Shrimply Murder

by Patti Benning

  Candice nodded. “Is it okay if I pick up Felix too? I might want to stay with you guys for a couple of days.”

  “Of course, that’s fine.”

  Felix was Candice’s cat. He had stayed with Moira before and got along well with the dogs. She was more than happy to have her daughter and her cat stay with them for as long as the younger woman wanted to. She couldn’t imagine Candice wanting to be alone after what had happened… and come to think of it, it might not be safe for her to be alone.

  “I’ll call Detective Jefferson when we get back to the house,” David said. “He might have a better idea of what’s going on now, and I’m sure he’ll appreciate an update on Eli. Then we can all get some rest, and come back here in the morning.”

  Candice nodded. It seemed they had a plan.

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight by the time they were all back home and had showered, changed, and no longer smelled of smoke. Moira was exhausted, and she knew that her daughter must be too, but none of them was ready to go to bed just yet. There were still too many unanswered questions.

  “I’m going to call the hospital and see how he’s doing,” Candice said.

  “Okay,” David said. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to see if I can get in touch with Jefferson.”

  “I’ll make up the guest bedroom for you,” Moira volunteered. “We’ll all meet back here in a few minutes, okay?”

  They went their separate ways. The deli owner could hear the voices of her daughter and her husband in the other rooms. She hoped desperately that they both got good news. Their family could really use some just then.

  While her husband and daughter made their calls, she went upstairs to the guest bedroom and turned down the sheets in the bed. She fluffed the pillows, placed Felix’s litterbox, food, and water in the corner, and then opened the cat carrier and let the cat climb out onto the bed. She took a moment to run a hand down his back. He began purring and rolled over on the bed.

  “You’re a lucky little guy,” she said. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you? You’re just happy to be here.”

  She stroked the cat a couple more times, then left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She went into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water in case anyone wanted a cup of tea before bed. It was later than she usually stayed up, and she felt tired to her very bones. It had been a long day, and they were all in dire need of some rest.

  Her daughter was the first to return. She came into the kitchen and sat at table, gazing at her hands.

  “Any news?” Moira asked.

  “Not yet,” Candice said. “They said he’s still the same. I’m going to go back and see him tomorrow.”

  “Good. I’ll go with you if you’d like. I’m sure he will be okay. In a couple weeks’ time, you’ll both be at home and happier than ever.”

  Her daughter gave a weak smile. “Thanks, Mom.”

  David came into the room then. “It was arson,” he said. “They found traces of an accelerant around the building. Someone did this on purpose.”

  His words were a shock. At first, Moira felt the cold grip of fear, then unexpectedly she felt anger begin to boil inside her. Someone had set her daughter’s store on fire on purpose, and had nearly killed her son-in-law… and had killed someone else. Nothing would ever be able to make that right.

  “Do they have any leads yet?” she managed to say.

  Her husband shook his head. “They will be taking this very seriously,” he assured her. “Arson is a crime that is always high priority, and even more so since someone was killed. They’re not going to get away with it. He wants us to come in tomorrow for questioning. I think it would be best to do it on the way to the hospital, if that’s okay with you Candice.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I want to catch the person that did this is much as you do,” she said. “I’m sure Eli would understand us needing to stop there before visiting him.”

  Moira woke up the next morning to a ringing phone. She patted her nightstand, still half blind with sleep. She glanced at the time before answering it. It was past nine in the morning. Her late night seemed to have caught up with her.

  “Hello?” she said groggily.

  “Hi, Moira, it’s me, Denise,” her friend said. “Did I wake you?”

  “I was just getting up anyway,” Moira said. “Sorry, it was a late night.”

  “I’m sure it was. I can’t even imagine having to deal with something like that. If the Grill burned down, I would be devastated.”

  The deli owner sat up, holding back a yawn. She glanced over to the other side of the bed and saw that David was already up. He was gone, probably downstairs somewhere, hopefully figuring something out for breakfast. She was hungry. She realized that they never actually got around to eating the night before. Martha and Denise had been kind to put the food in the fridge so it hadn’t gone to waste, but eating had been the last thing on her mind when they had gotten home.

  “What happened to the candy shop?” her friend asked.

  Moira realized that no one else knew about Eli’s injury and Matt’s death yet. It had all happened so quickly, and they hadn’t even realized that the two young men were still there when they first got news of the fire. She felt suddenly nauseated; she would have to be the one to tell Denise that her ex-employee was now dead.

  “We haven’t seen the candy shop since they got the fire put out, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lost cause,” she said. “But Denise, something else happened. Eli and Matt were both in the building when the fire started.” She heard her friend take a sharp breath. “Eli is in the hospital, and Matt… Matt didn’t make it.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” her friend said. “Matt’s gone?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s so horrible, I know.”

  “Oh, no! He worked for me for almost a year. I can’t believe he’s gone. I’ll get in contact with his family and give them my condolences. But Eli, will he be okay?”

  “They stabilized him, but he’s currently in an induced coma. He suffered a head injury when part of the building collapsed, and they’re worried about swelling doing further damage. We’re going to go see him this morning—speaking of which, I had better get going. David and Candice will be probably ready to go by now.”

  “Of course. I’m so sorry. I had no idea about any of this. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I will,” Moira said. “And thank you, Denise. I’m so sorry about Matt.”

  “So am I,” her friend said. “He was a good kid, and he didn’t deserve this.”

  Moira was right when she said her family was ready to go. David had reheated some of the leftovers from dinner the night before, and she had a quick breakfast before hurrying back upstairs to get dressed. Within half an hour she, Candice, and David were on their way. Her daughter had called the hospital earlier that morning to check on Eli, and had been told that there was no change in his status. They were still planning on stopping at the police station first, even though Moira could tell that her daughter was itching to go and see her husband.

  At the Maple Creek Police Department, Detective Jefferson was waiting for them and brought them back to his office as soon as they showed up. He got down to business right away.

  “As I’m sure your husband told you, we did find traces of accelerant at the candy shop. It was rather crudely done—the arsonist used gasoline to get the fire started—but it was effective. The specialists are trying to determine the starting point of the fire. The building is still smoldering, and it’s not safe for the men to sort through the wreckage yet. How is Eli doing?”

  Candice updated him on his condition. He gave her his condolences. “If—when—he does wake up, please let me know immediately so I can speak with him. His testimony could help us catch the arsonist.”

  “Is the candy shop a lost cause?” David asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes. It’s been almost comp
letely destroyed. What is left will be too unstable to be used safely. Best to completely rebuild. I’m assuming you had insurance on it?”

  Candice nodded.

  “Good”, he said. “With luck, your insurance will cover it. However, the money should be the least of your concerns now. Whoever did this might have been targeting you specifically. I think it would be foolish to act as if this was some sort of coincidence or random act,” he said.

  “I just don’t understand why someone would do this,” Moira said. “It seems so extreme. If someone had some sort of issue with my daughter, surely we would know about it before it escalated to something like this.”

  “We’re going to be looking at all of the possibilities, Ms. Darling,” Detective Jefferson assured her. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see all three of you together. It may not be your daughter that was the target. Can you think of any enemies that you or David may have? I know that David’s work sometimes puts him in contact with, well, less than savory people.”

  He referred to David’s primary job as a private investigator. Moira had experienced some of the fallout from his career firsthand, but had never thought that David’s job might affect her daughter in any way. She could see by the look on her husband’s face that he hated the idea as well.

  “I haven’t had any major cases recently,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone that would resort to an act like this to get back at me.”

  Detective Jefferson nodded. “You never know how someone will react. I want all three of you to think, and think deeply, about any encounters out of the ordinary you might have had recently. We need to find the person who did this. We don’t know who their target was, and if the target was one of you, they might decide to come back and try again. And next time, they might succeed.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  It was odd how quickly something so terrible could become normal. Despite everything that was going on—losing the candy shop, Eli’s being in the hospital, and knowing that the arsonist was still out there somewhere—life kept on. By Wednesday, Moira was back at the deli, trying to work as if nothing had happened, and Candice had moved back into the house that she and Eli shared. Moira felt bad to be carrying on and living her normal life, but what else could she do? She had to keep the deli running, she had to go grocery shopping, and sitting around wouldn’t help anyone.

  The next day she had the morning shift at the deli, which meant that she got out at one. With David at his office and Candice at the hospital visiting Eli as she did every day, she had the rest of the day in front of her with no commitments. She knew for sure that there was one thing that she did not want to do, and that was go to Lake Marion. She had passed the site of the candy shop a couple of times, and seeing the ruined building always made her feel ill.

  When she got a call from Denise asking if they could meet somewhere for lunch, she agreed. Seeing her friend would hopefully make her feel better, and besides that, Denise was a sharp, intelligent woman. She might have an idea of who could have done this. She knew the people of the two towns as well as anybody, since almost everyone local went to the Grill for their special evenings out.

  They met at a diner on the way out of town for some much-needed comfort food. Moira was glad that she’d taken the chance to see her friend. It felt good to be doing something other than sitting around and worrying.

  “How are things going? Denise asked.

  “There hasn’t really been anything new one way or the other,” she said. “The doctor should be making a decision on Eli today. If the swelling in his brain hasn’t gone down, they might be moving him to a different hospital that can care for him better. Other than that, nothing new. What about you? Distract me! I’d love to think about something—anything—other than what’s been going on in my life.”

  “Of course,” her friend said. “What do you want to hear about?”

  “How are things going with Julian?”

  Her friend sighed. “After everything you’ve been going through, it sounds petty, but my life is terrible right now. I cannot stand him. He has an opinion on everything, and it’s always the opposite of mine. Do you know that when Matt left, he got upset! He got mad that some nineteen-year-old kid who waited tables decided to leave my restaurant. The kid just wanted better hours. How could he get mad about that? And he’s been changing some of my recipes. I mean, they taste great, but that’s not the point. It’s my kitchen, not his.”

  “It sounds of the two of you just don’t get along very well. Can’t you let him go?”

  “That’s the thing. He’s good for business. We’ve been more successful than ever since he started working there. If I did let him go, he would just go and work somewhere else and, knowing him, he would bad-mouth the Grill.”

  “You shouldn’t be intimidated into keeping someone on if you don’t like them,” Moira said. “It doesn’t seem worth it. I wouldn’t want to work around an employee that I had issues with day in and day out.”

  “Well, you run a small, family-friendly shop,” Denise said. “It’s not the same as a big restaurant. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, don’t get me wrong. Your deli is amazing, but it’s a different beast from the Redwood Grill completely. Even though I own the restaurant, the chefs really make it what it is. He really is an excellent chef. He’s got a way with food that even Hector didn’t have. How can I fire him, when he’s the best chef I’ve ever had, just because I don’t like the way he talks back to me? A personality clash isn’t a good enough reason to get rid of someone who’s so good for the restaurant.” She groaned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining, not after everything that’s happened to you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Moira said. “I asked if we could talk about something else, and this is definitely something else. Why was he mad about Matt leaving?”

  “He said that the candy shop was poaching our employees, which is just ridiculous. Matt just wanted to work different hours, the candy shop was perfect for him. I told him that I like Candice and I wouldn’t hear anything else bad about her, and that ended it. He seethed for a couple of days, but I think it’s blown over now. You know what, why don’t you and David come out to eat sometime while he’s working there. You can meet him and tell me what you think. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive.”

  “Okay, we will. I trust your judgment though. But I stick by what I said. The stress isn’t worth having him work for you.”

  “I know, and I agree, it’s just that—is that Martha’s boyfriend?”

  The deli owner turned her head to follow her friend’s gaze. Sure enough, she saw the yellow-haired man her friend was dating standing in the parking lot next to his car. He was leaning casually against the vehicle with his arms crossed, looking bored. Moira was about to wave at him through the window when another vehicle pulled up and partially blocked her view. She squinted, just able to see the driver roll down his window to talk to Dominic. After a moment, they exchanged something, then the second man drove away. A few seconds later, Martha’s boyfriend got back into his car and left as well.

  Moira exchanged a glance with Denise. “What was that all about?”

  “I have no idea,” her friend said, frowning. “It seemed a little bit, well, shady.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought so. I’ve always had a weird feeling about the guy. Do you know much about him?”

  “No,” Denise said. “I’ve only met him a couple of times, and once was at the barbecue with you. I get a weird feeling about him too. He doesn’t seem like someone Martha would normally be with, but she seems to be totally smitten with him.”

  “Maybe we need to have some sort of intervention,” Moira said, only half joking. Over the past few years, she had learned just how accurate her gut feelings about someone could be. She didn’t want to interfere in her friend’s dating life too much, but if her safety was at stake, she wouldn’t hesitate.

  “Maybe we do. Once your life calms down
we can have another barbecue. We’ll have all the guys over and see if David can get anything out of Dominic. He’s a private investigator, after all. He should do some investigating.”

  “Good idea,” Moira said. “I’ll have him look into the guy sooner rather than later. You never know, maybe something will turn up, then we would have something solid to show Martha.”

  “Only if it’s really bad,” her friend said. “We do have to respect the fact that she’s an adult and can make her own choices. He makes her happy, and if he’s a halfway decent person, we shouldn’t interfere.”

  “Agreed,” Moira said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  Moira had always found cooking to be therapeutic, so the next evening, when David called to say that he would be staying late at the brewery and she knew that Candice would be at the hospital visiting Eli, she decided to stay late at the deli and experiment. There were a couple of new recipes on her list to try, and there was one in particular that she wanted to get out before the end of summer since it was served cold. Cold dishes were never popular in the winter, so if she didn’t get it out soon, she would have to wait until next year.

  Once the deli was empty of everyone but her and the doors were securely locked for the evening, she went to the kitchen and turned up the radio, already tuned in to her favorite station. Once the music was playing, she gathered the ingredients from the pantry, fridge, and freezer.

  She began by preheating the oven, then filled one of their large copper-bottomed pots with water. She added a dash of salt and a little bit of olive oil, then left it to begin boiling while she diced the scallions, parsley, cucumber, and celery. She drizzled lemon juice over the mixture and tossed it, ensuring the vegetables would stay fresh while she finished the rest of the salad.