The Pizza Mystery (6 page)

“Or
who
the problem is,” Laurie muttered under her breath after the Piccolos went into the kitchen.

In the low light, the children saw Nick glare at Laurie, but he said nothing. Shortly afterwards he left the restaurant with barely a good night.

When Mrs. Piccolo came out of the kitchen, Violet noticed she was crying softly. “What is it?” Violet asked.

Mrs. Piccolo took Violet's hand and led her to the big white deep freezer. “My sauces. They will thaw out without electricity. The tomatoes are from our garden last summer. Special tomatoes for Piccolos' sauce. We will lose more than money if we lose these frozen sauces.”

Laurie Baker was the only one of the tired group who didn't seem upset by this. “Well,” Laurie said, almost cheerfully, “you can teach
me
how to make some new batches. We don't even need electricity for that. We can start tomorrow.”

Mrs. Piccolo smiled at the young woman. “Ah, such a willing worker you are. But there are no fresh tomatoes at this time of year. The sauce would never be the same.”

Before Laurie had an answer for that, Violet came up with a solution. “Benny, Jessie, Henry. Go get your jackets, boots, and hats and follow me.”

“Where are you going?” Laurie Baker asked suspiciously. “Nothing's open at this hour. You'll never find anyone with a freezer for all the frozen sauces and meats in here.”

It was too dark for Laurie to see Violet's ear-to-ear grin. “Oh, yes, we will!” she shouted before she went outside ahead of her brothers and sister.

Violet handed everyone a shovel. “Now dig as much snow as you can.”

“I get it!” Benny said after the first shovelful. “We're not looking for a freezer, we're making one! Just like we made a refrigerator in a brook when we lived in the boxcar.”

‘That's right, Benny,” Violet cried. “Only now it's a freezer, not a refrigerator. And we're using snow, not a brook.”

Henry held up his shovel like a flagpole. “Let's hear it for Violet! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!”

The Aldens cheered and shoveled as fast as they could to make their “outdoor freezer” for Mrs. Piccolo. They couldn't see that Laurie Baker was watching them from the kitchen window and that she didn't look at all happy with what the Aldens were doing.

CHAPTER 8

A Surprise Confession

T
he next morning, the sun was shining, and so was every light at Piccolos' Pizza. The children ran outside to see how their “freezer in the snow” was working. The Piccolos were already packing up the frozen meats and sauces to bring inside.

“When did the power come back on?” Jessie asked.

“This morning at six,” Mr. Piccolo answered. “I came out early to cover your little freezer before the sun came out. When I arrived, the electricity was back on. The emergency people from the light company said a truck from the muffler company backed into the pole last night. This knocked out the electricity for a while. Now it's all fixed.”

Henry and Jessie walked back to the shed to get some carrying crates.

“I'm glad the power is back on,” Jessie said. “I guess we were wrong to think that Laurie or Nick caused the blackout.”

Henry nodded. “Still, I can't figure out why Laurie didn't seem upset. She almost seemed glad to have to make the new sauces.”

When Henry and Jessie came back with the crates, they saw Laurie Baker coming up the driveway.

“I see everything was saved,” Laurie said without a smile. She only stopped frowning when she saw the Piccolos.

“Good morning, Laurie,” Mr. Piccolo cried. “I guess you know that Violet here rescued everything last night. My homemade sausages, Nina's tomato sauces, everything is still frozen solid.”

“So I see,” Laurie said before she went inside.

Mr. Piccolo brought in the last of the freezer containers. “Well, now that everything is set for the day, Nina and I can go out for the morning shopping,” Mr. Piccolo told the children.

Mrs. Piccolo reached for the marketing basket she kept by the freezer. “With these children and Laurie and Nick working together, we could take the whole day off!”

But Mrs. Piccolo was wrong about everyone working together that day. The minute the Piccolos left, the phone rang in the dining room. When Jessie answered it, Nick told her he wasn't going to be in.

“Who was that?” Laurie asked when Jessie hung up.

“Nick,” Jessie answered in a puzzled voice. “He can't come in today. He didn't say why.”

“Fine,” Laurie said. “It's easier without him underfoot. Now I need all of you to hand out these flyers in town for today's special. You don't need to come back until eleven.”

The children knew what Laurie expected them to do. They put on their warm clothes and took the stack of flyers. When they went past the muffler factory, they handed out a few flyers to some of the workers going into the building.

Jessie tried to hand one young man a flyer, but he went by too fast. “Here, try our . . . Nick!” Jessie suddenly cried. “What are you doing here?”

Nick pulled down his hat and pulled up his scarf to cover his face before he disappeared into the building.

“Are you sure that was Nick?” Violet asked. “Why didn't he answer you?”

“I'd know those blue eyes anywhere,” Jessie said. “I wonder if he's started a job here. Maybe that's why he didn't come to the restaurant today.”

The children spent the rest of the morning trying to puzzle out what was going on with their old friend.

By ten-thirty, the Aldens were out of flyers. They didn't want to upset Laurie by coming back too early, so they walked slowly.

“Something is still bothering me about last night,” Jessie said when she saw a Mighty Mufflers delivery truck go by. “Why was Laurie the only one who wasn't upset?”

“She almost seemed glad that it happened because then she could help the Piccolos make more sauce,” Henry said.

“There's so much work in the restaurant already, why would she want to make those sauces?” Violet asked. “That's a lot of work.”

Benny shuffled along with his hands in his pockets. “And I bet she wouldn't let us help. Or Nick either!”

“Nick is the other part of this puzzle,” Jessie said. “At first I thought he was acting strange because of Laurie. But he moved out of the apartment and stopped coming to Piccolos' before she even started working there.”

“What if,” Henry began, “what if Mighty Mufflers hired Nick because he
did
work for the restaurant and knows all about it? If the factory wants to put Piccolos' out of business for some reason, they could use Nick to hurt the restaurant.”

“No!” Violet broke in. “Nick would never help anyone harm the Piccolos. I just know he wouldn't.”

The other children knew how much Violet liked Nick. She knew him better than any of the other children. He would never cause problems for the Piccolos. Violet was sure of that.

When the children finally reached the restaurant, there was a new problem to figure out. A truck from the county health department was parked in the driveway of the restaurant.

“What's the health inspector doing here?” Violet asked.

“He goes around to restaurants and food stores to check that everything is neat and clean,” Jessie said.

“I know the dishes are neat and clean,” Benny said proudly.

The children weren't a bit worried about the health inspector. They knew Piccolos' Pizza was the cleanest restaurant in Silver Falls.

The Aldens heard a man's loud voice coming from the kitchen. “Now take out every pot and pan! And all the canisters of flour, too! This freezer needs to be five degrees colder, so you'll have to throw out what's in there.”

“But, but,” Mrs. Piccolo began, “the freezer will be the right temperature in a few minutes. We lost our electricity last night and . . .”

“Your electrical problems are not my problems.” The man checked off something on his clipboard. “Everything in that freezer has to be thrown out!”

Henry wasn't going to let this happen. “Sir, this food has been packed in ice all night. I think if you just open a few containers, you'll see that everything is frozen colder than your requirements. As Mrs. Piccolo said, the freezer is nearly at the right level now. Please, could you check?”

“Hmph!” the inspector said. “I'll check, but if it's a tenth of a degree off, out this food goes. Understand?”

Henry nodded.

The man pulled the tops off several containers of tomato sauce. “All right,” the man muttered. “Now please run through the steps you follow to store your food and prepare your pizzas.”

Mr. and Mrs. Piccolo explained how they made their dough and grated their cheese fresh every day. Mrs. Piccolo showed off the gleaming jars of tomatoes she put up at the end of every summer from her garden full of tomatoes. She pointed to the pots of herbs sunning themselves on the kitchen window-sill.

As the inspector checked over and under the cabinets, the Piccolos explained everything from how far ahead they made their sauces to how long they let their pizza dough rise. By this time, the inspector had calmed down. He even looked a little hungry!

All this talk didn't interest Benny much. He went out to the dining room. He was surprised to see Laurie Baker sitting at her usual table, right by the kitchen. She seemed to be listening in on the conversation coming from the kitchen, then writing things down in her notebook.

Before Laurie even saw Benny, he went back to get Jessie.

Right after the inspector left, Jessie came out to the dining room. “What are you writing down, Laurie?”

The young woman was so startled she slammed her notebook shut and dropped her pen. “Nothing—nothing important,” she answered. “Isn't there something you two should be doing besides spying on people?”

“We weren't spying,” Benny said. “I just came out to do my jobs.” As Laurie handed Benny the silverware tray, he brushed against her notebook. A piece of paper that was sticking out floated to the floor.

Jessie picked up the paper and read it out loud. “Two tablespoons of olive oil. Six cloves of garlic. Two jars of tomatoes. Four teaspoons of bay leaves.”

“It's four teaspoons
of basil
,” Mrs. Piccolo said when she came into the dining room. “Not bay leaves. Why are you reading my recipe for tomato sauce, Jessie?”

Jessie stared at Laurie. “It was in Laurie's notebook,” she said, puzzled.

Laurie took the paper from Jessie. “I didn't. It's . . . it's something else.”

“May I see that, Laurie?” Mrs. Piccolo asked softly.

“It's . . . I had a reason,” Laurie said when she finally handed Mrs. Piccolo the piece of paper.

Mrs. Piccolo looked hurt and confused. “Why? Why did you write this down? What are you hiding from us?”

Laurie sank back into her chair. Her voice trembled. “I needed the recipe for your sauce, Mrs. Piccolo.”

Mrs. Piccolo put her hand on Laurie's shoulder. “My recipe? Why would you need such a thing?”

Laurie didn't look up when she answered. “I wanted to help my parents reopen their restaurant in Maytown. It went out of business last year. I thought if they knew how to make your good pizza and how to run a restaurant like yours, they could make a go of it.”

“So you came to get experience here?” Mr. Piccolo said in a hurt voice. “Why didn't you tell us when you started coming here for lunch? We would have offered you a job. Why have you lied to us?”

Laurie looked up and tried to explain. “I was afraid you wouldn't hire me if you knew my parents had a restaurant, so I waited until you really needed someone. I know that was a terrible thing to do. I realize that, now that it's too late.”

Everyone was silent.

Finally, Mr. Piccolo took a deep breath and spoke to Laurie. “If you had told us the truth, we would have taught you all our business. We're not worried about a restaurant all the way out in Maytown competing with us! You didn't have to sneak around trying to figure out Nina's recipes.”