Killer Crust (A Pizza Lovers Mystery)

by Chris Cavender

  I hadn’t really thought about someone not an active part of the competition answering their door. I was fumbling for something to say when Maddy spoke up. “Are we meeting before the competition again for every round, or do we just show up when it’s time from now on?”

  He flinched a second, but then he explained, “You have to be there at five on the nose. That’s when everyone else is getting there, and anyone who isn’t on that stage is disqualified immediately from the competition. You read the notes, right?”

  “Parts of it were a little fuzzy,” I said, though that wasn’t really true.

  “I told Luigi to let me handle drafting it, but he insisted that Frank do it. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I might be able to catch another half hour of sleep before I have to go downstairs for the next stage.”

  After he closed his door, Maddy frowned at me and said, “We’re not doing too well so far, are we?”

  “We can’t let that stop us, though. I’m not giving up just yet,” I said. As we approached the next door, I started to knock, and then I heard voices coming from inside the room. From the sound of it, they were having an argument. Despite the heavy wooden doors, I could still tell that it was the married couple from Asheville, Jeff and Sandy. When I looked at the door, I understood why I could hear them. They hadn’t pulled it all the way closed, so we could still hear their voices. I had to wonder if the door wasn’t completely shut because Luigi had just left them. It could be for another, innocent, reason, but then again, they could be the folks we were looking for.

  “I’m telling you, I didn’t flirt back with him,” Sandy said as I took another step closer to the door.

  “It sure looked that way to me,” Jeff said. “I won’t tolerate another incident like what happened in Asheville. I should have punched his lights out then and there, and we never should have agreed to come here and compete.”

  “Jeff, you know we didn’t have much choice. If we don’t win, we’re probably going to lose our restaurant.”

  “There are some things more important than that. I can’t stomach the thought of that man putting his hands on you.”

  “I can promise you that it won’t ever happen again, but I can’t help how the man acts when he’s around me,” Sandy said.

  “You don’t have to encourage him, though,” Jeff answered.

  “Is that what you think? Do you honestly believe that I was trying to get us a better place in the order of finishes? If I did, I must not be very good at it, because we came in last, remember?”

  “That wasn’t because of the pizza we submitted, and we both know it. He was punishing us by putting us in last place, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Jeff said.

  “Honey, I love you, but you’ve got to find a way to get past what happened.”

  “You’re probably right, but I’d still like to punch him in the nose the next time I see him,” Jeff said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to come here, but we’re not leaving now with our tails between our legs.”

  I was about to move on when Maddy surprised me and knocked on the couple’s door frame instead. “What are you doing?” I asked her in a whisper.

  “We still need to talk to them,” she answered softly.

  Sandy pulled the door open, and was clearly surprised that it hadn’t been shut all of the way in the first place. From the redness in her eyes, it appeared that she’d been crying at some point.

  “Hello, ladies,” she said.

  I was about to say something inane when Maddy said, “We were wondering if you’d seen Luigi lately. He was supposed to meet us up in my room, but he never showed up.” It was a lie that could easily be discovered, but Maddy was probably right saying it. After all, given what we’d just heard, I couldn’t imagine either pizza maker from Asheville confirming it with our host.

  “We haven’t seen him,” Sandy said quickly.

  “Funny, I could swear he was just down here.” Maddy replied, pushing just a little harder.

  “You’re mistaken,” Sandy said quickly as she tried to close the door. Was she trying to get rid of us?

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Maddy said as Jeff approached. “We also wanted to drop by to say that we think you two were cheated in that stage of the contest. Our pizza was a wreck, and yours was ready for a magazine cover shoot. What do you think happened?”

  “We really shouldn’t be fraternizing during the contest,” he said.

  “She means it. Your pizza really was a work of art,” I said, not just backing up my sister, but saying it because it was true.

  Jeff didn’t appear the least bit mollified. “It’s nice of you to say that, but there’s only one opinion that counts, and Luigi torpedoed us.” He shook his head as he rubbed his hand through his hair before adding, “I don’t know how we can come back from this horrible start.”

  “It might not be as hard to do as you think,” Maddy said.

  “Why do you say that?” Jeff was clearly intrigued by my sister’s statement.

  “Think about it. If there’s just one arbiter in the contest, what’s to keep him from picking a winner no matter what the scores end up being? You read the fine print of the contract you signed, right?”

  “I glanced over it,” Jeff admitted. “Why? Did I miss something?”

  “Since Luigi is the sole judge of the competition, if he decides to, he can throw out the results of the preliminary findings and pick a winner on his own at the very end.”

  “That’s actually somewhere in the contract?” Sandy asked.

  “It’s buried in the warranties section under completely different wording, but I spoke to an attorney about it, and it’s there, all right.”

  A ray of hope broke through Sandy’s gloom as she took Maddy’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you so much. That’s the best news that we’ve had all day.” She turned to her husband and added, “See? I told you that we still have a chance.”

  “As a matter of fact, we all do,” I said. “Good luck this evening.”

  “Best of luck to you, too,” Sandy said as Jeff closed the door.

  As soon as we were on opposite sides of the door, I turned to Maddy and asked, “Is that the truth?”

  “That I wished them luck? Sure, why not? It’s the sporting thing to do, don’t you think?”

  “I’m talking about the contract,” I said.

  Maddy nodded. “Bob read it again this morning, and he pointed the clause out to me. I thought it was only fair to tell them about it, too.”

  “You’ve got a good heart, Maddy,” I said.

  “Thanks. It matches my great legs, don’t you think? Now, which door should we knock on next?”

  “Let’s just keep going down the line and see who we find on the other side,” I said.

  I started to knock on the next door, but it opened before I had a chance to even touch it. The Raleigh twins, Todd and Reggie, were on their way out. As one of them double-checked the door behind him, the other looked at us and asked, “Were you looking for us?”

  “We just wanted to ask you something about the competition,” I said.

  “Sorry, we don’t have time right now,” the other said.

  And then they were gone before we had a chance to ask a thing.

  We had just one more person answer the door before we quit, but they weren’t associated with the competition at all.

  We’d gained some new information in our little investigation, but we hadn’t discovered who Luigi had been threatening, and our break time was quickly running out.

  I glanced at my watch and said, “Maddy, we’ve only got forty-five minutes before it’s time to go. What do you want to do in the meantime? I honestly don’t think there’s time for us take naps, do you?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’m going to rest for twenty minutes, and then grab a quick shower. It’s not ideal, but I need something to pick me up before we compete tonight. This afternoon was a complete disaster, and we can’t take the chance tha
t Luigi’s going to suddenly lose his sense of taste again.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said. “If you don’t hear from me by the time you wake up, come knock on my door and be sure that I’m awake, okay?”

  “You can count on me,” she said.

  The crowd was even larger this time when we walked into the auditorium three minutes before the contest was to begin again. We’d cut it closer than we’d meant to, and I made a promise to myself that Maddy and I would be on that stage a full ten minutes before each phase was to begin. I couldn’t think of much worse than being disqualified for being late. Losing outright, even coming in fourth, would be better than that.

  As we hurried up onto the stage, I glanced around at the other competitors. Everyone else was there, except the Charlotte team. If Kenny and Anna didn’t make it in time, they’d be disqualified, and our competition would suddenly drop to two other pizza making teams.

  Ten seconds before the digital clock ticked down, they appeared on stage, both breathless and disheveled from hurrying to make it in time.

  The only problem was that Luigi himself was absent.

  Where could the man be?

  Finally, after what seemed like forever but was in fact just four minutes past our starting time, Jack Acre took the stage and took the microphone from the judge’s table. “It seems that Luigi has been held up, but there’s no reason to keep you folks waiting. Tonight’s contest will center around our new thin crust dough, something we’re all very proud of at Luigi’s. Contestants, you have one hour to produce your best pizza and present it to the judge. Good luck.”

  Maddy looked at me and asked, “Where do you suppose he could be?”

  “I don’t know, and at the moment, I don’t really care. We need to do better than we did this afternoon. I can’t imagine Luigi being quite so generous with us this time.”

  “We’ll be fine. We just had the jitters before,” Maddy said as she looked past me and waved to someone in the crowd. I turned to see David and Bob sitting in the front row, and I waved to them myself. They both gave us their thumbs-up signal, and Maddy and I got to work.

  The first thing I did was take the dough we’d been given and put it on the counter to rest and warm up a touch. That had been my mistake earlier, and I wasn’t about to repeat it.

  Maddy stared at me a few seconds as I stood there doing nothing, and then asked, “Have we decided to take the casual approach this time?”

  I said softly, “This dough is different from ours on so many levels. It needs a chance to warm naturally if we’re going to make a pizza worth eating. We have some time to spare before we prepare it.”

  “Just in case though, why don’t we take more dough out of the fridge like we did this afternoon?”

  We’d been supplied three premade balls of dough, so I did as she suggested and took another ball out of the mini fridge.

  “Why not take out all three to be on the safe side?” Maddy asked.

  “What if I’m wrong?” I asked in return, adding a grin. “We should leave it right where it is, just in case.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Sis. Your confidence is so underwhelming sometimes.”

  “I don’t know. I have more hope than I did when this whole competition started. For whatever reason, we have a legitimate shot at the grand prize.”

  Maddy looked surprised by the comment. “Do you honestly believe that, even after what Tina Lance said?”

  “The more I consider the possibility of a rigged contest, the more I find it hard to believe that Luigi would take a chance on monkeying with this competition,” I said. “He’s got too much at stake here, and too much to lose. I have a feeling that Tina was just trying to get a juicy quote from one of us for her article.”

  “Well, that puts the pressure back on us if it’s true then, doesn’t it?”

  I smiled at her. “Come on, Maddy. We can do this.”

  “I’m game if you are.”

  “Why don’t you prep the cheese while I test the dough?” I suggested.

  “Good. At least that will give me something to do other than stand here looking pretty.”

  “Not that you’re not great at that,” I said with a grin.

  As Maddy began grating and blending the cheese for our thin crust pizza, I checked the dough with my index finger, pressing it lightly to see if there was any bounce back at all. So far, there was no response. As I looked around at our competitors, I saw that every last one of them had already formed their pizza doughs into their pans, and were prepping their sauces and toppings. Was I making a mistake waiting? No, I had to believe that I was right, no matter how difficult it was watching everyone else work while we stood idly by. Todd and Reggie from Raleigh were working with quiet efficiency, almost as though they were communicating on their own twin frequency without saying much of anything aloud. There was something underlying the serenity though, and I could feel the tension radiate off them like heat from a lamp. Jeff and Sandy from Asheville were quiet as well, but again, there was nothing peaceful about their behavior. If I had to guess, I’d say that their argument about Luigi was still brewing just below the surface. I’d never seen Luigi flirting with anyone the entire time I’d known the man, but that didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. Just how far had the man pushed the Asheville pizza makers? It sounded as though Luigi had stepped way over the line with Sandy, and I could understand the way Jeff must have felt. Our last competitors were Kenny and Anna from Charlotte. I hadn’t paid them much attention since they’d arrived so late, but it was clear that I’d missed something along the way. Kenny looked extremely upset about something, and Anna was really awkward around him, apologizing every time she got in his way, which seemed to be constantly. All in all, the stress and strain seemed to be showing on all of us in one way or another. If Tina Lance had been telling the truth, they would have the least amount of pressure on them of any team, but you couldn’t tell that by watching them. I was scanning the audience for Tina Lance when Maddy nudged my elbow.

  Chapter 6

  “Check it already, will you?” she asked. “We’re losing valuable time here.” There was some real strain in her voice, and I knew that this prize was as important to her as it was to me. It wasn’t just about the money, either. If we won, it would be something we could point to as a stamp of approval for our skills, even if it was just coming from Luigi.

  I tested the dough, and it finally had some give to it.

  “It’s ready,” I said.

  “Finally,” Maddy answered, the relief clear in her voice.

  I took the dough, kneaded it gently in the pan, and then made sure that the crust was thin, and more important, uniform. When I had it right, I stopped adjusting it and added a touch of our sauce to the top of it. It was important not to use too much, something that could be overwhelming in a thin crust pizza, at least in my mind. I slid it over to Maddy, who added the cheese in a very careful and measured application. For tonight’s pizza, we were going bold, making it a simple five-cheese blend with no other toppings. On the way to the competition, we’d debated long and hard about what to make, and she finally gave in to my opinion, something that was rare enough on most occasions to celebrate. I felt that in our earlier attempt in making our kitchen sink pizza, we’d used more toppings than we normally did at the Slice, but that seemed to suit our regular crust. With the thin crust though, I felt it was important to showcase the pie itself, and not the additions we might bring to it. Joe and I had experimented with dozens of cheesy combinations when we’d first opened A Slice of Delight, and we’d finally settled on a mix that Maddy and I still made ourselves at least once a week.

  My sister looked at the nearly naked pizza, and then back at me. “Are you sure about this? Are we committing to this style?”

  I looked around at the other entries, but I couldn’t tell exactly what toppings they’d used on their pizzas. When I looked at ours before I got ready to slide it into the oven, it looked kind of naked to m
e, and for a second, I almost gave in to the temptation to load it up.

  But just for a second.

  “It goes in as is. Did you check the cord this time?” I didn’t want any replays of what had happened earlier.

  “We’re all set, and I’m going to watch it the entire time,” she said.

  I opened the portable oven door and slid our pizza into the oven. The regular crust had gone on top of the pizza stone inside, but this one was going in on a special pan made just for thin crust pizza.

  There was no going back now. We were committed to our bare bones pizza.

  I just hoped that I hadn’t made a mistake.

  As it was baking, Jack Acre joined us all on stage and summoned one member of each team together. I went for our team, as did every other lead pizza maker. Once we were together, Jack said softly, “This won’t take a second, but Luigi is still missing, and he’s not answering his telephone. Frankly, I don’t know where he could be.”

  “Does that mean all of our work has been wasted?” one of the twins asked pointedly. “It’s not fair, you know.”

  “Hang on a second,” Jack said. “The competition is going forward. Provisions were made for emergencies, and this is covered. I’m going to judge tonight’s entry myself, and I’m sure Luigi will handle tomorrow’s two competitions once he shows up again. How soon will your pizzas be ready?”

  We were the last ones, set to pull out our pizza in eleven minutes.

  Jack nodded. “Very good. There’s no need to wait any longer, then. Whatever you have baking now is going to be your entry for tonight’s competition.” He looked pointedly at Maddy and me as he added, “There won’t be any second chances tonight. Do you all understand?”