A Crunchy Crust of Murder Read online

  A Crunchy Crust of Murder

  The Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria Series Book 35

  Patti Benning

  Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  Copyright 2019 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.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  Chapter One

  Eleanora Pacelli handed a five-pound roll of pepperoni off to Jacob, who carried it into the pizzeria to join the growing pile of meat and cheese in the kitchen. It was delivery day, and after half an hour of hard work, the truck was nearly empty.

  Adam, the new truck driver for Lorenzo’s Meats and More, was handing her boxes, rolls of cured meat, and wheels of cheese from inside the vehicle. He had kept up a constant stream of chatter ever since he arrived, and Ellie had yet to get a word in edge wise.

  “And then I moved to Florida and started working for my uncle, who ran a small delivery service. He ended up retiring though, and I didn't like the new boss, so I moved back here to Maine where my mom and sister are, and I started working for Lorenzo’s. This is actually only my second delivery run. I'm still getting to know everyone on my route. Have you guys been open long?”

  Ellie took the box he was offering her and turned to hand it off to Jacob automatically. It took her a moment to realize that he had asked her a question.

  “The pizzeria has been here for over twenty years,” she told him. “I've only worked here for a few of those, however. My grandfather is the one who opened the restaurant. I took over for him.”

  “Oh, that's neat,” he said. “I wish my uncle had let me take over his business, but I couldn’t afford what he was asking for it. It must be nice to work for your grandfather.”

  “Actually, he passed away a couple years ago,” Ellie said. “I own the place now. I wish I had gotten the chance to work alongside him. I moved away before he opened this place, and never really reconnected with him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Adam said. He rolled a small wheel of cheese out to her. It was heavier than she expected, but she managed to get it over to Jacob. “All of my grandparents are gone, so I know what that’s like. Like I said, it's just my mom and sister up here. I – oh, look. This is the last box.”

  Ellie took it, tucked under her arm, and shook the man's hand. “It was nice to meet you, Adam,” she said. “I'm sure I'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Congratulations on the new job. Good luck settling in up here. It's a lovely area, as long as you're not expecting a metropolis.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He leaned back against the inside wall of the truck, looking cheerful. “It's been great meeting all the people on my route. Everyone has been so friendly. There have been a ton of neat restaurants, too. As a matter fact, it's about lunch time for me. You mind if I swing around front and grab a couple of slices?”

  “Of course not,” Ellie said. “You're welcome to get whatever you want. Frank got a twenty percent discount, and I will extend that to you, too. Take some time to look over the menu if you'd like. We have a bigger selection than most of the pizza places you're probably used to.”

  As she and Jacob went inside with the last box – this one contained local, free range chicken meat– Ellie shook her head, smiling. Granted, the man could talk anyone's ear off, and she knew more about his personal life than she had learned about Russell in the first three months they had been dating, but he certainly seemed nice enough. While she would miss the usual driver, who had retired, Adam seemed like he would be a suitable replacement. Unlike Frank, the original driver, he actually helped them unload the boxes, for one. She would listen politely to any amount of his overly personal stories for that alone.

  “I'll go tell Pete that we finished unloading the delivery,” Ellie said. “I'm going to check on how things are going up front, then I'll be back to help you out.”

  “I'll get started on the meats,” Jacob said.

  Delivery days were always busy, especially the ones where goods that had the potential to spoil, like meat, cheese, fruits, and vegetables arrived. With bread, flour, and non-spoilable goods like napkins and paper towels, they could take their time putting them away throughout the day. However, anything that needed to be refrigerated or frozen had to be put away quickly or else thrown away. That left little time for doing anything else, and meant that everyone at the pizzeria would be kept busy for the next hour or two.

  She stepped out front to tell Pete that they were getting started on putting the order away and to ask him how things had gone while they were outside. She found the pizzeria mostly empty – it was a miserable day; they hadn't had many people come in – except for a single table that held two couples in their twenties and a young man who was standing at the register chatting with her employee. A young woman was standing next to him, holding his hand but not paying much attention to their conversation. Her gaze was fixed on her phone.

  “I can't get down to Portland to claim it until Monday, though,” the young man was saying. “It's gonna drive me crazy all weekend, not being able to get my money.”

  “The time will pass before you know it,” Pete said. “Congrats, man. That's got to be exciting.”

  The front door opened and Adam came in. Pete looked around at the sound of the door opening, then turned back to the young man. “Sorry, Dev. I should probably get back to work, unless you wanted to order something.”

  “I’ll take a meat lover’s pizza, extra-large. I guess I can afford it now. It's going to be sweet to have some extra cash, though I should probably save most of it. Brie and I are planning on getting our own place soon.” The young woman next to him, who Ellie assumed was his girlfriend, looked up at that and smiled. “Ever since Jack’s girlfriend left, he’s been a pain to live with. I think we all need our own space. This money is going to be great.”

  “Don't spend it all at once,” her employee said.

  “I won't, don't worry. I'm going to put some of it in savings. Waiting until Monday is going to drive me insane though. Do you want to get together tonight? Play some video games to help make the time pass?”

  “I walked to work, so I'd have to walk home and grab my car first. But sure.”

  “I can pick you up if you want. I should be getting out of work at about the same time you are.”

  “Sounds good. See you later.” He high-fived the other man, then went to go sit at a booth with his girlfriend. Adam stayed back a few feet, perusing the menu.

  “Sorry about that,” Pete said to Ellie. “He is an old friend of mine. He stopped in to tell me he won the lottery.”

  “Wow,” Ellie said, suitably impressed. “How much?”

  “Twenty grand,” he told her. “Nothing in the mega millions or anything like that, but it's a lot of money for people our age.”

  “It's a lot of money for anyone,” Ellie said. “I wouldn't mind having an extra twenty thousand dollars to
spend. Anyway, I just came out to tell you the delivery is done and we’re going to start putting everything away now. I was going to make sure you didn't need any help upfront, but I can see it's still pretty slow.”

  “Not many people have come in,” he agreed. “We have gotten a few delivery orders, though. I scheduled them already.”

  Papa Pacelli’s didn't start doing deliveries until after one in the afternoon. That gave them about an hour and a half before one of them would have to leave to fulfill the first order. Ellie had a feeling it would be one of those days were there were a lot of deliveries. People tended to prefer staying at home when the weather was so gray and damp. The constant, all-day drizzle was extremely effective at lowering everyone's spirits. Everyone, that was, other than Dev. She could see him outside the front doors. He was standing in the drizzle on his phone, and occasionally did a little jig of excitement. She smiled. His mood seemed to be contagious, because despite the weather, things suddenly seemed sunnier.

  Chapter Two

  While the lucky young man's mood might have been contagious, the endless rain outside was quick to beat it down and bring back the gentle melancholy that Ellie had been feeling earlier in the day. By the time her shift at the pizzeria was over, she tingled with a sort of vague sadness, a feeling not directed toward anything, but rather a sort of empathy with the weather. Spring was slow to come to Maine, but come it would. Seen from a distance, the trees had a dusting of green; the buds of new leaves that had just begun to grow. The rain, Ellie knew, would only help all of the greenery in the long run, but it was difficult to envision the sunny days of summer while she was getting damp and chilled just walking to her car.

  The melancholy feeling stuck with her during her drive home. It lifted slightly when she saw the warmly lit windows of her grandmother's house. Nonna being back was definitely a light spot in her life. The two of them saw each other almost every day. Sometimes Ellie wondered if her grandmother felt lonely living in that big house on her own, but the fact that there was an intercom system between her house and Ellie and Russell's home, and that they were right next door to each other probably helped.

  Her own house was dark and the driveway was empty. Russell, she knew, was still at work. With luck, he would be getting home within the next couple of hours. Until then, she was there on her own.

  Her dogs greeted her at the door. Sawyer, the rambunctious young black lab, and Bunny, her little black and white papillon, never failed to bring a smile to her face. From the other room, she heard Marlowe call out. The greenwing macaw was the loudest of their little patchwork family,

  but still a very much appreciated member of it.

  Ellie took off her shoes and jacket, then spent a few moments down at the dogs’ level to greet them. Once everything had been put away – her purse hanging on the hook by the door – Ellie made her way down the hallway to greet the parrot. Marlowe was hanging on the bars of the cage, and let out a loud, high-pitched, “Hi!” when she saw Ellie.

  The bird was half Ellie's age, and could easily live as long as a person would. Sometimes Ellie still found it strange to live with a talking animal, but Marlowe's propensity for chatter certainly made her feel less lonely when Russell wasn't home.

  “Hey, girl,” Ellie said. “I'll get you out later this evening, okay? I'm going to go make some tea and put dinner in the oven, and it's not safe for you to be in the kitchen while I’m cooking.”

  She was never sure quite how much the bird understood of what she said. She decided long ago to explain everything to her, just in case. “Here's a walnut. You have your snack, and I’ll come get you before you know it.”

  She slipped the nut, still in its shell, into Marlowe’s food dish, then walked into the kitchen, the dogs following happily behind her. She cracked the back door, letting them out, then stood inside, her nose pressed to the glass as she watched them. The backyard wasn't fenced, but both dogs seemed to know to stay within the boundaries.

  Once they were ready, she let them in, checked to make sure that their water bowl was full, and scooped food into each of their bowls. She went through the same routine every time she got home in the evening, and now barely even thought about it. She enjoyed the dependability of it all. The dreary weather aside, she was happier here than she had ever been before. It was as though all of the time she had spent before moving to Kittiport had been some strange dream, and it was only now that she was really becoming herself and waking up.

  Dinner that night was simple – a frozen lasagna that would take about an hour and a half to cook. Ellie always felt vaguely guilty when she made something frozen for dinner. She made food for a living, for goodness sakes. Of course, that was the very reason why she didn't feel like cooking some evenings. When she spent all day in the kitchen at the pizzeria, it took away some of the fun of cooking dinner in the evenings. Russell usually got home much later than she did, and didn't have the energy to make dinner either. So, on the evenings that she didn’t feel like cooking, frozen food it was. Either that or take-out, which Russell sometimes picked up on his way home. It was a division of labor that worked well for both of them. The fact that they both worked full-time – really, more than full-time – certainly made some things difficult, but they were happy. That was really the most important thing, as far as Ellie was concerned.

  The tea kettle whistled just as she shut the door on the lasagna. She steeped a teabag in a teapot, poured some in a mug, sweetened it with just a dollop of honey, and carried that and her phone into the home office. She set everything on the desk next to her laptop, then went back out into the hallway to get Marlowe, who had finished with the walnut and was once again hanging from her cage bars. Ellie opened the cage door and held her arm out. The large bird climbed out onto it, rubbing her beak fondly against Ellie's wrist. Ellie smiled, stroked the bird’s head, then headed back into the office. There was a large wooden play stand set up in front of the office window, which was where Ellie set the bird. She grabbed a handful of treats that she kept in a bowl on her desk for just that reason and put it in the bowl on the play stand. While Marlowe went to work on the food, Ellie sat down at the desk and got started on her own work.

  The best way that she had to combat the rainy days blues was by making plans for the summer. Even though it was a northern state, Maine still got its fair share of sunshine and nice weather. An idea had sprung to mind only a couple weeks ago, and it had been slowly growing ever since, quickly becoming a side project of hers.

  Her idea was a food cart, shared between the pizzeria and her friend Joanna's hotdog restaurant. She envisioned something brightly colored and cheerful that they could take out to the large park in the center of town, and on busier days to the marina itself, complete with a snow cone machine, a warming rack, and a fridge for drinks and fresh ingredients. Joanna seemed to be on board, but she and her husband were busier than ever now that the large hotel that Steve was working on was finally starting to be built.

  Ellie didn’t mind taking point on this project. It had been her idea, after all, and she had had more free time than usual lately. She had been looking at prices online, and had it almost all figured out. She just had one last item to find; a portable stove. While she could just make a couple of pizzas in the morning and keep them warm during the day while the cart was out, that wouldn’t be in line with the high quality that she prided Papa Pacelli’s on. She needed to find a way to make pizzas at the food cart itself.

  By the time she heard Russell’s truck pull into the driveway, she had found it. A portable pizza oven, propane powered, that could be used to cook medium sized pizzas on the move. It wasn't cheap, but it was the perfect solution. She knew that realistically she wouldn't be spending much time at the food cart herself. That would be a job for one of her employees. Still, she would make a point of setting aside some time to man the cart herself. It would be good to get out of the restaurant and spend some time outside during the summer. With luck, the food cart would also help bring
some tourists in to the restaurant as well. With the new hotel, there were going to be a lot more people in town during the warmer months, and she had a feeling most of them would be drawn to the marina and the town's lovely park. The advertising potential would be great.

  She saved the file just as the front door opened. She sent the documents about her plans for the food cart to the printer. While the printer spat out the papers, she gathered up Marlowe and brought the bird back to her cage. She heard Russell taking off his boots and jacket and greeting the dogs by the front door. She rushed back into the office, grabbed the stack of papers, and brought them over to the kitchen table. Then she went out to greet her husband, meeting him in the hallway and pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

  “Sorry I'm late,” he said. “I was on my way home when I passed someone going the opposite direction, speeding in a big delivery truck. I had to pull him over. I let the young man off with a warning.”