Beef Brisket Murder: Book 11 in The Darling Deli Series

by Patti Benning

  It was getting dark out by the time she decided to call it a day. The basement wasn’t completely cleaned out, but at least it was organized and there was more floor space than before. She planned to let Candice use the basement if she ever needed storage space, and would also store her own winter clothes down here after she replenished her wardrobe.

  “You’re still after that crawlspace, aren’t you?” she asked Maverick when he trotted towards the back of the basement instead of going upstairs when she told them they were done. The big brown and black dog ignored her, putting his paws up on the ledge and giving a whine as he stared into the dark space. Keeva was close behind him, and with her additional height she managed to get the entire upper half of her body into the dark space. Another low whine echoed back to Moira’s ears. She bit back a sigh; she wasn’t a fan of tight spaces, and hadn’t brought her flashlight down with her, but there was obviously something in there that was of interest to the dogs. She had never ventured into a crawlspace before, and she imagined it would be dirty, dusty, and full of cobwebs. Yet the German shepherd and the Irish wolfhound both seemed adamant that there was something in it. With her luck, a possum or a raccoon had gotten in somehow, and she would come back to find the freshly cleaned basement in ruins if she didn’t shoo it out tonight. She would at least investigate—Maverick had proven over and over again that he had good instincts, and she wasn’t going to start doubting him now.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said. “I better not get jumped by an angry raccoon.”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight app. If it was an animal that Maverick was after, she was sure the light would be enough to catch the reflection of its eyes. Then she didn’t know what she would do—call David, probably. There was no way she was going to try to get a wild animal out of the crawlspace on her own.

  She told Maverick to move aside, then leaned into the space. It was about chest height, a hole cut into the side of her Michigan basement. The floor of the crawlspace was dirt, with chunks of broken cement blocks and the odd bit of building material discarded during the construction of the house. Moira shone her light around, passing it over cobwebs, mouse droppings, and old candy wrappers, but she could see nothing that Maverick would be so interested in.

  She was just about to turn around and tell the dog to go upstairs when something caught her eye. A pale white something was sticking up out of the dirt, something that looked like a bone. And those stringy things that she had taken for plant roots—could that be hair? She leaned further in, taking a closer look and holding her phone with its weak flashlight in front of her. As the contour of a human skull revealed itself, half-buried in the rocky dirt of the crawlspace, Moira stumbled backwards, her teeth biting into her tongue painfully as she tripped over Maverick. She landed heavily on the floor, which sent a second sharp pain through her tailbone. She didn’t pause to take stock of her injuries as she scrambled to her feet, hurried up the stairs, and pulled up the number for the Maple Creek Police Station on her phone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  She waited at the front door, heart in her throat. Doubts had been plaguing her ever since she called. Had she really found a human body in her basement? It was just possible that she had mistaken it for something else, right? Animal bones, perhaps, and a tangle of roots around an unfortunately shaped rock. She had been tempted to go back down and double-check before wasting police time, but she couldn’t quite get up the courage. Besides, if it really was a human body—and if she was being honest with herself, she was relatively certain that it was—then disturbing the scene even more than she already had was a bad idea.

  The police cars came with no sirens, but with flashing lights, which lit up the little clearing that her house sat in. She wondered if the neighbors could see the red and blue lights through the trees, and hoped they couldn’t. Anyone would worry if neighbors were frequently visited by the police. The last time her house had been visited by police, it had been because of a break-in. Her neighbors had all received warnings in case the burglar decided to try their houses next. Now a dead body was in her basement; if her neighbors caught wind of this, they might start to talk. She didn’t want to be known as a troublemaker, not after having only lived here for a few months.

  “Good evening, Ms. Darling,” said the head detective as he approached her through the wet grass. “I was starting to wonder when you would call again.”

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” she replied with a weak smile. “I hope I didn’t call you out here for nothing.”

  Detective Jefferson was a man a decade or so younger than she was who had investigated a lot of the incidents that had plagued Moira for the last year. She had been a suspect in a murder the first time they had met, but as time went on the two of them had built a tentative friendship. His partner, on the other hand, was a different story.

  “Ms. Darling,” said Detective Wilson in her usual curt greeting, joining Jefferson on the porch. The female detective was professional, but always seemed suspicious of Moira. She supposed that, given her frequent involvement in crimes in their small town, it was an understandable reaction from the other woman, but she much preferred Detective Jefferson’s friendliness.

  “Thanks for the quick response,” Moira told them. She was still shaken up by her discovery in the basement, but felt a lot better now that other people were here. They would handle it. “I put the dogs in the other room, so you don’t have to worry about them. Come on in.”

  She led them down into the basement, doing her best to ignore her churning stomach. Flicking on the dim lights, she pointed them over to the crawlspace, but held back herself as their bright flashlights cut through the darkness. Jefferson said something to Wilson that she couldn’t hear, and the female detective unclipped her radio from her belt and put it to her mouth. Jefferson turned back towards the deli owner.

  “You made the right call, Ms. Darling. The remains are human. I’m going to have to bring my men in here to take the body out and gather evidence. It’ll take a few hours. I’ll need to ask you some questions, but after that you’re free to go or stick around, whichever you please, just as long as you keep out of the way of the forensics team.”

  “Okay,” she told him. “I’ll go make some coffee, I guess. You and your men are welcome to have some too.” She shot one last uneasy look at the dark crawlspace before heading up the stairs and into the light and cleanliness of the kitchen.

  With the rich scent of brewing coffee filling the house, she began to feel better. She had seen dead bodies before, of course, but never corpses so long dead that they were nearly skeletons. Was that all that was bothering her, or was it the fact that she had been sleeping in this house for months with a corpse in the crawlspace? She wondered if her little stone house held any other dark secrets. The thought made her shiver, and she turned her attention back to the coffee. It was best that she had something to do, even if it was as simple as pouring cups of hot joe for the detectives who would soon be coming to talk to her.

  “Did you touch or move anything near the body before calling us?” Jefferson asked once she had told him how she had found the body in the crawlspace because Maverick wouldn’t leave it alone.

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I know enough about police work to know that that would have been a bad idea. I did clean out the rest of the basement, though. I put almost everything in garbage bags, and tossed them into the dumpster. I hope I didn’t throw away any evidence.”

  “I’m sure the forensics team will want to go through the bags just in case,” he told her. “Thanks for being cooperative. This can’t have been pleasant for you.”

  “It was definitely a shock,” she said with a shudder. “I was expecting a raccoon or something—not a dead body. Do you have any idea who the person was or what happened to them?”

  “We’ll have to see if we can find a match with dental records to identify the victim,” he explained. “Right now all we know
is that she was female, and likely a young adult. As far as what happened, well, the evidence points to a violent death. I really can’t tell you any more than that, other than that this crime was committed at least ten years ago, and possibly even longer. I don’t think you’re in any danger, but it might still be a good idea for you to keep mum about this until the investigation draws to a close. If it becomes public knowledge that the body was found, and the killer is still around, then they might decide to make a run for it before we find them.”

  “I understand, and I promise to keep it quiet. Do you think you’ll be able to find out what happened after so long?”

  He hesitated.

  “To be honest, cold cases like this can be hard to solve. Identifying her should go a long way towards finding the killer, though. If any of her family is in town, they might be able to tell us the circumstances of her disappearance and maybe if there was anyone acting suspicious at the time. On the other hand, if she was from out of town and has no family to speak of, things will be more difficult. Who knows, we might get lucky—once the killer realizes she’s been found, he might be so overcome with guilt that he turns himself in.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That’s a long shot, but it does happen more than you’d think. Guilt is a powerful motivator.”

  “I hope that happens,” she said. “It would be a nice to have such a quick, easy resolution. I know I’m going to be dreaming of this poor girl for days.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The forensics team finished up late that night. Detectives Jefferson and Wilson assured her that it was all right for her to use the basement, but gave her strict instructions to contact them if she happened to find anything at all that might be evidence. She went to bed too exhausted to spend much time thinking about her crazy day, but woke up the next morning itching to tell David what had happened. She decided to invite him over for an early lunch, and tell him in person about the dead woman she had found in the basement.

  With a few hours of morning to kill before he got there, she began designing a new soup recipe for the deli. David was a great taste tester of new soups because he would try anything, and she could always gauge from his facial expression if he liked it or not. Candice, on the other hand, tended to be reluctant to taste some of Moira’s more imaginative creations. Probably because I made her try some of my more questionable dishes back when I was first learning to cook, Moira thought. Poor girl.

  The recipe that she wanted to try was a beef brisket soup that she had ordered in a Chinese restaurant years ago. She had fallen in love with the flavors, and had even gotten a second bowl to go, but hadn’t thought to try cooking it herself until recently. Serving exotic dishes at the deli was always a gamble, and she still wasn’t sure how her customers would feel about the addition of fruit to an otherwise savory soup.

  She started by cubing the beef brisket, ignoring the hopeful looks from the two dogs who were sitting patiently a few feet away. Last night, after the police had left, both of them had run around the house, sniffing at all of the new scents. They had settled down quickly though, and had been more than happy to fall asleep on their beds in Moira’s room. She was glad for their company—their conversational skills weren’t the best, but they definitely kept her from feeling alone.

  The beef cut, she parboiled the cubes and then added them to her slow cooker along with a few cups of water and a few cubes of beef bouillon. When cooking for her customers at the deli, she preferred to use all-natural broths instead of bouillon, but for now, this would have to do. She turned the cooker on to its high setting, then got to work on the next step while the water boiled.

  Once she’d cut the tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions, apples, and oranges into small cubes, she tossed the mixture with lemon juice in a glass bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge. Then she turned the slow cooker to low, and washed her hands. The beef would take a couple of hours to cook, and she wouldn’t be adding the fruits and veggies until it was nearly done, so she had some spare time to clean up before David got there.

  “I hate to say it, you two, but I think I’m going to have to get the floor cleaner out,” she said to the dogs, her hands on her hips as she frowned at the floor between the front door and the basement. Last night, nearly twenty officers and technicians had tramped in and out of her house in muddy shoes. They had tried to keep things clean for her, but after it had rained all day, trying to keep mud out of the house had been a losing battle.

  Both dogs regarded the floor cleaner as their mortal enemy, so she locked them both in the mudroom. With soft dog beds, fresh water, and chew toys, the room was far from uncomfortable for them, and it would keep them off the floor while they dried. Last time she had made the mistake of letting them out right away, and she had been able to see doggy footprints on the hardwood floors all week.

  After a couple of passes with the floor cleaner, which used a combination of steam and spinning brushes to get every last speck of dirt up, the floors were as good as new and it was time to get back to work on the soup that she was making for her and David’s lunch.

  She went over to the counter to check the beef brisket in the slow cooker, which was already starting to smell amazing. Satisfied that it was nearly done, she grabbed the bowl of veggies out of the fridge, dumped them into the cooker, gave it a stir, then added some cooking wine and ginger powder. She would use fresh ginger when she made this dish at the deli, but didn’t have the same stock of fresh ingredients at her house.

  A dash of salt and pepper, then all that was left to do was wait for it to finish cooking. As soon as the veggies softened, it would be ready to eat—hopefully just as David was getting there.

  ***

  “There’s fruit in it?” he asked doubtfully as Moira ladled some of the beef brisket soup into a bowl for him. Keeva and Maverick, who had been squirming with happiness since he pulled up the driveway, leaned adoringly against his legs, basking in his attention.

  “Apples and oranges,” she told him brightly. “I know it sounds weird, but trust me: you’re in for a treat. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.”

  “Well, you haven’t steered me wrong yet. And I can’t deny that it smells amazing.” He gave the dogs one last pat, then waded past them and took a seat at her kitchen table. She sat across from him with her own bowl of soup, and watched expectantly as he sipped cautiously at a spoonful of broth.

  “Okay, that is pretty good,” he admitted with a rueful grin. “I should never doubt you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” she said, with a grin of her own.

  “So, what is it that you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “You sounded worried on the phone. Is everything all right?”

  Moira took a deep breath and, setting down her spoon, proceeded to tell him about the events of the evening before. A few sentences into her tale, David put down his spoon to concentrate on her story. When she finished, the private investigator looked astounded.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were pulling my leg,” he said. “A body? In your basement’s crawlspace? That sounds like something out of a horror movie.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen her myself.” Moira shuddered at the memory. “There’s a huge difference between seeing the body of someone who has recently passed away, and seeing someone like her, who has been down there for years, maybe even decades. In a way it’s worse. I keep thinking of this poor girl’s family, holding out hope all this time while she’s been dead. It’s horrible.”

  “I know.” He gave her hand a gentle touch. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

  “So am I. But I’m also glad that I found her, because maybe now she’ll get justice,” said the deli owner. “Though Detective Jefferson didn’t seem too hopeful about finding her killer when I asked him about it.”

  “It’s true that old cases like these can be hard to solve,” David said. “It can be hard to get anything stronger than circumstantial ev
idence, and that isn’t enough for a conviction. Now, if someone reported the girl missing and there was an investigation previously, then they might have some luck, especially if they collected physical evidence at the time. I’ll do some digging and see if there’s any information in old police reports that I can dig up.”

  “I hope that’s the case this time,” she said. “I can’t bear the thought of her killer getting away with it. He’s already had all of these years of freedom after taking her life from her. He doesn’t deserve to spend one more second out of prison. I know Detective Jefferson won’t be able to share information with me, but you hear stuff from your friends at the station sometimes. Will you tell me if you hear anything about this case?”

  “Sure, as long as you promise to stay uninvolved.”

  “Of course,” Moira said. “I know it might not seem that way, but I really have no desire to jump right into the middle of a murder investigation.”

  David smirked. “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s the truth,” she said, pretending to be offended. “I like a nice, calm, quiet life.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll believe that when I see it. I’m not sure if this has occurred to you, but…” He hesitated. “Well, chances are whoever lived here previously had something to do with this girl’s murder.”

  “I thought of that,” Moira admitted, biting her lip. “I really don’t like the thought of living in a murderer’s house. It just feels wrong somehow. But it’s not like I can move again, not after all of the money I’ve put into this place.”

  “It really is a beautiful house. It would be a shame to give it up, but if you’re going to be uncomfortable here, there’s no point in staying. Are you sure you aren’t too freaked out by all of this? I worry about you here alone sometimes.”

  “I know.” She smiled over at him. “But I’m fine, really. I mean, I won’t be going into the basement alone in the dark any time soon, but I feel perfectly comfortable up here. And I’m not really alone, not with the dogs.”