Chicken Pesto Murder: Book 5 in The Darling Deli Series

by Patti Benning

  “I have to go,” David said when he hung up. He dug into his new wallet and put some bills on the table. Moira looked up at him, concerned. Had something gone wrong with one of his cases?

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “They want me down at the police station,” he told her. “They said they have some questions to ask me. You should finish up here. Visit with Denise.” He gave her a small half smile. “I’m sure it’s just about the dog thief.” Moira couldn’t help noticing how worried he looked as he walked away.

  * * *

  David walked into the police station, going over his brief telephone conversation with the detective. Nothing had been said to indicate that he was in any sort of trouble, but he had picked up on something off in the detective’s tone. Why was he being asked to come to the station so late in the evening? Surely anything to do with the dog thief could wait until tomorrow.

  “David Morris,” he told the woman behind the counter at the police station “I’m here to see Detective Jefferson.”

  “I’ll let him know,” she said. “Have a seat.” He obediently went to sit in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, but had barely reached the seat when a door opened and Jefferson poked his head out.

  “David,” he said. “Thanks for coming down to the station. Come with me.”

  He followed the detective down the familiar halls, and was surprised when they stopped in front of the suspect interview room instead of continuing to Jefferson’s office. What was going on? Had the dog thief decided to talk before his lawyer got there? If so, why would they need him there? Usually, once David turned a criminal in to the police, the matter was out of his hands. He wasn’t involved with the investigation past that point at all. So what was going on here?

  “Right in here, if you will,” the detective said. David preceded him through the door. Instead of seeing Mikey Strauss sitting at the table in the center of the room, there was a uniformed officer standing in the corner. There were only two plain metal chairs in the room, one on each side of the table. David sat in the one on the far side from the officer, and Jefferson sat across from him. He looked sad, which scared David more than anything.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” the detective asked.

  “No,” David said honestly. “I thought at first that it must be something to do with the Strauss guy that got arrested yesterday, but I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Well, you’re mostly right about that,” Jefferson said. “This is a much more serious matter than someone selling stolen dogs.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go over the night of the retirement party again, David.”

  “What do you want to know?” He felt sick. Enough time had passed since the murder for him to start hoping either that the police had found another suspect or had decided that they didn’t have enough evidence against him. It looked like he had been wrong.

  “Where were you that evening?”

  “I was at the party, with Moira. I’m sure other people saw me there too. We already talked about this—”

  “I just want to make sure that I’m getting the facts straight, David,” the detective said. “Bear with me. Now, we both know that you arrived to the party later in the evening than Moira did. Can you tell me where you were before that?”

  “I was at the office, working on a case.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “No.” David sighed. He’d told the detective all of this already, and his answers weren’t going to change.

  “What route did you take when you were driving from your office to the party?”

  “Um, I’m not sure,” he replied, thrown for a moment. This was new. “I took Main Street to Greene, I think, and then parked on the street.” The detective scribbled a note.

  “Do you remember what you were wearing that night?” Another new question. Where was the detective going with this?

  “Ah… a black duster, black jeans, and a dark green button-down shirt, I think.” He only remembered because he had changed at the office right before meeting Moira at Fitzgerald’s retirement party. He had spilled coffee on his other clothes earlier in the day, and hadn’t wanted to show up to the party stained and smelling like a cappuccino.

  “When we interviewed you last week, you were favoring your arm. Do you remember how you injured it?”

  “A biking accident. I’ve been trying to exercise more regularly lately.” He had already answered this question, too. Why was Jefferson going over all of this again? “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?” he asked the detective. “Am I being held here, or am I free to leave?”

  “I hate to say this, David, but I’m going to have to hold you here overnight.” The young detective sighed and, with a weary expression, gestured to the officer in the corner. “You’re being placed under arrest for the murder of Detective Fitzgerald. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Jefferson’s voice faded away as David sat back in shock. Under arrest? For murder? His mind was numb, and he almost didn’t believe it—until he felt the cold steel of the handcuffs tightening around his wrists.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  David’s car was still in the parking lot when Moira pulled into the station. She hadn’t let herself worry too much when he left the restaurant to answer questions for the police, but when he hadn’t called her by the time she got home, she had started to worry. How long could it take to answer a few questions? She had decided to drive by the station, telling herself that she could stop at the grocery store on the way back—she and Candice were almost out of coffee at the house, which was an emergency in its own right.

  Now she wasn’t sure what to do. If David was still answering questions, she wouldn’t want to interrupt him. But what if something else was going on? He had looked worried after the call at the restaurant, and she hadn’t been able to get his expression out of her mind. She would go in, she decided. Just to make sure everything was all right.

  Someone was already speaking to the woman behind the bulletproof glass at the counter, so Moira took a seat. She had been in this building so often in the last few months that she felt like she knew it almost as well as she knew the deli. A quick glance at the small stack of magazines showed her that there weren’t any new issues to browse through, so she began fiddling with her phone, doing her best to not listen in to the argument taking place only a few feet in front of her.

  “But I need my truck,” said the man at the counter.

  “It’s been impounded, sir. I’m sorry, but the impound lot won’t be open until eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, how do you expect me to get home?” The man was getting belligerent.

  “I can call a taxi service, or you can call a friend or family member for a ride.”

  “Great,” the man snarled. “Call the darn taxi. Tell them I need to go to Pineview Apartments, building number three. This totally sucks. When will I get my truck back?”

  “You’ll have to pick it up from impound in the morning.”

  “Fine. This is totally screwing me up.”

  The man grabbed a plastic bag containing a few personal items and turned towards the door. Moira barely held back a gasp when she saw his face. It was the man with the spiky hair—though the gelled spikes were drooping now—that had been rude to her at the deli. What was he doing here? Something about his outfit looked familiar, but it took her a second to place the gray sweatshirt and the sneakers. When she realized who this man must be, it was all that she could do not to exclaim out loud. This must be the dog thief.

  Moira kept her eyes on him until he left the building, then stood on shaky legs and, still trying to make sense of what was going on, approached the woman behind the glass. She knew that she wouldn’t have any luck asking about the man that had just left, but maybe she could at least find out where David was. She wondered if he knew that the guy that he had nabbed had just walked out of the building.

&
nbsp; “Hi,” she said to the woman. “Um, I’m Moira Darling. I’m just wondering if David Morris is still here?”

  “Just a second, dear,” the woman said. She typed something into the computer, asked Moira to spell his last name—which she did—and then typed again. “He’s here, but he isn’t allowed visitors for twenty-four hours,” she said. “Unless you’re his lawyer. Are you his lawyer?” She squinted at the deli owner over her glasses, assessing how lawyerly she looked.

  “Visitors?” Moira asked, confused. Realization dawned slowly. “Wait, he hasn’t been arrested, has he?” The woman nodded.

  “Sorry, hon. Are you a relation?”

  “No.” She felt faint. What had happened? Why had David been arrested, and the thief had walked free? “If I can’t see him, can I at least see Detective Jefferson?”

  “I’ll page him. Have a seat, honey. You look pale.”

  A few minutes later, Detective Jefferson walked into the room. He looked exhausted, and not at all surprised to see her.

  “Come on back,” he said. “Do you want a coffee?” She realized how late it was; the detective must be running on fumes.

  “I shouldn’t,” she said. “I’ll be up all night. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  They walked back through the station to his office. For the first time, Moira wondered where the holding cells were. What were they like? Was David comfortable?

  “I know why you’re here,” he said as he shut the office door behind them. “And I don’t think I can help you, but I’ll answer questions if I can.”

  “Why did you arrest him?” she asked. “I thought you didn’t believe that he was the killer.”

  “I don’t know what I believe.” The detective sat down heavily in his leather chair. “All I know is that, legally, I have enough evidence linking him to the crime to hold him for forty-eight hours. I need that time to figure some things out.”

  “How can you have evidence linking him to something that he didn’t do?” Moira asked.

  “There was a witness, Moira,” Jefferson said in a dull voice. “Someone that saw him leaving Fitzgerald’s home the night that he was killed.”

  This news stunned her, sent her reeling as her mind tried to take it in. A witness? But David would have told her if he had been at Fitzgerald’s house that night, wouldn’t he have?

  “What if the witness is lying?” she said after a moment.

  “He could be,” the detective acknowledged. “But he was able to correctly describe the coat that David was wearing that night. David corroborated it himself.”

  “David almost always wears the same coat,” Moira said. “That doesn’t mean anything. He loves his duster. Who was the witness?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Jefferson said with a grimace. “I really shouldn’t be discussing any of this with you, but I absolutely cannot give out any personal information.”

  She barely heard him, because her mind was already spinning. It was starting to make sense; the guy that got arrested because of David’s investigative work just walked free, while the private investigator himself was in jail.

  “It was the dog thief, wasn’t it?” she asked. “That Mikey Strauss guy.” Detective Jefferson didn’t say anything, just stared at her. If only I could remember where I saw him before, she thought. She was almost certain that the deli hadn’t been the first time she’d seen him. She closed her eyes, digging through her memories, and then suddenly got it. She had seen him before he had come into the deli to buy soup. He had been one of the onlookers during the argument between David and Detective Fitzgerald outside the Redwood Grill. The only question was why would he lie about seeing David come out of Fitzgerald’s house? Even if she didn’t firmly believe that the private investigator was innocent, she would be suspicious of such a large coincidence.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” she told Detective Jefferson. “I’ll be back tomorrow to visit David.” She gave him a weak smile before rising to leave. There was something she had to check.

  The Redwood Grill was so dark when she pulled into the parking lot that she was worried that no one would be there. She was relieved to see a car sitting at the edge of the parking lot; at least the building wouldn’t be completely empty. It was later than she had thought, but this really couldn’t wait until morning. Not with David’s freedom on the line. She crossed her fingers, and was rewarded with even more good luck when Denise answered her pounding at the door.

  “Moira?” the red-headed woman said, gazing at her friend in surprise. “What is it?”

  “I need to see your security footage from two weeks ago,” Moira said. “Do you still have it?”

  “All of our footage is stored for twelve weeks,” the restaurant owner explained. “But why do you need to see it?”

  “It’s David. He’s in jail, and the police think he murdered someone, but I might be able to prove that he didn’t.” It was a rushed explanation, but luckily the other woman seemed to accept it.

  “What cameras do you need to see footage from?” she asked. Moira glanced up at the two video cameras hidden just above the restaurant’s front door on the outside.

  “Those,” she said, pointing up.

  “Follow me, we can watch it in my office.”

  It took them a few tries to find the right date, but when they did, they found the argument between the two men easily enough. It was an odd experience to watch the encounter on a small monitor through a fisheye lens. Moira felt guilty, like she was invading David’s privacy, but she knew that if her hunch was right, this might be the only way to free him.

  “It doesn’t do audio,” Denise said apologetically.

  “That’s fine,” she replied, hoping that her blush wouldn’t show up in the dim lighting from the TV’s screen. She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t want to listen to the argument anyway. If David didn’t want to tell her, that was his right and she shouldn’t try to find out what it was about behind his back. “I just need to see something…”

  She paused and rewound the video, leaning forward to peer at the screen. She thought that she had seen something fall out of David’s pocket… there. A small, square black shape fell out of his coat pocket as he gestured angrily. That must have been his wallet. She let the video play for a few seconds longer, watching herself come out of the restaurant and the two men stop arguing. Both looked embarrassed, she could tell by their postures. What on earth had they been talking about? Why did they both stop so suddenly when she came through the door?

  The video continued to play, showing them walk away. A few more seconds passed, and then someone stepped into view from the side. She recognized his spiky hairdo immediately, even though he was wearing a different shirt than he had been wearing today. Mikey Strauss. He bent down and picked up David’s wallet. He rifled through it, and she saw him pocket the cash before he walked away, David’s wallet still in his hand.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Detective Jefferson, please. It’s Moira Darling, the detective and I spoke earlier tonight,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. She was sitting in her car in the dark parking lot of the Redwood Grill. It had started to rain, and the water drummed on the roof of the car. She usually found the sound comforting, but right now the added distraction was just irritating.

  “He just left,” came the woman’s voice. “Can I take a message?” Moira bit back a groan of frustration.

  “It’s an emergency. Can I have his personal number?” she asked.

  “We can’t give out that information. Can’t this wait until tomorrow? It’s very late. If it’s a real emergency, you should hang up and call nine-one-one.”

  “Please,” the deli owner said desperately. “It’s not that sort of emergency, but I need to talk to him right now. If you can’t give me his number, can you call him for me?”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll call him and give him the message.” The dispatcher sighed. “Give me a moment to pull it up.”

  Moira drummed her
fingers on the steering wheel as she waited. She was relieved when Detective Jefferson called her back almost immediately. She quickly explained what she had discovered and waited for him to process the information.

  “If what you’re saying is true, then I just let my partner’s murderer walk out the door of the police station,” he said quietly. “Do you have a copy of the video?”

  “Denise emailed me the footage,” she told him. “I can forward it to you.”

  “Please do. I’ll need to review it, and go over a few things at the police station,” he said. “If you’re right, we may have this in the bag by tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to arrest him until tomorrow?” Moira asked, shocked. “What if he escapes? He could be leaving town right now.”

  “There’s a process to these things. I can’t just go arresting whoever I feel like. I want the real murderer in jail just as much as you do, but I have to follow procedure. I don’t know how long all of this will take.” He paused. “Go home, Moira. Get some sleep. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, or David will when we release him. Thank you for your help.” He hung up, leaving Moira with a silent phone pressed against her ear.

  There is no way I’m going to be able to get any sleep tonight, she thought as his ridiculous advice echoed in her ears. Not with David in jail and the real murderer free to disappear. But what more could she do? Bothering the police wouldn’t do any good. Detective Jefferson had already been far nicer to her than he had needed to be, and although it was frustrating that he couldn’t just rush over and arrest Mikey Strauss on her say-so, it was a good thing that he was following procedure.