Grilled Rye Murder: Book 16 in The Darling Deli Series (3 page)

She leaned against the wall outside of the office, her eyes screwed shut as she told herself that she must have seen wrong. Gathering her courage, she poked her head around the corner and saw that she hadn’t been wrong at all.

Zander was sitting in the chair at his desk, his head tilted unnaturally to the side, and his arms hanging limply off of the arms of the chair. He had been shot twice; once in the shoulder, and once in the center of his chest. Blood from the wound in his shoulder was still slowly dripping down his right arm to pool on the floor beneath his outstretched fingers.

Flower licked her owner’s hand once, then looked back at Moira as if asking for help.
That must be where the blood on her muzzle came from
, the deli owner thought, her brain still reeling from the shock. Zander, dead? Or… could he possibly still be alive? She didn’t see how he could be, but she had heard of people surviving unbelievable things before; a fall from an airplane, or an iron rod through the skull.

Feeling numb, she walked slowly towards the man in the chair. She touched his neck with shaking fingers, feeling for a pulse, but feeling nothing.
His body isn’t cold yet
, the deli owner thought.
He can’t have been dead for long.
She jerked her fingers, back, realizing that she was touching a corpse, then looked sadly at the man who had been her friend. Had he killed himself? It seemed impossible, but the thought of him being murdered seemed equally impossible.
If he killed himself, there would have to be a gun here
, she thought, her eyes raking his empty hands and lap. Where was it?

As if in answer to her question, a metallic clunk sounded from behind her. She spun around to see Flower trying to pick up a large black handgun from the floor. The muzzle of the gun slipped out of her mouth again and it fell to the floor with another thunk. Moira rushed over and gingerly grabbed the gun before the dog managed to pull the trigger. Holding it carefully out in front of her by her fingertips she set it on the table near Zander. Flower trotted over and began licking Zander’s hand again, whining all the while.

“Stop that,” Moira said. “Come over here, Flower. Let him be.”

The sight of the little dog licking the dead man’s hand seemed gruesome to her. Didn’t the dog understand that he was gone? It wasn’t right for her to keep bothering him like that. It wasn’t until she felt something wet on her cheeks that she realized she was crying.

I have to call the police
, she thought, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
There’s no one else here to do it.
Calling Flower over to her again, she walked on unsteady legs back to the office doorway, where she had dropped her purse. It took her a moment to find her phone inside, and another couple of seconds to pull up the number for the local police station.

What am I doing?
she thought, hanging up the phone after the first ring.
This is an emergency. I should be calling nine-one-one.
She punched in the three digits quickly, but hesitated. Off in the distance, she heard the faint wail of sirens, and they were drawing ever nearer.

Her skin prickled as the noise of the sirens reached a crescendo, then cut off. She heard the pop and crunch of tires on gravel, and rushed over to the exit to look outside. And ambulance and three police cars, lights flashing, were pulling to a stop in front of the brewery.
Someone must have heard the gunshots and called already
, she thought, taking a firm hold on Flower’s collar as she slipped her phone into her pants’ pocket.

A team of paramedics rushed towards the building. “He’s in there,” Moira called out, pointing towards the office with the hand that wasn’t holding on to Flower. The men hurried past her without a word. Moira edged out of the building, hoping to get somewhere out of the way so she could call David, but a woman wearing khakis, a black button-down shirt, and a no-nonsense expression was approaching her from where the police cars were parked. It was Detective Wilson, one of the two senior detectives at the Maple Creek Police Department. The other, Detective Jefferson, was nowhere to be seen.
This isn’t good
, she thought. Jefferson knew her well enough to know that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Detective Wilson had never liked her, and she could already see the suspicion on the other woman’s face.

“Ms. Darling, I’m going to need you to come with me,” the detective said. She glanced down at Flower. “Is this your dog?”

“No,” Moira said. “She’s… she was Zander’s. But I raised her, and I’d be happy to take care of her for now.”

Wilson shook her head, then gestured one of the officers over. Moira recognized him as Officer Catto, who she had spoken to a few times over the last year. He seemed to like her, and she felt a bit better knowing that there was at least one person there who wouldn’t automatically assume the worst of her.

“Catto, crank the AC in the cruiser and put the dog in the back, then see if you can find a leash for it somewhere. We’ll take it back to the station, check it over for evidence, then see if we can’t contact the victim’s next of kin.”

“Her name’s Flower,” Moira called out as Catto walked away with the dog. She bit her lip, hoping that Flower would be comfortable and happy during her stay with the police, then turned her attention back to Detective Wilson.

“I’m happy to answer any questions—”

“Ms. Darling, you are under arrest for the murder of Zander Marsh. You have the right to remain silent…”

The deli owner went limp with disbelief as the detective turned her around, pulled her wrists together, and tightened a cold pair of handcuffs around them.

Moira sat on the corner of the thin mattress in the holding cell, staring blankly at one of the white walls. Everything in the cell was white, from the plastic-lined sheets on the mattress, to the painted iron bars, to the tile floor. Only the small sink and toilet in the opposite corner stood out; they were a gleaming, cold stainless steel.

What am I doing here?
she thought for the thousandth time that night. She had sat in stunned silence in the back of the police cruiser that drove her from Zander’s farm, certain that at any moment the officer would realize that her arrest had been nothing but a horrible mistake. Certainly she hadn’t expected to be processed and locked in a holding cell in Maple Creek’s tiny police station.

At least they let me call David and Candice.
Her only experience with jail up to this point had been what she’d seen on television crime shows. She had been surprised that she was allowed to make several calls, and even more surprised when an officer whom she didn’t recognize had brought her a bag of fast food a few hours later.

She had been treated well enough, but that didn’t change the frustrating fact that no one had actually told her anything useful about when she might be able to get out. She hadn’t heard back from David, who had promised to get in touch with Detective Jefferson and explain the situation to him, and when Detective Wilson stopped by a few hours before, she had done nothing but ask Moira a few basic questions, like what she had done earlier that morning and if she had an alibi.

“I can’t believe I’m going to spend the night in a jail cell,” she muttered, staring up at the small window set high into the wall of the cell. Her cell phone had been taken from her when she was processed, so she had no way to tell the time, but it was dark out.
I must have been here for at least twelve hours already.
Spending another twelve there was a sobering thought, but until she heard back from David, there was nothing she could do.

The deli owner lay down on the bumpy mattress and pulled the scratchy blanket over herself. The lights in the cell were off, but the hall lights were on, and they were bright enough that it would be hard to sleep. Wide-awake and worried, Moira lay there for hours until she finally sank into a dreamless slumber.

A loud clang awoke her a few hours later. The sun had risen, but her sleep had been poor, and she felt groggy. It took her a moment to remember where she was, then it all came back to her at once. Zander was dead… and Detective Wilson thought that she had killed him.

Another clang made her jump, and she sat bolt upright in bed. The sound of people talking could be heard beyond the doors to the holding cell area. Someone was coming.

Feeling a sudden surge of hope, Moira leapt off the bed. Was that David’s voice?

Sure enough, moments later the private investigator walked in. He was followed closely by Detective Jefferson, Moira’s friend and the senior detective at the Maple Creek police station.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, rushing up to the bars. “I’m so glad to see you two.”

David came forward and took her hand as Detective Jefferson approached to unlock the cell door.

“How are you holding up?” her fiancé asked her, his gaze searching her face. She knew he wasn’t asking just about her overnight stay in the holding cell, but about Zander’s death as well. He knew the two of them had been friends.

“I still can’t believe it… none of this feels real to me,” she said. She glanced over at the police detective. “What’s going on? Am I being released?”

“That’s… complicated,” David told her. “We’ll go over it somewhere more comfortable, though.” His face full of concern, he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before releasing her hand and stepping back as Jefferson swung her cell door open.

“Come on,” the detective said. “Fresh coffee and muffins are waiting in my office.”

It felt good to be back in more familiar territory. Moira had been in Detective Jefferson’s office more times than she could count, and the familiar large wooden desk and comfortable leather chairs were definite improvements over the spartan holding cell that she had spent the last day in. She sipped her coffee gratefully and listened as the two men took turns telling her what had happened after her arrest.

“As soon as I got off the phone with you, I got in touch with Detective Jefferson,” David explained. “He was out of town at the time, but the second I told him what had happened, he rushed back.”

Moira shot a grateful glance at the detective, who smiled at her. “When I heard that you had been arrested for murder, something just didn’t sit right. You’ve been brought in for questioning plenty of times before, but you’ve never been guilty of anything, not even a speeding ticket. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an upstanding citizen, and someone who has really helped this town out multiple times.” The detective sighed. “Wilson’s a good detective, but she’s never approved of our… unorthodox relationship. This is a hard situation for me, you have to understand. She’s the only other detective here, and I can’t just go against her completely, but I also can’t let someone I know to be innocent stay locked up. Luckily, I’ve done a couple of favors for the district judge, so he was willing to do me one in return. We got your charges reduced—”

“Wait, I’m being charged with something?” Moira cut in, stunned. She put down her coffee, her stomach suddenly feeling turbulent.

“Yes. Unfortunately, I can’t get the charges completely cleared until we work through the case. But I did manage to get them reduced from second-degree murder to manslaughter—”

“Murder?” she squeaked, interrupting him for a second time. “But I didn’t do it. I thought this was all some big mistake.”

“We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on,” David said. He turned in his seat to face her and took both of her hands. “Listen, I know you’re innocent, and so does Detective Jefferson. But someone out there is doing their best to get you put away for Zander’s murder. Didn’t you wonder how the police showed up before you even got a chance to make a call?”

She nodded. “I thought one of the neighbors must have heard the gunshots and called it in.”

The private investigator shook his head. “That’s a reasonable assumption, but no. Moira, someone called the police and gave an eyewitness description of someone dressed exactly like
you
entering the brewery moments before he heard shots go off.”

“W-what?”

“It’s true,” Jefferson said grimly. “That’s why Detective Wilson arrested you on the spot.”

Moira sat back in her chair, feeling faint. Had someone dressed exactly like her killed Zander? Or… was someone trying to frame her specifically? But how would they know what she was wearing?

“Did you see or hear anything strange when you got there?” David asked. “Or did you notice anyone following you earlier that morning?”

“No, I don’t think so. I woke up, took care of the dogs, grabbed some coffee, then left for Zander’s. I remember the roads out in the country being empty; if someone was following me, they would have had to be pretty far behind.”

“How about when you got to his property?” he prodded. “From the description the witness gave, they must have had eyes on you at some point that morning.”

“I didn’t see anyone else there,” she said. “Except that big black van parked behind his house that I didn’t remember seeing before.”

The private investigator turned to Detective Jefferson with raised eyebrows. The detective flipped through a sheaf of notes, then shook his head.

“We don’t have anything on file about a van being there,” he told her. “The only other vehicle was a blue pickup truck that was registered to Zander. Can you describe the vehicle in any more detail? Did you happen to see the license plate?”