A Pizza To Die For

by None

  “Don’t worry. We won’t keep you,” I said.

  “Stay,” he said with a smile. “I’ll flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED, and we can chat a little. I’ve been talking to Maddy about the Halloween Blowout. I can’t wait.”

  “I nearly forgot all about it,” I admitted. It was my favorite event at my most special time of year, and the pallor of Judson’s murder had nearly wiped it from my mind.

  “How could you do that? It’s in three days, Eleanor. You’all are participating again, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” I said as I reached for the cinnamon bun. “We’re making little ghost pizzas with mozzarella cheese this year. How about you?”

  He grinned. “That’s why I’m here now. I’ve been trying some things out in the back. Would you like to see what I’ve been able to come up with so far?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  He jumped up, went back into his kitchen, and then returned a minute later.

  “What do you think?”

  He presented a tray filled with all kinds of kid-friendly spooky confections. There were white glazed ghosts, black frosted bats, and yellow iced moons laid out for our inspection.

  “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.”

&n
bsp; “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

  “This 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.”