Creamy Casserole Murder: Book 15 in The Darling Deli Series by Patti Benning Page A

caught us listening.”
    “I feel terrible,” Moira said, setting down the bag containing the hamburger that Delilah would never get a chance to eat. “There’s no way this is a coincidence. I just don’t believe that two sisters passed peacefully in their sleep weeks apart from each other. Add in the accusations of murder, and it’s even more suspicious.”
    “Reggie,” Candice said suddenly. “You have to stop telling people that you think Beatrice was killed. If whoever did it is trying to cover their tracks, then you might be in trouble too.”
    “I’m not keeping quiet about this, young lady,” Reginald said firmly. “I can’t just turn my head and ignore the fact that two women—one of them a close friend—have been murdered inside these walls.”
    “I know it’s hard,” David said. “But she’s right. We don’t want to see you get hurt, Reggie.”
    “Who else is going to find the killer?” he grumbled. “None of you believes me.”
    “We do now,” Moira said with a glance at the private investigator. “And we should have before. I’m sorry that we didn’t. Just be careful, please? We’ll keep poking around, but it might be dangerous for you to do so.”
    He nodded reluctantly. She wondered if they could trust him to keep to himself, but knew they didn’t really have a choice. If only I had believed him in the first place, this may not have happened, she thought guiltily. I could have gone to the police right away, and somehow have convinced them to do a full autopsy on Beatrice. They might have found something in time to save her sister, and could have caught the killer without putting Reggie in danger like this.
    “I really am sorry,” she told him in a softer voice. “I should have trusted you, Reggie. I’ll do my best to make up for it.”
    “What do we do now?” Eli wondered. “Call the police and have them bring Danny in?”
    “There still isn’t any evidence that he’s guilty,” David pointed out.
    “They might find something when they do an autopsy,” Candice said.
    “Will they even do an autopsy?” the deli owner asked. “Don’t they only do that if they suspect something suspicious about the death?”
    “There’s a few reasons why they would want to do an autopsy, but it’s likely that this death wouldn’t need one,” the private investigator said. “She was elderly, and if she had any sort of dangerous medical condition, her physician will probably just sign off on her death… as long as there were no signs of a struggle, of course. They might do an autopsy if a family member requested it, but if Danny is really her only living family member… well, that isn’t likely.”
    “Do you think he killed his aunt, too?” she asked. “He did say he liked her.”
    “And Mrs. Radisson told you that she thought his aunt had given him a lot of money, didn’t she? Maybe he didn’t actually like her, he just hung around for the money.”
    “And if she knew that he killed his mother,” Moira said, suddenly seeing the big picture, “Then she would have cut him off from the money and probably threatened to call the police on him.”
    They fell silent as they connected the dots. It was chilling to think that someone could have killed two of his family members just for money.
    “What now?” Candice asked at last. “How can we get the police to believe us?”
    “I don’t know,” David admitted. “If I can get them to see how suspicious the connection between the two deaths is, then they might be able to perform an autopsy even if Danny objects. I’ll go and talk to Detective Jefferson after this. I want the rest of you to keep your heads down and your eyes open. Danny has already killed two people, let’s not let him kill any more.”
     

CHAPTER TEN
    Moira felt guilty for not believing Reggie at first. At least now she and David were both confident that he had been right about the murder, but it had taken a second death to convince them. How could she