Italian Wedding Murder: Book 4 in Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Page 4

  Striving to shake off the thoughts of death, Ellie tried to reclaim her good mood. She hopped across to the Eleanora, put Bunny down a safe distance from the edge of the boat, and pulled out one of the folding lawn chairs that she used to sun herself on the rare occasions that she and her friends took the boat out.

  She managed to lose herself in her book for a few minutes, but the docks were too busy for any real peace. The brisk sea breeze was chillier than she had thought, and the occasional scent of fish wafted over to her. Putting the book down, she leaned back and closed her eyes, determined to at least enjoy the sun for a few minutes before heading back home and facing life again.

  “Eleanora?”

  She jolted upright. “Russell?” The sheriff was standing on the dock, watching her.

  “Sorry for disturbing you. I was just surprised to see you somewhere other than at the pizzeria,” he said. He was in his uniform, which meant that he was on the job.

  “I do have a life outside of work,” she said. “Sort of. Bunny had a vet appointment today, and it was so nice out that I decided to stop here on my way back from Benton Harbor.”

  “I don’t blame you. If it wasn’t for the murder, I would probably have taken today off and gone fishing. Is everything all right with Bunny?” He peered down at the little dog, who was passed out in the sunlight.

  “She’s a bit overweight, but other than that she’s as healthy as a horse,” Ellie said. “It was just her annual checkup.”

  “Ah. That’s good. She’s been through quite a lot lately.”

  She wondered if he was thinking of the little dog’s fall off the dock, or that time she had gotten lost in the woods, or both. Probably both, she decided.

  “She’s a tough little pup,” she said. “So, what are you doing here? Looking into Ms. Martin’s death, still?”

  “Yes, though I haven’t been able to find much.” He stepped to the edge of the dock to let a group of people pass, then nodded at the Eleanora and raised his eyebrows. “Can I come aboard?”

  “Of course, make yourself at home,” she said. He stepped off the dock onto the boat, then crouched next to Bunny and began petting her. The little dog didn’t seem to mind being woken up from her nap in the slightest.

  “To be honest,” he said in a lower voice, “I haven’t had much luck making any progress on this case at all. I came here to look around in the off chance that some evidence was overlooked before. I’ve been asking some of the boat owners if they’d seen or heard anything, but haven’t had any luck yet with that either.”

  “You’re looking around for evidence?” Ellie asked. “Here? Was she near my grandfather’s boat?”

  He shook his head. “She was discovered a bit closer to the parking lot, nearer shore. I’ve been walking all over the marina in the off chance the current carried something this way.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how much it must bother you, not having any leads on who the killer is.”

  “Well, at least we’ve managed to eliminate a few people from our pool of suspects.” He brightened. “Actually, you aren’t a person of interest in the case anymore, Ellie. Forensics put her death at around six o’clock Monday night. I called the pizzeria just to be sure, and your employees verified that you were there until at least eight.”

  “That’s good. Great, in fact,” Ellie said brightly. “Do you think the paper will say anything about that? We might get more customers at the pizzeria if people don’t think I’m a murderess.”

  “I’ve already told Shannon,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to work your innocence in somehow.” He stood up and brushed off his knees. “Thanks for the talk. I should get back to work. There must be something I’m missing.”

  He stepped off the boat, hesitated, then turned back to her. “Actually, there’s one more thing.”

  “Go ahead,” Ellie said as she gathered up her things, preparing to leave herself.

  “Would you like to go out to dinner with me sometime?”

  Her book slipped from her fingers. She quickly grabbed it and shoved it in her purse, using the extra few seconds to think. Was he asking her out? On a real date? Or was he just asking her as a friend? She didn’t have the courage to ask, but it didn’t matter because her answer would be the same either way.

  “Sure,” she said. “That sounds nice.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  Ellie practically skipped into work the next morning. As much as she told herself not to get her hopes up about her dinner with the sheriff — she was best friends with his sister-in-law, after all, he probably just wanted to get to know her better — her heart beat a little faster whenever she thought about it. He wasn’t exactly the sort of man she usually dated, but maybe that was a good thing. He was a good man, a down to earth man, and she already felt like she could count on him.

  She’d told Shannon about their dinner the second she got home, and her friend hadn’t seemed to know what to think either.

  “He doesn’t usually date,” she had said. “In fact, I think he’s only gone on one date since his wife died, and that was something James set up. It, erm, didn’t go well.”

  “Even if he just wants to get to know me better as friends, that’s okay,” Ellie said. “No offense to you, but I need more than one good friend in this town.”

  “None taken,” her friend had replied with a chuckle. “Call me afterward, and we can talk.”

  Things were looking up in other ways, too. Papa Pacelli’s got a couple of customers within a few hours of opening, maybe not as many as they usually got, but definitely a lot better than they’d been doing for the past few days. It’s too soon for anything to be in the paper about my alibi, she thought. People must just be beginning to forget. Or they’re deciding that a good slice of pizza is worth the chance of running into the crazy Pacelli woman.

  She managed to get halfway through the day before things began going downhill. It all started when she was at the register, ringing a customer up, and Iris came out of the kitchen to hand over the man’s pizza.

  “Who’s that?” she said as he walked away. Ellie followed her gaze. There were two people standing out in front of the pizzeria, carrying what looked like big signs, the sort that she had seen people carry to protests.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Is something going on in town today? Some sort of rally, maybe?”

  The young woman shrugged, then shook her head. “No, not that I know of.”

  “Hmm. Watch the register for me. I’ll be right back in.”

  Ellie walked towards the door, a suspicion beginning to sneak up on her. She was certain that she would have recognized that curly hair anywhere.

  “Xavier,” she said coldly as she stepped outside. “And Jeffrey? What are the two of you up to?”

  Xavier had worked at the pizzeria for two years before she took over. She had fired him the instant that she discovered his long history of stealing money from the restaurant. He had been hired shortly thereafter by the man who owned Cheesaroni Calzones; Jeffrey Dunham. Cheesaroni was Papa Pacelli’s main competition in Kittiport. Ellie had only eaten there once; the food was good, but the service left a lot to be desired.

  “Exercising our rights of free speech,” Xavier said, spinning the sign around so she could read it. Don’t support Murder. Don’t eat at Papa Pacelli’s. Jeffrey did the same. His sign read, If you want good food without a trip to the hospital, eat at Cheesaroni Calzones.

  “You can’t… what do you think… how dare you…” the pizzeria manager spluttered. “This isn’t free speech! This is slander. It’s illegal. Get out of here right now before I call the cops.”

  “Last time I checked, poisoning someone and then killing them wasn’t legal either,” Jeffrey said. “So go ahead and call whoever you like. I’m sure the media would just love it if we emailed them some pictures of the police going into your restaurant.”

  Ellie glared at them, but she had the feeling that she was
caught. If they took pictures of the police pulling up to the pizzeria, they could spread the photos around with whatever explanation they liked. The last thing that she wanted was for the public to think that there was some sort of investigation underway at Papa Pacelli’s. Besides, she didn’t actually know if what they were doing was illegal or not. Did she really have any other option than to just ignore them and hope that no one believed their ridiculous claims?

  “You guys are sad, you know?” she said as she turned to go back inside. “You have to put down someone else’s business just to get customers at your own place. At least I can say that I’ve never had to lie to get customers.”

  She let the door swing shut behind her on their snickering and walked back over to the register, where Iris was waiting. “Ignore them,” she said. “Hopefully no one will pay any attention to them.”

  Unfortunately, potential customers seemed to take the warnings on the signs to heart, either that or they just didn’t feel like walking past the two sign-carrying men to get inside the restaurant. Besides a few delivery orders, they hardly had any customers for the next few hours.

  “What should we do?” Iris asked gazing anxiously out the window. Jacob, who had just gotten back from the last round of deliveries, frowned. Ellie listened, but didn’t join in on the conversation. She was too busy glaring at the back of Xavier’s head. The young man had been a thorn in her side since she’d moved back to Kittiport.

  “We need to get back at them somehow,” Jacob said. “Give them a taste of their own medicine.”

  “But how? They haven’t been accused of anything bad.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Ellie said, breaking her silence at last. She glanced over to Jacob, who looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re right,” he said. “Did you ever go to the police about his stealing?”

  “No. At the time, I had too much else on my hands, trying to get this place up and running again. But I still have all of the old records. I could go to the sheriff with the proof.”

  “You do that,” Jacob said. His grin widened. “I have an idea of my own of how to get back at them.”

  Ellie raised an eyebrow. “It’s nothing illegal, is it?”

  “Oh, no. I think you’ll like this…” He explained his idea to her, and her face broke into a wide smile. It was the perfect plan. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it sooner.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  “What do you think, Bunny? It’s been a while since I’ve worn this dress. I haven’t gained too much weight?”

  She took the dog’s silence to mean no, she hadn’t. The dark green dress — which coincidentally matched her car nearly to the shade — did look pretty good on her, even if it showed off her curves a bit more than she would have liked. She had dithered between a dress and a pantsuit for a long time, but she thought that her pantsuits made her look too severe; perfect for the high intensity financial world that she had left behind, but not what she wanted for her dinner with Russell.

  She had ended up deciding on one of her more casual dresses. She still wasn’t sure if the sheriff considered their dinner a date, or just a meal between friends. What she did know was that they had definitely been on much more casual terms since he had helped her solve one of her family’s mysteries. She didn’t know exactly what she had done to earn his trust, since the whole thing had ended in disaster, but she was glad to have the beginnings of a friendship with him.

  Craning her head in an attempt to look at her back, still a bit sensitive about the weight that she had gained in the past few months — managing a pizza place and getting as many free pizzas as she wanted, good free pizzas, wouldn’t have been good for anyone’s form — Ellie decided to call it good enough. She could spend hours digging through her closet, and she probably wouldn’t find anything that fit her perfectly. It was time to focus on her hair and make-up, or else she would risk being late to the White Pine Kitchen.

  Ellie recognized the sheriff’s truck in the restaurant’s parking lot and smiled to herself. He had offered to pick her up, but she always felt more comfortable driving herself, an old habit left over from before she met her ex-fiancé, when she used to go out on dates with people she hardly knew. The last thing she had wanted was to be dependent on a near stranger for a ride home, especially if the date hadn’t gone well. Of course, Russell was far from being a stranger, but old habits die hard, and she had reflexively told him that she would meet him there.

  He was waiting just inside the doors for her, and smiled when he saw her. She had only ever seen him in nice clothes once before; the night of their fake dinner date when her family had been visiting. He was usually dressed in either his sheriff’s uniform, or fishing gear, so it was a nice change.

  “You look nice,” he said. “Our table should be ready in just a minute.”

  He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the hostess called out a table for two, under the name Ward. Ellie followed the woman into the restaurant to a booth by one of the windows.

  “A server will be by in just a moment to take your drink orders,” the hostess said brightly before walking off.

  Left alone with Russell at the table, Ellie felt suddenly self-conscious. What did they even have to talk about? Would the whole meal be filled with awkward silences? Why had she thought this was a good idea? Desperate for something to say, she latched onto the topic that had been at the forefront of her mind all week.

  “Any luck with the case?”

  Russell seemed to relax a little bit at the familiar subject. “Unfortunately, no. It seems like no one saw anything, even though I must have spoken with half of the people who use the marina by now. There are a few video cameras in lots adjacent to the marina, but none of them were filming the right spot at the right time to be useful. I found a clip of Ms. Martin’s car driving towards the parking lot by the docks, but it’s too dark to see inside the vehicle, so there’s no way to tell if she was alone in the vehicle — or if she was even driving it herself. For all I know, she could have been killed elsewhere, then dumped at the marina.”

  “It must be frustrating,” Ellie said empathetically. “It’s a pretty high profile case, isn’t it? Has the mayor been pushing you for progress? I imagine that he’s absolutely devastated.”

  “He’s been patient,” Russell said. A frown creased his brow for a moment, but his expression quickly cleared.

  “Do you think he could have done it?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet. “I mean, if someone I loved had been killed, I’d be beating down your door trying to get answers.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” he said with a chuckle. “I really can’t talk about any specifics of the case until it’s solved. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I understand,” she said, sighing. “I know you told Shannon and I not to get involved, but I can’t help it. I want to see this case solved as much as you do. Besides simple curiosity, it’s still affecting my restaurant.”

  At that moment their waiter showed up. The conversation halted while they gave their drink orders, and Ellie realized that she hadn’t even glanced at the menu yet. She had no idea what she would order when the waiter came back. Everything looked delicious, though she knew the one thing that she did not want was the lobster pizza. It didn’t seem right, to work at a pizzeria and then order pizza at another restaurant when she went out to dinner.

  “What do you mean, it’s still affecting the pizzeria?” Russell asked suddenly, putting down his menu and looking at her with a concerned expression.

  “Well —” she began, but the waiter had come back with their drinks, and was ready to take their order.

  “The chicken cordon bleu, please,” Russell said distractedly.

  “And you, ma’am?”

  “Um, the lemon pecan brook trout, please. With the roasted redskins. Thanks,” Ellie said.

  “Hey, aren’t you the lady that owns that pizzeria?” the waiter asked a
s he took the menu from her. The couple at the next table fell silent and turned in their seats to look.

  “I don’t own it, my grandmother does,” she told him. “But yes, I manage Papa Pacelli’s.”

  “Neat. Is it true that you killed some woman who didn’t like your pizza?”

  Ellie gaped at him. “No, that is most definitely not true,” she said. “Where in the world did you hear that?”

  “My girlfriend’s mom told her not to eat there anymore because you killed someone,” the young waiter said. He suddenly seemed to realize that he had just accused a guest of murder, and quickly backpedaled. “But, I mean, I don’t believe it. I love your pizza. It’s a great restaurant. Uh, your fish will be right out.” He hurried away. The couple at the next table began whispering to each other.