Bacon Cheddar Murder: Book 2 in Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series

by Benning,Patti

  Her friend was silent for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. Feeling sorry for myself won’t help anything. I have to focus on what’s important.” A determined glint came into her eye.

  “What are you thinking?” Ellie asked, feeling a prickling of concern.

  “I’m thinking I need to do what’s right. I need to do what Chloe and Anthony would have wanted. I need to go public with everything I know so far about the story.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked her friend, knowing that it was too late to change her mind. She recognized that determined look from their high school days. It couldn’t hurt to try anyway, though. “I mean; you don’t know that the killings were related to the bad fish from a few months ago. It’s really just guessing and… and coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Shannon said. “Reporters would never get anywhere if they ignored obvious connections that were right in front of them.”

  “Okay, say you’re right and Anthony and Chloe were both killed because they got too close to revealing who was responsible for the bad fish that killed that old man. Don’t you think that he might set his sights on you next if you go public with everything?”

  “I—” her friend faltered. “Maybe. You’re right, he probably will. But James and Russell would protect me, don’t you think? If the killer tries to come after me, he might even end up getting caught.”

  “Shannon, you’re scaring me. If you have information that might help the investigation, then give it to Russell. In secret. Don’t go public with it. It’s not work the risk,” Ellie said, stopping in her tracks and turning to face the other woman. “I mean it.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her friend took a deep breath. “I want to do this. This is what I wanted to be a journalist for. To give the public the truth. To find answers that no one else can. Not to… to report on the outcome of the latest quilting competition.”

  Ellie fell silent, staring at her friend, trying to judge how committed Shannon was to this insane idea. “Shannon… be careful, all right?” she said at last. “I don’t want to see you getting hurt next.”

  “I will be,” Shannon promised. “I don’t want to join Anthony and Chloe in that gazebo. All I want is to stop the killings. Now, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go and talk to my boss. If we hurry, we might be able to get the story in in time for the morning paper.”

  With that her friend was gone, disappearing into the crowd and leaving Ellie staring after her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The little sleep that Ellie got that night was punctuated by increasingly frightening nightmares. Her anxiety for Shannon boiled over into her subconscious, leading to terrible dreams of finding her friend murdered or grievously injured. She woke up gasping a few times, and when she looked over at her clock was always surprised to find how little time had passed.

  When at last the first rays of morning light came streaming in the window, Ellie nudged Bunny awake and sneaked down the stairs, careful not to wake the bird. She slipped into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, then headed out onto the front porch with Bunny. She had no idea when the paper got delivered, but was determined not to miss it. She had to know if Shannon had actually gone through with it and had published whatever she had dug up on the case of the bad fish.

  It was another chilly morning, but this time Ellie had brought an old wool blanket out with her. She wrapped it around her shoulders and sipped her steaming coffee as she stared out across the street at the ocean in the distance. It was grey right now, but once the sun came up higher she knew the waves would be dancing with reflected light. It was a beautiful view, but she couldn’t take the time to enjoy it; instead, she looked anxiously up and down the street for the man who delivered the newspapers.

  After what felt like ages she heard the puttering of an old car. She looked to her right and saw a vehicle coming from the direction of town. It paused at each house, and the driver tossed a newspaper in a thin plastic bag onto every driveway. Ellie stood up, holding Bunny in her arms. It seemed forever for the newspaper delivery man to reach her grandmother’s house, but at last he pulled up to the end of the driveway and handed her the paper with a nod before driving to the next house. Anxious to read what was inside, Ellie went back indoors with her dog and sat at the kitchen table with her half-full cup of coffee to read the news.

  When she saw the front page, her tight muscles unclenched. It was simply a story about the vigil the night before, asking for prayers for the families of the deceased and warning people to lock their doors and not go out at night, especially alone. She turned the page idly, believing that Shannon hadn’t managed to get her story in on time. Her relief was cut short by what she saw on the second page.

  It was a long paragraph, detailing the fish fiasco from a few months ago and the steps that the journalists at the Kittiport Times had taken to investigate it. The section ended with a warning.

  It is believed that the recent murders of Anthony Reeves and Chloe McCullough may be related to the bad fish incident, which led to the death of an innocent man. If you have any information involving any of these three cases, please contact the sheriff’s department directly.

  The number to the department was listed, along with a headshot of Shannon. Ellie stared at the picture for a moment, nearly overwhelmed with fear for her friend. Then she took a deep breath and began to read the rest of the article. Shannon had published it in hopes that one of her readers might know something—anything—that could lead to the capture of the killer. The least she could do was read what her friend had written.

  She skimmed through the first few sentences, which only covered what she already knew. A few months ago, a delivery of out-of-season fish had been made to a few different restaurants around town, including the White Pine Kitchen. An elderly man had eaten some and had passed away a few days later due to complications from food poisoning. Many other people around town had also gotten ill, though none as seriously as he had. The restaurants had been inspected, and it had been determined that none of them was at fault for mishandling the fish. After that, the investigation seemed to have stalled… or the official investigation, anyway.

  Ellie scanned the article, looking for something useful. When she saw a business name that she recognized, she gasped. East Coast Delivery and Cold Storage had been the company that stored and transported the fish. If something went wrong while they were storing it—a power outage or something—then that could mean the fish went bad on their watch, she thought.

  She got up and went to the study to get her laptop. Bringing it back to the kitchen table, she searched for the company online. Shannon had mentioned them for a reason. Did she think they had something to do with the bad fish… and the subsequent murders? Ellie knew that Clayton’s uncle owned the company, but she didn’t know much beyond that. Could his uncle be the killer?

  She pulled up the company’s website, and was both disappointed and relieved to see the picture of Clayton’s uncle, Jedidiah Burke. He was a frail-looking elderly man, not at all what she had been picturing. There was no way he could have killed two people, and dragged a body through the forest and dumped it in the river.

  Well, that’s that, she thought. Someone else must be the killer. She looked through the article again, but Shannon hadn’t mentioned anyone else by name. Ellie bit her lip, dissecting her own memories as she stared at the page. If the killer wasn’t Jedidiah Burke, then who was it? Someone else related to the company, desperate to keep it from being shut down when their responsibility in the fish fiasco was exposed.

  Ellie felt like a ball of ice had suddenly materialized in the pit of her stomach. Jedidiah might be too old to be committing any murders, but his nephew, Clayton, sure wasn’t.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Any luck?” Ellie asked, pressing her cellphone hard against her ear.

  “No. He’s not working today, and his cellphone is out of service range,” the sheriff said from the other end
. “We’ll keep looking, but honestly, I’m not so sure it’s him.”

  “It has to be,” she said. “It all makes sense. If his uncle’s cold storage units had some sort of malfunction, then they could be responsible for the fish going bad and the old man dying. Something like that, especially in a community this small, could put them out of business. Or get them sued. Killing to protect your job is good enough motive, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not saying I disagree with you, Ms. Pacelli. I did send Liam out to track the kid down, after all. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions. For example, how does Anthony Reeves fit in to all of this?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said, sitting down in frustration. “Maybe he used to work for the Burkes. If so, he might have known that they were responsible for the fish going bad.”

  “If they’re the ones responsible,” Russell reminded her gently. She heard him sigh. “I’ll look into it. Hold on a second, I should have his employment records on my computer still…”

  She waited, tapping her fingernails on the table. It was well past noon. She had spent the last few hours anxiously waiting for updates, and had only recently given in and called the sheriff’s department herself.

  “Hmm,” Sheriff Ward said at last. “It looks like Reeves’s last known place of employment was at East Coast Delivery and Cold Storage. You may be on to something here. I’m going to head out and see if I can’t find this Clayton kid myself.”

  “Wait,” Ellie said before he hung up the phone. “Shannon… is she safe?”

  “She’s fine,” he assured her. “For security reasons, I can’t tell you where she is, but she’s with James and an armed deputy. We’re aware that she might be the killer’s next target due to that article she wrote. We aren’t going to let anything happen to her.”

  “Good,” she breathed. “And good luck finding Clayton. I don’t want him to have the chance to hurt anyone else.”

  Ellie waited. And waited. The hours passed by slowly, but still there was no call from Shannon, telling her that Clayton had been found. She managed to resist calling the sheriff’s department again, knowing that Russell was already doing all he could to catch the murderer, but the not knowing was killing her. She had already called Jacob and Rose and let them know that she wouldn’t be in to the pizzeria today—there was no way she would be able to concentrate. Instead she busied herself by tidying up around the house, always staying close to her cellphone so she wouldn’t miss a call.

  Gradually the afternoon wore on into evening, and Ellie still hadn’t received news from anyone. She wondered if Clayton had read the article and fled, knowing that someone was bound to give his name to the police.

  This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my Thursday evening, she thought, leaning back in the chair at the desk in her grandfather’s study. Thursday evening… why did that seem so important? Suddenly she sat up straight. Thursday evening! Clara and Clayton’s date.

  She picked up her phone with shaking fingers and dialed the sheriff’s department. The receptionist told her that Sheriff Ward wasn’t in, and Ellie ground her teeth in frustration.

  “Can you put me through to his cellphone?” she asked. “It’s important.”

  “Yes, just a second and I’ll transfer you,” the woman replied.

  Ellie waited while the phone beeped and buzzed in her ear. Her heart leapt when it finally rang once, then sank again as a recorded message began to play, prompting her to leave a message. She quickly told Russell about the date, then hung up. Either his phone’s battery was dead, or he was somewhere out of cell service—she was guessing the latter. There was no telling when he would hear it… and the date was in half an hour.

  I need to warn Clara. She shouldn’t be alone with Clayton, Ellie thought. She flipped through her phone’s contacts, and sighed in annoyance when she realized that she didn’t have Clara’s number; it was pinned up in the pizzeria’s kitchen just like all of the other employee’s numbers.

  “Clara has to know,” she said at last, reluctantly accepting the knowledge that she was going to have to drive out to the White Pine Kitchen herself.

  She tried calling the sheriff twice more on her way there, but got the same message both times. The little, logical voice in her head telling her that Clara probably wasn’t in any danger was drowned out by the memories of all of the television shows and books she had read where innocent young women met their fates at the hands of cruel killers.

  She parked her car right outside the restaurant and hurried in, barely pausing to notice the gorgeous entranceway or the soothing music that greeted her as she walked through the doors.

  “Can I help you?” the host asked, remaining calm despite the fact that she had just burst in.

  “I’m meeting someone,” she gasped as she hurried past him, her eyes scanning the tables. She had to be somewhere… there. She spotted Clara and Clayton at a table near the back, just being served drinks.

  She wove her way through the restaurant, stopping only when she drew near the table. Now if only she could draw Clara’s attention without Clayton noticing her…

  “Ms. Pacelli?” the young woman said, shocked. Clayton spun around in his seat and Ellie winced.

  “Come with me, Clara. It’s an emergency,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? Did something happen at the pizzeria?”

  “No… it’s nothing like that. Please, just trust me. Come here…”

  Clara, confused, looked between her date and her boss. “Ms. Pacelli… I’m kind of busy here. What’s going on?”

  Ellie’s breath hissed between her teeth. She watched Clayton warily, expecting him to make his move at any moment. She decided to throw caution to the wind. What was important right now was getting Clara out of there.

  “He’s the killer, Clara. We have to leave, it’s not safe.”

  “What?” the young woman asked in a high-pitched voice. They were beginning to draw attention to themselves, which as far at Ellie was concerned, was just fine. The more witnesses there were, the less likely it was that the young man would try something.

  “What are you talking about, Ms. P?” Clayton asked, looking back and forth between her and Clara. “Look, sit back down Clara, I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Yes you did. You did it to protect your uncle’s business. The fish—“

  “You think he killed that guy and the reporter lady?” Clara asked, hovering between sitting and standing, shooting a confused glance at Clayton.

  “It all makes sense,” Ellie said, trying to gather her thoughts. “Think about it, Clara. Anthony—the first person who got killed—used to work for the same delivery company that Clayton’s uncle owns. He was trying to cover his tracks.”

  “Whoa, Anthony started working with us just a couple of weeks ago,” Clayton said. “You’re talking about that incident with the rotten fish that gave that old dude food poisoning, right? Tony didn’t start at my uncle’s company until after that. He got fired by his previous employer, some dude named Shawn, and my uncle decided to give him a chance.”

  “Besides, he couldn’t have killed that reporter,” Clara said, sounding more confident now. “She was killed Monday night, right? And found the next morning? Well, Clayton and I saw a movie, and I dropped him off at his apartment after since his car is in the shop. He doesn’t even live in Kittiport, so there’s no way he would have been able to get back to town and kill someone after I said goodbye to him.”

  Ellie opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out. She felt heat rise in her cheeks as she began to realize her mistake. “I’m sorry, I… I just thought… Wait, did you say he went to work for someone named Shawn?”

  Clayton nodded cautiously. Both he and Clara were looking at her like she had gone off the deep end.

  “I’m so sorry, you two,” she said. “I’ll explain everything later. I’ve got to go.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ellie hurried out to her car, ignoring the wary looks an
d hushed murmurs of the people she passed on her way out of the restaurant. The second she got into the driver’s seat, she picked up her cellphone and tried calling Sheriff Ward again. It went to voicemail, so she left him another message, telling him to ignore her previous message and that she had a new idea about who the killer was.

  After hanging up, she sat in her car in silence for a long moment, wondering what she was going to do. She needed to tell somebody what she had realized, but she had no idea where she could find the sheriff or his deputies. No, she realized, that’s not true. Russell told me where one of his deputies would be… guarding Shannon. She put her car into gear and pulled out of the restaurant’s parking lot. She didn’t know where Shannon was, but Kittiport was a small town—there weren’t that many places she could be. She decided to check her friend’s house first, since it was on the way, and then stop at the sheriff’s department on the off chance that they were there.

  She pulled up to her friend’s house, disappointed to see no sign of a police cruiser. The sheriff must have them stashed somewhere else for protection, she thought. But where? The sheriff’s department? Somewhere else completely? She was just about to pull away when she noticed something odd. Both Shannon and James’s cars were in the driveway. Was it possible that they were here, but the deputy had left? Ellie bit her lip, then decided to take the extra few seconds to go knock on the door and see. If they were there, she could at least tell Shannon that she suspected Shawn Franks and see if her suppositions matched the facts.

  She left her car idling on the curb and walked across the grass to her friend’s front door. She knocked, paused, then knocked again, listening for footsteps all the while. Just as she was about to give up and go to the sheriff’s department, she heard someone approaching from the other side. The door opened, and she looked up expecting to see Shannon or her husband. Instead she saw the face of the very last person she wanted to run into—Shawn Franks.