Pastrami Murder: Book One in The Darling Deli Series Page 5

  It’s a shame, she thought. I would hate to see it close. The diner had been around for as long as she could remember. She and Candice had often gone there for a burger and fries after school when her daughter was younger, and Candice had even gotten her first job there.

  “It’s quiet today,” he said as she led him over to a small bistro table in the corner. He took off his bowler hat as he sat down, revealing sparse white hair. “You usually have a couple of people in line when I come in for lunch.”

  “Yeah.” She gave a dry laugh. “Thanks to the fact that everyone knows Henry Devou was poisoned by one of my soups, no one wants to eat here anymore.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Moira. That man is bad for business even when he’s dead.” Arlo shook his head. “I can’t say I was sorry to hear the news though. World’s better off without him, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t mean that,” she said, shocked. “I know that we’ve both been seeing fewer profits since his business took off, but he definitely didn’t deserve to die.”

  “It’s not just about losing customers to him. That man was wrecking the town. Maple Creek is about tradition, and sticking together.” He grimaced. “Henry Devou was just another big businessman that didn’t care about anything except money. We don’t need people like that in our town.”

  Moira was speechless. She knew that Arlo was old-fashioned, and like many other elderly people, had gotten used to speaking his mind, but this was just too much. It was never okay to talk about the dead like that, at least not in her book.

  “I think you should take your soup to go, Arlo,” she said. “I need to get back to work.”

  Even though the conversation with him had ended unpleasantly, it had given Moira a lot to think about. Maybe she and David were way off target when they had thought that Henry’s sister had killed him. Could it be that the diner owner had done it? And if so, why was he trying to frame her? She decided to contact David with her new information; hopefully they would figure this out soon.

  “So do you really think it could be this Arlo guy?” David asked, his voice tinny over the phone.

  “I don’t know. The diner is everything to him, though. If it’s about to go out of business, he might be feeling desperate. And with what he said about Devou destroying the town… it sounds like he really hated the man.” She sighed. She had known Arlo her whole life. Could he really have done it?

  “Well, I’ll look into it,” the detective assured her. “Let me know if you think of anything else.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Anticipating another slow day, Moira decided to take advantage of the downtime to experiment. For most of her soups, sandwiches, and salads, she took old favorites and gave them a delicious new twist, but Moira was itching to create something unique. She began by mixing together a few cups of vegetable stock, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, and a dash of powdered ginger root in a big pot, which she set over a low flame. That would simmer while she chopped the vegetables.

  She wanted this to be a colorful soup—she thought she might use it for one of her spring specials—which meant digging the last of the rainbow carrots out of the freezer. She had bought them from an organic hobby farmer at the last farmer’s market of the season, and had been saving them for something special. They would definitely serve to make the soup unique. Not many people even knew that purple, red, white, and yellow carrots existed, let alone that each color had a different variety of nutrients and a slightly different flavor.

  She set the colorful bowl of sliced carrots aside and opened the fridge to figure out what else she wanted to put in her new creation. She had already decided that it would be vegetarian, so she wouldn’t be adding any meats. Bok choy was just the thing for this soup, she decided. It would go well with the soy flavoring, and she could create a sandwich that incorporated bok choy leaves, which would tie the two dishes together nicely. Where is it? she thought, peering into the refrigerator. I know we have some. She had used it in a salad just the other day.

  Moira moved some mushrooms aside to look behind them, thinking I might add some of those too, and paused. There was a small ziplock bag with something green in the very back of the fridge. She always kept fresh herbs in the front, since they had to be used quickly or they would lose their flavor. The back of the fridge was only for large items that wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. Plus, all of her ingredients were clearly labeled and dated—this bag had neither on it.

  She reached in and took the bag out, absently closing the fridge door with her hip as she moved over to the counter to examine the little plant. Was one of her employees doing drugs? She didn’t test them, but they all knew that she had a zero tolerance policy.

  It wasn’t a plant that she recognized off the top of her head, but it looked somewhat familiar. She was an avid gardener in the warmer months, so chances were that she had come across the plant in some gardening book or the other.

  She decided to do a quick Internet search before she asked Darrin, who was out front, if he recognized it. The only problem was, what should she search for? It looked almost like the tops of carrots or parsnips, so she decided to start there. Candice had tried to teach her how to use keywords when she was looking things up, but Moira wasn’t very confident of her own ability to do it correctly, so she took the easy route. Typing plants that look like carrots into the search engine brought her results quickly. She clicked on the first link and began comparing pictures to the plant on the counter in front of her.

  A few seconds later, a chill went through her. She looked from the plant to the screen and back again, hoping that she had made a mistake, but there was no doubt. The little green plant that had been hidden at the back of her fridge was hemlock. Now the question was, who had put a deadly plant in her fridge… and why?

  CHAPTER 16

  David stared at his computer screen, tapping a foot on the ground as he tried to draw lines where there just weren’t any. Mathilda Devou had just made an appearance on the local news, thanking the public for their support after her brother’s death. The only problem was, she had also explained that she was selling the franchise, as she had no interest in running a business. She would be donating all of the proceeds to his favorite charity.

  Well, he thought, that takes away any motive she could have had to kill him. Her tears looked real, and the sadness in her voice was unmistakable. He had to accept that Mathilda Devou was no longer a realistic suspect in the murder case.

  Maybe Moira was right, and it was the diner owner. He had never spoken to Arlo himself, but he knew the diner; it was impossible not to drive by it when he was passing through Maple Creek. But just because the old man had motive, it didn’t mean that he had done it. It seemed like half the town had a reason to want Henry Devou dead. The motive may be there., but the evidence just isn’t, he thought.

  So, where does that leave Moira? he wondered. He had to admit to himself that with the Devou sister out of the picture, the evidence just kept pointing back to his client. He made a mental list: the bowl of poisoned soup from her deli, her declining business, her lack of alibi for Saturday—although Moira’s alibi for Friday was strong, David wished she’d gone out with friends on Saturday… it just didn’t look good She was in the deli almost every day, and wouldn’t have had to pay for the soup, which meant there would be no paper trail. And even though she and Henry Devou had been competitors, he would have known her well enough to answer the door if she knocked. From what he had seen of Moira, she was smart enough to trick the man into eating the soup somehow.

  There were two things that didn’t make sense to him. If Moira had committed the crime, why had she left so much evidence behind? She must have known that the police would be able to track the to-go bowl back to her; it had her deli’s logo on it, after all. And if his client was guilty, then why had she hired him?

  He knew that his little business had a good reputation; he wasn’t some hack investigator trying to make an easy buck. No, he was a professional
, and his track record showed it. He also knew that his services didn’t come cheaply. Why would she pay to have someone prove that she was guilty?

  Maybe he was overthinking things. His first mentor had always told him that the simplest explanation was usually the right one. Chances were, there wasn’t some big conspiracy to make Moira look guilty. If he were to think about this case logically, then the answer was obvious; the deli owner was the murderer. But for some reason, his gut still told him that she was innocent. If Moira didn’t poison the soup, then who did? Suddenly the answer was right in front of him, so obvious that he didn’t understand how he hadn’t seen it before. Someone at the deli had killed Henry Devou, but it wasn’t Moira. There was someone else that had a motive to kill Henry, someone that he had overlooked so far. Someone that Moira trusted and confided in… someone that had been doing their hardest to pin the crime on someone else. David grabbed his overcoat and keys and rushed out of his office.

  CHAPTER 17

  Moira carefully wrapped the deadly little plant back up in the bag and slipped it into her pocket. Her new soup could wait; right now she had to find a murderer and clear her name.

  “Darrin, something came up. Can you handle the store on your own for a few hours?” she asked as she strode out of the kitchen.

  “Sure, Ms. D. Not a problem, it’s not like we’re busy right now.” He looked at her with concern on his face. “Is everything alright?”

  “Not yet, but it will be,” she said grimly. “You just hold tight. I’ll explain everything later.”

  Moira got into her car before taking out her cell phone and dialing David Morris’s number. She tapped the steering wheel impatiently as it rang. When the call went to voicemail, she left a quick message asking him to call her back and then hung up, frustrated. She wanted to tell the private detective about her find, and ask him what she should do next. Going straight to the police probably wouldn’t be a good idea; there was no way that they would believe her story about her just happening to find the hemlock in her fridge.

  Putting the car into gear, Moira drove out of the parking lot and turned down the road that would take her to Lake Marion. She would keep trying to get David on his phone while she drove, and if it came to it, she would try to find him in person at his office. Maybe she should have taken Candice’s initial advice and gotten herself a lawyer; someone was definitely trying to frame her for murder, and she was beginning to feel out of her depth.

  After a few more calls to David’s phone went to voicemail, Moira groaned in annoyance and put her phone down. Where had the detective gotten to? She needed him now more than ever, but he was proving impossible to get in touch with.

  You don’t need him, she told herself. You’re a smart woman. Figure it out yourself. Well, what did she know so far? Someone had bought a bowl of soup from her store, poisoned it, then had given it to her business competitor. Then someone, presumably the same person, had planted a clipping of hemlock in her refrigerator at the deli. Moira figured it was safe to assume that Henry Devou had died from hemlock poisoning, even though there was no way for her to confirm that now.

  So whoever had murdered Henry had also managed to get into her kitchen somehow, without her or any of her employees noticing. How was that possible? Most nights, she herself was the one to lock the building up, and she always double-checked the doors before going home. If she had somehow forgotten a door, or someone had picked the lock, then her employees would surely have mentioned finding an unlocked door the next morning.

  It was unlikely that anyone had snuck into the kitchen during the day; there were usually at least two employees on staff: one up front to take orders and pack up the refrigerated items for customers, and the other employee in the back to keep an eye on the soup, to slice bread and cold cuts, and just generally to keep things flowing smoothly. If a customer had been found in the kitchen, she would definitely have been told.

  So what was the answer? Moira gripped the steering wheel harder, frustrated by the whole situation. It looked like she was dealing with a professional, someone who could pick locks and was smart enough to re-lock the door behind them when they left probably wasn’t an amateur at this kind of thing. Was David right? Had Henry’s sister done the whole thing? When she had confronted Moira she had seemed genuinely upset. And from what she had seen of Henry’s sister, she wasn’t exactly the subtle type.

  The big question was how this person managed to be so invisible. She and David had gone over all of the likely possibilities together, and she had asked each of her employees if they remembered seeing any of those people in the few days before Henry Devou had been murdered. Not a single one had been recognized by Darrin, Danielle, or Candice. It was like someone invisible had bought the soup and planted the hemlock in the fridge.

  No, it’s not someone invisible, she chided herself. She had to quit avoiding what was staring her in her face. Whoever had killed Henry Devou was someone that knew her well. Someone that had access to the deli, and that wouldn’t raise suspicion if they were poking around in the kitchen. The terrible realization unfolded slowly inside of her. The murderer was one of her employees.

  She tried David’s phone once more, with no answer. She couldn’t wait to talk to him; she had to act now. It wouldn’t be right for her not to tell the police what she knew. What if the murderer was escaping right now? If they checked the fridge and saw that the hemlock was gone, then they would know that she had found out.

  As she turned her car around and began making her way back to Maple Creek, there was only one question in her mind. Which one of the people that she worked with had killed Henry Devou?

  CHAPTER 18

  She didn’t want to think that it could be true, even for an instant, but once the thought was in her head she just couldn’t make it go away. Part of her was horrified that she was even considering the fact that one of her employees could be a killer—they were her family, all of them—but another part kept going over the evidence in her head. The police believed that the poisoned soup had come from the deli because it had come from the deli. The poison might even have been added while it was still in the kitchen. All the evidence that they found so far pointed back to the store that she owned because that’s where the murderer had committed the crime.

  Moira couldn’t believe that she was even entertaining this line of thought. As she had told David, she trusted each of her employees completely. But what if she had been wrong to do so? Everyone had poor judgment sometimes; had she made a fatal mistake when hiring Darrin or Danielle? It couldn’t be Candice; she couldn’t even consider the idea that her own daughter could kill someone. Besides, Candice would have had no motive. Her daughter was involved with running the business, and had seen their finances. She knew that the business was doing well. No, her daughter was not a murderer.

  Not knowing exactly what she was going to say, but knowing that she had to get to the bottom of all of this, Moira pulled into her driveway. She was going to go to the police, but first she wanted to talk to her daughter. It looked like she would be needing that lawyer after all.

  It wasn’t until he was more than halfway to Maple Creek that David realized that in his rush to get out the door, he had left his cell phone behind. He huffed out a breath of air in annoyance. Hopefully he would be able to catch Moira at the deli; she seemed to work constantly anyway, so chances were good that she was there.

  When he pulled into the small parking lot outside of Darling’s DELIcious Delights, he immediately noticed that her car wasn’t there. Should I look for her at her house? he wondered. Then he remembered that the only place he had her address was on his cell phone.

  Cursing how dependent he was on modern technology and deeply missing his old notepad, David slammed his car door shut and entered the store. Darrin, Moira’s young male employee, was at the counter chatting with Danielle.

  “Hi Mr. Morris,” he said brightly. “I’m glad you stopped by. This place is dead today. I should have taken Ms. D’s ad
vice and brought a book with me.” Danielle just nodded at him, her face expressionless.

  “Is Moira here?” David asked, skipping the pleasantries. He glanced at the two employees, trying not to let his thoughts show on his face. If he was right, then one of them was a killer.

  “Well no, she left about an hour ago.” Frowning, he asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” the detective replied truthfully. “Do you know where she went?”

  “No, but she didn’t look happy. She sort of rushed out of here. Is it about the case, do you think?” the young man asked.

  “I’m not sure,” David replied, already partway through the front door. “But if you see her, tell her that I’ll meet her at the police station.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The house was empty when Moira got there, and she groaned in annoyance. She wanted to go to the police as quickly as possible with her new evidence, but she didn’t want to put herself into their hands without talking to her daughter first. If the detectives at the police station didn’t believe her, they might end up arresting her, in which case she would desperately need her daughter’s help.

  “Where are you?” she asked when Candice answered her call.

  “I went to the mall. What’s up? You sound worried.” The mall was a good forty-five minutes away. Could she wait that long to go to the police? She would have to. She didn’t want to worry her daughter right before a long drive on snowy roads.

  “I just need to talk to you. It’s not an emergency, but can you head back?” she asked.