Chicken Club Murder (The Darling Deli Series Book 21) Page 4

  “Ms. Darling, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just offering your husband the chance to get in touch with someone before we go into the other room so I can ask him some questions.”

  “Why would you bring us here, show us these pictures, and then tell us that David is a murder suspect?” she asked. “You know us. We wouldn’t do something like this.”

  He sighed, looking tired. “I know you wouldn’t kill somebody in cold blood. But would David kill to protect you? I can’t say I don’t know that.”

  David broke in before she could say anything else. “Jefferson, I remember the time stamp from when we watched the videos. I have an alibi. I was buying food at the bakery. I paid with my card, and there’s a security camera above the register. Will that suffice?”

  The detective looked relieved. “Certainly. The bakery in Maple Creek? I’ll have someone pull their records and footage right away. I’m sorry for this, but I’m sure you can see the connection I made.”

  “Of course,” David said. “You thought I found out this person was stalking my wife and took matters into my own hands. I can see how it makes sense. However, this is the first time I’ve seen any pictures, and I only began to have an inkling that something was wrong a couple of days ago when we found that footprint near our house.”

  “I believe you. We’ll check your alibi, and then you’ll be free to go.”

  “What are you going to do with the pictures?” Moira asked, her eyes drawn to the screen again. It was odd to see so many photos of herself that she hadn’t posed for. It was a slice into her own life that she had never expected to see

  “We’ll be keeping them for the investigation. I’m sorry. If I could, I would delete them all here and now. I can imagine how uncomfortable this all must be. Another thing. We found a gun at the crime scene. It was registered to a Michael Bennington. Do either of you know who he might be? His description in the database does not match that of our victim, so it’s possible that the gun belongs to our assailant.”

  She looked away again, shaken. This man had been spying on her for months. How on earth had she not noticed anything until a few days ago?

  She fidgeted on the way home. Their stop at the police station hadn’t helped clear things up at all. If anything, it had just made things cloudier. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. There had been so many times that she had thought she was alone, but she wasn’t. At least I know he won’t be following me around any longer.

  The thought surprised her. She wasn’t glad the man was dead. She didn’t like the thought of anyone being dead. However, if the man was still alive and out there somewhere, she didn’t know how she would have been able to sleep at night.

  “Straight home?” David asked her. He hadn’t said much since they had left the police station. He seemed just as upset as she was at the invasion of their privacy, and she didn’t blame him. If they had discovered that some woman had been stalking him, she knew that she would be livid.

  “Yeah. I’m not hungry right now.”

  “All right. I want to go through the house when we get back. See if we can find out how he got in.”

  “I don’t understand why the dogs wouldn’t have kept him out,” she said. “I’m surprised that Maverick let someone break in.”

  “If he had treats he probably managed to win them over. Both dogs like food enough to accept a stranger with treats after a few minutes of bribery.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said reluctantly. She didn’t like thinking that the dogs—whom she had considered her first line of defense when she was home alone—could be so easily charmed. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt them.”

  “Me too.”

  She fell silent, trying not to think about how much worse things might have been. If the man had been just a little more cold-hearted, he could have poisoned the dogs, or even shot them. My stalker cared about animals, she thought. I guess that’s something.

  At home, she and David tore the house apart. First, they went over all of the windows and doors, searching for signs of forced entry. They found the first-floor bathroom window unlocked, and closer examination showed where the screen had been bent slightly when it was removed from the outside.

  “I never use this window,” she commented. “I don’t think I’ve opened those blinds since I got them.”

  “Did you leave it unlocked?”

  “No… wait, I think I might have opened it just a crack when it started getting warmer out to get the fresh air. I must have forgotten about it.”

  “Well, we know how he got in. Now let’s go see if we can find out if he took anything while he was in here… or left anything behind.” Seeing her puzzled look, he added, “Cameras.”

  Cameras? She shuddered. That man might have been recording us?

  Thankfully, their search turned up nothing other than a few boxes in the basement that had been rummaged through. Even though the man didn’t appear to have taken anything—or left anything—she still felt a chill whenever she thought of him in her house. She knew that she would never forget to lock a window again.

  “I think we can stop now,” David said. “We’ve gone over nearly every inch of this house.”

  “I still can’t believe it. This is all so… creepy.”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do,” he said grimly.

  “What now?”

  “Now? I guess we just get back to our normal lives. I’ll watch the video footage again and see if I can find anything distinguishing about the first man, the one who unlocked the door. Other than that, we’ll just have to sit tight until the police make progress.”

  There was no telling how long that would be. Moira sighed. She wasn’t looking forward to living with such a mystery hanging over their heads.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Three days later, Detective Jefferson called to say that she was free to reopen the deli. It was a relief to be back at work. The deli was her second home, and she had really missed it.

  The first thing she did was to call a staff meeting. After such an unexpected period off, no one complained when she asked them to come in an hour early so they could talk.

  It wasn’t easy for her to broach the subject of security. She didn’t want them to think that she was accusing anyone, but she had to know how the person wearing the hood had been able to get access to both the key and the code.

  She started by simply telling them what had happened. Her hope that someone would come forward was rewarded when Allison gasped and covered her mouth.

  “Oh no, he must have found the spare key.”

  “The spare key?” As far as Moira knew, the only spare key was in her house. Though, come to think of it, one of the men had been in her house and could easily have gotten it from there.

  “Back when I first started, I locked myself out twice. You know how when the little button is turned, the door will open from the inside, but not the outside? Well, I always locked it behind me when I came in, and a couple of times I forgot that it would lock behind me on my way out. I printed off an extra key and hid it under a rock. I was worried I might get locked out sometime while I was working there alone.”

  The deli owner pressed her lips together. She was annoyed, but she had never told her employees not to make copies of the keys. Allison was doing what she thought was the right thing, she told herself. I should go easy on her. She’s worked here for almost two years, and this spare key hasn’t caused any issues until now.

  “Can you go get that key, please?” she asked.

  The young woman jumped up and hurried to get the key. Her other employees traded guilty looks.

  “We, ah, all knew about the spare,” Darrin told her. “Allison just told us it was there, she didn’t tell us she had made it. We thought you had been the one who put it there.”

  Moira sighed. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you. From now on, let’s not leave any keys outside, though. It’s okay to have a spare at home or in your walle
t, but it shouldn’t be kept where anyone else could find it.”

  She held out her hand and Allison dropped the key in her palm. I should have asked her to pick it up using a plastic baggie, she thought. The police might have been able to get fingerprints off of it.

  “Now, has anyone shared the code?” she asked. “I just need to know who you told it to. He or she may know the killer.”

  To her relief, all of her employees shook their heads. “I’ve never told anyone,” Jenny promised. The others all echoed her.

  “All right, that’s good to hear. That means we still don’t know how he got the code, but at least I know I can trust you. We’re going to change the alarm’s code right after this, and I want you all to memorize it before you leave.”

  She managed to change the code without mishap by following the directions that David had written down for her that morning. Following his advice, she had come up with a completely random number so it would be more difficult to guess.

  After having all of her employees run through it until she was satisfied that they knew it by heart, she practiced it a few times herself. It would be embarrassing if she had to call one of them for help the next time she went to unlock the door.

  By then it was nearly opening time. Allison, Jenny, and Cameron left, and Darrin stayed since that morning was his shift. While he got to work on the breakfast quiches, Moira went into the main room to do one last sweep and make sure the cleaners hadn’t missed anything.

  It was a busy day. After being closed for half a week directly following a murder on the premises, everyone in town was itching to hear the truth about what happened. Even though she was reluctant to relive the moments when she had found the corpse, Moira told Darrin that she would man the register. She didn’t want her employee to have to deal with the inquisitive, nosy, and sometimes even rude customers that she expected to come in that morning.

  She managed to remain polite until she spotted a short, dramatically thin man slip in between the front doors. A taller man with a camera followed him. She recognized the thin man as a reporter from their local news station, and he was the last person she wanted to talk to.

  “Ms. Darling?” he asked, sidling up to the register. “Can I ask you some questions? I’m with—”

  “Sorry, but I’m going to stop you right there,” she said. “I’m not interested in doing any interviews, or answering any questions It’s an ongoing investigation, and I probably shouldn’t talk about it.”

  “I just want to ask—”

  “Sir, if you’re not going to buy anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  He stared at her for a moment, the annoyance clear on his face. After a second, to her relief, he turned and walked out the door. She saw him shove the microphone in one of her customers’ faces and sighed. If he started annoying people, she would have to make a scene to get him off her property, and she really didn’t think she had the energy for that.

  Someone else that she recognized approached the register. This time she smiled. It was one of her newer regulars, Mikey. She had last seen him the week before, and was glad that he hadn’t been scared away by everything that had been going on. Her deli survived off of the loyal customers who came year-round.

  “Hi Ms. Darling,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re back in business.”

  “Me too, Mikey. What’ll you have today?”

  “Can I get two of the chocolate chip crêpes?” he asked. “And my normal cup of coffee.”

  “Coming right up.”

  She poked her head into the kitchen to give the order to Darrin, then accepted the man’s payment. He was the only customer in line—someone else looked like they had been about to come in, but had just been accosted by the news reporter—so he wasn’t in any hurry to sit down.

  “I was sorry to hear about what happened here,” he said. “I heard it was a guy that got killed.”

  She nodded, much less reluctant to talk about it to him than with the man with the camera who was standing outside.

  “Was he anyone you knew?”

  “No. I’m sure I’ve seen him before, but I didn’t know him personally.” Since he had taken a couple of pictures of her from inside the deli, she was sure that she must have served him at some point.

  “Still, a pity. What was his name?”

  “They didn’t find any identification on him,” she said. “That’s the last I heard, anyway.”

  Was it her imagination, or did Mikey’s gaze sharpen. “What did he look like?”

  “Black hair, a little bit tan, average build… I don’t really know, I didn’t get a good look at him.” She frowned. “Why? Do you think it might be someone you know? If so, you should go to the police.”

  She couldn’t read the expression on the man’s face. For a moment, when she was describing the murder victim, she had thought that she had seen a flash of recognition in his eyes. Now his face was blank.

  “Oh, it’s later than I thought,” he said, looking first at his wrist, then around his shoulder at the clock when he realized he wasn’t wearing a watch. “I should go. Thanks for the coffee, Ms. Darling.”

  Befuddled, she watched him go. His food hadn’t even come out yet. He had acted so strangely once they started talking about the murder. Why was he so concerned about it? Did he know something more than he should?

  She pulled his credit card receipt and wrote his full name down. When she took her break, she would text it to David and see if he could dig anything up on the man.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days, life at the deli settled back into its usual rhythms. People were still interested in the murder, but they were more interested in getting their food—which was fine by Moira.

  Despite how normal things seemed, she couldn’t help but think about the man who had stalked her and his subsequent death. It still didn’t make any sense, and the police didn’t seem to have any more answers than she did.

  When Martha called to invite her out to brunch that Saturday morning, she was glad to accept. It had been a while since she had been able to see her friends, and it would be nice to catch up on what was happening in their lives for a change instead of being so focused on hers.

  They met at a new little bistro in Lake Marion. It was nestled near the rear of town, in a quiet area that probably didn’t get much traffic. It was a nice little restaurant, called simply Janet’s Place, and she hoped that it managed to stay in business despite its quiet location.

  “It’s been ages since we’ve been able to take a few hours for lunch together,” Martha said, squeezing her in a quick hug before sitting back down at the little corner table she had chosen.

  “I miss our Wednesday coffees.”

  “Me too,” her friend agreed. “We should start something like that up again.”

  A moment later, Denise joined them, and Martha repeated the greeting. The tall redhead sat on the deli owner’s right. She looked tired, but happy.

  “I’m taking the weekend off from managing the Grill,” she announced. “I need a break, and the kitchen can practically run itself anyway.”

  Denise Donovan was the owner of Maple Creek’s most upscale restaurant, the Redwood Grill. Moira and David made a point of eating there at least two or three times a month, both to support their friend and because they enjoyed the atmosphere.

  “Well, that’s good,” Moira told her friend. “You deserve it. You work harder than anyone I know. I mean, I work almost every day, but the deli moves at a snail’s pace compared to the grill. I don’t know how you manage.”

  “Honestly, most of the days are a blur. I’m not complaining, though. It’s really the only thing I have to keep me busy since the divorce.”

  That led Martha to ask Denise if she had been seeing anyone new. It took a while for the conversation to come around to the topic that Moira had known would pop up.

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about men when Moira has been dea
ling with so much more than either of us this past week,” Martha said. “How are you doing? Is business at the deli down?”

  “Not really. We had to shut down for a couple of days while the police worked, but luckily people remembered where we were,” she said, smiling. “I’m doing okay, I guess. It’s hard not to think about what happened, but I try to keep my mind off of it. Worrying won’t help anything, it will just make me get poor sleep and start stress eating. The whole thing was just so creepy.”

  “Creepy?” Denise asked. “I mean, yeah, corpses give me the heebie-jeebies, but it sounded like you were talking about something else.”

  Moira realized that she hadn’t told her friends the rest of the story. She sipped her coffee and organized her thoughts before beginning her tale.

  To her surprise, she actually enjoyed telling it to her friends. Their gasps were satisfying, and somehow hearing herself tell it made it seem more like someone else’s story than something that had happened to her.

  “Oh, my goodness, that’s just messed up,” Martha said, gaping at her. “He had been sneaking around you for months?”

  “What did the police say about it?” Denise asked.

  “They’re looking into it, but I have the feeling that they are more interested in finding the killer than in finding out why someone who’s dead now was taking photos of me without my knowledge. Which is fair, I’ll admit.”

  “I’m sure something will turn up soon. The way it sounds, the death wasn’t exactly planned. I’m sure whoever the killer was left behind some sort of trace. Can’t they track people by the DNA in their hair now?” Martha asked.

  “I don’t think a hair is going to be much help. Even if I did find a stray hair in the kitchen, it could be anybody’s. Same with fingerprints—any prints in the main room wouldn’t help since half the town goes through there every day.”

  “Did they find any fingerprints on the knife?” her friend asked. “That could lead them right to the killer.”