Shrimply Murder (The Darling Deli Series Book 24) Page 2

  The dogs started barking again. Moira dried her hands on the dish towel and walked back to the front door to see who was there. Allison had arrived. She let the young woman in and took the bottles of pop from her. “The others are in the kitchen,” Moira said. “I’m just finishing up dinner, then I’m going to set the table, then we’ll be ready to eat.”

  “I can do that if you show me where everything is,” Allison offered. “I’d be happy to help.”

  David arrived not long after that. Moira knew it was him instantly, because instead of barking, the dogs began to whine excitedly. They knew the sound of his car well, and sometimes even alerted her that he was coming home before he even turned into the driveway.

  She opened the door for him and smiled at their other guest. Standing next to her husband was an elderly man, one that Moira knew well. Reggie was Eli’s grandfather. He had helped Moira and David solve a murder case a few months back, and she knew that beneath his somewhat forgetful exterior was a sharp brain and a love for mysteries. She gave him a quick hug, then helped him get through the door with his walker.

  “Where’s Eli?” she whispered to David as they followed Reggie slowly down the hall.

  “He said that he was going to stop at the candy shop and pick up Matt on his way here,” David said. “He’ll probably be a few minutes late, I think Matt was just closing up when he got there.”

  Moira had barely made it halfway back to the kitchen when the dogs started up again. This time it was her daughter. “Hurry, go tell the others she’s here,” she said to her husband. “I’ll go and let her in.”

  She waited until she heard her friends gather in the hallway behind her before throwing the front door wide open. “Surprise!” they all exclaimed.

  Candice beamed at them. “Wow, you guys, I had no idea. What’s this for?”

  “It’s a delayed welcome home party,” Moira said. “I felt bad that we didn’t do much when you first got back, we were just so busy. Eli and Matt are on their way over too. I wanted to put a nice little party together, both to celebrate your being back, and to celebrate all the other successes in our lives. Denise hired her new chef, the brewery is doing well, and of course you have a new employee at the candy shop. And Reggie is moving in with you soon, isn’t he?

  “Next week,” her daughter said. “I guess we all do have a lot to celebrate.”

  They all retired to the kitchen. David began to pour drinks, and Allison was finishing setting the table. Candice leaned against the counter, talking to Denise. Moira saw her take her phone out of her pocket, shrug, then press a button and put it on the counter. The deli owner pulled the chicken out of the oven and put it on top of the stove. Right as she was taking off the oven mitt, she heard her own phone ring. She grabbed her purse off the counter and spent a moment looking for the device. When she saw who was calling, she frowned. It was Detective Jefferson. She stared at the phone for a second, puzzled, then answered it, walking into the mudroom to have some privacy.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Darling, I’m glad I caught you,” Jefferson said. She could tell by his voice and the fact that he used her last name that this was an official call.

  “What happened?” she asked, feeling a spark of fear. Detective Jefferson was the head police detective in Maple Creek. They had known each other for years, and she could tell by his tone that something serious had happened.

  “It’s your daughter’s candy shop,” he said. “I just got a call from the fire station. The candy shop is burning.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Moira could see the smoke before they even made it to Lake Marion. She felt sick to her stomach, looking at the dark stain in the sky. It couldn’t be the candy shop. It seemed impossible. Was there anything of it left? She had never seen so much smoke in her life, not even when her own home had burnt down.

  Candice, sitting in the back seat, was pale. David was at the wheel, and she could see that his knuckles were bone white as he drove. Moira herself felt limp with shock and horror. How could this have happened?

  Lake Marion was even smaller than Maple Creek, and they saw the fire engines as soon as they made their way onto Main Street. There were two of them, both parked in front of the candy shop. Moira could see the water surging from the hoses to the buildings surrounding the candy shop as they fought to keep the fire from spreading. Whenever the water hit the burning building itself, it sent up plumes of steam and smoke. She could see fire in the windows and couldn’t imagine what the inferno inside must be like. People were milling about, firefighters, policemen, even pedestrians as they tried to get a closer look. David pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the road and the three of them rushed over. A firefighter halted them before they even reached the fire trucks.

  “You have to stay back,” he said. “It’s not safe to come any closer.”

  “That’s my shop,” Candice said. “You have to let us by.”

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I—”

  “Eli!” Candice suddenly screamed. She ran forward, pushing past the fireman. Stunned, he was unable to grab her in time. Moira followed her daughter’s gaze and gasped when she saw the two stretchers that were being rolled toward the ambulances.

  “David,” she breathed. “You don’t think he was inside…?”

  “Let us by,” her husband demanded. The firemen hesitated, looking between them and their daughter.

  “It’s okay,” someone called out. Moira looked up and was relieved to see Detective Jefferson. “Let them come closer. I’ll deal with it.”

  The fireman stepped aside. Moira and David pushed past him and hurried forward, where Detective Jefferson was waiting for them.

  “Eli—” she began.

  “He’s alive,” the detective was quick to assure her. His tone remained grim. “I can’t say the same about the young man with him, unfortunately. And I have to warn you, your son-in-law is in critical condition.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “The fire station was inundated with several calls at once,” the detective said. “According to what I’ve gathered so far from the witnesses, the fire started and spread very quickly. The firefighters barely had time to rescue the two people inside before the building began to collapse.”

  Moira stared at the blazing building that used to be her daughter’s candy shop. It was barely recognizable, already burnt beyond any hope of salvation.

  “What about Eli?” David said.

  “I don’t know what happened to him. I know he’s alive, but that’s it. The paramedics were giving him oxygen when you showed up. We can go closer, but please be careful. The building could collapse further at any moment.”

  Moira and David followed the detective toward where their daughter was leaning over one of the stretchers by the ambulance. She saw Candice holding Eli’s hand. Her face was wet with tears. Even from that distance, she could feel the intense heat from the building.

  “We have to move him, and quickly,” the paramedics were saying. “Are you related to him?”

  Candice nodded. “I’m his wife.”

  “You can ride in the ambulance with him. We have to get going to the hospital.”

  Before Moira had the chance to say anything, the paramedics had lifted the stretcher into the ambulance and Candice was climbing in. She met her daughter’s eyes and knew that whatever had happened Eli, it wasn’t good. He’s still alive, she thought. She had to hold onto that for now.

  “Wait, can my mom come with me?” Candice asked. Before she got an answer, the paramedic shut the door. Moira was left staring at the vehicle into which her daughter and her son-in-law had disappeared.

  “We’ll come as quickly as we can,” she promised, too late. The ambulance was already pulling away.

  “We have to go right away,” she said, turning to David. “I have to be there for her.”

  But as she turned, Moira’s gaze fixed on the other stretcher, the one with the shrouded form. The paramedics weren’t in as much of a hurry.

  “It must have been Matt,” David said. “Candice’s new employee. He’s about Eli’s age. Dark hair, blue eyes.”

  Detective Jefferson nodded slowly. “Do you happen to have the contact information for his next of kin?”

  Moira shook her head. She blinked, staring at the form on the stretcher. He had been so young, and had so much life in front of him. “I know who would,” she said. “Denise. He used to work for her at the Redwood Grill.”

  Jefferson nodded and made a quick note in his notepad. “There’s something else that we need to talk about,” he said. “Considering how quickly the fire spread, we have to consider the fact that this may have been arson. Do you know anyone who might want to destroy the candy shop or harm either Candice or Eli?”

  The word arson caught Moira’s attention. Her skin prickled. Someone had done this on purpose?

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Not yet. However, I’ve never seen a fire spread this quickly without some sort of accelerant.”

  “I can’t think of anyone that would want to hurt Candice,” she said. She blinked; her eyes were watering, and she didn’t know if it was from the emotional impact of everything that had happened, or the smoke that was blowing to her face. She was reminded of helplessness when her own home had burned.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked over to see David. He seemed just as unable to take his eyes off the place as she was.

  “Ms. Darling?”

  She looked over to see Detective Jefferson staring at her. She realized that he had been talking, but she hadn’t heard a word that he had said.

  “I said, do you know if there might have been anyone else inside?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Eli and Matt were supposed to close up and then meet at my house for dinner. The candy shop would have been closed already, so I doubt there were any customers inside.”

  Detective Jefferson nodded, looking relieved. “I’ll tell the firefighters. They tried to search the building for more people, but there just wasn’t time.”

  “Can we go now?” David asked. “We need to meet Candice at the hospital.”

  The detective nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll call you soon as we know more.”

  Moira couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder as they walked back toward the car. The plume of smoke seemed to dominate the entire sky, and her skin felt tight from the heat even though they had stayed as far back from the burning building as possible. She had never seen the main street in Lake Marion so busy, but now it was packed with cars—fire engines, police vehicles, ambulances, and cars caught by the roadblock. The firefighters were still hosing down the buildings on either side of the candy shop. She felt sick, thinking of all her daughter’s hard work being burned to a crisp in there, but then her thoughts turned to Eli and the building didn’t seem to matter. Would he be okay, or was her daughter about to lose her new husband?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  While David drove, Moira called to find out where Eli had been taken. She was relieved to find that he was at their local medical center—if he had been airlifted to one of the big hospitals, that would have meant that things were much more serious. She could hardly breathe the entire drive over. Candice hadn’t called, but she didn’t know whether that meant good news or bad news. When she did finally take a breath as David pulled into the parking lot, she noticed the terrible, acrid scent of smoke on her clothing. She and David both smelled like the burning building. Would that scent ever come out?

  “We’re here to see Eli Rothberg,” David said to the woman at reception. “He would have come in half an hour to forty-five minutes ago.”

  “He’s currently in surgery. Are you family?”

  “I’m in his mother-in-law,” Moira said. “My daughter—his wife—will be with him.”

  “She’s in the waiting room. Feel free to join her. The vending machines and restrooms are down the hall.”

  She and David walked through the doors to the waiting area. They saw Candice in the corner. She was sitting, staring dejectedly at her lap, not moving. Moira took the seat next to her and gently put a hand on her shoulder.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “He stopped breathing on the way over,” Candice said. “They got him started again and put him on oxygen. They said that the smoke caused damage to his lungs. He had other injuries too—a broken leg, and a gash on his head from when part of the building collapsed.”

  Her daughter recited all of that in a toneless voice, still not looking up.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Moira said. “He’s a strong young man. I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

  “What happened?” her daughter asked bleakly. “How could something like this have happened?”

  Moira didn’t know whether her daughter was talking about how the fire had started, or if she was asking the question a more rhetorical sense. She didn’t have a satisfactory answer either way.

  “They think it might be arson,” she said. “Can you think of anyone that might have wanted to hurt you?”

  Her daughter shook her head. “No. No one I know of, anyway. We don’t have any enemies.”

  David took the seat on the other side of her. He was a silent, comforting presence. Her heart ached for her daughter, and she wished that she knew what to say to help.

  “Did they get the fire out?” Candice asked after a moment.

  The deli owner shook her head. “They were still working on it when we left,” she said.

  “I just don’t understand,” Candice said, her voice cracking. “Everything is gone… Eli’s hurt, and Matt is… Matt is dead.”

  “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

  Moira stroked her daughter’s hair while they waited for news on Eli. It seemed to be an eternity before a doctor came through the doors and headed toward them.

  “Ms. Rothberg?” he asked. Candice nodded.

  “How is he?” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  “We got him stabilized,” he began. “His left leg was shattered. We had to put several pins in. However, more concerning is his head injury. We’ve put him in a medically induced coma at the moment in an attempt to keep the swelling down and to prevent further injury while he recovers. We’ll be keeping him in the ICU for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours because he’ll need to be watched around the clock. You’re welcome to come and see him now, but he won’t be responsive.”

  Candice gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth. “He’s in a coma?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “I understand that it’s shocking, but it’s his best chance at a full recovery. I want you to understand that he’s not out of the woods yet, but he has responded well to treatment so far.”

  Candice nodded, blinking slowly as she took in the news. “I can go and see him?”

  “Yes, for a short time.” He looked at David and Moira for the first time. “Are you his parents?”

  “No, we’re hers,” the deli owner said. “We’ll wait out here for you, sweetie. It’ll be okay.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand, then watched as the young woman stood up. Seeing Candice walk away with the doctor almost broke her heart. She wished that she could be with her daughter every step of the way.

  “How are you doing?” David asked, taking Candice’s seat.

  She closed her eyes, realizing that she had been so concerned with Candice and Eli that she hadn’t stopped to think about how all of this had affected her. It was a shock. Everything had been going so well, and then she had gotten that terrible call. It felt as if her life had changed completely in the blink of an eye. All of their lives had changed completely. Even if Eli did recover fully, the candy shop was in ruins. What would her daughter do? It hardly seemed worth thinking of now, of course. Eli was the priority. The candy shop could be rebuilt, but a person couldn’t.

  “I’m holding up,” she said. “Having to be strong for Candice is helping. I just don’t understand how something like this could’ve happened. I feel as lost and confused as she does.”

  “Neither do I,” her husband admitted. “She really doesn’t have any enemies to speak of, at least not that we know of. If someone had been trying to hurt her, why would they have burnt down the candy shop after it was closed for the day? It makes me think that this must be someone who had some sort of business feud with her, but there aren’t any other candy shops nearby that might be suffering from her store being open. The only other place in town that might be slightly in competition with the candy shop is Eli’s ice cream store, but of course we know he had nothing to do with this.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t arson,” she suggested. “They haven’t really had a chance to investigate yet. I know Detective Jefferson said that the fire spread extremely quickly, but it could have been some freak event. Maybe there was faulty wiring, or someone left the stove on for too long.”

  “Maybe,” David said, frowning. He didn’t seem to think it was likely, and if she was being honest with herself, neither did she.

  Moira felt her heart skip a beat when her daughter returned to the waiting room a little while later. Candice’s eyes were puffy, but she wasn’t crying any longer.

  “Oh, Mom,” she said, hurrying up to her. “It’s horrible to see him like that. What if he never wakes up?”

  “He will,” Moira said. “The doctors know what they’re doing. Eli is healthy and young, I’m sure he’ll be just fine.” She looked over David, who gave a somewhat hesitant nod.

  “I don’t know what to do now,” Candice said. “The doctor said there’s no reason I should stay here, and that he’ll call me if there’s any change. They won’t let me stay the night in the ICU anyway. I still feel bad leaving Eli, though.”