Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder (16 page)

I tapped the paper. “That’s the thing, though. This isn’t Greg’s address.”

“Who lives there?” At least I had finally gotten my sister’s attention.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted, “but it may give us an idea about where she could have gone.”

Maddy nodded. “You’re right. That might be important. But this could be, too.”

“What is it?” I asked as I laid my receipt down on the counter by the telephone.

Maddy waved a piece of notebook paper in the air. “This must have been on top originally. Give me the phone.”

“You’re not just going to call without coming up with an excuse, are you?”

“Planning is for sissies,” Maddy said.

“Hey, just because I like to prepare for different contingencies doesn’t mean that I’m a sissy.”

She patted my arm. “I didn’t mean you.” Maddy dialed the number, and then she held the telephone so both of us could hear.

“Calvin’s,” a gruff voice said.

I didn’t recognize the voice, or the name.

Maddy asked, “Is Calvin there?”

When I looked at her, she just shrugged. It was pretty clear she didn’t know what to do next, either.

“Lady, Calvin’s been dead three years come August, so I might have a little trouble calling him to the phone.”

“What exactly is it that you do?”

I didn’t blame her for asking the question, but I wasn’t sure what kind of response she was going to get. To my surprise, the man said, “You need it, we rent it. We’ve got everything from backhoes to pickup trucks. You can rent by the hour, by the day, or by the month.”

“I’ve got a question for you. Did you rent something to Katy Johnson late last night or early this morning?”

The man’s voice hesitated, and then he asked, “Who wants to know? That stuff is confidential, you know.”

Maddy didn’t know what to say, so I grabbed the telephone from her and said, “This is her mother, young man, and if you’ve helped an underage girl run away from home, the police will want to speak with you.”

Maddy started to laugh, and I held up a finger for her to be quiet. After a moment, the man’s tone shifted. “Ma’am, she had proper ID when I carded her.”

“It was fake,” I said. “My baby’s just seventeen years old.”

He stammered, and then finally admitted, “She brought the truck back an hour ago, so she couldn’t have gone that far.” He hesitated, and then added, “There was an older woman with her when she brought it back. I thought it was you. Her mom, that is.”

“Clearly you were mistaken,” I said.

Maddy asked me something, but I couldn’t understand her. She tried to get my attention again, so I said, “One moment, young man.”

I covered the telephone with my hand, then looked at my sister and asked, “What’s so important?”

“Find out how many miles she put on the truck.”

That was actually pretty brilliant. I nodded, then pulled my hand away from the mouthpiece. “Young man, how many miles were on the rental agreement?”

“Hang on,” he said. I heard him tearing through some papers, and he came back on the line and said, “She went twelve miles from the time she got it to the second she brought it back. That’s not much, is it?”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll find her,” I said as I hung up on him.

“That was brilliant,” I said to Maddy. “What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know. I was just playing a hunch. How far did she go?”

“Twelve miles total,” I said.

“So she’s still in Timber Ridge.”

“It looks like it. Should we go check on this address?” I held up the florist’s receipt as I glanced at the clock and saw that we had twenty-seven minutes before we opened.

Maddy grabbed her purse. “I’m game if you are. Let’s go.”

We locked the place up, and then took Maddy’s car to track down who Katy had sent flowers to.

On a hunch, when we got into the car, I told Maddy, “Reset the trip meter.”

She asked, “Why?”

“I’m curious to see if we come up with a twelve-mile round-trip.”

“Do you think she’s at the same address she had the flowers delivered to?”

I shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

“And a good one at that,” Maddy said. “I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.”

“Wait until you tell someone else this story,” I said with a smile. “In that version, I don’t doubt that you will.”

She laughed as she drove off. “You know what? You’re probably right.”

We got to the address on the outskirts of Timber Ridge, closest to the mountains. The houses were farther apart, and a bit run-down. If there was a part of our area that classified as the other side of the tracks, this would be it.

We pulled up to a row house that hadn’t been painted in thirty years. There were garish lawn ornaments scattered among the weeds, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a garden gnome crinkling his porcelain nose in disgust.

“Should I go by myself, or do you want to go with me?” I asked.

Maddy shook her head. “Kiddo, I’m not about to let you have all of the fun. What should our lie be this time?”

“I hadn’t even thought about not telling the truth,” I admitted.

Maddy said, “Eleanor, if Katy’s hiding here, what makes you think whoever owns this place is going to give her up just because we asked nicely?”

“You’re right,” I said.

I could have used more time in the car to come up with something, but a middle-aged woman in a flowery housecoat came out onto the front stoop and stared at us. “It looks like we’re on.”

“We still haven’t come up with a story yet,” Maddy hissed.

“I’ll improvise,” I said as I got out of the car. My sister didn’t have any choice but to follow me.

We were three steps onto the woman’s property when she said, “Whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not interested. I’ve got nothing to say to either one of you.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “We have something for Katy Johnson, but if you don’t want to talk to us, that’s fine.”

Maddy was looking oddly at me, but the woman on the porch couldn’t see it.

I said to my sister loudly, “You were right all along. We’ll keep it and split it. It’s not our fault that we couldn’t find her.”

I barely turned around when the woman asked, “You can’t do that. Whatever you’ve got belongs to my niece.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” I said as I kept walking away from her.

“I don’t need to. I’ve heard enough already.”

I turned, and then looked at her a few seconds before I spoke. “I’m not about to hand it over to you. I don’t even know who you are.”

“I know you,” she said. “You run that pizza joint downtown, the Spike.”

“It’s called A Slice of Delight,” I said, correcting her.

“I guess that does make more sense,” the woman said. “I’m Katy’s aunt. Whatever it is of hers that you have, hand it over and I’ll see that she gets it.”

“Sorry, but I wouldn’t feel right about doing that. We went by her place this morning, but she moved out in the middle of the night.”

The woman shook her head in obvious disgust. “There was too much going on there. She needed to be somewhere she felt safe.”

“Like here, with her aunt?” Maddy asked.

“I never claimed she was here,” she said.

“But you know where to find her.”

“I might,” the woman answered cagily.

“Then find her and tell her I’ve got something that belongs to her, something she’s going to want back.”

Katy’s aunt seemed to think about that, and then finally said, “If I don’t know what it is, I’m not going to tell her.”

“It’s money,” Maddy said. Why on earth had she chosen to say that?

It certainly got her aunt’s attention. “How much are we talking about here?”

“More than I’m comfortable telling you about,” I said. “The next time you see her, you need to tell her to come by the pizza place.” I took Maddy’s arm, and as we started to walk away, I turned and added, “If we don’t see her by this time tomorrow, tell her not to bother at all.”

We left as the woman continued to protest. Maddy was around the block before she turned to me and laughed. “You certainly knew how to get her attention, didn’t you?”

“You’re the one who brought up money. Now we’re going to have to pay her when she shows up.”

Maddy said, “If she shows up, I’ll give her a ten out of my purse.”

“Do you honestly think that would warrant us tracking her down?”

“Then you pitch in ten yourself and we’ll make it a twenty,” Maddy said.

“No, ten sounds good to me,” I said.

Maddy frowned at me, so I added, “But twenty’s better. I can live with that.”

“So can I,” she answered.

I looked at my watch. “We’ve got thirteen minutes to get back to the restaurant. Think we can make it?”

“With time to spare,” Maddy said as she proceeded to exceed the speed limit.

“I don’t want you to get a ticket,” I said. “If we’re a few minutes late, who’s going to know?”

“You will, for one,” she said.

“True. Okay, go ahead and push it a little.”

“If I get arrested for speeding, will you split that with me, too?”

I laughed. “No, you’re on your own there.”

“Then maybe I should slow down,” she said as she did just that.

Despite her decreased speed, we got back to the pizzeria with three minutes to spare, which would have been in plenty of time, if someone we both knew hadn’t chosen that moment to step out of the shadows in the alley behind the pizzeria and move quickly toward us before we could make our way inside.

“Greg, what are you doing here?” I asked our deliveryman as he hurried to us.

“I had to talk to you,” Greg said. “Katy’s gone.”

“We know,” Maddy answered. “We went by her place first thing this morning, and she’s moved out.”

“Do you have any idea where she went?” Greg asked. “I’m going crazy with worry.”

“Why are you so concerned about Katy?” I asked him.

“She could be the key to everything. I need to talk to her before the police do, but I can’t find her. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?”

Maddy said, “I’d think you had enough trouble yourself without borrowing any from your ex-girlfriend.”

“You might think that, but you’d be wrong. I’m not about to let Chief Hurley hang this on me. I need to talk to Katy. If she didn’t kill Wade, she might know who did. She loved me once—at least she said she did—so maybe she’ll talk to me now. What else have you two been up to?”

“We talked to Art Young,” I said.

Greg’s face went pale. “Tell me you’re joking. Have you two lost your minds?”

“Actually, Eleanor thought he was kind of charming,” Maddy said.

“Yeah, and a black widow spider has a pretty little hourglass on its belly. That doesn’t mean it’s still not deadly.”

“We were careful,” I said. After I explained how we’d gotten Bob Lemon to intercede for us, Greg was a little mollified.

“I don’t like you taking chances on my account,” he said.

“We’ve been talking to Sandi Meadows and Jamie Lowder, too,” I said. “They’re quite a pair, aren’t they?”

“You’d better believe it.”

I took a breath, then said, “We talked to your mother, too. She sounds like she wants you to get the electric chair.”

Greg laughed without an ounce of humor in it. “Good old Mom. She’s never been my biggest fan, but you’d think with just one son left, she might try a little harder with me.”

“I think she honestly believes you could have killed your brother,” I said.

Greg shook his head. “I don’t doubt that’s what she thinks for a second. If I ever get put on trial, I surely won’t use her for a character witness.”

“You’re taking that particular bit of news rather calmly,” Maddy said.

“Do you honestly think it’s news to me? My mother gave me a tenth of everything she lavished on my brother. They both thought he was entitled to it, even if it meant hurting me. Now that he’s gone, I don’t have any doubt that she’ll come after me herself if she gets the chance. Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about, and I didn’t feel right leaving you a message on your machine. There’s one more suspect that we haven’t considered yet, somebody had their own reason to want to see Wade dead.”

Before he could tell us, there was a quick burst from a police siren, and we looked up to see Kevin Hurley barreling down the alley toward us.

Greg sprinted away before we could stop him, not that either Maddy or I wanted to. The chief blasted past us, then came back in three minutes with an angry scowl.

“You let him go,” he snarled at us as he got out of the car.

“We nearly had him talked into giving himself up when you came bombing up the road,” Maddy snapped. “It’s your own fault you didn’t catch him.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Kevin asked.

“We don’t care what you believe,” I said. “Come on, Maddy, we’re late opening our restaurant.”

As we ducked through the passage to the front of the shops, I turned to look at Kevin Hurley.

He was still standing there beside his patrol car, watching our every step with an unhappy look on his face.

Which was probably a pretty good description of how he’d be behaving from here on out.

W
hen I walked back into the Slice, I leaned down and smelled Maddy’s roses without realizing what I was doing.

“You really should call David,” my sister said behind me.

“What makes you say that?”

“Eleanor, if you’re ever going to get roses of your own, you’re going to have to do something to make it happen. David’s a good guy. You should at least give him a chance.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been thinking the exact same thing myself. “Okay, I give up. I’ll call him again.”

“What? You’re actually listening to me?”

I started dialing as I said, “I listen to you all of the time.”

Maddy didn’t respond, but she lowered her chin and stared at me.

I added, “Just because I listen doesn’t mean I have to do what you say.”

“That, I believe.”

I felt a little nervous as I phoned David. What was I going to say to him? I had to apologize for the way I’d been acting lately, but I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do that. Still, if I wanted there to be any hope of something developing between us, I had to take this step, no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel.

His secretary, Joanna Hearst, picked up on the fourth ring. “Hi, Jo, it’s Eleanor Swift. Is David in?”

“Hey, Eleanor. You honestly didn’t know? He’s gone.”

I felt my heart seize up a little. “What do you mean? Has something happened to him?”

“Not as far as I know,” she said a little curtly. “I spoke with him three days ago, and he seemed fine then.”

“Where did he go?” I wanted to add
and why didn’t he tell me
but somehow I managed to restrain myself.

“He’s in Raleigh. The company is asking him to transfer, and they’ve given him two weeks there to see how he likes it. I thought you knew about it.”

“He must have been too busy to tell me,” I said, trying to keep the hurt feelings out of my voice.

“Listen,” Jo said, “nobody was rooting for you two more than I was, but sometimes these things just don’t work out.”

“Is it a done deal? Is he taking the job?”

Jo hesitated, and then said, “I’d probably get in trouble if anyone knew I was telling you this, but you have a right to know. The last time we spoke, he told me that maybe a fresh start was what he needed. I don’t know a hundred percent that he’s made up his mind to move, but if I were a betting woman, that’s where my money would go. I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you.”

“That’s fine,” I said. Almost as an afterthought, I added, “If you talk to him again, tell him I called.”

“I will. Is there anything else you’d like me to tell him?”

A thousand different things went through my mind. I wanted him to come back to Timber Ridge and forget about moving, but I couldn’t tell him that, not unless I was willing to give him more of a chance than I had so far. I thought about saying that it wasn’t fair that he would leave, even though I had no right to say anything of the sort. In the end, there was only one thing I could tell him, and I wasn’t ready to say good-bye, not yet, anyway. “No, just tell him that I called.”

Jo sounded disappointed in my response, but I wasn’t about to say something else just to make her happy. She was a born romantic, and after fifteen years with her husband and four children, it was clear to everyone that she loved him more than the day they were married—something she used to tell me every time the subject came up.

Good for her. I had a feeling I’d had the love of my life, and he was gone. No one in the world knew how hard Joe would be to replace than I did, not that my husband had been perfect—far from it. But he’d been mine, and I’d been his, and it seemed as if that would be enough, just like the vows said, “As long as we both shall live.” The only thing was, neither of us knew how short that time would be.

“What happened?” Maddy asked as I hung up the phone.

“David’s moving to Raleigh,” I said.

“When did all this happen?”

“Evidently, right after I told him off.”

Maddy frowned. “Gee, Eleanor, do you think there might be some kind of connection there?”

I tried my best to ignore her, something that was hard to do on my best day, but she obviously wasn’t about to let up. “I can’t control what that man does or does not do. If he wants to go, I can’t make him stay.”

“We both know that’s a big fat lie, don’t we?”

I whirled around to face her. “Maddy, it’s true that I could probably get him to stay, but what I’m not willing to do is to dangle false hopes in front of him. I’m not ready to let go of Joe, and to be honest with you, I’m not sure I ever will be. David understands that. If he wants to move to Raleigh, I won’t stand in his way.”

“Is that the truth, or are you just too proud to ask him?”

“I’m done talking about this,” I said forcefully.

Maddy nodded, and it appeared that she was actually going to respect my wishes. It wouldn’t be the first time, but I probably could count the others on one hand.

It was time to finish up the last-minute preparations for the day, and if an errant tear fell along the way, that was all right, too. Just because I wasn’t ready to commit to David didn’t mean that I wouldn’t miss him when he left, especially knowing that I might be letting a chance at happiness slip away forever.

Josh Hurley came bustling in two minutes after we opened and grabbed an apron from the rack. “Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“Why aren’t you in school?”

Josh’s parents had been pretty clear that they didn’t want him ducking out early to work at the Slice, and I agreed completely.

“It’s a half-day today. I told you a couple of days ago, remember?”

“That felt like a year ago,” I said.

“I know a lot’s been happening. I can still work, can’t I?”

“It’s fine with me,” I said. “I’m sure Maddy could use the help.”

Josh smiled, and I could see echoes of his father in his grin. “You’ve got that right. She was a lot happier to see me than you seem to be.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “Now, are you going to stand back here chatting with me, or are you going to work?”

“You know me, I’m all about the work.” He glanced over at the empty oven and said, “If you want to make me a cheeseburger pizza sub, I wouldn’t say no.”

“I bet you wouldn’t.” I gave my employees a free meal every shift they worked, and Josh always took full advantage of it. I didn’t pay them much, and it was a way I could supplement their incomes without costing me a lot myself. “Go help Maddy. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

“That’s why I love coming here,” he said.

“For my smile?”

Josh grinned. “That, and the food.”

After he disappeared through the kitchen door, I grilled a hamburger patty on the stovetop, then quickly assembled a sub by spreading pizza sauce on a hoagie roll, adding the hamburger patty—now topped with a thick slab of provolone cheese—then slid it onto a wire rack and onto the conveyor. While that was making its way through the oven, I decided to make something for myself. I split another hoagie in half, swiped sauce on both sides, and then added some sausage and pepperoni. It joined Josh’s sandwich on the conveyor, and I decided to peek out front to see what was going on. I’d make something for Maddy, too, so we could eat before the lunch crowd hit.

The place was as quiet as it had been before we opened, and I began to wonder if we’d make enough to pay Maddy and Josh, when the front door opened and a group of senior citizens came pouring in. They were as happy and rowdy as a gaggle of teenagers, and I realized that the sandwiches I’d made for Josh and me were going to have to wait. At least I hadn’t made anything for my sister yet.

Maddy came hurrying into the kitchen a few minutes later. “I need six extra-large specials,” she said. “Nobody’s having subs or sandwiches today.”

She looked at the two subs I’d made for Josh and me now sitting to one side. “Which one is yours?”

I pointed to the sausage sub, and she picked it up and took a large bite of it.

“Hey, I just said that was mine.”

“You have time to eat back here,” Maddy said after she swallowed. “I have to grab it when I can. Why didn’t you put peppers on it?”

“I didn’t feel like peppers,” I said. “Sorry, I’ll try to do better next time.”

“No worries, this is fine.” She took another big bite as I started working on pizza crusts.

Josh came in as Maddy walked out, and he wolfed down half his cheeseburger sub so fast, I couldn’t swear that he actually ate it.

“Gotta get back to them,” he said with a grin.

Soon I had the pizzas lined up on the conveyor, so I had a little time to clean up my prep station. Almost as an afterthought, I made myself another sub and put it at the back of the line. I wouldn’t get to eat as soon as my employees, but at least mine would still be hot when I ate it.

Two hours later, the crowds had all subsided, and we were finishing our preliminary cleaning before we took our afternoon break.

Josh carried a tray of dirty dishes and glasses back into the kitchen, and then said, “I’ll see you in an hour.”

“Don’t you want to earn a little extra this afternoon?” I asked as I looked at the growing pile of dishes in the sink.

“Sorry, but I’ve got to scoot. I’m meeting somebody.”

“Anyone we know?” Maddy asked as she joined us.

“No, it’s just somebody from school.”

“A girl, I take it,” I said.

Josh grinned at me. “Trust me, I wouldn’t be rushing out of here to meet a guy. See you.”

I started to walk him out when Maddy said, “You get going on the dishes and I’ll lock up after him.”

“I’m not sure that’s a very good deal.”

She smiled at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It sounds great to me. Back in a few seconds.”

“I’m counting on it,” I said as I started running water in the sink. It was going to cut into our break, but I couldn’t come back and face all of those dirty dishes, and it wouldn’t wait until this evening. We would need some of our plates and glasses if we had any kind of crowd at all, something that I needed to stay out of the red.

Maddy was as good as her word, and she took up her position drying as I washed and rinsed the dirty plates and glasses. I’d saved the flatware for last, and I had a draining basket for that, so I didn’t need my sister’s help.

As she started drying the plates I handed her, she said, “What are we going to do with our break today?”

I glanced at the clock. “We won’t have a lot of time left after these are finished. Besides, I’m not sure who else to talk to about the case. Greg is going to try to find Katy, and I don’t doubt he’ll do a better job of it than we did. We’ve talked to Art Young, Sandi Meadows, and Jamie Lowder, and unless we’re serious about adding Greg’s mother, Clara, to our list, I’m fresh out of ideas.”

“There’s something else we haven’t talked about lately,” Maddy said. “I still think it could have been a case of mistaken identity when somebody killed Wade.”

Both our gazes went to the floor where Wade had been found, and pulled away just as quickly. I doubted I’d ever be able to see the kitchen the way I had
before
someone had been murdered there.

“I keep wondering about this inheritance the brothers were fighting over.” I said. “I can’t help but think it might have had something to do with the murder.”

“Eleanor, just because Wade is dead doesn’t mean that Greg inherits his brother’s share.”

“It doesn’t mean he won’t, either,” I said. “Maybe somebody thought they were doing Greg a favor by getting rid of Wade.”

“That leads up back to our core group of suspects, then, doesn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I guess so, but if that’s what happened, then the motive for the crime has changed. We’re really right back to where we started from, aren’t we?”

Maddy nodded. “I see your point. This is a real mess, isn’t it?”

I held a plate out to her. “I just wish we could clean it up as easily as we’re washing these dishes.”

“If only life were that simple.”

Ten minutes later, we had the kitchen respectable again, with clean dishes, plates, and flatware back where they belonged.

“Do we have time to do anything?” Maddy asked.

“Maybe take a quick nap,” I said.

She looked around the kitchen. “Unless we’re willing to stretch out on the counter, I don’t think there’s room for us.”

“It’s a health code violation, anyway,” I said.

“So, what’s the next best thing to sleeping?” Maddy asked.

“Pastries,” I said, and she laughed.

“I was going for something less specific, but I like the way you’re thinking. Do you think Paul is still open?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Let’s go see.”

As Maddy and I locked up, I saw Paul standing at his own door.

We rushed over to him, and I asked, “Are you closing?”

He nodded. “I’ve got a few things left, but I’m ready to go home and grab a shower.” He grinned at me as he added, “I’ve got another date.”

“What’s her schedule like?” I asked him.

“She works third shift, so we’ve got a window of opportunity to go out before she heads out to work and I go home and sleep. Who knows?”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

“That’s why I’m going.” He looked down at the box in his hands and asked, “You ladies wouldn’t care for a treat, on the house, would you? I’m getting tired of my own pastries, if you can believe it.”

Before I could answer, Maddy wrestled it out of his hands. “Absolutely. We’d be delighted.”

“Yes, we would,” I added, and grinned at Paul. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“You two are always good for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late.”

“Thanks for the goodies,” I said as Paul left.

“You’re welcome.”

Maddy started to open the box, and I put a hand on hers. “What are you doing?”

She shrugged. “I just want to take a peek.”

“Let’s at least wait until we’re back inside the Slice.”

Maddy reluctantly agreed, and I let us back into the restaurant. “I’ll grab a table, and you get two mini-cartons of milk.”

“That sounds like a plan. One thing, though. No looking until I get back.”