Killer Crust (A Pizza Lovers Mystery)

by Chris Cavender

  “Don’t worry; you’ll get to the party in plenty of time. I’ve got everything cued up, so it won’t take long,” he said.

  “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go, Sis,” Maddy said.

  We followed Hank to the elevator, and once we were inside, I noticed that it went all the way to the basement with the special key he inserted in the panel. “Why are we going down to the basement?”

  “The secondary staff offices are all downstairs,” he explained. “Gina’s the only one who has space in guest quarters, and her office is behind the check-in desk and across from the business center. She didn’t exactly get prime real estate.”

  Once the doors on the bottom level slid open, we all stepped out into the hallway together. It was clear that Gina hadn’t spent much money decorating the corridors downstairs. Concrete floors and exposed cinderblock walls were painted the same generic beige, and I wondered if they’d bought their paint by the tractor trailer load.

  “It’s just down here,” Hank said as he led the way.

  He ushered us into his office and then hit a few buttons on his computer before turning the screen toward us. It was a surveillance tape facing the cashier’s station in the restaurant, and as the time swept past, it showed Jeff and Sandy eating a meal at a nearby table, and then spending the rest of the time in deep conversation.

  “The time line is pretty clear. It alibis them both,” Hank said. “Anyway, I thought you should know.”

  “Have you told the police yet?” I asked.

  Hank looked a little guilty. “I should have, and I know it, but I wanted to make things right with the two of you first.”

  I stood as I said, “Thanks, but you don’t want to get any closer to Kevin Hurley’s bad side than you already are. The second we’re out of the elevator, call him, and do yourself a favor. Don’t tell him that you showed this to us first.”

  “I know he’s not a big fan of mine, so I’ll tread lightly,” Hank said.

  “You never know. He might just come around after he sees this,” I said. “Come on, Maddy. Let’s go.”

  “Right behind you, Sis.”

  After we were back upstairs, I spotted Kevin by the front desk talking a little more to the clerk there. As his telephone rang, Maddy and I ducked into the auditorium. Neither one of us wanted to be anywhere around when Kevin heard about the Asheville couple’s alibi.

  The party hadn’t started yet, but several people were inside milling around.

  Maddy said softly, “We have three suspects left on our list, right?”

  “As of right now, that’s what it boils down to,” I said.

  “So, who do we tackle first? The mysterious twin, Jack Acre, or Kenny from Charlotte? We can split up if you’d like so we can get more questioning in.”

  I didn’t like the thought of that, even in such a crowded environment. “No, we stick to the plan and we stay together,” I said as I looked up. “Bob and David are headed our way. What are we going to say to them?”

  “Leave that to me,” Maddy said as she walked toward both men. I was about to join her when Frank Vincent touched my arm. “Eleanor, do you have a second?” he asked.

  “I do,” I answered.

  Frank pulled me aside and said, “I just spoke with Anna. She told me what she’d done.”

  “Don’t be mad at her,” I said. “She was just trying to help.”

  “Why would I be mad?” Frank asked with a spreading grin. “I want to tell the world, but Anna says the timing is bad. I know that I shouldn’t be so happy with George being gone not that long ago, but I can’t help it. I’m finally getting the family I always wanted.”

  “I understand your brother didn’t share your joy about the news,” I said. “That must have made it harder on you.”

  “Do I wish things had gone better? Of course I do. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. What’s done is done, you know?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “We appreciate you keeping the lid on this, at least until tomorrow. That’s when we’re making the announcement at our corporate headquarters in Charlotte.”

  “Will Jack Acre be there for it?” I asked as I looked around the room.

  “He will, and he’ll be here tonight as well, if he wants to keep his job.”

  “You’re not going to fire him?” I asked. I’d seen the way Jack had treated Frank earlier, and I doubted that anyone could blame him for firing the man the second he took full control of the company.

  “Why would I do that? He’s really quite excellent at what he does.” Frank paused, and then added, “I might make him squirm a little at first, but as long as he can keep doing his job, he’s safe with me.”

  “That’s awfully magnanimous of you,” I said.

  “Not really. It just makes good business sense.”

  One of Frank’s employees approached and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I need a moment.”

  “Of course,” he said, and then turned back to me. “Sorry, but duty calls.”

  “Absolutely.”

  After he was gone, Maddy rejoined me, without our boyfriends. “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “He wanted to thank us for our discretion,” I said.

  “Was that it?”

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  “It just took a little longer than he needed to ask for a simple favor,” Maddy explained.

  “We chatted about a few other things, too,” I admitted. “I was surprised to hear that he’s planning to keep Jack Acre on his staff.”

  “I figured he would,” Maddy said. “From what I hear, good marketing and sales people are important to any business.”

  “Not so much ours, though,” I answered.

  “There you’re wrong. All four of us are in Marketing and Sales for A Slice of Delight.”

  “Just don’t tell Greg and Josh that,” I said. “They’ll expect a raise.”

  “Don’t worry; the secret is safe with me.”

  “How did you get rid of Bob and David so fast?” I asked as I found them at the bar.

  “They know this investigation is important to us, so they’ve agreed to step aside.”

  “That’s hard to believe they gave up without a fight,” I said as I looked over at them.

  “Well, I had to promise them our full attention once this is finished, but I don’t think that’s going to be too hard to keep, do you?”

  “I don’t know about full attention,” I said.

  “Just do the best that you can. I’m sure that David will be happy no matter what.” She stopped, and then gestured to one corner. “There’s a twin, and miracle of miracles, he’s alone. Let’s go grill him.”

  “After you,” I said, knowing how difficult it was to get one of them apart from the other. But I had one problem. How should we question him? If he was the one with the alibi, then our questions wouldn’t apply, but if he wasn’t the one hitting on a waitress, how would we know that he was telling the truth? There was only one way to find out, and that was by asking the man, and seeing what he had to say for himself.

  “So, are you the twin with the alibi, or the one who’s a suspect in Luigi’s murder?” Maddy asked the twin as soon as we got close to him.

  “You’ve completely lost your mind, haven’t you?” he asked.

  “If you won’t answer my question, I’m going to assume that you’re the murder suspect. Otherwise why would you not want to tell me?”

  “My brother and I both have alibis for the time when Luigi was poisoned,” he said.

  “It’s funny that the police don’t know about them both. They just told us that one of you is in the clear, but the other one is a legitimate suspect,” I said. I wasn’t about to let Maddy have all of the fun, and if I could bring the twins down a notch or two, I was going to do it. They might be arrogant about their chances in the contest, but let them both scoff at the prospect of one of them being a murder suspect.

  “I don’t know what to say,” the twin said
. “I was on tape with one of the waitresses, but my brother has an alibi of his own.”

  The problem with that was we weren’t able to tell them apart by looking at them, and neither could Kevin. If I could prove irrefutably that one of them was in the clear, it would let the police focus on the other one exclusively. “Then you must be Todd,” I said, taking a stab at it. After all, I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right.

  “What? No, I’m Reggie,” he said. “I was the one with Stella when Luigi was murdered.”

  “Prove it,” Maddy said.

  “Why should I bother proving anything to the two of you?”

  “Put it this way,” Maddy said. “If you don’t, you’re both going to be locked up on suspicion of murder.”

  “I was with Stella. You can ask her if you don’t believe me. Here she comes,” Reggie said as he pointed over my shoulder.

  One of the women I’d seen working in the restaurant earlier started toward us, but I wanted to cut her off before this twin could signal her. Maybe I was being too paranoid, but it was the only way I knew how to confirm what he’d just told us.

  I marched toward her and asked, “You’re Stella, right? I’m a friend of your boss. You know that, right?”

  “It’s okay that I came,” the waitress said defensively. “I got it approved by my supervisor, and my shift was over an hour ago.”

  “Everything’s fine. I just need to know exactly who it is that you are here to meet.”

  “Him,” she said as she looked toward the twin and pointed.

  “Look at me,” I snapped, and the girl’s gaze came right back to me. I’d have to apologize for being so abrupt when this was all over, but for now, I needed the truth. “What did he tell you his name was?” I asked.

  “He said it was Reggie,” she explained. “He didn’t lie to me, did he?”

  “Everything is fine. He is indeed Reggie,” I said, relaxing a little.

  “Good. May I go now?”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  Maddy came over and smiled at me. “That was pretty slick, Sis. You cut her off like a Pro Bowl Safety.” One of Maddy’s ex-husbands had been a sports nut, and some of it had rubbed off on her; at least the metaphors and similes of the game had. “So, is he the one she was with?”

  “He is,” I said. “I need to tell Kevin about it right now.”

  As I grabbed my phone, Maddy asked, “Are you sure you want to do that? He’s bound to have talked to Hank by now.”

  “Great. That will give him a chance to share some news with us, too.” I dialed his number, and after he answered, I said, “The twin without an alibi is Todd.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I asked the waitress for the man’s name she’d been with, and she said that he told her he was Reggie Blackwell.”

  “Could he have lied to her?” Kevin asked.

  “Absolutely, but why would he? The alibi clears just one of them. There really wasn’t any reason for either one of them to incriminate their brother.”

  “I’ll buy that. Good work. You can cross the Asheville couple off our list, too,” he said proudly.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “I got an outside confirmation that they were on a surveillance tape the entire time that was open to poison Luigi.”

  “That’s good work,” I said, maybe pouring it on a little too thick.

  “It was just dumb luck,” he admitted. “So, then there were three. I’m heading over to the party. You did a good job finding out which twin I’m after.”

  “Maddy helped, too,” I said.

  “When I compliment one of you, you should know that it’s for you both. You’ll just have to share it with her yourself, okay?”

  “Don’t worry; she already knows,” I said, and hung up.

  “We need to talk to the errant twin, Jack Acre, and Kenny from Charlotte,” I told Maddy as I put my telephone away.

  “Do you have any order in particular in mind, because I doubt any of them are all that eager to talk to us again.”

  “If all else fails, we can get Frank to make Jack cooperate,” I said.

  “But will he tell us the truth?”

  “That I can’t say,” I admitted. “Todd from Raleigh isn’t going to want to chat, so I’m hoping that Kevin will tackle him himself.”

  “And that leaves Kenny.” She scanned the room, and pointed to the man, who was at that moment waiting in line for a drink. “Let’s go tackle him.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said as we cut through the crowd toward our prey.

  “Kenny, there you are,” I said as we approached.

  “Go away,” he said defiantly. “You heard Frank earlier. I don’t want to take a chance of being disqualified.”

  “Relax. The contest is over,” I said. “The winner has already been chosen, remember?”

  “Then I don’t want you two to jinx me,” he argued. “This thing is in the bag.”

  “For the winner,” Maddy said smugly.

  It got Kenny suspicious immediately. “What are you talking about? What have you heard?”

  “Not a thing. I’m just going by my gut,” Maddy said.

  Kenny was clearly relieved that my sister didn’t share any hard proof that she was right. “You don’t think you two actually have a chance, do you?”

  I didn’t want Maddy angering him too much. If he stormed off, we’d never get the chance to talk to him. “Our chances are every bit as good as yours,” I said, knowing that while he wasn’t going to win, our inferior offering was not a grand prize winner, either. “We just wanted to come by and wish you good luck.”

  “I don’t need luck,” he said smugly. “I rely on good pizza instead.” He looked around the room, and then asked absently, “Have either one of you seen Anna, by any chance?”

  “I thought she quit working for you,” I said.

  Kenny shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. She quits every other month. She never means it, though, and I always take her back.”

  “Things might be different this time,” Maddy said.

  “Why would they be? You didn’t hire her, did you?” he asked me.

  “No, of course not.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you think she’s good enough to work at your little pizza joint?” Kenny said, defending his former employee.

  “No, I’m sure she’s great. We just can’t afford her. We barely get by with the two of us and a couple of part-time college students.”

  “I have eleven people on my staff,” he said proudly.

  “Technically, that would be ten,” Maddy said, and I frowned at her, shaking my head slightly. She picked up on it, and added quickly, “But you could be right. It might be eleven again soon.”

  “It will. Trust me.”

  “Kenny, we’ve been chatting with the other contestants about their alibis,” I said. “Just about everyone is covered. Where were you when Luigi was poisoned?”

  “How could I possibly know that?” he asked. “Do the police even have a time of death yet?”

  “They’ve got something better. Luigi couldn’t have eaten that pizza before everyone else left the auditorium. From then until the time he was found, there was a two-hour gap.”

  “Yes, I know all about it.”

  “So, where were you?”

  Kenny looked at me angrily, then at Maddy, and then back to me. “Are you kidding me? I was in my room.”

  “Alone?” I asked.

  “Of course I was alone. I watched a movie on the pay-per-view, though. There was a thriller on that I hadn’t seen yet. That covers me for the entire two hours.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Just because the movie was playing on your television doesn’t mean that you were there watching it.”

  “Ask me anything you want about it,” he said smugly. “I can lay out the plot of the movie point by point if I have to.”

  Maddy laughed. “No doubt you’ll have all of the answers to our questions too, excep
t one, that is.”

  “What is it?”

  “How can you prove that was actually the first time that you watched it?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that.

  I touched his shirt lightly as I said, “All it will take is one person spotting you not in your room during those two hours, and you’re dead. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I may have gone out into the hallway to the machine to get some ice once,” Kenny reluctantly admitted.

  “So then you lied about watching the entire movie,” Maddy said.

  “No, I watched it all. I paused it; that’s all,” he said.

  “I’m sure they can check that as well with their records,” I replied. I had no idea if they could even do that, but I wanted to put as much heat on Kenny as I could.

  “Let them,” he said. “Computers foul up all of the time. I’ve never trusted them myself.” He looked over my shoulder, and then smiled gently. “What did I say? I told you that Anna would come.”

  When I turned to look, I saw his former assistant walk in, her hand clasped tightly in Frank’s.

  “They look pretty cozy,” Maddy said.

  “They’ve dated a few times in the past, but that’s all over,” he said.

  “I wonder if they know that?” I asked, but Kenny never heard me as he started toward them.

  “Come on,” Maddy said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we headed now? Frank has to be about ready to start.”

  “That’s where I want to be. I want to see Kenny’s face when Frank shoots him down.”

  “Have I ever told you that you have a mean streak sometimes, Maddy?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Are you coming or not?”

  “I’m right behind you.” Honestly, it was something I wanted to see for myself.

  When we got close to them, I heard Frank tell Kenny, “We’ll talk about it after the announcement, but not until then.”

  “It’s a fair question, Frank. You can’t just steal my best employee.”

  “He can’t steal something that’s willingly given,” Anna said.

  “I expected more from you,” Kenny answered as he looked at her.

  “Life’s full of disappointments though, isn’t it? I’d work on getting over it if I were you, Kenny.”