Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder

by Chris Cavender

  There was a pounding on the back door two minutes after the first batch of dough was rising.

  I looked at Maddy as I wiped my hands on a dish towel. “That was fast.”

  “Don’t forget, he’s got flashing lights and a siren. It’s probably great for getting through traffic.”

  I opened the back door and saw that Kevin had a cooler in his arms. “It’s the only one I could find on short notice.”

  The cooler had the Carolina Panthers football team logo on it. “That’s fine with me. I’m a huge Panthers fan.”

  “I didn’t know you liked football.”

  “It’s fun, but what I really like are football fans. You wouldn’t believe how much pizza we sell whenever there’s a game.” I held out my hands. “Let’s see it.”

  “You have to put these on first,” Kevin said as he handed me a pair of latex gloves.

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s evidence, and while I doubt a piece of pepperoni could hold a fingerprint, in this day and age, you can’t be so sure.”

  I donned the gloves, and then opened the cooler. The pizza was wrapped in lots of plastic, so it was difficult to tell much about it. “I need to see it without the wrapping.”

  Kevin nodded, and then took the pizza back from me. He was wearing gloves himself, so I couldn’t fault him for his caution with me. Maddy was watching everything with an air of wonder and amusement on her face, but fortunately, she was keeping her comments to herself, at least for now.

  After the wrapping was off, Kevin handed it back to me, but I refused it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “The wrapping’s off, just like you asked.”

  “That’s not one of mine,” I said emphatically.

  “How can you be so sure? You haven’t even really looked at it.”

  “Maddy, do you want to tell him?”

  She nodded, then glanced at the pizza. “Look at the crust. That one was baked in a gas oven. We use electric.”

  “And you can tell that from one glance?”

  Maddy frowned at him. “Can you tell a revolver from a shotgun?”

  “Of course, I can.”

  “That’s your business, and this is ours. We didn’t make it. I’d say Drakes in Goshen’s Landing, if I had to guess. Eleanor, what do you think?”

  “It looks like one of theirs to me. The question is, who would bring a pizza from somewhere else here?”

  Kevin studied the pizza for a second; then he said, “Maybe it was a killer who wanted to lure someone else here for a pizza, but didn’t have one on hand.” He wrapped the pizza back up, then said, “Thanks for your help, ladies.”

  “You’re welcome,” we said, though he probably didn’t hear us. No doubt he was about to pay a call on one of our competitors, which was fine with me. Let them explain a patrol car in front of their pizza place, for a change.

  We went back to work, but ten minutes later our day was interrupted again. Someone was rapping steadily on the front door of the pizzeria.

  “Are you expecting anybody this morning?”

  “Not me. Do you think Kevin thought of something else?”

  Since all of our deliveries came through the back door, it was odd to have someone trying to get in before we opened, especially without calling ahead first.

  I looked around for my favorite rolling pin, and then I remembered that it was now evidence in a murder investigation. Second best was a large cleaver we sometimes used for chopping, and as I peeked around the kitchen door to the dining area, I saw Slick standing outside with a big box on a handcart.

  He waved, and I put the cleaver back on the counter.

  “The safe’s here,” I told my sister.

  Maddy kept working. “Nothing like locking the barn door, and all that,” she said.

  I shrugged. There was nothing I could do about the last robbery, but I could make it harder for someone the next time they tried, though I hoped that never happened again. Being robbed at gunpoint was something I didn’t need to experience again. When I’d heard Wade’s voice on his answering machine, it had sent chills through me. I didn’t care that his voice was close to Greg’s. I knew he was the one who’d held me up, and though I understood that he could never rob me again, the peace of mind he’d stolen, along with my cash, was irreplaceable.

  I unlocked the door and held it open for Slick. As he pushed the handcart in and I relocked the dead bolt behind him, he said, “Surprise, surprise. It came earlier than I expected. Where do you want it?”

  It was bigger than I’d remembered. Seeing it in his shop out of context, I thought I’d be able to tuck it under my desk. That was clearly not going to happen. Where on earth was I going to put it? “I don’t have a clue where it should go.”

  “Most people put them in their offices,” he said helpfully.

  “If I do that, there won’t be any room left for me,” I admitted.

  “Why don’t we leave it here for now and see what we can come up with?”

  I agreed, and we walked back through the kitchen, where Maddy was still working at prepping our toppings for the day.

  Maddy smiled at him. “Hey, Slick. I see you running every day. You think you’re ever going to catch what you’re chasing?”

  “You never know until you try, now do you?” He looked at the green pepper she was slicing. “That looks good.”

  “Want a nibble?” she said, offering a green ring to him.

  “No, I’d better not,” he said with some reluctance.

  “Go on, we’ve got plenty,” I said. “Besides, you can think of it as your delivery fee.”

  “Does that mean I can’t charge you for bringing it over?” Slick asked.

  “No, of course not. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Slick laughed. “Eleanor, I’m not going to bill you for wheeling this thing a hundred paces down the promenade.”

  “Then take two pepper rings,” I said.

  He laughed, and did just that. “Man, that’s good.”

  “You really know how to live it up, don’t you?” Maddy said.

  “I try.” He looked around the space, then stepped into my office.

  Maddy asked me, “What’s he doing?”

  “Slick’s trying to figure out where to put our new safe.” I then admitted, “It’s a little larger than I thought it would be when I saw it at his place. I don’t want to hear a word from you, do you understand?”

  Maddy didn’t laugh, which was to her credit. “Why not put it in the storage room? We can keep stuff on top of it, and nobody would look for it there.”

  I shrugged, not sure if I wanted to stumble on the big iron box every time I needed flour.

  Slick rejoined us. “That place is no good.”

  “I told you so.”

  He kept looking around, and then pointed to our storage room. “What’s in there?”

  “It’s for storage. Maddy just said that’s where we should put it.”

  Slick nodded, then ducked in for a few seconds before reappearing. “It’s going to be a tight fit.”

  “Maybe this is a bad idea,” I said. “I don’t really have that much to put into it, you know? Buying the safe’s going to cut into that, too.”

  Slick waved a hand in the air. “I’m giving you my best discount, so don’t worry about that. I can make it work, but I won’t be able to drill until the weekend. Let’s put it in place and see how it fits for now. Any chance you two could move some of those boxes out so I can get it in?”

  I nodded, so Maddy and I started working at disassembling our carefully arranged storage. By the time we had everything out—and a path for Slick to bring the safe through—there wasn’t a free square inch of space on the floor around me.

  Slick managed to maneuver the cumbersome unit close to the storage room door, and after removing the cardboard around its exterior, he said, “As soon as I get this in place, we can restock everything.”

  I frowned at all of the boxes and containers on th
e floor and all of the free counter space. “If it will fit back in now.”

  “Don’t worry. Leave that to me. We’ll make it work,” he said.

  “Not before we mop the floor in there first,” I said. “I hate to make you wait around while I do it, but I’m not going to pass up the chance to clean that floor while I have the chance.”

  Slick nodded. “Tell you what. Call me when you’re finished, and then I’ll come back and put everything in place.”

  “We won’t be that long,” I said. I was torn between getting my pizzeria back in working order and taking advantage of a cleaning opportunity when I had the chance.

  He appeared to think about it a moment, then asked, “Do you have a newspaper? I can go out and grab a booth while I’m waiting.”

  “I’ve got the Charlotte paper,” I said. “Will that do?”

  “I’ll read the list of ingredients on the side of a box if I have to,” he said with a smile. “I’m kind of addicted to reading.”

  “There are worse things you could be addicted to,” I said.

  “You’ve got that right. Running and reading are about my two favorite things to do in the world.”

  I mopped the floor in record time, and Maddy followed along behind me with a few old towels we kept on hand for the spills that seemed to happen with somewhat irritating frequency around the pizzeria.

  Slick was studying the menu when I walked back out into the dining area. “Did you read the paper that quickly?”

  “What can I say, I’m a speed reader. When’s the last time you made up a new menu?” he asked as he tapped the old one on the table in front of him.

  “It’s been about a year,” I said.

  “How have you managed to keep your prices so low all of that time?”

  “I hate the hassle of having new ones printed up,” I admitted.

  “You should use my guy.”

  “You have a guy for menus?” I asked, just a little bit incredulous.

  “No need for menus in a sporting-goods store,” he said, “but I’ve got a great graphic artist that could make your life easier. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a guy for just about everything.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather design it myself.”

  Slick shrugged. “Okay, but if you change your mind, I’ll give you Sylvia’s number.”

  “Who’s Sylvia?” I asked, wondering how our conversation had sidetracked to someone else.

  “She’s my guy,” he said, deadly serious.

  “How is she your guy?”

  Slick laughed. “Anybody I’ve got who does something better than anyone else is my guy. I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman or a blue-tailed butterfly.” He grinned at me as he added, “You’re my guy for pizza.”

  I smiled. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not. Honestly, it sounds kind of sexist to me.”

  He didn’t seem put off by my remark. “I guess it all depends on how you look at it.”

  “Then you’re my gal when it comes to safes. Everybody’s going to be my gal from now on.”

  “Call me whatever you’d like,” he said, “just don’t call me late to supper. Now let’s get that baby installed.”

  I followed him back into the kitchen, and he was as good as his word. In five minutes, all of the shelving units were back in place, though they were still bare.

  “Let me help you restock this,” he said as he moved the cardboard and the hand truck out into the dining room.

  “Thanks, but we’ve got it,” I said.

  “Eleanor, I don’t mind helping a bit.”

  “I know, but Maddy and I are pretty particular on how our storage room is set up, and in all honesty, it would take us longer to give you instructions than it would just to do it ourselves.”

  “I can respect that,” he said.

  He lingered a little longer, so I asked, “Do you need me to pay you now?” I’d been hoping he’d bill me so I’d have a chance to work up my savings a little, but I’d manage somehow if he needed his money up front.

  “No, that’s fine. I’m happy to send you a bill,” he said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Listen, Eleanor, I’m feeling a little bad about our earlier conversation. I didn’t mean any disrespect before.”

  I honestly wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

  “About the guy thing and all,” he reluctantly admitted. “Sometimes I shoot my mouth off without thinking, but in general I’m pretty harmless.”

  “Slick, it would take a lot more than that to offend me, but you are sweet to apologize.” I bussed his cheek, which elicited a quick grin.

  “If I’d known I’d get a kiss, I’d have offended you a lot sooner than that. Now, will somebody let me out of here? I’ve got a sports shop to run.”

  I walked him to the door, and as I was propping it open so Slick could get his handcart out, someone was coming down the promenade toward my pizzeria, with a look I wasn’t about to mistake for anything but anger.

  Chapter 8

  “We need to talk,” Jamie Lowder said as he approached me. The anger was clear in his face, and I suddenly wished that Slick had stuck around just a little bit longer. It wasn’t that Slick was all that physically imposing, but I didn’t think Jamie would do anything if there was a witness standing right beside me.

  “Sorry, we’re not open for business yet,” I said, watching Slick retreat.

  “This isn’t business. It’s personal.” There was a bristling edge to his words that made me fight the urge to run inside and lock the door. I was more than a little scared, but I wasn’t going to let myself be bullied in front of my own place.

  “What is it, Jamie? I don’t have time for this. If you want a fight, you’ve picked on the wrong person today.” I snapped out my words with force, and that somehow got his attention.

  “Hey, take it easy. I’m not trying to upset you. I just want you to back off Sandi. She feels bad enough about what happened to Wade. You don’t need to make things any worse for her right now.”

  “I can’t be responsible for how she feels,” I said, easing my tone a little. Jamie was pretty imposing, and as he spoke, I kept imagining him in my kitchen with a rolling pin in his hand, standing over Wade Hatcher’s lifeless form. “You were pretty eager to give her an alibi yesterday,” I added.

  “It was the truth,” he said, his temper rising again. This guy had a short fuse, and I needed to be a little more cautious than I had been so far. But being timid wasn’t going to get me any information I didn’t already have.

  “All I’m saying is that you both had reasons to want him dead.” I said it flatly, not an accusation at all, but a simple statement of fact.

  “Why would I hurt him?” Jamie asked. “I didn’t even know him all that well.” He looked truly puzzled by the accusation.

  “Come on, be honest with me. With Wade out of the way, Sandi’s free.”

  “She was already free,” he said. “They broke up, remember?”

  “For how long, though? The only way there was room for you in her life was to get rid of Wade, once and for all.”

  He started toward me, and I flinched, though I hadn’t wanted to.

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “You need to shut up about things that don’t concern you, do you hear me?”

  “I’m not saying you did it, but it’s something the police have to be wondering about as well, don’t you think? Are you sure your alibi with Sandi is good enough to hold up under their heavy questioning?”

  I saw his gaze shoot downward, and while it wasn’t tangible proof, I had a pretty good feeling that he’d been lying about being with Sandi the night of the murder.

  After a moment’s pause, he said, “You’re not the police though, are you? If they need to talk to us, they know where to find us. Stop messing with this, Eleanor. You’re in over your head. It could be dangerous.”

  Had it been Jamie on the phone the night before threatening me? “What’
s wrong? Did you get tired of calling me, so you decided to come down here in person to threaten me this time?”

  “What are you talking about? I never called you.”

  “How can you prove that?” I asked.

  “How can you prove that I did?” he asked in response. “This is insane. I didn’t kill Wade Hatcher, and neither did Sandi.”

  “Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?”

  Maddy came out, and it felt good to have her presence beside me, though I doubted the two of us combined were any physical match for him. “What’s going on?”

  “I just told your sister to stay out of my business,” Jamie snarled at her. “And I’m telling you, too.”

  “Okay then, your work is done here. Now shoo.”

  She pulled me back inside and locked the door of the pizzeria. Jamie stood there another two seconds, and then he stormed off down the promenade.

  “My, my, my. He’s got a temper, doesn’t he?” Maddy said.

  “More than I realized. To be honest with you, I was a little scared standing out there all alone with him, even if it was in broad daylight.”

  Maddy nodded. “He’s a bit of a bear, isn’t he? We can’t keep him out forever, though. If he wants to come after us, we’re opening up in an hour and a half.”

  “We’ll deal with that when it happens, but I don’t think he’ll be back.”

  “Why not?” Maddy asked, clearly perplexed.

  “He said what he wanted to say, and I gave him something to think about. He’s hiding something—that much is clear.”

  “But what?” Maddy asked.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” I brushed my hands on the sides of my jeans, and then I said, “It’s got to be time to get back to my dough.”