The Missing Dough (A Pizza Lovers Mystery)

by Chris Cavender

  “Sorry to bother you here, Eleanor. I can see that you’re busy, but I thought you should know,” the chief said and started to leave.

  “It’s under control. You’re fine. You don’t have to leave.” I didn’t want him to go, not when he was in the mood to share information with me. Who knew how long it might be before he felt that way again?

  “Have you had a chance to talk to Kenny Stout yourself?” I asked, remembering how Samantha had shivered in fear the last time I heard her say his name.

  “I have,” he admitted. “But I really don’t see him having any real motive here. Whatever Samantha has been up to, it happened when the two of them were separated, and Kenny told me that he didn’t have any of his own money invested with Maine himself.”

  “It goes a lot deeper than that, at least as far as what Samantha told us today,” I said as I cut the next sandwich in line, plated it, and put it on the table for Greg to pick up.

  “What I still don’t get is why she even came to you in the first place this morning,” the chief said. “What did she think you two would be able to do?”

  “Actually, that wasn’t the first time she reached out to us,” I said. “She and Kenny both came here yesterday to enlist our help.”

  “Help with what?” he asked, clearly intrigued now.

  Greg came in, grabbed the sandwich, and then left without a word.

  “They were afraid they were going to be railroaded into an arrest and a conviction if they didn’t do anything to protect themselves.”

  He looked grim as he said, “Eleanor, I wouldn’t take part in that. Not ever.”

  “Everyone knows that,” I said, “but Maddy and I were hoping we would get alibis from them and eliminate them as suspects. We both know that turned out to be a bust. We never even got Kenny’s alibi, and we already told you that Samantha’s is basically nonexistent.”

  “If it’s any consolation, Kenny’s isn’t any better,” the police chief said. “They both admit that they took separate cars from the fair, and neither one of them has a single person vouching for their whereabouts. You were telling me about your conversation with Samantha Stout before. What was your overall impression of her?”

  “Well, she’s afraid of her ex-husband. Kenny’s got a temper, something I’ve seen for myself, and he hated Grant with a real passion.”

  “You say that you saw him upset, but what about the rest of it?”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “Do you have any other evidence that Samantha has a reason to be afraid of Kenny other than what she told you? I’ve looked into it, and there have never been any police reports filed on either one of them. As far as I can determine, she’s never shown up at the hospital with bumps and bruises, either. Has anyone actually ever heard him threaten her?”

  “Just because she might not have proof doesn’t mean that it never happened,” I said, doing my best to keep my own temper in check.

  “I understand that,” Chief Hurley said softly. “For all I know, everything she told you is true. There’s just nothing to back it up.”

  “You know what? You’re right. There’s a chance that I could be all wrong about her,” I admitted. “There’s no way to prove it at this point one way or the other.”

  To the chief’s credit, he didn’t gloat when I made the admission. “As long as we’re both keeping our minds open to the possibilities, we’ll both be better off.”

  “Speaking of which, I think I should come clean with you.” I was going to share some of what we uncovered, but not tell him how we’d attained the information. I wasn’t that crazy. “We have four suspects on our list. Would you like to hear who they are and why?”

  He looked around the small kitchen. “You’re not recording this, are you?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “I know. I was just teasing you, Eleanor. In all fairness, I’m not necessarily going to tell you anything else about the case, no matter what you say to me. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t expect anything, but I’ll take whatever you can give me,” I said.

  “Then go ahead.”

  “Okay, here we go. I’ll give you the names first and then why we suspect them. It would be great if you could tell me if I was off base on any of them.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  I was about to start when Maddy came into the kitchen with three more orders. “Are you still here?” she asked Chief Hurley with a grin.

  “Sometimes you just can’t get rid of me,” he answered sociably enough.

  Maddy turned back to me. “Is that pizza ready?”

  “One second,” I said as I watched it pass the center point of the exit line, the place where I considered it safe to pull any pizza or sandwich from the conveyor. I knew that sometimes when Maddy ran the kitchen, she pushed that line back a little no matter how much I protested, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it now. I pulled the pizza, panned it, and cut it, and as Maddy took it, she winked at me without saying another word to Chief Hurley.

  “Okay, let’s try that again,” he said.

  “We’ve got Rebecca Whitmore first on our list. She may or may not have known that her brother had basically stolen her entire inheritance out from under her, but if she did, it could have made her mad enough to kill him. Next in line we have Samantha Stout. Not only did Grant lose her money, but he also started dating his ex-wife, Vivian Wright, the dry cleaner they just arrested in Cow Spots, the second they broke up. We know that Samantha claims Grant dumped her and begged her to take him back, but we don’t have anybody’s word but hers for that. Next, we’ve got her ex, Kenny. As I said, he was jealous, maybe even enough to kill Grant if he saw him as a threat.”

  “Are you saying that he still wants Samantha back?” the chief asked.

  “I’m not, but she might think so. Then again, it may be a case where he doesn’t want anyone to have her if he can’t.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’ve also got Bernie Maine on our list, for the obvious reason that Grant might have scammed him. From what I’ve seen, Bernie doesn’t seem like a man who takes to being trifled with.”

  “He’s not. Is that it?”

  “We have one more suspect on our list. Last but not least, there’s Vivian, the dry cleaner. If Grant dumped his ex-wife, it’s not hard to believe that she could have been mad enough to kill him out of anger.”

  “Eleanor, are you and Maddy comfortable with your list of suspects as being final?”

  “Not particularly,” I admitted. “That’s why we’re still digging.”

  “I get that,” Chief Hurley said, “but don’t take any chances, especially with Bernie Maine. If you see him, get away from the guy as fast as you can and call me. He’s not playing around, Eleanor, and neither should you.”

  “Is there anything that you would like to share? What’s your suspect list look like?”

  “I have a few more names on mine than you do,” he explained a little reluctantly. “You’re not going to ask me who they are, are you?”

  Who had we missed? Was there someone else in Grant’s life we hadn’t uncovered yet? And then I knew. Bob Lemon was on it, and most likely, David had a mention as well. I was about to defend them both yet again, but I decided that for the moment, it would be in my best interests to keep getting along with our chief of police.

  “No, I have a hunch that I already know.”

  “That’s that, then,” Chief Hurley said when he realized that I wasn’t going to add anything else to the conversation. Did he look a little disappointed by my reticence? Perhaps he’d been hoping I’d complain enough that he’d be justified in cutting me out of the loop. If that was the plan, it was going to fail miserably.

  After he was gone, Maddy came back into the kitchen in ten seconds. “Tell me everything.”

  “Don’t you have customers out there?”

  She shrugged. “Greg’s got things under control. Now spill.”

 
“Okay, but it’s going to be fast and dirty.”

  After I quickly brought her up to speed about my conversation with the chief of police, my sister nodded. “It’s mostly what we expected, isn’t it?”

  “All except the fact that Bernie Maine is on the loose with at least two weapons, and maybe more.”

  Maddy bit her lower lip. “There’s that, all right. Do you have any idea what we should do during our lunch break?”

  “To be honest with you, I’d just as soon stay here, make something fattening to eat, and try to forget about this entire mess for an hour. I don’t know who else to talk to at this point, or what I could say to them if I could come up with a name.”

  “You’re not getting discouraged investigating Grant’s murder already, are you?” Maddy asked.

  “Maybe a little bit, but you know that you don’t have to worry about me quitting on you. I’m not giving up until we find the killer. I guess I’d just like a little break from it all, though.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have our own little party here at the Slice,” Maddy said with a smile. “We can even invite Greg to stay behind with us and make it a real feast. If you’d like, I can call Bob and David, as well.”

  “Are you sure that you don’t mind that we’re not digging during every free second we have?” I asked. It had to be a sacrifice giving up even a minute of time that we could spend investigating, and I knew it couldn’t be easy on her.

  “Absolutely. Who knows? Maybe a bit of a break will give us a fresh perspective, and we can look at all of this a little clearer than we’re seeing it right now.”

  “I appreciate that.” I hugged Maddy. “Thanks, little sister.”

  “You’re very welcome, big sister,” she said in return.

  Chapter 14

  “That was wonderful,” I said to Maddy just after we kicked the men in our lives out the front door and locked it again.

  “The food or the company?” she asked.

  “Both,” I replied.

  Bob and David had happily come over to the Slice to spend some time with us, though Greg had excused himself, saying that he had errands to run. I thought it might be because he didn’t want to be the fifth wheel, and I wondered if there were any young women he was interested in at the college. It was probably hard on him, knowing that his best friend, Josh, had a new girl in his life, and I was afraid that Greg might be lonely. If I thought hard enough about it, I might just be able to . . . I stopped myself right there. I’d butted into the poor young man’s life enough in the past. There was no need for me to keep at it. He was perfectly capable of getting a girlfriend without my meddling.

  “Those two can be a load of fun when they want to, can’t they?” Maddy asked as we started cleaning up our plates and glasses. “I’m thrilled about how small we kept the talk. Did you notice that neither one of them asked us about our investigation?”

  “It was just what I needed. Thank you for not bringing it up, either.”

  “Hey, I needed a bit of a break just as much as you did.” As we finished cleaning off our table, Greg knocked on the front door.

  After Maddy let him in, he surveyed the dining room. “You must have done a good job, because I don’t see any signs of it myself.”

  “Signs of what?” Maddy asked him.

  “The wild party that you two just hosted,” he said with a grin.

  “Oh, we’ve learned to keep that to a minimum,” I said.

  “It must be one of the benefits of getting older,” Greg replied with a smile.

  “Watch it, buster,” Maddy said as she flipped her wash towel at him. “You’ll be our age before you know it.”

  “That’s nothing but lies, rumors, and falsehoods,” he said as he grabbed his apron. “I’m going to be like Peter Pan myself; I’m never growing up.”

  “Sorry, but it’s too late for that. You already did,” she said as she stuck her tongue out at him.

  Thankfully, it was a quiet evening at the Slice, and by the time we were ready to close for the night, I was all set to go home, take a hot shower, and read a little before I fell asleep. Maddy was still bunking with me, though, so it was hard to say what our evening would really end up like.

  Maddy and I were standing outside at the front door of the Slice and locking the place up ten minutes after Greg had left when someone came hurrying toward us out of the shadows.

  I just had enough time to get my sister’s attention and turn her around to face the onrusher with me, but there was really nothing else I could do.

  “Where’s my wife?” Kenny Stout demanded angrily when he reached us.

  “We have no idea where Samantha might be. Why are you so upset about it? I thought you two were finished,” I answered as calmly as I could manage. Maddy was slowly reaching into her bag, so I needed to distract Kenny long enough to give her time to take something out of the bag of defenses she called a purse.

  “Don’t try to get cute with me, Eleanor. I’m not in the mood for it. Tell me where she is, and I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “Like I said, we don’t know where she is, but even if we did, I doubt that we’d tell you while you’re shouting at us,” I said.

  He shook his head in disgust. “You women all stick together like you’re in some kind of a club. I just want to see her.”

  “Well, she clearly doesn’t want to see you. Doesn’t that tell you anything?” I asked.

  “What did she say to you?” he asked angrily. “Did she tell you that I was abusive toward her or some kind of nonsense like that? The woman’s an artist. She exaggerates everything that comes out of her mouth.”

  “Well, she was pretty convincing when she came by my house this morning,” I said.

  Maddy finally pulled something out of her purse and pointed it at Kenny. It was her stun gun, and for once, I was glad she always had it on her. “Back off, Kenny. I don’t want to hit you with this, but I will if you push me.”

  Kenny looked at Maddy, took one step forward, and then casually jerked the weapon out of her hand. “Don’t point something dangerous at someone and then warn them about what you’re going to do,” he said. “What if I really were a bad guy, instead of a man just looking for his estranged wife?”

  “Give that back to me,” Maddy demanded. She looked shaken by how easily Kenny had disarmed her.

  “You’ll get it when we’re finished here,” he said, “and not a second sooner.”

  “I already told you,” I said. “We honestly don’t know where Samantha is.”

  That was when Kenny took another step toward Maddy.

  “Don’t shoot her with that!” I commanded.

  “I wasn’t going to,” Kenny said. He offered the stun gun to Maddy, who took it and jammed it back into her bag.

  In a softer voice, he said, “Contrary to what Samantha must have told you, I’m not some kind of monster. Go on. You can go.”

  Kenny stood there as we walked away, and I held my breath until we made it around the corner.

  The second we did, I turned to my sister. “Maddy, are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not, not even one little bit,” she said. “Can we leave my car here tonight? I want to ride back with you.”

  “Of course we can,” I said. I put my arm around her shoulders and felt the rigidity of her body next to mine. “Maddy, I couldn’t believe how fast he was when he grabbed that stun gun. He would have taken it from anyone.”

  “But he didn’t, did he? He took it from me like I was some kind of spoiled child with a toy. Eleanor, I’ve been putting my faith in my purse arsenal all these years, but I can see now that I was wrong to do it.”

  “You can’t beat yourself up about what just happened,” I said as we got into my car and headed to my house.

  Maddy was shaken more than I even realized.

  We drove in silence, and neither one of us was completely at ease until we were inside my place with all the doors and windows locked.

  “He was right
, you know,” Maddy finally said softly as I made us both some tea.

  “About what?”

  “I shouldn’t have warned him first. We felt threatened, and I should have zapped him when I had the chance. Worse yet, I saw him reaching for the stun gun, and I just stood there and let him take it from me like I was some kind of helpless fool. It’s not going to happen again. I can promise you that.”

  “It turned out okay, though. He wasn’t trying to hurt us,” I said.

  “But he could have had something a lot darker in mind than trying to get information out of us,” she answered. “In a way, Kenny did me a favor. He hurt my pride, but he taught me an important lesson by doing it.”

  “Can we just drop it and change the subject?” I asked as I handed her a mug.

  “What do you want to talk about? Samantha?”

  I shuddered a little as I said, “She has a reason to be afraid of him, doesn’t she?”

  “I’m not so sure,” Maddy said.

  “How can you say that after what just happened?” I asked my sister after I took a sip of tea. Its warmth was welcome after the chill I’d experienced outside the Slice earlier.

  “He was clearly agitated with Samantha and the two of us, but when he had us in a vulnerable position, his first reaction was to give my stun gun back to me. I’m not so sure that Kenny’s a bad guy, after all.”

  “Sure, he didn’t stun us both, but I’m not so sure that makes him okay in my book. As a matter of fact, I’m going to keep my eye on him more than ever.”

  “You do that,” Maddy said. “Where do you think Samantha is hiding?”

  “If she has any sense, she’s long gone,” I said. “We can’t plan on ever having the chance to talk to her again. We’re going to need to come up with another angle to pursue.”

  After taking a sip of her tea, Maddy said, “I think we should try to track Vivian down tomorrow before we open the Slice. She could very well hold the key to the whole thing. Hopefully, that part of her life has settled down enough for us to get a reasonable answer from her, thanks to Art.” When I didn’t reply, she asked, “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”