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

Candice’s on-again, off-again boyfriend glared at her for a moment until he realized who she was. Immediately, his face relaxed slightly and a strained smile appeared on his lips.

“Sorry, Ms. Darling. I didn’t realize you were here,” he said.

“What exactly is going on?” She peered around him to make sure her daughter was okay. Candice’s face was red with anger, but her eyes were dry. She crossed her arms and stared at Adrian with pursed lips.

“Candice and I were just, erm… discussing… the schedule for opening the candy shop. I think it would be best to have the grand opening before kids start going back to school in September,” he told her.

“And
I
told
you
that I’m going to take as much time as I need to grieve for my father,” Candice snapped. Adrian raised his hands in evident surrender.

“I was just trying to help,” he said.

Moira stood next to her daughter as he said goodbye and left, trying to keep her own anger from showing on her face. Who was Adrian to pressure her daughter to do anything? The candy shop was Candice’s business, not his, and as far as Moira was concerned, he didn’t need to be involved with it at all.

“Sorry, Mom,” the young woman said once her boyfriend was gone. “Adrian told me he wanted to talk, and I didn’t know it would take this long. I meant to meet you upstairs.”

“It’s fine, sweetie. I don’t like the way he was talking to you, though,” she said, following her daughter out of the candy shop and up the stairs to her apartment. “He should respect your need for space and time. Losing a parent is hard.”

“He’s just business minded,” Candice said with a shrug. “And he
is
right. It would be better to have our grand opening before school starts again in Lake Marion. Kids will be our main customers, and if we don’t open until fall or winter, we’ll lose out on a lot of business.”

“I think you should do what feels right to
you.
” Moira bent down to grab the pizzas, then straightened up and followed her daughter into the apartment. “Take care of yourself first. You won’t be able to run a business well if you’re distracted.”

“I want to wait until they find whoever killed Dad,” Candice told her, flinching slightly as she said the words as if saying it made it more real. “But I know that could be months, or years, or even never.”

Hearing her daughter talk about the murder case reminded Moira why she was there. How would Candice react when she heard that the main suspect the police had was herself? She hoped her daughter wouldn’t give up hope that the killer would be caught.
Neither David nor I will rest until he’s behind bars
, she thought, glad that the private investigator had already promised to help find the killer.
He’ll probably be even more determined to find the real murderer now that the police are starting to look at me as a real suspect.

A knock sounded at the door to the apartment and a moment later, as if summoned by her thoughts, David walked in. His eyes found hers immediately, and he offered her a reassuring smile. Just being around him calmed Moira and made her more certain that things would turn out all right. Grateful for the private investigator’s support and friendship, she smiled back at him before opening the first box of pizza.

“Now that we’re all here,” she said, “let’s get some food on our plates and then I’ll tell you both what happened today.

Moira woke up bright and early the next
Monday
, eager at the prospect of a day off—and even more eager at the thought of what she and David had planned for the day. As she had thought, when she had told him about her interview at the police station, he had become even more determined to find the real killer as quickly as possible. His suggestion of talking to the housekeeper who had let Candice into the room where Mike had been found was a good one, though she doubted that they would discover anything that the police hadn’t. Still, it was worth a try, and it was much better than sitting around and waiting for the official investigation to turn something up.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said to Maverick as she fed him his breakfast. “You’ll have to stay here today. It’s too hot to leave you in the car, and I don’t think the hotel allows dogs.” She patted him on the head and tried to ignore his sad look as she gathered up her purse and keys and walked out the door without him.

David was waiting for her in the parking lot, his black car idling quietly next to hers. His windows were down, and he gave her a cheerful wave as she approached.

“I got us iced coffees,” he said as she slid into the passenger seat. The morning was already hot and humid, so Moira was grateful for the sweet, cold drink. She took a sip, then pulled a small notepad out of her purse.

“I wrote down Mike’s room number,” she told the private detective. “So we can check it out if we can convince one of the employees to open it up for us.”

“Good. I called the hotel last night and asked what Allison Byrd’s—she’s the housekeeper that let Candice in—schedule is. Once I told them I was working on Mike’s case, they were more than happy to tell me her hours. Luckily she has the morning shift today.” He checked his watch. “She’ll be at the hotel in about ten minutes. Shall we get going?”

“We might as well. The sooner Candice and I get closure, the better,” Moira said.

The hotel’s parking lot was nearly full when they got here.
Tourist season is still in full swing
, she thought.
But when school starts again in a couple of weeks, this place will be nearly empty.
Sometimes she envied places like Florida that were popular tourist destinations year round. No one wanted to come up to Maple Creek in the middle of winter, so for months out of every year the small shops and restaurants had to scrape by on whatever business they got from the locals. It wasn’t easy, but most people found a way to make it work.

Moira followed David out of the car and through the sliding doors to the hotel’s reception area. Seeing the happy tourists in their brightly colored tank tops and shorts, the teenagers glued to the glowing screens of their cell phones and the adults flipping through travel brochures, she decided the thought of a gruesome murder happening here just over a week ago was almost surreal.

“We’re here to speak to Allison Byrd,” David said to the young man at the reception counter.

“I think she’s upstairs, cleaning. Are you with the police?” he asked. David wordlessly took out his wallet and showed him his private investigator’s identification. The young man looked impressed. “I’ll page her.”

While they waited for Allison to make her way down from the top floor, Moira leaned against the counter and tried to turn her thoughts away from the dire state of her life. She was soothed watching the hustle and bustle of busy people enjoying their vacations. She began to wonder about the tourists’ lives. What did they do for work? What color clothes did they wear at home? How far away had they traveled for their vacations to this small town in Michigan? As she watched, her drifting thoughts returned to her own situation. She felt almost envious watching them; they seemed so carefree and happy, while she had to investigate her ex-husband’s death to avoid arrest.

“Hi… are you the people that wanted to talk to me?”

Moira turned to see a young woman with light blonde hair and pale blue eyes standing nervously by the counter. She had been expecting someone older, not a girl who looked to be the same age as her daughter. She traded a glance with David.

“Are you the one who let Candice into her father’s room?” she asked. The girl nodded.

“I didn’t know what was… what was inside,” she said, biting her lip. “I would never have done it if I had known what she would find.”

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions privately?” David asked.

“Sure…” She looked over at the young man who was in charge of the reception desk, who nodded. “We can go into the break room if you want.”

Hoping that they would soon get some answers, Moira followed her with David trailing behind. Maybe, just maybe, this young woman who reminded her so much of her daughter would be able to tell them something helpful. At this point, Moira would be glad of anything that would point them in the right direction.

Her thoughts flashed back to the man who had come into the deli wearing a watch identical to Mike’s. When she had told David about him, he had reminded her about the security camera above the register. Disappointingly, the man had never once looked up at the camera, and the watch had been nothing more than a flash of gold as he paid Meg for the soup. With no face and no name, Moira knew even David wouldn’t be able to track him down. She would just have to wait and hope that she saw him again; after all, Maple Creek was a small town. Even a murderer couldn’t hide forever.

“In here,” Allison said a few moments later when they reached a door at the end of a hallway. “We’re right by the laundry room, so it might be a little loud, but it will at least be private.”

The break room was small, but comfortable, with a couple of plush couches, a flat screen TV, and the rich scent of brewing coffee coming from a coffee maker that was still gurgling. Allison took a seat on one of the couches and gestured for David and Moira to take the other.

“What do you want to know?” she asked resignedly.

“Could you start at the beginning?” David asked. “I’m very sorry to make you go through this again, but even the smallest detail might help.”

“All right.” The young woman sighed. “Well, Sunday evening is usually one of our busier times, since we have so many guests checking out to go back home for work on Monday. The guest in room two-oh-nine—that girl’s father—was late for check-out, but we didn’t have enough people to send someone to go check on him right away. It wasn’t until his daughter showed up and asked if he was still here that anyone went to his room.”

“Didn’t he have housekeeping service earlier that day?” David asked.

“We don’t usually do housekeeping on the same day someone is due to check out. Normal check-out is at eleven, and late check-out is at three, so it doesn’t really make sense to clean a room only to have to go back a few hours later to do it again,” she explained.

“That makes sense,” he said. “Go ahead. What happened when Candice got here?”

“Well, when she ran into me in the hallway, she told me that she had knocked on his door, but no one answered, and she was worried that he had left without saying goodbye. She wondered if I could let her into the room.” Allison bit her lip nervously. “It’s usually against our policy to let anyone into a room other than the guest, but since it was past his check-out time and he hadn’t paid for another night, technically the room was considered empty, so I agreed to let her in.”

“And what did you find?” David asked. Moira looked down, not sure she wanted to hear this part, but knowing that getting involved with the case herself might be the only way to clear her name.

“Well he was on the bed, sprawled out as if he had just fallen there.” She paused and closed her eyes. “There was blood…”

“We can come back to the body,” the private investigator said gently. “What about the room? Was it messy? Could you tell if anything had been stolen?”

“The room was a huge mess,” she told him, obviously relieved to be able to talk about something other than the body. “It looked like someone had gone through all of the drawers, the suitcase… everything. There were clothes and papers all over the floor, and a broken bottle of wine next to the nightstand. The floor still isn’t clean there.”

“Do you remember if Mike… if the body had a watch on?” Moira asked, raising her gaze to the young woman’s face. “It would have been gold, and looked expensive.”

“I don’t think he was wearing a watch,” Allison told her. “But I can’t be sure. Everything just happened so fast.”

Moira pondered this. It was sounding more and more like Mike had been the victim of a break-in. The only odd thing was the wine. Mike had been a lot of things, but a big drinker wasn’t one of them. She couldn’t see him buying a bottle of wine to drink alone, and Candice wasn’t old enough to drink… so who had he been drinking with?

“Thank you,” David was saying. “You’ve been very helpful. Do you think we could see the room now?”

“Sure. I’m supposed to be figuring out how to get the wine stain out of the carpet anyway. Just let me go grab my cart, then I’ll take you up there.”

The room where Mike had died was stripped bare. Even the mattress was gone, leaving a lonely looking bed frame between the two nightstands. The huge, dark stain from the spilled wine was the only thing that hinted at the violence that had happened there just over a week ago. Moira had half expected the room to be just as it had been on the day of his murder, complete with blood spatters. She wondered for a moment what had happened to all of Mike’s things, then realized that all of it had probably been bagged as evidence. She hoped that when the investigation was over, Candice would be able to get most of it back. Surely her daughter would appreciate her father’s old things to remember him by.

“This is it,” Allison told them. “The police took everything, even the mattress.”

“Is the hotel going to start using this room again?” Moira asked, wondering with morbid fascination if sometime soon someone might end up staying in the very room where her ex-husband had died.