The Missing Dough (14 page)

I started knuckling the dough into a pan for a classic sausage and pepperoni pizza, and I got too aggressive and shredded the dough instead of kneading it firmly in place. I balled the mess up, stuck it back in the fridge, and got out another ball. “Go on. Tell me,” I said.

“We’re pretty sure that Maine’s armed now,” the chief of police said. “We were doing a routine check this morning, and we found out that he’s registered two guns under an alias. It took a while to track it all back to him, but there’s no reason in the world not to think that he’s got both weapons on him right now.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, trying my best not to ruin another piece of dough. “You don’t think he’s going to come after Maddy and me, do you?”

“It’s pretty clear that I don’t know what he’s going to do,” the chief said as he ran his hand through his hair. “But he’s painfully aware that the two of you are digging into this, and if he
did
kill Grant, he might not appreciate the attention you’ve been giving him. I heard you were back at his place this morning, and there’s probably a pretty good chance that he knows that you were there, too.”

So Chief Hudson had ratted us out. I honestly wasn’t all that surprised. “It was all perfectly innocent. We were there looking for an earring I lost.”

“Eleanor, don’t insult me with a story like that,” he said with a slight grin to ease the sting of his words. “I know that you have just one pair of earrings you care about, and unless I miss my guess, they’re both at home, on your dresser, right now.”

“How could you possibly know that? Have you been snooping around my house, checking up on me?”

“I’d never do that without an invitation, certainly not without your knowledge,” Chief Hurley said, “but you told me yourself in the past about the way you feel about your earrings. The only pair you care about were an anniversary gift from Joe, and I know that if you really had lost one, you would move heaven and earth to get it back. Am I right?”

“On all counts,” I admitted. It amazed me that Chief Hurley had remembered that about me, but then again, he was good at his job, and that included retaining bits and pieces of what a great many different people had told him over the years.

He looked surprised by my admission. “What, you aren’t going to try to bluster your way out of it or offer heartfelt denials?”

“Hey, it is what it is. We were there snooping again, plain and simple,” I said. “Bernie Maine had a real motive to kill Grant, and right now he’s at the top of our list.”

“You’re talking about Orion.”

“I am.”

“If you’ve done your homework, you know that based on that, Bernie wasn’t the only one with a motive to kill Grant, then.”

“Don’t worry. Samantha and Kenny Stout are both on our list, too.”

The chief didn’t react when I asked him to move so I could retrieve a pizza sub that was just coming out of the oven.

As I cut it, Greg came back. “Is that one mine?”

“No. This is Maddy’s. Yours is next, though.”

“I’ll take it for her, and then I’ll be right back,” he said before he disappeared.

“Sorry to bother you here, Eleanor. I can see that you’re busy, but I thought you should know,” the chief said and started to leave.

“It’s under control. You’re fine. You don’t have to leave.” I didn’t want him to go, not when he was in the mood to share information with me. Who knew how long it might be before he felt that way again?

“Have you had a chance to talk to Kenny Stout yourself?” I asked, remembering how Samantha had shivered in fear the last time I heard her say his name.

“I have,” he admitted. “But I really don’t see him having any real motive here. Whatever Samantha has been up to, it happened when the two of them were separated, and Kenny told me that he didn’t have any of his own money invested with Maine himself.”

“It goes a lot deeper than that, at least as far as what Samantha told us today,” I said as I cut the next sandwich in line, plated it, and put it on the table for Greg to pick up.

“What I still don’t get is why she even came to you in the first place this morning,” the chief said. “What did she think you two would be able to do?”

“Actually, that wasn’t the first time she reached out to us,” I said. “She and Kenny both came here yesterday to enlist our help.”

“Help with what?” he asked, clearly intrigued now.

Greg came in, grabbed the sandwich, and then left without a word.

“They were afraid they were going to be railroaded into an arrest and a conviction if they didn’t do anything to protect themselves.”

He looked grim as he said, “Eleanor, I wouldn’t take part in that. Not ever.”

“Everyone knows that,” I said, “but Maddy and I were hoping we would get alibis from them and eliminate them as suspects. We both know that turned out to be a bust. We never even got Kenny’s alibi, and we already told you that Samantha’s is basically nonexistent.”

“If it’s any consolation, Kenny’s isn’t any better,” the police chief said. “They both admit that they took separate cars from the fair, and neither one of them has a single person vouching for their whereabouts. You were telling me about your conversation with Samantha Stout before. What was your overall impression of her?”

“Well, she’s afraid of her ex-husband. Kenny’s got a temper, something I’ve seen for myself, and he hated Grant with a real passion.”

“You say that you saw him upset, but what about the rest of it?”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Do you have any other evidence that Samantha has a reason to be afraid of Kenny other than what she told you? I’ve looked into it, and there have never been any police reports filed on either one of them. As far as I can determine, she’s never shown up at the hospital with bumps and bruises, either. Has anyone actually ever heard him threaten her?”

“Just because she might not have proof doesn’t mean that it never happened,” I said, doing my best to keep my own temper in check.

“I understand that,” Chief Hurley said softly. “For all I know, everything she told you is true. There’s just nothing to back it up.”

“You know what? You’re right. There’s a chance that I could be all wrong about her,” I admitted. “There’s no way to prove it at this point one way or the other.”

To the chief’s credit, he didn’t gloat when I made the admission. “As long as we’re both keeping our minds open to the possibilities, we’ll both be better off.”

“Speaking of which, I think I should come clean with you.” I was going to share some of what we uncovered, but not tell him how we’d attained the information. I wasn’t that crazy. “We have four suspects on our list. Would you like to hear who they are and why?”

He looked around the small kitchen. “You’re not recording this, are you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“I know. I was just teasing you, Eleanor. In all fairness, I’m not necessarily going to tell you anything else about the case, no matter what you say to me. You know that, don’t you?”

“I don’t expect anything, but I’ll take whatever you can give me,” I said.

“Then go ahead.”

“Okay, here we go. I’ll give you the names first and then why we suspect them. It would be great if you could tell me if I was off base on any of them.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

I was about to start when Maddy came into the kitchen with three more orders. “Are you still here?” she asked Chief Hurley with a grin.

“Sometimes you just can’t get rid of me,” he answered sociably enough.

Maddy turned back to me. “Is that pizza ready?”

“One second,” I said as I watched it pass the center point of the exit line, the place where I considered it safe to pull any pizza or sandwich from the conveyor. I knew that sometimes when Maddy ran the kitchen, she pushed that line back a little no matter how much I protested, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it now. I pulled the pizza, panned it, and cut it, and as Maddy took it, she winked at me without saying another word to Chief Hurley.

“Okay, let’s try that again,” he said.

“We’ve got Rebecca Whitmore first on our list. She may or may not have known that her brother had basically stolen her entire inheritance out from under her, but if she did, it could have made her mad enough to kill him. Next in line we have Samantha Stout. Not only did Grant lose her money, but he also started dating his ex-wife, Vivian Wright, the dry cleaner they just arrested in Cow Spots, the second they broke up. We know that Samantha claims Grant dumped her and begged her to take him back, but we don’t have anybody’s word but hers for that. Next, we’ve got her ex, Kenny. As I said, he was jealous, maybe even enough to kill Grant if he saw him as a threat.”

“Are you saying that he still wants Samantha back?” the chief asked.

“I’m not, but she might think so. Then again, it may be a case where he doesn’t want anyone to have her if he can’t.”

“Go on.”

“We’ve also got Bernie Maine on our list, for the obvious reason that Grant might have scammed him. From what I’ve seen, Bernie doesn’t seem like a man who takes to being trifled with.”

“He’s not. Is that it?”

“We have one more suspect on our list. Last but not least, there’s Vivian, the dry cleaner. If Grant dumped his ex-wife, it’s not hard to believe that she could have been mad enough to kill him out of anger.”

“Eleanor, are you and Maddy comfortable with your list of suspects as being final?”

“Not particularly,” I admitted. “That’s why we’re still digging.”

“I get that,” Chief Hurley said, “but don’t take any chances, especially with Bernie Maine. If you see him, get away from the guy as fast as you can and call me. He’s not playing around, Eleanor, and neither should you.”

“Is there anything that
you
would like to share? What’s your suspect list look like?”

“I have a few more names on mine than you do,” he explained a little reluctantly. “You’re not going to ask me who they are, are you?”

Who had we missed? Was there someone else in Grant’s life we hadn’t uncovered yet? And then I knew. Bob Lemon was on it, and most likely, David had a mention as well. I was about to defend them both yet again, but I decided that for the moment, it would be in my best interests to keep getting along with our chief of police.

“No, I have a hunch that I already know.”

“That’s that, then,” Chief Hurley said when he realized that I wasn’t going to add anything else to the conversation. Did he look a little disappointed by my reticence? Perhaps he’d been hoping I’d complain enough that he’d be justified in cutting me out of the loop. If that was the plan, it was going to fail miserably.

After he was gone, Maddy came back into the kitchen in ten seconds. “Tell me everything.”

“Don’t you have customers out there?”

She shrugged. “Greg’s got things under control. Now spill.”

“Okay, but it’s going to be fast and dirty.”

After I quickly brought her up to speed about my conversation with the chief of police, my sister nodded. “It’s mostly what we expected, isn’t it?”

“All except the fact that Bernie Maine is on the loose with at least two weapons, and maybe more.”

Maddy bit her lower lip. “There’s that, all right. Do you have any idea what we should do during our lunch break?”

“To be honest with you, I’d just as soon stay here, make something fattening to eat, and try to forget about this entire mess for an hour. I don’t know who else to talk to at this point, or what I could say to them if I could come up with a name.”

“You’re not getting discouraged investigating Grant’s murder already, are you?” Maddy asked.

“Maybe a little bit, but you know that you don’t have to worry about me quitting on you. I’m not giving up until we find the killer. I guess I’d just like a little break from it all, though.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have our own little party here at the Slice,” Maddy said with a smile. “We can even invite Greg to stay behind with us and make it a real feast. If you’d like, I can call Bob and David, as well.”

“Are you sure that you don’t mind that we’re not digging during every free second we have?” I asked. It had to be a sacrifice giving up even a minute of time that we could spend investigating, and I knew it couldn’t be easy on her.

“Absolutely. Who knows? Maybe a bit of a break will give us a fresh perspective, and we can look at all of this a little clearer than we’re seeing it right now.”

“I appreciate that.” I hugged Maddy. “Thanks, little sister.”

“You’re very welcome, big sister,” she said in return.

“T
hat was wonderful,” I said to Maddy just after we kicked the men in our lives out the front door and locked it again.

“The food or the company?” she asked.

“Both,” I replied.

Bob and David had happily come over to the Slice to spend some time with us, though Greg had excused himself, saying that he had errands to run. I thought it might be because he didn’t want to be the fifth wheel, and I wondered if there were any young women he was interested in at the college. It was probably hard on him, knowing that his best friend, Josh, had a new girl in his life, and I was afraid that Greg might be lonely. If I thought hard enough about it, I might just be able to . . . I stopped myself right there. I’d butted into the poor young man’s life enough in the past. There was no need for me to keep at it. He was perfectly capable of getting a girlfriend without my meddling.

“Those two can be a load of fun when they want to, can’t they?” Maddy asked as we started cleaning up our plates and glasses. “I’m thrilled about how small we kept the talk. Did you notice that neither one of them asked us about our investigation?”

“It was just what I needed. Thank you for not bringing it up, either.”

“Hey, I needed a bit of a break just as much as you did.” As we finished cleaning off our table, Greg knocked on the front door.

After Maddy let him in, he surveyed the dining room. “You must have done a good job, because I don’t see any signs of it myself.”

“Signs of what?” Maddy asked him.

“The wild party that you two just hosted,” he said with a grin.

“Oh, we’ve learned to keep that to a minimum,” I said.

“It must be one of the benefits of getting older,” Greg replied with a smile.

“Watch it, buster,” Maddy said as she flipped her wash towel at him. “You’ll be our age before you know it.”

“That’s nothing but lies, rumors, and falsehoods,” he said as he grabbed his apron. “I’m going to be like Peter Pan myself; I’m never growing up.”

“Sorry, but it’s too late for that. You already did,” she said as she stuck her tongue out at him.

Thankfully, it was a quiet evening at the Slice, and by the time we were ready to close for the night, I was all set to go home, take a hot shower, and read a little before I fell asleep. Maddy was still bunking with me, though, so it was hard to say what our evening would really end up like.

 

Maddy and I were standing outside at the front door of the Slice and locking the place up ten minutes after Greg had left when someone came hurrying toward us out of the shadows.

I just had enough time to get my sister’s attention and turn her around to face the onrusher with me, but there was really nothing else I could do.

“Where’s my wife?” Kenny Stout demanded angrily when he reached us.

“We have no idea where Samantha might be. Why are you so upset about it? I thought you two were finished,” I answered as calmly as I could manage. Maddy was slowly reaching into her bag, so I needed to distract Kenny long enough to give her time to take something out of the bag of defenses she called a purse.

“Don’t try to get cute with me, Eleanor. I’m not in the mood for it. Tell me where she is, and I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Like I said, we don’t know where she is, but even if we did, I doubt that we’d tell you while you’re shouting at us,” I said.

He shook his head in disgust. “You women all stick together like you’re in some kind of a club. I just want to see her.”

“Well, she clearly doesn’t want to see you. Doesn’t that tell you anything?” I asked.

“What did she say to you?” he asked angrily. “Did she tell you that I was abusive toward her or some kind of nonsense like that? The woman’s an artist. She exaggerates everything that comes out of her mouth.”

“Well, she
was
pretty convincing when she came by my house this morning,” I said.

Maddy finally pulled something out of her purse and pointed it at Kenny. It was her stun gun, and for once, I was glad she always had it on her. “Back off, Kenny. I don’t want to hit you with this, but I will if you push me.”

Kenny looked at Maddy, took one step forward, and then casually jerked the weapon out of her hand. “Don’t point something dangerous at someone and then warn them about what you’re going to do,” he said. “What if I really were a bad guy, instead of a man just looking for his estranged wife?”

“Give that back to me,” Maddy demanded. She looked shaken by how easily Kenny had disarmed her.

“You’ll get it when we’re finished here,” he said, “and not a second sooner.”

“I already told you,” I said. “We honestly don’t know where Samantha is.”

That was when Kenny took another step toward Maddy.

“Don’t shoot her with that!” I commanded.

“I wasn’t going to,” Kenny said. He offered the stun gun to Maddy, who took it and jammed it back into her bag.

In a softer voice, he said, “Contrary to what Samantha must have told you, I’m not some kind of monster. Go on. You can go.”

Kenny stood there as we walked away, and I held my breath until we made it around the corner.

The second we did, I turned to my sister. “Maddy, are you okay?”

“No, I’m not, not even one little bit,” she said. “Can we leave my car here tonight? I want to ride back with you.”

“Of course we can,” I said. I put my arm around her shoulders and felt the rigidity of her body next to mine. “Maddy, I couldn’t believe how fast he was when he grabbed that stun gun. He would have taken it from anyone.”

“But he didn’t, did he? He took it from me like I was some kind of spoiled child with a toy. Eleanor, I’ve been putting my faith in my purse arsenal all these years, but I can see now that I was wrong to do it.”

“You can’t beat yourself up about what just happened,” I said as we got into my car and headed to my house.

Maddy was shaken more than I even realized.

We drove in silence, and neither one of us was completely at ease until we were inside my place with all the doors and windows locked.

“He was right, you know,” Maddy finally said softly as I made us both some tea.

“About what?”

“I shouldn’t have warned him first. We felt threatened, and I should have zapped him when I had the chance. Worse yet, I saw him reaching for the stun gun, and I just stood there and let him take it from me like I was some kind of helpless fool. It’s not going to happen again. I can promise you that.”

“It turned out okay, though. He wasn’t trying to hurt us,” I said.

“But he could have had something a lot darker in mind than trying to get information out of us,” she answered. “In a way, Kenny did me a favor. He hurt my pride, but he taught me an important lesson by doing it.”

“Can we just drop it and change the subject?” I asked as I handed her a mug.

“What do you want to talk about? Samantha?”

I shuddered a little as I said, “She has a reason to be afraid of him, doesn’t she?”

“I’m not so sure,” Maddy said.

“How can you say that after what just happened?” I asked my sister after I took a sip of tea. Its warmth was welcome after the chill I’d experienced outside the Slice earlier.

“He was clearly agitated with Samantha and the two of us, but when he had us in a vulnerable position, his first reaction was to give my stun gun back to me. I’m not so sure that Kenny’s a bad guy, after all.”

“Sure, he didn’t stun us both, but I’m not so sure that makes him okay in my book. As a matter of fact, I’m going to keep my eye on him more than ever.”

“You do that,” Maddy said. “Where do you think Samantha is hiding?”

“If she has any sense, she’s long gone,” I said. “We can’t plan on ever having the chance to talk to her again. We’re going to need to come up with another angle to pursue.”

After taking a sip of her tea, Maddy said, “I think we should try to track Vivian down tomorrow before we open the Slice. She could very well hold the key to the whole thing. Hopefully, that part of her life has settled down enough for us to get a reasonable answer from her, thanks to Art.” When I didn’t reply, she asked, “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

“I am, but for more reasons than that, though.”

“I still don’t get the friendship you two share, but I know that it’s genuine. If you’re that worried about him, why don’t you call him?”

“He asked me not to, and to be honest with you, I’m not even sure the number I have for him will work anymore,” I said.

Maddy looked at me for twenty seconds and then asked, “Are you just saying that because of what you’re afraid you’ll hear? If he’s in trouble, and he’s the friend you say he is, you should call him.”

I thought about it and then nodded. “You’re right. The least I can do is try.”

I took out the number I had for Art and dialed it.

To my surprise, Art himself answered.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“Eleanor, how did you know that I was just about to call you?” He sounded genuinely puzzled by my call.

“I’m sorry. I know that you’ve got a lot of things going on in your life right now and I’m not supposed to contact you, but I’ve been worried about you.” I just got what he’d said, so I asked, “Why were you going to call me?”

“Everything has been taken care of,” Art said, the relief clear in his voice. “Our friendship is in full force again, if you’re interested. Feel free to speak with Vivian Wright, or anyone else you’d like to grill. The storm has passed.”

It was great news; there was no doubt about that. “Wow, that was fast. Does that mean you’re coming back to Timber Ridge?”

“In due time, but right now I have a friend who needs me on the West Coast, so I’m flying out tonight to see if I can lend him some aid.”

“What kind of help are you giving him?” I asked him, afraid that he might give me an answer that I didn’t want to hear.

“His wife just died of cancer, and he needs me with him. I’ll be back in a week, and when I do get back to Timber Ridge, I’d love one of your pizzas.”

“You know that all you have to do is ask,” I said. “Have a safe flight, and tell your friend I’m sorry for his loss.”

“I will do just that. Good night, Eleanor. It was good talking to you.”

“You too. Good night,” I said.

“What was that all about?” Maddy asked me as I put my phone back down on the kitchen counter.

I thought about explaining to her what Art had shared with me, just to make sure that she realized that there was more to my friend than she could ever know, but then I decided that it was something that would be better just between the two of us. “We got the all-clear sign to talk to Vivian.”

“He’s okay, then?” Maddy asked me softly.

“He’s just fine. Thanks for asking,” I said.

“Hey, no matter what, you’re my sister. I don’t have to like everyone you do, but I’m such a big fan of yours that I’m inclined to, anyway. I was going to confront her tomorrow, anyway, but I’m glad that we got the green light to talk to her from Art. What are the odds we’re going to be able to track her down, though?”

“Hang on a second,” I said as I dug out my telephone book. I found the dry cleaner’s number at the shop, dialed it, and listened to the machine as it gave me the shop hours and the day’s special. “They’re still open.”

“Unless they forgot to change the outgoing message on their machine before all of this happened,” Maddy said.

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? We need to head back to Cow Spots in the morning and see if we can get anything out of Vivian.”

“We’ve been there so much lately, I’m thinking about looking for an apartment.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked. I loved having my sister so close, and the thought of her living somewhere else, even if it was just the next town over, was too much for me to take. Apparently, I leaned on her more than I’d realized.

“Don’t worry. I was just kidding. Can you imagine ordering the return address labels? Timber Ridge is bad enough, but Cow Spots is just an open invitation for ridicule.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cute.”

“Well, you can’t move, either.”

I touched a nearby wooden column, carefully restored during our rehab. “Sis, we both know that I could never leave this place. There’s too much of Joe in it.”

“Even if you and David got married somewhere down the road?” she asked. “Would you still live here?”

“It’s my home,” I said.

“I’m not saying that it’s even on the horizon, but let’s play what-if for a second. Do you think David could live here, what with Joe’s ghost around every corner?”

“Joe isn’t haunting me,” I said.

“Not now he’s not, but then again, David’s not here now, either.”

“Maddy, if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that Joe would approve of me moving on with my life. He loved his life too much to deny anyone else happiness if they had a shot at it.”

“He was a pretty special fella, wasn’t he?” she asked.

“Golden,” I said as I yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat.”

“You never really answered my question, though, did you?” she asked as I walked toward the master bedroom.

“Didn’t I?” I replied with a grin.

As I got ready for bed, I realized that the reason I’d avoided Maddy’s question was that I didn’t know what the answer was. Could I invite someone else into the home that Joe and I had created together? Or, even worse, could I leave this place in order to live with someone else? I honestly didn’t know, and since David wasn’t about to propose and I knew that
I
wasn’t going to do it, I was pretty safe just ignoring it for the moment. I planned to enjoy my relationship with David for as long as I could, and if it eventually grew into something deeper, I’d make that decision then.