Pie Peril and a Peculiar Murder Read online

  Mr. Stanton was a brawny, mustached fifty-one-year-old. He looked much more like a nightclub bouncer than a dry cleaner. Of course, he only worked here during the daytime. At night, he was Eric’s right-hand man, overseeing a great deal of Mr. Hobart’s drug empire.

  That was why David and I were so desperate to question Cliff. His answers could potentially be very insightful.

  That particular afternoon, Cliff was standing behind the counter, counting money from the register. When he spotted us approaching him, he gave us a smile.

  Normally, my husband was quick to pull out his police badge. This time, David left his badge in his pocket.

  Meanwhile, Cliff addressed David like he was just a regular customer.

  “Are you here to pick up some clothes?” Cliff asked.

  David shook his head.

  Cliff’s nose scrunched. “Don’t tell me you’re here to drop off. I don’t see any garments in your hand.”

  “We’re not here about dry cleaning,” David said.

  “Why are you here then?”

  “I want to talk to you about your boss.”

  “I’m afraid Eric isn’t here right now.”

  “I know.”

  Cliff squinted. “How do you know that?”

  “Because he’s dead,” David said.

  Cliff did a double-take. “What?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not even the worst part.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was murdered.”

  Cliff shook his head in disbelief. “No way.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s the truth,” David said.

  Cliff’s eyebrows rose. “Wait a minute. How do you know all of this?”

  David pulled out his police badge. “Because it’s my job to find out who murdered him.”

  “Hold on a second. You’re with the police?” Cliff asked.

  David nodded. “I am. And I’m not giving up until the killer is in custody. That’s where you come in.”

  Cliff pointed at himself. “Me?”

  “Yes. I’m really hoping that you can provide me with some information.”

  “You’ve come to the wrong place. I had no idea that Eric was dead,” Cliff said. “Honestly, this news is pretty unbelievable.”

  David watched Cliff’s body language closely.

  “Are you really that surprised by the news?” David asked.

  Cliff raised his voice. “What kind of a question is that? Of course I am.”

  “Don’t snap at me. We both know that Eric was in a dangerous line of work. And he seemed to have a knack for really rubbing people the wrong way—”

  “Wait a minute. Since when is dry cleaning a dangerous line of work?”

  David put his hand up. “Mr. Stanton, stop right there. You’re not fooling me.”

  Cliff’s nose scrunched. “I don’t follow you.”

  “I know this dry cleaning business is just a front. Eric’s real fortune came from trafficking drugs.”

  Cliff shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  David stared the suspect down. “Sure you don’t. So, you’re going to deny that you were his second-in-command?”

  “Like I told you before, my business is dry cleaning.”

  David rolled his eyes. “Sure it is.”

  “For someone who is so filled with doubt about me, do you have a single shred of proof that I’ve done anything illegal?”

  “Let’s just say that my information comes from a very reliable source.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “Mr. Stanton, I’m the one asking the questions here.”

  “I understand. On the flip side, what’s the point of me answering you if you’re just going to throw around baseless accusations?”

  “Fine. Let’s talk cold hard facts then.”

  “Such as?”

  “Where were you last night?” David asked.

  “What timeframe are you talking about?” Cliff replied.

  “Between nine and ten o’clock.”

  “In that case, I was here.”

  David’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  “You heard me.”

  “That’s pretty late to still be at work.”

  “It’s just the nature of the business sometimes.”

  David turned around. “You say that, but according to the sign on the door, this place closes at eight.”

  “To the public, yes. But there’s a fair amount of paperwork that comes with this job. Last night seemed like a good time to get caught up.”

  “When you were doing this paperwork, were there any other employees in the building?”

  Cliff shook his head. “No. I was the only one here.”

  David quickly scanned the room with his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have any video cameras here, do you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s surprising.”

  “Not really,” Cliff said. “Who is going to rob a dry cleaner?”

  “Mr. Stanton, a fear of being burglarized isn’t the only reason that businesses install security cameras.”

  “I get that. But since we don’t have cameras in here, there’s no point in discussing those other reasons, is there?”

  “I suppose not,” David said. “Now, back to your so-called alibi.”

  “What do you mean, so-called?”

  “Since you were alone here, there is no way of confirming that you are telling the truth.”

  Cliff snarled. “I really don’t like where this conversation is going.”

  “Why not? Does it hit too close to the bone?”

  “No. It’s just preposterous to me that you think I might have had something to do with Eric’s death.”

  “Try to look at things from my perspective. To start, there’s no way of verifying your alibi. Next, you had ample motive for wanting Eric dead.”

  Cliff scoffed. “There you go, throwing around wild accusations again.”

  “It’s pretty clear that you’re an ambitious man. With that in mind, it’s not a stretch to believe that you would want to become the top dog. That wasn’t going to happen while Eric was alive.”

  “For the last time, I didn’t kill Eric,” Cliff snapped.

  David stared deep into the suspect’s eyes. “I’d watch that temper if I were you.”

  Cliff took a deep breath and then replied, “Look. I’ve answered all of your questions. So, unless you have evidence that I’ve done anything wrong, I’m going to get back to work.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Suddenly, David and I were down to our last suspect. The question became, would this upcoming interview produce better results than the previous ones had? Or would it be a dud as well? We were anxious to find out.

  Our quest for the truth brought us to the waterfront. Vinny Robertson owned a warehouse not too far from the port. He ran an importing business. Although, my husband believed that Vinny’s business was just a front for a drug trafficking operation. Rumor had it that Vinny was the second biggest drug kingpin in town. Since Vinny was Eric Hobart’s main rival in the drug trade, it was pretty obvious why we wanted to speak with him.

  What we didn’t realize until we arrived at the guard gate was that we would need to get through a layer of security before being able to talk to him face to face. Thankfully, David’s police badge had a way of opening doors. After the security guard at the front gate looked at my husband’s badge, he grabbed his radio and made a call.

  During that time, I said a quick little prayer to myself that Vinny didn’t give us any trouble. We just wanted some questions answered. We had zero interest in jumping through multiple hoops just to have a simple conversation.

  When the brawny security guard put his radio down, I expected him to open up the gate for us and lead us back to Vinny’s office inside the warehouse. That didn’t happen. On the flip side, the guard didn’t turn us away either. He just told us to wait in our car for a minute.

  Unfortunately, five minutes went by without any sign of Vinny. At that point, we began to wonder if Vinny was going to show his face after all.

  About thirty seconds later, David and I saw a golf cart approaching us. The cart stopped a few feet away from the guard gate. Vinny Robertson then got up from the driver’s-seat of the cart. Despite the delayed start, it looked like this interview would finally take place.

  On the surface, Vinny didn’t look terribly intimidating. He was a balding rotund man in his early sixties who loved calzones and black derby hats.

  I wasn’t about to let his looks deceive me. By all accounts, he was a dangerous man. He just happened to know how to put on a good face. The true test was how long he’d be able to maintain his poise once we got to the tough questions.

  Rather than antagonizing him right off the bat, David elected to slowly build up to the hardball questions.

  “Mr. Robertson, I was wondering if you were going to join us,” David deadpanned.

  “I apologize for the wait. It has just been a very busy day,” Vinny said.

  “In that case, I’ll get right down to business,” David said.

  Vinny’s forehead wrinkled. “I have to admit, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does a police detective want with me?”

  David told Vinny about Eric’s murder. My husband then examined Vinny’s body language as the derby-wearing businessman processed the news.

  “Don’t get me wrong. That’s a really shocking turn of events,” Vinny said. “I just don’t understand why you drove over here to tell me about it.”

  David folded his arms. “Are you really going to make me spell it out for you?”

  “Absolutely. After all, I’m just an honest guy trying to make a living. I don’t know anything about a murder.”

/>   “Mr. Robertson, do I have to remind you that it is against the law to lie to a police detective?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “That depends.”

  Vinny threw out his arms. “On what?”

  “Whether you honestly expect me to believe that you aren’t a drug dealer.”

  “Detective, I’m an importer of novelty goods from China. I don’t know anything about drugs.”

  “Will you drop the importer act? You’re not fooling me.”

  “It’s not an act.”

  David groaned. “This conversation is getting very tiring.”

  “How do you think I feel? It’s hard enough running a company without some police detective coming around in the middle of a work day throwing accusations at you.”

  “Mr. Robertson, if you’re really operating an honest business, I don’t suppose you would mind us taking a look around.”

  Vinny narrowed his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Why? Because you have something to hide?”

  Vinny shook his head. “No. Because I have a right to privacy.”

  “That’s a convenient excuse.”

  “Detective, do you have a warrant to search my warehouse?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I can get one, though.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Suspicion of running a drug operation.”

  “I know what you’re doing and you aren’t going to scare me. If you had legitimate grounds to get a warrant, you would have gotten a judge to issue one already. That’s why I’m calling your bluff.”

  “Do you have any idea how suspicious you look right now?”

  “I don’t care how I look. I just want to get back to running my business.”

  Vinny turned around and took a step back toward his golf cart.

  David raised his voice as he replied, “We’re not done here.”

  “Oh yeah?” Vinny asked.

  “As a matter of fact, we’re just getting started.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I may not have a warrant to search your warehouse, but I have every right to detain you for questioning. Now, this interview can take place here, or back at the police station. It’s your call. What’s it going to be?”

  “You want to interview me? Fine. But I’m going to let you know right now, you’re wasting your time.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Vinny exhaled and then replied, “Let’s get this over with.”

  “I’m warning you right now. I’m not going to let you rush things.”

  “Can you get to the point already?”

  “I will. Just one more thing first.”

  Vinny gritted his teeth. “What is it?”

  “The quicker you tell me the truth, the sooner this will all be over.”

  “You want the truth? I’ll give it to you,” Vinny said. “I had nothing to do with Eric’s murder. In fact, I didn’t even know he was dead until you told me earlier.”

  David’s eyes widened. “You sure jumped on the defensive in a hurry.”

  “Detective, you aren’t exactly a subtle person. It was pretty obvious where you were going with this conversation.”

  “I know you think I should just take your word at face value. It doesn’t work that way, though. Especially since you had ample motive for wanting Eric dead.”

  “Says you.”

  “Vinny, you’re the second biggest drug kingpin in town. With Eric dead, his entire operation could be thrown into turmoil, allowing you to take a strangle hold on the market. That sounds like a pretty substantial motive to me.”

  Vinny snarled at David. “For the last time, I run an import business.”

  David stared Vinny down. “Will you knock it off with the import business already?”

  “Detective, you’re the one who should be giving things a rest—”

  “Nice try,” David said. “But guess what? I’m not going to stop until Eric’s killer is behind bars.”

  “If you’re looking for a murderer, you’re in the wrong place.”

  “Prove it.”

  Vinny’s nose crinkled. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “By telling me where you were last night.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “What time you’re talking about,” Vinny said.

  “Between nine and ten o’clock,” David replied.

  Vinny searched his mind before answering. “In that case, I was driving home.”

  “From where?” David asked.

  “Here.”

  “Late night at the office, huh?”

  “In my line of work, there are a lot of late nights.”

  David smirked. “I’ll bet. Was anyone in the car with you as you drove home?”

  Vinny shook his head. “No.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Hey, you wanted an answer. Well, you got one. It’s not my problem if you don’t like what you heard.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t like it. I was just hoping to be able to cross you off of my suspect list,” David said. “Based on your response, I can’t.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” Vinny replied. “But as far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.”

  Chapter Twelve

  What a way to end the first round of suspect interviews. Usually, at this point in an investigation, we were able to cross at least one name off of our list. Sometimes, we were fortunate enough to eliminate a few people.

  That was far from the case this time. In fact, each of the suspects looked guilty in their own way. Not only was that highly disturbing, but it meant that we were not really any closer to finding the killer than when we started our investigation. If that wasn’t bad enough, we were fresh out of leads.

  All of those thoughts weighed heavily on my mind as David and I drove away from Vinny’s warehouse. While my head remained firmly in the clouds, David decided to vent his frustrations.

  “Well, that certainly could have gone better,” David said.

  “Talk about an understatement,” I said.

  “You’re right. Honestly, things could have gone much better.”

  “On the flip side, they could have also gone much worse.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “David, we just finished speaking with a number of drug dealers. It’s honestly pretty amazing that none of them pulled a gun on us.”

  “True. Although, I’ll bet a number of them wanted to.”

  “You have that right. I mean, neither Valerie nor Angela sell drugs, and even they looked like they wanted to kill us.”

  “Which leads to the question, who didn’t want to harm us?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

  David exhaled. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Which is why we’re both lucky to be sitting here, without a scratch on us,” I said.

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  My nose scrunched. “Is there another way?”

  “As much as the suspects hated us, if any of them had actually pulled a gun on you or me, it would have been a dead giveaway that they were guilty.”

  “You’re right. Instead, they all took a different approach, working as hard as they could to conceal the truth.”

  “Speaking of, how many lies do you think we were told today?” David asked.

  I grimaced. “A disturbing amount.”

  “Not that I expected the killer to make a confession and turn themselves in, but I wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of denials that were thrown our way.”

  “I know. Take Vinny, for example. The man actually expected us to believe that he makes the majority of his money running an import business.”

  “What about Cliff? Or Keith? Both of them acted like their only business was dry cleaning.”

  “All told, I think it’s safe to say that every one of the suspects lied to us about something.”

  David nodded. “Which is going to make it that much harder to uncover the truth about what really happened.”

  “No one ever said it would be easy,” I replied.