A Side of Murder: Book 18 in The Darling Deli Series

by Patti Benning

  Suddenly Moira got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong here. It was too quiet. Who did those other two vehicles belong to? Brenda’s warning about the chef seemed to replay in her mind. If the chef had killed Brody, mightn’t he be willing to kill someone else to cover his tracks? If Denise had somehow found out about his guilt, she might have confronted him about it.

  Worry and concern for her friend made her walk faster. She pushed open the kitchen door — and found herself in complete darkness. The kitchen lights were off, and she couldn’t see a thing.

  “Denise?” she hissed. Nothing but silence answered her.

  Moira felt around on the wall for a switch, but couldn’t feel anything. She had no mental map of the kitchen to rely on. Hoping to use her phone’s light as a guide, she reached into her coat pocket, only to find it empty. She must have left it in the car.

  “Dang it,” she muttered. She reached still farther along the wall, hoping to feel the switch, but reluctant to let the door to the hallway and the small amount of light that provided close.

  “Are you in here, Denise?” she whispered as loud as she dared. She heard something — a rustling — from the other side of the room. It might be her friend, hurt and alone. Or it might be a killer.

  She squinted, trying to make out everything she could in the dark. The light from the hallway glinted off of the edge of the metal counter, but she couldn’t see much beyond that. There was a faint glow from the readouts on some of the appliances. Moira tried to remember where the fridge was; she had only seen the kitchen once or twice, but she thought it was to her left and forward, near the other side of the room. She knew that there was a light switch by the fridge, because she had bumped it with her elbow on her first visit.

  Gritting her teeth, Moira decided to just go for it. If Denise was in trouble, all of this indecision wouldn’t help her. The deli owner took a deep breath, then stepped into the dark room and let the door to the hallway close behind her.

  It wasn’t really pitch black in the room. As Moira’s eyes adjusted, the lights from the readouts were enough for her to just be able to make out the outlines of the counter. She moved slowly and kept a hand on the counter to guide herself. Her eyes were wide open as she looked around the dark room, wondering if she was alone in it.

  “Ooof.”

  She grunted as she banged her knees against the hard floor. What had she just tripped over? She reached behind her and felt something soft. She moved her hand up it until she jerked the limb back with a scream. She had felt hair and something wet and warm. The thing that she had tripped over in the dark was a person.

  Chapter Sixteen

  * * *

  Bracing herself, Moira felt for the person again. She could tell by the length of the hair and the stubble on his face that it was a man — not Denise, thank goodness — but couldn’t determine whether he was alive or not. For a moment, she thought she felt a pulse, but if it was there, it was weak.

  Oh my goodness, what did I get myself into? She wondered. I need to get out of here.

  At that moment, she heard the sound of a struggle from across the room. A man grunted, and she recognized Denise’s voice as it called out through the dark.

  “Run, Moira! Go get the po-”

  Her words were cut off suddenly. Moira was frozen, fear making her feel like a rabbit in the headlights. It wasn’t until the man on the floor in front of her took in a rasping breath that she snapped out of her trance. She needed to find a light switch. Now.

  She rushed headlong through the kitchen, no longer trying to be careful or quiet. Her leg banged painfully into a corner, and she came dangerously close to stumbling over her own feet in the dark. By sheer luck, she reached out to break her fall and her hands slammed into the smooth side of the huge stainless steel fridge. Keeping one hand on the metal appliance, Moira guided herself to the wall where she found the light panel and began flick on as many of the switches as she could.

  The sudden light temporarily blinded her — why hadn’t she thought to shut her eyes? — but her ears worked just fine. She heard the impact of flesh striking flesh, and a man’s voice swearing vehemently. Then there were footsteps, rushing towards her.

  “Moira, come on!” Denise said. “Grab a knife, they’re to your right.”

  Still half blinded, Moira turned to look at the counter and saw to her relief a huge block of professional grade knives. She chose the biggest one she could find and spun around. Denise was running towards her, and a few feet behind her was a man that Moira recognized. She faltered, confused, as her friend reached her and pulled her own knife out of the block.

  “What are you doing?” Denise said. “He’s dangerous. Keep your knife up.”

  Moira raised the blade hesitantly, still not understanding.

  “But… Bret?” she said. “Why?”

  Bret Kingsly, the new chef that Denise had hired, laughed.

  “I told you it would have been the perfect crime,” he said. “Why did you have to come back to the kitchen, Denise Donovan?”

  “I’m glad I did,” her friend said. “Or you would have gotten away with another murder.”

  “What’s going on?” Moira asked, her voice shaking. “Who did he kill?”

  “He’s the one that put the crushed peanuts in that man’s soup,” Denise told her, not taking her eyes off of her newest hire. “He overheard Brody tell the chef about his allergy. He was eating a dish with roasted peanuts in it himself, so it was easy for him to walk by and slip it in.”

  “But why? What in the world could you gain by killing Brody?” She fixed her own gaze on the man, who was pacing slowly back and forth in front of them, a length of copper piping in his hand. She tried not to look at the blood on the end of it.

  “A job,” he said simply. “There aren’t many places for a chef of my skill to work in a tiny town like this. I figured if the grill’s head chef killed somebody, they would be looking for a replacement soon thereafter. It didn’t work out quite that well, but at least I got hired on as a back-up chef.”

  “He attacked Andy,” Denise said. “I saw it all. We shut down early because business was so slow. I left Andy and him to close up, since Bret said he wanted to test out some of the appliances. I forgot my keys, though, and came back just in time to see the attack.”

  “You tried to kill him just because you wanted his job?” Moira asked, horrified.

  “Have you ever wanted something so badly you could taste it?” Bret asked, his eyes aflame with a frightening kind of feverish passion. “Working in a place like this is my dream. I wasn’t about to spend years as a back-up while some oaf like Andy got all of the glory. It would have been simple — he would have just disappeared — if Denise here hadn’t come back at the wrong moment.”

  “He attacked me, hit me with that pipe while I was trying to call the police. My phone screen shattered, but it kept working long enough for me to get it to redial the last number I called — which must have been you.”

  “I couldn’t hear much of what you were saying,” Moira said. “The microphone must have been broken. I thought you wanted me to come here by myself.”

  Her friend gave a grim smile. “No, what I said was whatever you do, don’t come here by yourself.”

  “Are you two ladies going to chat all day, or are we going to do this?” Bret said, slapping the pipe against the palm of his hand.

  Moira exchanged a wide-eyed glance with her friend. Sure, there were two of them and only one of him, but he was strong and had already knocked one man unconscious. Chances were at least one of them would get seriously hurt.

  Bret didn’t give them any time to make a plan. He leapt forward, swinging the pipe at Moira’s face. Somehow, she managed to duck just in time. The pipe hit the fridge with a loud clang and left a sizable dent.

  Denise ran to the side while he was distracted by the deli owner and pulled an extendable faucet from the sink. Just as Bret turned to see where she had gotten to, s
he sprayed him full in the face with it.

  While Bret spluttered, Moira ran around the island in the middle of the kitchen, looking desperately for something that might save their lives. Her eyes landed on a huge metal pot. It’s worth a shot, she thought. She removed it from its hook in time to see Bret fighting against the stream of water in his face, reaching for a terrified Denise.

  Moving as quickly as she could, Moira rushed forward and slammed the pot down on his head. He collapsed to his knees, his wet hands scrabbling at the impromptu metal helmet. Denise picked the pipe up where it had fallen on the floor, forgotten, and swung it as hard as she could against the side of the pot. The resulting noise was loud enough that it hurt Moira’s ears. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Bret. The man keeled over on his side, moaning softly. Denise met Moira’s shocked expression with a fierce look in her eyes.

  “That’s what he gets for attacking my chef.”

  Epilogue

  * * *

  “What is all of this?” Moira asked when she came down the stairs the next morning. She was still shaken from everything that had happened the night before. By the time she had finally been able to close her eyes well past midnight, she had been so exhausted that she had somehow managed to sleep through David making an entire breakfast.

  “Well, considering the way our Valentine’s date ended, I figured I owed you a good meal,” he said. “I may not be the best cook there is, but I can follow a recipe well enough. I thought you deserved something nice to wake up to.”

  She smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it from the bottom of her heart. Between talking to the police and waiting anxiously with Denise for word on Andy from the hospital, the stress of the evening before had been overwhelming even after the two of them had neutralized Bret.

  “Denise called,” he said. “I told her you were sleeping. She just wanted to let you know that Andy pulled through the night and they think he’s going to be fine. Since he had a head injury, the hospital will keep an eye on him for a few more days before releasing him.”

  “What about Bret?” she asked, taking a seat at the table. “Do they think he’ll get his hearing back?”

  “Two ruptured eardrums won’t be fun for him to recover from, but she said the doctors think he’ll get most of it back.”

  “Bummer,” she said softly, helping herself to a stack of pancakes. She smiled when she saw they were heart shaped.

  “I have to apologize, Moira,” David said, sitting across from her. “I should have listened to you.”

  “It turns out I was wrong, though,” she pointed out. “The killer wasn’t even close to who I thought it was.”

  “Well, it was a chef. Just not the right one.” He grinned and she smiled back.

  “Okay, but I can’t exactly take credit for that coincidence.” Something occurred to her. “Hey, since Brody’s death was a murder, and not at all due to negligence on Denise’s part, does that mean they won’t be able to go ahead with suing her?”

  “Oh, that was something else she wanted me to tell you. She got a call this morning from Paula’s lawyer saying that they are dropping the lawsuit.”

  “Good.” Moira closed her eyes as relief swept through her. It had been a bit of an adventure getting there, but she had accomplished what she had set out to do; she had cleared her friend’s name. She took a bite of her pancakes and opened her eyes in surprise. “David, these are great.”

  “I’m glad.” He took her hand. “I know it’s not much of a date, since we aren’t even leaving the house, but I hope you are enjoying your Valentine’s breakfast.”

  “Of course I am. You remembered the most important ingredient.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  She smiled. “Love.”