Smoked Gouda Murder: Book 5 in Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series

by Patti Benning

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  SMOKED GOUDA 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

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  Smoked Gouda

  Murder

  Book Five

  in

  Papa Pacelli’s

  Pizzeria Series

  By

  Patti Benning

  Copyright 2016 Summer Prescott Books

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  **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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  SMOKED GOUDA

  MURDER

  Book Five in Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria Series

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Eleanora Pacelli pushed through the employee entrance into Papa Pacelli’s Pizzeria with a box in her arms so big that she couldn’t see anything in front of her. Judging by the exclamation that followed soon after, she had almost run into one of her employees.

  “Sorry,” she called out.

  “Here, let me help.”

  Someone grabbed the box from the other side and helped her maneuver it through the door. Ellie recognized Clara’s bushy hair. Together, they carried the box across the kitchen and put it on the table in the corner that she and her employees ate lunch at.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “No problem.” Clara brushed her hands off and put them on her hips, giving the box a quizzical look. “What’s inside?”

  “Thanksgiving decorations,” Ellie told her. “I thought the pizzeria could use some dressing up. It’s looked so bland since we took the Halloween decorations down.”

  “That’s a lot of decorations.”

  “Well some of them are seasonal and should be able to stay up until we start decorating for Christmas. Come on, give me a hand and we’ll start putting them up.”

  Ellie had spent the weekend picking up decorations at stores all around Kittiport, and what was in the box was only a fraction of everything she had bought. The rest she was planning on putting up at the house that she shared with her grandmother, Ann. Her grandmother’s house had a huge yard, and backed up to a state park, so there would be plenty of space for outdoor decorations. Ellie had always loved decorating for each holiday, even the ones that people didn’t normally do much for.

  Before long, fake leaves and miniature turkeys decorated the tables, and she had set out a box to collect cans of food for the local food drive. She had also put up a couple of posters advertising their Black Friday sales – the pizzeria wouldn’t be open on Thanksgiving Day, of course, but they’d be up bright and early to feed the hordes of shoppers that would appear on the streets the next day.

  Ellie was just putting the finishing touches on a turkey decal on the clear glass window of the soda fridge when the front door opened with a jingle. In walked a woman that she had seen only once before; Karen Becker, a psychologist from Benton Harbor, the next town down the coast.

  “Oh good, I was hoping you’d be in,” Karen said. “Wow. This place really gets into the holidays, huh?”

  “I love decorating. I’m already planning what I’m going to do for Christmas, and I’ve just now put the Thanksgiving stuff up,” Ellie admitted. “Is everything okay? Anything I can help you with? Would you like to place an order?”

  “I’ll see what you have,” Karen said. She walked up to the register and gazed at the menu above. “Really I just stopped in to say hi and to see your restaurant. I’ve got some time off. After what happened, I figured I could use a break.”

  “You deserve it, after nearly getting killed,” Ellie said. “It’s nice of you to stop by. If you want, maybe you and I and Shannon could all get coffee together sometime.”

  “That sounds like it would be nice.” The psychologist shot her a smile, which she returned. She still felt bad about leading a killer right into the woman’s office. It seemed amazing that Karen would even talk to her after all of that.

  “Do you want to try our new brownie bits?” she asked. “We just put them on the menu this weekend. People have been asking for a dessert, and I figured brownies would be pretty hard to mess up, even for a pizza place.”

  “Sure, I’m always in the mood for chocolate.”

  Ellie brought out two servings of the brownies and joined Karen at a corner booth. The woman talked for a bit about their shared experience with the madwoman who had held a letter opener to the psychologist’s throat, then turned the subject to happier things. Karen, it turned out, had spent a few years in Chicago, first to complete her graduate program to get her doctorate in psychology, then for a few years working at someone else’s practice before she moved to Maine to open her own.

  The door opened again and another customer walked in, a pretty blond woman who was all smiles. Ellie got up to take her order, then returned to the table.

  “But why Benton Harbor?” she asked, resuming their conversation. “I’d imagine somewhere like Portland, or pretty much any city, would supply a lot more clients. Even if you see people from Kittiport, too, well… there just aren’t that many people around here.”

  “I like the small-town feel,” Karen said. “And it’s true that there aren’t that many people, but there also isn’t much competition. I keep my prices low, and I see people from all over. Reputation means a lot in my field, and I’ve had people drive hours to see me just because someone they know recommended my practice.”

  “Wow. It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good client base built up,” Ellie said.

  “You must, as well. I did a search for Papa Pacelli’s online, and I saw that this place has been here for almost twenty years. Have you been working here the whole time
?”

  “No, this place was actually my grandfather’s. I only moved here a couple of months ago…” Ellie went on to tell her all about her grandparents, and her own history in Chicago. It was nice talking to someone else who had lived in the Midwest, and who had seen more of the world than just the coast of Maine. She loved everyone she knew in Kittiport, but most of them had spent their entire lives in the same small town. She was beginning to realize that she and Karen had a lot in common. With any luck, they would continue to stay in touch, and possibly even build a friendship out of all the craziness that had happened a few weeks ago.

  After the psychologist left, Ellie got back to work on the decorations while Clara and Rose kept the kitchen running and the deliveries going out smoothly. It was satisfying to see how smoothly they all worked together, especially compared to how the pizzeria had been running before she took over, and she was proud of how much they had all improved. She enjoyed coming in to work most days, something that she had rarely if ever felt back in Chicago, and she knew a large part of that had to do with how well everyone who worked at the pizzeria got along. They were beginning to feel something like a family to her.

  “Hey, Ms. Pacelli, we’re about to make a pizza for lunch,” Rose said, poking her head through the door that lead to the kitchen. “What do you want on your part?”

  “Chicken and green peppers,” Ellie said. “Thanks. I’m about done out here, then I’ll come and join you.”

  Just as she was about to call it a day and pack up the few remaining decorations that she hadn’t found a place for, her cell phone buzzed. She reached into her pocket, pulled it out, and checked the caller ID. Russell. She clicked it onto silent and put it back into her pocket, not because she didn’t want to talk to him, but because when she did talk to him, she didn’t want to be distracted. The two of them had gone on one date, which hadn’t exactly been a success due to Ellie’s status as the town’s pariah at the time, and they had never actually discussed it. She didn’t know where exactly their relationship stood at the moment, and didn’t think that the middle of her day at the pizzeria was exactly the best time to figure it out.

  Oh, well, she thought. At least everything else is back to normal. Russell and I will have plenty of time to talk now that things have calmed down. Her mood boosted by the thought of how well the pizzeria had been doing now that the town knew she hadn’t been responsible for poisoning anybody, Ellie smiled to herself and headed towards the kitchen, eager to get started on her two slices of what was easily the best pizza for miles around.

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Even though she had spent the better part of the day before getting Papa Pacelli’s ready for Thanksgiving, Ellie was still suffering from the itch to decorate. Planning the meals would come later, of course, but for now she wanted to focus on getting the setting just right – which was turning out to be more difficult than she had expected.

  “Calm down, Marlowe,” she said as the giant red and green parrot ran past her. The bird could move surprisingly fast when she wanted to, and Ellie usually found the sight of her scurrying along the floor amusing. Not today, though. Marlowe was mad, and when Marlowe was mad, someone usually got bit.

  “Bad dog!” the parrot squawked. Her head was tilted to the side and one intense yellow eye was staring straight up at the paper turkey hanging from the ceiling. “Bad dog!”

  Those were the bird’s new favorite words, which she had taken to yelling at anything she didn’t like. She had picked it up one day when Ellie had been admonishing Bunny, her papillon, for getting up on her grandfather’s desk and attempting to eat a whole bowl of treats. Soon after, the parrot had discovered that whenever she squawked those two words, Bunny would retreat out of the room with her head down and her tail tucked between her legs. Now, Marlowe seemed to hope the same strategy would work with the turkey that was hanging from the ceiling, but she was having no such luck.

  “Bad dog bad dog!”

  Seeing the bird getting even more upset, Ellie attempted to pick her up once again, and only narrowly managed to dodge a nip from Marlowe’s large beak.

  “It’s not a real bird, Marlowe,” she said, becoming exasperated. “It’s just a decoration. Here, I’ll take it down, all right?”

  She climbed back up on the wobbly ladder and pulled the turkey down. After placing it out of sight on the stairs, Ellie was able to get the bird back in her cage, which she then wheeled to the study. She felt bad about putting the parrot in the other room, but if Marlowe was that scared of one fake bird, she couldn’t imagine the bird would be comfortable when her grandmother’s friends came over for their annual Thanksgiving dinner. The macaw had never been a fan of guests, and she didn’t have any reason to believe that Thanksgiving would be an exception to that policy.

  “You’ll be fine in here,” Ellie told her as she parked the cage in its old spot in the corner by the window. She paused to pull up a playlist of some classical music on her computer so Marlowe would have something to listen to, then left the room to get back to decorating. Shannon Ward, a woman who she had been friends with way back in high school, was coming over soon to help her meal plan, and she wanted to have something done by the time the other woman got there.

  Ellie spent a few more minutes putting up decorations, after she replaced the offending turkey in the foyer, before she heard a car pull into the driveway. It sounded louder than she expected from her friend’s quiet sedan. Peeking out one of the tall windows by the front door, she was surprised to see Russell’s truck idling behind her little green car. Her first thought was that something had happened to her grandmother, who was currently out to lunch with one of her friends.

  Feeling scared, Ellie opened the front door and approached the truck barefooted. Relief washed over her when she saw Shannon get out of the passenger side. The sheriff must have given her a ride for some reason; he wasn’t here to deliver bad news.

  “Thank goodness,” she breathed. As Shannon approached, Russell gave her a wave goodbye through the windshield, then put his truck into reverse and pulled out of the driveway. Ellie felt a small pang; she wished that he would stay and talk more; they had been laying telephone tag since he called her at the pizzeria. If he’s too busy, it’s with good reason, she told herself. He’s the sheriff, after all.

  “Is everything all right with your car?” she asked her friend as they walked back to the house together.

  “It had a flat tire this morning,” Shannon told her. “I took it in to the shop, but they were already buried in work for the day, and James had already left to go to his own job, so I had to call Russell to see if he’d give me a ride here. Can you take me back to the auto shop later? I’m sorry, I should have asked sooner, but it’s been a crazy morning.”

  “Of course, it’s not a problem at all. I was planning on stopping in at Papa Pacelli’s for the last few hours before close anyway, so I can drop you off then.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know why the repair place was so busy this morning. I swear, it’s like people are going crazy before the holidays or something.”

  With Shannon there to help out, the task of decorating the entire house for the holiday went more quickly, and was also a lot more fun. Of course, having someone there to hold the ladder was a bonus, too. Ann Pacelli’s house was large, with high ceilings and plenty of places to put knick-knacks.

  “Nonna’s friends are going to love this,” Ellie said as they finished.

  “And James says I go crazy for decorations,” Shannon said, shaking her head with amazement as she took a step back to look at everything they had accomplished.

  Shannon was a journalist who had a column in the local paper and had gotten knee-deep into trouble alongside Ellie more than a few times in the past couple of months. The two had rekindled their friendship shortly after the pizzeria manager had returned to her childhood hometown, and now were as close as ever.

  “I like having fun with this sort of thing,” Ellie said. “Hallo
ween, Thanksgiving, Christmas… even the fourth of July and Valentine’s day. I can’t wait until after Thanksgiving when I can start putting lights up. This big pine tree Nonna has in the front yard will look great decked out in white and blue. And of course, I’ll have to find some reindeer or maybe a big snowman to go next to it…”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Shannon said, laughing. “It’s barely November. Just wait for the Christmas parade. I bet you could get a float for the restaurant. It would be great advertising.”

  “One thing at a time,” the pizzeria manager said, laughing. “Right now I need to figure out what exactly I’m doing for Thanksgiving, and after that I need to make sure the house and pizzeria are prepared for winter. With Nonna spending so much time out here alone while I’m in town, we can’t be too careful.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  Ellie was glad for the weekend, when it came. She didn’t know why, but the pizzeria had been busier each evening. Maybe it was the colder weather, or the fact that it got dark earlier than ever, making people feel less inclined to go out of their way to buy groceries and cook, but whatever it was, it was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she was glad to see Papa Pacelli’s positively bustling with business. On the other, she and her employees were working their fingers down to the bone to keep the pizzas rolling out of the kitchen quickly enough.