A note to Dolores warning her away. A message to stay away from the Russo family.
I turned to my laptop and opened up the browser, then set to researching. Both Sal and Mario were clean of criminal records, apart from what looked to be a minor misdemeanor in Mario’s past—petty theft.
Bella was next. She was beautiful, a model, but clean as well.
Dolores didn’t bring up any information, apart from a social media page for the bakery.
This was hopeless.
Spiders. Russo. Poison. Two dead. Bakery? Dolores. Mario inherited the pizzeria. Francesca wanted to meet with me.
Dolores and the bakery didn’t seem to fit, somehow, not into the text from the gang, nor the warning, but she had been threatened herself.
I lifted the letter again, put it down.
Spiders. Russo.
I typed in the two words together, but pulled up nothing, apart from a tagged picture from another social media platform. I clicked on it.
The picture showed Sal and Mario together, their arms around each other’s shoulders. They were significantly younger, too, and bore massive grins. Something about the picture called to me, but I couldn’t quite place what it was.
I read the caption.
Throwback Thursday with my cousin, Sal. Never forget this day. Got my tattoo!
And underneath that was a comment from Sal himself dated a two weeks ago.
This is not a good memory, Mario. Untag me.
Why wasn’t it a good memory? And a tattoo? I scanned Mario and spotted it. A small blotch on the back of his hand. My heart skipped a beat. I downloaded the photo, opened it and zoomed in. It was grainy, but the shape was there.
“It’s a spider,” I whispered. “It’s a spider!”
Curly meowed.
It was the same tribal swirling spider I’d seen on the back of George Brighton’s hand—he had been the very first man I’d helped bring to justice in Sleepy Creek. And he had definitely been connected to my mother’s murder.
My throat closed. Think.
“Spider tattoo. Threatening note. Mario. Mario.”
He’d worn gloves at the memorial service on a warm day. Gloves to hide that tattoo.
I scrambled the desk’s top drawer open and brought out the fluffy pink diary Griz had bought me as a joke. I opened it, and flipped through the pages until I found the card Mario had given me after the hand smooching.
I whipped it out, turned it over, and found the highly inappropriate message he’d scrawled on the back, just beneath his number.
Hey, sweet cheeks. Give me a call some time. Mario’s here for you any time you need me.
I slapped the card down, then grabbed the note and placed them side-by-side, scanning the strokes. They were identical. Large circles over the ‘i’ in place of dots. It wasn’t an exact art, but it was enough. Balle had to see this.
Mario was part of the Somerville Spiders, and it was him who’d sent Dolores the threatening note, faking that he was Sal. And if that was the case, she was in grave, grave danger.
I had to get there before it was too late.
20
I approached the bakery from the Burger Bar’s side, my heart sitting in my throat. I didn’t run in case it aroused suspicion, or in case there was more than one Spider in the town, waiting to leap from the shadows.
I’m not a juicy fly. They’d have a tough time taking me down, just as they’d had a tough time with my mother.
I slowed the closer I got to the bakery and the antiques store next door. The lights were on in Missi and Vee’s apartment, but the street itself was silent apart from a police cruiser, parked out front. Either Cotton or Balle were here, at least. That was a relief.
No ambulances and just the car meant Dolores was likely fine, and that she’d obviously delayed the detectives by talking their ears off about the disturbance.
I heaved a sigh of relief, the copy of the letter I’d lifted from Dolores’s office and Mario’s card weighing on my mind. This would be easier than I’d anticipated. I’d be able to hand in the evidence, tell Balle what I’d found and if that somehow incriminated me, then I’d simply have to take the punishment.
The bottom line was, all the evidence I’d found so far lined up and pointed toward Mario Russo. Not Nelly Boggs. Not even Dolores, for all her gleeful celebration.
Mario who was a spider and had threatened Dolores, and Mario was the only one who had stood to benefit from Sal’s death by inheriting the pizzeria.
The cold feeling in my stomach hinted at a deeper meaning—what if the Spiders had wanted to place Mario in the pizzeria to keep an eye on me? What if Sal had seen through it and wanted him to leave? Or, perhaps, it had been Francesca who had figured it out? That would explain why she’d wanted to meet with me.
I shook my head.
Balle would know more than me, and he would be able to use this information to close the case and put the right person behind bars.
Got to be Mario. Got to be. Spider tattoo.
I stopped in front of the bakery. The lights were on inside, but the tables were empty, the chairs upside down on top of them. The office door was open—Liam sat inside, with Dolores at the desk in front of him, his notepad out. I lifted my fist to knock.
The low shuffling of something moving in the alleyway between the bakery and the antique store caught my attention.
I frowned and brought out my cellphone then strafed to the right. A figure stood in the darkness. The same tall figure that had attacked me an hour before.
What on earth were they still doing here?
“Hey!” I yelled, lifting the phone.
The person leaped from the shadows toward me, and I let out a cry, swinging my phone up to shine the light on their face. If I couldn’t stop them, I could identify them, at least.
“Stop!” But the suspect hit me head on and bowled me to the ground. I fell on my side and pain screamed through my right arm. “Hey! Stop right there.”
They were already off, running across the street toward the opposite side of the road.
I scrambled upright, grabbed for my phone, but found only one half of it. The other was smashed on the concrete.
No time. Go! Quick!
“Christie?” Balle spoke from the front of the bakery. “What are you—?”
“Catch them, quick!” I pointed toward the figure that was now thumping down the street at a furious pace. They dodged beneath a lamppost, and, no… it couldn’t be. This didn’t make any sense. The attacker had long, glossy dark hair.
I took off after her, because it was a her, pumping my hands back and forth, wincing every second step at the throbbing in my arm.
Balle followed me, and then he drew even with me, and then outpaced me.
“Stop right there,” he shouted. “I have a weapon.”
The woman skidded to a halt.
“Get your hands up.” Balle drew his gun from his holster and aimed it at her back. “Behind your head. Stand still.”
“I can disarm her,” I said.
“No, Christie. Stay back.” The detective moved forward and swiftly felt the women down for weapons. He extracted something from her pocket—a small bag that he lifted beneath the lamppost’s light. It contained a fine blue powder. “Turn around.”
He was well within his rights to questions her—she’d knocked me over and had been acting suspicious right outside the bakery, which had been broken into earlier. The fact that I’d been in there too was neither here nor there.
The woman turned, and I barely kept my shock at bay.
“Bella,” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing.” She’d lost her brisk attitude.
“Christie, let me handle this.” The detective grasped her by the arm. “You’re coming with me, ma’am.”
“No, please, I can explain. I can explain it all. Don’t arrest me.”
“He’s not arresting you,” I said. “He just wants to talk.”
But B
ella didn’t seem to hear a word of it. She tossed her head and brought her hands down in front of her chest, clasping them together. “Please, please. I didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill them.”
That gave both of us pause. Liam and I exchanged a glance. “Who?” I asked.
“It was Mario. He made me do it.”
“Calm down, ma’am. Tell me what you’re talking about.” Liam guided her across the street toward the bakery. We entered it, and Liam sat the suspect down in a chair he whipped down from one of the tables.
She rocked back and forth. “I have to go. He told me I was next if I didn’t put the poison in here.”
“Rat poison,” I said, and this time the look Liam shot my way was less than happy.
“Christie.”
“I’m sorry, detective, but I came here to give you something.” I brought the card out of my pocket then the copy of the letter I’d made. He studied them both. “See? They’re the same. Mario wrote the note to Dolores.”
Bella let out a choked cry. “He’s evil,” she whispered. “He made me do this.”
“Do what?” the detective asked.
“Is everything all right?” Dolores the baker stepped out of the office, her polka dot robe clutched tight to her chest. “Detective?”
“Everything’s fine, Ms. Baker.”
“But—”
“It was Mario!” Bella’s howl came over the start of Dolores’s sentence. “He told me if I didn’t put poison in Dolores’ coffee grounds, he would kill me. He told me that he would never let me go. He said I stole from the Spiders.”
My heart tha-thumped.
“The Spiders.” The detective’s gaze danced from Bella to me.
“Yes, he’s one of them. He thought I was stealing from the pizzeria but I—” She burst into tears. “I couldn’t do it,” Bella said, between sobs. “I couldn’t poison the coffee grounds.”
“My heavens.” Dolores trembled on the spot. She backpedaled and nearly tripped over one of the tables. I hurried to her side and kept her upright.
“Where’s Mario?” Detective Balle asked.
“He’s back at the house,” Bella managed.
Within the span of the five minutes, Balle had the ambulance, Arthur Cotton and a team of police officers, and the rest of the town all down at the bakery. He rushed off into the night, and I couldn’t follow, not with Dolores leaning on me, faint.
I had been right, though there hadn’t been too much evidence pointing to him. Just the tattoo, and the poison. Of course, Bella had mentioned a mouse problem at the Russo house, and she’d been so insistent that we use the backdoor to leave when Mario got home.
Still, it didn’t answer all of my questions.
Mario was guilty. But why? Why had he killed his cousin?
21
Rumors about Mario and what had happened were rife, even on the day of Sleepy Creek’s Annual Spring Food Fair. Folks could barely talk about anything else around their burgers or their treats, or between sniffing flowers or buying trinkets. The out-of-towners who came in for the fair wound up getting involved in the gossip too.
I helped serve burgers and ring up orders at our stall across from the fountain, my gaze occasionally moving over to Dolores’ stand, which was doing a roaring trade after the town had discovered that, yes, she had nearly been killed. And by a mobster no less.
“Here’s your change,” I said, and handed it to the woman who’d ordered two chicken burgers from me. “Thank you for your patronage.” Thankfully, my arm hadn’t been damaged from the fall. Just bruised.
She disappeared into the crowd and the next customer came forward. Or rather, the next two customers.
Missi and Vee both wore a sun hat a piece. Missi’s was too floppy for her head, and she flicked the end of it, now and again, growling at the way it sagged over her eyes.
“Ridiculous,” she said. “Shouldn’t have let you talk me into this hat.”
“Oh, please, Mississippi,” Vee said. “It’s a lovely sunny day. It’s imperative we protect our skins.”
“Morning, you two. Chicken burgers?”
“Four please,” Vee said, and brought out her money purse. “Murder makes us hungry. Or rather, resolved murders.”
“Mario.” Missi said his name like he was a harbinger of the apocalypse. “Rumor has it he killed Sal for the money from the pizzeria. And then when Fran figured it out.” Missi drew her finger across her throat. “Offed her too. Horrible creature. I’m glad that handsome detective of yours put him behind bars.”
I hurriedly put in Missi and Vee’s order, then collected two readymade burgers from the waiting stack that Jarvis had piled at the end of his production line. I handed them over, accepted the money and gave them their change.
“Thank you for your patronage,” I said.
The women hurried off muttering to each other, Missi occasionally flicking the front of her floppy hat. They wore matching flowery dresses and took their burgers to the very same bench Griz and I had sat on at the start of this week.
“Hey.” The deep voice of the next customer sent a shiver done my spine. Not an entirely unpleasant one, either.
“Hello, detective,” I said, as calmly as I could manage.
Liam was out of uniform today. He wore a white cotton t-shirt that fit him too well for my liking, and a pair of blue jeans. He had done his dark hair to one side. His chin dimple was ridiculously attractive, too.
“Do you have a moment?” he asked. “It’s important.”
“Hedy?” I beckoned to our waiting assistant. “Would you mind taking over for a while?”
“Sure, no problem, Miss Watson,” Hedy said, dipping her head.
“Call me Christie.”
“Of course.” Hedy slipped into place in front of the cash box, and Liam moved around the side of the stall.
I walked to the back of it, stripping off my apron as I went. As vain as it seemed, I didn’t want to have this conversation with Liam while I was ketchup stained. Besides, it was always better to look good when receiving bad news.
We walked off between the stalls to a quiet spot between the trees and stood underneath a maple. Its fiery red leaves bobbed in the spring breeze, and the distant tinkle of laughter traveled from the stalls.
“Nice day,” he said.
“Are you here to arrest me?” I asked.
“What? No.” Liam laughed. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought… after finding that note. You know?” He didn’t know exactly how I’d gotten my hands on that note, only that I had. He saw it as interfering. He was right, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“No, Christie, I’m not here to arrest you. I have no proof that you interfered in the case. No one has told me anything. The only person who’s acting suspicious is Nelly Boggs. She keeps singing your praises, talking about how you single-handedly brought down a dangerous killer.”
“Technically, he brought himself down. Messy death. Easy leads to follow,” I said, then cleared my throat. “I mean, from an outside perspective, that’s how it seemed. So, Mario’s behind bars?”
“Yes. He appears to have murdered Sal for his money. He planned on selling the pizzeria.”
“And the Spiders?”
“He won’t say anything about them. Maintains that the tattoo is nothing but a tattoo, and that he’s not part of any gangs. He lawyered up the minute I pressed harder.” Liam shook his head. “There I go again, telling you things I shouldn’t. It’s easy to talk to you. Feels like I’m talking to my partner. Arthur I mean. Partner Arthur.”
“So, Mario is pretending he’s not a Spider, and that he killed Sal and Francesca for money.”
“Francesca found out what had happened after the fact.”
“And Bella was a tool he used to silence Dolores because she had seen… what?” I asked. “That part doesn’t make sense to me.”
Liam sighed. Perhaps, he realized that I wouldn’t be satisfied until we discussed this. “Because Dolores wit
nessed him stealing poison from the hardware store. She was too afraid to come forward for the fear that she was next on Mario’s list.”
“Afraid, but still celebrating Sal’s death like it was Christmas.”
“The enigma of Sleepy Creek’s residents,” Liam said.
We both chuckled, awkwardly.
“So, wait, you’re not here to arrest me?”
“No,” Liam said.
“And you’re not going to report me to the Chief?”
Liam’s smile broadened. “What for? It’s not like you did anything wrong. You just got a text and found a note. That phone number that sent you the text was a burner, by the way. Couldn’t trace it.”
“Oh.” I tucked my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. “That’s fine.” What else could I say? Mario might’ve lied about his spider tattoo, but I knew the truth. The gang, or at least some of their members, were still alive and kicking around. And they had come to Sleepy Creek.
For me.
“Wait,” I said, looking up at Liam. “If you’re not here to arrest me or tell me you reported me then why are you here?”
Liam scuffed his shoe against the grass, looked down at me, his caramel colored eyes glowing. “I wondered if maybe you’d like to grab a cup of coffee sometime.”
“You, what?” It didn’t compute. “What do you mean? Do you need to consult with me about something?”
“No, Christie,” he said. “I meant on a date. Would you like to go on a date with me?”
“Huh?” I licked my lips. “I mean, yes. Yeah, sure. That would be fine. Of course, yeah.” Stop talking, right now. I snapped my mouth shut.
“Good. Then, I’ll call you sometime. We can go grab a coffee. Sound good?”
“Sure.” I tried to affect that cool as a cucumber attitude. It didn’t come naturally. I was suddenly aware of my arms and how weird they felt hanging at my sides.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll see you around, Christie.”
“Sure.” Was it the only word left in my vocabulary?
Liam gave me one last grin then walked off, heading back between the stalls and toward the path that led past the fountain. I stared after him, my heart pounding away. It was the fastest it had beat in a long time.
The Chicken Burger Murder Page 10
