Mozzarella and Murder

by Patti Benning

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  MOZZARELLA AND MURDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mozzarella

  and

  Murder

  Book Thirteen

  in

  Papa Pacelli’s

  Pizzeria Series

  By

  Patti Benning

  Copyright © 2017 Summer Prescott

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  Copyright 2017 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  Author’s Note: On the next page, you’ll find out how to access all of my books easily, as well as locate books by best-selling author, Summer Prescott. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my books, the storylines, and anything else that you’d like to comment on – reader feedback is very important to me. Please see the following page for my publisher’s contact information. If you’d like to be on her list of “folks to contact” with updates, release and sales notifications, etc…just shoot her an email and let her know. Thanks for reading!

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONEhere

  CHAPTER TWOhere

  CHAPTER THREEhere

  CHAPTER FOURhere

  CHAPTER FIVEhere

  CHAPTER SIXhere

  CHAPTER SEVENhere

  CHAPTER EIGHThere

  CHAPTER NINEhere

  CHAPTER TENhere

  CHAPTER ELEVENhere

  CHAPTER TWELVEhere

  CHAPTER THIRTEENhere

  CHAPTER FOURTEENhere

  CHAPTER FIFTEENhere

  MOZZARELLA AND

  MURDER

  Book Thirteen In Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria Series

  CHAPTER ONE

  *

  “She still isn’t answering.” Eleanora Pacelli passed the phone to her grandmother. “Can you hand me this if she calls back? I want to pick up the animals on the way home, but I don’t want to just show up if she isn’t expecting us.”

  “Do you think something happened?” Nonna asked. “It’s been a while since we’ve heard from her. I hope the animals are okay.”

  “Me too.”

  Ellie gripped the steering wheel, trying to ignore the anxiety that was gnawing at her. She hadn’t heard from their pet sitter for nearly three days. She hadn’t been worried at first—cellphone service could be spotty all the way in the middle of nowhere on the northern coast of Maine, and she knew a storm had recently blown through the area. It wasn’t until today, when they were boarding the plane that would bring them home from Florida, that she had begun to get nervous.

  Now that they were on their way home from the airport in Portland, she began to wonder if something was seriously wrong. Had something happened to the sitter… or to their pets? They would be arriving in Kittiport in just over an hour, and the original plan had been to stop on their way home to pick up the animals, her little black and white papillon, Bunny, and her grandfather’s greenwing macaw, Marlowe. It wouldn’t be the same at home without them, and besides, she would have to pay for another night of pet setting if she waited to pick them up until tomorrow. They had originally planned the pickup today with the pet sitter, but she wasn’t sure what she should do now that the woman wasn’t answering. Would it be rude to just drop by anyway?

  “It’s ringing,” Nonna said, handing her back her phone. Keeping her eyes on the road, Ellie answered it with one hand and pressed it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ellie,” a familiar voice said.

  “Hey, Russ.” It was the first time that Ellie had ever been disappointed to hear the sheriff’s voice. If only Samantha would call her back, then she could quit worrying and simply enjoy being home.

  “I just wanted to make sure that you and your grandmother got off the plane safely. Did the flight go smoothly?”

  “Everything went just fine,” Ellie said. “It was sad to leave Florida, but I’m glad to be back. It will be wonderful to get home.”

  “Have you heard from the pet sitter yet? Do you think you’ll be able to get the animals before going to the house?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know what I should do. Do you think it would be rude to stop by without talking to her first?”

  “No, not if you had planned to stop there after your flight and she knows that you’re going to be there. You know how spotty service can be up here, she’s probably expecting you, but just can’t get through. Do you want me to meet you there just in case?”

  Ellie frowned. If Russell was offering to meet them there, that meant that he thought that there was a chance that something was seriously wrong. The thought wasn’t comforting.

  “No,” she said at last. “I think we’ll be fine. She probably just hasn’t been able to get through, like you said. Thanks for the offer, though. I’ll let you know everything’s fine once we have the animals.”

  “Okay. I’m sure she’ll be waiting at the door for you. Do you want me to come by tonight? I can bring dinner for the three of us if you want—pizza?”

  “That would be wonderful,” she replied.

  She hung up, slightly mollified at the thought that she would be seeing Russell that night. It had only been a week since she had last seen him, but it felt like it had been ages. She would see Russell tonight, then tomorrow she would go in to Papa Pacelli’s, the pizzeria that her grandfather had opened twenty years ago. She was eager to see how her employees had gotten along without her. According to them, everything had gone smoothly, but she wouldn’t fully believe that until she saw it with her own eyes.

  “Russell thinks that we should just stop by the pet sitter’s house even if we don’t hear from her,” she said to her grandmother. “So, I guess that’s what we’re going to do. I’m sure everything is fine. In just a couple of hours, all four of us will be relaxing at home.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, dear,” Nonna said. She fell silent and looked out the window for a few minutes before speaking again. “You know, it’s nice to be home.”

  “Yes, it is,” Ellie said. It did feel good to have the familiar landscape around her. Even the air smelled different than it had in Florida. She h
adn’t realized just how homesick she had been until she had stepped out of the Portland airport.

  She knew that her grandmother was still considering renting a condo part time in Florida, but the key word was part time. She was glad that Nonna would always be coming home to Maine. No matter how much she’d liked her vacation, she didn’t think that she wanted to move anytime soon, and she couldn’t imagine that her grandmother would want to leave her hometown permanently, either. Kittiport was the place where they would both always return.

  They pulled into Samantha’s driveway nearly an hour later, both of them tired and very ready to be on their way home. Ellie heard a familiar yapping coming from inside, and felt a rush of relief. Bunny, at least, was okay. She would recognize her dog’s bark anywhere.

  Nonna waited in the car while she got out and walked up the front porch to knock on the door. She waited for a moment, then knocked again. There was no answer, except for Bunny’s yapping and, a moment later, a loud screech. It sounds like Marlowe is fine, too, she thought. But where is Samantha? There was a car in the driveway, but no sign of anyone being in the house. Frowning, Ellie knocked for a third time, pounding on the door much harder than she had before. Still, nothing.

  “Samantha?” she called “Are you there?”

  There was no reply. Ellie hesitated for only a second, before reaching for the doorknob. Her dog was inside; she couldn’t just walk away.

  The doorknob turned, but the door itself seemed to be stuck on something. Ellie put her shoulder to it and pushed, and managed to open it just enough for a little black and white ball of fur to slip through the crack.

  “Bunny!” she exclaimed, lunging for the dog, terrified that she would run into the road. Luckily, the papillon seemed too excited to see her to consider running away. She was bouncing around Ellie’s legs, her little tail wagging so fast it was a blur. She knelt down and scooped the dog up. Bunny squirmed in her arms, licking her frantically. She smelled terrible, her nose was dry, and she felt much lighter than she had when Ellie had dropped her off. She knew immediately that something was seriously wrong.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  She hurried back down to the car and handed Bunny to her grandmother through the passenger side window. “Here, you take her. I need to go and see what’s going on.”

  She returned to the front porch and eventually managed to get the door shoved open enough for her to go inside. She slipped through, then nearly tripped over her own feet as she realized what she had just stepped over.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said, pressing her hands to her mouth. The pet sitter’s body was slouched against the front door. There was a dark smear on the doorknob, and another dark smudge partway down the door. She wasn’t any sort of expert, but she thought that the body had been there for a few days at least. The house smelled terrible, and she tried not to gag as she stumbled even further back from the body.

  “Hi!”

  The word had come from only feet away. Ellie screamed and whirled around to come face to face with a red parrot in a big cage. It took her a moment to catch her breath and slow her pounding heart down enough that she could speak.

  “Hi, Marlowe,” she managed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  She noticed the empty food dish and the slimy water bowl in the bird’s cage, along with the smattering of bare spots across the bird’s chest where she had plucked out her own feathers. The sight made her heart ache, and she knew that she had gotten there just in time for the animals, even if she hadn’t made it in time to save the pet sitter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  *

  Ellie knew that she should leave the house. Every second she stayed, she was disturbing evidence. However, the thought of leaving Marlowe was hard. Even harder was the knowledge that to leave the home, she would have to step around the dead body again, at least if she wanted to go through the front door.

  The gate out back has a lock on it, she thought, remembering her tour from the week before. The pet sitter had a tall fence with padlocked gates to prevent someone from leaving the gate open accidentally—or worse, from stealing one of the dogs while they were outside. That concession to safety had been one of the reasons that Ellie had chosen this pet sitter. That, and the fact that Samantha worked at the local veterinary clinic. If anything went wrong, Ellie had thought that she would be able to handle it. Except for this, she thought, unable to tear her gaze away from the dead woman. She was going to have to go past her again. It was the only way out.

  Bracing herself, Ellie stepped carefully around the woman’s body, trying not to look too much at the dark smudges of blood on the door. She slipped outside, ignoring the macaw’s loud screech behind her. She hated leaving Marlowe alone in there, but she knew that right now the most important thing was for her to call the police.

  Her grandmother rolled down the passenger side window as she approached, keeping a tight grip on the dog in her lap. “What happened?” she asked. “This little dog is skin and bones. Ellie, what’s going on?”

  “The pet sitter… she’s dead,” Ellie said, hardly believing it even as she said it.

  Her grandmother was shocked into silence. She tightened her grip on Bunny, and rummaged around with her other hand until she found Ellie’s cellphone, which she handed to her. Ellie’s fingers were shaking as she dialed the familiar number.

  “Hey, did you get the thing with the pet sitter sorted out?” he asked when he answered the call.

  “Russell, you have to get down here right away. I went inside, I didn’t know I would find her dead. Her body is right in front of the door. It’s so horrible. We have Bunny in the car, but Marlowe is still inside. I don’t know what to do. Please, hurry.” She knew that she was speaking too quickly, but couldn’t seem to stop her tongue from tripping over itself.

  “I’ll grab Liam and we’ll head right over,” he said, grasping the situation despite her frantic words. “Don’t touch anything else. Are you sure that she’s dead?”

  Ellie wondered if he was trying to decide whether to call an ambulance or the coroner. “Yes. She is. She’s… she’s been there for a few days.”

  “Ah. Okay. We’ll hurry. You two just sit tight. Ellie… It’ll be okay.”

  He hung up. She slid the phone into her pocket and walked around to the driver’s door, still feeling stunned. She pulled the door open and sat down in the car. After a moment, Bunny wriggled away from her grandmother and climbed into her lap. She patted the dog, feeling her heart ache, both for the animals that had been forced to go for days without any care, and for the pet sitter. Poor Marlowe was still inside. She hoped that the bird wasn’t too traumatized. The poor thing had witnessed both her grandfather’s death, and now this young woman’s passing. It must have left an impact, especially on an animal as intelligent as the parrot was.

  While they waited, Ellie let Bunny lap up some water from her water bottle. She was glad that they had stopped by when they did. If they had decided to go home and wait for the pet sitter to get back to them, there was no telling what would have happened to the animals. What had happened to the poor woman? She remembered the smudge of blood on the doorknob. That must have been where she had hit her head, but how had she fallen? She must have tripped over something.

  Ellie looked down at the little dog in her lap. What if Samantha had tripped over Bunny, and that had been what killed her? The thought made her feel ill, and she pushed it away. She wanted Russell to get there and tell her it would all be okay. He was the one that knew how to deal with situations like this, not her.

  She heard the sirens before she saw the flashing lights come around the corner. It was wonderful to see the familiar sheriff’s truck approaching them, thought it wasn’t quite how she had imagined their reunion would be.

  Russell pulled into the driveway, closely followed by his deputy, Liam, in another cruiser. Ellie handed Bunny back to her grandmother and rushed forward to meet him. The sheriff pulled her into a strong hug,
and she felt herself relax, just slightly. Despite everything, it was wonderful to see him again. With another mysterious death, it looked like her return to Kittiport promised to be anything but boring.

  CHAPTER THREE

  *

  The sheriff pulled back after a moment and looked her up and down. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “But that poor woman, Russell. How could something like this have happened?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” he said firmly. “Do you have keys to the place?”

  “No. When she didn’t answer, I tried the door. It was unlocked. She’s… she’s just inside.”

  He nodded, turned to Liam, and began giving orders. The coroner’s van pulled up alongside the curb while he was speaking and the men inside unloaded a gurney. Ellie, however, had eyes only for Russell. He was dressed more nicely than usual—a dark blue button-down shirt, black slacks, shiny black loafers. She wondered what sort of event he had come from. She was out of the loop from having been gone for an entire week, and she had no idea where he might have been.

  She waited outside while he and Liam investigated the house. She heard Marlowe screech when they went in, then heard the bird’s cheerful “Hi!” when she realized that she knew one of the men walking through the door. Ellie’s heart began to ache again for the poor animals. They must have been so frightened and confused.

  After Liam had thoroughly documented the scene with photos, the coroners’ technicians took the body away. Ellie looked away when they pushed the gurney outside. While the van pulled away, Russell came and stood next Ellie. “I have just a few questions,” he said. “Do you want to do this now, or do you need to get home? I could come over in a little while if you need some time.”