Pepperoni Pizza Can Be Murder Read Online Free Page A

appeared, since it was loaded down with lots of nice, heavy things, but before I could act on my impulse, he looked up at me, gestured with the gun, and then just shook his head.
    No words needed to be spoken. He was warning me, and I was going to go along with his silent demand. After all, it was only money, and I could always make more, though tonight’s take wouldn’t be that easy to replace.
    Still, it wasn’t worth dying over.
    He stood again, then quickly ran down the alley toward a cluster of other buildings before I could even get my breath back.
    I called the police dispatcher on my cell phone as I leaned against my car, still shaking from the potentially deadly encounter.
    “I need to speak with Kevin Hurley,” I said.
    “He’s clocked out for the day,” Helen Murphy explained. “I thought you said he already came by your restaurant tonight.”
    “Then send someone else,” I screamed, not meaning to raise my voice, but having no real control over it. “I’ve just been robbed.”
    Helen’s voice softened immediately. “Are you all right, Eleanor?”
    I took a second to get my breath, and then said, “No, but I will be.”
    “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
    “Not physically, but my nerves are jumping all over the place,” I said as I slumped even lower against the driver’s-side door. “Just send someone over to the alley behind the Slice as soon as you can, Helen, would you?”
    “It won’t be a minute,” she said. “Stay on the line until someone shows up.” I could hear her making a call on the police radio, and she was as good as her word. It couldn’t have been sixty seconds before I saw a squad car rushing toward me.
    I felt a little bit of relief when I realized it wasn’t the police chief. I didn’t want to deal with Kevin Hurley, especially not yet, but my joy was short-lived when I saw another squad car closely following the first one.
    It appeared that our chief of police wasn’t about to leave this for one of his employees.
    It somehow made a very bad situation even worse.
     
    “You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” Kevin asked me after he determined that I was okay.
    “Come on, Chief, it’s not like it was her fault,” the policeman who’d first answered the call said.
    Kevin iced him with a deadly glare, then said, “Garvin, you’re new, so I’m going to give you one chance to question my judgment. And guess what? You just used yours up. Now get back on patrol.”
    The new officer turned slightly green as he made his way back to his cruiser.
    “You didn’t have to be so hard on him,” I said after Officer Garvin was gone, “especially when he was right.”
    “Don’t you start on me,” he said.
    “What are you going to do, punish me, too?”
    “Eleanor, you don’t understand. He’s got the chance to become a good cop someday, but he needs to learn his place in the pecking order of things, or he’ll never make it.”
    I was mad now, my fear displaced by my anger. “How about me, Chief? Do I need to learn my place as well?”
    The police chief took a step back, apparently surprised that I still had a bite to go along with my bark. I didn’t know why he’d ever think otherwise. I’d never given him any indication in the entire time he’d known me that he could boss me around.
    “I’m sorry,” he said after a long sigh. “I’m just worried that this could have been much worse.”
    “I’m not stupid,” I answered, managing to speak a little softer than I had before. “I wasn’t about to argue with him. He wanted my money, and he had a gun pointed at me, so I gave my deposit to him. End of story.”
    Kevin nodded, then said, “I have a thought, if you’re in any mood to hear one from me.”
    “Go on. I’m listening,” I said.
    “You really should get a safe for the pizza place and take your deposits to the bank the next day on your afternoon break. Eleanor, you shouldn’t be carrying money around with you at night when