Hearty Homestyle Murder: Book 9 in The Darling Deli Series

by Patti Benning

  Her optimism quickly died the next morning as none of Moira’s neighbors seemed to recognize the dog. Only one neighbor had seen her before, but he had no idea who her owner was.

  “She hung out around my yard for a few weeks,” he said. “I put leftovers out for her when I could, but I couldn’t catch her. I haven’t seen her for about a week. I’m glad you managed to get her inside and cleaned up.”

  So she’s been a stray for a while, Moira thought as she drove slowly back towards her house. I wonder how to find her owners? The dog had obviously been loved at one point in her life. She seemed to enjoy the car ride, and she walked well on the leash, not pulling at all. She would sit and lie down on command, though she didn’t seem to know any other tricks.

  “I bet you feel a lot better after having a good dinner and breakfast, don’t you?” The dog gazed at her with her deep brown eyes and thumped her tail. Moira felt her heart melting. Maybe she would take the dog with her to the fair… if she got along with Maverick and Diamond.

  Deciding to play it safe, she sent a text to David asking if he could stop by before she had to leave to set up the booth at the fair. He replied within minutes, promising to be there shortly. Moira smiled to herself as she imagined what his reaction would be when he saw the huge dog.

  “Wow,” the private investigator said, shaking his head in amazement as he stared at Keeva, who was resting her head on his knee and gazing up at him endearingly. “I can’t believe she just wandered onto your property, and you brought her inside. Weren’t you worried about being bitten?”

  “Just look at her eyes. You can tell she’s a sweetheart. What breed do you think she is?” she asked him, unable to keep from smiling at the sight of Keeva nudging his hand with her nose as she tried to get him to pet her.

  “She looks like an Irish wolfhound to me,” he told her. He stroked the dog’s head at last, causing her tail to wave back and forth dangerously close to the mug of coffee that was sitting on the coffee table. Moira quickly moved it.

  “Oh, yeah, I think I remember seeing pictures of those,” she said. “I’ve never seen one in person though. Are they all so big?”

  “My uncle had one that was even bigger,” he told her. “From what I’ve seen, they’re generally pretty calm though. You haven’t had any luck finding her owner?”

  “None at all. I figure on Monday I’ll take some pictures of her and print them up for posters. I can hang them around town. I’ll put some in Lake Marion too, for good measure.”

  “Just make sure whoever answers the poster shows proof that she’s theirs. You wouldn’t want someone to lie just to get a free dog.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Moira promised. “I definitely don’t want her to fall into the wrong hands.”

  “And try not to get too attached to her,” he warned. “I’m sure her owners will contact you quickly once you get the posters up.”

  “I know,” she said with a sigh. “But there’s no reason I can’t let her have a good time while she’s here. Are you ready for me to bring Maverick out? I think they should meet out front, since it’s more neutral territory.”

  “That’s a good idea.” The private investigator picked up Keeva’s leash and led her towards the door. “Bring him on out whenever you’re ready.”

  At first Maverick almost seemed afraid of the huge dog. Keeva was taller than him, and probably outweighed him by a good thirty pounds. But once they exchanged sniff greetings, he decided that she was just another dog. Diamond was also happy to have another playmate, and in no time the three of them were racing around the backyard together. Moira exchanged a smile with David. It looked like the dogs would get along together just fine at the fair.

  With Diamond riding in the front seat and Keeva and Maverick in the back, Moira managed to fit all three of them in the car, though it was tight. She was glad that Allison was responsible for bringing the soup and other food from the deli—there was no way she would have been able to fit it in the car alongside the dogs.

  Just as she was pulling into the fairgrounds her phone rang. She glanced at it, but didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?” she said when she answered it.

  “Ms. Darling,” a familiar voice said. “This is Mayor Willis. I’m afraid I no longer need you to cater Elli’s engagement party.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I’m so sorry about your son. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. Tell Elli that if she decides to have the party at a later date, all she has to do is call me. We already talked about everything, and it should be easy enough to get everything together even on short notice.” She didn’t mention that she had already ordered the extra food. There was no point in making him feel bad; he was already going through enough.

  “I wasn’t clear, Ms. Darling. Elli is still having the party, though the date has been moved back. However, we’re going with another catering service. I’m not going to give you a dime, not when your soup killed my son.”

  He hung up, leaving Moira to gape at her phone in silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Moira hung posters around town as soon as she had a chance to print them. She was surprised when a few days had passed and still no one called about the dog. Keeva got along well with Maverick and Diamond, and Moira couldn’t help hoping that she stayed for a while. Martha would be back in just under a week, and she was worried that her German shepherd would fell lonely once the little black-and-white dog left, especially if Keeva had returned to her own home by then.

  She was relaxing in a lounge chair on her back porch, giving the dogs a chance to play in the yard after her shift at the deli, when Detective Jefferson called her. Wondering what he could possibly want and hoping it was nothing too serious, she answered the phone.

  “Moira, I’m going to need to ask you to come down to the station,” he said, his tone serious. “When should I expect you?”

  “I can be over there in half an hour. What is this about, detective?”

  “We have some questions to ask you pertaining to Reuben Willis’s death.”

  Moira stared at her phone for a long moment after he hung up. First the mayor thought she had something to do with his son’s death, and now the police wanted to speak with her? She hadn’t even known the man. Why would she have wanted him dead? And what evidence could they possibly have found to tie her to a crime that she didn’t commit?

  Detective Jefferson led her to an interview room and then left her alone while he went to find his partner, Detective Wilson. Detective Wilson was a serious woman who somehow made Moira feel guilty even when she hadn’t done anything. She would much rather have spoken to Jefferson alone. At least he didn’t treat her like a criminal right off the bat.

  Sometimes it’s hard to remember that they’re just doing their jobs, she thought. I shouldn’t take it personally. They just want to find the truth, and can’t leave any stone unturned. Even after telling herself this, she still felt a sting of resentment when the two detectives came in and took seats across the table from her. She had helped Detective Jefferson find the man who’d murdered his old partner, Detective Fitzgerald. He must know by now that she wasn’t a killer.

  “Do you want a water or anything before we start?” he asked her as he flipped open a notepad and tested a pen on the blank page. She shook her head.

  “I’m fine, thanks. Just tell me what you need to know. I’ll do my best to help any way that I can.”

  “Thanks, Moira. I’ll let Detective Wilson take over from here.” He nodded at the stern woman to his left, who cleared her throat before speaking.

  “Ms. Darling, can you tell me specifically what you did on the day of Reuben Willis’s death? Don’t leave out any detail, no matter how small you may think it is.”

  Trying her best to remember what she had done on Saturday, she related her day. The two detectives seemed especially interested when she got to the part about the gumbo. They leaned forward, and Jefferson scribbled notes as she spoke. She pau
sed when she reached the part with Darrin, and decided not to mention the fact that he had pocketed a vial of some sort. That would just cause trouble for him, which she didn’t want to do.

  “Go back to right before Willis collapsed,” Jefferson said when she was done. “Were any of the other judges looking at him?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I was only watching him because he hadn’t seemed to like the first bite of gumbo, and I wanted to see if he thought the second bite was any better.”

  The two detectives traded a glance.

  “How do you know he didn’t like the first bite he took?” Wilson asked her.

  “He made a face, and immediately put some cornbread in his mouth like he needed something to get rid of a bad taste,” she said. Wilson raised her eyebrows.

  “You must have been watching him pretty closely to catch that,” she said. “Why weren’t you paying attention to any of the other judges?”

  “Well… I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I guess it was just because he was the head judge, and I was curious about what he would think of the gumbo.”

  “Were you expecting to see his father, Mayor Willis, instead?” the female detective asked.

  “No, I didn’t even know the mayor was supposed to be the head judge until after the ambulance left,” Moira told her.

  “Right. Did you leave your seat at all during the competition?”

  “No. As soon as we handed the soup to the woman that was helping, I went and sat down. David Morris joined me, and I’m sure he’ll validate everything I’m saying.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Wilson said. “We’ll be talking to him too.”

  “I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what any of this had to do with me. There were plenty of other people in the tent, most of whom probably knew Reuben better than I did. Besides, if it was poison, the killer wouldn’t even have needed to be in the same room as his victim.”

  “We never said anything about poison, Ms. Darling,” Detective Wilson said, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Care to tell me how you know that the victim was poisoned?”

  “David mentioned it after he talked to the paramedics,” Moira said quickly, realizing her mistake. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut? “He told me that the paramedics said it looked like poison, but they couldn’t be certain without doing tests, of course.”

  “Excuse us for a moment, Moira,” Detective Jefferson cut in smoothly. “We’ll be right back. Are you sure I can’t get you a water, or coffee, or anything when I come back?”

  “Thanks, but no,” she told him.

  Alone in the interview room, she cast her mind back and tried to remember more about that Saturday at the fair. Had she seen anyone acting suspiciously? In truth, she hadn’t been paying much attention to anything except what the judges were doing. She had been so focused on the idea of winning the contest that she had hardly looked anywhere else.

  And why were the two detectives so focused on her? She had absolutely no motive to kill Reuben. Besides, why would she want to interrupt the very contest that she had hoped to win? It didn’t make sense. If the police had had the same idea that she did after hearing that Reuben Willis was a last-minute substitute for his father, then they must think that she had originally meant to poison Mayor Willis himself. Moira scoffed. Why would she want to kill the mayor, when she had already spent a lot of money—that she’d never be reimbursed for—ordering food for his daughter’s engagement party?

  No, there was no reason that she could see that would make them suspect her… unless it was the gumbo that had killed him. She inhaled sharply, suddenly understanding. That would explain why Reuben had made a face when he tasted the gumbo for the first time, and why he had tried to get the taste out of his mouth by eating the cornbread. The killer must have used some sort of poison with a bitter taste. But what poison could kill someone so quickly… and more importantly, who had put it in the gumbo?

  Detective Jefferson opened the door to the interview room, jolting her out of her reverie. He waved her over.

  “You can go, Moira. Just stick near your phone and be ready to come in again if we need anything else, all right?”

  She nodded. “Detective Jefferson… can you tell me if I’m actually a suspect in this case?”

  He hesitated. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call you a suspect. We’re still in the beginning stages of the investigation, and haven’t even gotten full reports back from the lab yet. My advice is to keep your head down, and to contact us immediately if you remember anything else. You have my number; feel free to call me at any time of day or night if anything, no matter how small, comes back to you.”

  “I will,” she promised him. He smiled.

  “Thank you for your cooperation. Hopefully this will all be over before you know it. Until then, just stay safe and stay out of trouble.”

  He followed her through the door, then walked with her through the halls until they reached the door to the parking lot. He said goodbye with a nod, and she was free to go.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Do you want to order pizza or Chinese?” Candice asked, her phone in her hand. “I’m starved; either one sounds good to me.”

  “I don’t have a preference,” Moira told her daughter. “It’s your choice.”

  The young woman made a face, then considered the Chinese takeout menu again.

  “I think I’ll go with Chinese. They don’t deliver, but they’re only like five minutes away, and I really love their noodles. Do you know what David will want?”

  The local Chinese food place, Hong Kong Fortunes, was one of the private investigator’s favorite places to order food. The long-time bachelor nearly always ordered the same dish, so Moira was confident.

  “He’ll want the Kung Pao Chicken, medium spicy,” she told her daughter. “And I’ll take the sesame noodles with shrimp. Here, hand me my purse—I’ll pay.”

  “I’ve got it,” Candice said with a smile. “You paid for my food for the first eighteen years of my life. I think I can return the favor for this one meal.”

  Chuckling, Moira let her daughter win and returned to the article that she was reading on her tablet. The article, from the Maple Creek newspaper, speculated on why the mayor’s son had been killed. The reporter had managed to dig up every piece of dirt on the young man, as far back as his high school detentions. According to the reporter, each infraction could be the reason for his murder, including the time he had gotten a ticket for going ten miles per hour over the speed limit in a school zone. Although she couldn’t take the piece seriously, reading it still made Moira uncomfortable. Reuben’s death was one of the highest profile murders that Maple Creek had ever had, and the public would be quick to blame anyone who seemed even slightly connected to the murder. What would happen if this same reporter got wind of her interview with the police?

  “All right, I ordered our food. I’m going to drive over to get it. Do you want to come along?” Candice asked.

  “Sure.” Moira shut off her tablet and forced a smile onto her face. “Let’s go. I’m pretty hungry too.”

  And hour later she, Candice, and David were sitting, stuffed, around Candice’s kitchen table. Styrofoam trays and plastic forks were strewn about, but there weren’t many leftovers. Hong Kong Fortunes was one of the best Chinese restaurants around. Moira was glad that it was in Lake Marion and not Maple Creek; if it was any closer to her house, she would probably stop there for dinner more often than she should.

  “Have you heard from anyone about Keeva yet?” David asked as he began piling the trash together.

  “No,” she told him. “Not even a single phone call. No one seems to know whose she is.”

  The Irish wolfhound had settled in nicely at Moira’s place. She got along well with both Maverick and Diamond, and hadn’t so much as chewed up a single shoe. She was about as perfectly behaved as a dog could be, and the deli owner would be sad to see her go. If no one ever claims her, I’ll pro
bably keep her, she thought. Maverick could use a friend, and after Martha picked Diamond up in a few days the house would be considerably more quiet.

  “She seemed like a great dog when I met her,” Candice said. “I wonder why her owners aren’t looking for her.”

  “Maybe her owners live in another town and lost her while they were traveling,” David said. “Maybe you should post her online. There are some websites dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their owners.”

  “I’ll help you,” her daughter volunteered. “Just send me some pictures of her, and I can post her online for you.”

  “Sure. Whatever it takes to find her owners,” Moira said, though she found herself selfishly hoping that Keeva remained unclaimed.

  “How have things been going with you?” she asked David. “Any interesting cases?” She hadn’t seen him since the weekend; between taking care of the three dogs, working at the deli, and worrying over her police interview, she had had hardly any time for a social life.

  “Nothing new.” He hesitated. “Well, I did have an interesting meeting with a potential client.”

  “What about?”

  “It was with Mayor Willis,” he said. “He wanted to hire me to investigate his son’s murder… but once he learned that I was involved with you, he left in a huff.”

  “Oh my gosh, really?” Moira was stunned. She understood that Mayor Willis was a grieving parent, but how could he honestly think she had something to do with Reuben’s death? If she was right and it was the gumbo that had been poisoned, she supposed that she could see how he might be suspicious, but would the police really have shared that information with him? “I’m so sorry, David. I hate to be responsible for you losing business.”

  “It’s not your fault, Moira. Don’t feel bad. After you told me that he had hired you to cater a party for his daughter, I assumed that he must like the deli. His reaction shocked me.”