Read Online Chicken Pesto Murder: Book 5 in The Darling Deli Series by Patti Benning - Free Book Online Page A

competitor. It was much more comfortable talking in Detective Jefferson’s office, with his nice wooden desk, the picture of his wife and young children, and sunlight streaming in through the window. The room smelled of coffee, and he offered her a cup, but she shook her head, the taste of the coffee shop’s overly sweet cappuccino lingering on her tongue.
    “So what is this about, Ms. Darling?” he asked once he was seated behind the wide desk.
    “Please, call me Moira,” she said. Maple Creek was a small town, and she saw the detective often enough these days that the continual formality felt weird to her.
    “Very well, Moira it is.” He leaned back in his seat and sighed. She realized for the first time that this investigation wasn’t easy for him, either. He was trying to find the murderer of his partner—a man that he had looked up to and worked with for years—and all of the evidence pointed towards a man that he believed to be innocent.
    “I just wanted to ask if you had anything—any leads at all—that point away from David,” she said. “This is so hard on him. He’s losing work because people think that he’s a murderer.”
    “I don’t have anything,” the detective admitted with a sigh. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “No evidence that someone else was there, but no real evidence that he was there either, other than his wallet.”
    “What about that guy who just got out of prison?” she asked. “Shawn Dietz. He was in prison for ten years thanks to Detective Fitzgerald. Wouldn’t that be motive?”
    “Sure, it’s motive,” the young detective said. “But plenty of people would have had motive to kill Fitzgerald. He was a good detective, and was responsible for a lot of arrests. I read Dietz’s file, and he was on his best behavior during his entire sentence. The armed robbery was his first offense, and he pled guilty. There were a lot of people involved in that case, and none of the others have turned up dead. The man has a good job with an auto repair shop, and from what his parole officer says, even got back together with his fiancée. He doesn’t exactly sound like someone who was holding a grudge.”
    “And there’s nothing tying him to the crime scene?” Moira asked desperately. She knew that she was grasping at straws. “Nothing at all?”
    “Not that I’m supposed to be telling you this, but no,” the detective said. “There isn’t.”
    She sighed, knowing that the detective probably couldn’t tell her anything else. She had probably already overstayed her welcome; she shouldn’t push it. She was just so frustrated; there was no way that David could have committed the murder, but it seemed like she was the only one who really believed that. Detective Jefferson said that he thought the private investigator was innocent, but he was still prepared to arrest David if the evidence continued to point towards him.
    “Thanks for your time,” she said at last, feeling defeated. She wondered if she had accomplished anything with this visit, other than learning that David’s situation seemed even more hopeless than she had thought. “I should be getting back to the deli.”
    “I’m sorry that I don’t have better news for you,” he said, rising to walk her out. “I don’t like this situation any more than you do. If there’s anything that you can remember about that night, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I want to find the guy who killed my partner, and put him behind bars for the rest of his life.”
    Her mood was testy by the time she got back to the deli. She did her best not to take it out on her employees, but knew she was being short with them. The whole situation with David was just so frightening. Part of her wanted to trust that the police wouldn’t arrest an innocent man, but she had watched enough crime shows to know that it did happen, more often than she had thought. What if David ended up getting sent to prison for a murder he