Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder (10 page)

“It was difficult to miss,” the older woman said. “I won’t use her language, since I don’t speak like that, but the essence of her diatribe was focused on Wade’s shortcomings in his faithfulness to her.”

“Anything threatening, specifically?” I asked.

“She said she’d see him dead before he went out with that tramp, which I assumed at the time was a reference to the redhead. I must say, there was entirely too much excitement around here for my taste.”

“It should quiet down some now,” I said, not meaning to be harsh.

She nodded. “Fair enough. I stand corrected. I know it’s not acceptable to speak ill of the dead.”

Maddy shot me a harsh look, then turned back to the former teacher. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

Mrs. Searing took a final sip of her tea, then shook her head as she said, “Sorry, no. I’d love to chat, but those flowers aren’t going to transplant themselves.”

Maddy hugged her as we all stood. “It was great seeing you again.”

“As it was seeing you,” she said. Mrs. Searing put her hand out, and I shook it, not at all surprised by the strength of her grip.

“Come again anytime.”

After we were gone, I put the pen back in the clipboard. “I told you that would work.”

We both started laughing as we walked to the Subaru.

Maddy asked, “Is there any reason to talk to anyone else?”

“I’d say we should talk to the rest of his neighbors. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky again.”

It was not to be, though. The older man on the other side of Wade’s house hadn’t seen anything, heard anything, and didn’t want to get involved. No one else around was home, so the rest of our canvass turned out to be a wash.

“So,” Maddy said, “where do we go from here?”

“The main person I want to speak to now is Sandi Meadows. There’s a problem, though. I don’t know how to find her.”

“Let me make a quick call. I might be able to help.”

Maddy pulled out her cell phone, dialed a number by heart, and then turned away from me as she held a whispered conversation. As she talked, I looked around at the houses surrounding us. From all outward appearances, it was a quiet little block, one any family would be delighted to live in. But it had secrets of its own, and not just the shouting neighbors next door. One of their own had been murdered last night, though not at home, and it appeared that the rest of the world would go on as if nothing had happened. Everyone here seemed to be insulated in their own world. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that it wasn’t so much a neighborhood as it was a series of separate lives, barely touching each other. Soon enough, a
FOR SALE
sign would no doubt take its place in the yard, and someone else would move in. There was a continuity to it that gave me little hope, a feeling tinged with an underlying sadness that, for better or for worse, Wade Hatcher would be forgotten soon enough. I wondered if after I died if whoever bought my Craftsman-style bungalow would wonder about who had lived there before, or who might have painstakingly restored it to all its glory. My late husband, Joe, had once said that as long as the house we’d rehabbed together stood, a part of us both would remain alive in the world.

But when there was no one left who remembered us, it would be as if we’d never been born at all.

“Why so sad?” Maddy asked as she looked over at me after she’d finished her telephone conversation.

I ignored her question, not because I didn’t want to answer it, but because I had no idea how to, without sounding so gloomy and introspective. “Did you have any luck tracking Sandi down?”

Maddy nodded. “She works part-time at Plusters Fine Clothing, but she just took her lunch break, and odds are that she’s at Brian’s Grill. Funny thing, though. My source said she left the store with a guy. It didn’t take her long to replace Wade, did it?”

“Who’s this source of yours?” I asked as we headed for my car.

“If I told you that, I’d be breaking my word,” she said. “Just take it as the truth. Come on, we’d better hurry if we want to catch her.”

I did as I was told, and drove quickly to the short-order grill that was on the outskirts of town. I wanted to size Miss Meadows up for myself, and I was dying to see who had replaced Wade so quickly in Sandi’s life.

It was easy enough to spot her. I saw Sandi Meadows the second Maddy and I walked into Brian’s Grill. The café was a dive on the edge of town that had a much more eclectic customer base than I did, one of the reasons I envied its owner, Mark Deacon. The place had a plain concrete floor painted battleship gray, booths from the fifties covered with dull red vinyl, and a paint job on the walls that had last been spruced up sometime two decades ago. Mark had inherited the place from his dad, the original Brian, who’d been quite a local character in Timber Ridge. Mark had gotten a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina, graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, then came back home to take over the grill when his father died suddenly. Many folks thought he was wasting a great deal of talent and ability, but Mark had to be the happiest man I’d ever known, and that had to count for something. Mark was a great guy who had a thirst for knowledge that was strong and constantly being fed by his love of books.

The owner himself greeted me near the door. “Come to scout out the competition?” he asked me with a grin.

I looked around and smiled. “There’s no competition here.”

“You got that right.”

I tapped the book in his hand and saw that one finger was marking his place. “What are you reading these days?”

He held it up for me to see:
The Impact of Social and Economic Derivatives of Postmodern Imperialism.

“Well, it looked interesting when I checked it out,” he said with a smile.

“I can’t imagine how,” I laughed.

“You know me—I like a little of this, a little of that.” He marked his place with a sheet from an order pad, and then put the book aside. “What brings you to the grill?” Then he must have realized the only reason Maddy and I wouldn’t be at the pizzeria. “That’s a pretty stupid question, isn’t it? Sorry about what happened last night.”

“Thanks.” What more could I say to that? “It’s tough, for a lot of reasons.”

“Any idea when the police will release your place?”

I shrugged. “I’m hoping I’ll be able to open back up tomorrow.”

Mark nodded. “So, in the meantime, you decided to grace my place with your presence. I’m honored, ladies.”

“You should be,” Maddy said.

Mark took Maddy’s hand in his, and, I swear, he kissed it.

She reddened with a slight blush that I hadn’t seen in many years, though my sister didn’t protest his attention.

“Maddy, you get lovelier every time I see you.”

“It defies nature, doesn’t it?” she replied.

“If you two don’t mind, I’m going to find us a table,” I said as I shook my head.

They both laughed at me. They were clearly sharing an inside joke that I wasn’t privy to, but I hadn’t come to Brian’s to have my ego stroked. It was a good thing, too, since there was none of that coming in my direction.

Mark said, “Take any booth that’s free. I’ll send somebody over in a second to take your order.”

As Maddy and I moved toward an empty table beside Sandi and her lunch companion—a young man I recognized as Jamie Lowder—I asked Maddy, “What was that all about?”

“Mark and I like to joke around,” she said. “It’s nothing more than that.”

“Come on, I saw the way you blushed. It’s something.”

She waved a hand in the air, dismissing my comment. “Let’s forget about the past and focus on the task at hand, shall we?”

I nodded, vowing to bring it up again later. I wasn’t about to let my sister get away with anything, especially given the way she liked to tease me mercilessly with much less ammunition.

I pretended to spot Sandi Meadows as we walked by her table. Putting on an air of sympathy, I said, “Sandi, you’re so brave being seen out in public like this so soon after what happened.”

We were closer to her now, and I could see that she’d been crying recently. At least she was showing some emotion, for whatever it was worth. I added a little softer, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she said as she dabbed at her cheeks.

“Don’t worry about Sandi. She’s a champ. She’s going to be fine,” Jamie said.

“I don’t doubt it,” I answered. “Still, it has to be difficult losing your boyfriend in such dire circumstances.”

“They weren’t dating anymore,” Jamie said, with an edge to his voice that I hadn’t expected. “The two of them broke up weeks ago.”

Maddy said, “Gosh, Jamie. I didn’t realize you were her spokes-person. Does the job pay anything, or do you do it for free?”

Leave it to Maddy to poke a stick into the hornet’s nest.

Jamie snapped, “She’s my friend. It’s my right to protect her.”

“And a fine job you’re doing,” Maddy said. “Since you’re so gallant, we have a few heavy cases in the back of our car. Would you mind bringing them into the diner for us? It would mean a free pizza for you later.”

Jamie was notoriously cheap, and at the offer of free food, he quickly abandoned his post. “Sure, I can do that.” Before he got up, he looked at Sandi and asked, “Are you going to be all right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I can manage,” she said.

Maddy winked at me, grabbed my car keys, and then Jamie followed her out of the grill. I had three minutes to ask questions without Jamie interfering, and I planned to take full advantage of it. Sometimes my sister was absolutely brilliant. There were no cases in the back of my car to be unloaded, and I was sure that Maddy would express her surprise and disappointment when she discovered she’d “forgotten” them back at the pizzeria.

I slid onto the seat Jamie had just vacated. I had to work fast if I was going to get my questions in before he returned. “It must be terrible losing Wade that way.”

“Murder’s a horrible thing,” she said softly.

“Especially after the fight you two had last night,” I replied. “You must have been the last person to see him alive.”

Her head snapped up as she stared at me. “What are you talking about? Wade and I never fought.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what I heard. A friend of mine was driving by Wade’s place last night and he saw you slap him, and then he heard you screaming at Wade on the front lawn. From what I heard, you were using some pretty stiff language, and you threatened him, too.”

“He was kissing that skank Katy Johnson,” Sandi said, the grieving ex-girlfriend gone for a second to be replaced by a woman fully scorned. “He deserved it.”

“To be murdered?”

“Of course not, but I had every right to yell at him. He shouldn’t have messed around with her, and I made sure he knew it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and then she added, “I didn’t want him to die, though. I had nothing to do with it.”

I nodded. Glancing out the window, I could see Maddy pretend to search for the proper key, but I wasn’t sure how long she could keep that up before Jamie got suspicious.

“You’re a real saint,” I said. “Are you trying to tell me that it was an act of compassion, smacking him like that where everyone could see it?”

“Sure, I slapped his face, but I wouldn’t hit him with a rolling pin. I wouldn’t have been able to, even if I’d wanted. I’m not that strong.”

“You know, it’s amazing what you can do if you’re running on emotion.”

“Are you accusing me of killing him, Eleanor?” Her voice had gotten louder, and I noticed that most of the folks in the diner were listening in on us.

There was a deadly look in Sandi’s eyes, and though we were in a fairly crowded place in broad daylight—not to mention the fact that I outweighed her by at least forty pounds—I felt a little nervous.

“I’m not accusing you of anything at the moment, but people will talk, and right now, you’re the subject of conversation. It’s easy to stop it, though. Just tell me where you were last night, and I’ll make sure everyone knows you couldn’t have done it.”

“She was with me,” Jamie said, surprising me by his sudden proximity. I’d been so focused on watching Sandi’s reactions to my line of questioning that I’d forgotten all about him.

“Is that true?” I asked her.

Sandi never got the chance to respond.

Jamie snapped, “I just told you, didn’t I? Now get up, you’re in my seat.”

All pretense of politeness was gone.

I did as he asked, and then turned to Sandi. “If that’s a lie, trust me, we’re going to find out.”

Sandi stood abruptly and left the grill without looking back, though Jamie gave us enough glares to more than make up for the deficit.

“Should we follow them?” Maddy asked.

“No, I think it’s time to give them some space. I’m not sure how much further I should push Sandi until I have more evidence. I saw something in her eyes that scared me a little, and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

Maddy nodded. “I don’t have any trouble believing that. I hope that was the right thing, getting Jamie away so you could question Sandi alone. I didn’t have a chance to check with you first.”

“Actually, it was brilliant,” I said.

Maddy looked to see if I was being serious or sarcastic, and when she saw that the praise was genuine, she smiled at me. “I have my moments.”

Outside, we watched as Sandi and Jamie raced out of the parking lot. A second later, Mark approached us.

“Are you two going to order, or are you still busy running my customers off?”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “She didn’t like talking to me.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” he said as he removed the plates of half-eaten food and wiped the table down. “What can I get you two?”

I looked at Maddy, and then I said, “Well, we do have to eat somewhere. It might as well be here.”

“Be still, my heart. I can’t take that much open praise,” Mark said.

“Quit fishing for compliments,” Maddy said. “You know we like your food.”

He just smiled as he slid two menus in front of us.

After Mark was gone, I asked Maddy, “Are you seriously not going to tell me what that’s all about?”