As he put the car into gear, Moira said, “You look pretty handsome yourself.”
It was true. He seemed to have gone the extra step for this date himself: he was wearing a well-fitted black suit, his hair had been styled back, and he smelled of her favorite cologne.
“Only the best for you,” he said with a smile.
The Redwood Grill was as busy as they’d ever seen it, but they didn’t have to wait even a minute for their table. The hostess walked them back, leaving them with their menus and promising to have their drinks out soon.
“Denise runs a tight ship,” Moira said, impressed. Every other table in the restaurant was packed, and she was surprised that they hadn’t had to wait a few minutes, even with their reservation.
“She definitely goes the extra mile,” David said, just as a chilled bottle of champagne along with two flutes were delivered to their table.
“Oh, but we didn’t order—” Moira began.
“On the house,” the waiter said, winking at her.
“What’s wrong?” David asked after the waiter had gone.
“Oh, I’m just trying to remember if Denise owes me for anything,” the deli owner said. “She made sure our table was free right away even though she’s slammed tonight, she sent the champagne… and look, isn’t this one of her fancy tablecloths?” She plucked at the shimmering white cloth.
“Maybe she’s just being a good friend?” he suggested, taking her hand.
“Oh, she’s a great friend,” Moira said. “She just usually isn’t this nice.”
“Not every mystery needs to be solved,” David said with a chuckle. “Let’s decide what we’re eating. It looks like they changed the menus again.”
Indeed they had, and the promise of trying a new entree distracted her from wondering what had gotten into Denise.
“Oh my goodness, it’s going to be hard to choose,” she said after perusing the menu. “What do you think you’re going to get?”
“Mmm? Oh, probably just steak and potatoes,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m thinking about the pasta with lamb ragu,” she told him. “It looks delicious.”
He smiled over at her, and she noticed that he hadn’t even opened his menu.
“Don’t you want to see what their new dishes are?” she asked. “They’ve got some sort of shepherd’s pie… it looks like something you’d like.”
“I’m not feeling super hungry right now,” he admitted. “I’d better stick to the basics. Besides, you can’t go wrong with a good steak.”
“David, are you feeling all right?” she asked him. On closer inspection, he did look slightly odd. His hand was shaking a bit, and he looked a shade paler than normal.
“I’m fine,” he promised her. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“All right…” Before she could say anything else, her phone buzzed from inside her purse. “It’s Reggie,” she said as she pulled it out. She shot David a quick glance, not wanting to be rude, but also curious to know what the elderly man could possibly want this late in the evening.
“Go ahead,” he said with a smile. “I know if you don’t answer it, you’re going to be fretting about it all during dinner. I’m just as interested as you are to find out why he’s calling right now.”
“I’ll keep it short,” she promised. She hit the button to answer the call.
“Reggie, it’s me. Is everything all right?”
“Moira,” the old man said in a low voice. “You need to get over here right now. Bring David. I know who killed Beatrice and Delilah, and it wasn’t Danny.”
“What?” she asked, her own voice low and urgent. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“She’ll be back any minute,” he said. “You’ve got to hurry… I think she killed Danny too.”
“Reggie, what—” But it was too late; he had hung up.
Moira glanced up at David, her heart pounding. “We have to go, now.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning.
“Reggie is in trouble,” she told him. “He thinks that someone other than Danny killed those two women… and from what I gathered, she might be on to him.”
David spared one regretful look at the champagne, then turned to her with a look of resolve. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll drive; you phone the police.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“They said they’re going to send a unit out immediately,” Moira told David. She turned off her phone’s screen and leaned her head back against the seat’s headrest with a sigh of relief. “Are we almost there?”
David didn’t answer. His grip on the wheel was so tight that his knuckles were white.
“David?” she said, then paused, her eyes searching the dark forest rushing by. She had been distracted by her phone call to the police when they pulled out of the Redwood Grill’s parking lot, and hadn’t been paying attention to the turns that they had been taking. Was it possible…? “David, are we going to my house?”
He nodded, still not speaking or meeting her gaze.
“What?” She sat bolt upright. “Reggie needs us! We have to go to Misty Pines.”
“I’m not putting you into danger, Moira,” he said. “I can’t just drive you into a confrontation with a killer and a whole squad of police. I’m going to drop you off at your house, then go and see what I can do to help.”
“But…” She trailed off. Arguing would be of no use. She saw the determination in his face, and had known him long enough to be able to tell when he had made an unshakable decision.
Reggie, she thought. I’m sorry…
He pulled up to her house and left his car running as he walked her to her door. “I’ll come in for just a second. I want to make a call.”
Without speaking to him she unlocked her front door and sat angrily on the couch while he pulled out his cellphone and walked into the other room. She wasted only a few seconds feeling helpless and angry when she decided that it wasn’t helping anything. Getting up, she gestured the dogs to lie down and stay, then tiptoed out of the living room and down the hall to the kitchen. She paused at the doorway, listening to David’s voice inside.
“You really can’t do anything, Detective?” he said, sounding pretty upset himself. “I know this man. If he says he knows who Danny’s killer is, chances are he does.”
He ground his teeth, listening to the person on the other end of the phone.
“No! You can’t just leave,” he said after a moment. “What do you think is going to happen to him if he’s right? Jefferson…”
Moira backed away. She had heard enough. It sounded like the police had gone to Misty Pines, but whatever Reggie told them hadn’t been enough for them to make an arrest. They don’t believe him, she thought angrily. But I do, and I’m not letting the Misty Pines killer claim another victim.
Casting an apologetic glance back at the kitchen door—David was going to be furious when he got off the phone and came out to find her gone—she grabbed her keys and purse off of the end table. If he wouldn’t drive her to Misty Pines, then she was just going to have to drive herself.
She was halfway to the retirement home when she realized that she didn’t know the code to get through the doors. She turned her phone’s screen on to call Eli, and winced when she saw how many missed calls and texts from David she had. She had silenced her phone after the first call had come in, and that had turned out to be a smart move. She knew he was probably freaking out, but Reggie’s life could very well be in danger. She had to save him, even if David never forgave her for what she was putting him through.
Luckily, Eli answered the phone and gave her the code before asking what was going on. She gave him a quick explanation as she drove, and was relieved when he promised to meet her there. Just because she was rushing headfirst into danger didn’t mean she had a death wish, and there would definitely be safety in numbers.
She got to the assisted-living home before Eli did, though, and knew that she coul
dn’t risk waiting around for him. Rushing through the first set of doors, she punched in the code for the second set and held her breath until the light turned green. She shoved the doors open and walked as quickly down the hall as she dared to without attracting unwanted attention to herself. Any one of the staff, or even the residents, could be the killer. It seemed to take her forever to reach Reggie’s room. When he answered her knock on the first try, she felt a flood of relief wash through her.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said when he opened the door. He hurried her inside and shut the door behind her, replacing the rubber doorstop. She was glad he still had it, even though she was sure the assisted-living home wouldn’t like it.
“She hasn’t come back since the police came,” he told her in a low voice once the door was firmly shut. “It’s just a matter of time, though. Where’s David?”
She told him what happened, how David had driven her back home and called the police to see what they had found.
“They didn’t believe me,” Reggie said, settling into his armchair with a sigh. He looked exhausted. “I should have known—what did I really expect to happen when I told them Alberta Radisson was the culprit?”
“The director?” Moira squeaked, utterly shocked.
Reggie nodded. “I didn’t connect the dots until I went to go ask Griff if he was really the one that had killed Danny. He didn’t know what I was talking about, so I spent about an hour after dessert explaining everything to him.”
“And he told you Alberta did it?” she asked.
“No, no, he has no idea. What he told me was all about Delilah, and her will. Apparently just a couple of weeks before she died, she made Mrs. Radisson the sole benefactor of her estate,” he said.
“Wow,” Moira breathed, the pieces beginning to fly together rapidly. It all made sense. Alberta must have learned that Beatrice was planning on leaving everything to her sister when she passed. Moira had gathered that both sisters were quite wealthy—you pretty much had to be to live in a place like this. When Delilah put the director in her will, that made it so Alberta stood to inherit everything from both sisters… as long as Beatrice died first.
“She must have killed Beatrice to make sure her sister would inherit everything,” the deli owner said, thinking out loud. “If she waited too long and Delilah died first, then she would have only gotten half of the fortune. If she killed them both, that means that she must have killed Danny too—I bet he was getting too close to the truth. He might have even planned to kill her out of revenge when he came in here with that gun.”
Reggie nodded. “I figured all of that out, too.”
“Wait, when you called me, you said that she was going to be back soon. Reggie… did you confront her about all of this?”
“No…” He hesitated, looking away from her. “I… ah… I tested my theory. I told her that Eli and I had gotten into a fight, and I wanted him out of my will, but I wasn’t sure who else to leave my money to. The second I told her how much money I was leaving, she practically leapt onto the computer to print out the right forms. She promised to run them in to my lawyer first thing in the morning. Then I told her I was having second thoughts, and she practically begged me to sign.”
“Even if she wasn’t a killer, that’s pretty disgusting behavior for the director of an assisted-living home,” the deli owner said. “I bet she could lose her license over it.”
“Oh, she’d get fired the moment word got out,” Reggie said. “I told her I needed to sleep on it, then in the morning I was going to tell her that Eli and I had made up… and that’s when the police came. They started questioning her after talking to me, and I was certain that she was going to jail. I don’t know what she said to convince them that she was innocent, but they left and I’ve been locked in here ever since. Now that she knows I’m onto her, it’s only a matter of time before she comes to add me to her list of kills.”
“We need to get you out of here, Reggie,” she said. “David and Eli are both on their way, but neither of them know any of this. When they come rushing in looking for us, the first person they talk to is bound to be…”
“The director,” Reggie finished, paling. “She’ll send them away, and come and find us herself.”
Moira wasted a few minutes searching Reggie’s room for anything that could be used as a weapon, but besides his cane—which he needed to walk—there was nothing. She decided they would just have to try their best not to be seen, and hope to make it to her SUV before the director realized that Reggie was missing.
She cracked the door to his room open and peeked down the hallway both ways cautiously. She didn’t see anyone, not even a nurse, so she silently gestured to Reggie to follow her. Going was slow; the old man was exhausted, and could only walk at half his normal pace. Moira itched for a wheelchair so she could push him, but didn’t see any that weren’t in use.
The few residents that they passed didn’t seem to think anything was amiss. The deli owner smiled and nodded at them, and offered Reggie her arm for balance. She was beginning to think that they were going to make it out of the building without being stopped when they rounded the corner and came face to face with Alberta.
The director looked nearly as shocked to see them as they were to see her, but she recovered more quickly. Moira could see the other woman’s eyes dart between them, and recognized the exact moment she realized that her cover was blown.
“Moira Darling, how nice to see you,” Alberta said, her voice sickeningly sweet. “It’s a bit later than we usually allow non-family members to visit, but I’ll let it slide if you come with me.”
“Actually, we were just on our way out for a breath of fresh air,” the deli owner replied, forcing a smile of her own. “We won’t be long, I promise.”
A pair of nurses escorting an unsteady older woman was passing, and Moira gambled that the director wouldn’t do anything out of character with them around.
“Oh, in that case to allow me to escort you out,” the other woman said. “I wouldn’t mind a chance to look at the stars myself.”
The deli owner wondered what would happen if she began shouting accusations at the other woman, but, as if she could read her mind, Alberta shifted at that instant and Moira saw the glint of a knife tucked into her waistband. Gritting her teeth, Moira nodded and began walking with Reggie at her side. No one stopped them.
They had just reached the front entranceway when the doors swung open. David and Eli walked in, the worry on their faces draining away when they saw Moira and Reggie standing with the director.
“I’m so glad you’re both safe,” David groaned. “You just about gave me a heart attack when you drove away like that, Moira.”
Moira held his gaze and widened her eyes, tilting her head toward the director. The private investigator frowned and raised an eyebrow. She bit her lip in frustration.
“I’d like to talk to Moira and Reggie in private,” the director said calmly. “They’ve both been causing a fair bit of trouble around here lately.”
“Of course,” Eli said. “It won’t take long, will it? We need to have a chat, too.”
“Just a few minutes,” the director replied with a smile. “Ms. Darling, Reginald, would you please follow me into my office?”
Moira didn’t move. Her gaze was still locked with David’s willing him to understand her. She tilted her head toward the director again, widened her eyes, and slowly shook her head.
David frowned. She could tell he was beginning to get it.
“I don’t have all night,” Alberta said sharply. Moira glanced over and paled to see that her right hand was under her frock, right where the hilt of her knife would be. David was still hesitating, and they were running out of time. At any moment, the director could snap and kill any of them.
“Okay,” David said suddenly. Moira jumped and turned back to look at him. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or Alberta. “I’m just so glad you’re all right. You were in such a hurry t
o get over here; I was afraid that you had crashed somewhere. I’ve got to hug you before I let you out of my sight again.”
Alberta was glaring at them, but didn’t say anything as David approached and wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s her,” Moira whispered, her lips against his ear. “She killed all three of them, and she has a knife.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, brushing a kiss across her cheek.
She nodded, hoping that he would trust her without more questions. He pulled away.
“Eli and I will just take a seat in the dining room, if that’s okay,” he said calmly, facing Alberta. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded.
David gestured to Eli, who was looking very confused, to follow, then walked toward the dining room doors. To get to them, he had to pass by Alberta. When he was a step past her, he spun on his heel and grabbed her by the arm, twisting her hand away from the knife and forcing her to her knees at the same time. She screeched at him to let go, but he was strong enough that she couldn’t squirm out of his grip.
“Eli, check her belt,” he said. “There should be a knife.”
By now a crowd had gathered to watch them. Eli, who looked frightened but determined, did as David said. When he withdrew the large, bloodstained kitchen knife, the people gathered around gasped.
“I’m guessing that’s the knife that was used to kill Danny,” David said grimly as he pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket and snapped them on to Alberta’s wrists. “Planning to pin that murder on Moira?” He shook his head. “Someone call the police and tell them we have the person responsible for all three deaths restrained and waiting for them.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Watching the police arrest Alberta and formally apologize to Reggie put Moira in an ebullient mood. Not only had they caught the killer, but Reggie was now the local hero of Misty Pines. Even David was in a good mood, despite her diving headfirst into danger yet again.
“We make a good team,” he said with a grin. They were sitting in the common area at the assisted-living home, waiting around for the police to finish questioning the others.
Creamy Casserole Murder: Book 15 in The Darling Deli Series Page 8