Pizza, Paradise, and Murder (Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Book 24)

by Patti Benning

  With that sobering thought to keep her company, Russell dropped her off at Papa Pacelli’s. The employees had done a fine job of opening, and the business day was well underway. It was the last day of the week’s special; a chicken bacon ranch pizza with Asiago and provolone cheese. The sauce was an invention of Linda’s, and while it was a bit different, it was pretty good.

  She spent a few hours during the beginning of the day working the register. She was glad to see how well the restaurant had bounced back after having been unexpectedly closed for a couple of days. As long as Linda and the others could keep up with the demand, she didn’t think she had anything to worry about. The Florida Papa Pacelli’s was in a great location.

  She was just about to take a break when a conversation taking place at a table near the register caught her attention. She usually tried not to eavesdrop on her customers, but in this case, they were talking about Papa Pacelli’s itself, so she made an exception.

  “I’m glad we didn’t listen to the other place. The pizza here is great. It’s a lot better than theirs.”

  “I agree. This actually tastes like real food. The pizza at Pizza Perfect was kind of gross. I still can’t believe they told us not to eat here. I’ve never had that happen at any restaurant before in my life.”

  “Yeah. It was weird, and unprofessional. I won’t be going back. This place is so much better, plus it’s closer. Everything is clean and tidy. If anything, the people who work here should be telling us not to eat there.”

  The conversation moved on to other topics, and Ellie went into the kitchen, thinking about what she had heard.

  She spent the next couple of hours working in the kitchen and going over everything that had happened over the past couple of days. On one hand, Linda really had done a wonderful job with the pizzeria and training her employees. She was passionate about the work and cared deeply about the success of the restaurant. On the other hand, Ellie didn’t like that she had kept so many important things from her. The two of them were supposed to work together, and Ellie had thought that she had made it clear that she would offer any help possible if Linda had a problem. With everything that had been going on without her knowledge, she just didn’t know whether she could trust Linda any longer.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Pacelli,” Xandra said. Ellie didn’t bother correcting her about her last name. “Someone up front wants to see you. He only wants to speak to the manager. He won’t tell me what it’s about.”

  “It’s not Orson, is it?” Ellie asked.

  “No. It’s someone I don’t recognize.”

  Ellie left the pizzas to Xandra and went out front to find a vaguely familiar looking man standing at the register. “I’m the owner,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Frank Harris. I’m a property investor and I’m looking to expand. I heard through the grapevine that you might be having some issues, and I’d like to let you know that if you’re looking to sell, I’m interested in buying.”

  “We aren’t having any issues,” Ellie said. “And I’m not interested in selling. Thank you for the offer, though.”

  “Here’s my card in case you change your mind.”

  Ellie took it, then frowned as something occurred to her. “Where did you hear that we might be having issues?”

  “Oh, just something another restaurant mentioned. I’ve been looking to get into the food business for a while. Your location is great, and this is a nice building, so I thought I’d check with you. Just keep the card handy. Let me know if anything changes.”

  She thanked him, and he left. Ellie stared at his business card, suddenly remembering where she had seen him before. He had come into Pizza Perfect the other day while she, Nonna, and Russell were eating there. Had the owner mentioned something about Papa Pacelli’s to him? She remembered how angry the other man had seemed. It raised the question; what did Pizza Perfect know about the issues that Papa Pacelli’s had been having?

  She was glad when it was finally time to shut the pizzeria down for the evening. She locked up, made sure everything was ready for the next day, then met Russell outside, where he was waiting with the car.

  “How was your day?” he asked.

  “Interesting,” she said. She told him about the man who had offered to buy the pizzeria. Handing over his business card, she said “What do you think? Is it weird that Pizza Perfect would tell him to check here just a couple of days after Linda’s accident?”

  “Well, they must have known that the restaurant closed unexpectedly,” he pointed out. “You did update the website about what happened. They might have just been hoping that you would take advantage of Mr. Harris’s offer and sell the restaurant instead of dealing with the issues.”

  “You don’t think it seems suspicious at all? Just a couple of days after the accident, they sent someone here to buy the restaurant out from under us.”

  “Not necessarily.” He frowned. “Not unless you think about what Linda said, about someone making threatening comments about the building.”

  “Do you think Mr. Harris might have been the one to threaten her?”

  “Possibly, or it might have been someone from Pizza Perfect. Is it possible that they are the ones that want to buy the building? They could have sent Mr. Harris along to make the offer, knowing that you probably wouldn’t want to sell it directly to a competitor.”

  “They’re going out of business, though. Would they have the money to buy a new building?”

  “It’s just that one location that is closing its doors. I did some research earlier today, and I found out that it’s a chain. None of the other locations seem to be having problems. It’s possible that the franchise owner knows he is in a bad location and simply wants to relocate before he loses any more money.”

  That gave Ellie something to think about as Russell drove them away from the pizzeria. Everything seemed to lead back to Pizza Perfect. Suddenly she remembered the bad reviews that they had gotten over the past few weeks; she had mentioned them to Linda but hadn’t asked Russell about them yet.

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that there were so many bad reviews in such a short period of time, and they basically say the same thing?” she said, breaking the silence in the car. “Is there a way to check and find out if all of the reviews came from the same building or computer?”

  “It depends on what features the website hosting company you’re using offers. Do you know if they have any sort of IP address tracking system?”

  Ellie looked at him blankly, then arched an eyebrow. “Russell, I bake pizzas. Your job is to handle the technology side of things. I can barely muddle through changing the weekly special on the website. Anything else is completely out of my area of expertise.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, I’ll have to take a look at your website when we get back to the hotel. Do you think someone is faking the reviews?”

  “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? If Pizza Perfect wants to buy the restaurant, what better way than running us out of business? First, the bad reviews, then they steal business from right outside our store, then the accident, and now this man who wants to buy the building shows up…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it all lines up just a little bit too perfectly, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. Something is definitely going on. We just have to figure out what exactly it is.”

  Even though Ellie hated being cooped up in a hotel room when the weather outside was so perfect, she knew that solving the mystery of who was trying to destroy the pizzeria was more important than enjoying the sunshine. Russell sat down at the hotel room’s table with her laptop and pulled up the service that hosted the Papa Pacelli’s website. Since she knew she wouldn’t be of any help, Ellie volunteered to go and pick up food for dinner. She knew that Russell would probably work more quickly without her distracting him, and she could use a chance to get outside.

  It was a pleasant evening, and she decided to walk instead of taking the car. There
were plenty of restaurants within easy walking distance of the hotel, and eventually she settled on a nice little Moroccan restaurant. After placing the order, she waited at a table with a drink for it to be prepared.

  Twenty minutes later, she was on her way back up to the hotel room with the food. She was surprised when Russell greeted her at the door, beaming.

  “What did you find?” she asked.

  “It took some calling around, but I managed to track the IP address for most of the reviews. You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “All the bad reviews came from only two different IP addresses. Someone has been making different accounts on the same two computers, just to leave bad reviews. If we submit this information to the police, in relation to Sandra’s death and Linda’s injury, they might be able to do something about it. If someone will go to that sort of length to lower your rating online, then they might have a motive to do something more.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she said. “Well, not wonderful, since it means that someone hates us enough to go to all of that trouble to shut us down, but it feels good knowing we’re making some progress.” She held up the bag of food. “Want to celebrate?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Ellie met with Linda early the next morning at the pizzeria, so they could go over all the changes that Ellie wanted to make and agree on an ad for hiring.

  “Normally I wouldn’t mind staying an extra couple of days, but I feel bad making Russell delay our honeymoon any longer.”

  Linda gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot. I didn’t realize I was taking time away from your honeymoon.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Trust me, this was definitely the right reason to call me down here. I’m still not sure exactly when we’ll leave; there are a few things that we need to finish doing first, and I want to make sure everyone here is going to be safe, but we probably won’t stay past the weekend.”

  “That’s completely fine. I don’t mind working overtime for a few days, and I’m sure the other employees won’t either, especially since they missed out on a couple of days unexpectedly. We’ll hire some new people and train them up, and I’ll keep all your advice in mind. I promise I’ll let you know if we have problems with anyone else.”

  “Good to hear. My grandmother may stop by later today. If she does, can you just give her a quick refresher course on the register? She wants to help, and I think that’s what she’ll be best at. She won’t need someone keeping an eye on her constantly, and she won’t need to be paid, so she’s a good temporary employee for you.”

  “Okay. That will help a lot.” Linda looked relieved. “I just want to say thank you again for everything, Ellie. Sorry I didn’t come to you sooner.”

  “In the future, just remember that I’m only an email or a phone call away. Now, are we good for today? I want to spend some time with Russell.”

  “Yes, I’m ready to get back to work. Let me know if you find anything out, all right?”

  “We will. And call me right away if you remember anything else about the accident.”

  Later that morning, she and Russell returned to the beach – this time in bathing suits, with towels and sunscreen. It might not be the tropical getaway they were hoping for, but they could still enjoy some sun.

  “Have you heard back from the police yet?” Ellie asked as Russell laid out the towels.

  “Not yet. I gave them all the information, and they said they would look into it. It’s frustrating not knowing more about the case. I don’t even know if they’re considering it a homicide or an accident.”

  “Well, hopefully with all of the issues we’ve been having with Pizza Perfect, they will at least have something to look into.”

  She relaxed back on the towel, enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin, and the breeze that brought with it the occasional spray from the ocean waves. It was still a bit too chilly out to go swimming but lying underneath the clear sky was pleasant.

  “How many more days you think we’ll be here?” Russell asked after a couple of minutes.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I want to make sure Linda’s got things straightened out with the employees, and that they have enough people working there that they all have time to take a day or two off every week. Other than that, I want to make sure that they’re going to be safe. I don’t want to leave if there is going to be another attack on them. I wish I knew for sure whether it was an accident, or a purposeful attack. If someone killed Sandra…” Ellie shook her head, fighting back anger. She was protective of those that worked for her. The thought that Sandra, who had been with the pizzeria since the beginning, being murdered because of the restaurant made her ill.

  “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault,” Russell said. “You couldn’t possibly have known that someone was going to attack them, especially since Linda didn’t tell you about any of the issues they had been having.”

  “You’re right. Maybe I should visit Florida more often. I thought they were doing so well without me, but I guess I need to keep a closer eye on things. At least I’ll be back here in April, and then I can check in and make sure everything is going smoothly.”

  After that, their talk turned away from business. Ellie found herself wishing that she and Russell had more than just two weeks to themselves. Spending time alone with him, even if they were in the middle of the possible murder investigation, was nice. In Kittiport, they both had so many distractions, and could rarely simply focus on each other.

  As lunchtime approached, Ellie and Russell got up, leaving their towels and books on the beach while they wandered along the sand in search of one of the food trucks. Ellie had been making a beeline for a place that promised the best tacos in Miami, when she heard a commotion from further down the beach. She glanced over, then did a double take. The man standing at the center of the scene was Orson.

  Wordlessly, she tugged on Russell’s sleeve and led him over to stand in line behind Orson. A handful of other people were watching him with mixed expressions of amusement and annoyance.

  “I’m not eating a cold hot dog,” Orson was saying. “I expect a refund. If you don’t get me my money, I’ll be leaving bad reviews all over the internet. Sergio’s hot dog stand – the worst hot dogs in the city.”

  “The hot dog wasn’t cold when I gave it to you,” the man in the food truck said. “Besides, you’ve already eaten most of it. This is ridiculous.”

  “What’s this?” Orson said, turning his attention back to the small portion of hot in his hand. “Is this a hair? This is disgusting. Maybe I’ll go straight to the health inspector and tell her about your disgusting food truck.”

  “No, no, there will be no need for that,” the hot dog truck worker said quickly. “Here’s your money back. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  Orson stuffed the money into his pocket. Ellie saw him stuff the rest of the hot dog in his mouth as he walked away. She exchanged a look with Russell.

  “Is he the one who was bothering you at the pizzeria the other day?” Russell asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “And it looks like we’re not the only ones he does it to. Did you hear him threaten about the reviews?”

  “I did. Do you think he’s the one who has been doing it? I would have thought it was Pizza Perfect, but after seeing this, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him instead.”

  “It might be. I want to talk to this guy. How do you feel about hot dogs for lunch?”

  A handful of people had walked away after Orson left, but there were still two other people in line in front of Ellie and Russell. The hot dog worker still seemed upset by the time they reached him and grumbled under his breath as he put new wieners on the heating rack.

  “What can I get the two of you?” he asked, turning to them.

  Ellie and Russell ordered their food, and while they waited, Ellie struck up a conversation.

  “Have you had any problems with that
guy before?”

  “No,” he said. “But I’m new to the area. I’ve heard stories from a couple of other people about a guy who always finds a way to get a free meal. I had no idea that was him, but I guess I’ve had my first encounter.”

  “I own a restaurant a couple of blocks away from here, and he has been harassing my employees for a while. I only recently found out about it, and I’m going to ban him from the restaurant.”

  “If I remember what he looks like, I will do the same,” the man said. “I got his hot dog right off the heating rack. I know it wasn’t cold. And there was no hair in it. Look at me, my head is shaved almost bald, and no one else has been working here today.”

  “Trust me, I believe you,” Ellie said.

  Ellie and Russell took their hot dogs and ate them as they walked back to their spot on the beach. “What do you think?” she asked her husband. “Is Orson a suspect?”