Smoked Gouda Murder: Book 5 in Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Read online

  They weren’t the only ones feeling worn out. Nonna had been acting a lot more tired than usual lately, and her granddaughter was worried about her. The elderly woman was well into her eighties, and thought she at times seemed like an unstoppable force of nature, Ellie knew that her grandmother wouldn’t be able to continue at the same pace forever. Despite her waning energy, however, Ann Pacelli refused to settle down. She continued to keep up a healthy social life, and also attended various classes on top of her never-ending doctor appointments.

  It didn’t come as any surprise to Ellie when Nonna came home that evening after having a dinner with one of her old friends and announced that she was going straight to bed.

  “All right,” she said to her grandmother. “Let me know if you need anything, okay? Remember, you can just ring the bell at the bottom of the stairs — there’s no need to come all the way up. I brought some brownies home from the pizzeria, so if you wake up later, feel free to help yourself to some.” She knew the older woman tended to wake up in the middle of the night unable to return to sleep on the evenings that she went to bed so early.

  “I’ll be fine, Eleanora,” Nonna said. “I’m old, I’m not a child.”

  With that, she vanished into her first-floor bedroom, and Ellie was left to frown after her in silence. The older woman wasn’t usually so short with her. Is she in pain? she wondered. Is there something going on that she isn’t telling me about?

  Deciding to ask her grandmother about it in the morning, the pizzeria manager finished her bowl of lentil soup and washed the few dishes that were in the sink before calling Bunny over and going upstairs to her own bedroom. It was more of a master suite, really; she had the entire upper level to herself, mainly because the stairs were a major obstacle to her grandmother these days. She still hadn’t done much with the spare rooms — at first, she hadn’t been sure how long she was going to stay in Kittiport, and lately there just hadn’t been time to do much of anything besides work. She would like to get her own office-type area set up here eventually. She loved her grandfather’s study, but it still very much felt like his study. It would be nice to have a place that felt more like her own.

  I could always move out and rent a house in town. She dismissed the thought immediately. There was no way she could leave the elderly woman alone in this big house, especially not with the way she seemed to be slowing down lately. She may not have been very involved with this side of her family for most of her adult life, but that just meant that she had to try harder than ever to do right by her grandmother while she still had the time to make up for it.

  After reading for an hour in the comfortable nook by the window, Ellie went to bed with the thought that she would get up early the next morning and do some online shopping for furniture for the little office she wanted to turn the upstairs guest room into.

  She lay her head on the pillow and what felt like only seconds later her eyes blinked open. It was still dark outside. She wondered for a moment if she had even slept at all, but the red digits of the clock on her nightstand assured her that she had. It was just past two in the morning. Groaning, Ellie turned over and pulled the comforter farther up her body, trying to get back to sleep. She was going to be up late the next night, and she knew she would regret it if she didn’t get a good night’s rest now.

  A soft, high-pitched whine made her open her eyes again. Bunny must have to go out; that was probably what woke her up in the first place. With a sigh, she gave up on sleep for the moment, sat up, and slipped her feet into the slippers that she kept beside her bed. Early November in Maine was cold, and the hardwood floors throughout the house were freezing on her bare feet at night.

  “Come on,” she said, still not feeling fully awake. “Let’s go outside.” She opened the bedroom door and the little black and white papillon dashed through. Ellie could hear her nails clicking on the floor as she ran through the hall, then down the stairs. She followed the dog more slowly, and covered a yawn with one hand as she unlocked the front door and pulled it open with the other.

  “Bunny?” she said, puzzled when the dog didn’t dash outside. She looked around, but didn’t spot the dog anywhere near her feet. Then she heard another soft whine and turned to see the papillon, her white fur bright in the dark hallway, standing by the door to the basement.

  “What’re you doing?” Ellie asked. She shut the front door and walked down the hallway. To her shock, the basement door was open. It was always supposed to remain closed; Arthur Pacelli, her grandfather, had placed mouse and rat poison down there for years, and though she had tried to gather as much of it up as she could, she wasn’t certain that she had gotten it all. The last thing she wanted was for Bunny to get into it. The dog was so small that it wouldn’t take much to poison her. “Stay back from there, Bunny.”

  She placed her hand on the door, meaning to close it, but paused. Had she heard something from below? She listened. There was a rusting sound. She remembered the string of slashed tires that Russell had told her about and wondered fleetingly if someone had broken into the house. That would be just her luck. She would rather have slashed tires.

  She was just about to go find something she could defend herself with if the need arose, when she heard a groan coming from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Nonna?” Heart pounding, Ellie reached over and flicked on the basement light. Her grandmother was lying at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her left arm to her chest, eyes tightly shut against the pain.

  The minutes between her call to 911 and the ambulance’s arrival were the longest of Ellie’s life. She sat in the basement with her grandmother, afraid to move the older woman, afraid that she would somehow hurt her even more than she had already been.

  When she finally heard the ambulance arrive, she hurried up the stairs and locked Bunny in the study so the little dog would be safely out of the way, then opened the front door as the paramedics hurried in. Everything seemed to be happening in jerks and flashes, and before she knew it she was in her car behind the ambulance with no real memory of how she had got there.

  Ellie waited at the hospital for hours, occasionally feeling like she should call someone and let them know what had happened, but realizing that they didn’t actually have any other family in the area. She didn’t know how to get into contact with any of her grandmother’s friends. It didn’t make sense to call Darlene, her cousin, until she knew more. She lived out of state, and wouldn’t be able to do anything other than worry anyway.

  At long last the doctor came into the waiting room and settled down in the chair next to her. Ellie searched his face, wondering if the news she was about to hear would be the worst news of her life.

  “Your grandmother will be fine,” he said. Relief washed over her. “She has a broken arm, and a few bruises that are going to make life pretty miserable for the next few days, but no internal injuries or damage to her head or spine that we’ve been able to find. I know it may not seem like it now, but she got lucky. She’s still out from the surgery on her arm, but you can go and see her if you’d like.”

  Ellie followed him down the hall, not paying any attention to the turn that he took, until they reached her grandmother’s room. Now that she knew Nonna would be okay, she realized that there were still so many questions that she didn’t have the answer to, such as why the elderly woman had been going into the basement in the middle of the night in the first place. For now, however, she was content to sit by her grandmother’s bed and hold her hand, thinking about how she was going to buy Bunny a box of her favorite treats on her way home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  The house seemed empty and lifeless without the elderly woman puttering around the rooms. Ellie was so used to her grandmother’s presence that it felt odd to be the only one there, even though she had spent years living on her own. The doctor had told her that Ann would be able to come home in a few days, but he wanted to keep her over the weekend to make sure no additional problems presente
d themselves.

  “A woman her age, it’s amazing she survived a fall like that. I’ve seen other people break a hip or get a concussion after they trip and fall on the carpet,” he had told her.

  Somehow the prospect of a weekend of relaxing at home didn’t seem like such an attractive idea any more. It wasn’t like sitting around the big empty house would do anything to help her grandmother, anyway, and she doubted she’d be able to relax in the slightest. She decided that going into the pizzeria would be the best way to get her mind off of Nonna’s fall. Keeping busy had always served her best when she was upset.

  Heading into the pizzeria on her day off turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Clara, who rarely took time off if she could help it, nearly collapsed with relief when she saw her boss walk into the kitchen.

  “Thank goodness. I didn’t want to call and interrupt you if you were busy doing something, but my stomach is killing me. I think I might have the flu. Can I leave early?”

  Ellie took one look at her pale, slightly sweaty employee and nodded. “Definitely. Don’t even finish up that pizza. We can’t have someone sick around the food. You go home and get some rest. I hope you feel better soon.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Pacelli,” she said. “I’ll make it up some time, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The truth was, this was exactly what Ellie had wanted. Not for the young woman to be sick, but to have an excuse to bury herself in her work and push her fears and concerns to the side for the rest of the evening.

  With Jacob handling the deliveries, Ellie was alone more often than not at Papa Pacelli’s that evening. With the light outside quickly fading and the temperature dropping low enough that she was comfortable in the hot kitchen for once, fewer and fewer people were coming in to pick up pizzas. She envied all of the families who were sitting happily at home, waiting for Jacob to knock on their door with dinner. She should be doing the same at home with Nonna. Her heart ached of the proud, kind older woman all alone at the hospital.

  She’ll be home tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest, she thought as she smoothed red sauce across the pizza in front of her. She wouldn’t want me to feel bad for her. I should be focusing on the positives. I have a lot to be thankful for. I shouldn’t be spending my time moping around. I should try to be more positive She knew that Nonna had gotten very lucky when she fell down the stairs. The doctor had made it clear that her injuries easily could have been much worse.

  It was near to closing time when she got a text from Shannon. Her friend wanted to know if she was at the pizzeria, and if so, whether it was too late to order something for dinner.

  Not too late at all, Ellie texted back. What do you want?

  After reading her friend’s reply, she put away the rag she had been using to clean the burners on the stove and set to work making the veggie supreme pizza her friend had requested. Jacob returned a few minutes later from his last delivery of the evening and gave the pizza dough in her hands a cautious look.

  “A last-minute call came in?” he guessed.

  “Yes, but it was Shannon, and she’s going to pick it up,” she told him. “You’re free to go.”

  “Thanks, Ms. P.”

  Smiling at his obvious relief, Ellie got back to work. At the last minute, she decided to put a personal pizza in the oven for herself, too. Without Nonna at home, there was no reason to cook a full meal for dinner when she got back, not when she had a perfectly good kitchen here.

  Shannon got there a few minutes before her pizza was done cooking, so Ellie pulled them both a cup of coffee – it had been brewed that morning, but still tasted okay – and joined her friend at one of the tables.

  “How’s Ann?” Shannon asked.

  “She’s on a lot of pain medication, so she wasn’t very coherent the last time I spoke with her. They’re going to begin lessening the dosage this evening and see how she does. I’ll just be glad when she’s back home.”

  “If I send her flowers, should they go to the hospital or your place?”

  “Send them to the house,” Ellie said. “The doctor thinks she’ll be able to come home tomorrow afternoon, as long as nothing else comes up.”

  “I’ll call in the morning, so she’ll have bouquet waiting for her when she gets back,” Shannon said. “Does Russell know about all of this?”

  “Yes, but we, ah, haven’t really had a chance to talk lately. I think he’s mad at me.” He had called her just a few hours ago, but she had been in the middle of a discussion with one of her regulars, and when she had tried to return his call, he hadn’t answered.

  “Mad at you?” Her friend laughed. “Why in the world do you think that?”

  “He’s been more distant since the mayor’s wife died and everything happened with Karen,” Ellie said. “I think he’s upset that I didn’t listen to his warnings and ended us all up in a bucket full of trouble.”

  To her surprise, Shannon chuckled and shook her head. “He’s not mad at you, Ellie. From what James had told me, he’s mad at himself for not listening to what you were trying to tell him. He blames himself for me, you, and Karen being in that situation.”

  “Well, that’s stupid of him,” Ellie said bluntly. “I’m the one that dragged us into the mess.”

  “That’s not how he sees it. You know about his wife. He’s never forgiven himself for not finding her killer. I think he probably feels like your near brush with death is his fault too.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a near brush with death. I mean, Karen was the only one that was in immediate danger.”

  “Still.” Shannon shrugged. “I’m just guessing that’s how he feels. He’s the kind of guy that thinks everything is his responsibility, even when it isn’t. A few years ago, James got into a car accident involving a deer, and he was beating himself up because he was the one that had suggested that James take that route to avoid traffic. James even admitted that he had been sending me a text when he hit the deer, and Russell still blames himself.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Just talk to him,” Shannon said. “Ignore all of his weird, manly feelings of guilt and show him that you’re completely fine.”

  “I’ll give that a try. Hold on, that’s the oven. Your pizza’s done.”

  Shannon followed her back into the pizzeria’s kitchen and rinsed out her coffee cup in the sink while Ellie took the pizza out of the oven and slid it into a box for her friend. She was just reaching back into the oven for her mini pizza when she heard the bell that signified someone had opened the front door.

  “I’ll go tell whoever it is that you’re closed. Do you want me to turn off the sign, too?”

  “Sure. Thanks,” Ellie said.

  She put her own pizza on top of the stove and was just beginning to fold one of the eight inch boxes when she heard an earsplitting scream come from the dining area. Dropping the box, Ellie ran across the kitchen and pushed her way through the swinging door to find Shannon standing frozen behind the counter with her hands covering her mouth. On the floor in the middle of the pizzeria was a blonde woman, who was lying crumpled in a growing pool of blood. The front door was still closing, and Ellie caught a glimpse of someone dressed all in black run down the sidewalk outside.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Ellie hurried forward to help the woman on the ground. Behind her, she could hear the Shannon’s phone beeping as she dialed, presumably calling 911. She fell to her knees next to the woman, her hands fluttering uselessly above the still form, feeling just as helpless as she had when she was waiting for the ambulance to come and get her grandmother from the bottom of the basement stairs.

  Focus, she told herself, straining to remember everything she knew about first aide. It wasn’t much, but she thought that stopping the bleeding was probably the first thing she could do.

  She pressed her hands against the wound on the woman’s back, trying not to recoil at the warm, wet touch of her blood. Pressing down on the only w
ound she could see, she tried to staunch the flow. The woman didn’t gasp or twitch even slightly as she applied pressure, which Ellie knew couldn’t possibly be a good sign. Faintly, as if from far away, she heard Shannon’s panicked voice saying something to the emergency operator, but she was too focused on the blond woman to pay attention to what was being said. The woman still struck her as looking familiar. She gazed at her face for a long moment before realizing who she was; the woman who had come in to pick up a pizza earlier in the week while she was having lunch with Karen. She wished she could remember her name — it had been something unique, she was sure of it. That was why the woman’s face had stuck with her.