Spooky Pizza Murder

by Patti Benning

  “I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you earlier. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  Russell gave a short laugh. “Ellie, I’m going to worry either way. My wife has been wrongfully accused of murder. I haven’t done anything else but worry since that old woman pointed her finger at you and told the world that you killed her son-in-law.”

  Chapter Ten

  The week continued to pass slowly, the days edging toward Halloween. Things didn’t improve for Ellie, but they didn’t get worse either. No one else threw rotten fruit at the pizzeria, though it continued to be slow during the day, especially when Ellie was the one out front. It seemed to go a bit better with someone else out front, so other than for the hour she had to herself after opening before other employees began to arrive, she spent most of her time in the kitchen.

  It was Monday morning when Ellie saw a familiar and unwelcome face walk into the pizzeria. She was the first customer of the day, and Ellie had been ready to greet whoever it was with a smile, but her expression faltered when she saw that it was Rosa Nelson walking in.

  “Hi,” Rosa said cheerfully. “How long will the wait be for three pizzas?”

  “About twenty minutes,” Ellie said, caught off guard. She still wasn’t convinced the other woman wasn’t the killer, and her showing up here at the restaurant raised her suspicions.

  “Perfect. Can I wait in here? I can order a water or something while I wait. It’s my niece’s birthday, and we’re having a small family party today to celebrate. Her mother apparently decided I was the best person to bring food, and Elena wants pizzas, of course.”

  “Um. Right. What can I get you?”

  Rosa looked at the menu. “I’m not sure, honestly. What would young kids like? Should I just go with one cheese and two pepperonis? Keeping it simple is probably good. There will only be six of us. Do you think three pizzas is enough?”

  “It just depends on how hungry everyone is. You could get a salad or maybe some breadsticks to go with them.”

  “That’s actually good idea. I’m not sure if the kids will eat the salad, but I certainly will. Let’s do a salad and breadsticks. No dessert, though. Her mother’s getting a cake.”

  “Okay. I’ll get the order in, and I’ll grab you that water you mentioned.”

  She went into the back to put the pizzas in the oven, returning momentarily with an ice cold glass of water for Rosa. Rosa took a seat at one of the booths and was still there when Ellie came out again. She was working alone at the pizzeria until noon, and no other customers had come in, so she had nothing else to do until the pizzas came out of the oven.

  “So,” Rosa began after a few moments of awkward silence. “I spotted you at the restaurant the other day.”

  Ellie immediately knew that she was talking about the White Pine Kitchen.

  “I spotted you too,” Ellie said. “With your… friend.”

  Rosa actually blushed. “Yeah. That’s partially why I stopped in here instead of just calling an order in. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Ellie raised her eyebrows. The other woman looked embarrassed, but not particularly concerned other than that. “I’m not sure what you want to talk about,” she admitted. “I can’t say I approve, not so soon after your husband passed away, but it’s your life.”

  She didn’t mention the fact that Russell had passed the information on to Liam and now the police were looking into the affair as a possible connection to the murder.

  “I know. It’s just, you somehow got involved with all of this too, and I didn’t want you to think less of me.” The other woman fell silent for a moment. “Tim and I didn’t have the best marriage. He had a short temper, and had a sort of arrogance, the sort where he always thought he was right. He started off very controlling, but I’m no pushover myself, and after a few years we came to an arrangement where, as long as we mostly kept up public appearances and were civil to each other at home, we were both free to do whatever we wanted outside of that. I know it’s not conventional, but it worked for us. I was seeing Oswald a long time before Tim was killed. I’ve been seeing him for nearly a year, in fact. Tim and I were married, but on paper only. My mother raised me to believe that you stick with a marriage. That those vows mean something. I know that divorce was an option, but it didn’t really feel like one. Not to me. It was an arrangement that worked out for us. We weren’t loving, but we were certainly civil to each other most of the time. It was like… living with a cranky business partner you were also sort of friends with. I loved him once, but I haven’t for a long time. And I get how bad it looks with me acting so happy and carefree after his death, but I honestly can’t say I’ll miss him very much. I know you’re probably going to think I’m a terrible person, I was just hoping you could maybe understand.”

  “I can’t say it’s an arrangement that I would ever be comfortable with, but I can see where you’re coming from,” Ellie said. “But why do you care what I think?”

  The other woman shrugged. “Honestly? I feel bad that you got so tangled up in all of this.”

  “So, I take it you don’t think I killed your husband?”

  Rose shook her head. “I know you didn’t, Ms. Pacelli. It’s ridiculous that my mother even accused you. She was… not thinking straight.”

  Ellie decided to take a gamble. “Do you know who killed him? Or even have any suspicions?”

  Rosa shot her a glare. “Of course not. I would obviously go right to the police about it if I did.” She hesitated, then her eyes widened. “Oh, you can’t think I did it, can you?”

  Ellie didn’t answer that directly. She did, or at least, she thought it was a possibility, but instead she said, “I don’t know. How were his relationships with other people? He seemed to treat his employee pretty badly, from what I saw.”

  “That’s true,” Rosa said. “He treated Ethan terribly, but Ethan needed the money so he put up with it. Honestly, though, I can’t think of anyone that Tim treated well. He had a lot of enemies. Still, he could be reasonable. I mean, he knew about my relationship with Oswald. He thought it was ridiculous – me, dating a man who only ever worked odd jobs and made close to minimum wage for most of his adult life – but he never really brought it up much. I liked the differences between them, if I’m being honest. Tim was always so driven and ambitious, and Oswald is just… happy. He loved being able to dress up and scare people at the haunted house, and he loved helping out at the corn maze last year, and dressing up as Santa for Christmas. He makes enough money to get by, and he almost always finds jobs he likes. He treats me well. What else could I ask for?”

  “Happiness and treating other people well are both very attractive traits,” Ellie agreed. She sighed. “Look, Rosa, I can’t say that I completely understand your lifestyle or any of that, but as long as you didn’t have anything to do with Tim’s death, it’s really none of my business. It’s your life. You don’t have to justify it to me, or anyone else.” Except the police, she thought. “But I do appreciate you telling me that you didn’t have anything to do with Tim’s death. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for your husband’s passing.”

  “Thanks,” Rosa said. “By the way, my mom and I are still running the taco shop, though I’m thinking about changing the name. Feel free to stop by anytime. It’s always nice to meet other working women who understand the food business.”

  Ellie heard the oven timer in the kitchen ding and had to go take the pizzas out of the ovens and box them up. It wasn’t until she sent Rosa on her way that she went back over the conversation in her mind and realized that Rosa had some said something important. Oswald had enjoyed dressing up and scaring people at the haunted house. If Oswald had worked in the haunted house, he would have been perfectly positioned to murder Tim. If no one had known about his affair with Rosa at the time, they might not have even thought to look at him as a suspect.

  Chapter Eleven

  She called Russell as soon she got a chance and told him what Rosa had t
old her about Oswald working at the haunted house. It took some explaining, because she also had to go back and tell him everything Rosa had told her about her relationship with the other man. Russell actually sounded excited as he thanked her. “I’ll get this to Liam right away,” he promised. “This could be it, Ellie. It feels right. Cross your fingers. This could be the break in the case we’ve been waiting for.”

  Cross her fingers she did, but she didn’t hear any more about it that evening, or the day after, and her hope began to fade.

  After everything that had happened, Ellie decided to take two days off that week, which was something she didn’t normally do. For Wednesday and Thursday, Halloween, she managed to find employees willing to cover her work at the pizzeria. She thought that they would get better business on the holiday without her there, anyway, and wanted to spend the time relaxing with her family. Shannon was dressing Andrew up and was planning on taking him out that year, even though he was still far too young to actually go trick-or-treating himself, and Ellie was going to go with them. Russell had taken an extra patrol for the holiday, so she wouldn’t have anyone else to be with that night anyway.

  On Wednesday she woke up late, since she hadn’t bothered to set her alarm, spent the morning relaxing. Around noon, Shannon, who knew about her days off, messaged her and asked if she want to get together for lunch. “James is spending some time one-on-one with Andrew,” she explained. “I’ve still got to go get the last pieces for his costume. He grew since I bought it, and I’m going to need to let it out a little bit by tomorrow.”

  “Of course I’ll go with you,” Ellie said.

  The two of them spent some time shopping around fabric stores, and then they stopped by Hot Diggity Dawg, where Clara greeted them with a smile and then went into the back to tell Joanna they were there. Their friend came out, looking happier than Ellie had seen her for a while. Joanna recently had nearly been blackmailed into losing her restaurant, but she seemed to be recovering well.

  “Hey,” Joanna said. “Great timing. I was just about to take my lunch break.”

  “Perfect,” Shannon said. “We’re on a quest for food ourselves.”

  “Can we go somewhere else?” Joanna asked, looking around at the hot dog shop. “I love hotdogs as much as the next person, but I’m really craving something else. Something that I don’t work with almost every day of the week.”

  “I have an idea,” Ellie said. “Let’s go to that taco restaurant. I looked it up, and the actual restaurant is a bit south of Benton Harbor. It will be a little bit of a drive, but they do have good food and it might be worth it for other reasons, too.”

  Her friends looked at her questioningly, but she promised to tell them everything in the car. And she did, as they drove. She explained everything about Rosa and Oswald.

  “I just want to stop by and see if we can glean anything more,” Ellie said. “It really makes perfect sense, but I haven’t heard anything back from Russell or Liam, so I don’t know if my information actually helped them at all. It is kind of hard, because apparently a lot of people had a lot of reasons to want to kill Tim. Still, I can’t just sit around until all of this is over. I want things to go back to normal as quickly as possible.”

  “A chance to solve a murder and get tacos?” Joanna asked. “Count me in.”

  It was a bit of a drive – nearly forty minutes – but it was scenic, with the ocean to their left and imposing white pines to their right. Benton Harbor was a small town, much like Kittiport, but with a lovely, groomed sand beach instead of a marina. Ellie didn’t spend much time there, but she was familiar enough with it, though not much with anything past it, which was why she hadn’t even heard of the taco restaurant until recently.

  It was a bit out of the way, and from the outside it didn’t look like much. The building was old, the paint faded, and Tim’s Taco Treasures was printed on a sign in curly, slightly cheesy calligraphy along with a cartoon drawing of a taco wearing a Mexican sombrero.

  Still, she and Joanna at least knew the food was good, and Shannon was willing to give it a chance. They parked in the nearly empty parking lot and went inside. Ellie was pleased to note that the interior of the restaurant was clean, if it even if it wasn’t in much better shape than the exterior was. Everything looked old and worn down, but the floors and tables weren’t sticky and it smelled wonderful inside.

  She had foolishly been expecting to run into Rosa right off the bat, but her mother was the one at the counter instead. Her face soured when she saw Ellie, and Ellie felt the same way. She hadn’t even considered the fact that she might run into the very woman who had attempted to wreck her life, though in retrospect she should have.

  She still marched up to the counter, and the older woman didn’t say anything except to ask them what they wanted. The three of them decided on what they wanted to try, then took a seat in a booth as far away from the counter as possible.

  Thankfully, Rosa was the one who carried their orders out of the kitchen. The other woman recognized Ellie immediately and actually smiled at her when she placed the plate in front of her. “I’m glad you decided to come out here, and with friends too. Don’t blame the decor on me – Tim had terrible tastes in design and was stingy with money. Unless something outright broke, it didn’t get replaced. I’m planning on completely overhauling the place, but it will probably have to wait until spring. No one wants to start a construction project right before winter, not this far north anyway.”

  “Well, good food is more than half the battle, so I’m sure you will be perfectly fine until then,” Ellie said. “This all looks great, thanks.”

  “I hope you enjoy it. I’ll come back in a few minutes to see if there’s anything else I can get you.”

  The three women dug in, and the food was just as good as Ellie remembered. She really did think that the taco restaurant would do well, especially once they fixed up a bit. She wondered for a moment if she should invite Rosa to her small business club, which she was planning on starting up again after Christmas, but decided to hold off for now. There was no reason to invite a potential murderer to the club, no matter how good her chicken tacos were.

  The bell over the door rang as it opened and Ellie looked up to see the man that Rosa had been having an affair with come in. She immediately felt her pulse kick into second gear, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, or the fact that she had her suspicions about him, not while they were here. She could wait until they were back in the car to tell her friends that he was the very man she had just been talking about.

  Oswald walked right into the back of the restaurant, obviously familiar with the place. Rosa’s mother gave him a disapproving look as he passed by her, but she didn’t say anything.

  It was only a few minutes later, however, when a loud commotion sounded from the back and Rosa and Oswald both came out of the kitchen, apparently in the middle of a shouting match.

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Rosa said. “I know you didn’t have a thing to do with Tim’s death, Ozzie. How could you even think that I would accuse you of something like that?”

  “Well, someone did,” he said. “The police didn’t show up for no reason. I got fired, and right before Halloween too. This was supposed to be my income for the next month. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Why did they fire you?” Rosa asked, sounding shocked.

  “My boss said he couldn’t have an employee under investigation for murder on his team, and I can’t say blame him. Thanks a lot, Rosa.”

  “I swear, I didn’t contact the police, Oswald. Please believe me.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know what I believe. I need some space. Just… leave me alone for now.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and walked out, yanking the door open with more force than was necessary. Everyone in the restaurant watched in silence as he walked over to his car, started it, and peeled out of the parking lot, kicking g
ravel up behind him as he went.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rosa’s mother immediately started talking rapidly in Spanish. Rosa shot something back at her, then made a sharp gesture with her hand. "Seriously, Ma, stop. This isn’t the time or place, and we have guests here…" She trailed off. She had glanced over at Ellie when she mentioned guests, and her gaze seem to stick on Ellie’s face. “Hold on.”

  She went straight over to the table and slammed her hands down on it. “Did you go to the police about my boyfriend?” she snapped, her gaze boring into Ellie’s.

  “I…” Ellie wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t prepared for this at all. “I told my husband about what we discussed. I didn’t realize that your… boyfriend… worked at the haunted house before. It was pertinent to the case.”

  “Thanks to you, Oswald lost his job, and now he probably isn’t even speaking to me. All I wanted to do was to apologize to you and explain what was going on. This is what I get for trying to do a good deed.”