A Melted Morsel of Murder Read online

  “Don't worry about it,” she said, covering her mouth as she yawned. “We're both pretty much on call during the weekends. It's not like I never end up going in unexpectedly. Besides, I had some chores I wanted to get done today. I'll be fine. If I get the housework done early enough, maybe I'll stop in and bring you something for lunch.”

  “That would be lovely,” he said, pausing to give her a quick kiss before pulling on his button up shirt. “Don't feel like you have to, but I always enjoy seeing you during the day.”

  She waited while he finished getting ready to go, then followed him downstairs to say goodbye. She was a little bit disappointed that he would be gone during the day, but she couldn't blame him. Both of them were devoted to their jobs, and it was something they had both known and understood about each other before getting married. While she knew that she would always take priority in an emergency, his work as sheriff would take precedence most other times. Unlike her job, his might be life or death for someone else, and she didn't want to take him away from that.

  It took a while to get ready for the day. She had never been a naturally early riser, and she enjoyed taking her time in the mornings, especially on weekends. It was late morning by the time she finally got ready to tackle her to-do list. She pulled up the application on her phone and read through it, trying to figure out what she wanted to do first.

  Do walk-through at Nonna's house.

  That might be a good one to get out of the way first. She wanted to see if the cleaners had done as good a job as they had advertised, and she wanted to make sure everything was ready for her grandmother to move back. She was really looking forward to having the older woman home. The two of them had grown quite close over the years, and she missed her when she was gone.

  “Bunny, do you want to head over to Nonna's with me?”

  The little papillon, who had been lounging in her dog bed in the living room, perked up her ears. Ellie smiled and stood up, the little dog following her. She decided to walk over. It was a cold day, but not as bitterly cold as it had been recently, and the fresh air would do them both some good. She hesitated for a moment at the door, thinking about taking Sawyer with her, but decided against it. Even though he was over a year old now, he still acted like a puppy sometimes, and they hadn't quite gotten him to the point where he had completely stopped pulling on his leash. She knew that the road would be icy, and didn't want to have to struggle with him. Besides, Russell took him out back frequently. Bunny didn't get to go out as much as he did, since she didn't handle the cold as well.

  Ellie bundled herself up, tugged Bunny's sweater on, then clipped the leash to the little dog's collar and grabbed the keys to her grandmother's house from one of the hooks by the front door. She let Bunny walk out in front of her, and the two of them set off down the driveway, turning left when they hit the road.

  It was strange to see Nonna's house sitting empty and dark, a new dusting of snow over the driveway. She had gotten used to having the tenants there, and wished that she had taken the time to get to know them better.

  “Well, let's see how the cleaners did. Hopefully everything is nice and tidy. I'll have to remember to come back and dust every once in a while until Nonna gets back.”

  She unlocked the front door and stepped inside, inhaling the citrus scent of the cleaning solution that the man had used. She let Bunny off leash – the little dog had lived there for the past couple years of her life, and Ellie knew that she wouldn't get into any trouble – then began walking through the house.

  A twinge of homesickness struck her as she strode through the familiar halls. While she loved her and Russell's new home, there was something comforting about her grandmother's house. It had been her home too, and she had many wonderful memories from when she lived there.

  She was pleased with what she found on the first floor. The hardwood had been shined, the molding had been repainted, the kitchen practically sparkled, and the furniture looked and smelled refreshed. Upstairs, she found much the same. The rugs had been vacuumed and cleaned, and the windows were crystal clear. She smiled, glad that everything looked perfect. She would definitely be using those cleaners again.

  She decided to check out the basement before she left. Her grandmother's knickknacks had been moved into the attic, which was locked with a padlock, and she and Russell had spent a weekend cleaning out the basement so the new tenants would be able to use it for storage. She wanted to make sure that they had gotten everything of theirs out.

  Whistling to Bunny, who came trotting out of the kitchen, she opened the basement door and flicked on the light. The two of them went downstairs.

  The lighting was dim, but from what Ellie could see, the basement looked to be in decent shape. It didn't appear as though the cleaners had done anything down there, but she didn't really mind. She hadn't even thought to ask them to clean the basement, and it wasn't as though it was a part of the house that was normally kept sparkling clean.

  Satisfied, she turned to go back upstairs, pausing partway up them when she noticed that Bunny wasn't following her.

  “Bunny?”

  The dog didn't respond. She turned to look around the basement, but didn't see the little dog anywhere. Suddenly a high-pitched yelp made Ellie jump. She hurried back down the stairs looked around, finally finding the papillon scratching at the other side of the old water cistern that had been built into the basement back when the house had first gone up. It wasn't used anymore, and just collected dust and spiderwebs.

  “What on earth are you doing, girl?” Ellie asked.

  Bunny continued to jump up and down at the cistern wall, letting out another small yelp in frustration. Frowning, Ellie picked her up and then looked inside the cistern.

  She could barely make out a long form covered in black garbage bags in the back corner. She wondered if the tenants had thrown trash into the cistern, then realized that it could have been something her grandmother left behind. She and Russell hadn't even thought to check the cistern when they cleaned up the basement.

  Bunny squirmed in her arms, and with a strength that surprised Ellie, managed to break free. She took a wild leap for the cistern wall and caught the edge of it with her paws, jumping down into the dirty pit.

  “Bunny!”

  The little dog made a beeline for the lumpy pile of black garbage bags. She started sniffing like crazy, a strange whine that Ellie had never heard before coming from her throat.

  Ellie looked around the room, her eyes landing on an empty plastic bucket. She turned it upside down and put it next to the cistern wall, using it as a stepstool to climb over. There must have been at least six inches of dust and dirt on the bottom of it, and she gave a small shiver of disgust as she felt a cobweb brush against her face.

  “Come here,” she said to the dog as she made her way across the floor of the cistern. Bunny kept pawing at the black garbage bags. Ellie reached down to pick her up. Once the little dog was safely tucked under her left arm, she reached down once more, her fingers gripping the edge of the black bag. It wasn't as covered in dust as everything else, and she was curious about what was inside. Something about the long, lumpy shape was setting off alarm bells in her mind, but she ignored them. Gripping the plastic material, she tugged it away. When she saw what was underneath, a piercing scream tore itself from her lips and she stumbled back.

  Chapter Four

  She waited in the living room with Bunny, the little dog nestled in her arms. It didn't take long for the police to arrive. She had called them as soon as she managed to scramble out of the cistern and up the stairs. She knew that Russell would be the one to come; after all, he was working today. She didn't know whether she was glad about that or not. She would like to have him there, of course, but she knew that he would be upset that she had found herself knee deep in another unlikely death.

  She heard a car door slam and she got up, walking over to the front door to look out the window. There was a police vehicle with flashing lights in the
driveway, and not far behind it, an ambulance that would take the body to the town's small morgue.

  Ellie kept Bunny tucked under her arm as she opened the door. Russell took one look at her and pulled her into his arms, careful not to squish the little dog. She gave him a one-armed hug back, then pulled away. She felt tears prick her eyes as she looked at him.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said. “It's my job, and you're my wife. I dropped everything immediately and got here as quickly as I could when the call came in. Where is the body?”

  She shuddered. “It's in the basement. I didn't touch it. I didn't even get a good look at it. I just pulled the bag back and when I saw the face…” She closed her eyes, trying not to think about it.

  “I want you and Bunny to stay up here, okay?”

  She nodded and retreated to the living room again, sitting down on the couch. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. She didn't want to see the pale, colorless face of the dead man who had been hidden in her grandmother's cistern. The terror that had jolted through her when she pulled the plastic bag back and saw it still hadn't left her. Her heart was pitter pattering in her chest, and her palms prickled with adrenaline. She hadn't expected to find a corpse when she pulled back the trash bag.

  Russell came back upstairs not long after, already on the phone with somebody at the sheriff's department. He sat with her while they waited. She wanted to ask him what he thought, or if he knew whose body it was, but she couldn't bring herself to form the words. It wasn't long before the forensic team arrived, and he left her alone again to go into the basement and help them document the crime scene.

  She had seen bodies before. She wasn't sure why she was so shaken by this. Maybe it was simply because of how unexpected it was, or because the body had been found in a place that had been home to her for years. Or maybe it was because she simply had no clue that the body was there. If it wasn't for Bunny, it would have been so easy to go back up the basement stairs without ever even noticing it. If that had happened, the body might have stayed there for weeks, until her grandmother got home, or even longer, since the older woman rarely used the basement. They wouldn't have noticed it until somebody noticed the smell.

  She tightened her fingers in Bunny's fur. She felt sick to her stomach, and took a couple of deep breaths. She was just about to get up and go into the kitchen for a glass of water when Russell came into the room.

  “I think we've got everything we need. They're about to take the body to the morgue. Once they're gone, I'll ask you a few questions about what happened. We may need help identifying the body. I’ll need the names and contact information for everyone who has been in this house for the past couple of days, as well as anyone who had a key besides yourself and your grandmother.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “I can do that. So… you have no idea who it is?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “Whoever killed him went to certain measures to keep his identity a secret. We will be unable to pull any fingerprints from him, dental records won't be able to help, and he had no form of ID on him.”

  Ellie opened her mouth to ask what he meant, then closed it again. She decided that she didn't want to know the details. Whatever the man's killer had done to his body sounded gruesome, if they wouldn't even be able to identify it using normal means.

  “How long has he been down there?” she asked, her voice not much more than a whisper.

  “It can't have been much more than twenty-four hours,” he said. “We’ll know more when we hear back from the coroner.”

  Ellie nodded. She hugged her dog closer to herself, feeling horrified by what she had discovered. She just hoped that the police would be able to find out who the poor man was, and figure out what had happened to him. As she leaned back into the couch and tried to keep her thoughts off of the grim discovery in the basement, she couldn't help but wish she had put off doing the walk-through until later that evening, when Russell might have been able to go with her.

  After the paramedics carted the body away and the ambulance left, Russell sat down with her in her grandmother's living room and asked her to tell him what had happened earlier that day. She walked him through her morning, telling him about how Bunny had refused to leave the cistern, and how she had let her curiosity get the better of her and had pulled back one of the black plastic garbage bags.

  “I should have known, by the shape,” she said. “I think part of me might have suspected… If I had stopped to think about it, I might have realized what the bags were hiding.”

  “You couldn't have known,” he said soothingly. “No one would have expected to find what you found. Now, I'm going to have to head back to the sheriff's department and get started on this case. I'll get you settled in at home first. Are you going to be okay there? Would you rather I take you to town? I'm sure Shannon would be happy to spend the day with you.”

  “I'll be okay at home,” she said. “I think I need some time alone.”

  He nodded and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I'll be back this evening. We'll talk more then. Now, let’s get you home.”

  Chapter Five

  It took a while for a shaken Ellie to calm down enough to begin working through her to-do list. Once she started the housework, she discovered that it helped to take her mind off of what she had found in her grandmother's basement. She worked feverishly, vacuuming the rugs, scrubbing the floors, and cleaning every bathroom until the surfaces sparkled. She cleaned the windows in the kitchen until they were crystal clear, then picked up her phone and crossed off the last item on her list.

  A glance at the clock told her that it was still a good few hours before Russell would come home, so she decided to see if there was any work waiting for her. She grabbed a handful of healthy nuts from the kitchen and went into the office, dropping a few almonds and cashews into the bowl on the play stand and watching as Marlowe climbed over to begin eating them before sitting down at the desk. She popped a cashew into her mouth, then opened her laptop, pulling up her email program.

  Sure enough, there was a new email from the manager at the Florida pizzeria. She opened it and found a smile spreading across her face as she read what her friend had written. The second pizzeria was doing better than ever. The advertisement that they had filmed a few weeks before had finally aired, and it seemed to be paying off. Linda, the manager, was even thinking about hiring a few more employees, since they had been getting so much more business recently. She had attached a file that held a recording of the advertisement, which Ellie downloaded and watched.

  She couldn't have been happier with the way that it turned out. She saved the file to her computer, knowing that Russell, Shannon, and James would all want to see it later. Not for the first time, she toyed around with the idea of filming a similar advertisement for the Maine pizzeria, but once again quashed it. Kittiport and Benton Harbor were the only two towns in their delivery range, and everyone in both towns already knew all about Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria.

  She sent off a quick reply, telling Linda how happy she was and how proud she was of how the Florida pizzeria had been doing. Then she closed her laptop and sighed. It had been a pleasant distraction, but it hadn't lasted as long as she had hoped.

  She put her hand on her laptop, hesitating as she wondered whether she should open it again and send an email to her grandmother. Nonna would want to know. She would rather tell her grandmother all of this over the phone, but it might be easier to get out in an email.

  Though, she didn't really know anything about what had happened yet. Maybe it would be better to wait until she and Russell knew more before contacting the older woman. She removed her hand, letting the laptop stay closed, and instead leaned back in her chair. It was going to be a long day.

  By the time Russell got home that evening, Ellie had baked her feelings. The kitchen was overflowing with freshly made blueberry muffins, an apple pie, and delicious triple cheese and bacon pizz
a. She hadn't really had a specific goal in mind when she started cooking; she had simply made whatever sounded good to her. She knew that Russell would gladly take any leftovers into the sheriff's department the next day, so she wasn't worried about it going to waste.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” her husband said as he came into the kitchen, a couple of snowflakes still clinging to his hair. “I wanted to try to get out early today, but I couldn't. How are you doing?”

  “Well, I got a lot done today,” she said. “Honestly, I've been trying not to think about it.”

  He pulled her into a hug. “Well, I can tell you've been busy in here.” He looked around the kitchen. “What do you say we sit down together and have dinner, and I'll tell you everything I can about the case?”