The Missing Dough (A Pizza Lovers Mystery) Read online

I went back into the kitchen to make her pizza, and Maddy followed me in. “What was that all about? I can’t believe that chucklehead couldn’t just leave a ten on the table and be done with it.”

  “You didn’t miss much. The Stouts want to chat, so we’ll chat,” I said as I knuckled the dough into the pan for their pizza.

  “I heard that much. I’m just wondering what happened after they ordered.”

  “Nothing much,” I said as I applied the sauce. “Why? Did they say something to you?”

  “That’s just it. She’s sitting there in silence, and he looks like he’s afraid to take a breath without permission. On second thought, that’s how I’d like all my exes to be.” Maddy realized what she was saying, and she quickly added, “I didn’t mean it that way. I wasn’t Grant’s fan, but I’m still sorry that he’s dead. You know that, don’t you, Eleanor?”

  “Of course I do,” I said as I came from behind the counter and hugged her. “You don’t have anything to explain to me. No matter what, I’ve always got your back, Maddy.”

  “I know that. As a matter of fact, I count on it,” she replied as she hugged me back briefly and then let go. “What do you suppose they want to talk about?”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind? It has to be about what happened to Grant last night.”

  “But why should they want to talk to us?” Maddy asked as I loaded on the toppings and then sent the pizza through the conveyor oven.

  “I’m guessing they’re in hot water with the police. Who knows? Maybe they saw us talking with Kevin Hurley and think we can help them, or maybe they’ve even heard about our crime-busting ways. I, for one, am glad that they showed up, whatever their reasoning is. It saves us the trouble of tracking them down ourselves.”

  “How hard should we push them?” Maddy asked as she picked up a sub that was waiting to be delivered.

  “Let’s take it easy at first. If things start to stall, we can always up the ante a little. Agreed?”

  “As always, I defer to your judgment,” Maddy said with no expression at all.

  She held that look for barely one second before she burst out laughing, and I was not far behind her.

  Josh came through the kitchen door just then and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “More complications,” I said.

  “I was hoping to get something to eat before you break for lunch,” he admitted. “That sub looks pretty good.”

  “Sorry. It’s for a customer,” I said, “but if you deliver it, I’ll make one for you, too. How does that sound?”

  “Wonderful. By the way, what were you two laughing about when I came in? If you know something I don’t, I’d love to share in the joke myself.”

  “We were just being silly,” Maddy said. “Don’t mind us.”

  “Hey, as long as I’m not the target, I’m a happy camper.” He reached for the sub. “Let me take that. You two can hang out some more.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got it,” Maddy said as she evaded his grasp. Maddy paused at the door and winked at me. “Thanks, Sis.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  Josh looked at me as he said, “You know, you two are the main reason I wish I had a sibling myself.”

  “You and Greg are close, aren’t you?” I asked as I started cleaning up.

  “Sure we are, but there’s nothing like blood, is there?”

  “No, sir, there’s not. How many tables are full out there?” I knew he’d notice. Once you were used to monitoring a dining room, it was a tough habit to break.

  “There are still three sets of customers, but I’m guessing that everyone left will be finished in less than five minutes, except for the pizza you just made.”

  It was time to make an executive decision. “Do me a favor, would you? Flip the sign and lock the door. With any luck at all, Maddy and I will be getting out early for lunch.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Josh said as he hurried back out into the dining room.

  I had a feeling that we were going to need all of the time that we could muster for this particular lunch hour. Not only did we need to speak with Samantha and Kenny Stout, but I also wanted to have a few words with Bernie Maine, if we could find him, that is. I had a hunch the man might be a bit elusive after what had happened to one of his business partners the night before, but if he was still in our part of North Carolina, Maddy and I would find him.

  I plated and cut the pizza for Samantha and Kenny and grabbed some plates. I’d sent Josh on his way, with his sub and a soda, so the four of us had the place to ourselves.

  Maddy was out front wiping down the tables and cleaning up in general, and she cut me off before I got too close to the exes.

  “Have you been talking to them yet?” I asked her quietly.

  “No. I decided to wait for you.”

  “That’s a remarkable show of restraint on your part,” I told her.

  “Well, one of the reasons I waited was because they wouldn’t answer any questions until the four of us were all together,” she replied with a grin.

  “So, not so much on the restraint part.”

  “Not so much,” she agreed. “That pizza looks great. Did they order an extra-large? I thought they asked for a medium.”

  “No, but I went ahead and made one big enough for all of us. It might be easier to get them to open up if we all share a meal together.”

  “Did you ask them about it first?” Maddy asked me, probably a little louder than she’d intended.

  “Ask us what?” Samantha asked. “Is that for us? If it is, it’s way too big.”

  I walked to the table and put the pizza down in the middle. “This is the only lunch break we get, so we were kind of hoping that we could all eat together. It’s on the house if you’re willing to share it with us.”

  “Sold,” Kenny said.

  “Is that okay with you, too, Samantha?”

  “Of course it is,” she said.

  Maddy grabbed us a couple of drinks and refilled theirs, and we sat down to have a bite to eat and to talk a little about murder.

  “This is delicious even without the beer,” Kenny said after he took his first bite.

  “Because it’s free, or you really think it’s good?” Samantha asked him.

  “Can’t it be a little bit of both?” he asked, and then he took another bite.

  I tried some, too, and he was right. My garbage pizzas were tasty, and it didn’t hurt that I was starving. Most days I was fine making food for everyone else, but today was one of the times where I was tempted to nibble on everything I made, a strict no-no for a pizza chef.

  As we ate, I decided to dive in and start the conversation. “So, what did you want to see us about?”

  “We understand you two are nosing around into Grant’s murder,” Kenny said.

  “Can you possibly be a little more tactful than that?” Samantha asked.

  “We prefer to think of ourselves as amateur sleuths,” Maddy said, “but yes, we’re investigating his murder. As a matter of fact, if you hadn’t walked into the Slice this afternoon, we were going to come looking for you.”

  “Why would you want to see us?” Samantha asked, watching us both closely. “We knew Grant, but neither one of us had anything to do with his murder. We were all friends.”

  “You were more than that,” I said.

  Kenny looked at Samantha with disdain. “I told you they knew you were sleeping with the guy. So much for beating around the bush.”

  It was all I could do not to show my surprise about a physical relationship between Samantha and Maddy’s ex-husband. My sister didn’t even flinch, and she had a lot more reason to react to the news than I did.

  “Who told you about us?” Samantha asked, not bothering to try to deny it.

  “It wasn’t all that hard to figure out,” I said quickly before Maddy could comment. “We saw the way you were looking at Grant last night during your performance, and if there was any doubt in our minds, Kenny’s reaction on
stage sealed it for us.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Samantha said. “Grant and I did have a fling, but our marriage was already over by the time it started. Isn’t that right, Kenny?”

  “So you say,” her ex answered. It was clear that Kenny wasn’t all that convinced, and neither was I.

  “I won’t keep defending my behavior, to you or anyone else,” Samantha said. “It was a short, stupid thing between us, and when it ended, Grant and I both walked away without any hurt feelings or regrets.”

  “I’m willing to bet you were pretty upset about losing your investment, though,” Maddy said to Samantha.

  “You know about that, too?” she asked, clearly surprised by our knowledge. “You two really are as good as we heard you were.”

  “How much did you lose?” I asked her.

  “It wasn’t all that bad. In the end, it totaled less than ten thousand dollars,” she admitted.

  I whistled. That had to be a good chunk of her savings if her prime source of income was playing at street fairs. “How much less?”

  “Not much,” Kenny said. “It was all from the divorce settlement Samantha got from me, so in a way, he ripped both of us off when he talked her into making that deal.”

  “But everyone lost money with Orion, didn’t they?” Maddy said.

  “Your sources aren’t as good as you might think. Sure, we all lost out on paper, but I just found out that Grant discovered a way to pull most of the money out of the investment before Bernie found out and everything collapsed. He had no choice but to shut it all down. Grant had cash, and I wanted my share back. It’s the reason we wanted to talk to him last night after our show,” Samantha said.

  “And did you?” I asked as I took another bite of pizza. The conversation was so intense that it was taking something out of the joy I normally found when eating one of my pizzas, but it couldn’t be helped. These questions had to be asked.

  “Sure, we finally managed to corner him, for all the good it did us. Grant claimed that Bernie was the double-crosser, not him, and what’s more, he said that he had proof of it.”

  “What kind of proof?” Maddy asked.

  “He wouldn’t say, but he was pretty smug about the whole thing.”

  “Did you believe him?” I asked.

  Kenny spoke up. “She wanted to, but not me. I didn’t care who took that money. I just wanted it back.”

  “For me, you mean,” Samantha said.

  “For us. I was going to make you split it with me right down the middle if I managed to recover any of it.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Samantha said, clearly surprised by this news. “What makes you think I would have ever agreed to that?”

  “If you wouldn’t have, I was going to keep it all,” he said smugly.

  “Over my dead body,” she replied.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he answered.

  That was about all of the bickering I could take at the moment. “How about if we get this all back on track? From what you’ve just told us, you both had your own reasons to want to see Grant dead. Samantha, who decided to end the relationship between you and Grant?”

  “I did,” she said as Kenny answered at the exact same time, “He did.”

  “Which one of you is telling the truth?” Maddy asked.

  “I was in the relationship, not him,” she said as she gestured toward Kenny. “As soon as I discovered that my investment was gone, I walked away.”

  “So, do you believe that Grant was the one with the money?” I asked.

  “It didn’t matter,” Samantha said with a frown. “He’s the one who talked me into investing in Orion in the first place, and when it all fell apart, he wouldn’t make any kind of restitution. I dumped him the instant he refused to give me any of my money back.”

  “If that’s true, then it must have happened pretty recently,” Maddy said.

  “I never claimed that it didn’t,” Samantha snapped at her. “I dumped him yesterday morning, and last night I was still trying to get my money back when we spoke with him at the concert.”

  “I’m amazed he let the two of you corner him like that,” I said.

  “Are you kidding? It was all Grant’s idea. It’s the only place he’d talk to us. There were a lot of people at that fair last night. I guess that made him feel that it was safe enough.”

  “Boy, was he ever wrong,” Kenny said.

  “We didn’t kill him, though,” Samantha said. “Someone else did.”

  “I know that, and you know that,” Kenny answered, “but who’s going to convince the police that we’re innocent?”

  “That’s why we’re here talking to Eleanor and Maddy, remember?” she said.

  “Hang on a second,” Maddy said, holding her hands up for silence. “Are you telling us that you came by the Slice to ask us for help in proving that you’re both innocent?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” Kenny asked.

  “Maybe because you two are at the top of our suspect list,” Maddy blurted out.

  “You’re siding with the police?” Samantha asked.

  “We’re not taking sides,” I said quickly. “We’re after the truth, no matter who it might implicate.”

  “Even your precious fiancé?” Kenny asked Maddy.

  “Bob didn’t kill Grant,” Maddy said flatly.

  “How could you possibly know that? Are you his alibi?” Kenny asked.

  “No,” Maddy admitted, “but he doesn’t need one, as far as I’m concerned. How about the two of you? If you want us to help you, we have to know where you were when Grant was murdered.”

  Either my sister was being brilliant or she’d completely lost her mind. Was she serious about even considering helping this pair? I decided to keep my mouth shut while she worked. Either way, I’d back her up one thousand percent, but I didn’t know enough about what she was doing to make a play one way or the other.

  “We’re waiting,” Maddy said. “Where were you?”

  It was clear that Kenny didn’t like the neat way she’d turned the tables on them. “Samantha, we don’t have to answer that.”

  “We’re asking them for help, don’t you remember? She’s right, Kenny. The only way we can expect them to lend us a hand is to tell them both what we were doing when Grant was murdered.”

  “You can tell them if you want to, but count me out of this,” he said as he stood, threw his napkin on the table, and stormed out of the Slice. At least he tried to. He was locked in, though, so it took him five seconds to fumble with the latch before he could get out.

  “I’m sorry about this. We’ll be back,” Samantha said as she hurried out the door after him.

  I took another bite of pizza as we waited. “So, are we really helping them now?”

  Maddy shook her head. “There’s not a chance of that happening, but if I can get solid alibis for them, we can at least mark them off our list.”

  “If neither of them did it, that just leaves Bernie Maine. If.”

  “If what?”

  “If we’ve found all of our suspects yet,” I said.

  “Who else did you have in mind?” Maddy asked as she took another bite of pizza.

  “I don’t know, but then again, we just started digging. It’s hard to say who else might turn up on our suspect list. Grant had a way of riling folks up, didn’t he?”

  “It’s a skill that he’d apparently gotten better at over the years.”

  “What do you think?” I asked her. “Could he have swindled other investors, as well?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” she said. “Eleanor, I should have listened to you all those years ago. You saw right through him, and you tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Maddy. I got lucky finding Joe, and now you’ve got Bob in your life. We all win some, and we lose some.”

  “I seem to have picked more than my share of losers over the years, though,” she said. “As ba
d as Grant was when we were married, I never would have believed that he could take such a turn for the worse. Sharon must have been heartbroken.”

  “I’m sure she knew that she did what she could,” I said as I glanced toward the door. “I’m not positive they’re coming back, are you?”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind. They’re gone for good,” Maddy said as she took another bite of her pizza and then dropped it onto her plate. “Forgive me for throwing away your hard work, but I’ve kind of lost my appetite for this right now.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said as I gathered everything together and headed for the nearest trash can.

  “You’re not chucking that because of me, are you?”

  “No way. Maybe later I’ll make us a different kind of snack, but right now I think we should get out of here while we still have the chance.”

  “Are we going to go out looking for Kenny and Samantha?” she asked me as I rinsed the plates in back.

  “I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to have to wait until they’re ready to talk to us, but I’d love to see if we can find Bernie Maine.”

  “In thirty minutes?” Maddy asked me.

  “No, you’re right. We need at least an hour and a half to get to Cow Spots and back and still talk to him. Why don’t you put up a sign that we’re going to be late starting our dinner shift tonight?”

  “What are you going to be doing?”

  “I’m calling Josh to give him a heads-up about what we’re planning to do,” I said. “There’s no reason to make him wait out front for us while we’re somewhere out of town, digging into murder.”

  After we had wrapped up what we needed to do in the kitchen and had told Josh about our plans, Maddy and I left the Slice in search of the elusive Bernie Maine.

  Chapter 9

  “I’ve got a question for you,” Maddy said as we started driving my car toward the town of Cow Spots.

  “Is it about the case?” I asked.

  “No, it’s about this place where we’re heading. Why on earth would anyone ever call their hometown Cow Spots in the first place? It’s a crazy thing to name a place, and that’s even taking into consideration that North Carolina’s known for some of its weird town names.”