Parmesan Pizza Murder (Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Book 16) Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PARMESAN PIZZA 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

  EPILOGUE

  Parmesan

  Pizza

  Murder

  Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria Series

  Book Sixteen

  By

  Patti Benning

  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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  Acknowledgement

  * * *

  Many thanks to Michelle Mabry who suggested the delicious cauliflower crust pizza. It’s one of the best alternatives to a normal pizza crust that I’ve ever had. I recommend it to anyone who’s looking to enjoy a pizza without all of the carbs. Who would have thought that eating pizza could be so healthy?

  PARMESAN PIZZA

  MURDER

  Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria Series Book Sixteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  “This should be the last bag,” Eleanora Pacelli said. “It took a while, but it needed to be done.”

  Jacob, one of the two employees that had been at Papa Pacelli’s longer than she had, opened the large black garbage bag while Ellie swept the last few leaves into a pile. The parking lot and sidewalk behind the pizzeria looked much better now, though she knew it would only be a matter of time before more leaves fell and cluttered the area they had just cleaned.

  “Just in time, there’s Sabrina,” Jacob said. Ellie straightened up and waved to her newest employee, the pretty young woman whom she had hired shortly after one of her other employees had left to work for someone else in town. Sabrina had proven herself to be a quick learner and a reliable worker, and Ellie hoped that she would work at the pizzeria for a long time to come. Employees could make or break a restaurant, and good ones could be hard to come by.

  Sabrina pulled her car into one of the employee parking spots and got out. “Do the two of you need help?” she asked.

  “No, we’re just about done,” Ellie said. “You can take a short break until the next delivery order is ready, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks, Ms. P.,” Sabrina said. “It will be nice to be out of the car for a bit.”

  Ellie helped Jacob finish up the leaves, sweeping the last of them into the bag. As she was tying the top of the full bag shut, she saw another familiar vehicle pull into the pizzeria’s parking lot.

  The sheriff parked his truck under the sparse shade of a tree that had already begun to lose its leaves. Ellie headed towards him, making a quick detour to drop the garbage bag in the dumpster. She grinned when she saw her fiancé, Russell Ward, get out of the vehicle.

  “I just thought I’d stop by and say hi,” he said. “I’m on my way back to the sheriff’s department now, then I’ll be free for the night. Liam’s going to be working evenings for a while, which will be a nice change.”

  “Too bad the pizzeria doesn’t close until late,” she said. “Otherwise we might actually have been able to start eating dinner together on a regular basis.”

  “At least now I’ll be able to stop in and bring you a coffee,” he said. “You’ve done the same for me enough times.”

  “That would be very much appreciated,” Ellie said. “Even if you don’t bring coffee, feel free to stop in anytime you want. It’s always nice to see you.”

  He smiled. “While I’ve got you here, what would you say about going to dinner –”

  The pizzeria owner held up her hand, grimacing apologetically. Her phone had just started ringing, and she was waiting for a call from the woman running the second pizzeria down in Florida. They were only weeks away from their grand opening, and she had to take it.

  “Hi, Linda,” she said, pressing the phone to her ear. “How did the interview go?”

  “I really liked her,” the other woman said. “I wanted to talk to Sandra about it first, but I think I’ll be calling her back tomorrow to tell her she’s hired.”

  “Wonderful,” Ellie said. “Her resume looked promising. Hiring another employee was the last major thing on the list, which means that we’re just about ready to open. Have you set aside time to train everyone? I know Sandra’s been a great help, but she still needs to learn her way around a restaurant.”

  “Yes. Once we hire the new girl, I’ll set up a schedule for training. I’ve already set aside the weekend before the grand opening to do a final run-through and make sure things are running smoothly.”

  “Good. How has advertising been going?”

  “We’ve had some interest; mainly from my previous customers, who are excited that the restaurant is going to be reopening even if it’s under another name.”

  “That’s good, but we really need more people to be interested. I’ll email –”

  Russell tapped on the shoulder, interrupting her. “I’m going to head to the sheriff’s department and check in with Liam so I can head home,” he said quietly. “I’ll call you later.”

  She smiled and gave him a quick kiss before turning her attention back to Linda. “Sorry about that. I’ll email some of the local papers down there and see if they can run ads for us over the next few weeks. You can print out more flyers and ask if you can hang them up in some of the other small businesses around town. Feel free to give the people working there a couple of coupons for discounted pizzas. It will help get the word out, which is the most important thing right now.”

  “Okay. I can’t believe it’s almost time to open it. Six months ago, I thought I was going to have to shut down the restaurant for good. I know I’ve said it before, but thank you, Ellie. This real
ly means a lot to me. I’ll do my best, I promise.”

  Ellie said her goodbyes and hung up. Arranging things for the second pizzeria had been her number one priority recently. Linda was a good cook, but wasn’t experienced in running a business. The little pizzeria that she had been struggling to keep open a few months ago had been her husband’s, who had passed away a couple of years beforehand. The food itself was good, but her business model had not been, and she had been only a few short weeks away from being forced to permanently close the doors.

  After meeting the woman during her trip to Florida, Ellie had decided to extend her an offer to buy the building and help her reopen it under Papa Pacelli’s name. The interior of the building had been completely redesigned to match the decor and old timey pizzeria feel of the original Papa Pacelli’s in Kittiport, and they would be using Arthur Pacelli’s secret crust recipe, but other than that, she was giving the other woman a lot of freedom to do what she wanted with the restaurant. She just hoped that Linda would be able to keep up with it and wouldn’t make any major errors that would cost the business money.

  Trying to put the other pizzeria out of her mind temporarily, Ellie looked around and realized that Russell was gone. She remembered hearing him say that he was leaving, but somehow it hadn’t quite registered in her brain. She felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t been giving him the attention that he deserved. Russell had come through for her so many times, and here she was ignoring him while she fielded a call from Linda. Linda could have waited the few minutes it would have taken to say a proper goodbye to her fiancé.

  I’ll make it up to him later, she promised herself. I’ll set aside time for a nice dinner together, and I’ll remind him that all of this busyness is only temporary.

  Resolving to do a better job of not letting her loved ones come in second place to work, Ellie tucked her cell phone back in her pocket and went inside. Even though it had been stressful rushing to get everything set up on time, she shared Linda’s excitement for the opening of the second pizzeria. If Papa Pacelli’s did as well down in Florida as it was doing in Maine, then the pizzeria would truly be on its way to fame.

  She went back inside, finding Sabrina up front, chatting with one of her friends. She had seen the young woman a couple of times before; all of her employees had friends that came in a couple of times a week. Ellie didn’t mind. They almost always bought something, and as long as her employees didn’t neglect their work, it didn’t bother her if they took a few minutes every now and then to talk to someone they knew.

  “Hi, Sadie,” she said, giving the young woman a smile so she would know she was welcome. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “You too, Ms. Pacelli.”

  Ellie settled down behind the register, already thinking about new ways they could advertise the second pizzeria. They were in the home run; in just a few weeks, all of her hard work would pay off and life would be back to normal.

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Keeping true to her promise, Ellie scheduled herself for a couple of hours off that Thursday so she could spend the evening with Russell. She brought a pizza and a two liter of soda over to his house, along with a couple of movies that they had both been wanting to watch. He let her into the house and greeted her with a hug. She put the food on the table before bending down to pet his cat, Sookie. The little tabby began to purr and arched her back, happy as could be with the attention. Ellie smiled. The cat had been the one to adopt Russell, instead of the other way around. One day, Sookie had simply appeared on his doorstep and had refused to leave ever since. It was good for Russell to have another living being in his house, even it was a six-pound ball of fluff.

  Russell’s house was one of the smaller, older ones in a sparsely populated neighborhood on the outskirts of town. He had been renting it for the past few years, ever since he had sold the house he had shared with his deceased wife. Ellie had always liked going over there, and always felt at home the second she stepped through the door.

  “So, how is everything going with the restaurant in Florida?” he asked as they sat down for their meal.

  “It’s… going,” Ellie said. “Between Linda, Sandra, and the girl we just hired, we’ve got all the employees we’ll need for the first few months, unless it’s even busier than we expect it to be. All of the appliances are installed, and we’ve got our deliveries from our suppliers set up. She needs to advertise more, which I’m going to be helping her with this weekend. We need people to be excited about this pizzeria. It’s not like Kittiport, where we’re the only pizza place in town. In Miami, there are hundreds of other pizzerias to choose from. We need to give people a reason to choose Papa Pacelli’s in particular.”

  “It’s a big jump for you,” he said. “Going from running such a comfortable small-town eatery to something in a major city across the country.”

  “The goal is for Linda to manage almost everything on her own eventually,” Ellie said. “I wasn’t planning on making such a big leap, but then I met her. She needed the help, and she already has some experience with the business. It just seemed to fit.”

  “Well, if anyone to make it work, you can.”

  “Thanks,” she said, giving him a smile. “How are things going for you? I feel like we’re always talking about my work, but we never really discuss yours.”

  “Well, nothing much changes for me,” he said. “I like it that way. It’s always a good thing when the town is quiet. I like not having to do more than hand out the occasional speeding ticket.”

  “Kittiport is a good town,” Ellie said. “And the people are lucky to have you as their sheriff. I think you’re almost as well-known as the mayor is.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I don’t do it for the publicity. I just like helping people, and have lived in this town for my whole life. For as long as I’m able to take care of it, I want to.”

  “It must be wonderful to have a place where you feel so deeply at home,” she said with a sigh. “Between moving away from here and bouncing around Chicago for most of my life, sometimes it feels like I don’t really have a place like that.”

  “Kittiport will be that place for you,” he said. “You already have roots here, even if you haven’t been here your entire life. Home doesn’t have to be where you have spent most of your time. It’s where your loved ones are, and where your heart is.”

  After dinner, Russell locked up his house and the two of them set off together to walk along the quiet streets. It was evening, mostly dark already, and the street lights were on, the orange glow illuminating the sidewalk. They walked hand-in-hand, and Ellie felt happy and at peace in a way that she didn’t remember feeling very often before.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” she said.

  “Beautiful, but chilly,” Russell replied. “Winter is on its way.”

  Winter, Ellie thought. For her, winter and the holiday season were only vague ideas. She was completely focused on the upcoming grand opening and her trip to Florida in just a couple of weeks. She, Russell, her grandmother, and the entire team of employees at the pizzeria were going down there for the weekend. It would be a grand opening in the truest sense, and would hopefully help to bind the two restaurants together. Even though they were separated by distance, she wanted both teams to feel like family.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just thinking about the pizzeria again.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be happier once it’s open and doing well,” he said. “Let’s cross here.”

  They turned to cross the road, but had to pause to let a car go by. Ellie did a double take when she saw the lighted sign on top that read Pizza. She frowned, her gaze following the car as it made its way down the block and pulled into someone’s driveway. She saw a person get out of the vehicle carrying a pizza box, knock on the door, and trade the box for money before getting back into the vehicle. The car headed away from them in the opposite direction.

  Russell, who had been watching the ve
hicle’s progress with her, squeezed her hand. “Is everything all right?”

  “I just didn’t think anyone else delivered all the way out here,” she said. “The closest pizza place I know of, other than Papa Pacelli’s, is in Benton Harbor. Why would they deliver to Kittiport at almost ten-thirty on a Thursday night?”

  “Maybe they changed their schedule to be open later than Papa Pacelli’s,” he suggested. “It might be worth it for them to deliver a little bit further out, if they’re the only place around here that’s open this late.”

  “I suppose,” she said with a frown. It wasn’t that she minded the competition. It was just that she had enough on her plate without having to think about what it would mean if she had to extend her business hours even more just to keep the pizzeria in Benton Harbor from gaining a foothold here in Kittiport. Whatever they were doing, it could wait until after the second pizzeria’s opening. Surely a couple of weeks couldn’t make that much difference.