Tomato Basil Murder: Book 7 in The Darling Deli Series (12 page)

“Because she seems so nice, and it would completely crush her if her son was a murderer.”

David nodded and put his hand over hers for a moment, giving it a comforting squeeze before releasing it.

“We’ll find the truth, whatever it is,” he said. “That’s the best we can do.”

They heard voices, then a few seconds later a young man came downstairs. Moira recognized him from the deli the week before, and she felt relief at the fact that they had at least found the right house. Her eyes went to his wrist, where he still wore the gold watch.

“What’s going on?” Benjamin asked, looking between them sleepily. “I was taking a nap.”

“We have some questions to ask you about a murder,” David said. The young man’s face paled.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said immediately. “Are you cops?”

“I’m a private investigator,” David responded calmly. “Do you mind answering a few questions?”

“If I talk to you, does that mean I don’t have to talk to the cops?” Benjamin asked warily.

“Maybe.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?” he said reluctantly.

“Where did you get that watch?” Moira asked, her eyes glued to his wrist.

“This? I found it, I swear.” He unclasped it and tossed it to her. “You can have it. I didn’t kill no one for it, you can hook me up to a lie detector if you want. I’m telling the truth.”

Her fingers shaking, Moira inspected the watch. She gasped when she saw Mike’s name inscribed on the back.

“It’s his,” she whispered, raising her eyes to meet David’s. “It’s Mike’s watch.”

“Where did you find it?” David asked, turning to the boy, his voice hard now.

“It was just on the road, in that ditch next to the sidewalk,” he mumbled. “It’s not like I was stealing it, ya know?”

Moira wasn’t sure she agreed with the boy’s logic, but she couldn’t help but be glad that he had found it. He might be able to lead them to the person who had killed Mike, or at least point them in the right direction.

“Can you show us?” she asked.

“What, now?” he asked. “It’s like, almost ten.”

“Do you have plans?” David asked, raising his eyebrows. The kid sighed.

“I guess not,” he said. “You gotta drive, though. My truck belongs to the company I work for, and I’m not supposed to use it for personal stuff.”

Ben guided them out of the neighborhood and towards a more familiar part of town. They weren’t that far from Moira’s old street when he had them pull the car over.

“It was around here,” he said. They got out of the car and followed him down the road. He paused by a storm drain. “Yeah, right here, I think.”

“Do you remember anything else?” David asked while Moira looked around. “Did you see anyone that might have dropped it?”

“No,” he said. “It was dark, and still kind of wet from that huge storm. I don’t think anyone else was out at all.”

“All right.” The private investigator sighed. “Thanks for your help. We’ll give you a ride home.”

Once they had dropped Benjamin off, Moira and David sat together in his car for a few minutes to try and figure out what to do next.

“Knowing where he found the watch doesn’t really help us much,” she said. “Anyone could have dropped it, or even thrown it out of a car window to try to get us off their trail.”

“I know it isn’t very comforting, but at least we know who it isn’t,” he pointed out. “We won’t be wasting our time trying to find this guy anymore.”

“I guess.” Moira turned the watch around in her hands. “You should probably keep this, for now anyway,” she told him. “I wouldn’t want the police to find me with it. They would probably toss me in jail right away.”

“I doubt they would do that, but it would definitely look incriminating,” he agreed, accepting the watch.

“Did they ever interview you?” she asked, curious. “You must have been a person of interest too, since Detective Jefferson knows you and I are close. Mike was my ex-husband, after all. Jealousy is a motive, right?”

“He did call me, but I was out of town that weekend, remember?” he said. “Once I emailed him a copy of my plane and conference tickets, he was satisfied.”

“That’s good. I wish he would see that
I’m
innocent as well.” Moira sighed. “These past two weeks have been terrible. Between Candice losing her father, me being a suspect in his murder investigation, and Maverick being poisoned… I don’t even know what to expect next.”

“Things will turn around,” He promised her. “You should get home and get some sleep. Things will look different in the light of a new day.”

Deciding to take David’s advice a bit more literally than he had probably meant it, Moira woke up early the next morning and made her way back to the street where Benjamin had found the watch. She knew it was just a hunch, but she couldn’t help feeling that there was something important about the scene that she was missing.

Her hunch turned out to be a good one. In the light of day, she recognized the road that Benjamin had directed them to the night before. It was the same road that Martha lived on, and the coincidence struck Moira strongly. Was it possible that Mike’s killer was stalking her friends as well? First Maverick, and then this… she was beginning to feel certain there was a connection.

Crouching by the storm drain, Moira looked both directions, trying to determine which way was up hill. What direction had the water flowed during the storm? It was hard to tell, but she thought the road leading towards her friend’s house was uphill, meaning the water would have flowed from that direction. Considering how heavy the rain had been, she had no doubt the flow could have carried the watch down to the drain, where it had likely gotten caught up on whatever branches or leaves had been there.

Did the killer intend to leave the watch in front of Martha’s house as some sort of warning?
she wondered.
If so, a warning for who?
She couldn’t see what Martha might have to do with Mike. The other woman certainly hadn’t been involved in the divorce, and she and Moira weren’t even friends at the time.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this,
she thought. Maybe it really was just a coincidence. She sighed and checked her phone. She had just enough time to go home and let Maverick out, then get to the deli for her shift. She could call Martha in the car and ask her if she had seen anything suspicious the night of the storm.

“Nope, nothing,” her friend said. “Though if there had been someone outside my house, I doubt I would have seen them, even if they were standing right by my window. Between the wind and the rain, I couldn’t see a thing. I was just glad the power didn’t go out.”

“Thanks. There probably wasn’t anyone there,” Moira said, not wanting to freak her friend out unnecessarily. “How are you doing?”

“Good. Beverly just left, and I’ve already got my next guest scheduled. I’ve just got to change the sheets and do some vacuuming, and I’ll be all set.” She continued talking, but Moira wasn’t listening.
Beverly,
she thought.
Oh, how could I be so stupid?

“Martha,” she said, interrupting her friend. “Do you know Beverly’s last name?”

“Oh, yeah… let me see…” Moira heard papers being pushed around. “It was Addison,” Martha said at last. “Beverly Addison.”

“Thanks.” Moira hung up and dialed another number. Hopefully just the woman’s name would be enough for David to go on, because if Beverly was on her way to the airport, she could be gone in a matter of hours.

It all makes sense,
she thought, thrilled with the rush of solving the case as all of the clues came together.
They’re both from California, first of all. And the way she acted when I talked about Mike at the coffee date was definitely suspicious. It would also explain the wine, and why he had let her into the hotel room.
Moira guessed that her husband would have been more than happy to let his unexpected guest in, even if he had been a bit surprised to see her. He was never one to turn away the company of a pretty woman.
But why would she want to kill him?
she wondered.
And why try to hurt my dog?

She was so distracted by her thoughts that when a furry blur raced in front of her car as she was pulling into her apartment complex, she nearly hit it. She stomped on the brakes, and the car stopped just inches from Maverick’s happy face.

“What on earth are you doing out?” she asked, hurrying to unbuckle her seatbelt and get out of the car. She breathed a sigh of relief when she managed to grab his collar before he got a chance to dash into the road. She had no idea how the dog had managed to get into so much trouble in the last few days.

“I must have left the door open,” she muttered as she put him in the backseat. She was angry with herself; she shouldn’t have let herself get so distracted by the case that she endangered her dog’s life, and it had happened twice now. If she hadn’t been looking at her phone the other night when he ate the hot dog, she might have realized what was going on and been able to stop him.

Surprisingly, her front door was closed when she pulled up to her apartment building.
Maybe someone from maintenance stopped by and Maverick slipped out
, she thought. If that was the case, she would have to call the front desk and complain. If one of their employees had accidentally let her dog out, she should have been notified immediately.

Her annoyance only increased when she dropped her keys as she was trying to unlock the door. This day just wasn’t going well for her. It was with a feeling of relief that she finally got the door open, shooed the dog inside, then stepped inside herself and shut the door behind her. She turned the coffee machine’s warmer on, then poured some kibble in Maverick’s bowl.

“Eat quickly,” she told him. “We’re going to have time for a quick walk before work. We’ll leave just as soon as I change my clothes.”

She left him to his meal and made her way down the hallway to the bedroom. The blinds were still drawn, so she flipped on the light. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but when she realized that there was a woman sitting on her bed, she screamed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beverly said, calmly examining her nails. Moira’s largest kitchen knife was on the bed beside her. “This isn’t a horror movie. Sit down, let’s talk.” She patted the bed. Moira just stared.

“What are you doing here?” she managed to ask.

“What do you think? I want what’s mine,” the other woman said.

“Do you mean the watch?” Moira asked, her heart pounding as she tried to think of escape options. Was there anything stopping her from just running out the way she had come?

“Oh, you found that, did you?” Beverly asked, her eyes lighting up with interest. “I wondered what happened to it. I must have dropped it somewhere.”

“I found it, but I don’t have it with me. I can go get it for you if you like.”

“I’m not stupid,” the blonde woman said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not going anywhere. And I don’t want the watch anyway. It’s just a trinket. I want my money.”

“Your money?” Moira asked, utterly confused. “I don’t have any money, and surely not any of yours.”

“Oh, but you do,” the woman said slyly. “Or, you will.”

Suddenly Moira understood. Beverly wanted Mike’s life insurance money. She remembered the woman’s interest when she talked about it with Denise and Martha a few days ago, and mentally cursed herself. How could she have been so stupid? She should have kept her mouth shut.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why do you think the insurance money should be yours?” Biding for time had served her well before, hopefully it would work this time too. No matter how petite and harmless the other woman looked, she was a dangerous killer and Moira knew she had to tread carefully.

“Because I’m Mike’s girlfriend, silly. We were going to get married.” She sighed. “If only you hadn’t come along and messed it up.”

“Mike told me you two broke up a while ago,” Moira said. She immediately regretted her words. The other woman’s face twisted in anger.

“That’s not true!” she shouted, making Moira jump. “We just had a little fight.”

“If it was just a little fight, then why would you kill him?” she asked, trying to be reasonable. She hoped the other woman wouldn’t notice that she was slowly backing towards the bedroom door.

“Fine, you’re right.” The other woman heaved a sigh and stood up, grabbing the knife casually in her right hand. Moira froze. “I killed him because the jerk left me. He was supposed to marry me, and give me the life I wanted. I figured if he didn’t want to spend his life with me, I could at least get something from all the time I wasted with him.” She glared at the deli owner. “The life insurance was supposed to be in
my
name. He told me he got it so I wouldn’t be left with nothing if something happened to him. So that money should be
mine.”

“You can have it,” Moira promised. “If I do end up getting it, I’ll give you all of it. Please, just calm down.”

“I’m blonde, not an idiot,” the woman said. “The second I take my eyes off of you, you’re going to go running to the police, isn’t that right? No, I need to make it look like
you
killed him.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife, and began to read.