Spicy Lasagna Murder: Book 13 in The Darling Deli Series (9 page)

Moira smiled to herself at the sight of Karissa and Hazel. She had solved one problem tonight, at least. Now just to find good homes for the six little puppies. She wasn’t worried, though; she had almost two months to do it.

By six o’clock, the stone house was redolent with smells of tomatoes and garlic. Moira clicked the oven light on and peered through the little window, her stomach growling hopefully as she eyed the lasagna. Nothing compared to a good, home-cooked meal, especially when most of the ingredients had come fresh from the farmer’s market the day before.

A soft whine came from the mudroom, behind the baby gate. The deli owner looked over to see Hazel poking her head over, her floppy ears perked up as she gazed imploringly at Moira.

“What do you need, sweetie?” she crooned. “Want to go outside?”

Judging by the way the lab’s rear end began to wiggle back and forth, the answer was yes. Gingerly, Moira stepped over the gate and bent down to pet the puppies. All six of them were chubby and healthy, and when she stroked them they made small sounds as their mouths nuzzled her hand.

“Mom will be back soon,” she murmured to them. “She just has to go outside to potty really quick.” She picked up the runt and gave her a quick kiss on the head before checking that the heating pad was still on. Satisfied that the pups were warm enough, she opened the back door and let their mother out. She was so glad that Hazel had found a home with Karissa; letting her go once the puppies were weaned would be so much easier knowing that she would still see her pretty often.

After letting Hazel back inside, she went to the front door and let Maverick and Keeva out to go to the bathroom. It was a pain not being able to let them go out the back door the way she used to, but she didn’t want to disturb the puppies. Besides, both of her dogs were big and prone to clumsiness; she didn’t want to risk one stepping on the pups.

She had just gotten them back inside when she saw Candice’s sleek silver convertible pull up the driveway. She stood on the porch waving as her daughter and Eli got out of the car.

“Thanks for agreeing to come here for dinner,” she told them. “I don’t want to leave the puppies alone if I don’t have to.”

“No problem, Mom,” Candice said. “I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble. You know we would have been happy to pick something up on our way over.”

“I know, but I’m just getting back into the swing of cooking. I made a nice homemade lasagna, which should be ready to come out of the oven in just a few minutes.”

“I bet it’ll be amazing, Ms. D,” Eli said, sniffing the air as they walked inside the house. “It sure smells great.”

“It will be better than the frozen ones you can buy at the store,” she said. “Beyond that, I make no promises.”

The two of them settled in with the puppies while Moira got the lasagna out of the oven and put the finishing touches on the meal. First she sprinkled a hearty layer of parmesan cheese over the pasta dish, which she then put on a trivet on the dining room table. Next, she went to the fridge and took out the bowl of fresh greens that she had bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. With one hand, she added cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots, sliced almonds, and diced cucumbers before putting it on the table and getting a variety of dressings out of the fridge. By then the dinner rolls—the one pre-packaged dish at her table—were done, and she gingerly took them out of the oven and transferred them to a basket. All that was left to do was put the butter and drinks on the table, and they were ready to eat.

She called Eli and Candice to the table, and was hit with a sudden flood of nostalgia as they clambered back over the gate to the mudroom and headed to the kitchen sink to wash their hands. For over eighteen years she had made most of the meals for her daughter, and it was something that she missed. Cooking for one just wasn’t the same, though she
did
eat with David quite often. She missed having her daughter in the house, and deliberately tamped down on her sadness at the thought that the young woman would probably never live with her again. Of course she was glad for Candice’s sake that the young woman was independent now and was making her own life choices… but Moira missed having somebody to cook for.

“This looks delicious, Mom,” her daughter said as she slid into her seat at the dining room table. Eli sat next to her and agreed.

“I can’t wait to dig in.”

“Well, help yourselves. There’s plenty to go around.”

They began eating, spending a few minutes in silence until their initial hunger pangs were silenced. Once the deli owner finished her first serving of piping hot lasagna, she put her fork down and looked at the pair at the table across from her.

“So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?” she asked.

The three of them had had dinner with Eli’s grandfather only a few nights ago, so she had been surprised when Candice had asked to meet for dinner a second time. The only thing he could think of was that they either had some sort of announcement to make, or had something they wanted to ask her.

“Well—” Candice blushed and looked over at her boyfriend, who cleared his throat and put down his fork. He glanced over at the young woman, who nodded encouragingly. He gave her a small smile and shook his head.

“She’s your mom,” he said. “You have to be the one to tell her.”

Moira’s daughter sighed, then braced herself and met her mother’s eyes.

“Mom,” she said. “Eli and I have decided to move in together.”

The deli owner served herself another slice of lasagna and took a bite to give herself time to think. Moving in with someone was a big step, and she wasn’t sure her daughter was ready for it. Moira liked Eli, of course, but Candice had really only been seeing him for a few months—less time than she and David had been dating. Her daughter had something of a history of having relationships end badly. What were the chances that things would turn out the same way between her end Eli?

She looked over the table to the young couple and smiled. In the end it was their choice, and she would just have to trust her daughter’s instincts. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t made her fair share of mistakes with men herself. Look at her ex-husband, after all. From the beginning, Mike had been far more trouble than Eli ever was.

“I’m glad for you, sweetie,” she said. “Are you going to find a completely new place, or is one of you going to move in with the other?”

“We’re both going to move into Eli’s grandfather’s house, since it’s bigger than my apartment,” the young woman said. “Reggie has been letting Eli live there, and is going to leave it for him in his will. It won’t be quite as convenient as my place right about the candy shop, but it isn’t that much farther away.”

“That sounds just perfect,” the deli owner said. “Once you get settled in, I’d love to come over and see it.”

With the announcement made, the atmosphere of the dinner became much lighter. Despite her misgivings, Moira was glad for them. The young couple was obviously in love, and she would just have to hope for the best that they would stay that way for a good long time.

She followed the two young people into the kitchen, where they again made a beeline for Hazel and the puppies.

“All right, Mom, I think that’s the last of it,” Candice said.

Moira, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the refrigerated truck gave her daughter a thumbs up, at which the young woman slammed the rear doors shut. Darrin, standing next to her, double-checked that they were firmly latched, then the two of them came around to the front to get into the truck. Since Candice had never driven such a big, bulky vehicle before, she squeezed herself into the back seat of the cab while Darrin took the driver’s seat.

While he pulled out of the deli’s parking lot, the deli owner gazed out the window. The leaves on the maple tree outside the deli had begun to change color more quickly over the last week, and it felt more like autumn than ever. Normally her favorite season—well, she loved all the seasons if she was going to be honest with herself—she felt that this year, autumn’s glorious beginning had been marred by the deadly fire. She couldn’t even begin to imagine poor Mrs. Samwell’s grief, and hoped that this event would give both widows—and the entire community—the closure that they all needed. She liked the idea of celebrating someone’s life as opposed to grieving their death. Someone like Farmer Samwell had achieved so many things and touched so many people that it didn’t make sense for all of that to be forgotten once he was buried.

“Ms. D, which way do I turn up here?” Darrin asked, distracting her from her thoughts.

“Right,” she told him. “Then it’s the first driveway on the right, about a quarter of a mile down the road.”

He followed her directions and a few minutes later the refrigerated truck was turning onto Farmer Samwell’s driveway. Darrin stopped the truck near where David and Moira had parked before and got out to talk to Mrs. Samwell, who was waiting on her porch for them. The deli owner watched as she shook the young man’s hand, and then spoke to him quietly for a moment. She pointed, and Moira turned her head to look to where she had gestured. The big tent was set up again, which was a good thing because the skies were threatening rain. She looked back in time to see Darrin nod and turn to come back to the truck.

“She said we can pull right up to the tent and not to worry about the grass,” he told them as he slid into the driver’s seat and put the vehicle in gear.

“All right. Still try to be careful, though. I’ll feel bad if we accidentally tear up the lawn.”

He cautiously eased the truck onto the grass and let it roll down the slight slope until they pulled even with the tent, where he put it in park and hopped out again. Candice climbed over the seat to follow him, and was already out by the time Moira had her seatbelt undone.
Oh, to be young again
, she thought.
At least I’ll get this cast off eventually.
She joined the two of them around the back of the truck and began helping to take out the tablecloths and the nice platters that she had brought especially for this occasion. There were bags of ice in the truck as well, which they would use to keep the perishables cool.

They finished setting up just in the nick of time. People began arriving all at once and began making their way toward the tent. Mrs. Franks was one of the first to get there, and she gave Moira a quick nod of thanks before walking over to Mrs. Samwell. The deli owner watched as the two women embraced, and Mrs. Franks wiped a tear from her eye.

“Ms. Darling, I heard rumors that you were catering this event,” said a voice that Moira recognized immediately. She spun around to see Zander Marsh standing by the food table.

“Mrs. Samwell thought the deli would be a good choice, since I did business with her husband,” she told him. At a loss for what else to say, she searched her brain, finally remembering his hobby. “How is the brewing going?”

“About the same as ever,” he said with a smile. “Thanks for asking. And who might this be?”

He turned to look at Darrin, who shook his hand and introduced himself.

“You’re the one that Ms. D might start buying some produce from?” he asked. The other man nodded.

“We had a productive meeting about that the other day, and I think we’ll both have no trouble maintaining the same working relationship that she and Mr. Samwell had,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be able to offer the deli even more in the future. I have quite a few plans to increase efficiency and yield, and I can hardly wait to start implementing them.”

“So you’ve bought this place?” her employee asked. “That was fast.”

“Not yet,” Zander admitted without a trace of shame. “But I’m going to. The moment Mrs. Samwell puts it on the market, it’s mine.”

When he eventually walked away, Moira breathed a sigh of relief. She was put off by the man’s arrogance, and couldn’t get over her suspicion that he had something to do with the murder. The only problem was, she had no proof.

As the day wore on, she found herself wishing that David had been able to make it. She and her employees were working hard to keep the platters full from the supplies in the truck, and she was due for her break in just a few minutes. It would be nice to have someone to talk to while she took a breather, but most of the people here she didn’t know. Maybe she could find Mrs. Samwell and give her condolences again.

Suddenly Moira felt bad for not inviting Reggie. She felt certain that the old man would have appreciated the chance to say goodbye to his friend like this, and she wished that she had given the matter more thought back at their dinner.

Finally, it was time for her break. She made sure that Darrin and Candice were okay to handle things on their own, then took her leave of them. She wanted to find their hosts and thank them, or at least find someone who might tell her more about Mr. Samwell.

Instead, she found Zander yet again. Luckily he hadn’t seen her yet, so she hung back by the drink table and tried not to look like she was eavesdropping. He was talking to another man; someone she didn’t know.

“You’re a lucky man, Zander,” the other man was saying. “One unfortunately timed fire, and your business gets the chance to grow once again.”

“It’s like I have some lucky spirit watching over me, isn’t it?” Zander said, holding his cup up as if toasting some imaginary friend. “All that’s left is to deal with Mrs. Samwell. I never thought it would be so difficult to get her to sign those papers. The woman’s brain seems scattered more than usual these days.”