Pesto Pizza Murder Read online

  The pizzeria owner felt a bit baffled after the other woman was gone. She wasn’t sure where she stood on the whole ghost issue after all of this. On one hand, a lot had happened in the house recently that wasn’t easy for her to explain away. On the other hand, all of it could be explained away if she let her imagination run wild, and she hadn’t actually seen anything that convinced her there was a ghost. Sometimes coincidences were just coincidences, not the restless dead.

  She decided to do what she could to put the whole issue out of her mind. It was late, but she had another couple of hours before she needed to be in bed. The wind outside had begun to pick up again, to the point where she couldn’t tell if it was snowing or if the snow in the air was just being picked up and blown by the gusts. Thankfully the power was back on and the generator was quiet. The house was warm and comfortable, and she had a delicious pizza waiting for her for dinner. It was the perfect evening to get comfortable on the couch and turn on a movie.

  Ellie woke hours later with a crick in her neck and the sound of the DVD’s menu playing on repeat. Somehow, she had managed to fall asleep on the couch, and she was already regretting it. A warm weight on her legs told her that Sawyer had climbed up to join her, and Bunny was curled up on a blanket that had fallen to the floor. The house creaked over her head, and she felt goosebumps rise on her skin. She had to remind herself that it was just the wind.

  “Get off my legs, Sawyer,” she muttered, kicking her feet. One of her legs had fallen asleep, thanks to the big black dog’s weight. The lab slipped off the couch and onto the floor stretching for a long moment before trotting over to the door with a whine.

  “Yeah, I’ll put you outside before we go up to bed.” Ellie covered up a yawn. “Just give me a second to wake up. I’m too old to be sleeping on couches.”

  She got to her feet, wiggling her toes as the sensation of pins and needles flooded the leg that had been asleep. When Sawyer suddenly let out a booming bark, she was so surprised that she nearly fell over. She turned to look at him just as the big lab ran to the window in the living room and put his feet up on the windowsill, looking outside.

  Ellie was glad that the only light in the room was from the TV. She grabbed the remote and flicked the screen off as Sawyer continued to bark, then joined him at the window, pushing the curtains aside so she could look out.

  At first, she didn’t see anything, but then through the blowing snow she saw a humanoid figure moving across the front lawn. It disappeared as quickly as she had seen it, leaving her to wonder if it had really been there. Sawyer certainly seemed to think so.

  Her heart pounding, she grabbed the lab by the collar and dragged him away from the window. Keeping him close beside her, she made her way through the house, checking to make sure the doors were locked and turning off the lights so whoever was outside wouldn’t be able to see in easily.

  Why did Russell have to choose this week to be gone? she thought. A rush of adrenaline had hit her when she had first seen the figure outside, and now her palms prickled as she pulled the curtains in the office closed. She didn’t know what to do next. Should she call the police? Would they take her seriously if she called complaining about a figure walking through the yard at night? Did she even have something to worry about? True, it wasn’t exactly normal for someone to be taking a walk during a snowstorm in the middle of the night, but it could be one of her neighbors out on a late night walk with their dog.

  A loud thump jolted her out of her thoughts. Sawyer started barking again, and took off running toward the kitchen. Ellie went from trying to rationalize everything that had happened to a blind panic. She followed the dog into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife out of the knife block. Sawyer was barking at the back door this time.

  There was another thump, then silence. Feeling as though her heart was about to burst, Ellie carefully peeked out of the kitchen window. She saw nothing but white outside.

  Russell, she thought. I need to call Russell. Dragging Sawyer with her, she retreated to the living room to grab her cell phone. She dialed her husband’s number, but he didn’t answer. A glance at the clock told her he was probably long since asleep. Torn between her fear, and the knowledge that if she called the police and it was nothing, she would never hear the end of it, she decided to settle in for a long night of watchfulness. Here in the living room, with the dogs, her cell phone, and the kitchen knife, she should be safe enough. She made a silent promise to herself to call the police if anything else happened.

  By the time the sun rose, she was passed out on the couch with the dogs on the floor and the knife forgotten on the coffee table.

  Chapter Ten

  Sawyer’s barking woke her in the morning. She was disoriented at first, but memories of the night before came quickly flooding back. She sat bolt upright on the couch, ignoring the stiffness of her neck, and looked around. The light coming in through the curtains told her it was morning, and her phone confirmed the time. It was shortly after eight. She had made it through the night, no worse for the wear. It’s good I didn’t call the police, she thought. They would have come out here for nothing.

  Sawyer was at the window, staring out through the glass as he carried on. Ellie got up and moved to pull him away. Her hand fell short when she saw what had caught his attention. Parked across the road were a handful of emergency vehicles. She recognized one of the deputies cruisers and the vehicle from the local morgue. Something sour turned over in her stomach.

  She hurried to the front door, where she pulled on her boots. She was wrestling with her coat when someone knocked on the front door. Nudging Sawyer and Bunny out of the way with her legs, she pulled the door open to find Bethany’s familiar face frowning at her.

  “Hi, Ms. Ward. Were you on your way out?”

  Ellie glanced down at her outerwear, then shook her head. “I was just going to see what’s going on across the street.”

  “I see. That’s good, I need to ask you a few questions anyway and I’d hate to make you late for work. Would you rather talk inside or out here?”

  “We can talk inside, if you don’t mind the dogs.”

  She stepped aside and Bethany came in. She had a grim look on her face, but agreed to go into the kitchen with Ellie. Ellie gestured to the stools at the island for Bethany to take a seat, then turned on the coffee maker before joining her.

  “So, what happened?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.

  “Someone spotted a body by the side of the road while they were driving to work,” Bethany said. “The man looks like he’s been dead for some time. Blunt force trauma to the head. We’re still working out just what happened and trying to ID him. It’s right across from your house. Is there any chance you heard or saw something last night?”

  Guilt rushed through Ellie. “Yes,” she said. “I… I knew I should have called the police. Around midnight, Sawyer started barking at something outside. I looked out the window and thought I saw someone walking through the yard, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, not with the snow and wind. I went around the house and made sure all the doors were locked and the lights were off. A few minutes later, I heard two thumps around by the back of the house. I looked outside but couldn’t see anything. Nothing else happened, and I fell asleep a couple of hours later. I actually just woke up a few minutes ago when Sawyer started barking out the window at the emergency vehicles.”

  Bethany took a couple of moments to make notes on her notepad. At last, she looked up. “Did you hear anything else? Did the person say anything? Did you see or hear anything to indicate that there might have been more than one person?”

  The pizzeria owner shook her head. “No to all of that. I don’t think I would have been able to hear anything over the wind even if whoever it was did say something.”

  Bethany sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “And I take it you have no idea why someone would be wandering around outside your house during a snowstorm? Have you or Russell gotten any threats rec
ently?”

  “Not that I know of,” she said. “I’m sure he’d tell me if someone had threatened him. There’s no way he would have gone to the conference if he thought there was a reason to worry.”

  “I figured.” Bethany put her notebook away. “I hate it when we get cases like this when Russell isn’t around. No ID on him, blunt force trauma that doesn’t match trauma we’d expect to see from an impact with a car, no murder weapon that we can find, and of course the snow is hiding goodness knows what. We’re searching the area now, but the storm isn’t doing us any favors. I hate to ask it of you, but could you come see if you can ID the body before we take him away? If you recognize him, it will save us a lot of work.”

  “I’ll come,” Ellie said, even though the last thing she wanted was to take a look at a corpse. Her stomach twisted as she crossed her fingers, hoping it wasn’t anyone she knew.

  She wasn’t that lucky. Outside, the cold wind whipping crystals of snow into her eyes, she stared unblinkingly at the dead man’s face. She knew him, but not well. It was one of Jessie’s brothers, the younger one who she recognized as a regular at the pizzeria. Iggy.

  Chapter Eleven

  The first thing Ellie did when Bethany left was to call Russell. He had returned her call from the night before while she was sleeping, and she hadn’t had a chance to get back in touch with him during the chaos of the morning. She had a lot to tell him.

  “I’m glad you called back,” he said when he answered the phone. “I was getting worried. I saw that you called me in the middle of the night last night. Is everything okay?”

  She hated that the answer was no. Taking a deep breath, she told him all about what had happened the night before, which led to her telling him about Jessie, which in turn meant that she had to backtrack all the way to the attic window being blown open and the lights in the guest bathroom going out.

  “All of this happened in just the past few days?” She could imagine him running a hand through his short hair or rubbing at his temples. “I’m coming back, Ellie.”

  “No, Russell… I don’t want you to have to cut your trip short.” Ellie bit her lip. She wanted him to come back, but she also wanted him to enjoy himself. “I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s probably just a lot of weird coincidences.”

  “Ellie…”

  “Look, I’ll admit that I’ve been spooked pretty much all week. This is all freaking me out. But if you come running back every single time I find myself in some sort of trouble… well, let’s just say I don’t exactly lead a boring life. You’ll never be able to go anywhere. It’s not fair that I get to travel down to Florida a couple of times a year without a care in the world, but you can’t so much as go to a business conference without having things break down here.”

  “There’s a possible murder case, Ellie. A body was found in front of our house. I’m needed there.”

  “Would you really be coming back because of that, or because you’re worried about me?” His silence told her all that she needed to know. “Just… don’t make a snap decision about it. At least catch the conference today. If anything else happens or you still feel like you need to come back, just grab an early flight tomorrow and I’ll pick you up before work.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But you have to promise to call me the second something else happens.”

  “I will,” she said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  She said her goodbyes then hung up, feeling a bit bad as she did so. Had she been too harsh? She missed Russell horribly, which was one of the reasons she didn’t want him to come back. Both of them were successful, independent adults with careers that they loved. She didn’t want to stand in Russell’s way just because she was feeling lonely and jumpy in the empty house. Sometimes she still felt like she was new to the whole being married thing, and seemed to constantly second guess herself. While logically she knew that Russell loved her, there was still a part of her that had been wounded by the way her previous relationship had ended and was desperate not to be a burden to her new husband. She wanted to prove that she could still handle things on her own. She just wasn’t sure whether she was trying to prove that to Russell, or herself.

  The morning had been non-stop chaos from the moment she had woken up, and she was still sore from sleeping so awkwardly on the couch, so she took a much needed hot shower before making herself some oatmeal and a scrambled egg for breakfast. She had downed a cup of coffee on an empty stomach while Bethany was there, and it had left her feeling jittery. It felt good to get some warm food in her stomach.

  She finished getting ready for the day, then turned her attention to the rest of the house. She had gotten behind on the basic housekeeping with all of the chaos of the past few days, and decided to spend some time getting things tidied up. That way, if Russell did come home early, the house would be ready for him.

  Humming to herself, she walked into the office armed with a broom and dustpan. Since the office was where they put the dogs when she needed them to be out of the way, it was a prime spot for dust bunnies — or rather, dog fur bunnies. She pulled open the curtains and started sweeping the floor, only stopping when her eyes landed on the gorgeous vase that she had completely forgotten about. Deciding she had better email her grandmother about it before she forgot again, she carried it into the kitchen where the lighting was better and took some photos of it with her cell phone. She attached them to an email and sent it, then put the vase by the sink as a reminder to herself to wash it later.

  She got back to work, feeling good about having the house clean. At the very least, she would be coming home to a clean house this evening, and that was worth the work now.

  Chapter Twelve

  A few hours later, Ellie was in the middle of making a fresh batch of pesto sauce at the pizzeria when Iris poked her head into the kitchen and said, “There’s someone out here who wants to see you.”

  Ellie put the basil leaves down and went to the sink to wash her hands. “Can you finish this up? And do you have any idea who it is?”

  “I have no idea,” Iris said. “It’s a guy, maybe about your age, with dark hair. He didn’t say what he wanted.”

  “Next time, can you make sure to ask what they want? Sometimes it’s something you or another employee could help them with. I don’t mind it if I’m not in the middle of anything, but when I’m busy and have to stop what I’m doing just to help someone with something like recovering a lost gift card or answering questions about allergies, it can be kind of distracting.”

  “Sorry,” her employee said. “I can go back out and ask of you want.”

  “Don’t worry about it right now, I’ll go see what’s up. Just keep it in mind for later. A lot of people seem to think that only the boss can handle certain things, when really you guys are perfectly capable of handling just about anything.” Ellie smiled at the younger woman. “Really, you or Jacob or Rose could probably run this place. In a couple of months, Pete could too. I couldn’t ask for better employees.”

  Iris grinned. “Thanks, Ms. P.”

  After wiping her hands dry on a towel, Ellie stepped out into the front area of the pizzeria. The man standing on the other side of the counter looked hauntingly familiar. She may not have recognized him if she hadn’t seen his brother’s body just hours before.

  “You’re Jessie’s brother, right?” she asked as she approached him.

  He nodded and held out his hand. “Marcus, but everyone calls me Mark.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand. She was about to give her condolences about his brother’s death, but bit her tongue. Did he know yet? She wasn’t sure how quickly the police would have contacted him, and she didn’t want him to hear it from her first.

  It turned out that she didn’t have to worry about it. “I heard you were the one who found Iggy.”

  “I didn’t find him,” she said. “That was someone else. But he was right across the street from my house, and I’m
the one who identified him.”

  He nodded, his jaw clenching. “Can I talk to you in private?”

  “Sure, um, is this corner booth okay?” There were only two other people in the pizzeria, both of them on the other side of the room.

  “It’ll do.”

  She led the way over, then nervously asked if she could get him a drink. He declined, and she took a seat across from him. She wasn’t sure what he’d want to know, but she knew that whatever it was, it was bound to be painful.

  “It came to my attention that my sister was at your house yesterday,” he began. Ellie blinked. This wasn’t what she was expecting at all. “She met with Iggy and me last night, and started going on about ghosts in the Potters’ house. Now, I won’t judge you on your beliefs, but I think you should know that Jessie isn’t the most trustworthy person when it comes to that sort of thing. She’s been crying wolf for as long as I can remember, always convinced she saw a ghost or a spirit. Iggy always got dragged into it, and you can see how well that ended for him.”