eat in the dining room,” Janet suggested.
Maddy nodded as she held up a two-liter bottle of cola we’d brought along as well. “We brought soda, too.”
“That’s nice,” Janet said, glancing at the front door every now and then. Was she waiting for someone to show up, or was there somewhere she needed to be?
“We could use some cups, plates, and napkins, too, if you wouldn’t mind,” I said.
After we were set up, we all shared in the pizza. There were times when thin-crust pizza was my favorite, but usually I liked the thicker, traditional crust. I’d made Chicago-style pizza, too, from time to time. I loved pizza in all of its incarnations.
As we ate, I asked, “How’s Cindy doing?”
“To be honest with you, she’s an absolute wreck,” Janet said, clutching a tissue in her hand as though it had magical properties. “The poor thing is afraid that her bookstore is doomed because of what happened. Cindy doesn’t believe people will ever be able to forget what happened to that man who was murdered in your restaurant. I tried to reassure her that it wasn’t true, but I wasn’t sure. What do you think, Eleanor? Given enough time, they’ll forget about it, won’t they?”
It was a hard question to answer, though I’d weathered my own share of bad news over the years. “I’ve had a few mishaps in my restaurant, but folks still managed to find their way back,” I said.
“I’m sorry. That was indelicate of me, wasn’t it?” Janet asked. “I’m just not myself right now.”
“It’s okay. All I’m saying is that sometimes bad things happen, and people usually find a way to bounce back.” I couldn’t ignore her reddened eyes any longer. I touched her hand as I asked, “Janet, are you okay? You’ve clearly been crying, and when you’re not, you’re staring at the front door.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” she said as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue again.
“Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look fine to me,” I answered softly. “It’s about Benet and his relationship with Cindy, isn’t it?”
Janet froze up when she heard my words. “What are you talking about, Eleanor? What exactly do you know?”
“You must have been shocked when he just showed up like that so unexpectedly,” I said, taking a stab with my comment based on Oliver’s information that Benet had come to town on family business, and then adding Cindy’s own input that Benet had sought out a relationship with her for reasons that logically didn’t make all that much sense. Everything clicked at that moment, and when I added Cindy’s lack of a father and Janet’s own tears into the mix, I suddenly suspected exactly why she was reacting the way she was.
“Benet was Cindy’s father, wasn’t he?” I asked.
And that’s when Janet fainted.
“Where did that come from?” Maddy asked me as she reached over to keep Janet from falling out of her chair. As we eased the poor woman to the floor so she wouldn’t fall off her seat and hurt herself, my sister asked, “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? A little warning would have been greatly appreciated.”
“Sorry, but it just occurred to me,” I said. As I looked at Janet, I saw that there was no color in her cheeks. “Is she okay?”
Maddy felt for a pulse. “She’s fine. The shock of it must have sent her over the edge. It looks as though it’s true, though, doesn’t it?”
“It all added up in my mind, but I still wasn’t positive even as I said it.”
Maddy looked at the prone woman, and then said, “By the way she reacted, I’m guessing you were right.”
“What happened?” Janet asked as she finally began to stir. When she realized that Maddy and I were kneeling beside her, she managed to shake if off and sit up on her own.
“You fainted,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“How do you think I feel? I’m devastated,” Janet admitted. “I thought I’d take that secret to the grave with me, but when Tony showed up at the bookstore out of the blue, I thought I was going to die.”
“So, you didn’t know that your Tony was Antonio Benet,” I said. “Didn’t you recognize his name or his face on television?”
“I only knew him as Tony B,” Janet admitted. “I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know him all that well when we were together, if you can call it that. What it boils down to is that we had a torrid weekend fling. It’s not easy for me to admit that even now, and I didn’t know that I was pregnant until he was gone. I was a senior in college working at a summer camp in the mountains, and I’d just broken up with my boyfriend. Tony came to visit one of the other counselors, and one thing led to another.” She seemed to be reliving it as she told me. “After I learned that I was pregnant, I didn’t come home for a year.”
“Where did you go?” I asked. This woman, someone I thought I knew, had lived a whole other life that I didn’t know about.
“My aunt and uncle took me in.” She took a deep breath, and then added, “Could I possibly get a glass of water, please?”
Maddy got up to get one, but before she did, she said, “Don’t say a word until I get back.”
“Eleanor, could you help me to my chair while she’s doing that?” Janet asked.
I did, and Maddy quickly came back with the water. After taking a sip, Janet continued with her story. “I stayed away until Cindy was three months old, and then I came back home as a ‘widow.’ It was the only way my father would let me back in my parents’ lives, and I needed them desperately. I made one mistake, and it nearly cost me their love. But I wouldn’t have changed anything even if I could,” she admitted. “After all, I got Cindy, and she worth every bit of it.”
I felt bad about pressing her. It was clear that she’d already gone through a great deal, but it was time to get some answers to my questions. “I have to ask. Didn’t you recognize Tony when Cindy started talking to him? At the very least, you must have seen one of his book covers.”
Janet just shrugged. “You’ve met the man, but picture him in his early twenties. The Tony I knew barely weighed a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, and his hair was jet black. When I first saw Benet’s picture, something must have stirred in me, but I didn’t consciously realize that it was my old boyfriend at the time.”
“When did you know for sure, then?” Maddy asked her.
“The day of the signing,” Janet replied. “He found a way to get me alone, and the second he said my camp nickname, I knew who he was.”
“You must have been in shock,” Maddy said.
“I couldn’t believe it. He’d been worming his way into Cindy’s life through the Internet, while I had no idea that he even knew who we were.” She cried for a moment, and then quickly brought herself back under control. As Janet dried her eyes once again, she added, “All he had to do was ask me, and I would have allowed him to see her. She was his daughter, for goodness sakes. I’m not some kind of monster.”
“Are you saying that you weren’t angry with him?” I asked. I could think of half a dozen reasons Janet wouldn’t mind seeing Benet dead, and I had a hard time believing that she would just roll over like that.
“How would that be fair to anyone? Tony never even knew about Cindy. How could I blame him for anything? We talked about it like adults, and I agreed not to stand in his way if he wanted a relationship with his daughter. Besides, she’s a grown woman. I couldn’t very well stop her, if she set her mind to it. She’s a legitimate widow herself, not some pretend one like me.”
I had a sudden thought. “Does Cindy know that Benet was her father?”
“I told her an hour ago,” Janet admitted.
“How did she take it?”
“She didn’t believe it at first, and then she stormed out of here as though she were on fire. I don’t know where she went, or if she’s even going to come back. I’ve botched the whole thing, and I don’t know what to do about it. When you two showed up, I kept thinking that Cindy would come back any second. That’s why I kept watching the door. Now I’m wondering if she’ll ever be coming back at all. She’s too impulsive, just like me.”
The tears began again in earnest, and as Maddy and I did our best to comfort her, I couldn’t help wondering if Janet’s demeanor was because of her lost daughter, or what she might have done to protect her. What if Janet was lying about what her true reaction had been when she’d discovered that Cindy’s father was right there in the bookstore? What if she had no intention of letting Benet into her daughter’s life? Would she kill him to keep that from happening? Parents had committed murder without flinching to protect their children before, and we had only Janet’s word that it had happened the way she’d told us.
“Find her for me,” Janet pled through the tears. “I can’t stand thinking she’s out there somewhere all alone.”
“We’ll try,” Maddy said, much to my surprise. Most folks thought I was the soft touch of the family, but my sister showed time and time again that she cared at least as much about people as I did.
Once we were outside, I asked, “What made you volunteer us like that?”
“Think about it, Sis,” Maddy said as we made our way to my car. “If we can find Cindy before her mother can get to her, we can at least confirm some of Janet’s story.”
I looked at Maddy. “Then you don’t believe her completely either, do you?”
“There’s something a little too altruistic about the way she says she reacted for my taste,” Maddy said.
“Okay then, we’ll look for Cindy,” I agreed.
“Any idea where she might be?”
“Actually, I believe I’ve got a pretty good one,” I said.
We drove back toward the promenade, and Maddy looked at me oddly. “Where exactly are we going, Eleanor?”
“The bookstore,” I said. “That’s where she’s been spending all of her time lately, and just think about it. Where would you go if your world were suddenly collapsing?”
“Either my place, or yours,” Maddy replied quickly.
I touched her arm lightly. “That is so sweet.”
“Hey, we’re all we’ve got,” she said.
“What about Bob?”
“He’d be fourth on the list, right after the Slice,” Maddy admitted, “But is it wrong that I didn’t even think of him for the top spot? What does that say about our relationship?”
“It’s not right or wrong,” I said, though I wasn’t sure that I believed it myself. Was it a slip of the tongue, or had Maddy actually forgotten about her boyfriend until I’d brought his name up?
We got to the promenade, and after parking in the visitor’s lot up front, we walked to the lone shop with its lights blazing.
It appeared that the owner of the Bookmark was exactly where I’d predicted that she’d be.
“Cindy, it’s Eleanor and Maddy. Open up.” I knocked on the door, but at first, I didn’t see any activity inside. Could she have left her lights blazing and forgotten all about it?
“Maybe she’s not here,” Maddy said.
“Hang on. What was that?” I saw movement in the back through her window, but if it was Cindy, she made no effort to come let us in, and we couldn’t exactly have a conversation with her from the walkway if she didn’t want to talk to us. “Did you see it, too?”
Maddy touched my shoulder. “I did, but she clearly has no interest in talking to us, at least not right now. She’s not coming out, Eleanor, and we can’t make her, unless you want to break her window with a rock.”
“No, thanks. I’ve gone through that before, and it’s not a good thing to have happen to you. I’ve got one more idea, and then we can go if it doesn’t work.”
I knocked once more, and then said loudly, “We’ve talked to your mom, and we know that Benet was your father. We can help.”
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