Tomato Basil Murder: Book 7 in The Darling Deli Series (8 page)

“Yeah, as soon as the new mattress gets here. I’m supposed to get the wine stain up, but if I can’t, they’ll have to replace the carpet.” She frowned down at the stained carpet, which looked like it had already been scrubbed with a variety of cleaning agents, to no avail.

“Try getting it wet,” Moira suggested. “Pour cold water on it and let it soak for a while, then rub in a paste made with baking soda and water. One it dries, vacuum it up. It may not be perfect, but it should help.”

“Thanks,” the young woman said, smiling gratefully at the deli owner. “I’ll try that.”

“I don’t think we’ll find anything here,” David said to Moira. “It looks like the police cleaned up pretty well. Thanks again for your help, miss.” The last part was directed towards Allison, who nodded solemnly.

“I hope you find the person who did this,” she told them. “Please let me know if I can be of any more help.”

“I will. Here’s my card in case you think of anything else.” They started towards the door, but David paused mid step. Moira stopped too, following his gaze. He was staring at the hotel room’s door, a frown wrinkling his brow.

“What is it?” she asked. He turned to Allison.

“Do these doors lock automatically?” he asked. She nodded. “And this one wasn’t broken when you found Mike?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It would take a lot to break into one of these doors. The hotel is pretty serious about security.”

“Thank you,” David said, his brow still furrowed. “I’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”

As he guided Moira gently out of the room, she tried to figure out what about the door had caught his attention. Asking him would have to wait, though—he didn’t seem to want to discuss anything in front of the hotel staff. Hopefully they could find a nice, quiet booth at one of Lake Marion’s restaurants, and he could tell her his theory over lunch.

On her way out of the building, she glanced a white pickup truck with the words
Maple Creek Landscaping and Yard Care
on the side. Something niggled at the back of her mind and she frowned, but then David slipped his hand into hers. When she looked over at him, he smiled.

“We’ll go wherever you want for food,” he said, obviously trying to cheer her up. “My treat.”

“Let’s drive around and see what looks good,” she replied, forcing a smile onto her lips and the white truck out of her mind.

Their eyes were caught not by a diner, but by the Lake Marion farmers market. David parked in an adjacent lot, and they walked over to the tables, where they got grilled hot dogs, two slices of cherry pie, and some fresh blueberries. They took their food over to a secluded picnic table in the shade of a large oak tree and sat down. Moira squirted packets of ketchup and mustard on her hot dog, but was too distracted by the questions running through her head to take a bite.

“Why did you ask Allison about the door?” she asked.

“Think about it,” he said, popping a blueberry into his mouth. “His hotel room wasn’t broken into. Chances are, he either knew whoever it was well enough to let them in, or the person who killed him had a room key themselves.”

“You think someone at the hotel did it?” Moira said, surprised.

“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility. If one of the housekeepers saw his watch, or maybe expensive shoes, or electronics, she might have decided to steal from him. Maybe he walked in at the wrong time, and she panicked,” he said.

Moira thought of Allison Byrd’s innocent voice, and how very similar to Candice she looked with her straight, light hair. Could the young woman have had something to do with Mike’s death? She doubted it, but she had been wrong before.

“What about the wine?” she asked. David raised his eyebrows, so she explained. “Mike didn’t drink very much, at least not when I knew him. He’d have a beer occasionally, especially when a football game was on, but he didn’t care much for wine. I can’t see him buying a bottle to drink alone.”

“Hmm… that does seem odd,” he said. “So you think it might have been someone he knew? Maybe a… lady friend?” He finished the sentence awkwardly, making Moira chuckle.

“It’s okay, we’ve been divorced for ten years. I’m fine with him seeing other women.” She paused to consider his question. “I just don’t know who would have it out for him. He was a friendly guy, and didn’t make many enemies. Obviously my friends all had it out for him when we were going through the divorce, but I highly doubt that any of them would have
killed
him, even back then.”

“You can’t think of anyone at all who might have had a grudge against him?” he asked.

“No… well actually, there might be one person. But I don’t think she would do something like this,” Moira mused.

“Tell me about her. Does she live in Maple Creek?”

“She lives about an hour south of us,” she told him. “Her name is Beth Gilliam. She was the woman that Mike had an affair with when we were still married.”

“She definitely has a connection to him then, but what would her motive be?”

“Beth didn’t know about me,” Moira said. “And when she found out Mike was married, she was crushed. She invited me out for coffee and apologized sincerely for what had happened.”

“And you think she might still be upset with Mike for what he did?”

“Maybe. She seemed to really care about him, and was pretty upset when she found out that he had been lying to her the whole time.” Moira sighed and attempted to push the painful, unwanted memories of her divorce away. She had better things to think about.

“It’s worth looking into,” David said. He took his tiny notepad out and scribbled down the woman’s name, then turned his attention to the food that was gradually cooling in front of them. “Enough of this depressing talk. Let’s enjoy this beautiful day.”

The day really was beautiful, with clear blue skies and a small breeze that blew away the morning’s humidity. Once they had finished their meal, Moira and David strolled around the farmers market, occasionally pausing to taste a sample or purchase something that looked too delicious to pass up. The time passed slowly, and it was still before noon by the time they had finished looking at the fresh produce and homemade trinkets and returned to David’s car. Once settled in the passenger seat, Moira yawned, feeling exhaustion sweep over her.
Spending so long under the hot sun sure took a lot out of me,
she thought.
I’m glad I don’t have to go to the deli today; I can just go home and nap instead.

After David dropped her off at her apartment and they said their goodbyes, Moira put the raspberries she had bought in the fridge and set the basket of heirloom tomatoes on the counter. She settled herself on the couch planning to take a nap, but sleep just wouldn’t come. Try as she might, she couldn’t get thoughts of the murder out of her mind. There were just too many possibilities, and no solid evidence of who had killed Mike and why. What else could she do? Who else could she question? She felt at a loss; there was nothing left to do except wait and keep her eyes peeled for the young man who had been wearing the watch that looked suspiciously like Mike’s. Nothing to do… unless she was willing to question her daughter.

Moira frowned, not sure how Candice would feel at the prospect of discussing her father’s death so soon.
If she seems uncomfortable, I can just change the subject,
she told herself. If her daughter
was
ready to discuss her father, then she might well be able to supply them with the missing information they needed to find the real killer.

Reluctantly, knowing that there was no other way to get the information she needed, she picked up the phone and punched in her daughter’s number. A few minutes later, she and Maverick had piled into the car and were on their way back to Lake Marion to pick up Candice and drive to the beach. The coming conversation would be unpleasant, but she was determined to make the rest of the afternoon as fun for her daughter as she could.

“I’m glad we decided to do this today,” Candice said, her eyes closed and her face relaxed as she reclined in the lounge chair. Twenty feet away, the Lake Michigan waves lapped at the shore. Candice, Moira, and Maverick were relaxing in the shade of the giant beach umbrella that the two women had managed to stuff in the car. The German shepherd was stretched out on one of the beach towels, his tongue hanging blissfully out of his mouth and his fur wet and sandy from his joyous run into the waves.

“Me too,” her mother replied. She took a sip of water and gazed out across the lake. A few white sails were visible far out as boaters took advantage of the wonderful day. Moira took a deep breath. It was time to broach the real reason for her call to her daughter. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about…” She was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. She dug it out of the beach bag and recognized the deli’s number. Hoping that nothing had gone wrong, she answered it.

“Hey, Ms. D, I was wondering if you were still interested in hiring someone else?” came Meg’s energetic voice.

“I would like to, yeah. I probably won’t advertise that we’re hiring until this whole issue with my ex-husband is solved, though,” Moira replied.

“Well, one of my friends is actually looking for a job. She’s really nice, and is super responsible. I told her I would put in a good word with you.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to give her an interview. Just tell her to bring in a résumé. Schedule her for one of the afternoons that I work this week… Maybe Wednesday?”

Shaking her head, slightly annoyed at the interruption, but glad that she might finally be getting another employee to replace Candice at the store, she turned her attention back to her daughter.

“Candice, I was wondering if I could ask you a few things… about Mike.” Her daughter was silent for a moment.

“I guess,” she said at last, her tone guarded. “What do you want to know?”

“Did he ever mention anyone around here that might have a reason to hurt him? You’ve heard a lot more about his life these last few years than I have,” Moira said.

“I already thought of that, but no matter how hard I try to remember, I don’t think he ever mentioned having any enemies here,” her daughter told her. “I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt him, anyway. He charmed people. You’re like the only person he ever argued with.”

“I know.” Moira sighed. Mike
did
have a way with words… and with women. That’s what had ended their marriage in the first place. Maybe he had wooed the wrong woman, and her husband had gotten revenge. “Do you know if he was seeing anyone while he was in town?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Dad and I didn’t talk about his dating life. We mostly just talked about my plans for the candy store, and me taking a trip out to California sometime next year.” She fell silent, her gaze far away as she thought about the trip that would never happen now.

Frustrated, Moira dug in the sand with her toes. She didn’t know what else to ask her daughter, and could sense that Candice was getting tired of talking about her father. Were there really no clues to be found about who may have killed him? An idea suddenly sprang into her head. She had saved the footage of the man wearing the watch that looked like Mike’s. He had looked to be around her daughter’s age, so maybe Candice would recognize him from school or around town. Digging in the beach bag, she found her phone and brought up the app that linked to the security camera.

“Watch this and tell me if you recognize anything about the guy,” she said, handing the phone to her daughter. Candice watched the video, then played it a second time, leaning closer to the device and shielding the screen from the sun with her other hand.

“I wish I could see his face,” she said with an annoyed sigh as she handed the phone back to her mother. “I
think
I’ve seen him around, but it’s hard to tell. If he would just look up for a second, I could be certain.”

“Doesn’t it seem almost like he’s avoiding the camera?” Moira asked, watching the video once again herself.

“It does,” Candice agreed. “Why are you so interested in him? Do you think he had something to do with what happened to Dad?”

“Well… maybe. He was wearing a nice gold watch like your father wore, and when David and I talked to Allison Byrd earlier today, she said that his watch was missing when you and she found him.”

“That’s true, his watch was gone. So was his phone,” her daughter said with a frown. “The police told me they never found it.”

“This is sounding more and more like a robbery gone wrong,” Moira said. “Maybe we should be checking at pawn shops to see if we can recognize anything else of his. Do you know if anything else was missing?”

“I’m not sure, his room was so messy when I found him it was impossible to tell if anything had been stolen. I got the feeling that whoever went through his stuff was angry at him.” Her daughter frowned at the lake, and Moira knew it was time to change the subject. She made an effort to keep the rest of their conversation positive and light, and by the time the two of them and the dog piled into the car to go home, Candice was smiling again.

Wednesday morning coffee with her friends was a fun routine that started a few months ago. Moira, Denise, and Martha each lived very different lives, but had enough similarities that they rarely ran out of things to talk about. Moira was curious to see how Beverly would fit in with the group, and hoped that she would get a chance to learn more about the other woman. From what she knew about Martha’s guest, the woman had her own share of man troubles, and she hoped that they would be able to help her at least a little.