Grilled Rye Murder: Book 16 in The Darling Deli Series Read online

  Moira put a hand on Jenny’s arm, trying to calm her down. We just need a confession, she thought. Focus on getting that, Jenny… come on…

  “What—what did I do wrong?” Cameron asked, stumbling back from her outburst in confusion. “Maybe I should have told you right off the bat, but like I told Ms. D, I wanted you to like me for me, not for my money.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jenny said, staring at him with a blank look on her face. “Are you saying… did you get paid to kill him?”

  “What?” the young man gaped at her. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  He really sounds surprised, the deli owner thought. Could we be wrong? Jenny’s theory had made so much sense, though.

  “Yes, you did,” Jenny snapped. “Ms. D and I figured it all out. You saw Cameron the night before he died, and then those police officers asked me all of those questions, and they took your fingerprints—”

  “Jenny, I didn’t kill him. How can you even think that? I thought this was about my money.”

  “What money?”

  He looked at Moira, who nodded encouragement. Cameron blew out a slow breath, then said, “Jenny… I’m rich. Like, really rich. I didn’t want to tell you… well, because I like you. A lot. Most of the women I’ve dated in the past haven’t really been into me, I don’t think most of them would have even looked at me if I had been some poor guy. With you, I wanted to give something real a chance to develop.” He gave dry chuckle. “I guess it turns out that I’m pretty terrible at flirting when I don’t have my money to back me up. I don’t think you ever looked at me as more than a coworker.”

  “Cameron… is this true?”

  “It’s true that he has money,” Moira said. “He’s the one that paid my bail. I know what he’s saying about his feelings for you is also true. He’s been working at the deli for the last six months just to be near you.”

  “But… but what about Zander?” the young woman asked. “If you… if you really like me that much, then that would give you even more reason to want to kill him. You knew we were getting back together. I told you as much just a couple of days before he died.”

  “I didn’t kill Zander,” Cameron said firmly. “Jenny, I would never hurt someone you care about.”

  Jenny and Moira exchanged a glance. He seemed sincere enough. The deli owner thought back all the months she had known him, and couldn’t remember ever seeing him get violent or angry. She thought that he did honestly care for the young woman standing next to her, that wasn’t something he could fake.

  “I… I think he’s telling the truth, Ms. D,” Jenny said.

  “I think so, too.” She winced at the thought of the conversation she would probably be having with Detective Jefferson shortly. He was bound to be annoyed by the false alarm.

  “You should get back to your wedding,” Jenny said. She glanced over at Cameron. “I’m going to stay here. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Moira nodded. “Cameron… I’m sorry.” She turned to face her employee, embarrassed.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ms. D. I guess it’s good the cat’s out of the bag now. I shouldn’t keep secrets from someone I care about.”

  She nodded, shot one more glance towards Jenny, who gave her a reassuring smile, then turned and headed towards the stairs. At least David isn’t here, she thought. She would have been even more embarrassed than she already was if her fiancé had witnessed her wrongly accusing one of her employees of murder. Detective Jefferson witnessing it was bad enough.

  He joined her at the top of the stairs, looking amused. “That was a real brutal killer you uncovered.”

  “Oh, hush,” she told him. “I’m getting married today—you have to be nice to me. Tomorrow you can give me the lecture about wasting valuable police resources if you want.”

  “Nah,” he said. “I did this on my own time. I was supposed to be getting ready to attend a certain deli owner’s wedding, actually. I guess I don’t have time to change now… I’ll just have to wear jeans.”

  “Shoot,” Moira said, pulling out her phone. “I’ve only got ten minutes until I’m supposed to be walking down the aisle!”

  She hurried to her car, hoisted her skirts, and got in the driver’s seat. Solving Zander’s murder would just have to wait one more day—right now, she had vows to make.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Moira pulled into the church parking lot with only minutes to spare. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel tightly. This was it. In just a few minutes, she would be walking down the aisle towards David, and within an hour she would leave the church as a married woman.

  “Breathe,” she told herself. She pulled down the visor and examined her face and hair in the little mirror. Freya hadn’t quite gotten a chance to finish her eyeshadow, but it wasn’t noticeable. Her hair was still in place, and her makeup remained unsmudged. She smiled at herself in the mirror, then flipped the visor back up. It was time to find Martha and her other bridesmaids… all of whom were probably a wee bit upset with her for running off as she had.

  She got out of the car, hit the button on her keys to lock it, and started towards the church. Halfway across the parking lot, she paused. Barely visible around the corner of the church was the nose of a black van. A van just like the one that she had seen the morning of Zander’s murder.

  She looked from the van to the church doors, then back again. Just go inside, she told herself. I can tell Jefferson about the van after the wedding. But what if the van was gone by then? It wouldn’t take her more than a few seconds to dash around the corner and take a photo of the van’s license plate. Then Detective Jefferson could track down its owner at his leisure. Getting that plate number could clear my name. That thought made her mind up. She pulled out her phone and hurried around the corner.

  Heart pounding, she walked slowly around the van, keeping alert in case its owner came back. When she had circled around it to the license plate, she pulled open the camera app on her phone and quickly snapped a picture. Dang it, it was blurry. Her hand was shaking with pre-wedding jitters, making it difficult to get a good picture. With a sigh, she tried again. The second picture was clear enough that she could at least make out the numbers. The police probably have something they can use to sharpen the image if they have to, she thought.

  She straightened up and slid her phone back into her purse. That was easy. Now, it’s time to get married. She took one step back towards the front of the church when the van’s big door rolled open. With a yelp, the deli owner jumped back.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, feeling a mixture of annoyance and disappointment. Brendan Anaheim, the reporter, was frowning at her from the van. I really thought I had found the killer’s vehicle, she thought with a sigh. But it’s just a stupid news van.

  “What are you doing back here?” Brendan asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “I was just taking a walk. It’s my wedding,” she pointed out. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s your wedding.” He gave her a nasty grin. “There’s bound to be a good story here. You’re our viewers’ favorite suspect for Zander Marsh’s murder, and you’re getting married today while out on bail that an extremely wealthy employee posted. People would kill to watch this.”

  “Watch it?” she asked. “What do you mean? You’re not recording my wedding.”

  She saw his eyes flick upwards reflexively, and followed his gaze. Above the van was a small window that, if her mental map of the church was right, would be overlooking the ceremony.

  “Boss, I found a ladder in the shed.” Moira spun around to find herself face to face with a very surprised cameraman carrying an aluminum extendible ladder.

  “Thanks, Rodney, but I don’t think we’ll need it any more. I’ve got a better idea.” Brendan’s nasty grin widened. “Grab her.”

  “Wha—” Moira yelped as Rodney dropped the ladder and grabbed her by the arms.

  “Into the van, boss?”
r />   “Yep. I think I’m more in the mood for a kidnapping than a wedding. Aren’t you?”

  “Help!” The deli owner took a deep breath to yell again, but the cameraman slapped a hand over her mouth. Brendan came forward to help wrestle her into the van, easily avoiding her kicks and flailing arms.

  Once inside the black van, Rodney slammed the door shut, then grabbed a roll of tape from a shelf. Brendan held her firmly while Rodney bound her wrists behind her back.

  “You drive,” he told the cameraman once they were done. “Head towards the lake.”

  The van started and moved forward with a lurch. Moira was staring around at the interior with wide eyes. The van was chock-full of equipment: recording devices, television screens, and an odd-looking handheld miniature satellite.

  “Our sound amplifier,” Brendan said, looking at it fondly. “Government-grade, of course.”

  “I don’t understand,” Moira said, tugging at the tape behind her back. “Why are you doing this? I’m not going to let you get away with it. The second you let me go, I’m going to the police. There will be a big story, all right, but about you two, not me. I’m missing my wedding because of you!”

  Brendan shook his head slowly. “Moira, Moira, Moira. We aren’t letting you go. Imagine this headline—Murderer Succumbs to Guilt on Wedding Day, Commits Suicide. We’ll be the first reporters on the scene when they find your body in the lake. This story will be mine. Beyond News will finally get national recognition. We won’t be a small local channel for much longer. This story is going to go viral.”

  “You’re crazy,” the deli owner said. “You can’t just kill someone for a news story—”

  She broke off, realizing something that suddenly seemed glaringly obvious to her.

  “You already did, didn’t you? You killed Zander.”

  It all made sense. This was the same van that she had seen at Zander’s that morning. Brendan must have been watching, waiting for her to show up so he could give her description to the police. If he had committed the crime, it would explain how he knew some of the information that he had, though not all of it.

  “I’m surprised you put it together so fast,” he said.

  “Why him? I don’t understand.”

  Brendan shrugged. “It wasn’t anything personal. I’ve had this idea for a while, in fact—to create the story that I wanted to report on, instead of just waiting for it to happen. Zander Marsh just happened to be a convenient target. I was at his office doing an interview about his microbrewery, and I happened to see on his schedule that he had a meeting with you set up. Now, your name is a pretty familiar one in my circles. You’ve been implicated in crimes before. Something just seemed to click. It made perfect sense—kill him, pin it on you, and report on all of the ensuing chaos. It went perfectly. I showed up an hour before you were supposed to get there and surprised him at his desk. He pulled a gun on me, but that turned out to be perfect. I wrestled it away from him, shot him twice, wiped it clean, and dropped it. You actually picking it up went beyond anything I expected. I loved you for that.”

  “How do you know I picked it up?” she asked him. “Who’s your source? If you’re going to kill me anyway, you might as well tell me.” She winced as the van went over a bump. She was still struggling with the tape on her wrists, but didn’t seem to be making much progress.

  “I don’t need a source at the police station,” he said proudly. “I got all of the information myself, using that beauty over there.” He pointed to the sound amplifier. “It’s summer, and your detectives like to sit in the break room with the window open while they’re discussing their cases. I learned a lot by hiding in the bushes with the amplifier.”

  “You’re crazy,” the deli owner said. “Is a good news story really worth killing two people over?”

  “Money, fame, my own show on a big network… you bet it is.”

  “Uh, boss? We’ve got a problem,” said Rodney from the front.

  “What is it?” Brendan snapped.

  “Someone’s tailing us.”

  Moira felt a spark of hope. Had someone noticed them kidnap her?

  “Well, lose them,” the reporter said.

  “How? We’re in a huge van. They’re in a car. I can’t exactly outrun them.”

  “I don’t know! Go off road if you have to.”

  Brendan gripped a rail installed in the back of the van for stability, then put his other hand on Moira’s shoulder. “This may get bumpy.”

  Bumpy was an understatement. Rodney yanked the wheel to the left, and the van jumped up on the curb, then smashed through something wooden. Moira winced as a laptop flew off of one of the shelves and clipped her in the calf.

  “Oh, crud!”

  The van came to a sudden, brutal stop, sending both Moira and Brendan flying forward. Dazed, the deli owner struggled to her feet, shaking chunks of broken glass off of herself. The reporter was groaning on the floor, clutching a bloody arm. Rodney, still in the driver’s seat, was beating back an airbag.

  The deli owner staggered to the van’s sliding door and wrestled it open. She got out of the vehicle as quickly as she dared, trying to figure out if she was actually okay, or if she was in shock from some horrible injury that she hadn’t noticed yet. I have all my limbs, she thought. I don’t think I’m bleeding. What on earth just happened?

  She looked around. They were in a field dotted with bushes and trees. A cow lowed at her from only a few yards away. The van’s nose was completely crushed in—it had smashed into a stump hidden in a clump of tall grass. She was beginning to hear more sounds of movement from inside the vehicle now; Brendan was shouting at Rodney.

  “You idiot! You had one job, and you screwed it up. I should have hired that foreign guy. You crashed my van! That woman is getting away… and I think my arm is broken.”

  “Dude, you gotta help me,” Rodney said. “My legs are stuck. I can’t get out.”

  “Screw you. I’ve gotta go catch that chick before she runs to the police.”

  Moira turned back the way that they had come from, desperately looking for somewhere to run to. She saw the splintered fence that the van had broken through and started towards it, pulling her skirts up so she could run without tripping over them.

  She heard footsteps in the grass behind her and ran faster, hoping that Brendan’s broken arm would slow him down enough for her to get to the road before he did. Not daring to look back, she ran as fast as she could… stumbling to a stop only when she saw a familiar unmarked police vehicle roll through the hole in the fence. Red and blue lights flashed from a hidden strip on the car’s roof. Moira heard a muffled curse from behind her, and turned to see Brendan turning tail and running back towards the wrecked van.

  “Moira!” a familiar voice called out to her. “Are you okay?”

  She hurried forward to meet Detective Jefferson, who had gotten out of his car and was running the last few feet towards her.

  “I’m fine,” she panted. “But they’re going to get away! You have to stop them. It’s that reporter, Brendan, and his cameraman. They killed Zander.”

  “They won’t be going anywhere,” Jefferson assured her with a grim smile. “I called for backup, they should be here any minute.”

  Moira could hear sirens in the distance, drawing ever nearer. “Thank goodness,” she breathed. “How did you find me?”

  “I was only a few seconds behind you, remember? I followed you back from City Hall, but got cut off by a stoplight. I pulled in to the parking lot in time to see you walk around the corner of the church building. I didn’t think much of it—I thought you were heading towards a side entrance—until I saw that van pull out and speed off a moment later. I wasn’t sure you were in it, of course, but I tailed it anyway. When I saw the van go off road and into this cow field, I knew something was really wrong. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  The deli owner nodded, then gasped. “David! The wedding! What time is it?”

  She peered at the de
tective’s watch and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was late, her hair was a mess, and she had broken glass in her dress.

  “What am I going to do?” She felt tears prickle her eyes. All of this, and she was going to miss her own wedding.

  “Get in my car and call your maid of honor. I’m sure she can come up with something. I’ll escort you back just as soon as I make sure those two get arrested.”

  It was a plan, at least. Moira took his phone, punched in Martha’s number, and tried to think of what on earth she would tell her friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The first notes of the bridal march began, signaling that it was time for Moira to make her appearance. She took a deep breath, clutched her flowers, and stepped through the doors into the cathedral. Her eyes immediately found David, who was gazing at her with a rapt expression on his face. He looked relieved, and she could imagine why. The wedding had been delayed for another half hour while Freya did her best to fix the damage that had been done to Moira’s hair and makeup during the crazy van ride. She still wasn’t sure quite what explanation Martha had given to the people assembled for the wedding, but it seemed to have worked because no one had left.

  As she walked she looked slowly around the room at all of the people that had gathered there to watch her and David exchange vows. Candice, Denise, Martha, and Karissa were all standing near David, watching her with smiles on their faces. Detective Jefferson, who had come in nearly as late as she, was seated near the back, and winked at her as she walked by. She knew he was thinking of the story that she would be telling David as soon as the wedding was over. Her groom might have a heart attack when he found out that his bride had been kidnapped less than an hour before walking down the aisle.

  Her eyes found David’s mother on the other side of the church. To her surprise, the woman gave her an encouraging smile, which Moira returned. She still thinks I’m a troublemaker, the deli owner knew. And once she hears about this, her opinion definitely won’t be improving. But at least the older woman seemed to appreciate the fact that Moira made David happy, and hopefully that would be enough to keep the relationship with her mother in law a good one.