Honey BBQ Murder: Book 10 in the Darling Deli Series Read online

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was still light out by the time they got back, and Moira was amazed that more time hadn’t passed. Her time waiting at the vet’s had felt like an eternity. After letting Maverick give Keeva a good sniff, she put him outside and put down blankets in the mudroom for the other dog. She knew if Keeva had the run of the house, she would end up trying to play with the German shepherd and would likely hurt herself. For Keeva’s own good, the two furry friends would have to stay separate unless Moira was there to supervise.

  That presented another problem. What if Keeva got the cone off and tried to chew on her stitches while she was at work? Maybe she could find someone to stop in during the day occasionally and check on her. The last thing she wanted was to take a second emergency vet trip in the same week to have them sew the dog back up.

  After settling Keeva in the mudroom with a bowl of fresh, cool water, the deli owner sat down at the kitchen table and picked up her phone. She would have to tell Rick what had happened, and there was no point in putting it off. She hoped he wouldn’t be too upset—the last thing she wanted to do was to make things harder for him right now.

  “So she’s okay?” he asked once she had told him about the emergency surgery.

  “Yes. The vet says she’ll be fine,” she reassured him.

  “I’m glad you knew what to do. I would have been clueless.” He sighed. “I spent the morning missing her, but now I know that I really did make the right decision. You’re taking good care of her.”

  “Well, she’s part of the family now. Oh, I almost forgot. The vet showed me the blockage—part of a shirt sleeve and a cufflink—and I thought I would offer to mail the cufflink to you if you wanted it back. It looks like it must have been expensive.”

  “A cufflink? I don’t own any cufflinks,” he said. She heard someone say something in the background. Rick’s response to that person was muffled, as if he had covered the phone with his hand to reply. “Sorry, that was Victor. Neither he nor Annette knows where the cufflink would have come from. And the dog sure hasn’t been chewing on any of my shirts. Are you sure it isn’t something that she got a hold of while she was with you?”

  “Well, the vet said that it looked like she must have eaten it a few days ago. Some of the symptoms of an intestinal blockage like that are lethargy and a lack of appetite, which fits with what you told me about how she was acting,” Moira said.

  “Oh. Huh. I don’t know where she would have gotten it. I guess it’ll just be one of those mysteries. Feel free to toss the cufflink. I doubt there’s any point in hanging onto it. Or keep it—it will be an interesting memory, at least.”

  “Sure, it will be a good reminder not to leave things out where she can reach them. I’ll let you know how things go at her next appointment.”

  She said her goodbyes to Rick and hung up. Something didn’t seem right, somehow. Why had he tried to immediately place the blame on her for Keeva getting hold of something she wasn’t supposed to? And where had the ripped piece of shirtsleeve and cufflink come from? Had Chelsea been seeing someone behind Rick’s back?

  Stay out of it, Moira told herself. It’s none of your business. Keeva’s yours now, and whatever is going on with Rick won’t affect you. He lives eleven hours away, for goodness’ sake. With a shake of her head, Moira cleared the thoughts from her mind. She had a recovering Irish wolfhound to take care of, an energetic German shepherd to walk, and a never-ending list of housework not to finish. There was no reason to waste even more time pondering something that had happened miles away.

  I’d better see if David will look into it, just in case, she thought as she put the container with the cufflink and piece of sleeve on a shelf in the mudroom. I’ll just send him an email. Chances are that he’s at his computer anyway. She knew he would be busy catching up on the cases that he had neglected while they were in Kentucky. The private investigator was just as much of a workaholic as she was, though somehow he largely managed to avoid being kidnapped, shot at, and stabbed, a slightly annoying state of affairs, since his job was supposed to be more dangerous than hers. The biggest danger that most people who work with food face is getting burned by a hot dish, she thought with a mixture of amusement and exasperation at herself. She really needed to stop biting off more than she could chew. No wonder David had been hyper-concerned about her lately. He must think it was only a matter of time until she found herself in trouble again.

  Her email to him was mostly about Keeva’s trip to the emergency vet. She told him in detail about the symptoms the dog had had, the fear that she had felt, and the good prognosis. At the very end of the email she asked him if he could find out whether Chelsea’s murder had ever been solved, hoping that the question would be innocent enough not to arouse suspicion that she was sticking her nose where it shouldn’t be. I did know her, after all, she thought. It’s fair to want to know what happened to her. Chances were Rick was right and the ripped piece of sleeve and cufflink that the vet had found in Keeva’s gut was just a mystery that would never be solved.

  She was surprised when David called her only moments later. Wondering if he had even had time to read her email yet, she answered the phone.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “No, the murder hasn’t been solved yet, and no, you’re not getting involved.” His tone was firm, and Moira sighed. It sounded like he had seen right through her casual question in the email.

  “But what if the cufflink is evidence? If Chelsea was having an affair with some other guy, someone who wore expensive cufflinks, then maybe he killed her. Or maybe Rick found out and he killed her.”

  “And Keeva ate part of the guy’s shirt for revenge? Moira, you’re reaching,” he said with an amused snort. “According to what I found online, it was just a burglary gone wrong. Her husband told you that she went a lot of places with that dog, right? Keeva probably found the fabric at a park or on the sidewalk and gulped it down before anyone noticed. Dogs do some random things, but they usually don’t solve crimes.”

  “You’re right.” She bit back a sigh. She might have been reaching a bit, but she wished he would at least listen to her ideas. She supposed that he had his own cases to solve—why would he want to get involved in one in another state, especially when the people involved in it were strangers? Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on that would come back to haunt her if she wasn’t careful. The past year had taught her that there was no such thing as being too cautious. David seemed to agree with her unspoken sentiment, but his solution was for her to stay as far away from anything suspicious as possible, whereas she wanted to be kept fully in the loop so she could make her own decisions about what exactly was going on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She got to work the next day just before two. Mrs. Young had already come and gone, and Darrin showed her the completed catering form proudly.

  “Roast beef, honey-glazed ham, turkey breast, and salami,” Moira read. “Well, she’s not skimping, that’s for sure. All of the sandwich toppings should be easy enough to get. Strawberries and blueberries for the salad bar… hmm… I’ll have to call Anna Miller and see about getting all of this bread. She’ll probably be happy for such a big order, though.”

  “So I did everything correctly? Whew. We don’t cater that often, so it’s not something I’m very confident about,” her employee said.

  “It all looks good to me. This is a lot of food, though, so at least two of us will need to go to set everything up. Are you going to be available that weekend?” she asked him.

  “I should be. We haven’t made the schedule for the next two weeks yet, but I’m sure Dante will be able to work here if you want me to handle the church event.”

  “I think it would be good for you at least to come and set everything up. You didn’t get a chance to help the last time we catered an event, and it’ll be good for you to have an idea of the process,” she said. “I’ll go too. I know Mrs. Young from when C
andice was younger—she used to teach English at the high school—and I want to thank her personally for doing business with us.”

  “Okay. I’ll make sure to get the schedule for the deli organized as soon as possible so Dante doesn’t make other plans.” Darrin grinned at her. “I gotta say, Ms. D, when I first took this job I never thought that I’d be helping you run the deli just a few years later.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t think I would ever even need an assistant manager,” Moira said with a laugh. “The deli did a lot better than I expected, and a lot of that is thanks to you—and the other employees, of course. I wouldn’t be able to do it without you guys.”

  It was true—her employees were the backbone of the deli. They represented her business, and she knew how lucky she was that for the most part the people she had hired had been responsible, good-natured, and honest. Without having people she trusted there to handle the day-to-day details of running the place, she wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time creating new recipes, finding reliable suppliers, and marketing.

  After Darrin left, she went into the kitchen while Meg watched the register. There was already a pot of lamb and rice soup simmering on the stove, but she needed to start preparing the ingredients for the next day’s soup. She pulled a cutting board off of the drying rack, took out the large ceramic chef’s knife that her brother had given her as a deli-warming present, and got to work.

  When the veggies were cut up, she stored them in a pair of large freezer bags and put them in the freezer on the shelf labeled Soup Ingredients. This made it easy for whoever was on staff to prepare the soup of the day even if she wasn’t there. All they would have to do was follow the recipe that she would leave in the folder that was taped to the fridge. It was a good system, and one that she was proud of herself for coming up with.

  She was just pouring a sack of dried lentils into a pot full of cool water so they could begin their overnight soak when Meg slipped into the kitchen and announced that Denise Donovan, one of Moira’s friends and a fellow restaurateur, was waiting out front.

  “Thanks for telling me,” the deli owner said. “Here, you take over in the kitchen. We may talk for a while—I haven’t seen her very often lately.”

  To her surprise, Denise was accompanied by a tall teenager dressed in all black and wearing a bored expression. Moira had never seen the boy before. The other woman didn’t have any children that Moira knew of. Certainly she would have mentioned them if she did?

  “Hey,” she greeted her friend, shutting the kitchen door. “How have you been?”

  “Well, things have been looking up at the Redwood Grill, so that’s good,” her friend said with a smile. “I’d like to introduce you to my nephew, Logan. He’s going to be staying with me for a few months, at least.”

  “Hi, Logan,” Moira said, extending her hand which the boy reluctantly shook. “It’s nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

  “Maine,” he mumbled before pulling a cellphone out of his pocket and staring intently at the screen. Denise sighed and pursed her lips. Moira wanted to ask why he was going to be staying with her, but could sense that now was not the time. Hopefully they would get the chance to have a private discussion soon.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask,” her friend continued. “But I was wondering if you would be willing to hire him to do some sort of part-time work while he’s here? It would have to be after school hours, of course. I would let him work at the Grill, but since we serve alcohol and he’s under eighteen, it’s not legal.”

  “Um…” The deli owner frowned, wishing her friend hadn’t put her on the spot like that. She would feel bad saying no, but things were already running smoothly at the deli. She didn’t want to spend a lot of time training a teenager who looked like he would rather be anywhere else, especially not when he would only be around temporarily.

  “Do you drive?” she asked him after a moment’s thought.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had my license for a year. My car’s kinda crappy though.”

  “Do you like animals?”

  She thought she saw a flash of interest in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he said again, this time more eagerly. “I had a dog at home. My grandmother took him to the pound after Mom died.”

  Moira’s eyes widened as she thought, poor kid. This must be a horrible time for him—and for Denise. I don’t know if his mother was her sister or her sister-in-law, but either way it must be hard.

  “If it’s something you’d be interested in, I’d like to hire you to take care of my dogs while I’m at work, and maybe even pet sit them at my house if I go away for the weekend sometime,” she told him. “Your job would pretty much be to just stop by and let them into the backyard to go to the bathroom, and then spend some time playing with them or taking them on walks.”

  “That sounds awesome,” he said. “What kind of dogs do you have?”

  “I have a German shepherd and an Irish wolfhound. The wolfhound just had surgery, so she has to rest for a couple of weeks,” she said. When she noticed Denise raising her eyebrows, she added, “Oh, I got Keeva back. It’s a long story—I’ll call you this evening.” Her friend nodded.

  “Cool, I like big dogs. When can I start?”

  “If you want to come over after the deli closes, I’ll introduce you to the dogs. You’ll probably want to meet them a few times before coming over by yourself to take them out. They’re both friendly, but I don’t think they’d be too happy about a stranger walking in while I’m not there.”

  The kid nodded, all traces of the angsty teenager gone. Moira was amazed at how much of a transformation animals seemed to have on people. They always seemed to bring out the best.

  “I can’t wait to meet them,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Denise mouthed as she and Logan turned to go. The deli owner smiled back at her friend. Logan didn’t seem like a bad kid. She could only hope that she hadn’t made a mistake in agreeing to hire him. She couldn’t help but feel just a bit uncomfortable about having someone she barely knew alone in her house with the dogs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “This is Maverick,” she told Logan, indicating the German shepherd who was currently sniffing intently at the young man’s shoes. “And this sweet girl is Keeva. She’s the one that had the surgery, so she had to be kept quiet for a while.”

  She watched as the boy pet the two dogs. He seemed to be a natural with them, and they warmed up to him quickly. Around the dogs he lost his reserved and defensive body language, and it made her smile to see him light up around them. He’s not a bad kid, she thought. He just needs some time to recover from his loss.

  ***

  A storm of ferocious barking tore her violently out of her dreams later that night. Both Maverick and Keeva were sounding off, and the sound of the two large dogs barking in warning made her heart pound. Her bedroom was pitch black, save for the soft glow of her alarm clock, and she stubbed her toe painfully against the bed frame as she hurried towards the door.

  “Mav!” she shouted. “What’s going on?”

  He was downstairs looking out the front window, a growl coming from deep in his throat. Moira was reminded of the time the German shepherd had barked at Keeva when she was still running around in the woods as a stray. The Irish wolfhound, still in the mudroom, was whining loudly. Maverick’s barking must have set her off—there was no way she would have been able to see out of the high-set windows back there.

  Moira pushed the curtains back further and peered out. She didn’t see anything at first, and was about to let the curtain fall shut and call Maverick away when a dark form darted across the driveway. The shape was barely visible in the faint moonlight that was peeping through the clouds above, but she was certain it was human.

  Heart in her throat, she reached over and felt around for the doorknob, making sure both the deadbolt and the lock on the knob were set. Her eyes searched the darkness, but the person had vanished. Were they watching the house? Was there mo
re than one person out there?

  She wanted to check the back door as well, but knew that turning on any lights would just give whoever was outside a crystal-clear view inside. In hushed tones she called Maverick to her and buried her fingers in the thick fur of his ruff. Heart pattering, and certain that she was going to run into an intruder at any moment, she made her slow, blind way down the dark hall with the dog at her side.

  Keeva danced around happily when she opened the door to the mudroom, and she did her best to calm the dog down without making too much noise. She felt for the locks on the back door. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized the deadbolt hadn’t been turned. The door had been unlocked. Had someone gotten inside?

  Surely not, she thought. They wouldn’t have been able to get past Keeva without waking her up. But what if they had? The dog was still recovering from her surgery, and had probably been sleeping heavily. In an unfamiliar house with unfamiliar noises, mightn’t she have missed the sounds of someone sneaking past her? But Maverick would have found them as soon as they left the mudroom. Was that true, though? Hadn’t Maverick been sleeping upstairs in her room until recently? She knew the dog had fallen asleep on the floor next to her bed, but didn’t know when he had left. It was possible that someone had slipped into her house unnoticed, and that they had a partner who was the one outside that had been distracting her dog.

  “All right, you two,” she whispered to the dogs. “We’re going to go through the house and look for intruders now, okay? Stick close.”

  With the two dogs at her heels, she made her way silently through the house. In each room, she briefly flipped on the light to make sure no one was in it, then moved to the next one. It wasn’t a perfect system, but she knew there would be no way she would be able to get to sleep if she didn’t make sure the house was empty first. Probably no one had broken in, but it wasn’t worth the risk.