Grilled Rye Murder: Book 16 in The Darling Deli Series Read online

  “Well, I think I’m going to go with the pesto and shrimp pasta,” she said. “I’ve always loved the pesto here.”

  Within minutes, their waiter had brought them their drinks—white wine for Moira, and a pale ale for David—and had taken their order, as well as telling Moira that Denise would stop by in a little bit to say hello.

  “It still amazes me that you two are friends,” the private investigator said after tasting his ale.

  “Why?” She was surprised. She and Denise had been friends for over a year, and had a lot in common. Both of them were in the food business, both had lost close family members, and both of them had been in bad relationships. Denise had recently finalized her divorce with her husband, who had cheated on her multiple times with different women, and Moira was the only one out of their group of friends that really understood what she had been going through.

  “Well, because she’s so competitive,” David said. “Your deli has been doing such good business, it must be impacting her sales quite a bit.”

  “I don’t know… the deli isn’t really a restaurant, not like the Grill is. We have a couple of specials available each day, and some warm food in the morning, but other than that we mostly just sell cold cuts and cheeses.” She took a sip of her wine, wondering secretly if David had a point. Her business had been growing lately. Was she stealing customers away from Denise? She didn’t really want to think about it just then; she wanted to enjoy this date with her fiancé. Casting around for a change in subject, her eyes landed on the ale that he was drinking, and she brightened.

  “Oh, did I tell you that I’m meeting with Zander tomorrow to discuss selling some of the beer and ale from his microbrewery?”

  “Really?” David grinned. “I’ve got to admit; I’ve been pretty excited ever since you told me you got your liquor license. Zander’s really gifted, and it will be great for him to have some local exposure.”

  “It feels good to help another small business,” she agreed. “He’s been a good friend this past year, and I’ve never had one complaint about the produce that he delivers. I’m sure his brewery products will be just as high quality.”

  “You know,” David mused, “you could think of expanding. The deli’s doing so well, and Darrin’s a great manager. You could open up a second shop in another town and—”

  “Wait,” Moira cut in. “Are you talking about… moving?”

  “It’s just something to think about,” he said with a shrug. “I’m open to it if you are.”

  She frowned, turning the idea over in her head. It wasn’t a terrible idea, in fact from a business standpoint it was a pretty good one. It was the thought of leaving all of her friends here in Maple Creek that made her so hesitant. She had gotten so close to Martha, Denise, and Karissa. And how could she even think of moving farther away from Candice? Sure, her daughter had her own business and her own house now, but… she still needed her mother. And Moira needed her daughter.

  On the other hand, the prospect of opening a whole new deli in a new town was a tempting one. She wouldn’t make as many mistakes this time around as she had when she first opened Darling’s DELIcious Delights, and she would already have a strong reputation to stand on. Darrin was a great manager.…

  “Let’s talk more about this later,” she said with a smile as their food came. “Right now, I want to focus on the wedding and our future together. Have you thought any more about where you want to go for our honeymoon?”

  “As long as you’re there,” he said, taking her hand, “I could go anywhere.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  She set out for her meeting with Zander the next morning with a yawn and a thermos full of coffee. She and David had stayed up late talking about their plans for the future, and she was exhausted. Next time I have an eight AM meeting, I need to go to bed earlier, she thought. Still, despite her fatigue, she had had a lot of fun the evening before. There was something wonderful about being able to completely let go and be yourself with another person.

  Zander’s farm was only about half an hour away, and the drive was a nice one: rolling fields dotted with old barns and the occasional pasture with horses, cows, and in one case, alpacas. Keeping up a good relationship with her suppliers was important to her; not only did they tend to give her better prices when they knew her personally, but it also made it easier to ask for the occasional rush delivery or delayed payment. It was worth the occasional trip out to the countryside, especially to see Zander. He was younger than most of the other farmers that she worked with, and got along well with everyone at the deli. Not only that, but his dog, a little yellow lab mix, was one of the puppies that Moira had raised last year. She was always happy to see the little pup, who had a permanently cheerful disposition and a tail that never stopped wagging.

  When she pulled up to Zander’s old farmhouse, she took one last swig of coffee from her thermos, shut her engine off, then started across the lawn to the large, square, windowless building that the farmer used as both his office and his brewery. She paused for a moment when she saw a large black van that she didn’t recognize parked near his house. Did he have company? He didn’t call to cancel our meeting, she told herself. And he’s nearly as much of a workaholic as I am. Even if he has someone over, he’ll probably be in the brewery by now.

  She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer her knock on the door; he had a tendency to listen to loud music while in the back working on his brews. After rapping on the door once more, hard enough to make her knuckles sting, she gave up and let herself in. No doubt he would remember the time and come up front to his office soon enough.

  “Hey, Flower,” she said as she opened the door. The little yellow dog rushed up to her, her entire body wriggling with joy. Sunflower, called Flower for short, had been the runt of the litter and had never gotten quite as big as her litter-mates, but didn’t let her small size stop her. Moira knew that the dog went everywhere with Zander, who owned two farms and a small herd of dairy cattle.

  “Where’s your owner, hmm?” she asked, crouching down to pet the dog. She was rarely anywhere but at Zander’s side.

  The dog whined and turned her head to lick at Moira’s hand. The deli owner frowned. Was that blood on the dog’s muzzle?

  “Did you cut yourself on something, sweetie?” she murmured. She gently turned the dog’s head to the side, her eyes searching the dog’s face for any sign of an injury. She didn’t see one, but perhaps the dog had somehow managed to bite her tongue or lip.

  “Let’s go find Zander,” she said.

  To her surprise, the dog gave another low whine, then dashed off—not towards the heavy door that lead back to the brewery, but to the left, where Zander’s office was. Moira followed the dog to the office door, which was open just enough for the dog to slip inside. The deli owner pushed it open the rest of the way, then paused at the threshold to the dark room. She slapped blindly at the wall for a few seconds before she found the light switch and flicked it on. What she saw made her gasp in horror and stumble backwards.

  She leaned against the wall outside of the office, her eyes screwed shut as she told herself that she must have seen wrong. Gathering her courage, she poked her head around the corner and saw that she hadn’t been wrong at all.

  Zander was sitting in the chair at his desk, his head tilted unnaturally to the side, and his arms hanging limply off of the arms of the chair. He had been shot twice; once in the shoulder, and once in the center of his chest. Blood from the wound in his shoulder was still slowly dripping down his right arm to pool on the floor beneath his outstretched fingers.

  Flower licked her owner’s hand once, then looked back at Moira as if asking for help. That must be where the blood on her muzzle came from, the deli owner thought, her brain still reeling from the shock. Zander, dead? Or… could he possibly still be alive? She didn’t see how he could be, but she had heard of people surviving unbelievable things before; a fall from an airplane, or an iron rod through the skull.

>   Feeling numb, she walked slowly towards the man in the chair. She touched his neck with shaking fingers, feeling for a pulse, but feeling nothing. His body isn’t cold yet, the deli owner thought. He can’t have been dead for long. She jerked her fingers, back, realizing that she was touching a corpse, then looked sadly at the man who had been her friend. Had he killed himself? It seemed impossible, but the thought of him being murdered seemed equally impossible. If he killed himself, there would have to be a gun here, she thought, her eyes raking his empty hands and lap. Where was it?

  As if in answer to her question, a metallic clunk sounded from behind her. She spun around to see Flower trying to pick up a large black handgun from the floor. The muzzle of the gun slipped out of her mouth again and it fell to the floor with another thunk. Moira rushed over and gingerly grabbed the gun before the dog managed to pull the trigger. Holding it carefully out in front of her by her fingertips she set it on the table near Zander. Flower trotted over and began licking Zander’s hand again, whining all the while.

  “Stop that,” Moira said. “Come over here, Flower. Let him be.”

  The sight of the little dog licking the dead man’s hand seemed gruesome to her. Didn’t the dog understand that he was gone? It wasn’t right for her to keep bothering him like that. It wasn’t until she felt something wet on her cheeks that she realized she was crying.

  I have to call the police, she thought, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. There’s no one else here to do it. Calling Flower over to her again, she walked on unsteady legs back to the office doorway, where she had dropped her purse. It took her a moment to find her phone inside, and another couple of seconds to pull up the number for the local police station.

  What am I doing? she thought, hanging up the phone after the first ring. This is an emergency. I should be calling nine-one-one. She punched in the three digits quickly, but hesitated. Off in the distance, she heard the faint wail of sirens, and they were drawing ever nearer.

  Her skin prickled as the noise of the sirens reached a crescendo, then cut off. She heard the pop and crunch of tires on gravel, and rushed over to the exit to look outside. And ambulance and three police cars, lights flashing, were pulling to a stop in front of the brewery. Someone must have heard the gunshots and called already, she thought, taking a firm hold on Flower’s collar as she slipped her phone into her pants’ pocket.

  A team of paramedics rushed towards the building. “He’s in there,” Moira called out, pointing towards the office with the hand that wasn’t holding on to Flower. The men hurried past her without a word. Moira edged out of the building, hoping to get somewhere out of the way so she could call David, but a woman wearing khakis, a black button-down shirt, and a no-nonsense expression was approaching her from where the police cars were parked. It was Detective Wilson, one of the two senior detectives at the Maple Creek Police Department. The other, Detective Jefferson, was nowhere to be seen. This isn’t good, she thought. Jefferson knew her well enough to know that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Detective Wilson had never liked her, and she could already see the suspicion on the other woman’s face.

  “Ms. Darling, I’m going to need you to come with me,” the detective said. She glanced down at Flower. “Is this your dog?”

  “No,” Moira said. “She’s… she was Zander’s. But I raised her, and I’d be happy to take care of her for now.”

  Wilson shook her head, then gestured one of the officers over. Moira recognized him as Officer Catto, who she had spoken to a few times over the last year. He seemed to like her, and she felt a bit better knowing that there was at least one person there who wouldn’t automatically assume the worst of her.

  “Catto, crank the AC in the cruiser and put the dog in the back, then see if you can find a leash for it somewhere. We’ll take it back to the station, check it over for evidence, then see if we can’t contact the victim’s next of kin.”

  “Her name’s Flower,” Moira called out as Catto walked away with the dog. She bit her lip, hoping that Flower would be comfortable and happy during her stay with the police, then turned her attention back to Detective Wilson.

  “I’m happy to answer any questions—”

  “Ms. Darling, you are under arrest for the murder of Zander Marsh. You have the right to remain silent…”

  The deli owner went limp with disbelief as the detective turned her around, pulled her wrists together, and tightened a cold pair of handcuffs around them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Moira sat on the corner of the thin mattress in the holding cell, staring blankly at one of the white walls. Everything in the cell was white, from the plastic-lined sheets on the mattress, to the painted iron bars, to the tile floor. Only the small sink and toilet in the opposite corner stood out; they were a gleaming, cold stainless steel.

  What am I doing here? she thought for the thousandth time that night. She had sat in stunned silence in the back of the police cruiser that drove her from Zander’s farm, certain that at any moment the officer would realize that her arrest had been nothing but a horrible mistake. Certainly she hadn’t expected to be processed and locked in a holding cell in Maple Creek’s tiny police station.

  At least they let me call David and Candice. Her only experience with jail up to this point had been what she’d seen on television crime shows. She had been surprised that she was allowed to make several calls, and even more surprised when an officer whom she didn’t recognize had brought her a bag of fast food a few hours later.

  She had been treated well enough, but that didn’t change the frustrating fact that no one had actually told her anything useful about when she might be able to get out. She hadn’t heard back from David, who had promised to get in touch with Detective Jefferson and explain the situation to him, and when Detective Wilson stopped by a few hours before, she had done nothing but ask Moira a few basic questions, like what she had done earlier that morning and if she had an alibi.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to spend the night in a jail cell,” she muttered, staring up at the small window set high into the wall of the cell. Her cell phone had been taken from her when she was processed, so she had no way to tell the time, but it was dark out. I must have been here for at least twelve hours already. Spending another twelve there was a sobering thought, but until she heard back from David, there was nothing she could do.

  The deli owner lay down on the bumpy mattress and pulled the scratchy blanket over herself. The lights in the cell were off, but the hall lights were on, and they were bright enough that it would be hard to sleep. Wide-awake and worried, Moira lay there for hours until she finally sank into a dreamless slumber.

  A loud clang awoke her a few hours later. The sun had risen, but her sleep had been poor, and she felt groggy. It took her a moment to remember where she was, then it all came back to her at once. Zander was dead… and Detective Wilson thought that she had killed him.

  Another clang made her jump, and she sat bolt upright in bed. The sound of people talking could be heard beyond the doors to the holding cell area. Someone was coming.

  Feeling a sudden surge of hope, Moira leapt off the bed. Was that David’s voice?

  Sure enough, moments later the private investigator walked in. He was followed closely by Detective Jefferson, Moira’s friend and the senior detective at the Maple Creek police station.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said, rushing up to the bars. “I’m so glad to see you two.”

  David came forward and took her hand as Detective Jefferson approached to unlock the cell door.

  “How are you holding up?” her fiancé asked her, his gaze searching her face. She knew he wasn’t asking just about her overnight stay in the holding cell, but about Zander’s death as well. He knew the two of them had been friends.

  “I still can’t believe it… none of this feels real to me,” she said. She glanced over at the police detective. “What’s going on? Am I being released?”

  “That’
s… complicated,” David told her. “We’ll go over it somewhere more comfortable, though.” His face full of concern, he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before releasing her hand and stepping back as Jefferson swung her cell door open.

  “Come on,” the detective said. “Fresh coffee and muffins are waiting in my office.”

  It felt good to be back in more familiar territory. Moira had been in Detective Jefferson’s office more times than she could count, and the familiar large wooden desk and comfortable leather chairs were definite improvements over the spartan holding cell that she had spent the last day in. She sipped her coffee gratefully and listened as the two men took turns telling her what had happened after her arrest.

  “As soon as I got off the phone with you, I got in touch with Detective Jefferson,” David explained. “He was out of town at the time, but the second I told him what had happened, he rushed back.”

  Moira shot a grateful glance at the detective, who smiled at her. “When I heard that you had been arrested for murder, something just didn’t sit right. You’ve been brought in for questioning plenty of times before, but you’ve never been guilty of anything, not even a speeding ticket. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an upstanding citizen, and someone who has really helped this town out multiple times.” The detective sighed. “Wilson’s a good detective, but she’s never approved of our… unorthodox relationship. This is a hard situation for me, you have to understand. She’s the only other detective here, and I can’t just go against her completely, but I also can’t let someone I know to be innocent stay locked up. Luckily, I’ve done a couple of favors for the district judge, so he was willing to do me one in return. We got your charges reduced—”

  “Wait, I’m being charged with something?” Moira cut in, stunned. She put down her coffee, her stomach suddenly feeling turbulent.