Classic Crust Murder Page 2

  People begin leaving one by one. Leaving Jacob out front to help, Ellie stepped outside and went to her car to grab a change of clothes. She had dressed up a bit for the class but didn't want to wear her nice clothes while she was working all day. Pizza sauce stained, and she didn't want to have to buy a new blouse.

  She slammed her car door shut with the bundle of clothes in her hand and was turning back toward the restaurant when she heard a loud scream cut suddenly short. She froze, trying to figure out where the sound had come from. Whoever had screamed had sounded like they had been in real trouble.

  Ellie hurried toward the front doors, but before she reached them, she heard another scream. This time, she could tell that it was coming from around the side of the building. Letting the clothes fall to the ground, she ran around the corner and stopped in her tracks. Rose was standing just outside the employee entrance, with Andy in a crumpled pile at her feet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  “What happened?” Ellie asked, running forward and dropping down to her knees.

  “I don't know. I heard a scream just outside the door, so I came to see what it was. I found her like this.”

  Ellie carefully pressed her fingers against Andy's neck, feeling for a pulse. The other woman's eyes were wide open, and her hair was bloodied. One of the cinderblocks that they used to prop open the employee entrance during a delivery was off to the side, and Ellie could see blood covering one of the sharp corners.

  “I think she's still breathing,” Ellie said. “Hurry, call an ambulance.”

  The pizzeria owner stayed by Andy's side until she heard the sirens draw near. She had to watch carefully to catch the faint rise and fall of the other woman's chest. A couple of times, her stomach dropped as she thought Andy stopped breathing, but she started again quickly.

  “Over here,” Ellie shouted when she heard a car door slam. Once the paramedics found her, she was shuffled off to the side while they worked on Andy, stabilizing her head and neck before sliding her onto a stretcher and lifting it up to wheel her toward the ambulance. When they reached the front of the building, she heard another scream, this one horrified.

  Realizing that some of the guests from the pizza making class must still be there, she shook herself out of her daze and followed the paramedics around the front of the building, where she found Jessie and Lola following the paramedics, both of them with pale faces as they struggled to find out how their sister and friend was.

  The paramedics were loading Andy into the ambulance when a police car pulled into the driveway. Careful not to block the ambulance's exit, it pulled to a stop near the doors of the pizzeria. Ellie recognized the person who got out of it; it was Liam, Russell's head deputy. Seeing a familiar face was a relief.

  Liam went straight to the paramedics to figure out what was going on, then made a beeline for Ellie.

  “What happened?” he asked, looking around at the gathered onlookers. “When we got the call about an accident at the pizzeria, I wasn't sure what I would find. Russell was out on patrol, or I'm sure he would have been the one to take the call. You should call him as soon as you can to let him know you're all right”.

  “I will,” Ellie said. “I should have done that first thing. I was sitting with Andy – the woman who got hurt – and I didn't even think about it.”

  “I'm sure he'll understand. Do you know what happened to Andy? The paramedics said that she had a head injury. Was she inside the pizzeria when it happened?”

  “No,” she said. “She was outside. Rose, one of my employees, heard her scream, and found her by the side entrance.”

  “How about you walk me through exactly what happened from the moment you realized something was wrong?”

  Ellie took a deep breath and began her story, starting with the short scream she had heard while she was getting the change of clothes out of her car. She ended with the paramedics arriving.

  “I didn't see anything else. I have no idea what could have happened.”

  “How well do you know this woman?”

  “Not very well. I host a small business club meeting at my house once or twice a month, and she just started coming to that. I was hosting a pizza making class at the pizzeria this morning, which is why so many people were here so early.”

  “You said that there was a cinderblock with some blood on it. Is it possible that she fell and hit her head on it?”

  “Maybe,” Ellie said. “I don't know what she would have tripped on, though. And that scream…” She shook her head.

  “I don't want you to worry too much just yet,” Liam said. It's possible she had a seizure or some other medical event that caused her to collapse. I'm going to take a look around, you should go back inside and call Russell. Once he hears about this, he'll be worried.”

  Following his advice, Ellie went inside the restaurant, but instead of calling Russell right away, she had to deal with the chaos that she found inside. Jessie and Lola weren't the only guests that were still there. Jacob was trying to calm down an older couple who were upset at the ambulance’s arrival, and a woman with tear streaked makeup was standing by the bathroom door, sniffing and blowing her nose in a napkin.

  “What happened, Ms. P.?” Jacob asked when he saw her.

  “Andy is hurt,” she told him. “None of us knows how yet. Liam is taking a look now to see if he can figure out what happened. Where is Rose?”

  “She locked herself in the bathroom,” he said, a pained look on his face. “She won't come out, even though a customer wants to use it.”

  “I'll go see if I can talk to her,” Ellie said.

  She walked across the room and excused herself as she pushed in front of the woman who was waiting for the restroom. Knocking on the door, she waited for a moment for a response, but didn't hear anything.

  “Rose, are you still in there?” she asked. “I know you are upset, but you really should come out. We have someone else who needs to use the facilities, and I'm sure Liam will want to talk with you once he's done going over the crime scene.”

  “Okay,” she said softly from inside. “Just a second. I want to clean myself up.”

  When Rose did appear, her face was tear streaked and her eyes were red. Ellie immediately felt bad for her. She had been the one to discover Andy, after all.

  “I think you should take the rest of the day off,” Ellie said. “I'll pick up the slack for you. I know how hard this must be. Go home and take care of yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Rose mumbled. “Sorry for breaking down like this.”

  “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” Ellie replied. “Go on. If you need to take tomorrow off too, just give me a call.”

  Rose was halfway to the front door when Liam pushed it open, causing the bell on top of it to ring. “Hang on a second,” he said. “I don't want anyone to leave yet. Can I have everyone take a seat?”

  Knowing that Liam had his reasons, Ellie made sure that everyone was rounded up. Once they were all sitting in the dining area, he cleared his throat and started talking.

  “I'm going to have to question each of you and take down your information. It's very possible that Andy's injury wasn't an accident. From here on out, we're going to treat it as assault.”

  Ellie felt herself go pale. “Why? What did you find?”

  “There was blood on the cinderblock like you said,” he told her. “But it was on the bottom corner of it, and it was nowhere near her head. It looks to me like someone hit her with it, and until I figure out exactly what happened, everyone here is a possible suspect.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Ellie sat numbly in the kitchen at the Pacelli house. The pizzeria had been temporarily shut down while the police went over the video footage from the security cameras and combed over every inch of the place for evidence. Andy was in critical condition at the hospital, and Ellie had no idea who she could trust.

  It seemed hard to believe that anyone there would h
ave attacked the cheerful, kind woman. Ellie couldn't imagine one of her own employees raising a hand to someone like that, but both Rose and Jacob were suspects, along with Lola, Jessie, and the three other people from the pizza making class who had been there at the time of the attack. Russell had told her that she, herself, wasn't being considered a suspect, but she wasn't about to tell her employees that. She understood that her husband had complete faith in her, but part of her felt that for fairness's sake, she should be scrutinized just as thoroughly as everyone else.

  “Are you ready to go?” Russell asked, walking into the kitchen.

  He was dressed all in black, a somber outfit for a somber affair. The two of them were about to head to a prayer meeting at the local church to pay their respects to the suffering that they knew Andy’s family was going through. Ellie felt as if she should attend, since the attack had happened at her restaurant, and Andy wouldn't have even been there if it wasn't for the pizza making class that Ellie had agreed to host. She desperately wanted to give her condolences to Andy's parents and fiancé and let them know that she was thinking of their loved one. She didn't know the details of Andy's condition, but she knew enough to know that it was serious.

  “I'm ready,” she said. “This is going to be hard. I feel so guilty. She got attacked on my property, right in front of my nose. How could something like this have happened?”

  “It's not your fault,” he told her. “Don't blame yourself for the actions of others. Feeling guilty about something that you couldn't have predicted or controlled won't help anyone. All we can do now is wait, and hope that she either wakes up and can tell us who her attacker was, or that the security footage shows something.”

  “Why does this always seem to happen to the best people?” Ellie asked. “She just seemed so… nice. She didn't deserve this.”

  “People rarely do, when something bad happens to them. Trust me when I say that we are going to do everything we can to find the person who did it.”

  “I know,” Ellie said. She sighed. “Let's go. I'm just going to keep dreading this until we get it over with.”

  She was glad that Russell was by her side as she entered the unfamiliar church. It warmed her heart to see how many people were attending to show their support for Andy. Even though she had never met them before, she could easily spot the woman's parents. Andy looked strikingly like her mother, and the older woman was sobbing openly in her husband's arms. Ellie felt her stomach drop. Whatever Andy's condition was, it must not be good. These people looked as if they had already given up.

  She and Russell waited quietly for a few minutes until they were able to make their way to the older couple. Ellie explained who she was and told them that she would keep Andy in her thoughts. She hadn't known Andy well, but she could tell them with confidence that their daughter seemed like she was a wonderful, kindhearted woman, and that there were a lot of people who cared about her.

  On their way out of the church, a man who looked like he was about Andy’s age caught up with them.

  “I'm Chase, Andy's fiancé,” he said. “I'll walk out with you. I'm on my way to the hospital to visit her right now anyway.”

  “How is she doing?” Ellie asked.

  “Not good,” he said. “If the swelling in her brain doesn't go down…” He shook his head. “Even if she wakes up, they say that there could be damage. She might need to relearn how to walk, or talk. She might not even remember me.” His voice cracked over the last sentence.

  “I'm sorry,” Ellie said. “I really hope she comes out of this all right.”

  “Me too,” he said. “The police won't tell us much, other than the fact that they are still investigating it. They all seem pretty useless so far.”

  Beside her, Ellie felt Russell tense up, but he didn't say anything. “I'm sure they're trying their hardest,” she said.

  “I just wish that they would tell us more. You were there, weren't you? Do you have any idea what happened? Who did it?”

  “I'm sorry, but I don't,” Ellie said.

  “Do you know if she was wearing an engagement ring while she was at the class?” he asked.

  “I'm not sure. I probably wouldn't have noticed it even if she was; I had a lot on my mind. Why?”

  “The people at the hospital said that she didn't have her ring on when she got there. She always wore it, and it seems odd to me that it is missing now. It was her grandmother’s, so it meant a lot to her.”

  “Have you mentioned it to the police?”

  “No, not yet,” he said. “I just realized it was gone this morning.”

  “I would give them a call soon,” Ellie said. “It could be important.”

  He nodded, then bade them farewell and got into his vehicle. Ellie and Russell continued walking a little while longer until they reached his truck.

  “I take it he didn't know you're the sheriff?” she asked him as he started the engine.

  “No, Liam is taking the lead on this case with my guidance. He is the one who's been talking to the family.”

  “I'm sorry he said the police were useless. I'm sure he didn't mean it.”

  “It's okay,” Russell said. “I can't even imagine what they're going through. They need someone to blame, and if it makes them feel better to blame us, that's okay with me.”

  After the sadness of the earlier part of that day, it was a relief when they got to Russell's brother's house. James was away at work, but Shannon was there, and when she let them in, Ellie made a beeline for the little baby in his rocking cradle in the living room. She didn't have any siblings of her own, and had never really been around infants before, and she was fascinated by everything her new nephew did. As far as she was concerned, Andrew was the cutest baby in the world. Shannon, who looked tired but happy, trailed into the room behind her.

  “He's always so quiet when you're around,” she said. “Maybe if you stayed overnight sometime, I might actually be able to get more than half an hour’s worth of sleep at a time.”

  “If James goes out of town again, I'd be happy to stay,” Ellie told her. “How are the two of you holding up?”

  “We are both exhausted,” Shannon admitted. “But I wouldn't change a thing. How are you doing? You told me that the pizzeria is temporarily closed because of the poor woman that was attacked there, but I haven't heard much else about it.”

  “We’re still working on figuring out exactly what happened,” Russell told her, walking over to the cradle to peer at the baby with Ellie. “It's a tough case. If the victim wakes up soon, she might be able to help us solve it, but if she doesn't…” He shook his head.

  “Hasn't Liam found anything on the security footage yet?” Ellie asked.

  “I didn't want to mention it before the service this morning, but we haven't been able to get anything off of the security tapes.”

  “Why not?” she asked, frowning.

  He hesitated. “Because the cameras had been turned off the night before. There isn't any footage past about nine o'clock the previous night.”

  Ellie looked up from the Andrew, her stomach suddenly clenching. She never turned the security cameras off herself, which meant that it must have been either one of her employees, unless a customer had managed to sneak past them to do it. Did that mean that the attack on Andy had been planned? She closed her eyes, thinking back, trying to remember who had been on shift that night. Jacob had been there, she knew; she remembered going over last-minute plans for the pizza making class with him. And Rose, she thought. Rose was there too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Ellie sat silently in the car on the drive home. She didn't know what to think. She knew that she and Rose had had their issues, but she couldn't imagine Rose disconnecting the security cameras on purpose. That would mean that she was involved with the attack on Andy, and Ellie wasn't ready to believe that. Rose might be upset with her, but she would never hurt another person.

  Russell hadn’t said anything else about it to her,
and she wondered if he ever would. As far as she knew, they still didn't have any suspects. Would he talk to Rose without saying anything to her first? She knew it was always hard for him when one of his cases involved her or someone else that he knew. He didn't want to let his personal life get in the way of work, but she knew that it was next to impossible not to. He wouldn't want to upset her by pointing the finger at one of her employees, not if he could help it, but at the same time, he had a right to question whoever he wanted. Ellie just hoped that if he did question Rose, she wouldn't think that her boss had anything to do with it. Ellie desperately wanted things to go back to normal between the two of them.