A Slice of Murder

by Chris Cavender

  “Not until tonight,” I said.

  There were still no cars in sight when we arrived at the house, and I wanted to peek inside the garage, but Maddy pulled me away. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “We don’t have the time to skulk around,” she said. “And besides, this time we’ve got an invitation.”

  “We don’t. Your Realtor friend does.”

  “Same thing,” Maddy said.

  I saw some movement around the side of the house, and before my sister could restrain me, I hurried toward it. She followed, fussing at me all the way, but someone had been back there, and I was going to see who it was.

  I was startled to see Faith Baron running away from us down the alley.

  I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were too late. Maddy and I hadn’t acted quickly enough, and the murderer had returned to the scene of her crime, only to strike again.

  Chapter 15

  “Was that who I think it was?” Maddy asked me as she stopped beside me.

  “It was Faith Baron,” I said, starting to visibly shake. “I don’t want to go in there. I found the last one.”

  Maddy looked at me, then glanced over at the house. “Do you think Sheila’s really dead?”

  “Don’t you?” I asked.

  “I haven’t given it much thought,” Maddy admitted.

  “Call Kevin Hurley,” I said as I headed toward the house.

  “Hang on a second,” she said. “If there’s another body in there, let him be the one who finds it.”

  “How are we going to explain even being here, let alone calling in the homicide? He’ll lock us both up.”

  “Then let’s get out of here before anyone sees us,” Maddy said as Travis White called out, “What are you two doing lurking in the alley behind my house?”

  “We weren’t here to see you,” I said.

  Travis nodded. “If you came to see Sheila, you’d better dart in right now. The last I heard, she’s leaving town forever this evening.”

  “We don’t want to bother her,” I said, trying to get us out of there.

  “Nonsense. Don’t be so timid.”

  Travis headed for the Olsen back door, and we had no option but to follow.

  As he approached the window, he muttered, “That’s odd.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  When he didn’t answer, I moved around and looked for myself. That was one of my problems. My curiosity often got the better of me, mostly at the worst possible time.

  But when I looked inside, I saw that Sheila was still alive, leaning over the fireplace burning the contents of a small box!

  “Thank goodness she’s all right,” I said without realizing I’d spoken aloud.

  Travis turned to look at me oddly. “Isn’t that an odd thing to say.”

  Maddy came to my rescue. “She’s still traumatized about finding Richard’s body. It’s really affected her.”

  That got a note of sympathy from him. “As well it might.”

  He tapped on the door, and Sheila looked at us quickly before dumping the last bit of contents into the fire. What on earth was she burning? All I knew was that it wasn’t firewood.

  She came to the back door, and after she opened it, Sheila said, “It’s customary for visitors to come to the front door.”

  Travis said, “Don’t get yourself in a snit. We came to say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” Sheila said as she started to close the door on us.

  “Hang on a second. We’d like to talk to you,” I said, maneuvering my foot into the doorway before she could close it all the way.

  “All three of you?” Sheila asked.

  “No, just them,” Travis said with a snort of disgust. “Me, I’m done with you.”

  He stomped off, and after he was gone, Maddy couldn’t help herself and started laughing. I joined in, and a few seconds later, I actually saw Sheila smile. “I’ll miss that odd old bird,” she said, “as hard as that might be to believe.”

  “I understand completely,” I said.

  “What can I do for you two?” she asked.

  “It’s about the safety-deposit box,” Maddy said.

  Sheila’s eyes narrowed for just a split second before she managed to compose herself. “We cleared it out together, remember?”

  Maddy said, “We forgot all about this, though. Remember? We found this paper, too.” She held the slip of paper up, but carefully disguised the fact that the printing on it was nearly gone.

  “I’d forgotten you had that,” Sheila said. “I’ll have it back now, please. After all, it belonged to my brother.”

  Maddy still held it back. “It’s got another number on it, a safety-deposit box from Third Southern National.”

  The hint of triumph in her voice was nearly thick enough to see.

  It vanished instantly as Sheila said, “So you found it, too. You might as well come inside.”

  Warning bells were going off in my head, and I found myself wishing we’d called Kevin Hurley after all. “That’s fine. We don’t really need to stay.”

  Maddy looked at me as though I were crazy. “Don’t listen to her, Sheila. We’d be delighted to come in.”

  At that point, I really didn’t have any other option but to follow my crazy sister inside.

  We all walked into the living room, and I glanced down at the fireplace.

  “Having one last blaze?” I asked.

  “You might say that,” Sheila said. “Those are the things I found in that second safety-deposit box you were telling me about. It appears my dear, sweet brother had a penchant for blackmail. Dirty business, that.”

  “So you just burned everything you found?” I asked.

  Sheila nodded. “Not without a few tears, either. I wasn’t sure what I’d found at first, but it didn’t take long to put it all together. After that, I stopped reading it.” She took a poker and nudged the last bits of paper into the dying flames.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.

  “You could have turned it all over to the police,” I suggested.

  “What, and have these people live through the trauma of being exposed after all? I don’t think so.”

  Maddy asked, “Is it any worse than waiting for someone else to call asking for money? It has to be torture waiting for a stranger’s tap on your shoulder.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Sheila said softly as she stared into the flames. “It’s too late now. It’s all gone.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I found his post office box key near the one to the safety-deposit box,” she said. “There was one last letter at the post office box, and I canceled the box after I retrieved it. From now on, the letters will go back to their senders. It’s all done now.”

  “Not quite,” I said. “We saw one of our suspects running away from your house a few minutes ago. That’s what we were doing in back.”

  “I didn’t think you had any suspects,” she said. “Who was it?”

  Maddy started to answer but I cut her off. “We aren’t completely sure, so it’s not right to say.”

  “She has a right to know,” Maddy said. “Her life could be in danger.”

  “Tell me,” Sheila said. “It’s only fair.”

  They both had a point. If I didn’t tell Sheila, and something happened to her, I’d never be able to forgive myself. “It was Faith Baron.”

  Sheila’s expression hardened. “The tramp that was having an affair with my brother. Why would she want to hurt me?”

  “Did you burn any letters in lavender envelopes?” I asked.

  “There was a stack of them,” Sheila admitted.

  “There’s your answer. Faith wrote them to your brother, and he must have been using them against her.” I looked at the last of the embers. “You didn’t happen to read any of them, did you?”

  “No, I figured it was none of my business.”

  I looked at Maddy. “But will Faith believe that? D
id she see Sheila with the letters?”

  “More importantly, did she see me burn them?” Sheila asked.

  “You’d better call the police,” I said.

  Sheila was taken aback by the suggestion. “How can I possibly do that? My brother wasn’t a saint, but I’m not about to expose his last dirty little secret to the police.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of what might happen?” I asked.

  “I’m leaving tonight. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye open.”

  “Why delay it,” Maddy said. “It doesn’t make any sense taking a chance.”

  “I found a buyer for the house. They want to meet me here later to sign the papers.”

  Suddenly I felt guilty for my part in setting the meeting up. “Tom Frances was calling you for us,” I confessed.

  “He doesn’t represent the buyer,” Sheila said. “But honestly, why did you two think you needed subterfuge to meet me? I would have gladly come by the pizzeria before I left. I’ve been a little on edge these past few days, but you have to understand, my system’s gone through more shocks than I thought I could take.” She smiled as she added, “Though it did seem to cure me of my tendency to faint. That’s the only silver lining in this entire mess. Except for my brother’s generosity, that is.” Sheila sifted the ashes, put them in the black bucket by the fireplace, then started to carry them outside. Maddy and I followed her to the ash pit in the backyard, where the secrets Richard had exploited were finally gone.

  “It’s a bad business, but at least it’s over,” she said.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Sheila asked me.

  I wasn’t about to tell her about Penny’s belief that Richard had been blackmailing our chief of police. “We know the leverage your brother kept is gone, but the folks he was blackmailing don’t.”

  “What did you expect me to do, send them all letters telling them they were off the hook? How could I have possibly done that?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea,” I said. “I’m just saying you need to be careful.”

  “You don’t have to keep repeating it. I’m not a child.” She glanced at her watch, then said, “Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ve got some errands to run before my meeting this afternoon. Thanks for coming by.”

  “Glad to,” I said.

  After Sheila went back inside, Maddy and I started walking back to her car.

  As we did, my sister said, “I believe her.”

  I nodded. “I do, too. Burning it all might not have been my first reaction, but I think it’s a good one. That information is better off destroyed.”

  “I still think she should have called the police about what she found. She’s taking a real chance by not doing that.”

  “How’s that?”

  Maddy said, “Think about it. We know she destroyed that stuff, but how would anyone else? It just follows that anyone being blackmailed by Richard would assume that his sister had the information now.”

  “How would they know Richard was the one blackmailing them?” I asked. “He had a post office box, so you have to think he was at least a little careful.”

  “Somebody must have known,” Maddy said. “Unless Faith or her husband killed him. Why was Faith here? Did we really stop something bad from happening just by showing up?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “I feel so helpless right now. We can’t go to the police—Kevin would probably lock us both up if he knew what we’ve been up to—and we can’t confront Faith, at least not without more evidence than we’ve seen so far.”

  “Don’t forget, we still have that letter from her to Richard,” Maddy suggested.

  “That confirms they were having an affair. In my mind, that’s a long way from proving she killed him.”

  “Then what do we do?” Maddy asked.

  “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do,” I said. I pointed to my watch. “I need some time to think about it, and I can do that at the Slice just as easily as I can driving around town with you. Let’s go make some dough, and in the meantime, we can try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “We might as well,” Maddy said as we got into her car.

  “That’s what I like, enthusiasm in the people I work with,” I said.

  “Eleanor, even you have to admit that making pizza isn’t nearly as exciting as tracking a killer.”

  “Who said excitement was all that great?” I asked. “Give me the predictability of yeast, flour, and salt any day.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Faith Baron, and her presence behind Richard Olsen’s house. Was it a part of her regular jogging route, or was there something more ominous about her being there? Even if Sheila wasn’t taking the threat seriously, Maddy and I were. But what could either one of us do? If I called Kevin Hurley, I was opening myself up to a great deal of aggravation, and what could I tell him, honestly? The only thing I had proof of was that Faith and Richard had an affair.

  Did I owe it to Sheila to show him that much, even though she’d destroyed a bundle of letters herself? And for that matter, if Faith saw Sheila destroy those documents, she might think I was the only one with proof tying her with the murder victim.

  Suddenly, I didn’t feel so safe myself. No matter what, I had to get that letter in the chief of police’s hands. If he wanted to lock me up for withholding it, then so be it. I wasn’t going to hand it over in my kitchen, though. I had to get that letter from home, then take it to the station. It would be much harder for him to dismiss me if we were in his office. At least I hoped so.

  We opened to a small stream of customers, and by two, our lunch crowd had ended, with a few folks occasionally coming by for a quick soda or sandwich. I often thought of closing between two and three o’clock just to give us all a break. The income I’d miss would barely show on my cash register report at the end of the day, and the hour of free time would be most welcome.

  Now was as good a time as any to implement the new policy, I decided.

  I walked out front and found Maddy and Greg sitting at a table talking. Greg had the decency to stand when his boss came out, but Maddy barely looked up.

  “We’re closing,” I said.

  “Come on, business isn’t that bad,” Maddy said.

  Greg grabbed a dishrag. “I’ll clean the tables again.”

  “It’s no reflection on the business or your job performances,” I said, “and it’s not permanent. I was just thinking we’d shut down for an hour in the afternoon, at least for a week or two, to see how it goes.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Maddy said.

  I turned to Greg. “How about you?”

  “Isn’t there anything I could do while we’re closed? To be honest with you, I need the hours.”

  I thought about it, then said, “The storage room needs to be cleaned and organized. You can work on that while we’re closed, if you really want to.”

  “That would be great,” Greg said. “I’ll jump right on it.”

  Maddy looked at me after he was gone and asked, “What are you going to do on our break? I can’t see you going home and taking a nap.”

  “What makes you think I’m going anywhere? How do you know I’m not planning to help Greg with the storage room?”

  “Because you’d already be back there working instead of being out here talking to me. Don’t try to duck the question. You’ve got an idea, don’t you?”

  “Not anything I want to drag you into,” I said.

  “Good luck with that. We’re together on this, no matter what.”

  “Okay, but don’t ever say I didn’t warn you. I’m going to get that letter of Faith Baron’s we found and I’m giving it to Kevin Hurley.”

  I waited for a storm, but my sister just smiled. “I think that’s an excellent idea. I would have suggested it myself, but given your history with the police chief, I wasn’t about to make you do something you weren’t comfortable with.”

  “You don’t trust Fa
ith, either?”

  “Certainly not with any of my husbands,” she said, “but I don’t know if she’s a murderer. Do you?”

  “Can we really take the chance that she’s not? Whether she killed Richard or not, Kevin still deserves to know what was going on between them.”

  “And what if Richard was blackmailing Kevin as well? Wasn’t that what you were told?”

  “Then we can put his mind at ease and tell him what Sheila did with the evidence. It’s only right.”

  Maddy shook her head. “Then you don’t mind having a police chief with something so bad in his past he was being blackmailed for it?”

  “Kevin’s not a bad man, or a bad law enforcement officer,” I said.

  “Wow, I didn’t realize you’d become such a fan.”

  “Maddy, are you coming with me, or not?” I’d grown tired of the cat-and-mouse edge to our conversation.

  “Just try to stop me,” she said.

  I called out, “Bye, Greg, we’re locking the door behind us.”

  “Bye,” he called back, his voice muffled through the closed door.

  “I’ll drive, if you don’t mind,” Maddy said. “That way if anybody wants to take a shot at you, they won’t know you’re with me.”

  “Who else rides around town with you?” I asked as I got into her car.

  “That’s not the point. That Subaru of yours must have a target on it or something.”

  “I resent that,” I said as she headed toward my house.

  “But you don’t deny it,” she said.

  Four minutes later we were at the house.

  I turned to Maddy and said, “Wait right here. I’ll be back in a second.”

  She shut off the engine as she said, “I don’t think so. For the foreseeable future, I go where you go.”

  “Nobody’s lurking in the shadows of my own home waiting to grab me,” I said.

  “Then we won’t have to use this,” Maddy said, pulling the stun gun out of her purse. “But if we do, I want to be ready.”

  I unlocked the door, and we slipped inside. Maddy actually went to the trouble of dead bolting the lock as I reached behind the orchid painting and collected the lavender letter. I’d half expected it to be gone, and was relieved to find it still there.