A SEASON OF MURDER (The Darling Deli Series Book 29)

by Patti Benning

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A SEASON OF MURDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  A Season

  of

  Murder

  Book Twenty-Nine

  in

  The Darling Deli Series

  By

  Patti Benning

  Copyright 2017 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

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  A SEASON OF

  MURDER

  Book Twenty-Nine in The Darling Deli Series

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  “Do you need any of these files?” Moira Darling asked her husband.

  David Morris glanced over at the papers that were piled on top of his filing cabinet. “Those are all cases that I’ve finished recently. I don’t need to bring them home, but I do need to get them filed correctly. This place is such a mess. How did it get this way in just a week?”

  “Because you never put anything away,” she said. “If you would just file things as soon as you’re done with them, we wouldn’t have to have days like today where we’re scrambling to find the right files.”

  “I think the moral of the story is that I’m a mess without you,” he said, looking up from his work to give her a grin.

  “I’ll help out again when you reopen after Christmas,” she promised. She enjoyed helping at David’s office, but her first responsibility was to her deli. Darling’s DELIcious Delights had been busier than usual this holiday season, and she had been there all day, every day for the past week. Today was her first day off, and that was only because Sundays were the shortest day at the deli. With only a six-hour shift, her employees could cover it easily on their own.

  “About that —” he began, only to be interrupted by Maverick, who let out a loud, booming bark. Moira jumped, almost dropping the files on the floor.

  “Mav, what are you going on about?” she asked. The German shepherd’s ears were pricked, and he was staring at the window. A moment later, Moira heard it. Jingling. She walked over to the window looked down and saw the holiday horse-drawn carriage heading down the road. Laughing, she petted the dog’s head. “Thanks for protecting us from the big, scary horse.”

  She gazed out the window, watching the horse and carriage go by. As it passed, she found herself looking at the remains of Candice’s Candies; her daughter’s candy shop. Even from here, she could see the bright yellow warning signs, telling people to keep out. The building had been condemned. It wouldn’t be until next year that the renovations started. It was a painful reminder of how quickly everything had changed after the fire a few months back.

  “Are you okay?” her husband asked from behind her.

  “I’m just thinking about Candice,” she said. “I miss her and Eli. Everything seems to be changing so much. I wish things could just stay as they had been.”

  “She will be coming back for Christmas,” her husband said. “At least the family will be together for the holiday.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it. Anyway, what were you going to say before Maverick interrupted us?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Let’s just finish up here. You’ve got the day off. We should enjoy it while we can.”

  They finished sorting through the mess of papers that were spread out across every surface of David’s office. While Moira sorted the old cases into the correct places in the filing cabinet, he flipped through the ones he was currently working on.

  “Are your clients expecting you to work over Christmas?” she asked.

  “Not over the holiday itself, but I’m not going to take any more time off. I want to get these cases closed.”

  “Well, I hope that you make sure to set aside some time for the family. Candice and Eli will be here, and I want to give them at least a couple of family dinners. Plus, I’ll need help decorating and setting up the tree.”

  “There will be plenty of time for all that,” he assured her. “I won’t be putting in as much time at the brewery until after Christmas. Like I said, I want to get everything tied up here, but I won’t let that get in the way of our celebrations either.”

  She frowned. Something that he had said, or the way he had said it, made her think that there was something that he wasn't telling her, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. He was right about one thing; today was her day off, and she wanted to enjoy it.

  “Well, we’re just about done here, aren't we?” she asked. “Let’s stop and get some Thai food on our way home. We can eat it while we watch television together.”

  She and David rarely watched live TV, but often recorded their favorite shows to marathon when they both had the time off. It was always nice to relax and lose herself in a story about someone else’s life for a few hours instead of worrying about her own problems. She just wished that they had their Christmas tree up; the best part about these weeks leading up to Christmas was the holiday atmosphere, but they just hadn’t had time to do any decorating yet.

  “That sounds good to me,” he said. “I think we’ve finally got everything organized. All we have left to do is to grab Maverick’s toys – that bone there is his favorite – then we’re good to go.”

  Moira gathered up the dog’s toys and tucked them into a plastic bag, then called him over and clipped on his leash. She smiled at his exuberance. Whenever he saw the leash, he lit up, even if it meant that they were about to leave somewhere that he enjoyed being, like David’s office. Maverick seemed to enjoy everything, if it involved either her or David being there with him.

  They left the building together. While David stayed behind to lock the door, Moira made her way to the car with the dog toys and Maverick. She put the bag of toys on the floor by the front seat, then opened the back door for Maverick. After he jumped in, she slammed it shut, then turned back to see what was taking David so long. She saw him s
tanding on the sidewalk, gazing at the building with an odd look on his face.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, walking over to him. He jumped slightly, as if startled.

  “Yes,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her temple. “Everything’s just fine.”

  They turned to walk toward the car together, but were interrupted by someone calling out David’s name. “Mr. Morris, Mr. Morris!” They both turned around to see a man jogging toward them, slipping and sliding on the sidewalk.

  “Mr. Nowak, what is it?” David asked, concern in his voice.

  “I’m glad I caught you. I was just getting home from work when I saw your car parked out front here. I know you said you’d call me if you had any leads, but I was just wondering – have you found anything?”

  “If I had, I would have called you immediately,” David said. “Like I told you, these things take time.”

  “But you still think you’ll have something by Christmas?”

  “I’ll try to. There was never a guarantee, Mr. Nowak. I’ll do my best, though.”

  “Please,” he said. “Hurry. I can’t keep living like this.”

  With that, the man turned, shoved his hands into his pockets, and strode away down the street. Moira stared after him.

  “What was that all about?” she asked her husband.

  David sighed. “He’s a client. He wants me to tail his wife.”

  “Does he think she’s cheating on him?” She knew that her husband dealt with a lot of affair cases.

  “No,” he said, surprising her. “He thinks that his wife is trying to kill him.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  “Two cups of ham and cheese soup to go,” Moira said. “Have a nice day, and thanks for stopping at Darling’s DELIcious Delights.”

  She handed the warm paper bag over, smiling at her customer. Even though it had been keeping her busy recently, she really did love her job. She enjoyed the creativity of it; she came up with a new special almost every day. Of course, the old favorites were recycled occasionally. Today’s special was ham, cheese, and broccoli soup with an optional bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. The week before Christmas, she would do a different holiday-themed special every day, and she was looking forward to it. She had already tested a couple of the new recipes on David, and he had enjoyed them all, even the vegetarian one.

  There was hardly time for her to catch her breath before the next customer was at the counter. It was busy for winter in northern Michigan, but everyone loved warm soup when it was snowing outside, and many people were already off from school and even work until after the holidays.

  During the busy times, Moira relied on her employees to work every bit as hard as she did. She had decided not to hire temporary help for the holidays; by the time they got the new employees trained, the holiday season would be over, so it really wasn’t worth going through the bother of the hiring process.

  As the holiday drew nearer, she had been mulling over the idea of closing the deli down for a couple of extra days. Last year, they had been closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, just like most businesses in town. This year, she was thinking that she would close it down for an additional day on either side of Christmas, plus New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. It might cause her to lose some revenue, but it would give everyone a lot more vacation time to spend with their families and friends.

  She had her own reason to want some extra time off, of course. Candice was coming to town, and would be staying with them until the twenty-eighth of December. She wanted to spend all the time that she could with her daughter before the younger woman returned to her new home, miles away from Moira.

  Candice hadn't come home for Thanksgiving, and Moira had missed her daughter over the holiday. On Christmas Day, they planned on having quite a few other people over, so she wouldn't be able to spend the one-on-one time with her daughter that she wanted to.

  She still wasn't sure whether she was making the right decision. The days just before Christmas were usually the busiest ones all winter. January and February would be painfully slow months, and business wouldn't really pick up again until tourist season started at the beginning of summer.

  “Hey, Mrs. D.,” Darrin, her oldest employee said. He was the manager of the deli and took care of things while she wasn't there.

  “Hi, Darrin,” she said. “Is everything okay? You’re a couple of minutes late.”

  She wasn't usually persnickety about her employees being a minute or two late, but it was unusual for Darrin, who usually arrived early.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “I wasn't feeling well this morning. I'm pretty sure I just ate something bad last night, though. I feel a little bit better now.”

  “Well, maybe you should work out front today,” she said. “If you are sick, we wouldn't want you around the food. If you start feeling worse, just let me know and you can go home.”

  She moved aside so he could clock in, giving him a careful look as he leaned over the register. If he was sick, she hoped it wasn't contagious. She never let her employees come in if they had a fever, but if they just felt a little bit off, it was up to them. If it had been any other day, she might have made him go home and rest, but they were just too busy to do it without him if they didn't have to.

  Satisfied that he wasn't about to keel over, she left the register to him and went into the kitchen, where Jenny was busy slicing a loaf of bread. The young woman usually did catering with her boyfriend, Cameron, but they hadn't had as many catering events recently. Moira thought that it was just the holidays making things slow. Hopefully that side of the business would pick up again soon.

  “We've been going through a lot of this bread,” Jenny said. “I think we only have one loaf left. We might have to switch to a different type if people keep ordering the BLT sandwiches.”

  “Unfortunately, I got an email this morning saying that next delivery is going to be delayed by a couple of days,” Moira said. “They're coming from a couple of hours up north, and just had a big snowstorm. We’ll have to make do.”

  Getting supplies on time could be difficult during the winter. The lake-effect snow was much worse up here than it was downstate, and Moira tried her best to order from small, family-owned companies. Most of the time, that was a good thing, but when the weather was bad, it meant that deliveries just didn't get made. No one wanted to risk their one truck, or beloved family member just to deliver some supplies.

  She spent the next couple of hours working in the kitchen, making sure that they had enough soup ready to go, and helping Jenny put together sandwiches and orders. She was looking forward to going home later that evening. She usually liked being at the deli, but she had been working so much lately that it would be nice to spend the evening with David and the dogs. They might even get some of the Christmas decorations up, depending on how busy her husband was.

  She had just begun washing the latest sink full of dishes when the door to the dining area slammed open and Darrin ran past her.

  “Darrin, what…”

  He opened the side entrance, and she could hear him retching outside. It sounded like his illness had returned.

  It didn't take long for her to clock him out and help him gather his items. It was one thing to have someone at work who was feeling a little bit under the weather, but vomit and food really did not mix. Even though it would make things harder on her and Jenny, he couldn't be there today.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, for what must have been the tenth time.

  “Don't be sorry,” she said. “Just go home and feel better.”

  “But this is one of the busiest times… It doesn't feel right to leave you guys on your own.”

  “I'd rather have to work a little bit harder than spend the next week sick,” she said, bluntly. “If you stay, you're putting all of us at risk for getting sick, not to mention the customers. Go on. We just can't have you here.”

  After he left, she leaned a
gainst the counter and closed her eyes. She didn't blame him for being sick, and she definitely didn't want him to stay at work if he had something contagious, but it would make today much more difficult. They would be getting even busier around dinnertime, and she had been there since opening that morning. She couldn't leave Jenny to handle it on her own, and she didn't know if any of her other employees could come in on a moment’s notice.

  She sighed, then straightened up. That was enough of feeling bad for herself. It was all just part of being the boss. Sometimes, she had to step up and do her job, as well as someone else’s.

  Leaving Jenny to continue preparing the food, Moira went back out front. There were a couple of customers waiting impatiently at the register, and it wasn't until she got through taking orders that she noticed a stack of flyers on the counter. Someone must have left them there while Darrin was running the register.