The next day, I was headed to Ralph & Stella’s New York Pizza Pie to grovel at Stella’s feet. On the way, I was on the phone with Tabitha, checking on her and doing a smidge of snooping.
“I was calling to check in and see how you’re doing,” I said, opening the sunroof to enjoy some fresh air as I drove.
“Better today, thanks,” Tabitha started. “I’m sorry about the other night. Everything was still fresh and raw.”
“Trust me, you never need to apologize to me for getting emotional. Not as many times as you’ve witnessed me in shambles.”
“That’s part of my job, though,” Tabitha said, then asked me to hold on while she spoke to her receptionist. “Sorry about that, I’m back.”
“No worries, I’m getting ready to meet someone. I wanted to ask you quickly. Are you and Teddy really a couple, or is that part of what you’re doing undercover?”
“Why do you want to know that?” Tabitha asked.
“I saw you two talking yesterday. I don’t know. I’ve never really understood your dating relationship.” I didn’t know how to explain it.
“Huh, I guess I’m not as good undercover as I thought,” Tabitha said.
“Or I’m a dang good PI,” I said. “Hey, gotta run.”
I threw my phone in my tote, then pushed the door open to Ralph & Stella’s New York Pizza Pie, taking in the welcoming, greasy, cheesy-spicy smells of New York pizza. Ralph had an unfortunate fate last fall and left his shop to Stella, who had worked for him. She’d kept his name in the business name to honor him.
“Hey, Jolie,” Keith said to me as I walked toward the counter.
I could see he was with someone but couldn’t tell who it was from the back of her head. “Hey, Keith, is Stella in the back?”
“She just took our order.” Marissa turned around in her seat, looking me up and down like she was sizing me up.
“Oh.” I took a noticeable gulp of nothing, feeling like a huge knot just traveled down my throat. “Marissa. You two are—” I stumbled for the right word.
“Did you place a to-go order?” Stella walked from the back around the counter.
“Um, no, I do need to talk to you, though.” I pointed an index finger straight up, signaling I’d be there in just a minute, then turned to Marissa, wishing I could drum up more barf to spew on her as I finished my sentence, “—together.”
“Yes, we’re having lunch together. Can’t get anything past you.” Marissa gave Keith a wow-she-is-a-real-moron look, then laughed half-heartedly.
“Awesome.” I ignored her and moved toward Stella.
“You meeting Ava here?” Stella asked, avoiding eye contact with me and holding a pen and order pad, waiting.
“I’m not. Um, can I get two cheese slices to go please?” I hadn’t planned on eating but that never stopped me before. Also, I felt weird with apologies. Like everyone loved them.
“Give me a few to get it together,” Stella said, attempting to sprint away from me.
I grabbed her arm. “Hey, I was a total jerk at the meeting insinuating you shared a recipe with Marissa. I’m so sorry. I’ve been fighting the stomach flu, but that’s not an excuse. There is none. I don’t know what else to say.”
There was a pause that felt like infinity, then Stella grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s hard for me to question if you are sick or not seeing that you puked all over Marissa.” She fell over, laughing harder. “Only you and Ava—you two are too much.”
I grinned impishly. “Yeah, I mean, still, no excuse. I really am sorry.”
“I know. You already apologized. I accepted. Don’t worry about it, we all have our days. We’re friends. All is good. Thank you for another apology, though. I’m going to get your pizza. Be right back.”
“Well, look at you!”
I turned to see Harvey Tobias standing eye-to-eye with me. He stood about two feet away from me but almost reached me with his jolly belly done up in a brown short-sleeved button-up shirt with navy suspenders holding his saggy jeans up. It looked like Mr. Tobias’ hairline was starting to recede.
I reached out to hug him. “Hey, stranger. Long time no see.”
“I know, a guy leaves for a few years and everyone goes and grows up on me. Look at my son the town chief now.” He held out a short chubby hand to Teddy, who waved listlessly.
“He’s doing great work.” I gave Teddy a bit of friendly support.
“I hear you’re married now, to that detective from Tri-City. I hope he doesn’t follow in his brother’s footsteps.” Harvey’s shiny grin was shadowed with concern.
“Which brother?” I asked wondering if he meant the one in prison or the previous mayor of Tri-City.
“Doesn’t matter either way,” Harvey said, beginning to say something else before Stella came out with my pizza.
I glanced at Stella and then turned back toward to Mr. Tobias, who had already rejoined the conversation with his son at their table.
I began digging around in my tote, trying to locate my wallet to pay and Stella noticed there was a crack in the box and grease was leaking out. “Oh, no. Hold on. I’m out of boxes up here. Give me just a minute to run back and get some from the storage closet.”
“No rush,” I said, thinking I needed some time to find my wallet anyway.
I pulled my wallet out, not realizing the zipper with all my change was open until it spilled out on the floor. I got down to retrieve the quarters and dimes first.
Crawling under a nearby table, I heard snatches of Teddy and Harvey’s conversation. I pushed some coins closer to their table and crawled closer to them for better snooping position.
“Denise’s ex-husband, Darrell, was one of the two men on the video from the murder scene,” Teddy muttered.
Darrell?
After I left the pizza shop, I went to talk to Betsy at Chocolate Capers for the second day in a row.
“You just can’t get enough chocolate, can you?” Betsy laughed as I walked in.
“Never,” I replied without thought. I took a seat in the back by the fish tank while Betsy finished up with a line of customers getting chocolaty nibbles for later.
Betsy carried a pot of tea and a half-dozen double chocolate chunk and peanut butter cookies to the table. “What’s up?”
“I just overheard Teddy tell his dad that Darrell was one of the two men on the security tape at the shelter for the unhoused residents. Did Teddy tell you who the other man was?” I shoved half of a cookie in my mouth.
“I called him last night, but Tabitha answered so I hung up.” She looked up with flushed cheeks at me. “I know, it’s childish. I was shocked. It’s dumb.”
I had just tried to take a sip of my hot tea but got more blistering hot liquid than I wanted and when Betsy mentioned Teddy and Tabitha, I gulped without thinking.
I wheezed loudly as scorching pain hit my trachea. I hacked a few times as uncontrollable tears squirted from my eyes.
“Are you okay?” Betsy started to get up but I used a hand to halt her.
“I’m okay,” I mustered in a breathless whisper. “Sorry, I swallowed wrong. Give me a minute.”
“I’ll be right back.” Betsy got up to help a new customer that walked inside.
I got up and moved to the water fountain near the restrooms and took a drink. Soothing. I hated knowing about Teddy and Tabitha. I wanted to tell Betsy. I knew I couldn’t until I understood more of what was going on.
“What up?” Bradley said with a bag of fresh chocolate donuts in his hand that he had just purchased.
“Nothing and everything,” I said grinning at Bradley, who was Leavensport’s main reporter and one of my closest friends that grew up here.
“I hear that.” He pulled over a chair from the table beside mine and sat down.
I looked up to see Betsy was taking a call. “How’s Gemma doing?” I inquired about his latest love interest. She lived in Tri-City and ran Gemma’s Bohemian Jewelry Store that connected to her best friend’s shop Peggy’s Pies and Purses. Ava and I had become great friends with the two women who were proving to be darn good investigators in the city. Not that they pursued a license like Ava and I did, but they’d helped us with city info on many occasions.
“Great, her business is booming right now,” Bradley said. “She comes out with a new line of jewelry at the beginning of each season and I guess those are her busiest times of the year other than holiday gift-buying seasons.”
I grinned at his knowing this information. He must really be into her. I was happy to finally see him settle into a relationship with someone who loved him equally. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to see if she could find out who the mayor of Tri-City was in 1997 and if she and Peggy could dig to find out if the mayor was into anything crime related or if there are any rumors on that person?”
“Well, I can tell you who the mayor was then. I’ve had to do political historical stories, but you can look it up quickly.” Bradley held up his phone that had the name of the mayor of Tri-City in 1997.
“Yeah well, not everyone knows the best sites to use to find information off the top of their head like you—” I paused to inhale a sharp breath when I saw the name on Bradley’s phone. “Noah Morrison!” I bellowed.
“The one and only,” Bradley sneered. Noah was a man that people in Leavensport did not hold in high regard after last fall’s fiasco. “I just did a quick search on Factcheck.org and found out that a lot of gentrification began with Morrison.”
“Really! Okay,” I said. I looked over and saw that Betsy had gotten off the phone, waited on a couple more customers and was heading back to my table.
“I have to take off. I have a meeting for an article.” Bradley reached over and gave me a hug, then Betsy, and then he left.
“I just got a call from my supplier and they said my order is going to be two weeks late—which sucks, seeing that the special chocolate I order from Italy already takes so long to ship here.”
“That sucks. Can you use some things from local stores in the meantime?”
“I can, but I charge a bit more because of how good the Amadei Tuscany chocolate is and people are willing to pay. Maybe I’ll alter my prices and run it as a sale until it comes in. Anyway, I’ve been dying to know how you are enjoying your new home.”
“Still unpacking and I keep moving furniture around trying to figure out how to best organize everything. It’s so crazy, Betsy, this house is three times bigger than my previous cottage but putting all of our stuff together and all the cats—it’s like how is this not enough room?” I held my hands up in despair.
Betsy laughed. “This is the kind of conversation that middle-aged people have. When did we get to be middle-aged?”
“We aren’t, yet, but we’ll be prepared! Not to mention, I’ve been fighting this stupid stomach bug that’s going around town. It’s like I’m sick one day and feel great the next or it’s hour to hour.”
“Maybe you need to go to the doctor,” Betsy said, concerned.
“Every time I think of making an appointment, I’m feeling better.” I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of tea.
“When Aunt Ellie passed away, she left most of her stuff to me. I’ve struggled to part with it and now I’m in the same boat as you with all this—stuff!” She held out her arms as if she had a load full of junk.
“Maybe we should create a community-wide yard sale in July!”
“Oh perfect, you tell Mayor Nalini that. He will just LOVE having another official Leavensport day to celebrate and mark as our own.” Betsy giggled.
“True, that’s the best way to make sure it happens. I know one of the first things I’ll put in the sale and it’s already in a huge bag ready to go.”
Betsy tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“This huge stupid green army surplus bag of men’s shoes all in one size.” I grinned.
Betsy looked quizzically at me.
“I was going through stuff unpacking the other night when I saw this bag I’d never seen before laying in the corner. It was this huge bag of shoes from lots of different decades. All one size. The size my husband wears.” I put my head on my hands leaning toward Betsy knowingly.
“Oh my gosh, does Mick have more shoes than you do?”
I nodded, grinning. “He does. And you better bet when he got home that night, I made a point of teasing him about it. I asked him if we should build a he/she closet but make it an add-on room to the house. He looked at me like I was insane. Then I said, ‘you know, for your gigantic bag of shoes.’”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, that is the best part of this story. He was so serious. He told me that if there is ever a global disaster and we survive to wander around the earth, it’s important to have shoes.”
“Wait, what?” Betsy looked at me waiting for me to say I was kidding. “No.”
I shook my head. “That’s what made it so funny is that he was serious.”
We both started laughing hysterically.
“Oh my gosh, Jolie. You two are SO perfect for each other!”
I stopped mid-laugh. “Huh? I don’t have an army bag full of shoes for when the world is about to end.”
“No, I know, but you are so obsessive-compulsive about some things. He’s just like you in some ways. You know what I mean.” Her cell rang and she held up a finger as she answered.
I thought to myself, No, I don’t know what you mean. I’m not that weird. Am I? I looked up as Betsy clicked her phone.
“You have an odd look on your face,” I said, noticing Betsy’s coy smile as her green eyes lit up.
“Yeah, I think I found a way to move on from Teddy.”
“Oh, really?” I fussed with the napkin and silverware on the table, feeling antsy at what I knew.
“I was just asked out on a date and I accepted,” Betsy said.
“With who?”
“Bobby, the new principal.” Betsy smiled sheepishly.
I had a bad feeling about this, but it passed as my cell rang. It was Mick. I looked at Betsy and said, “Speak of the devil.”
“Hey baby, we were just talking about you. I was telling Betsy—”
Mick cut me off with a serious tone. “Jolie, Mary’s in labor and I’m on my way to arrest Carlos.”