A Pizza to Die For (10 page)

“You’ve outdone yourself,” I said. “The kids are going to love it.”

“Thanks,” he said, and then added with a wicked grin, “Now, would you like to see what I’ve got for the grown-ups?”

Maddy finished a bite of her cinnamon bun and replied before I had the chance. “Bring them on.”

He put the tray on the counter, and then came back with another, also adorned with decorated goodies. On this tray, I found a large brown stake, a zombie’s face, and a broomstick, all iced in bright neon colors.

“What makes these for grown-ups?” I asked.

He pointed to the zombie. “This one’s overfilled with a cherry and raspberry filling, so when you bite into it, it oozes out all over the place. I got the idea from a donut shop called Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, Oregon. The stake is glazed with rum icing, and the broomstick is made with a beer batter I’ve been playing with.” He frowned as he added, “It’s not that great at the moment, but I’ve still got time to perfect it.”

“You’ll be the hit of the Blowout,” Maddy said. “I’d like to order a dozen of the stakes and zombie heads myself.”

“You’ve got it. In fact, you could both do me a favor, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Anything for you, Paul,” I said. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Then I’m asking. I need a taste tester, and it’s not something I can ask just anyone. Could I drop off samples tomorrow when I leave to get your reactions to them? You can taste them after you lock up, and leave me a note on my bakery door with your ratings. What do you say?”

“Why not?” Maddy replied. “On second thought, cancel that previous order. Why pay if I’m getting to sample them for free?”

He grinned. “I like the way you think. Tell you what. I’ll throw in a dozen each as your payment, anyway.”

I smiled at him. “You don’t have to bribe us, Paul.”

“Are you kidding? I’d love to be able to barter with you. You’d really be helping me out here.”

Maddy patted my hand. “Eleanor, let me handle this. I’ll do the negotiating for us,” she said with a smile, and then turned to Paul. “We’re happy to help.”

“I knew I could count on you,” he said. “What have you two been up to since this morning?” Paul asked as he took the trays away.

I didn’t even hesitate to tell him what we were doing. “We’re trying to figure out who killed Judson Sizemore.”

He nodded. “I figured you had to be.”

I wanted to tell him more but I’d promised the police chief that I wouldn’t. “It was something related to his business,” I said.

That was enough for Paul. “Has our esteemed chief of police been after the two of you about it?”

“He seems to think we’ve got motive, though it’s becoming clearer and clearer that we’re not the only ones. I wouldn’t put it past that sister of his, to be honest with you,” Maddy said.

“Her name’s not Gina, is it?” he asked, half-joking.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” I answered. “How did you know that?”

“That’s not funny, Eleanor.”

Maddy shook her head. “She’s serious. I’m the funny one, remember? Do you know Gina Sizemore?”

“You could say that,” Paul said as the energy seemed to go out of him. “I was going to marry her someday.”

“What?” I nearly choked on my cinnamon bun. I never expected Paul to say something like that. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I were. Gina broke my heart in college, and to tell you the truth, I’m still not completely over it. I never heard Judson’s last name until just now. I knew Gina had a brother, but she never talked about him.”

“I can’t get over the fact that you two were together,” I said, still not able to believe it. Our gentle, sweet Paul with that barracuda was just too much to take.

At least he looked sheepish as he admitted, “I know. Opposites attract. She was everything I wasn’t—brash and flirty—with an appeal that was hard to resist. I didn’t have a chance once she set her sights on me.”

“What happened?” Maddy asked.

“She found out that I wanted to be a baker and not an attorney, and she couldn’t dump me fast enough after she heard the news.”

“That’s pretty shallow of her, isn’t it?” I asked. I didn’t know what was wrong with some women, ruining good men who deserved better. I’d had my share of friends who had been treated badly by men, and I was a firm believer in equality, especially when it came to broken hearts.

Paul shrugged. “Gina has always had expensive tastes. When she realized that I wouldn’t be able to support her in the style she wanted to become accustomed to, she dumped me on the spot. I’m not sure I ever got over it, because it was so sudden. One second we were in love, and the next she was going out with one of my classmates. It was almost too brutal to take.”

“What it all boils down to is that it’s her loss,” I said.

Maddy agreed. “What a fool that woman is.” She finished her last bite, and then asked, “Paul, can I ask you something, since you knew her pretty well back then?”

“Go ahead. I’ll be glad to help if I can.”

“Do you think she is capable of murder?”

That rocked him back, though I’d been expecting Maddy to ask him the question. He seemed to think about it for thirty seconds, and then he said, “Gina? I just can’t see her doing something like that.”

It was my turn to step into the conversation. “Not even if she found herself backed into a corner?”

Paul thought a little longer about it, and when he answered, his voice was heavy with sadness. “I wish I could say no for sure, but it’s hard to imagine how her mind works these days. If she was put under the right amount of stress, I’d have to say that it’s possible she might kill to get what she thought she deserved, especially if it concerned money. Why do you ask? Her brother wasn’t rich, was he?”

“No, but her uncle is.” I just at that second realized that I’d promised Nathan to keep my mouth shut about his money. Then again, he hadn’t done anything to merit that respect.

“Who is her uncle?”

I was still debating about how to respond to that when Maddy volunteered, “Nathan Sizemore is loaded, and no one here in town knows it. We’re supposed to keep that information secret, so do us a favor and keep it to yourself.”

Paul just shook his head in disbelief. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. My head feels like it’s going to explode. Where did Nathan come up with more than a hundred bucks at any one time in his life?”

“He owns all kinds of land,” Maddy said.

“I didn’t even realize that Gina was related to Nathan,” Paul admitted. “I wonder what else she kept from me when we were together.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” I said. “She didn’t know she was his niece herself until her father’s funeral.”

Paul scratched his chin. “If she’s known for that long, what took her so long to show up in Timber Ridge? I can’t imagine her staying away from a rich uncle a second longer than she had to. Like I said, in college, the girl was all about the cash.”

“That’s another question we’re going to try to find out,” I said. “Care to give us a hand with our investigation?” It could be risky asking, especially where his heart was concerned, but Maddy and I couldn’t afford to skip anyone who might be able to help us.

To his credit, Paul knew his own mind. In an instant, he replied, “Ladies, you know how much I care for you both, but I’d rather walk barefoot through a dry swimming pool full of rattlesnakes than get anywhere near that girl again. Sorry, I just can’t do it. It’s a chance I’m not willing to take.”

“We understand completely,” I said. “We’ve got to run, but feel free to drop off your concoctions anytime.”

“It’s a deal,” he said.

Once we were outside, I said to Maddy, “Can you believe that? Is there any odder couple you can imagine than Paul and Gina?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t appear to be a fit with at least two of my ex-husbands, but we managed to get along just fine.”

“Until the divorces, you mean,” I said.

“Yes, there’s always that. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on my repeated trips to the altar, the heart gets what it craves, and there’s no explaining it sometimes.”

Poor Paul. I knew he was no choirboy, but I also understood that at the core, he was a good and decent man. His past relationship with Gina might explain why he had so much trouble finding a girlfriend now that he lived back in Timber Ridge. “I shouldn’t have asked him for help, but I figured he’d be honest with us if he couldn’t do it.”

Maddy nodded. “We have enough reinforcements as it is, anyway. What did Art Young have to say?”

I brought her up to speed about what I’d learned as we walked over to the pizzeria, and then Maddy glanced at her watch. “There’s no way we’re going to get to Chastain and back and have time to interview Lacy White.”

“Then there’s only one thing we can do,” I said as I opened the door to the pizzeria.

“We’re not going to blow off a lead like that, are we?”

“Not a chance,” I said as I walked to the back and grabbed a blank sheet of paper from the copier. With a thick black pen, I wrote,
back at 4:30
and handed it to Maddy. “Do you want to tape that to the front window?”

“I will, but I still can’t believe it. You’re actually willing to lose income for this investigation?”

I nodded. I didn’t think I had much choice, given the way things were going. The faster Maddy and I could find the real killer, the quicker our lives would get back to normal. “Just think how much it will cost us if Kevin Hurley locks one of us up for murder. I don’t even want to think about what the lawyers’ fees would be.” And the past few days had been so busy, I figured we could spare a couple hours.

“You’ve got a point.” As she taped the sign in the window, Maddy asked, “What should we do about Greg and Josh?”

I thought about calling them, but I knew both young men hated getting cell phone calls from me, especially ones that were work related. “They’ll see the sign like everyone else. We can explain it to them when we get back.”

“That’s the spirit. Let’s go.”

As we drove to Chastain, I couldn’t help thinking about Paul and Gina, and how her greed had broken them up. I knew that kind of thing happened more than I realized, but I still couldn’t imagine throwing away such a fine young man as Paul simply because his earning potential wasn’t up to her expectations. Gina would bear closer scrutiny when we had the chance. The fact that she’d held that shotgun on us with such ease began to worry me more and more as well.

But at the moment, we had a more important lead to pursue. If what Art Young had told me about Lacy White was true, and I had no reason to believe otherwise, then Judson could have brought his doom upon himself. Maddy and I would have to push her to see if we could get that temper to flare up enough for her to speak a little too freely. If we managed that, we might just be able to learn the truth.

I wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation, but I knew that my sister reveled in it.

For the millionth time, and for the thousandth reason, I was glad to have her by my side.

Chapter 8

“T
his is lovely,” I said to our interview subject, a sales clerk at Carole’s whose nametag read “Lacy.” The shop’s official name was Carole’s House of Fine Clothing, but it was no surprise that folks abbreviated it. Maddy and I had gone in with a plan to try to catch Judson’s former fiancée off-guard, and after considerable debate, we’d decided that I’d be the shopper and she’d listen in, stepping in only if the conversation became confrontational. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my sister to handle the delicate questions we needed to ask, but she had a tendency to come on a little too strong at times, and we might need her to close in for the kill if I couldn’t get Lacy angry enough on my own.

I held a dress up to my body and then turned to her for an opinion—not that I could afford the thing on the pittance I paid myself at the Slice.

“It would look dreadful on you, I’m afraid,” the elegantly dressed young blonde said. It was amazing how much disapproval she managed to get into her words. I suddenly felt embarrassed for even daring to be there.

Lacy studied me for a few moments, and then finally said, “I’m afraid there are only a few things in this shop that would fit you, and, to be frank, their colors are completely wrong for your skin tones. Perhaps you’d have more luck at the mall.”

I smiled at her and said as sweetly as I could manage, “Wow, you really are obnoxious, aren’t you?” So much for my pretext of being the level-headed one of the family.

“I tell the truth,” she said with a derisive snap. “If you can’t deal with that, perhaps you’d be better off leaving the store.”

“Do you want to know something? I’m beginning to understand why Judson Sizemore dumped you,” I said.

The woman suddenly lunged at me with a coat hanger in her hand, and I was glad that Maddy was there to stop her.

“Slow down there,” my sister said as she cut her off. “You don’t want to do that.”

“And why is that?” Lacy asked.

“Trust me. We have friends you don’t want to make unhappy,” Maddy said. That certainly wasn’t part of our plan. What was she doing threatening this woman?

Lacy backed off with that comment. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was such a shock hearing about what happened to Judson.”

“I bet it was,” I said. “When’s the last time you were in Timber Ridge?”

“What possible business is it of yours?” she asked me.

“You can tell us, or you can tell the state police,” Maddy said.

“Those are your friends?” she said with a laugh. “I’m not afraid of the police.”

Maddy chuckled softly. “Neither are we, but if things go south, we may use them as a backup.”

“I’ve heard enough from you. You both need to leave.”

I knew where Maddy was headed, but I wasn’t about to let her use Art’s name to intimidate this woman. If anyone was going to do that, it needed to be me. “Do you have any idea who has been asking questions about you, Lacy? Surely someone’s reported back to you that there have been inquiries made.”

“I had a call earlier,” she said as she looked at me. “They said it was nothing to worry about.”

“There’s where you’re wrong. The man who is helping us isn’t known for putting up with foolishness from anyone.”

“I’m not saying anything until I know who wants to know.”

“Do you mean us?” I asked.

“Of course not. I’m talking about the heavy-hitter backing you up.”

I just laughed. “He wouldn’t appreciate me using his name like that, but think about who called you. Do you know anyone they might be afraid of?”

Lacy took it all in for a moment. No one had said she was stupid. “I don’t know anything about Judson’s death. I haven’t been in that town since I was in college, and that’s the truth.”

“Where were you the night of the murder?”

She didn’t want to answer, I could see it in her eyes, but she did just the same. “I was at my apartment. I had a cold, so I left here early and I didn’t come in at all that day. I was shocked to hear about it on the radio, but I didn’t kill him.”

I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. There was something about the way she spoke that made me doubt every word out of her mouth. She could have told me it was hot in July, and I would have asked to see a thermometer before I believed her.

“Is that all?” she asked, finally getting some of her spirit back. This would be a hard woman to browbeat for very long without a very real weapon in our hands. “I have work to do.”

“That’s it, for now,” Maddy said.

As we left, I stopped at the shop door before I exited. “I hope for your sake that you’re telling us the truth.”

She made no reply, and Maddy and I walked out of the shop. There was a man hovering nearby, pretending to read a newspaper, but it was obvious he was watching us.

“Well, it’s good to know that you’re the calm one,” Maddy said softly outside. “Nice subtle hint there.”

“I saw where you were going with your line of questioning, so I decided to step in. If anyone was going to use our connection to Art, it needed to be me. Besides, I wanted to have a little fun myself and try to make her squirm. Don’t tell me that you would have just stood there and taken the way she was treating me.” I looked back for the man with the newspaper, but he was gone. Could that have been the mysterious Jack that Art told me about?

“Me? She would have been wearing that hanger as a choker if she’d said it to my face. I was honestly impressed with your restraint.”

“At least we did one thing—we established that she has a temper,” I said as we made our way back to Maddy’s car.

“You almost had proof of that up close,” she said. “Her story doesn’t give her much of an alibi, does it? With that convenient ‘cold’ she had, no one can say when, or even if, she was home. Where does that leave us?”

“I’d say she’s a genuine suspect, so that’s progress.” I glanced at my watch. “I’m afraid that’s all we’re going to be able to do right now. We need to get back to Timber Ridge and open the restaurant.”

“We might as well,” Maddy said. “I hate to admit it, but Art Young came through for you today.”

“He’s not all bad,” I answered.

“I’ll withhold judgment on that,” she said.

As we started back to Timber Ridge, Maddy’s cell phone rang. I wasn’t crazy about her talking and driving, and she knew it.

After a moment, she said, “Tell Eleanor.”

Maddy handed me the telephone, and I heard Bob Lemon on the other end.

“Where are you?” Bob demanded.

“We’re in Maddy’s car. Is this a new game we’re playing? I just love games. Now it’s my turn. Where are you?”

“I’m in front of the Slice with two very worried young men,” he said, finding no humor in what I’d said at all. “You’ve got to tell someone when you’re not going to be here. We were all worried about you.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, “but it’s misplaced. Maddy and I have been getting into trouble for years together, and I don’t see any indication of it stopping anytime soon. Besides, we left a sign on the door.”

“It must have fallen off, because I don’t see it. There’s someone dangerous out there, Eleanor. You can’t take it too lightly.”

I’d had enough of that. I felt like David Quinton had finally learned his lesson, but Bob Lemon clearly hadn’t. “Trust me, we’re not,” I said with an edge in my voice. “That’s why we’re investigating Judson’s murder. So, unless you have important information for us about that, I suggest you hang up before you say anything else you might very well live to regret.”

“I’ll tell you the rest when you get here,” he said.

“Fine,” I replied, and then hung up.

I put the telephone back in Maddy’s purse, and she glanced over at me for a second. “Wow, you missed your calling, Eleanor. You should have been in the diplomatic corps.”

“He was trying to protect us,” I said.

“We both know he has a reason,” Maddy said calmly. “You need to take it easy on him.”

“That’s funny. I never thought you’d put up with that kind of behavior.”

Maddy bit her lip, and I knew she wanted to say something, although it was clear that she wasn’t certain she should. I decided to help her with it. “Go on, say what’s on your mind.”

“What are you afraid of, Sis?”

That wasn’t what I’d been expecting. “I’m sorry?”

“You reacted the same way when David Quinton started caring too much about you, and when Bob shows the least concern for our welfare, you bite his head off. Can’t you let any man get close to you again? Do you think that’s what Joe would have wanted?”

I was so stunned by her words that for one of the few times in my life, I was literally speechless. Maddy looked over at me, but I couldn’t meet her gaze. My thoughts were going a thousand miles a second. Is that how I was acting? Had I reacted that way every time David had expressed concern over my well-being? My sister had held a mirror up to my behavior, and I didn’t like what I saw.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, and when Maddy parked in back of the pizzeria, she said softly, “I didn’t mean to be so hard on you. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I needed to hear it.”

“Then you agree with me?” she asked with a grin.

“Let’s just say you’ve given me food for thought.”

We got out and moved to the shortcut. “Let me give you one more piece of advice. When you see Bob, you need to apologize.”

“Funny, I gave him that exact advice last night concerning you.”

Her smile broadened. “And see how well that worked out?”

We walked around to the front to find the three of them waiting for us.

Ignoring Greg and Josh for the moment, I hugged Bob as I said, “I’m sorry for my behavior. It’s sweet of you to care about us, and I appreciate your concern.”

He nodded and pulled back away from me. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“We’re fine,” I said.

I turned to Greg and Josh and added, “We should have warned you we were skipping out, but we got a hot lead, and we decided to follow up on it while we had the chance. If it makes you feel any better, there’s a note on the floor on the other side of this door that says we’ll be back at four-thirty.”

“It’s all good,” Greg said. “Did you have any luck?”

“We added someone to our list of suspects,” Maddy said.

“Then it was worth it.” He slapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Now, I don’t know about you ladies, but I say we start making some pizza.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I said. I hesitated after unlocking the door. “Bob, would you like something? It’s on the house. You can think of it as a peace offering.”

“Thanks, but I’m waiting for a telephone call back at my office. I might stop by later, if that’s all right with you.”

“You’re welcome here anytime,” I said.

After he left, I walked into the Slice and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN as I picked the handwritten sign up off the floor. As I suspected, the tape hadn’t held on the cold, moist glass. Maddy and I might have missed out on a little business while we’d been gone, and if we had, I was sorry for that, but what we’d confirmed was much more valuable than the money we’d lost. It felt good having at least one viable suspect—besides the two of us—make the list.

I wasn’t expecting to see Bob Lemon back so soon, but half an hour after he left us, he came into the kitchen.

“Did you decide to take me up on that free meal?” I asked.

“Maybe later. My phone call came through, so I rushed right over here as soon as it was over.”

“Should we wait for Maddy?” I asked. I knew how my sister hated being scooped, especially when it came to news from her boyfriend.

“She gave me her blessing to go on and tell you,” Bob said.

“Then go on,” I replied.

“Gina Sizemore is in quite a bit of financial trouble,” he said. “She has outstanding debt on her credit cards that you won’t believe.”

“How much are we talking about here?” I asked. It wasn’t hard to see a motive if Nathan had been murdered, but unless her brother, Judson, had an insurance policy that listed her as sole beneficiary, it was tough to blame her for the murder.

“From what I discovered, she’s amassed over a hundred thousand dollars in debt, and she’s just been paying the minimum balance for years. Until this month, that is.”

“What changed?”

“If I were guessing, I’d have to say that Nathan stepped in and started helping her out,” Bob said.

“He paid off that kind of debt, just like that?”

“No, that’s the odd part. There haven’t been any charges on her accounts since the first, and only five percent of the debt has been paid as of today.”

“That’s really strange,” I said as I took a finished pizza from the line and cut it before sliding it into a waiting box. “Why would Nathan pay off such a small percentage of her debt? You’d think it would be either all or nothing.”

“I’m guessing that he’s doing it to teach her a lesson,” Bob said. “Can you imagine how angry she must be that he wouldn’t clear it all off the books as soon as she found out he could handle it without any financial hardship on him at all?”

“It still doesn’t explain why she would kill her brother.”

Bob nodded. “You’re going to have to think a little more deviously than you’re used to,” he said. “With Judson out of the way, what do you think becomes of Nathan’s money if something happens to him now?”

“I imagine that Gina would get all of it,” I said, suddenly aware of the positioning Gina might have made by committing the murder. It would take a cold-blooded woman to kill her own brother, much harder than murdering an uncle. “Are you saying that half of Nathan’s estate wouldn’t be enough for her?”

“It’s possible. Greed knows no boundaries with some people.”

“We have to warn Nathan,” I said.

“And tell him what, that his last living relative wants him dead, based on no more proof than information he already has? It’s not time to do that yet.”

“Then what should we do?”

“The best thing I can think to do is to let her know that we’re on to her,” Bob said.

“Hang on. What do you mean, ‘we’?”

“I’ve decided to help you,” he said proudly.

“You just did.”