Very Veggie Murder: Book 3 in Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Page 5

  Ellie read through the article with bated breath. Sure enough, it was about her uncle; the story alleged that her uncle had driven a middle-aged man off the road. The incident, the reporter said, likely happened when the victim tried to pass young Toby on a two-lane country road. Toby had sped up, not letting the driver change lanes even when a truck came from the other way. The man attempting to pass had been forced off the road to avoid a collision with a truck, and had smashed full-speed into a tree instead.

  It was a chilling article. Ellie turned the clipping over, hoping for more, but there was nothing else in the file except for a short note written in what she recognized as her grandfather’s hand.

  My dear daughter,

  I know you don’t wish to hear from me on this subject again, but even though it will make you angry with me, I feel that you must know the truth—

  The next sentence was scribbled out, and the note was left unfinished. Ellie stared at it for a long time, wondering what it meant. Had her grandfather ever finished another version of the letter and sent it, or had he decided not to interfere with his daughter’s love life? Had he held the incident over Uncle Toby all these years, threatening to tell his daughter that he had been responsible for a man’s death? Was this what her grandfather had been blackmailing him about? Did it prove that Uncle Toby was the “T” from the letter to her grandfather?

  There were too many questions, and not nearly enough answers. Ellie let the file folder fall shut and stood up, wincing at the tingling as blood rushed back into her legs. It looked like it was time to start asking her family some questions. First thing in the morning, she was going to confront her uncle.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Confronting her uncle was a lot easier resolved than done. When she woke up in the morning, she had a sick, anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach. She kept glancing toward the file, wondering if she could really trust a decision made by her sleep-deprived brain the night before. She wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, she knew that much, but she wasn’t quite sure how to begin. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a good idea to walk downstairs and accuse her uncle—a man that she knew had anger issues—of murder. Then again, she could only beat around the bush so much before he realized something was up. Was it better to be direct? Should she maybe ask her aunt, first? What would she say? Good morning, Aunt Kathy. Would you like some coffee? By the way, is your husband a killer?

  She snorted, waking Bunny up, which settled one thing for her; whether or not she was going to speak to her uncle this morning, she couldn’t spend any more time in bed. The papillon was making it clear that she had to go out, and she had to go out now.

  “You were asleep two seconds ago,” Ellie grumbled good-naturedly as she grabbed the file from her nightstand. “You can’t suddenly have to go potty that badly.”

  It was a clear morning, but uncomfortably cold. She shifted on her feet, watching as the black-and-white dog zig-zagged across the yard with her nose to the ground, following the trail of some critter or another that had wandered across the grass during the night. Covering her mouth as she yawned, Ellie was surprised to hear the screen door slide open behind her.

  “Hey,” Darlene said softly, joining her on the porch.

  “Hey,” she replied. “You’re up early. How are you doing?”

  Her cousin shrugged. “It hasn’t been easy. But I didn’t come out here to talk about Danny. I wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For my dad.” Darlene frowned. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him have an outburst like that. This whole thing must be stressing him out. I think he gets confused sometimes. He doesn’t want to admit it. He says sixty-one is too young for his mind to start going. I know mom is worried about him.”

  “I don’t really know what to say,” Ellie admitted. “The way he spoke to Clara… well, it was unacceptable. I’m grateful that you apologized to me, but really, he should be the one apologizing, and to her.”

  “I know,” her cousin said with a sigh. “I’ll talk to him about it.” Her eyes drifted down to the file folder, which was still in Ellie’s hand. “What’s that?”

  The pizzeria manager hesitated. The night before, she had vowed to confront her uncle. In the morning light, after a night’s rest, the thought was intimidating. Could her cousin possibly help? She decided to take a chance.

  “Darlene,” she said, taking a deep breath, “let’s go to the study. We have a lot to talk about.”

  With Marlowe watching them from her wooden perch by the window, a piece of one of Nonna’s famous blueberry muffins clutched in her claws, Ellie told Darlene everything. She showed her the letter that she had found under the bookshelf the week before, and explained that she suspected Danny’s queries about it had played a role in his death. She also let her cousin read the article about Toby, and explained her suspicions. She tried to be as thorough as she could, and was grateful that the other woman didn’t interrupt her with questions.

  When she fell silent at last and Darlene still didn’t say anything, she began to get worried. It was impossible to tell what her cousin was thinking. She must be shocked, but other than that… was she upset? Hurt by the secrets her family had kept? Or had none if it even registered with her yet? Ellie knew it could be a lot to take in.

  “I can’t believe you,” the other woman said at last raising her head and meeting Ellie’s eyes. The pizzeria manager was shocked to see fierce anger on her cousin’s face. “Danny died because of you. And now you have the gall to try to drag my father into this?”

  “Darlene—” Ellie began.

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Her cousin blew out a slow breath. “I need to be alone right now, before I say something that I really regret. Just know this, Ellie… I may not be able to change the fact that you’re my cousin, but after this, you will never be my friend.”

  With that the other woman stood up and stalked out of the study, leaving Ellie at her desk, stunned and hurt.

  Upset beyond words, she called the one person that she knew she could count on to support her. Half an hour later, she found herself in a coffee shop with her best friend, feeling significantly less upset and even more intrigued by the mystery of Uncle Toby and her grandfather. All of that was thanks to Shannon, who had read through the article about the road rage incident as if she was starving for information.

  “Ellie,” she said once she had finished the article. “You’re brilliant. Have you told Russell any of this yet?”

  “Not yet,” the pizzeria manager admitted. “Do you think I should?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s enough for him to connect your uncle to the murder, not unless he has strong evidence that the killer was the same person that wrote the note, but he might at least be able to question the man.”

  “Do you think my uncle killed Danny?” Ellie asked, feeling suddenly doubtful. Was she just grasping at straws?

  Shannon considered her question for a moment. “If he was the one your grandfather was blackmailing, then I think it’s definitely possible,” she said at last. “Keeping his past a secret from your family could definitely be a motive for murder. If he somehow found out that Danny was asking around about it, maybe he got paranoid and snapped. He could have easily left that letter in your mailbox, too.”

  “You’re right,” Ellie said with a shiver. The fact that she had been sleeping under the same roof as a potential killer for the past week and a half was suddenly starting to feel very real. Were any of them safe? “I should get home. I need to see if I can calm Darlene down, and then call the sheriff. Thanks for your help, Shannon.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. This is the sort of thing that I live for.” Her friend grinned, then more seriously added, “Be careful, Ellie. From everything you’ve told me, this uncle of yours could be dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ellie spent the drive back to her house planning out her apology to Darlene. She
just hoped that her cousin hadn’t said anything to Uncle Toby yet. The last thing she wanted was for the older man to know what she knew. Shannon was right; he could be dangerous. It was very possible that he had already killed, not once, but twice if she counted the road rage incident. She really didn’t want to become the third victim.

  She had prepared herself for all manner of welcomes when she got back, from stony silence to anger. What she hadn’t been expecting was an empty driveway. Both Darlene’s and Nonna’s cars were gone. Ellie stared at the empty spaces for a moment, wondering if something terrible had happened, when she remembered with a guilty jolt that they had planned to visit her grandfather’s grave this morning.

  Promising herself that she would make it up later by buying him an extra nice bouquet of flowers, she switched her engine off and went inside. She doubted that she had time to join them—they were probably on their way back already. She might as well just begin getting ready for work.

  “Bunny,” she called out. “I’m home. Where are you?”

  Her puzzlement quickly turned to concern when the little dog failed to come running. The papillon always greeted her at the door.

  “Bunny?” she called again, her heart beginning to pound. Only something serious would keep the dog from her. She thought back through the morning. Had she somehow left Bunny outside? No, she was certain the dog had followed her and Darlene into the study. The study! I must have locked her in there accidentally when I left, she thought with relief.

  She hurried down the hall and opened the study door, and gasped in shock at what she saw. The desk drawers were pulled open and there were papers everywhere. Her laptop was open, the lock screen informing her that the incorrect password had been entered too many times and she would need to confirm her identity via email to access the computer again.

  “Bunny?” Ellie whispered, her first crazy thought that the dog had somehow caused this mess. But no, that was impossible. The little, seven-pound papillon wouldn’t have been able to open the desk drawers, let alone her computer. Her eyes shot toward the bird cage, the macaw her next suspect. The cage, however, was securely shut, and Marlowe was huddled in the corner, looking terrified.

  Someone had broken into the study and ransacked it. Even worse; her dog was still missing.

  She rushed through the house, checking behind every closed door in the faint hope that the papillon had somehow gotten herself locked away. When she headed into the kitchen with the desperate idea to check the pantry in case Bunny had slipped inside without notice, she stopped in her tracks. The kitchen door was wide open, letting an icy breeze and a few stray leaves inside. Bunny wasn’t in the house anymore; of that, she was certain.

  After twenty minutes of fruitless searching outside, Ellie realized that she had no choice but to call the police. They might not just come out for a missing dog, but they certainly would when she told them that her house had been broken into.

  It didn’t take long for the sheriff’s truck to arrive. Ellie was waiting anxiously outside, keeping her eyes peeled in case Bunny was close by. The dog couldn’t have gotten far, not as tiny as she was. A hundred yards would be like a mile to her.

  She was relieved to see Russell. While she liked both of his deputies, Bethany was young and inexperienced, and she simply didn’t know Liam that well. She knew that the sheriff would take her seriously, and hoped that he might even be willing to help her search for Bunny after he had taken her statement.

  “Who else has a key?” he asked. They were standing by the back door, already having examined the study. Ellie, who hadn’t done much more than glance at the mess before, had forced herself to slow down and do a quick inventory while the sheriff waited. Nothing had been missing, which he had dutifully noted down on his notepad when she told him.

  “My grandmother,” she said. “That’s it.”

  “And you’re sure you didn’t leave it unlocked when you left earlier?” He crouched down to examine the door frame.

  “I don’t think I did,” she said, trying to think back. “I’ve always locked it before.” This time she had been distracted by Darlene though, hadn’t she?

  “Well, it doesn’t look like it was forced,” he said, straightening up.

  “We have guests staying here. Family,” she explained. “They left after I did. It’s possible that one of them left it unlocked.”

  He nodded. “And you’re positive nothing was taken from your home office?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” she said. “If anything was taken, it wasn’t anything valuable, or anything that I would notice.”

  “Whoever broke in left your laptop and an expensive animal,” he mused. “This doesn’t look like a robbery. Can you think of any reason one of your family members might have gone through your office?”

  Ellie opened her mouth to say no, she couldn’t, but stopped herself. She thought of the file folder with the article about Toby that was currently sitting in the passenger seat of her car, and the photocopy of the letter to her grandfather in her purse. She remembered the sound of Darlene slamming the door behind her as she stormed out. Had she told her father about Ellie’s suspicions? There were plenty of reasons that Darlene or Toby would want to go through her office; one of them had probably been looking for the file.

  “I think,” the sheriff said, watching her expression, “that you have a lot that you had better tell me. Shall we walk and talk at the same time?” He gestured to the door.

  “Huh?” she gave him a puzzled look.

  “You want to find your dog, don’t you? I can help you look while you tell me what’s been going on around here.”

  A wave of gratitude washed through her. “Yes, of course. Thank you. I’ll tell you everything—I was going to, anyway, before I came home to all of this.”

  She took a moment to organize her thoughts as they walked toward the woods, and started speaking just as they stepped beneath the boughs, pausing every few minutes to call out Bunny’s name and listen for the jingle of her collar before continuing with her story.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She had just finished telling Sheriff Ward everything that had happened since they had last spoken when she heard a familiar jingle up ahead. Ignoring the spiky branches catching on her pants, she pushed forward to find a very dirty, cold, and scared Bunny huddled between two fallen branches. She scooped the dog up and was rewarded with a flurry of warm kisses across her cheeks. The little papillon’s tail was wagging so quickly that it was nearly invisible.

  “Oh my goodness, Bunny, don’t ever do that again,” Ellie said, hugging the dog close. “What would have happened if we didn’t find you?”

  She was embarrassed to feel tears prick the corners of her eyes. Bunny was her constant companion, and she would be completely crushed if something had happened to her, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to cry in front of the sheriff. She sniffed quickly, hoping he would think that she was getting a cold, and gave the dog a quick once-over.

  “I don’t think she’s hurt,” she said, turning back to Sheriff Ward. “Thank you so much for helping me find her.”

  “My pleasure,” he said. “I’m glad she’s okay.”

  She fell into step beside him, trusting him to know the way back through the forest. “What are you going to do about Toby?”

  He glanced sideways at her. “Nothing.”

  Ellie blinked. “What… what do you mean, nothing?”

  “I have absolutely nothing to connect him to Danny’s murder,” he pointed out. “An old newspaper article about him driving someone off the road in a fit of rage hardly ties him to the case I’m investigating now.”

  She opened and closed her mouth, feeling like an idiot. He wasn’t even going to talk to Uncle Toby?

  “But he’s leaving in two days,” she said. “If I’m right and he is the one that killed Danny, then he’s just going to get away with it.”

  “I’ll do what I can to speed the investigation up,” he told her. “But these thing
s take time, and I have to go by the book. If I don’t, the whole case could get thrown out—even if he is guilty.”

  They walked in silence the rest of the way back, Ellie carrying her dog and thinking about what the sheriff had said. She knew that he was right. There really wasn’t anything at all connecting Toby to Danny’s murder. That meant that she was just going to have to try harder to uncover the truth before he left.

  When they reached the house, she was shocked to find her aunt, uncle, and grandmother all waiting on the back porch. She had completely forgotten that they would be back soon. What must they have thought when they returned home to find the sheriff’s truck in the driveway and they house completely empty?

  “Ellie, I was so worried,” Nonna said, hurrying forward as best she could to give her granddaughter a hug. “I thought something terrible had happened.”

  “I’m fine,” the pizzeria manager assured the elderly woman. “Don’t worry, no one’s hurt and nothing’s missing… but someone did break into the house.”

  All three of them gasped. Ellie searched her uncle’s face, looking for any sign of guilt. Did he know? Had Darlene told him? Was he the one that had ransacked her office? She looked around, suddenly realizing that her cousin was missing.

  “Where’s Darlene?” she asked.

  “She’s staying with a friend,” Kathy said, sighing. “She seemed upset, but she wouldn’t tell me much. I think Danny’s passing really got to her. She’ll be glad to get home at the end of the week, I’m sure.”

  “Oh.” Ellie felt a pang of guilt. Had she really managed to drive her own cousin away?

  “Ellie dear,” her grandmother began. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

  “What time is… Shoot!” Ellie handed the papillon off to her grandmother. According to her phone, it was half past twelve. The pizzeria had long since opened, and she hadn’t so much as called to let her employees know that she would be late. She glanced down at her clothes and bit back a curse when she saw that she was covered with mud and leaves. Leaving Russell to take statements from her family members and trusting that Nonna would get Bunny cleaned up, Ellie hurried upstairs to change before heading in to work.