The Missing Dough (12 page)

“I know. I guess I was so distraught that anyone could think that I might have killed Grant that it set me off. My ex-husband’s reaction was even worse. I can’t believe that he just stormed off like that.”

“Did you ever catch up with Kenny after you two left the Slice?” I asked.

“Actually, the second I got outside, I decided that it would probably be better if I left him alone, so I took off on my own,” Samantha said. “Truth be told, I’ve been ducking him ever since he stormed out of the Slice like that. The man’s got a volatile temper, and honestly, I was more than a little afraid to be around him.”

“Has he ever hit you?” Maddy asked gently.

“No, but he’s come close more than once. His temper usually only flairs up when he’s jealous of another man. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but he put a guy in the hospital once who was just helping me write a song.” Samantha took a sip of coffee, and then she added, “I’m beginning to wonder if he might have had something to do with what happened to Grant after all.”

“But you two broke up,” I said. “Why would Kenny still be jealous of him?”

“After we split up, Grant was seeing a woman named Vivian Wright in Cow Spots, but he told me that he broke up with her not long after they got together so he could be with me again. I told him that he was insane, and that I’d never date a man who stole money from me, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The night Grant died, Kenny overheard part of our conversation, and it was all I could do to keep them apart.”

“Have you told any of this to the police?” I asked.

She looked scared by the very idea of it. “There’s no way I’m incriminating Kenny like that. Who knows what he would do to me then.”

“But you’re telling us,” Maddy said.

“I’m worried that if Kenny thinks you’ve turned on him, something could happen to the two of you, and I can’t have that on my conscience. I came here to warn you both to be very careful around him.”

“You have to know that we’re going to tell the police everything you just told us, Samantha,” I said. “Chief Hurley has a right to know.”

“Do what you feel that you must, but I’m trusting you to leave my name out of it. Kenny has to be stopped, but I can’t have him realizing that I’m the one who pointed the finger at him. I don’t know what he’d do if he found out.”

“We’ll do what we can to keep your name out of it,” Maddy said. It wasn’t exactly a promise to keep her identity secret, just a pledge that we would try. I could live with that, but Chief Hurley needed to know about Kenny’s wild jealousy.

“You get why we can’t make any promises, don’t you?” I asked.

“I understand. Anyway, if there’s anything I can do, just ask me.”

“Where were you when Grant was murdered?” I asked.

“You’re still asking me for an alibi, even after what I just told you about my ex-husband?”

“The sooner we can cross you off our list of suspects, the better,” I said as reassuringly as I could.

She nodded. “I’m afraid I left the stage after we played a few encores, and then I drove back home, alone. I didn’t see anybody along the way or talk to anyone on my cell phone. Honestly, I don’t have an alibi, which is one of the reasons I reacted the way I did when you asked me for one.”

“I understand,” I said. “It’s a tough question to have to answer.” I didn’t think that Samantha’s reply meant that she was guilty of anything, but it didn’t do anything to clear her name, either.

She put the coffee mug down and then stood up. “Anyway, that’s the only reason I came by. Kenny Stout is a liar and a thief, and I’m afraid that he’s capable of things much worse than what we’ve seen so far. Don’t believe a word he tells you, and above all else, never turn your back on him.”

After Samantha was gone, Maddy turned to me and asked, “What was that visit
really
all about?”

“Don’t you believe her story?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We both saw a flare-up of Kenny’s temper, but that doesn’t make anything else Samantha just said true. She did look scared when she talked about him, though.”

“I agree. If nothing else, it gives us some food for thought. I wonder if it’s really true that Grant was dating his ex-wife.” I couldn’t imagine the two of them together, but I’d also seen odder matchups in my life.

“It should be easy enough to prove one way or the other,” Maddy said. “I can’t imagine Vivian getting out of jail that fast, can you?”

“How are we going to find out if she is, though? The chief was already suspicious of our connection with her last night. He’s not going to let us interview her while she’s locked up. You can bet on that.”

I grabbed my phone as Maddy asked, “What are you doing?”

“There’s only one thing we can do. We need to use the direct approach.”

“You’re calling the police chief?” Maddy asked as I dialed his cell number.

“There’s no better way to find out the truth,” I said.

“Hurley,” he answered after he picked up.

“Chief, this is Eleanor Swift. Was anyone hurt in the wreck last night?”

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked at first. I’m not saying that both cars weren’t totaled, but miraculously, everybody got out of it alive. Is that
really
the reason you’re calling me?”

“No. I wanted to go ahead and finish the conversation we were having about Cow Spots last night.”

“I’d like to do that myself,” he said.

“Do you have any interest in coming by the pizzeria before we open today? We can chat then.”

“I have a better idea,” he said as a car horn honked outside.

“What’s that?” I asked, and then I heard the car horn honking again.

“Step out onto your porch and you’ll see,” he said, and then he hung up on me.

“This is getting to be a habit for you,” I said to him when I opened the door and found him standing on the front porch. “You’re not stalking me, are you?”

“No, this one’s a pure coincidence. I was two streets over when you called, so it was easy enough to swing by here.”

“Did you happen to see Samantha Stout as you were driving up?”

“No. What was she doing here?” he asked, clearly surprised by her presence in my neighborhood. “Was it about the murder?”

“So, you know about her connection to the case, then,” Maddy said.

“It’s immaterial what I know. What have you two been able to find out?”

“She was dating Grant a few months back, but she broke up with him when she lost money in an investment he recommended to her that went bad,” I said.

The chief whistled softly as he shook his head. “It doesn’t take you two long to get right down to the bone, does it?”

“This murder is tied to us in too many ways,” I said. “You knew we’d be digging into it.”

“Unofficially, of course I did, but the longer I could ignore your meddling, the better it was for both of us. There’s no way around that now, though. Why exactly did Samantha Stout come by here this morning?”

“She wanted to warn us that her ex-husband had a jealous streak even after they separated, and when Grant came by the stage the night he was murdered, evidently things got a little heated between the three of them.”

“But he was dating his ex-wife, Vivian Wright, up until the day he died,” the chief said stubbornly. “Two sources I checked with confirmed it.”

“If you don’t believe us, just ask her yourself. She’s under your guard still, right?”

He looked angry at the suggestion. “Not anymore. Somebody bailed her out of jail an hour ago.”

“Wow, that was fast. How much was her bail set at?” Maddy asked.

“Two hundred thousand dollars, and her boss put it all up in cash,” he said.

“No doubt it was from the money he made running a book out of the dry cleaner,” Maddy said.

“It goes quite a bit deeper than that. Gambling was just the first bit we’ve found so far. Who knows how deep it goes?”

I thought about Art Young and the fact that he was in some kind of trouble. He might accept that as a cost of doing business, but it would be hard to lose my friend over a dark rivalry that I knew nothing about.

The police chief asked, “Did Samantha happen to give you an alibi for the time that Grant was murdered?”

“She claimed that she left the stage, got into her car, and drove straight home. Nobody saw her, and she didn’t take any cell phone calls, either,” I said.

“So then that means that she’s not afraid to throw her ex-husband under the bus,” Chief Hurley said.

“Maddy and I couldn’t tell if she was acting or not, but if she was, she was doing a bang-up job of it. I had the feeling that she was honestly frightened of him when she was here talking about him,” I said.

“There could be a great many things that she’s afraid of right now,” he said. “I need to speak with her, and her ex, as well. Any idea where he might be hiding?”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t have a clue,” I admitted, glad that I could answer him truthfully.

“Well, if you see him before I do, tell him that I’m looking for him.” Chief Hurley started down the steps but turned to face us before he left. “I’d ask you both to stop digging into this murder, but I hate wasting my breath. If you get in over your head, call me. I don’t care what time of day or night it is. Do we understand each other?”

“We do,” I said.

As he neared his squad car, I called out, “It’s nice to know that you care about us, Chief.”

“Well,” he said with a slight grin, “Josh loves working at the Slice, and I don’t want him to have to go through hunting for another job anytime soon.”

Once he was gone, I turned to Maddy. “He likes us. I don’t care how much he protests otherwise.”

“And who can blame him? We’re very likable, as far as I’m concerned,” she said.

I glanced at my watch. “We have an hour and a half before we need to go to the Slice. Any ideas about what we might do with our time?”

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Maddy said. “As a matter of fact, I do have something in mind at that.”

“S
o, where exactly am I driving?” I asked my sister as we pulled out of my driveway. “Are we going back to Cow Spots to do some more digging?”

“It does seem as though everyone we’re interested in talking to lives there,” Maddy agreed. “But what I’d really like to do is get another look at Grant’s basement apartment at his mother’s house.”

“Don’t you think that might be kind of risky?” I asked. “We almost got caught the last time we snooped around there.”

“What are the odds that Rebecca is going to be there?”

“I’d say that it’s a coin toss, if I had to guess.”

She brightened at that. “Those are pretty good odds. We’ll have some time to snoop if we’re lucky.”

“And if we aren’t?” I asked.

“We can always try to track Vivian down, now that she’s out on bail,” she answered.

“I think the odds of her being back at Clean Break are close to nothing.”

“Then we’ll try somewhere else if that doesn’t pan out. I wonder how hard it would be to break into Bernie Maine’s place?”

I had to laugh at the question. “That’s just rhetorical, right?”

She just grinned at me, and I drove to Sharon Whitmore’s house to see what else we could find there.

 

Rebecca’s car was parked out front, so that was a dead end for us, at least for the moment. She had a rosebush in a wheelbarrow sitting in the yard, as well as some bagged mulch. “She’s planting roses,” I said as I drove on past her place. At least she wasn’t outside in the yard working when we drove by. I didn’t have the slightest idea how we would have explained our presence there, but knowing Maddy, I was sure that my sister would have come up with something just plausible enough to be accepted.

“Should we go to the dry cleaner now?” Maddy asked.

“You’re the brains of the operation. I’m just your chauffeur.”

“We both know that’s a big fat lie,” she answered.

I didn’t respond and instead just kept driving.

As I’d suspected, the dry cleaner was closed as well.

“That just leaves Bernie Maine’s place,” Maddy said as I pulled into the parking lot.

“You weren’t serious about breaking in, were you?” I asked.

“I’m fresh out of ideas, but if you have any good ones yourself, I’m open to suggestions.”

I thought about it, and then I realized that she was probably right. I wasn’t all that happy about breaking and entering again somewhere else, but what choice did we have? The longer it took to solve Grant’s murder, the worse it would look for every suspect, including Bob, and to a lesser extent, the rest of us.

“Should I park at the welcome center again?” I asked.

“No, let’s pull up behind his office. That way no one knows that we’re here.”

“I’d like to keep it that way if we could,” I said.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Eleanor. I have no desire to be arrested, either,” she said.

“Well, it’s good that we agree on something.”

 

The back door of the office was locked, and on the rare chance that he had hidden a key somewhere else, we checked flowerpots, rocks that looked fake, and even under the doormat.

There was no hidden key, though, at least not one that we could find.

Maddy had leaned over to pick up a big rock when I said, “Hey, I already checked under there.”

“The more I think about it, the more this looks like a key to me. After all, what does it do but let people in where they want to go?”

“Well, it keeps people like us out,” I suggested, taking the rock from her hand. “Smashing a window would attract too much attention.”

Maddy grinned. “
That’s
your objection? You’ve come a long way, Sis. I can remember a time when you’d never bend a rule, let alone break it.”

“I admit that I saw the world more as black and white when I was younger, but I’m still not willing to move the line that far back.”

“Then this morning has all been for nothing,” Maddy said.

“I don’t know about that.” From where I stood, I could see Bernie Maine’s recycling bin, and best of all, it was full of all kinds of discarded papers. “I wonder what we might be able to find in there if we look hard enough.”

“Are you willing to dump all of this into the back of your car, because we don’t have any trash bags on us,” she said.

“Let’s just take the recycling bin. We can always bring it back later, after we’re finished with it.”

“I was right with you until you suggested we return it,” Maddy said with a smile.

“I can live with that. I’ll get the car door, and you grab the bin.”

After it was securely in back, Maddy and I drove out of the driveway.

At least we tried to, but it was kind of tough when Chief Hudson’s cruiser was blocking our escape.

Evidently, our presence hadn’t gone unnoticed after all.

 

“Ladies,” he said after we parked and got out to talk to him. “What brings you back to our charming little town?”

“I lost an earring the last time we were here,” I said. Though I rarely wore jewelry, I was counting on the police chief not to know that.

“Funny, but you’re not wearing any now,” he said.

“That’s because I’m not a pirate. I took the other one off as soon as I noticed that its mate was missing. It’s true that I don’t wear them that often, but that’s what makes them so special.”

He clearly didn’t believe me, but he evidently didn’t know me well enough to come right out and call me a liar. “Did you find it, by any chance?”

“No, I’m afraid it’s a lost cause. Just out of curiosity, how did you know that we were here?”

The chief pointed all around us at the businesses and homes interspersed on the block. “They have a decent neighborhood watch around here. Someone called me, so I decided to come over here and check it out for myself.”

“Well, then, that’s one mystery solved,” Maddy said. “Now, if you don’t mind moving your cruiser, we’re going to be late prepping the pizzeria for our customers today.”

“I’ve never eaten there,” he admitted. “Is your food any good?”

“It’ll do in a pinch,” I said, refusing to be baited by the question.

“Boy, you really know how to sell it, don’t you? I’ll see you there sometime soon, and that’s a promise.”

Chief Hudson got into his squad car, and as he did, Maddy reached in back as nonchalantly as she could and covered the recycle bin with a blanket I kept in back.

We waved to him as we drove past, offering smiles we didn’t mean.

“Boy, I’m really glad we didn’t use that rock,” Maddy said.

“I’m happy he didn’t look in the back of my car. What would he have said if he’d caught us stealing a recycling bin?”

“Not as much as he would have if we’d broken into the office. That was a good call there, by the way. Things could have gotten dicey. And the lost earring story? Brilliance, sheer brilliance. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so proud of you in my life.”

I thanked her for the compliments, and then I said, “What can I say? I was on a roll.” I looked in the back and said, “I’m not looking forward to going through that mess, though.”

“Pull over,” Maddy said as she pointed to an empty parking lot.

“What’s wrong? Did something just happen that I missed?” I asked as I did as I was told.

Maddy got out of the front passenger seat and hopped in back. “I’m going to use our time wisely while you drive. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Be my guest,” I said. “Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

By the time we got to the Slice, Maddy was disgusted. “There was nothing in there that gave me any idea of what Maine has been up to. What a waste of a morning this has turned out to be.”

As I parked my car in back of the restaurant, I said, “Maddy, you know as well as I do that most of the leads and ideas we follow up on don’t pan out. All we can do is keep swinging and hope we find something that we can use.”

“I know,” she said as she pulled out the bin. “It’s still disappointing. What should I do with this?”

“Just put it by the back door,” I said. “We’ll deal with it later. Are you sure there was nothing of value to us there?”

“You’re welcome to go through it all yourself,” she said.

“No, thanks, at least not until I’m really desperate,” I said. “For now, let’s go get ready to make some pizza.”

 

It was nearly eleven when Paul came by with our sandwich rolls. He made them fresh for us every day at the bakery and gave us a huge discount as well. Usually, it was a bright spot in our day when he came by, but he was clearly distracted by something when he showed up.

“Paul, what’s going on?” I asked as he put the bread on the racks we’d installed just for him. “Is something wrong?”

“What? No. I’m fine.”

“My dad always used to say that ‘fine’ was a bad answer to any question but what grit of sandpaper you wanted. Come on. You can talk to us.”

Maddy piped in. “Think of us as the sisters you never had.”

“Older sisters at that,” I said.

“Hey, speak for yourself, Eleanor. If he wants to think of me as his younger sister, I’m not about to try to stop him.”

“Maddy, he doesn’t need our comedy act. Something is clearly wrong.”

“It’s nothing,” Paul insisted.

“Then tell us about it and let us judge for ourselves. We
are
friends, right?”

“The best I could ask for,” Paul answered me. “It’s about Gina.”

“What about her?” I asked. I knew that they were taking it slow this time around. The two had met in college, but it had fallen apart. When Gina came back to town, they hemmed and hawed before finally deciding to give it another try. I hoped it worked out, but then again, I hated it when any relationship failed.

“We were watching a romantic comedy on TV last night, and I fell asleep,” Paul admitted sheepishly.

“It’s not the first thing a girl wants to see when she looks over at her boyfriend and expects to see his adoring gaze,” Maddy said.

“I understand that, but my hours are so brutal, by eight o’clock I’m completely worn out. It’s really not a good excuse, though, because I know that she works just as hard as I do. That hotel can’t be easy to run.” The hotel in question was quite a bit more than that. Tree-Line was a luxurious complex built on the edge of town that offered a multitude of rooms and had a pretty spectacular convention center as well.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” I asked him.

“I don’t know what I can do, but she’s not pleased with me. I convinced her to come into town to have an early lunch with me today, but I have no idea how I’m going to make it up to her.”

“How early are we talking about here?” I asked.

“Eleven thirty,” he replied as he glanced at his watch. “Is any place around here even open then? I’m always grabbing a snack at the bakery, but I can’t offer her that.”

“Bring her here,” I said, suddenly struck by the brilliance of it.

He looked at me a bit oddly. “But you’re not even open then.”

“We’ll make an exception for you,” Maddy said, getting into the spirit of things.

“I can’t ask you to go to all that trouble for me.”

“You didn’t ask. We volunteered. Now scat. Bring her by at eleven thirty on the nose, and treat her like she’s a princess. And, Paul? Trust us,” I said.

“I do,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I’m already feeling better about everything.”

“That’s because you know that we won’t let you down,” Maddy said.

I let Paul back out and then locked the door behind him.

Maddy came out of the kitchen and said, “We’ve got twenty-six minutes to come up with something spectacular.”

“Let me turn on the oven so it will warm up, and then we’ll stage something nice out here together.”

“What are we going to serve them?” Maddy asked. “Pizza, as good as it is, isn’t quite what’s called for, for a legitimate apology.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something,” I said.

Maddy frowned and then said, “Tell you what. Why don’t you take care of the food, and I’ll handle things out here.”

I really wanted to have a hand in the prep work in the dining room, too, but she was right. I had to get cracking if I was going to come up with something good enough for our special guests.

“Okay, it’s a deal. Make it special.”

“Right back at you,” Maddy said with a grin.

We were in business. I just hoped that whatever we could come up with wouldn’t disappoint them.

I started digging through my cookbooks, searching for something really special I could make with the ingredients we had on hand. Thankfully, the pizza dough was finished, so I wouldn’t have to use anything that had been refrigerated. Now I just had to figure out what I was going to make. As I flipped through the stack of cookbooks I had, I found and then immediately rejected recipe after recipe that I didn’t feel was good enough for the occasion. A quick glance at the clock showed me that I had only eighteen minutes left, though. Just in case my new recipe didn’t work out, I made a simple cheese pizza and put it on the conveyor. That way if disaster struck, I’d have
something
to offer them. But it wasn’t going to be my lead, if I could help it.

Blast it. Most of the fanciest recipes called for ingredients I didn’t have on hand. I was going to have to make do with what I had.

I grabbed more dough, cut some of it into strips, and then I worked grated Parmesan, mozzarella, and a little cheddar into it all before making a braid, just for fun. I put that on a pan and sent it through the oven and then started on small individual-size dessert pizzas. After I pulled out the cookie crusts that I had made ahead of time and kept on hand, I made one with cherry pie filling and the other with apple pie mix, since I didn’t know what they liked. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as I would have liked to offer them, but it was the best I could do on such short notice.