But we still had work to do. Maddy grabbed a dishrag and started wiping the tables down as I ran our register reports and balanced our cash in the drawer. We’d had a good night, but it had meant a great deal more to me than the money we’d made. I’d been back in my element, making pizzas and sandwiches and, for the most part, not worrying about anything else.
The totals matched, and Maddy and I managed to finish cleaning the place up in record time.
I was feeling pretty good about the world when we got to our cars in back. Hers was pristine, but my driver’s-side window had been shattered by a cinder block that now lay on the front seat.
Someone had painted “KILLER” in red on the block, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Some folks had been willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, but it appeared that some were still under the impression that I had something to do with Richard Olsen’s death.
And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Chapter 6
I was reaching for my keys when Maddy grabbed my hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to get the cinder block out and drive home.”
“We’ve got to call the police,” she said.
“Why? I’m pretty sure you can’t get fingerprints off a concrete block. What good will it do?”
“The chief needs to know that someone’s threatening you.” I’d never seen Maddy so eager to call Kevin Hurley in my life.
“He’s just going to say it was a prank,” I said. “It’s an exercise in futility.”
“Call him,” Maddy said.
“Fine, if it will make you happy.”
I dialed the police station and was told by Helen Murphy that the chief was off duty. Didn’t they ever let the poor woman go home? “Okay, then I’ll tell you. This is Eleanor Swift. Someone threw a concrete block through my car window, and they spray painted ‘killer’ on it before they chucked it. Do you need to send someone out, or should I just forget about it?”
“Are you still at the Slice?” Helen asked.
“For the next two minutes. Then I’m going home.”
“Don’t do anything until we get someone over there.”
She hung up on me, and I turned to Maddy. “I still don’t think it’s that big a deal. I’m guessing someone did it as a prank.”
“It’s not a good idea leaving,” Maddy said. “We have to give them more than two minutes.”
“We’ll give them all the time they need,” I said as I pounded my hands together. “Can we at least wait in your car? It’s cold out here.”
“I don’t see what that could hurt,” Maddy said. We got in her car, and she turned on the heater. After a few minutes, it began to blow out warm air, and I finally began to warm up.
“Who would do something like that?” Maddy asked as she stared at my shattered window.
“Somebody with too much time on their hands, and not enough sense,” I said. “If I had to guess, I’d say alcohol was involved, too.”
“You seem to be taking this pretty calmly,” my sister said.
“What do you want me to do, go hide in a corner until it’s safe to come out again? To be honest with you, I half expected something like this to happen.”
“I don’t understand you sometimes,” Maddy said.
“Right back at you,” I replied amicably.
We were still chatting when a police car flashed its lights as it drove silently toward us. Maddy and I got out of the car, and I was surprised to see the chief of police himself get out of his cruiser.
“I thought you were off duty,” I said.
“I am,” he admitted. “Josh stormed off after he chewed me out for talking to you, and I was kind of hoping I’d find him so we could talk about it.”
“He’s a good kid, Kevin. He’ll be all right once he calms down.”
Kevin gave me a burst of his lopsided grin. “Like father, like son, I know. Don’t think my old man doesn’t laugh about it all the time.” He dropped the conversation, then shined an industrial-sized black flashlight into my front seat. “Unbelievable.”
“I know. I really feel the love.”
Maddy stared at us both. “Have you two lost your minds? This is clearly a threat, and you both need to take it seriously.”
“It’s not a threat,” Kevin and I said in almost perfect unison.
She shrugged, then said, “If you need me, I’ll be in my car.”
After she got back in, Kevin said, “I’ll get the cinder block. Then we can patch your window with some cardboard until you can get it fixed. Sorry this had to happen, Eleanor.”
“It didn’t have to happen; someone did it on purpose,” I said. “But thanks for the thought, anyway.”
Kevin just shrugged, and after he put on gloves, he gingerly reached down and picked up the block, carried it to the trunk of his car, then returned with a piece of cardboard and some duct tape. As he taped it in place, he said, “Can Maddy take you home, or would you like a ride?”
“I have no desire to ride around town in a squad car, no matter what time of day or night it is,” I said with a hint of laughter in my voice.
“Fine, I just thought I’d offer.”
I could see he was in some real pain about his son’s reaction to his banishment. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.”
“I just wish I could believe that,” Kevin said as he got into the squad car. Then he drove away.
I rejoined Maddy and said, “How about a ride home? I’ll call Bob Pickering in the morning.” Bob ran an auto repair service, but he was much more than that. His realm of problem solving went well beyond the normal service, diving into problems from where to hold a wedding to when to plant peas in the garden.
“Would you like to stay with me again this evening?” she asked. “We can make another night of it.”
“No, thanks for the offer, but I need to go home. It’s where I belong.”
Maddy nodded, and as she drove to my place, she said, “You know, I could always stay with you.”
“I’m fine, Maddy.”
“Okay,” she said. “But I’m going in with you when we get there to make sure everything’s all right.”
“What are we going to do if it’s not?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? The Spencer women can handle anything.”
“Yeah, but I’m a Swift now,” I said.
“You were a Spencer first, though,” she said.
Fortunately, as Maddy and I went through the house, it was clear that the cinder-block thrower hadn’t ventured to my home.
Once Maddy was gone—with my reassurances that I would call her at the first sight of trouble—I took another long shower and went to bed. With everything that had happened, it was amazing that I dropped off so quickly, but that was another testament to how the turmoil of the day had affected me.
I managed to sleep through the night and didn’t wake up until my alarm clock shook me from a deep and dreamless sleep at seven the next morning. We didn’t have to be at the pizza parlor until nine, so that gave us a little time to do more digging around town. With the clues we’d found at Richard Olsen’s place, we certainly had enough places to start looking.
I’d just gotten out of the shower when I heard my doorbell. After donning my robe and wrapping my hair up in a towel, I peeked outside and saw Maddy standing there, holding two coffees and a bag of something.
“Hey, you’re actually up?” I asked. My sister was notorious for her ability to sleep in if given the least bit of notice.
“I got up before you, it looks like,” she said as she walked inside. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No, I just need a few minutes to get ready and we can go.” I took the coffee from her, enjoyed that first sip, then gestured to the bag. “Is there something good in there for me, too?”
“Cinnamon buns, highly caloric and extremely decadent. If you want to pass, you won’t hurt my feelings.”
“If I’m ever near
death, wave one of Paul’s cinnamon buns under my nose. If that doesn’t rouse me, you have my blessing to go ahead and bury me.”
I made a grab for the bag, but Maddy pulled it out of my reach. “I thought you were getting dressed first.”
“That was before I knew what we were having for breakfast.”
“Clothes first, and then we eat.”
I broke my previous record for getting ready and met her in the kitchen nook as she was halfway through with her treat.
“Your hair has to be dry, too,” she said with a mouthful of bun.
“You said get dressed, so I got dressed. Now, are you going to hand mine over, or are we going to start the day with trouble?”
She laughed as she tossed me the bag. “I know when I’m licked.”
I took my first bite right out of the bag, before I grabbed a plate or even bothered to sit down. It was just as good as I remembered, the still-warm bread with hints of cinnamon, and the icing sweet enough to smell from ten yards away.
“Do you eat standing up all the time when I’m not here?”
I nodded. “There are fewer calories consumed if you eat over the sink. Didn’t you know that?”
She smiled. “Not until just now. I’ll have to try that myself.”
My sister was notorious for putting out an entire formal place setting, even when she was dining alone. She got some great bargains buying discontinued patterns at china shops, since she rarely bought more than two of anything. It made her dinnerware an eclectic mix, but it suited Maddy’s personality, so it worked for her.
As we ate, I said, “I figure we’ve got about an hour and a half before we get to the Slice. Where should we start?”
“I don’t know about you, but I want to talk to Faith Baron,” Maddy said. “There’s nothing like a lover having the passion to kill to arouse my suspicions.”
“Or the wronged husband,” I said. “Steve could have done it, but I don’t think Faith has it in her.”
Maddy pointed the remnant of her cinnamon bun at me. “But then again, did you think there was the slightest chance she was having an affair with Richard Olsen before I found that letter?”
“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t see that coming. So, we talk to Faith and Steve Baron.”
“But not at the same time,” Maddy said.
“Of course not. Who else is on our list?”
She finished her bite, then said, “I’d love to know who he was blackmailing, and where all that money came from. You should have seen Sheila’s face when she saw how much money was in Richard’s checking account. I thought she was having a heart attack.”
I thought about that a moment, then asked, “How sure are you that what you saw was sincere?”
“Pretty sure, why?”
“I’m just thinking, if she knew she was on that checking account, and how much was really in there, it would make a pretty nice motive for murder, don’t you think?”
“She wasn’t faking it,” Maddy insisted. “I caught her when she passed out, remember? She was all dead weight.”
I took a bite, then had another sip of coffee. “Okay, what if the size of the account was a surprise, but not the fact that she was included? Could that be why she fainted on you?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Maddy allowed.
“As likely as Faith having an affair with Richard Olsen?”
She thought about it, then nodded. “I’d say they’re about equal.”
“So we add Sheila Olsen to our list. Who else makes the cut?”
“You mean besides the person being blackmailed? There’s one thing we never considered.”
“What’s that?”
Maddy said, “What if Richard earned that money honestly? It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Working for a company that shreds paper? I don’t see how.” Then another thought struck me. “Could he have been stealing from his employer?”
“I guess so,” Maddy said. “Though that might be hard to find out. I don’t even know who owns the business.”
“Neither do I, but it could be an important thing to find out.” I finished my bun, then a sudden thought struck home. “I wonder if Richard himself handled any of the documents that had to be shredded.”
It didn’t take Maddy two seconds to catch on. “Do you think he was fishing in the documents for reasons to blackmail someone?”
“Or even more than one person,” I said. “Who’s to say he did it just once?”
Maddy shook her head. “The poor man’s dead, and we’re doing everything in our power to ruin his reputation before he’s even in his grave.”
“Come on, he wasn’t exactly an angel. It appears that several people had their own reasons to wish him harm.”
“And according to the police, even you.”
“You don’t need to bring that up,” I said. “There’s one person we’ve left out so far. We need to put Penny Olsen on the list of suspects.”
Penny ran Penny’s Antiques, a boutique that offered only the best-quality furniture and other heirlooms.
“That’s it, blame it on the ex-wife,” Maddy said. “Take the low road, why don’t you.”
“What, is there some kind of club you all belong to? If there is, are you the president?”
“There’s no club,” she said. “And just because I’ve been divorced a few times doesn’t mean that I’d be in charge, even if there were one.”
“We need to talk to her, Maddy,” I repeated.
“Fine, have it your way. Penny’s on the list, too.” She frowned, then asked, “I wonder if you’ll hear another word from Kevin about that block thrown through your car window?”
“That reminds me, I need to call Bob Pickering and have him take care of the Subaru before I forget.” I reached for the phone and dialed the number on the list of emergency contacts on the side of my fridge.
Bob answered on the second ring. “Pickering Auto and Problem Solving,” he said before he knew who was calling.
“That’s good, because I’ve got a problem I need solved.”
He chuckled, then said, “Sorry, Eleanor, I don’t get involved in ongoing police investigations.” There was a pause, and then he added, “Not usually.”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be bad. I need you to pick up my Subaru in back of the pizzeria and replace the driver’s side window. You’ve still got that spare key, don’t you?”
“I do. I can’t imagine who would throw a cinder block through your window. What’s gotten into people lately?”
“How did you hear about it?”
“I picked it up on my scanner last night. I leave it on when I go to bed. It’s like white noise usually, but when your name was mentioned, it woke me right up.”
“A block through my window didn’t do much for me, either,” I said. “Can you take care of it?”
“Consider it done,” he said. “I’ll have it ready for you in three days.”
“Three days?” How could I get along without my car for three days? “Can you do any better than that, Bob?”
He hesitated, then said, “I might be able to squeeze you in today sometime, but it’ll be late before I’m finished.”
“Tell you what, if you get it done tonight, bring it back to the Slice and I’ll make you your favorite pizza on the house as a bonus for prompt service. How does that sound?”
“Like I’m going to be eating dinner on you,” he said.
After he hung up, Maddy said, “I don’t even want to hear what that was about. I can’t believe you’re giving away food.”
“Joe would have approved,” I said. “He had a soft spot in his heart for Bob Pickering.”
“Let’s face it, your dear late husband liked an awful lot of unusual characters. He collected them like kids used to collect baseball cards.”
“I know. That was one of the things I loved most about him. Now that that’s taken care of, let me finish drying my hair and we can get started.”
“May
be by then we’ll know who we’re going to tackle first,” Maddy said.
Maddy followed me upstairs, and as I finished my hair and put on my make-up, she sat on the edge of my bed.
My sister looked at me, and after a few seconds, she said, “I think we should tackle the Barons first.”
I put down my eyelash curler, something Joe had said looked like a medieval torture device, and stared at her. “Both of them? Don’t you think that might get a little dicey? What if Steve doesn’t know his wife was having an affair? You know the man’s temper. It might not be the best thing giving him a reason to explode.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve got another idea. You talk to Steve, and I’ll handle Faith.”
“No,” I said with enough force to get her attention.
“Okay, settle down. There’s no need to get your shorts in a knot. You can have Faith, and I’ll take Steve.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “We’re not splitting up, do you understand? This is serious business. If we’re right, we’re going to be talking to a killer in the next few days, and I don’t think it’s something we should be doing by ourselves.”
“Do you honestly think it will make much difference if there are two of us? It’s not like we walk around town armed or anything.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out my pepper spray. “I’ve got this.”
Maddy laughed as she reached into her own bag and pulled out a sleek black handheld device. “I’m not unarmed, either.”
“What’s that?”
She said, “It’s a stun gun. I got it at Molly Madison’s party.”
“As a favor?” I asked as I studied it in her hand.
“It wasn’t that kind of party. It’s like Tupperware or lingerie. Home-safety parties are popping up all over the place. I’m surprised you weren’t invited.”
A Slice of Murder Page 9