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“How are you going to explain this?” The chief of police—and my former high school sweetheart—was waving a plastic-bagged menu from my pizza parlor in my face as we stood in the kitchen of A Slice of Delight. Kevin Hurley had kept his boyish good looks for the past twenty years, and it was pretty obvious he was fighting hard to maintain the same slim build he’d always had in school. When he wasn’t yelling at me—which, granted, wasn’t very much of the time these days—he was a handsome man in his khaki uniform, and it was easy to see why I’d fallen for him, even back then.
I refused to take the threatening menu personally. I’d been having a good day, and I didn’t want anything to spoil it. Autumn was making its way into our part of the North Carolina mountains, and I had no intention of letting one of his rants spoil my good mood.
“Why do I have the feeling you’re not here to order a pepperoni pizza for lunch, Kevin?” I asked as I looked at the menu through the plastic evidence bag it was sealed in.
“This isn’t a joke, Eleanor. It’s the only clue we’ve got that could lead us to who killed Hank Webber and robbed the Southland Regional Bank.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Look at my face. Do I look like I’m joking around?”
“Hank’s dead?” I asked, the feeling suddenly going out of my legs. “What happened to him?”
“Somebody gave this note to the teller when Hank was on his break. When he came back and saw the robbery happening, he tried to stop it, but the thief shot him first.”
I looked at the menu closer and saw that someone had written on it in a black Sharpie, “Give me the money or you’ll all die.”
“Why did they use my menu for their note?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to read this on a blank piece of paper?”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m guessing it was someone who’s eaten here recently. Have you noticed any strangers coming by the Slice in the past few days?”
“I generally don’t see a lot of customers back here in the kitchen,” I said. “I only worked the front for an hour or so yesterday. We need to ask Maddy.” My sister had been working at the pizzeria ever since my husband Joe had died. She liked waiting on customers, while I enjoyed staying in back where I could focus on making the food. With the help of a few part-time employees, we managed to make enough to justify staying open, though some months the profits were a feeble excuse indeed.
“I already asked her when I came in,” Kevin said. He crinkled his nose slightly, just as he had in high school. It was a sure sign that he hadn’t had a very productive time interviewing my sister. “Who else was working last night?”
“Do you mean besides your son?” Josh, his high schooler, worked for me part-time, despite—or maybe because of—his parents’ disapproval of the idea.
“I’ll talk to him right after I’m through interviewing you, don’t worry about that. Was Greg Hatcher on the clock, too?”
“Yes, but he was mostly making our deliveries. You know, now that I think of it, maybe he’s the one you should talk to. He usually has a stack of menus he hands out with the pizzas. We give them out everywhere, so don’t get your hopes up. Most likely it’s just a dead end.”
“Do you know where I can find Greg?”
I glanced at the clock. “You can come back in two hours,” I said.
“What’s his home number?”
I gave it to him, and a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Hang on a second, Kevin. Let me see that menu again.”
He held it toward me, and as I reached for it, the police chief pulled it back. “Eleanor, do you really need to touch it?”
“That depends. Do you really need my help?” I said. “I have to check something. Don’t worry; I’ll give it right back.”
He reluctantly handed the bagged menu to me. “Don’t take it out of the bag. Just look.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
I scanned the prices, double-checked the font, and then I handed it back to him. “Maybe I was wrong after all.”
“You’re not honestly going to deny that it’s one of yours, are you?”
I pointed to the big slice of pizza that graced the top of the menu, and the words A Slice of Delight blazoned across it. “Of course it’s one of mine. But it’s only been a day since we got these from the printer, so that should limit your search area.”
Kevin frowned a second, then asked me, “Eleanor, this isn’t the time to get cute. How can you possibly know that?”
“I had to finally go up on my prices because of the way cheese and flour costs have been spiraling out of control lately. These are the first new prices I’ve had in over a year. We only made up fifty of them until I could see how my customers reacted to the price increases. The only thing worse than selling pizzas and not making much money is not selling any at all.” I walked back to my closet of an office and pulled out a box from under the desk. Inside, there was a handful of fliers.
After I counted them out on my desktop, I said, “There are thirty-two in here, so only eighteen ever made it out of my office.”
“Then how do we go about tracking down the errant eighteen?”
“Let’s see how many are still out front.” I walked out to find Maddy waiting tables. She tried to catch my eye, but I purposely ignored her. At the counter, I pulled five more out of the display we kept by the register. “So that makes thirteen still unaccounted for. I hate that number.”
“The real question is what happened to the rest of the menus. Think, Eleanor, this is important.”
“Talk to Greg. Unless someone picked one up at the register, he gave the rest of them away. It’s going to be tough tracking them down.”
“It’s still a solid lead,” Kevin said.
“I don’t know how solid it is. You know we don’t have any surveillance cameras in here. I blew my security budget on a new safe. It’s hopeless.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a lead,” he repeated, and I could tell there was a hint of desperation in his voice. Hank had worked for Kevin when he’d first become chief of police. After Hank retired and took his county pension, he’d gone to work for the bank, and in the process, he’d become a steady customer of mine at lunchtime.
Until today.
“I liked Hank, too,” I said. “I want to find out who killed him just as much as you do.”
“I doubt that,” Kevin said as the radio clipped to his belt squawked. After a hushed conversation, he said, “I have to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Listen, if you or your sister happen to think of anything while I’m gone, I need to know what it is, even if it doesn’t seem like much to either one of you.”
“You know we’ll help you however we can,” I said.
He wasn’t gone twenty seconds before Maddy came over. My sister—tall, thin, and unnaturally blonde—looked nothing like me; I was true brunette, with more curves than a mountain road and more weight than I should be carrying around. But we had each other’s back, all the time, every time.
“Did he grill you, too?” she said. “He waved that menu in front of my face like it was some kind of message from beyond the grave. I told him how many menus we’ve handed out in the past year, but he didn’t believe me. Sorry, I tried to warn you that he was coming, but he was too fast for me.”
“Did you look closely at the menu in his hand?”
“No,” she admitted. “Why?”
“It had the new prices on it,” I said softly.
Maddy knew what that meant immediately. She whistled softly under her breath. “So it just happened. That gives me the chills.”
“Why’s that?”
“Think about it. I waited on a murderer yesterday.” She looked clearly shook up by the notion.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Josh could have served him,” I said, trying to soothe my sister’s fears. “Or maybe I did. I worked an hour up front, remember?”
“But it’s not likely, is it?”
“No, I guess not,” I said. There was no use trying to sugarcoat anything with Maddy. “But think about it, Sis. It’s actually a good thing. One of us most likely saw him yesterday. Who came into the Slice yesterday?”
“We should make a list,” Maddy said.
I pointed to the two tables with customers. “It would probably be a good idea to wait on them first.”
“I’ve got their orders right here,” she said.
I plucked them out of her hand, and then I headed for the kitchen. “As soon as I take care of this, we can start our list.”
Just then, the front door opened and a party of ten people came in, laughing and joking about something. It was hard to believe that anyone could be that happy, knowing what had happened to Hank less than an hour ago. Timber Ridge, North Carolina, was a small town, and just about everyone there knew everyone else. Chances were that somebody in that party had to have known Hank, or his daughter, or his grandkids, or someone who would be devastated by the news of his murder. But I wasn’t going to be the one to tell them what had happened if they hadn’t already heard. They were coming to me for good food and a nice atmosphere, and that was what I was going to give them. The joy would be gone soon enough, and the stark reality of a death in town would find its way into A Slice of Delight.
Maddy stuck her head in through the kitchen door an hour later. We’d been so busy waiting on customers and making their food that we hadn’t even had a chance to compare notes yet on who had visited the pizzeria the day before.
“Are you finally finished out there?” I asked her.
“I wish. Just as things start to slow down, somebody else comes in. Business hasn’t been this good for a long time.”
“That’s a problem I’m willing to have all day long,” I said. “Is everyone talking about what happened at the bank?”
“Of course they are. There are a thousand different theories being batted around, but so far, I haven’t heard a single one that makes any sense.”
I noticed that her hands were empty. “Do you have another order for me?”
“No, but I’ve got a customer request.” She rolled her eyes as she announced, “Betsy Killibrew wants to see you.”
“What on earth for? Was there something wrong with her food?” I asked as I wiped my hands off on my apron. We got complaints sometimes at the Slice, though rarely. It was hard to foul up the kinds of things we offered on our menu, and I prided myself on being able to make each item perfectly. When Maddy worked in the kitchen, the results weren’t always the same, but they were almost always undeniably good.
“She hasn’t ordered anything yet, so it would be tough for even Betsy to complain,” Maddy said.
Just as she finished her sentence, the kitchen door flew open and Betsy herself barged in.
It would hardly be fair to expect my sister to stop her. Betsy was not a handsome woman, but what she lacked in beauty, she made up for in sheer size. No matter how big she got, though, Betsy was under the mistaken impression that delicate pastels would somehow hide her ample girth. She had a tongue like a razor blade, but only behind the backs of the people she was shredding at the time. Maddy did one of the smartest things she could have done and headed back out front, abandoning me to my fate. If the roles had been reversed, I would have done the exact same thing to her.
I thought about scolding Betsy for being in my kitchen uninvited, but all that would get me would be a round of fresh slander at her hands, patently untrue, and behind my back.
As sweetly as I could manage it, I asked, “What can I do for you, Betsy?”
She smiled at me as though she’d just eaten a pound of chocolate—which, knowing Betsy, was a distinct possibility. “I just wanted to tell you personally that no one I know thinks you had anything to do with Hank’s murder.”
“Why on earth would anyone think that?” I asked, truly shocked by the implication of her statement.
Betsy tried to look demure as she replied, “Please, it’s all over town. You should realize that without me having to tell you. Let’s not forget, the hold-up note was written on one of your menus, Eleanor.”
“And if the robber used a Bic pen, would you think they were liable for the crime as well?”
“That’s nonsense, and you know it,” Betsy said.
“No more than thinking someone here had anything to do with what happened at the bank this morning,” I said. She could take all of the shots she wanted to at me, but I wasn’t going to stand for her casting aspersions on my staff.
Betsy sniffed the air as though there was something distasteful lingering in it. “I can see you’re in one of your moods. We’ll talk about this later.” She turned with remarkable swiftness for a woman her size and headed for the door.
“Maybe it would be better if we didn’t,” I said as she left the kitchen.
Did Betsy hesitate at the door before she walked the rest of the way through? At that point, I honestly didn’t care. I knew the woman had a mouth that matched the rest of her—broad and deep—but if she thought I was going to kowtow to her just because of what she might say behind my back, she was sadly mistaken.
Maddy came back into the kitchen a few seconds later, laughing hysterically. “I don’t know what you said to her, but I second it. She nearly ran Father Pat over on her way out the front door.”
I shook my head, the momentary joy of that wisecrack already dying. “I should have held my tongue. I probably just cost us a customer.”
“She didn’t come here to eat,” Maddy said. “The woman’s nothing but trouble, and we both know it.”
“It’s true, but that’s another reason I shouldn’t have provoked her. If you can believe it, she had the audacity to say that no one blames us for what happened.”
Maddy shook her head. “What is that woman’s problem? She must have been kicked in the head by a mule as a small child.”
“If it were true, could you really blame the mule?”
“Blame her? I’d like to rub her ears as a reward and give her a carrot,” Maddy said. “The mule, not Betsy.”
“I know what you meant.”
Maddy touched my shoulder lightly. “Eleanor, don’t worry about Blowhard Betsy. She’s harmless.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Sis, you worry too much. If anybody’s going to start pointing fingers, her deadbeat son was in here last night, remember? He took up a table for an hour and a half with his two buddies, and it just about took an act of Congress to get them to finally clear out. I wonder what she would say about that, if she knew that her dear son had access to those menus as well.”
“I’m sure she’d find a way to turn it around against us, but that’s not the point, is it? We need to put Chad on our list, if we ever get the time to actually start one,” I said. “He could have taken one of the menus while he was here.”
“Chad? Seriously? I honestly doubt he has the ambition to rob a bank.”
“We have to list everyone we can think of who was here yesterday. At least there weren’t that many customers. I just hope people keep coming in after they hear about what happened at the bank today,” I said.
“Trust me, that’s not going to be an issue. You should take a peek outside in the dining room. Every table’s full, and there are more waiting for a place to sit.”
As I took the handful of new orders from her, I said, “Sure, but are they here for the food, or are they looking for something juicier?”
“Who cares? If we keep this up, you might even be able to afford to take a vacation this year.”
“I’m not holding my breath,” I said.
“You really do need to get out more,” Maddy said. “Even if it’s just for an evening or two.”
I knew full well she was talking about David Quinton, but I wasn’t about to rise to the bait. David had threatened to move to Raleigh a while back, and when I’d called his bluff, he’d actually left town. And if I was being honest with myself, I barely missed him. It was just another lost cause, and he’d finally realized the futility in chasing me.
“What a fun game,” I said to Maddy. “Is it my turn now to tell you what you need?”
She took the hint. “Sorry, I’d love to chat, but my tables are full, and you’ve got food to make.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I said, and started to do just that, knuckling pizza dough into pans and topping them as fast as I could work. It was times like these I loved the conveyor oven Joe and I had put in. I’d had my heart set on a woodburning pizza oven, but the sheer magnitude of handling the firewood and the expense of the equipment had made us go for something simpler. Now I prepped the food, slid it onto the conveyor, and took it off on the other side after it had passed through the oven.
Things were stacking up, so I decided to give Maddy a hand out front. Swapping out my dirty apron for a clean one, I grabbed two plated and cut pizzas and headed out.
When I saw who was waiting for me there, I instantly began to regret the decision to help my sister out in the front.
“Steve, what are you doing here?” I said as I approached my late husband’s brother as he sat at one of our tables doing a crossword puzzle, something he had always dearly loved to do. He looked enough like Joe to throw me off for a second whenever I saw him, and if they’d been that close, it might be nice to see him, but Steve Swift had been trouble from the day he’d come into the world, and I doubted that the two years since I’d last seen him had changed him much.
“I have to tell you, I’ve had warmer greetings in my life, Sis,” he said. “Not even a hug?”
“It’s Eleanor,” I answered as I gestured with the pizzas in my hands. I hadn’t liked him calling me Sis when his brother had been alive, and I certainly wasn’t going to allow it now.
“Eleanor it is, then,” he replied, barely remorseful. “How have you been?”
I pointed around the crowded restaurant. “As you can see, we’re pretty busy. What brings you to Timber Ridge?”
“I was in Raleigh on business, so I decided to come over and see you.”
“We’re pretty far from Raleigh,” I said. “It’s over three hours away.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve been living in San Diego since the last time I saw you, so compared to how far I’ve come, it wasn’t all that much more to swing by here. Do you have a second?”
There was a pleading look in his eyes that reminded me so much of his brother, I couldn’t bring myself to say no. “We’re slammed right now, but we close in an hour and a half for our lunch break, so if you’ll come back then, we can talk.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you.”
“See you soon.”
As he walked out of the pizzeria, Maddy came up to me. “What did the Swift family bad seed want? I thought we were done with him once and for all.”
“He said he wanted to catch up with me.”
Maddy snorted. “Which translates to he needs money. You’re not giving him any, are you? You can’t really afford it; you know that, don’t you?”
“Take it easy, Maddy. What can it hurt to talk? I owe Joe that much.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Eleanor. Your husband didn’t care that much for his older brother either, and I happen to agree with him. You need to be careful.”
“I will,” I said. I handed her the pizzas. “If you’ll deliver these, I’ll start bringing out the rest of the food.”
Maddy didn’t particularly like the way I dismissed her advice, but she didn’t fight me on it, something that I was willing to count as a victory.
We were slammed until just before closing, and I was beginning to wonder if we were even going to get our regular hour lunch break. Things generally slowed down midafternoon enough for Maddy and me to have a little time off, but it wasn’t written in stone. If Steve had to wait for his little reunion, there was nothing I could really do about it.
Maddy came back into the kitchen, and I tried not to sigh as I asked her, “Do you have more orders?”
She looked at me oddly. “I quit taking them twenty minutes ago, and the last customer just left. Why, did you want to work through our break today?”
“Not particularly,” I said as I finished cleaning up the toppings station.
“You don’t want to see him, do you?”
“It’s hard,” I admitted. “There are too many memories of Joe every time I look into his brother’s eyes.”
“So blow him off,” Maddy said.
“We both know I can’t do that.”
She shook her head. “When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to anymore? You’re a grown woman, Eleanor. Maybe you should start acting like it.”
“Funny, I thought that’s exactly what I was doing. There’s a long list of things I’d rather not deal with that I have to anyway. Don’t you think that’s a part of being a grown-up? There are times you have to bite the bullet. I have responsibilities here. I can’t just do whatever I want to on a whim. If I could, I’d be on the beach somewhere right now.”
Maddy looked at me intently. “Eleanor, I know most of that is true, but you’ve got no one to blame but yourself if you don’t take advantage of the opportunities that come your way, too. I know you’re not rich, but you have enough to go away for a week. Why don’t you do it? Greg and I can run the place that long, and Josh will help out, too. For once in your life do something crazy.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I am.” She added with a smile, “But it’s for your own good, so that has to count for something.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said as I wiped the last of the counters down.
“Liar,” she said with a laugh.
“It takes one to know one,” I answered, meeting her laugh with one of my own. I threw the dish towel down on the counter. “There’s no sense putting this off any longer. I need to see him.”
“At least let me come with you,” Maddy said. “I can act as a buffer, and if he asks you for money, I can be the one to tell him no.”
I laughed. “As much as I’d love the moral support, I have to do this by myself.”
“Okay, but I’m just a phone call away.”
We walked out into the dining room together, and I hoped for a second that Steve had changed his mind about our meeting.
No such luck. I looked out the window and saw him sitting on a park bench outside the pizzeria, watching the folks walking by on the large swath of brick pavers that made up the promenade.
It appeared that I was going to have to have this particular conversation, whether I wanted to or not.
As I approached him, I blurted out, “If this is about a loan, I’m afraid business just isn’t that good.”
He looked surprised by my outburst. “Is that why you think I’m here? I don’t need money, Eleanor.” Steve frowned for a second. “As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out ten brand-new one-hundred-dollar bills. “I borrowed this from my brother six months before he died, and I came by to repay it to you. I should have done it sooner, but I didn’t have the money when he died, and I was too embarrassed to face you until I did.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said.
“Trust me, I never joke about money. Are you going to take this?”
I stared at the cash a few more seconds, then I looked back at him. “I didn’t think you and Joe talked all that much in the last few years he was alive.”
He at least had the decency to look sheepish by his next admission. “I’m not proud of the fact, but I got myself into a little jam, and Joe was the only person I could ask. Don’t be upset if he didn’t tell you about it.”
“Joe and I didn’t have any secrets,” I said stubbornly. I knew in my heart that my husband wouldn’t have loaned his brother that much money, at least without talking to me about it first.
“I’m sure he meant to tell you about it someday. He just never got around to it.”
I didn’t know what to think. Was it possible that I didn’t know everything there was to know about my late husband? I didn’t keep him on a leash, and we both had money of our own, separate from our pooled assets. It gave us a sense of independence, something we needed working and living with each other around the clock. If Joe had chosen to take some of his money and loan it to his brother, it wasn’t any of my business. He probably hadn’t told me because he knew I wouldn’t have approved. Joe had a soft spot for his brother, no matter how many times it had led him into trouble.
“You’re probably right,” I said. If there was one thing I knew, it was that my husband would have wanted me to take the money. “Thanks,” I said as I took the bills and tucked them into my blue jeans. I’d have to think of something special to do with the money, perhaps treat it as a late gift from Joe. Maybe I’d shock Maddy and take that trip after all.
Steve seemed pleased that I’d accepted the cash.
I looked at him a second, and then said, “This isn’t going to put you in a bind, is it? Joe wouldn’t have liked that.”
“Not at all. Trust me, I’ve got plenty more where that came from. Do you have time for lunch? My treat.”
I glanced at my watch. “We’re opening back up soon. Sorry.”
“How about tonight? Surely you get a night off now and then.”
“Not without a lot of advance notice,” I said. “It’s tough running the place by myself.”
“What about your sister? Surely she could fill in for you.”
He was persistent, but I didn’t let him sway me. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to see me, but I was fairly certain it wouldn’t be for my conversational skills. “I honestly can’t.”
“Well, I’m only going to be in town for a few more days. Why don’t we have breakfast tomorrow? You can spare some time to do that. I won’t take no for an answer, Eleanor.”
At least he hadn’t called me Sis. “Breakfast I can do,” I said. “How about meeting me at Brian’s Diner at eight?”
“Why don’t I come by the house and pick you up? I’d love to see it again. I still can’t believe you and Joe managed to turn that wreck into a showplace.”
“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I stood, then I looked at him and mustered every ounce of sincerity that I could. “Thank you for repaying Joe’s loan. No one in the world would have known about it if you’d decided to keep the money yourself after he died.”
“Joe would know,” Steve said.
“I won’t argue that point with you,” I answered as I walked away.
I headed back into the Slice and decided to make myself a sandwich. Flipping on the oven’s conveyor, I split a hoagie down the middle, spread some pizza sauce on it, then added pepperoni, sausage, and a handful of our special cheese blend. As I slid it onto a wire tray, I watched it disappear into the oven. What should I do with the money? One thing was certain; I wanted to keep it separate from my regular bank account. It would be too easy to lose track of it that way, and I wanted to know I was spending Joe’s money when I finally came up with something to do.
Maddy came into the Slice a few minutes later, just as my sandwich was coming out the other side.
“That smells great,” she said. “Want to split it with me?”
It was a big sandwich, and I could always make us another one if we were still hungry. “Sure. Why not?”
As I cut it into equal portions and plated them up, she grabbed drinks and we found a table near the window.
Maddy took a bite, then asked me, “How did it go with Steve?”
“You were right,” I said, fighting to keep my face straight. “He wanted to see me about money.”
“I knew it,” Maddy crowed. “How much did he want? I can’t believe the nerve of that man.”
“He didn’t ask for any,” I said as I reached into my blue jeans pocket. “He wanted to give me some.” I held the bills up in front of my sister, who plucked them out of my hand.
“He actually gave you cash?” she asked. “Are they real?” she added as she held one after another into the light.
“They look real to me,” I said.
Maddy handed the money back to me as she shook her head. “I don’t get it. Where did Steve get that kind of cash?”
“He said he’s got plenty more where this came from.”
“Why exactly is he giving you a thousand dollars?” Maddy asked. “Did he even say?”
“He borrowed it from Joe, and he wanted to repay it.”
My sister frowned. “Why would he do that? Did you know about this loan?”
“No, Joe didn’t tell me, but it doesn’t surprise me. You know what a big heart he had when it came to Steve.”
“I just can’t believe he paid it back.”
“Believe it,” I said as I tucked it back into the front pocket of my blue jeans.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“For now, it’s going in the safe,” I said. “I want to do something special with it, so I’m not going to pay bills or anything practical like that.”
Maddy laughed. “That’s my girl. It took long enough, but I’m finally rubbing off on you. You know what you should do? You need to take that beach trip we were talking about this morning.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but right now, I just want to enjoy having it.”
As we ate, we both began to wonder aloud what Steve was doing now that was so lucrative he could pay off thousand-dollar loans.
“Maybe he’s got a job,” I said.
“Steve Swift? I can’t imagine him working at anything long enough to earn a thousand bucks, can you?”
“Not really,” I said. “But he told me that he was in Raleigh on business, so maybe I’m judging him a little too harshly.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Maddy said.
Greg Hatcher showed up just as we were finishing our meal.
“Hello, ladies,” he said after I unlocked the door to let him in.
“I thought you had class this afternoon,” I said as I bolted it behind him.
“It was cancelled. Imagine that.” He took our plates and carried them to the back, over my protests.
“That’s our mess, we’ll clean it up.”
“You’re the boss,” he said. “You’re entitled to a perk now and then.”
“Thanks,” I said. I had worried that Greg might quit working at the Slice after he’d come into some money, but it was happily unfounded. He’d shown up the next day, eager and ready to work, acting as if nothing had happened, and I’d been too glad to question his motivation. I relied on my sister’s help, along with a few high school and college kids, to make it, and so far, they’d rarely let me down.
“Do I have time to fix myself a sandwich before we open for dinner? I skipped breakfast.”
“I’d be happy to do it for you,” I said.
“Cool. I’ll take a kitchen-sink sandwich.”
“Coming right up,” I said. Greg liked his open-faced sandwiches covered with just about every topping we offered, and I wondered how he managed to eat it all, but he seemed to love them, and I’d been teasing him that I was going to offer it on the menu and name it after him.
As Greg’s sandwich made its way onto the conveyor, Maddy came back to join me.
“Kevin Hurley’s going to be back soon,” she said. “I thought we’d make that list of who we can remember came in yesterday while Greg eats his sandwich.”
“Let’s do it out front so we can include him,” I said. “After all, he might have given out the menu himself.”
As soon as Greg’s sandwich was ready, I plated it and carried it out to him. He already had a drink and a bag of chips in front of him.
“Wow,” he said, “I feel special, being waited on by the owner and all.”
“You should,” I said. “Greg, did you hand out any of the new menus yesterday when you made your deliveries?”
He nodded as he reached for his sandwich. “There were only a handful of menus up front, so I decided against taking more than two or three.” Before I could say anything, he quickly added, “I know I should have asked you for more, but you were tied up, and I had pizzas to deliver. I dropped off the few I had at The Mountain Laurel.” The Laurel—as locals called it—was the only lodging in Timber Ridge, if you didn’t count Sophie Jackson’s bed-and-breakfast. That was exaggerating the fact, since Sophie hadn’t done anything different to her place before opening it, and you had to be pretty desperate to stay there with her. The Laurel had twenty rooms and a decent restaurant, and it was frequently on Greg’s delivery schedule.
“There’s no problem,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out who got the new menus yesterday.”
“Because of the robbery.” Greg nodded as he took his first bite. I didn’t know how he could eat a sandwich with so many different and sometimes clashing flavors, but he seemed to really enjoy it.
“You’ve heard about it already?” Maddy asked.
Greg finished his bite, then he wiped his mouth and said, “It’s a small town. Everybody knows what happened to Hank, and they know about the menu robbery note, too.”
He took another bite as Maddy grabbed a pad and a pen from behind the cash register. “Eleanor, do you still have the credit card receipts from yesterday?”
“I can do better than that,” I said as I got up and walked back into my office. “I’ll be back in a second.” After tucking the hundreds into the safe, I pulled out our deposit bag and rejoined them.
“I didn’t have time to make the deposit on our break, so we still have the checks from yesterday, too.”
“Let’s see them,” Maddy said as she grabbed the bag.
After she’d pulled out the sorted checks, I added the credit card receipts to the pile. “Do we really need to put the mayor’s name on our list? And how about Father Pat?”
“If they were here, we need to write their names down,” I said. “You read them off, and I’ll add them to the list.”
In short order, we had two dozen names on our list. I added Betsy’s son Chad to it, along with Ray Packer and Wyatt Nance, his dinner companions. Art Young, our local bad guy, had come by for a pizza too, but I hesitated to put his name on the list. I couldn’t see him being involved with a bank robbery that was clearly an amateur job, but I owed Kevin a complete list. I ended it by adding Grace Pine and Nancy Tolbert, though the former was a recent high school graduate heading off to Stanford, and the latter was an octogenarian retired librarian. By the time we were ready to open up again, we had forty-one names. It was hard to believe that one of them was a murderer.
Chances were good that someone on that list was exactly that, though.
It was a possibility I never dreamed I’d have to consider.