Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder (18 page)

“Of course you did,” I said.

“I warned you it might be late.”

I stared at the clock until I could get the numbers in focus. It was five-fifteen, and the sky outside was still cloaked in darkness. “That’s fine, I asked you to call me. Is he out yet?”

“No, that’s going to take a little time. He should be out in time for lunch, though.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

Bob said curtly, “It’s the best anyone can do, and I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a little credit here.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Did you get to see him?”

“For about two minutes, long enough for him to hire me officially. You owe me a dollar, by the way. I had to loan him one.”

“Gladly,” I said. “How was he? Was he scared?”

“I think he was angry, more than anything else,” Bob said. “He’s ready to take on the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home and take a shower and change. I’ve suddenly got a busy morning ahead of me.”

“Thanks for doing this, Bob.”

“For you and Maddy? I’d do anything for the two of you, and you know it.” He chuckled softly as he added, “Not that I’m not going to bill you for my time. I’ll give you my best rate, though.”

“Any break you can give me will be greatly appreciated,” I said. “I’d better call Maddy and tell her what you’ve told me.”

There was a silence, and then he said, “Actually, I just spoke with her. She called me earlier and made me promise I’d call her first.”

“Hey, as long as I’m somewhere there in the loop, I’m a happy gal.”

After we hung up, I debated getting up and starting my day, but I had nearly two hours left before my alarm clock went off, so I decided to take full advantage of it and go back to sleep if I could manage it.

To my surprise, it turned out that I could.

Maddy was at my front door before the coffee was even ready. As I let her inside, I asked, “Did we plan to get together first thing this morning?”

“I haven’t been able to sleep since Bob called me.” She looked at me carefully. “You did, though, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” I said as I yawned loudly.

“How could you, with Greg sitting in jail?”

I poured myself a cup of coffee and took the first sip. It was the one I cherished every morning, and sometimes the only thing that could blast me out of my bed. “I couldn’t help him then, any more than I can now.”

“You haven’t changed your mind about him, have you?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. I know Greg would never steal from me. It had to be Wade.” Maddy yawned. “Do you want some coffee?”

She nodded, so I poured her a cup as well. Maybe it would settle her nerves, though I doubted anything short of a tranquilizer could do that this morning. After taking a healthy sip, she said, “I can’t believe how calm you’re being about this.”

“Bob is taking care of it, so there’s really nothing we can do for Greg at the moment. The only way we can help him is find out who really murdered his brother.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“We go talk to Roger Henderson,” I said. “Art said he’d be a good place to start digging.”

Maddy shook her head. “You’re taking tips from criminals now?”

“If it will help Greg, I’d use information from anyone, Art Young included. The accountant wasn’t very honest with us the last time we spoke to him, was he?”

“No,” Maddy said as she finished the coffee. “But I don’t feel right just ignoring Greg like this.”

“Then go have yourself a vigil at the jail if it will make you feel any better,” I said. “I’m going to talk to Roger.”

“Of course, you’re right. I’ll come with you,” Maddy said.

We drove to the strip mall where Roger Henderson’s office was located, and I was surprised to see a pair of black sedans parked out front.

“That doesn’t look good,” I said as I got out of my sister’s car.

“What do you mean?”

“Check the plates.”

She did as I instructed, then whistled softly under her breath. “Government tags. How’d you pick up on that?”

“I don’t miss much,” I said.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

We approached the front door and walked into the office. Roger Henderson was at his desk, but he wasn’t alone. A large man in a navy blue suit sat on one side of him, and a prim-looking woman in equally drab attire sat at Roger’s station. They all looked up at us when we walked in.

“Sorry, we’re closed for business,” Roger said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Who are these women?” the man asked Roger.

“We’re friends of his former employee, Wade Hatcher,” Maddy said, which was at least as big a lie as I’d ever told myself.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to leave immediately,” the woman said. “This isn’t any concern of yours.”

There wasn’t really much we could do after that. Maddy and I left, but as we approached our car, Roger called out to us.

We came back to him, where he stood just outside his door. “I told them I needed a cigarette break. They don’t have to know I quit smoking three years ago, even though this mess makes me want to light up again every time I think about it.”

“What happened?”

“One of my clients called the feds, and they decided to do a surprise audit first thing this morning. I can’t believe what they’ve found already. Wade was stealing from my customers, and I didn’t even catch it. I’m looking like a real idiot in there.”

“What’s going to happen to you?”

He looked startled by my question. “You know what? I never even thought about it. I’ll lose the business—that much is pretty certain. But I didn’t do anything wrong other than trust the wrong man. They’ll have to see that.” He looked back at his office, and then he said, “I had to get out of there, but I’d better get back. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

“Good luck,” Maddy said.

“Thanks, I’m going to need it,” Roger said.

After he went inside, we got back into Maddy’s car. As she started to drive, I said softly, “It’s awfully convenient that Wade is dead, isn’t it?”

Maddy nearly drove off the road before she corrected her course. “Convenient for who, exactly?”

“Roger Henderson,” I replied.

“It didn’t look all that convenient to me back there.”

“Think about it, Maddy. With Wade gone, Roger can blame every single embezzlement on him, and who’s to say Roger wasn’t the one stealing all of that money in the first place?”

“Eleanor, you have an active imagination this morning,” Maddy said.

“You have to admit that it’s a possibility,” I said. “He could have stolen the money from his customers, made it look like Wade did it, and after that, he killed his scapegoat. In a twisted kind of way, it makes perfect sense.”

Maddy must have been thinking about it as she drove toward downtown. As we neared our usual parking spot behind the Slice, she finally said, “I hate to admit it, but I can see it. Sis, you’ve got a skewed way of looking at the world.”

“I just know people’s actions don’t always mirror our impressions of them.”

“Then we need to dig into Roger Henderson’s life a little.”

“I agree,” I said. “But since we’re here, why don’t we get an early start on the day?” It was a full twenty minutes before we had to be at the Slice, and I had to admit, it would be nice to get a jump on things.

“Why not? I can’t think of anything better to do.”

As I unlocked the front door of the pizzeria, I heard the telephone ringing. Maddy walked in behind me and said, “I’d ignore it, if I were you.”

“I can’t do that, and you know it.” I had a tough time letting any phone ring unanswered, though it wasn’t the most convenient obsession I could have had.

“A Slice of Delight,” I said as I grabbed the phone.

“I didn’t think you were ever going to answer your phone,” a familiar voice said, though I couldn’t place the woman calling me.

“We’re not even due to start for another twenty minutes,” I said.

“You don’t know who this is, do you?”

“Not a clue,” I said. I hated playing guessing games, maybe because I was usually so bad at it.

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line, and I suddenly knew who it was. “I take that back. How are you doing, Emma?”

Emma Corbin worked at the courthouse in the small clerk of courts office that housed every department that covered the legal paperwork in Timber Ridge. She also happened to be a pizza lover, and had been lobbying me for months to have a karaoke night at the Slice, something I’d steadfastly refused even to consider. I liked atmosphere, but that was a little too much for my taste.

“I’m doing fine,” she said, “at least better than you are. Listen, you’d better get over to the courthouse right away.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

She lowered her voice, “I can’t say over the phone—someone just walked in—but it relates to Wade Hatcher’s murder, and I know you’re looking into it.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that Timber Ridge is a small town. Not much goes on around here that I don’t know.” She hesitated, then added, “Trust me, Eleanor. It would be worth your time to come.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” I said.

After I hung up, Maddy asked, “What was that all about?”

“Don’t start prepping anything yet. We’re going out again,” I said.

“Good, I was getting tired of being here so long,” she said as she winked at me.

Once we were outside, Maddy started toward her car, when I put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no need to drive. We’re walking.”

“For exercise?” she asked incredulously. My sister’s idea of working out was opening the top of a half-gallon of ice cream.

“No, don’t worry, you won’t have to break a sweat. We’re going to the town hall to talk to Emma Corbin. She’s got some information about Wade Hatcher.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Maddy said as we started off. “Emma knows a little something about just about everything. Did she give you any idea what it might be?”

“I think she was going to, but someone walked in. I can’t help wondering what it could be.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Maddy and I walked across the brick-lined promenade, through the parking lot, and across the street to city hall. There were plantings out front, and the ancient brick building’s trim sported a fresh coat of paint. We didn’t go in through the beautiful oak doors in front, though, bypassing them for a dingy little entrance into the basement in front where the city and county records were kept.

There was a huge counter near the entrance, and most of it was covered with rolled maps, books of different registries, and just about any other kind of document you could ever want. It was tough spotting Emma behind the desk, but not just because of the piles of material. She was barely five feet tall, and if she weighed a hundred pounds, I’d give up donuts and pizza for a year, neither of which was about to happen.

“Good, you’re here,” Emma said as she moved down the counter toward us.

“What’s so urgent?” I asked. There wasn’t much time for pleasantries. Not only did we need to get back to the Slice soon, but I doubted we’d have the place to ourselves for very long.

“Clara Hatcher was just here. She filed this with our probate department.”

I glanced at the document. “Should you be showing me this?”

Emma smiled. “Once it’s registered, it becomes public information.”

I nodded. “I’ll look at it as long as I’m not getting you in trouble.”

“Trust me, I’d never do anything to jeopardize my job,” she said. “I love it here too much.”

I looked around the basement with its massive disorder, lack of any windows, and harsh fluorescent lights, and then said, “Who wouldn’t?”

That got a laugh. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s my domain, and believe it or not, I know where everything is.”

Maddy smiled. “I don’t see how.”

“Try me. Go ahead, I’m game.”

“We don’t have time for that,” I said as I picked up a copy of the document she was so eager for us to see. It was a simple will for Wade Livingston Hatcher, and it left everything to his mother, Clara.

“I’m not surprised he left everything to his mother,” I said.

Emma tapped the document. “Now look at the date.”

I did as she asked, and saw that the will had just been written ten days earlier. “That’s quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Emma shook her head. “No, what’s odd is that ten minutes after Clara left, someone else walked in with a will that was written two months ago. Want to guess who the beneficiary was on that one?”

“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted.

As she slid another document in front of me, she said, “Sandi Meadows, Wade’s old girlfriend, is the sole beneficiary on this one. She got it all, and from the way she walked in here, she thought she had it made. You should have seen the look on her face when I told her about Clara’s version of the will.”

“What did she say?”

“She said it was a fake,” Emma said. “I don’t think so myself—the signatures both match—but when there’s a dispute, we kick it upstairs. If I were betting on it, I’d say Clara’s version of the will is going to hold up.”

I thought about it for a second. “If Sandi didn’t know about the new will, she might have gotten rid of Wade to get to his money.”

“More important, she’d get her hands on the money left to Greg and Wade by their grandparents.”

Maddy said, “That hasn’t been cleared up yet.”

Emma frowned. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but the rumor is that Wade signed the agreement the afternoon he died. The estate was as good as settled, and he was going to get half of everything as soon as the probate was finished.”

“Did Greg know his brother signed off on it?”

Emma looked puzzled. “I would assume so, wouldn’t you? Maybe he didn’t know yet, if his attorney hasn’t told him. That would explain why no one’s filed it with me yet, wouldn’t it?”

“Hang on a second,” I said. “What would have happened if Wade had died before he’d settled the estate with Greg?”

Emma grinned. “That’s the question I’ve been wondering about myself. It depends on the original wording of the document, but most likely, if Wade had died without signing the settlement, Greg would have gotten everything. As it stands now, I’m guessing that if Wade really did sign the settlement agreement, it’s part of his estate.”