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Authors: Chris Cavender

BOOK: Rest in Pizza
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For a second I thought it wasn’t going to work, and then I saw her head peek out slowly. “She actually told you about him?” Cindy asked, starting toward the door with fire in her eyes.
“She didn’t want to, but I kind of implied that I already knew that it was true,” I admitted.
Cindy shook her head. “How could you possibly know that, Eleanor? I didn’t have a clue myself, and dear old Mom never let on all these years.”
I didn’t like doing this with a wall of glass between us, but I didn’t really have any choice. “I put it together from what I learned from several different people, including you.”
“So, I’m the last one to know?” She was legitimately angry now.
“No. I figured it out, but I doubt anyone knows but the three of us.” It was time to push her a little harder about meeting face-to-face. “Could we come in and talk? I’m getting tired of yelling through the glass.”
Cindy debated it, and then finally unlatched the door. “You might as well. I can’t believe this is happening. All this time I thought my father was dead, and now I find out that he was actually in my shop and didn’t even tell me.”
“It was probably hard on him, too,” I said, not really wanting to make excuses for a man I hadn’t liked from the first second we’d met.
Maddy added, “Your mother just told us that Benet didn’t know himself until recently. I’m guessing it was about the time he contacted you through your e-mail account.”
Cindy seemed to slump down even farther. “I can’t hate him then, can I? It’s
all
my mother’s fault.”
“Hang on a second,” I said. “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions before you at least hear her side of things.”
“Eleanor, how can you say that? I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” I said quickly, realizing that I didn’t have long to make my point. “This isn’t going to be easy to hear, but you need to listen to me. Your mother had a fling with your father, and he was gone out of her life before she even knew that she was pregnant. She’s done her best by you over the years, and you know it. You can’t blame her for something that wasn’t her fault.”
Cindy didn’t care for that one bit. “I don’t want anyone justifying her actions or her motives for what she did. She could have found him if she’d really wanted to. I deserved the chance to get to know my father.”
How could I argue with something as illogical as that? I was searching for the right words when Maddy said, “But you did get to, at least a little bit. You told me the two of you chatted online quite a bit before he came to town.”
“Are you saying that’s the same as getting to know the man face-to-face?” Cindy asked her.
“No, of course not. All I’m saying is that something is better than nothing, ten out of ten times.”
The air seemed to go right out of her with that. As she slumped back against the counter, Cindy said, “All I know is that I deserved better than I got.”
“No one’s denying that, but your mother’s very worried about you,” I said. “She’s really torn up about this.”
Cindy shook her head, and I could see that she was fighting back her tears as she said, “I’m the one who’s hurting right now, not her.”
“Cindy, you know in your heart that’s not true, don’t you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think right now, Eleanor. I’m just so confused.”
“You could always come stay with me until you figure things out,” I said, realizing too late that I’d done it again. Maddy had scolded me for inviting Patrice Benet into my home, and now I was doing it with Cindy. Was I that lonely that I needed the company of murder suspects to make my life a little more complete? No, it was my compassion for them that had driven me to make the offers, and I stood by what I’d offered.
Her sigh was heavy as she said, “Thanks, but I guess I’d just be delaying the inevitable. I need to go home and settle this with my mother tonight.”
“You really just learned about Benet tonight?” I asked. “Didn’t you suspect anything before?”
Cindy shrugged. “I just had a feeling that Mom knew him from somewhere, because when the two of them went in the back to talk, there was some real tension in the air, but I thought it had to be about the signing. When she told me tonight that he was my dad, I couldn’t believe it. To be honest with you, I’m still not even sure it’s true. We can both be too impulsive when it comes to our infatuations.”
“I wish there was something we could say or do,” Maddy said.
As she stood, Cindy said, “Thanks for the thought, but there’s nothing anyone can do now. I have to work this out on my own, and the sooner I do it, the better.”
After the lights were off and the place was locked up tight, we followed her outside.
Cindy said, “Thanks for listening to me rant and rave.”
“Given the circumstances,” Maddy said, “I think you had it coming.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Cindy said with the ghost of a smile that was there briefly, and then vanished. “Good night.”
“Good night,” we said as we watched her walk away.
“Should we call Janet and warn her that Cindy’s coming home?” I asked.
“No, let’s let it be a happy surprise,” Maddy said. “I’d say that Janet is entitled to that, don’t you?”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Is there anything else we can do tonight to further our investigation?”
Maddy looked a little uncomfortable as she glanced at her watch. “I’d love to, but I’m supposed to see Bob. We need to talk. Aren’t you getting together with David?”
“No, our little impromptu dinner was all the time he had for me tonight,” I admitted. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something to do.”
“You’re not doing any more digging on your own, are you?” Maddy asked me.
“Why, are you afraid of missing out on the excitement?”
“No, I’m what I’m afraid of is that you’ll do something foolish and risky,” my sister said.
“And something might happen to me?” I asked.
“Sure, that’s true,” she answered with a grin. “But honestly, I don’t want to miss out on the fun myself.”
We laughed as we went our separate ways. I wondered if tonight was when Maddy would have an answer for Bob. I also thought about how it would be at Cindy and Janet’s house tonight. The two women had a great many feelings to work through.
But most of all, I had to wonder how there could be so many people in Benet’s life that might have delighted in seeing the man dead. I thought about calling Kevin Hurley with the news of what we’d uncovered about Cindy’s father, but I decided that was one family secret I was going to keep, at least for one night.
Chapter 14
“S
o, how did it go last night? Did you say yes?” I asked Maddy as I picked her up bright and early the next morning at her apartment. We’d agreed to carpool so we could do a little more investigating before we had to get to the pizzeria to prepare for another day’s work, and I’d volunteered to drive.
“Say yes to what?” she asked as she stared at me, clearly a little confused by my question.
“To his proposal,” I said.
“Of course not,” she answered, clearly a little miffed that I’d even asked her about it.
I swear, I had never known my sister to drag her feet like she was doing. “Well, how much time do you need? It’s not like you haven’t agreed to marry men four times before. I wouldn’t think you’d need all that much practice saying yes.”
“Eleanor, you’re as bad as he is,” Maddy said, sipping the coffee I’d made for us. “I need more time before I make that kind of commitment again.”
“Is Bob pressing you for an answer?”
“No; not with words, at any rate. Do you know how it is when you’re expecting a telephone call, so every time the phone rings, you nearly jump out of your skin? That’s how it is being with Bob. If I dare start any sentence with any inflection at all, he looks at me as though I’m about to make a prediction about the end of the world. It’s kind of unnerving.”
“Then tell him that,” I said. “Cut the guy a little slack. He did ask you a pretty important question that could change the rest of both your lives.”
“I told him that I’d think about it. What more can he ask? I have a feeling that he’d be happier with a delayed yes than a quick no.”
That was an interesting thing to say. “Does that mean you think that you’ll eventually decide to marry him?”
She stared at the window a second, and then said, “At this point, it depends on what hour of the day you ask me the question. Could we please talk about something a little more appealing, say like murder?”
“I get it. Let’s talk about the case.” I looked at my watch, and then added, “We’re due to talk to Oliver and Jessie in the hotel dining room, but we’re cutting it close. They’ve agreed to speak with us about Benet, but I got the feeling that they weren’t about to give us all that much time.”
“I’m kind of curious about why they’d talk to us at all,” Maddy asked. “It’s not like there’s anything to gain by speaking to us.”
“Well, I may have overstated our role in the police chief’s investigation of the murder,” I admitted with a grin.
“If you said we had any role at all, we both know that you’d be lying,” Maddy answered, laughing.
“Hey, it’s not my fault if they misinterpreted my intent. I implied that convincing us of their innocence would go a long way in making Kevin Hurley less suspicious of them.”
“And why would they believe that?”
I grinned at my sister. “It might have something to do with the fact that I said outright that convincing us of their innocence would go a long way in making Kevin Hurley less suspicious of them.”
“There’s nothing like subtlety, is there?” Maddy asked.
“Hey, it was the only way I could get them to agree to this meeting at all.”
As we drove to the hotel, Maddy asked, “What’s going to happen when Kevin finds out what you said?”
I shrugged. “We’ll worry about that when and if it ever comes up. Chances are, he won’t ever hear that I said it. Besides, it’s not like it’s on tape. I can always say that they misunderstood.”
“You can,” Maddy said with a slight smile. “But will you?”
I glanced over at her. “You don’t disapprove of what I did, do you?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? Not at all. I just want to be sure you’re ready for the heat that might come your way.”
“I’m wearing my fireproof undies today, so I should be good.”
We found Jessie and Oliver having an intense conversation in the dining room of the hotel when we got there, and I wanted to hang back to see if I could learn what it was about, but they spotted us before we could get close enough to eavesdrop. Their conversation died at that instant, and Maddy and I walked over and joined them at their table.
“Thanks for meeting us,” I said as we sat down.
“It didn’t sound as though we had much choice,” Oliver replied.
“Now, Oliver, be nice,” Jessie said, and then turned to me. “Would you two like something to eat? It’s on my expense account, so help yourself.”
Maddy said, “That’s kind of you,” before I could refuse the offering. I didn’t want Jessie to think she could buy us off with eggs and French toast.
“You’re most welcome. If there’s anything we can do to expedite things around here, we’re happy to help out.”
“That’s good to hear,” Maddy said. “We really appreciate it.”
“First things first, then,” I said, jumping in. “Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. We know that everyone around Chef Benet had the opportunity to sneak away to the Slice and kill him. No one we’ve talked to so far has accounted for their time completely when the murder took place.”
“Really? I can,” Jessie said.
“Go on, we’re listening,” I said.
“I was on the phone with my network. I couldn’t very well do that and kill the man, too.”
“You were on the phone from two to three?” I asked. “That’s one long conversation. I’m sure the police chief can confirm it with your telephone records, so you should be in the clear soon.”
“Well, perhaps not the entire time,” Jessie admitted. “There may have been some gaps between phone calls, but we were trying to figure out how to handle Benet’s desertion.”
“You weren’t going to just let him go, then,” I said.
“Not without a fight,” Jessie admitted, and then must have realized how it had sounded. “I’m talking about a legal battle, not a physical confrontation, though.”
“I don’t know why you bothered fighting to keep him,” Oliver said snidely, and Jessie sent a sharp look his way.
“Watch your tongue, Oliver,” Jessie said.
“Why should I? You’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m not even being considered for my own show. It’s time people learned the truth about what a fraud the man was.” He looked at me and said, “Tony Benet could barely boil water without burning it. I’m the man behind his food, every last bite of it, down to the last recipe.”
“Are you saying he couldn’t cook at all?” I asked. I had a hard time believing that, especially after learning about his television shows and his cookbooks.
Maddy said, “That can’t be true. I saw him make eggs Benedict on
Good Morning World
just two months ago.”
“Of course he could cook,” Jessie said.
“Okay, maybe I overstated it a little,” Oliver said. “The man wasn’t completely untrainable. I managed to teach him how to put on a good show, but the recipes are all mine.”
“Even if that were true, and I’m not saying that it is, if it were, you signed them away to us,” Jessie said. “Oliver, don’t make me invoke your nondisclosure agreement.” The last bit was said with real menace in her voice.
“So, there’s some truth to this after all,” I said to Jessie. “That would make you look pretty bad if it got out, wouldn’t it?”
She just shrugged. “Who’s to say how much of what Benet came up with was all his own? Most recipes are pretty basic. After all, how many ways are there to make meatloaf, or even bread?”
“You’re just showing your ignorance, Jessie,” Oliver said smugly. “There are more methods, not to mention ingredients, than you could ever imagine. That’s what Tony lacked, when it boils down to it. He had the imagination of a tree stump. I was always the one with the vision, and the ability to boil it all down into a recipe.”
“It must have been tough on you, then,” I said, “seeing him get all the credit for your creations.”
Oliver shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as all of that,” he said. He must have realized just how bad he was making himself look. He added, “I could live with it, as long as I thought I had my own chance at a show one day.”
Jessie kept shaking her head. “I told you before, we’ve talked about it at least a dozen times. You don’t have that ‘it’ factor you need for television.”
Oliver looked at the woman with real contempt as he said, “If you wanted to, you could put me on the air in a week. I coached Tony on how to cook. Why couldn’t you find someone to teach me how to host a show?”
“That’s easy. One is a skill, the other is a talent,” Jessie said. “Sorry, but you’ve got the wrong one. I can find a hundred cooks to replace you in a heartbeat, but Benet was one of a kind.”
“That is garbage, and you know it,” Oliver said as he stood, threw his napkin on the table, and stormed off.
Jessie shook her head. “I meant what I said before, but even if I hadn’t, he just killed any chance he ever had of being on television. Once word gets around that he broke our nondisclosure agreement, he won’t have a chance of being on a public access station.”
“Is what he said true?” I asked. “Was Oliver honestly the creative spirit behind the chef’s work?”
Jessie shrugged. “Honestly, it never mattered much to any of us. Oliver is under the deluded impression that folks turned on Benet’s show for his recipes, but how many people actually made what he demonstrated? They tuned in to be entertained, and as much as I hate to admit it, Benet was fun to watch when the camera was rolling. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I’m probably going to get fired now that he’s gone. He was the last good show of mine that the network picked up, and I’ve had a few losers since then.”
“So, are you saying you didn’t have a motive to kill him?” I asked.
She looked at me as though I were crazy. “Are you kidding? Killing him would be cooking the goose that laid all those golden eggs. It just doesn’t make sense.” Her cell phone rang, and when she looked at who was calling her, she said, “Excuse me, this is one call that I have to take. I hope we were able to help.” She answered the phone as she walked away.
As the waitress finally started to approach us, I said to Maddy, “There’s no reason to stick around here anymore. She’s not coming back.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked as she smiled at the young woman. “We were invited to eat here on Jessie’s tab. As far as I’m concerned, we owe it to ourselves to take advantage of it. Remember the wedding brunch we had here when Tammy Lynn Lake got married?”
“The bill for that wedding had to have outlived the actual marriage,” I said, remembering how quickly the bride and groom had broken up.
“The food was out of this world, though,” she said.
I was still reluctant to do it when Maddy told the waitress, “We were instructed to tell you that this is on Ms. Taylor’s tab.”
“Of course,” the young woman said. Her name tag said that her name was Naomi. “May I start you off with some freshly squeezed orange juice?”
“You may, Naomi,” Maddy said with a big grin. “I don’t know about my sister, but I’d like to sample the breakfast bar.”
“Absolutely.” She turned to me and then asked, “And you, ma’am?”
I was about to refuse when I realized that I’d have to wait for Maddy to eat anyway, and there was no point being stubborn about it. “That sounds good. I’ll have the same,” I said.
“That’s my girl,” Maddy said. As the waitress left to get our juices, Maddy and I attacked the bar, sampling a little of just about everything.
After we’d had our fill, I said, “I’m not even sure I’ll be able to work today after all of that. All I really want to do is go home and take a nap.”
“It was great, wasn’t it?” Maddy observed as she handed a tip of her own directly to the waitress.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s already been taken care of,” Naomi said.
“We just wanted to thank you ourselves,” Maddy said.
“That’s really generous of you,” the waitress said, pocketing the offered bill.
On a lark, I asked the woman, “Did you happen to overhear what our breakfast companions were talking about before we showed up?”
“I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to discuss our diners, or their conversations they have here,” Naomi answered quickly, and then, lowering her voice, she said, “As a matter of fact, they were discussing the best way to handle the two of you. There’s something they were trying to hide from you, and they couldn’t agree on exactly how to do it.”
“Do you have any idea what it might be?” Maddy asked softly.
“They agreed that whatever they do, they have to keep you away from someone named Patrice. I’m sorry, that’s all I got.”
I dug a twenty of my own out of my wallet and added it Maddy’s earlier offering.
“That’s way too much,” Naomi protested.
“Trust me, it was worth every penny.”
As Maddy and I left, I said, “We need to talk to Patrice while Jessie and Oliver are busy. Jessie sounded as though she’d be on the phone for a while, and it sounded as though Oliver was going to go off somewhere and pout.”

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