Authors: Chris Cavender
Rest in Pizza (16 page)
“Let’s go pay her a little visit then,” Maddy said. “You sure you’re not too stuffed to do that?”
“Positive,” I said. “I’m always ready to grill somebody.”
The door to Patrice’s suite was open as Maddy and I approached.
“What does that mean?” I asked Maddy softly.
“It looks like an open invitation to me,” she replied. My sister was usually the brasher of the two of us, and before I could weigh the advantages of going inside, the decision was made for me as Maddy plowed on in ahead of me.
“Patrice? Are you here?” Maddy called out.
There was no answer at first, so Maddy started snooping around a little.
“What if we get caught up here in her room alone?” I asked. “How are we going to explain it?”
“I just want to do a little recon,” Maddy said. She was heading for the bedroom when a voice called out from the balcony, “I thought I told you to keep my glass full, but look at this. I’m completely out of mimosas.”
It was Patrice, and apparently she’d already started her day drinking. When she pivoted around, she saw us instead of the room service staff member she’d no doubt been expecting. “What are you two doing here? Everyone’s deserted me, but I can’t seem to shake either one of you at all.”
“We came to chat,” I said as brightly as I could manage. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“A minute, an hour, a day, however long it takes until my drink is refreshed,” Patrice said, slurring her words slightly. “Tell you what. Why don’t one of you ladies scamper off and see what’s happened to my mimosas, and I’ll spend the time speaking with the other one?”
Maddy didn’t look at all pleased by the arrangement since Patrice had designated her the unofficial bartender, but I offered a silent plea, and she nodded slightly. “I’ll be right back,” she said as I took a seat beside Patrice.
The balcony offered a lovely view of the mountains, and the upper reaches were shrouded somewhat in what was either fog or low cloud cover. Either way, it was a spectacular view.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, the manners my parents had bred into me too strong to disregard.
Patrice looked at the view I cherished so much with clear distaste. “If you want the truth, I’m not certain I could call Tony’s departure that much of a loss. The man couldn’t keep his pants up, if you know what I mean. I should have realized long ago that he’d never change.”
“Did he really cheat on you that often in the past?” I asked, trying to get some kind of corroboration that Janet’s story had been true.
“He did it as long as I’d known him. After all, that’s how we first met,” she said, eyeing the bottom of her glass suspiciously, as though she expected it to magically fill itself up again without human intervention.
“How is that?” I asked.
“Oh, dear, naïve woman. He was with his first wife when he cheated on her with me.”
My mother had always told Maddy and me that if a man cheats with you, one day he’ll cheat on you, and I’d never had any reason to doubt the wisdom of her words. I didn’t think that was a very good time to share that particular insight with Patrice, though. “Still, he was your husband.”
“Yes, that’s true. I never knew how bad ‘for better or for worse’ could be.” She lifted the empty glass to her lips again, and seemed to discover its depleted state once more. “I begged him for a divorce a hundred times, but he wouldn’t give me one. He said it would ruin his precious image. What did he care about that? One of his bimbos would have brought him down sooner or later, so why did I have to suffer in the meantime?”
“He couldn’t make you stay married to him if you really wanted to leave him,” I said. “If it wasn’t for love, did you stay for the money, instead?”
Patrice surprised me by laughing at my question. “Dear woman, I have more money than Tony ever dreamed of earning with his little TV show and his quaint cookbooks. That’s what first attracted him to me, I’m sure.”
“So why didn’t you just leave?” I would have never pressed her like that if she’d been sober, but I had a window to push her, and I was going to take full advantage of it.
For the first time since we’d been chatting, Patrice looked uncomfortable by my presence. “Let’s just say that he knew about one of my dirty little secrets, and leave it at that.”
It was clear she was done talking about her late husband, so it was time to shift subjects. “How about Oliver and Jessie? Why did they stay with him?”
Patrice waved a hand in the air. “They each had their reasons. Oliver would take whatever abuse Tony put him through, hoping that he might get a little credit someday for his own creations. The night before Tony was murdered, I heard my dear, sweet husband tell Oliver that he was nothing but a fry cook and that he’d never acknowledge poor old Ollie as anything else.”
“How did he react to that?” I asked, fascinated by the revelation.
Patrice got a wicked little grin on her face. “He threatened to expose Tony, and when my husband just laughed at him, I thought Oliver was going to kill him right then and there.”
“And Jessie?” I asked, hoping to wring every last bit of information out of her that I could. “Why would she kill him?”
“That’s an easy one. If Tony left the show, it would be the same as killing Jessie’s dreams and ambitions. She might feel there was nothing left for her to lose if he just walked away. My husband seemed to inspire hatred in people, not a particularly useful talent to have, but one of his very own. Everyone must be good at one thing in their lives, I suppose.” Patrice pivoted in her chair, and then asked again, “Where did your sister go, all the way to Florida to squeeze the oranges herself?”
At that moment, Maddy arrived, but she was frowning.
Oliver was right behind her, and Jessie was one pace after that.
“You need to stop drinking, Patrice,” Oliver said.
“Why should I? It helps ease the pain.”
“Trust me,” Jessie said, “I doubt you can feel anything right now. There won’t be any more alcohol today.” She turned to us and said, “She’s normally not like this at all.”
I’d seen her in her sober, and more timid, mode and I wasn’t sure which I preferred. “She’s been perfectly lovely,” I said.
“I bet,” Oliver answered. “Don’t you two have a pizza place to run?”
I glanced at my watch and saw that we were indeed going to have to push things to be ready to open in time, and in all honesty, I doubted we’d get anything else from Patrice at the moment anyway, particularly not with her two self-appointed guardians hovering nearby.
“She’s right,” I said. “Come on, Maddy. We should go and leave them alone.”
Maddy looked surprised by the move, but followed along.
“At least tell me you got something out of her,” she said once we were alone in the elevator.
“Oh, yes. I’ll bring you up to speed while we’re driving to the Slice.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Maddy said. “I can’t wait to hear everything.”
Chapter 15
“W
hat I want to know is, who
didn’t
want to kill this guy?”
hat I want to know is, who
didn’t
want to kill this guy?”
Maddy asked me as we walked into the Slice and locked the door behind us. “I’m amazed he lasted as long as he did, to be honest with you.”
As I began to pull out the ingredients to make our dough for the day, I said, “I know exactly what you mean. I never knew one man could inspire so much loathing in my life. Patrice called it his unique gift to the world.”
My cell phone rang, and I wondered who it could be when I reached for it.
When I saw that it was Kevin Hurley, I almost didn’t answer the chief’s call.
“Hey,” I said, against my better judgment.
“I’m outside,” he said. “Let me in.”
“Be right there,” I said, and then hung up. There hadn’t been a bit of nicety in his words, and I prepared myself for the worst.
“Who was it?” Maddy asked.
“Kevin Hurley wants to have a little chat,” I said as I headed for the kitchen door.
“Then by all means, let’s go talk to him,” Maddy said, dropping her knife on the cutting board. It was from the same set as the one that had been used as a murder weapon, but they were the best knives that I could afford, so no matter what we thought about it, Maddy and I had to keep using them.
I wasn’t at all certain that the chief of police would be frank in front of Maddy. “Maybe I should handle this on my own.”
“Did he expressly say that I couldn’t come?” Maddy asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
I knew better than to push it when she used that tone of voice with me. When Maddy made up her mind about something, it tended to stick.
Chief Hurley didn’t look all that pleased to see us both approaching the front door, but it could have just been my imagination. He hadn’t had it particularly easy over the past few years, and some of that was probably due directly to me. We’d had several clashes when it came to his son, Josh, and we’d butted heads more times than I could count about past murder cases I’d been dragged into against my will by circumstance.
“Come on in, Chief. We’ve got fresh coffee, if you’re interested,” I said, trying to be as nice as I could manage.
He smiled slightly. “Normally I would say no, but to be honest with you, that sounds great to me. I’ve been up since dawn.”
“Come on back, then,” I said. Maybe he’d been so abrupt because he was exhausted and not because he was miffed with me. I could only hope, anyway.
We all walked back into the kitchen together, and I poured him a cup.
I asked, “Do you mind if I work while we talk? I have to prep this dough, or nobody’s going to be having pizza for lunch.”
“Go right ahead,” he said. I half expected him to pull out one of the barstools I kept there for company, but he just leaned against the wall as he took a long sip of coffee.
Maddy, at least for the moment, wasn’t saying a word, which I took as a favorable sign. Instead, she went back to her task of cutting peppers into thin slices. If it hadn’t been for the sound of the knife blade hitting the cutting board, I wouldn’t even have known that she was there at all.
“First off, I had them check for poison,” the chief said. “Like I thought, it was a dead end.”
I tried to smile. “Hey, it was still worth a shot.”
“I agree,” he said. “I appreciate the input.”
What was going on here? The chief of police was either in a spectacularly good mood, or he wanted something in return for his courtesy. Either way, I decided to push it while I had the chance. “Have you had any luck eliminating any suspects yet?”
He should have blown up about then if history was any indication, but he just shook his head. “Not yet. We have to work fast, too, because I can’t keep these out-of-towners here much longer without probable cause.” The chief took another sip of coffee, and then said, “Okay, let’s lay our cards out on the table. I know you’ve both been digging into Benet’s murder.”
Maddy was about to speak when I warned her off with a quick shake of my head. If we started an argument with Kevin right now, our information sharing was about to end. Thankfully, Maddy caught my glance, and silently went back to her peppers. I started measuring flour as I admitted, “It’s hard not to, when the poor man was murdered right out there,” gesturing to our dining area as I said it.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Eleanor. I’m not saying that I blame you for doing it this time,” Kevin said. He drained his coffee, and then asked, “As a matter of fact, I was kind of wondering if you’d uncovered anything yourselves.”
I had to hide my look of surprise, and Maddy didn’t even try.
Kevin Hurley shook his head when he saw my sister’s grin. “I know, it must sound crazy to you, but my back’s up against a wall, and I’m not dumb enough to not realize that folks around here confide in you and tell you things they keep from me.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” I said, though that wasn’t exactly true. Kevin had a way of threatening some people just by the way he spoke, and it was tough to be forthright when you were being intimidated.
He looked at me with those killer eyes of his, and I saw the old Kevin for just a second. “So, have you managed to uncover anything yet?”
I thought about keeping what I knew to myself, but I quickly dismissed the idea. I owed him the truth. It had to have been hard coming to me like that, and besides, if he found out later that I’d held out on him, he’d never trust me again. Frankly, there were times when I needed access to his information. The longer I thought about it, the harder it would be to tell him.
“Antonio Benet was Cindy Rankin’s father,” I said, blurting it out.
I don’t know who was more surprised that I’d shared the information, Maddy or the police chief.
“How in the world could you possibly know that?” Kevin asked.
“Janet told us late last night,” I admitted. “And Cindy backed it up.”
“No offense, but why would they tell you that?” Kevin asked.
Maddy pointed her knife at me. “Tell him, Eleanor. The truth is, she only came clean when my sister said that she’d already figured it out herself.”
Kevin looked at me with an impressed glance. “Wow. I didn’t have a clue. How did you manage to put it all together?”
I really had no choice but to explain. “We were talking to Oliver Wills at one point, and he said that Benet was here on business, but when I pressed him on it, he said it was more like family business. Cindy had told me earlier that Benet reached out to her when he learned that she was opening a bookstore, even though the man, for all intents and purposes, was a thoughtless toad. He had to have had a reason, and coupled with Cindy’s lack of a father, it all started to make sense.” “I don’t know,” Chief Hurley said as he shook his head. “It sounds kind of thin to me, to be honest with you.”
“It worked, though,” I said. “I was right.”
He put the mug down on the counter, and then asked, “Is there anything else I need to know?”
I shook my head. “Everybody involved had a motive, and there’s not an alibi among them, at least as far as we’ve been able to find out so far.”
Chief Hurley nodded. “Thanks for that. If one of you will let me out, I need to have a talk with Cindy and Janet Rankin.”
“I’d ask you not to tell them where you heard about it, but no one else knows,” I said as my sister and I led him out into the dining room. I’d most likely just lost two friends, and I wasn’t even certain that it had been for a good cause.
“I’ll try to keep your name out of it, but I can’t make any promises,” he said.
“Thanks, I do appreciate it, but the second you ask the first question, we both know that I’m a goner.”
“I see your point,” Kevin said as we all walked to the front door together, “but do me a favor and don’t call them and warn them that I’m coming. I want to get to them before they have time to come up with any stories.”
“Just because Benet was Cindy’s father doesn’t necessarily mean that either one of them killed him,” Maddy said.
“It doesn’t mean they didn’t, either.” Kevin paused before leaving. “Listen, I know how hard this must have been for you, Eleanor. Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”
“Trust me, I want Benet’s killer caught, too,” I said as I opened the door.
“Not as much as I do,” he replied.
After Chief Hurley was gone, I locked the door, afraid of what Maddy was going to say to me once we were alone again. I’d betrayed a confidence, but in my mind, I really hadn’t had a choice. If either Cindy or Janet was a murderess, I needed to help catch them. And if they were both innocent of the crime, I’d just have to realize that the loss of their friendships was collateral damage in a bigger war.
Instead of badgering me, though, Maddy went straight to her station and started chopping veggies again.
I had to break the ice myself. “Listen, I know you don’t approve of what I just did, but I didn’t have any choice.”
Maddy shook her head. “Stop jumping to conclusions, Eleanor, and relax. I’m not going to scold you. You’re right. There was nothing else that you could do.”
“You really understand?” I asked, the relief flooding through me.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I almost blurted it out myself just before you did.”
“You didn’t, though, did you?”
Maddy shook her head. “No, I figured Kevin wouldn’t approve our snooping.”
“Ordinarily, I would say that you probably figured right,” I said as I turned on the mixer and set the timer for the dough. “He was too nice today. I should have been on my guard more.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Maddy said. “We’ll find a way to make it right with Janet and Cindy when this is all over. It’ll all work out in the end.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
By the time Maddy, Greg, and I were ready to open the Slice at noon, I’d pushed to the back of my mind the fact that I’d told Chief Hurley about Cindy and Janet Rankin, but when I saw the mother and daughter standing outside as I approached the front door to unlock it, I knew that I’d have to deal with them sooner rather than later.
Instead of letting them in, I stepped outside after I unlocked the door and faced them both.
“I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, hoping to take some of the steam out of them preemptively. “But I really didn’t have any choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Eleanor,” Janet said sternly. “You betrayed our trust.”
“I never promised I wouldn’t say anything,” I reminded her.
“I never dreamed you’d blab it to the police, either,” Janet said.
“Hang on one second,” I said. “If you think about it, I just did you both a favor. You should be thanking me, instead of coming down here to scold me.”
Cindy looked mad enough to spit. “Eleanor Swift, how in the world can you possibly say that?”
“Think about it,” I said, keeping my voice steady and level. “The chief knows all about it now, so he’ll investigate. It’s out in the open, though, so nobody can hold this over your heads. The only way to kill a secret and the chance to be blackmailed is to put it all out there in the full light of day and let the chips fall where they may.” I knew that I sounded like a cliché even as I’d said it, but I still hadn’t been able to stop myself.
“Is that what you do with your own secrets?” Janet asked pointedly. “Because I don’t recall you making any public declarations recently.”
The thought of that really surprised me. “Janet, I don’t have any secrets, and I haven’t in a very long time.”
“How can you be so sure about that?” she asked in a sinister way.
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Was there a point she was trying to make, or was she just lashing out at me because of what I’d told the police?
“I imagine you’ll be as shocked as everyone else when I expose you to the world, then,” Janet said. As the mother and daughter turned away, Janet looked back and said, “Don’t take it badly when it gets back to you, though. Honestly, you should just realize that I’m doing you the same kind of favor that you did for me today.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and as I turned to go back into the Slice, I saw that Greg and Maddy had followed me outside. It was pretty evident that they’d been standing there the entire time, and I hadn’t had a clue that they’d witnessed the odd exchange.
“So what’s the big secret, Eleanor?” Maddy asked with a grin.
“Yeah, I could use a little dirt to brighten my day,” Greg added.
“I honestly don’t know what she thinks she has on me,” I admitted, still puzzled by her open threat.
“Now I’m even more curious than ever,” Maddy said. “What are you going to do about it?”
I shrugged as I said, “I thought I’d open the doors to the public and make some pizza. How does that sound?”
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