Garden Vegetable Murder: Book 12 of The Darling Deli Series

by Patti Benning

  CHAPTER NINE

  Still feeling a bit unsettled from the conversation with David’s mother and sister at dinner, Moira sat in the big white refrigerated truck for a moment before starting it. Was that really why David had been acting so oddly lately? Because his mom had taken such an instant, strong dislike to her? Or was there something else going on? She hadn’t heard anything more about Fred’s murder. Surely they must have made some progress on the case by now. Was David still worried that someone was trying to get to him?

  She knew that the best course would be to simply ask him about it, but with everything that had been going on lately she didn’t want to put even more on his plate. She shook her head, thinking when did I become so high maintenance? She decided to let the man have his space for a few days if that’s what he needed.

  Deciding to wait it out and see if he didn’t come out of his funk, she pulled out of her parking spot. I’ll go home, make a pot of tea, and see if I can’t make some progress on that book before bed, she thought, eager to read more of the romance novel that she had been working on for the past few days. With a sudden sinking feeling she paused at the parking lot’s exit and checked first her purse, and then the seat next to her. The book, which she had brought to the deli earlier that day to read when business was slow, was nowhere to be found.

  “I must have left it by the register,” she muttered to herself. Was it worth going back and getting it? After checking the time and her own internal sense of tiredness, she decided it was. After all, the deli wasn’t that far away. There was something comforting about curling up at home with a good book and a warm drink, and she could definitely use some comfort right now.

  When she got to the deli, she parked in front, as close to the door as possible. The memory of what had happened to her car was suddenly first and forefront in her mind, and she was more glad than ever for the single, buzzing, orange streetlight next to the deli’s parking lot. Once she got to the door and the motion-sensitive lights came on, she felt safer knowing that the camera was recording everything that was happening. Maybe I should install a camera in the parking lot, too, she thought. The more security measures the better, I suppose.

  Unlocking the deli’s door, she pushed it open and slipped inside. It was odd being in her little shop so late at night, when the lights in the display cases were off and there were no enticing cooking smells coming from the kitchen. Still feeling a bit creeped out since she had been thinking about whoever had slashed her tires, she flicked on the interior lights before heading to the restroom, figuring there was no point in spending the drive home in discomfort.

  When she came out, someone was standing at the register.

  Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt a moment of panic before realizing her mistake; in flipping on the lights, she had also accidentally flicked the switch that controlled the outlet to the glowing open sign in the deli’s front window. Some poor late-night traveler must have wandered in, thinking that Darling’s DELIcious Delights was open all night.

  “Excuse me,” she said. The man turned around, revealing a handsome face framed by unruly, nearly shoulder-length brown hair. His eyes were brown as well, and his skin was tanned and creased in the manner of someone who spends all day outside on a regular basis. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that clung to him, promising lean muscle underneath.

  “Um, sorry, but we’re closed.” She tried to gather her wits, which had been thrown all out of sorts by the sudden appearance of this attractive stranger.

  “Oh, really? Bummer,” he said. “Sorry about that, I saw your sign and I thought I might be able to grab a cup of coffee.”

  He looked at her optimistically, obviously hoping that she would bend the rules for him. She sighed. She really wanted to get home and relax, but she had turned on the open sign on.

  “I’ve been driving all day,” he added. “I just got to town, and I’m beat. Nowhere else is open this late.”

  Only somewhat reluctantly she allowed herself to be guilted into agreeing to turn on a pot of coffee just for them—he insisted that she have a cup too—and made small talk with him while the machine grumbled and complained from the kitchen.

  “My name’s Silas,” he told her after she introduced herself. “Silas Nickels.”

  “Where are you from?” she asked him, curious as to where this enigmatic character had appeared from.

  “Up by the Porcupine Mountains,” he said. “I actually live right by Lake Superior.”

  “Oh, that’s a beautiful area,” she said. “What do you do?”

  “I’m a wilderness guide.” At her raised eyebrows, he elaborated, “I accompany people who want to go on hikes, but aren’t comfortable or skilled enough to go on their own.”

  “That sounds neat,” she said. “How did you even get into something like that?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve always liked the wilderness, I guess.”

  The coffee maker fell silent, so she went into the kitchen to pour them each a cup. She returned with two mugs on a tray and a small cup of cream and packets of sugar, glad that she had upgraded the deli’s coffee capabilities since they started with their breakfast hours. Silas joined her at a bistro table and began mixing his cream and sugar into his coffee. Moira, who could feel fatigue beginning to creep up on her, decided to drink hers black. The bitter taste would work better to keep her awake than a sugary sweet concoction would.

  “So, are you the owner of this place?” he asked.

  “Yep. I opened the deli a few years back, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.”

  “You ever think about staying open all night? You’d be the only person in town that does, by the look of things.”

  “I doubt there are many people wanting deli meat in the middle of the night,” she said with a chuckle. “Besides, my employees would kill me. They already work long hours as it is.”

  “Well, it sounds like you know what you’re doing. You’re the deli woman, after all. I’m just a mountain man.” He drained his cup and grinned at her. “Thanks for the midnight coffee. Maybe I’ll stop by again sometime… when the deli is actually open.”

  “Sounds good,” she said with a smile of her own. The man was charismatic, and she couldn’t help liking him. “I look forward to it.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  She fell asleep reading in bed. Hours later she woke up with her book on her chest and her reading light still shining brightly from her nightstand. Feeling disoriented, she set the book on the table next to a now room-temperature mug of tea and glanced around the room. The curtains on her window were still open, revealing nothing but blackness. It was late—or early, she supposed—nearly four-thirty in the morning, according to the clock on the bedside table. Her neck had a crick in it from her head’s awkward angle. Felix was curled up on his blanket beside her, and Keeva and Maverick were both staring at her from seated positions next to the bed. She didn’t know what had woken her, but she was glad for it—sleeping in such an awkward position for the entire night was a sure way to wake up with a headache or muscle pain, or both.

  “Wow. Sorry, you two,” she said. “Did I forget to put you out before bed? I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep like that.”

  She couldn’t remember if she had indeed put them out or not before getting into bed with her book, so she got up, gave Felix, who looked at her with sleepy golden eyes, a quick skritch, and opened her bedroom door to let the dogs go downstairs. She followed them, not bothering to turn on any lights, her stockinged feet silent against the wooden floor. Slipping on a pair of slippers that she kept just inside the mudroom, she unlocked the door to the backyard and, without bothering to turn on the porch light, preferring instead to glimpse the stars, stepped out onto the porch with the dogs.

  Turning her face up to the sky, she closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh forest air. It was cool outside, but not cold, and the air swirling around her face and neck helped to wake her up. She could hear the dogs, somewhere in the dark yard behind
her, sniffing and snorting at the strange scents left behind by whatever nighttime creatures had wandered through. It was cool enough to keep the bugs out of the air, and she was happy enough to take a seat on the white wooden rocking chair that she had rescued last month from a garage sale and wait while the dogs got some of their energy out in a game of chase—which they were, oddly enough, well matched for, Maverick’s greater agility making up for the speed granted by Keeva’s long limbs.

  As the last vestiges of sleepiness faded away, she realized that she probably wouldn’t be able to get back to bed after all of this. She had to wake up in just a few hours, anyway—what would the point be?

  Man, this week sure is wearing me thin, she thought. From when that poor man was murdered in David’s office to now, I haven’t had a moment of peace. Granted, not all of it has been bad, but even the things that haven’t been disasters have been stressful. Her thoughts were on Kent’s offer to buy the deli. The slip of paper with his price on it was still in her purse, a bit worse for wear now, after she’d examined and reexamined it multiple times. She still hadn’t mentioned it to David. He had so much going on that it didn’t seem fair to give him something else to worry about. She was hoping that the police would catch the killer before she had to mention anything to him about the offer on the deli, but if they had any leads, she sure wasn’t hearing about them.

  A panting Maverick plodded across the deck and lay down at her feet. Keeva wasn’t far behind, her own tongue lolling out the side of her mouth as she trotted over to Moira and rested her head on the arm of the chair to be pet.

  “I take it you two are ready to go in?” she asked. “I bet you’re thirsty now, huh?”

  One of the biggest negatives about having such large, enthusiastic dogs was that they tended to splash more water out of the dish than they actually drank. She had yet to find a good solution to the problem beyond laying a towel down under the water bowl and changing it a few times a day. She supposed tolerating daily floods around the dog bowl was a small price to pay for being able to enjoy two companions as wonderful as the dogs were.

  “Come on, guys,” she said, forcing herself to her feet. “I’ll go make sure you have fresh, cold water waiting for you inside.”

  She was about to open the door to the mudroom and let the dogs inside when the night was shattered by a sudden loud barrage. The dogs, panicking, ran off into the yard, and Moira stumbled backwards, her own eyes wide with terror. Silence fell for a second, in which she heard the ominous tinkling of broken glass, and then the noise began again. It took her another moment to realize that the sound was gunfire—somebody was shooting, and by the sound of it they were right in front of her house.

  After the second barrage, the night grew even quieter than it had been before, all of the forest critters frightened into stillness. Her heart racing, and with no idea what had just happened, Moira sank to the porch, her back to the wall. She wanted desperately to call for the dogs, but if someone was standing in her front yard with a gun then she knew she couldn’t risk the noise.

  She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, sitting with her knees to her chest and her back to the house for protection, wondering if at any moment the gunman would come around the corner or burst through the back door looking for her. She finally moved when the sky was beginning to turn grey in the east and she knew that she had to do something, even if that something was simply to make sure the dogs were okay and call the police.

  When she first saw that the back yard was empty, she felt sick. Had the dogs managed to climb or jump over the fence in their terror? If so, ow would she ever find them? They could be miles away by now. Then she heard a soft whine behind her and turned to her great relief to see Maverick inching out from under the porch. He froze, listening cautiously for a moment, then slunk over to her. He was shaking, but she was glad to see that he didn’t appear injured.

  Kneeling down next to the porch, she peered underneath it and saw a quivering Keeva curled up in the farthest corner. Her heart went out to the poor, terrified dog, but she didn’t want to risk making any more noise than necessary until she figured out what had happened.

  “You stay there, sweetie,” she whispered to the dog. “I’ll come back, I promise.”

  She decided to leave Maverick in the yard as well. Holding her breath, careful not to let the door squeak as she opened it, she slipped into the mudroom and listened carefully before venturing into the rest of the house.

  Her first priority was to locate a phone and call the police. Unfortunately, both her cell phone and the landline phone were upstairs in her bedroom, where she had put them before settling down with her book. She didn’t think that anyone was in the house—after the shooting had stopped, she hadn’t heard any more noise—but it didn’t hurt to be careful. On her way through the kitchen, she swiped the largest of the kitchen knives and, bypassing the basement door, began making her way up the stairs.

  When she reached her bedroom, all she could do was stare, stunned, at the chaos in front of her. Her bedroom window was shattered, and bullets had ripped through the ceiling and walls, which in turn had covered the bed and floor with dust, bits of drywall, and broken glass. Her heart skipped a beat when she remembered the cat. Felix had been sleeping on her bed when she went downstairs to put the dog out. Luckily all of the bullet holes were angled upwards - from his or her position on the ground outside, the shooter had only been able to shoot up - so the chances of Felix having been shot were low, but he very well could have bolted out the broken window in his panic.

  On a whim, she knelt down and checked under the bed and was relieved to see the wide-eyed calico staring back at her. She made soothing noises at him and murmured at him to stay there, then stood up and swiped her cell phone from the night stand. Just as she was about to press call, something out of place caught her eye. Located in the midst of the debris from her shot in window was a rock with a piece of paper held against it with a rubber band. She picked it up and extracted the piece of paper, which turned out to be a note.

  I know where you live. Third time’s the charm.

  She dropped the paper, fear racing through her veins in icy spikes. The handwriting was the same as the words that had been written in soap on her car’s window. Third time’s the charm. What did that mean? She hoped she wouldn’t ever find out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Gosh, I really needed this.” Moira set the tray down on the bistro table and joined her friends, who had stopped by the deli after hearing about her adventures the night before. She was still shaken, but had begun to feel grateful instead of terrified. She could so easily have been in her bedroom when the shooting happened if things had gone only a little bit differently.

  “We thought you might need someone to talk to,” said Martha, exchanging a glance with Denise. “Especially since David hasn’t been much help lately.”

  The deli owner frowned. She wished that her friend hadn’t brought up David’s conspicuous absence. He hadn’t done anything more than send her a text after she told him about the intruder the night before. Did he really just not care anymore? Before, whenever something frightening happened, he had always rushed out to make sure she was okay. Maybe he’s getting tired of rushing to my rescue, she thought. If so, she couldn’t blame him. More bad things seemed to happen to her than to anyone else she knew. Maybe Trish is right, and I’m just a troublemaker.

  “It was scary,” she admitted. “I’m just so glad that I was outside with the dogs when it happened. From the angle of the bullet holes, the police said they didn’t think whoever was shooting was trying to actually hit me, but I still feel lucky that I wasn’t in the room. Poor Felix was absolutely terrified though. It took me ages to convince him to come out from under the bed.”

  “Is he all right?” Martha asked. “Poor kitty.”

  “He’s fine,” she assured her friend. “Amazingly, none of the animals got so much as a cut from the broken glass. We were all shaken up, though.”
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  “I can imagine,” Denise said with a shudder. “Someone’s out to get you. Do you think it’s the same person that slashed your car’s tires?”

  “Probably,” Moira said. “I mean, I don’t see how it could be a coincidence.” She still hadn’t told her friends about the note; she was loath to worry them even more than they already were.

  “What did you do to get yourself in trouble this time?” Martha asked her, amazed. “Did you find another dead body that you forgot to tell us about?”

  The deli owner grimaced.

  “No,” she said. “Thankfully, I haven’t. Life’s been quiet for me, other than having that man pester me about selling the deli.” She said the last part quietly, not yet ready for any of her employees to know about the decision that she was faced with.

  “There was also that guy that got murdered in David’s office,” her friend pointed out. “You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

  “No,” she said, the pitch of her voice rising with indignation. “Why does everyone keep asking me about that?”

  Detective Jefferson had asked her pretty much the same thing the night before, but had clammed up when she had asked him if he thought Fred’s murder had anything to do with the person that was terrorizing her. She was beginning to get annoyed at both him and David for refusing to tell her anything about the murder. She understood the need for confidentiality in both of their jobs, but if it was going to affect her, then she had the right to know, darn it.

  “Can we change the subject?” she asked. “This whole situation has me bouncing between being furious and being scared. Not only do I have some psycho coming after me, but I also have a giant hole in my bedroom wall where my window used to be. At least I get my car back today.”

  So far, that was the one good point of the day; Edna had called her an hour ago and declared her car fit to be driven. She would pick it up as soon as someone got here to cover her shift at the deli.