The Pizza Mystery Read online

  Violet swallowed hard. Piccolos’ Pizza was busy, and this was no time to cry. Laurie Baker was so cross sometimes. But what made Violet feel worse was knowing for sure she had written down the right order.

  Jessie and Henry comforted their sister. Laurie was too busy banging pans around to pay any more attention to Violet.

  “It’s okay, Violet,” Henry said. “At least you just lost one pizza. I lost three of them. The Piccolos can’t afford to have these things happen too often. They’ll lose their business just when they’re getting back on their feet.”

  No one had the heart to tell the Piccolos what had happened. The children decided they would just be more careful and work harder than ever!

  CHAPTER 7

  Everything Goes Dark

  The day began with Mr. Piccolo’s cheery whistling downstairs. Upstairs, the Alden children were all asleep, all but Benny, that is. Mr. Piccolo’s whistling meant it was time for him to get up.

  It was early morning. Benny wanted to get to the kitchen early. That way he could help Mr. and Mrs. Piccolo get the dough started before Laurie Baker got there and scooted him out.

  “Tomatoes, potatoes, burritos!” Mr. Piccolo sang out as he took jars and bundles from the big refrigerator. “Pull up a stool, Benny. I need a smart boy like you to measure out some salt, some flour, and some yeast. Do you know what to do?”

  “I sure do, Mr. Piccolo,” Benny said with a smile.

  “Today my old waiter, Nick Marra, comes back. There’s nobody to touch Nick when it comes to waiting on tables,” Mr. Piccolo said. “Unless it’s the Aldens, of course!”

  “I can’t wait to see Nick,” Benny said as he sprinkled yeast over a big bowl of warm water.

  A half hour later, Benny noticed Laurie Baker’s red hat go by the kitchen window. He jumped off his stool. “You don’t have to leave, Benny,” Mrs. Piccolo told him.

  Benny disappeared upstairs anyway. He knew Laurie would find some way to get him out of the kitchen. He’d rather leave on his own.

  It turned out the Aldens weren’t the only ones Laurie Baker didn’t want near the kitchen. When the children came downstairs later on, the Piccolos were out doing the day’s shopping for the restaurant.

  Laurie was in charge, and she was arguing with Nick Marra. This surprised the Aldens. They remembered how easygoing Nick was. Nothing ever bothered this young man. No matter how busy the restaurant got, Nick always had a smile for everyone.

  But that day, Nick Marra wasn’t smiling. His face was red and his bright blue eyes glittered angrily.

  “If you hadn’t been away so long, the Piccolos wouldn’t have put me in charge!” Laurie Baker said to Nick.

  “Well, they asked me to come back, so I’m . . . .” Nick stopped talking when he saw all four Aldens staring at him.

  Jessie went over to Nick first. “Hi, Nick. Remember us? We’re visiting the Piccolos and helping them out for a while.”

  The children were disappointed when they didn’t get one of Nick’s big smiles or even a friendly greeting. He mumbled a hello and that was it. Violet felt especially hurt that he was so unfriendly.

  “Boy, she gets everybody mad, even Nick,” Benny whispered when the children slipped out to the dining room.

  For the rest of the morning, the Aldens heard cross words between Nick and Laurie. Nick had his way of doing things, and Laurie had hers. But Violet couldn’t help wondering if there was something else bothering Nick.

  After lunch, the Piccolos went home to rest. The Aldens were busy with the only job Laurie let them do in the kitchen, washing dishes. Right in front of the children, Nick and Laurie started fighting again.

  “It would be easier to box up the take-out pizzas in the kitchen,” Nick argued. “They lose heat when you pack them up in the pantry.”

  “I can’t have everyone underfoot when I’m working in the kitchen,” Laurie told Nick. “It’s bad enough with Mr. and Mrs. Piccolo.”

  Nick’s eyes flashed with anger. “Maybe you don’t realize that you’re their employee, Ms. Baker. They were running this restaurant before you were born.”

  “And they were losing money until I showed up to straighten out their business,” Laurie said. “Now I don’t need you to tell me what to do!”

  The Aldens wanted to disappear. Nick Marra actually did disappear! He went right out the front door with a loud bang! Jessie, Violet, and Benny finished up their work silently then headed towards the stairs.

  “Is the dining room set up for tonight?” Laurie asked before they got away.

  The children nodded then shut the door behind them. They didn’t come downstairs again until they heard the Piccolos return right before the dinner hour.

  “I hope you children aren’t coming down with something,” Mrs. Piccolo said when she came into the dining room. “I’ll make you some spaghetti before we get busy. You all look pale and hungry. My special tomato sauce will fix you right up.”

  Jessie shook her head. “No thanks, Mrs. Piccolo. We already had something to eat upstairs.”

  Mrs. Piccolo looked worried. “Something’s not right today. I can tell. Nick wasn’t himself. Laurie, well, she works too hard. But it’s you children I’m worried about. You’re too quiet.”

  “We’re okay, Mrs. Piccolo,” Jessie told her.

  Luckily for the Aldens, some dinner customers came in right then. In a short time, there were so many customers to serve that no one noticed things were not going smoothly at Piccolos’ Pizza.

  Not once did Laurie look up at any of the Aldens, except when Henry stayed too long in the kitchen waiting for pizzas to deliver.

  “Wait in the pantry,” Laurie said. “It’s too busy in here.”

  Henry did as he was told. He waited for Laurie to bring the pizzas out to the pantry area. Like Nick, Henry couldn’t figure out why they had to box up the take-out pizzas away from the kitchen. But Laurie Baker’s mind was made up. The kitchen was pretty much off-limits to Nick and the Aldens.

  By six-thirty, every table at Piccolos’ Pizza was filled. Mr. Piccolo was just coming out of the kitchen with a large sausage pizza when the lights flickered, then went completely dark. The customers let out an “Ah” at the same time. Only the battery-powered exit lights and the candles on the tables lit the dining room. They cast a soft glow over the nervous diners.

  The Aldens heard Mr. Piccolo call out in a calm, sure voice: “Relax, everyone. No problem. Just a little blackout. Just sit tight. I have a couple of flashlights and emergency lamps right here. Nothing to worry about.”

  Jessie peeked out the restaurant window. She expected to see the whole street in darkness. “It’s only the restaurant that lost its power,” she told Henry, who had just come back from his deliveries.

  “I know. Everything went black just as I came in the kitchen,” Henry said.

  “Where’s Laurie?” Jessie asked. “Does she have any light in there?”

  “You know, that’s the strange thing,” Henry said. “The lights went out just as I got here, but Laurie already had a flashlight in her hand when she came up the cellar stairs.”

  Even in the dim light Henry could see his sister’s eyes widen. “Why would she need a flashlight down in the cellar unless she knew the power was going to go off?”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Henry answered. “But you know what she said? That she heard a noise down there and grabbed a flashlight so she could go and check on it. Then she tried to blame everything on Nick.”

  “Nick? I’m pretty sure he was out here when the power went off.” Jessie looked over toward the kitchen and saw Nick setting up the emergency lights. “You know, Henry, now I’m not so sure. We were so busy, I don’t really know where he was.”

  The customers grew restless. They wanted to go home.

  “Listen, everyone,” Mr. Piccolo called out. “My helpers here, they’re going to wrap up your pizzas for you to take home. It’s take-out night for everyone. Nobody pays.”

  A few people clap
ped. The Aldens couldn’t clap. They knew this emergency was going to cost the Piccolos a lot of money.

  Mr. Piccolo went on. “On your way out, my good friend Benny Alden here will give you a coupon for free pizza when you come back to the restaurant. All right?”

  “All right!” a few adventurous customers cheered.

  Nick came out with a stack of pizza boxes. Laurie handed everyone a spatula. Then they all went around to each table boxing up the unfinished pizzas. As promised, Benny handed out free pizza coupons.

  Mr. Piccolo sighed when the last person left. “What a night! We’ll have to get an electrician out here first thing in the morning to see what the problem is,” he said.

  “Or who the problem is,” Laurie muttered under her breath after the Piccolos went into the kitchen.

  In the low light, the children saw Nick glare at Laurie, but he said nothing. Shortly afterwards he left the restaurant with barely a good night.

  When Mrs. Piccolo came out of the kitchen, Violet noticed she was crying softly. “What is it?” Violet asked.

  Mrs. Piccolo took Violet’s hand and led her to the big white deep freezer. “My sauces. They will thaw out without electricity. The tomatoes are from our garden last summer. Special tomatoes for Piccolos’ sauce. We will lose more than money if we lose these frozen sauces.”

  Laurie Baker was the only one of the tired group who didn’t seem upset by this. “Well,” Laurie said, almost cheerfully, “you can teach me how to make some new batches. We don’t even need electricity for that. We can start tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Piccolo smiled at the young woman. “Ah, such a willing worker you are. But there are no fresh tomatoes at this time of year. The sauce would never be the same.”

  Before Laurie had an answer for that, Violet came up with a solution. “Benny, Jessie, Henry. Go get your jackets, boots, and hats and follow me.”

  “Where are you going?” Laurie Baker asked suspiciously. “Nothing’s open at this hour. You’ll never find anyone with a freezer for all the frozen sauces and meats in here.”

  It was too dark for Laurie to see Violet’s ear-to-ear grin. “Oh, yes, we will!” she shouted before she went outside ahead of her brothers and sister.

  Violet handed everyone a shovel. “Now dig as much snow as you can.”

  “I get it!” Benny said after the first shovelful. “We’re not looking for a freezer, we’re making one! Just like we made a refrigerator in a brook when we lived in the boxcar.”

  ‘That’s right, Benny,” Violet cried. “Only now it’s a freezer, not a refrigerator. And we’re using snow, not a brook.”

  Henry held up his shovel like a flagpole. “Let’s hear it for Violet! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!”

  The Aldens cheered and shoveled as fast as they could to make their “outdoor freezer” for Mrs. Piccolo. They couldn’t see that Laurie Baker was watching them from the kitchen window and that she didn’t look at all happy with what the Aldens were doing.

  CHAPTER 8

  A Surprise Confession

  The next morning, the sun was shining, and so was every light at Piccolos’ Pizza. The children ran outside to see how their “freezer in the snow” was working. The Piccolos were already packing up the frozen meats and sauces to bring inside.

  “When did the power come back on?” Jessie asked.

  “This morning at six,” Mr. Piccolo answered. “I came out early to cover your little freezer before the sun came out. When I arrived, the electricity was back on. The emergency people from the light company said a truck from the muffler company backed into the pole last night. This knocked out the electricity for a while. Now it’s all fixed.”

  Henry and Jessie walked back to the shed to get some carrying crates.

  “I’m glad the power is back on,” Jessie said. “I guess we were wrong to think that Laurie or Nick caused the blackout.”

  Henry nodded. “Still, I can’t figure out why Laurie didn’t seem upset. She almost seemed glad to have to make the new sauces.”

  When Henry and Jessie came back with the crates, they saw Laurie Baker coming up the driveway.

  “I see everything was saved,” Laurie said without a smile. She only stopped frowning when she saw the Piccolos.

  “Good morning, Laurie,” Mr. Piccolo cried. “I guess you know that Violet here rescued everything last night. My homemade sausages, Nina’s tomato sauces, everything is still frozen solid.”

  “So I see,” Laurie said before she went inside.

  Mr. Piccolo brought in the last of the freezer containers. “Well, now that everything is set for the day, Nina and I can go out for the morning shopping,” Mr. Piccolo told the children.

  Mrs. Piccolo reached for the marketing basket she kept by the freezer. “With these children and Laurie and Nick working together, we could take the whole day off!”

  But Mrs. Piccolo was wrong about everyone working together that day. The minute the Piccolos left, the phone rang in the dining room. When Jessie answered it, Nick told her he wasn’t going to be in.

  “Who was that?” Laurie asked when Jessie hung up.

  “Nick,” Jessie answered in a puzzled voice. “He can’t come in today. He didn’t say why.”

  “Fine,” Laurie said. “It’s easier without him underfoot. Now I need all of you to hand out these flyers in town for today’s special. You don’t need to come back until eleven.”

  The children knew what Laurie expected them to do. They put on their warm clothes and took the stack of flyers. When they went past the muffler factory, they handed out a few flyers to some of the workers going into the building.

  Jessie tried to hand one young man a flyer, but he went by too fast. “Here, try our . . . Nick!” Jessie suddenly cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Nick pulled down his hat and pulled up his scarf to cover his face before he disappeared into the building.

  “Are you sure that was Nick?” Violet asked. “Why didn’t he answer you?”

  “I’d know those blue eyes anywhere,” Jessie said. “I wonder if he’s started a job here. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come to the restaurant today.”

  The children spent the rest of the morning trying to puzzle out what was going on with their old friend.

  By ten-thirty, the Aldens were out of flyers. They didn’t want to upset Laurie by coming back too early, so they walked slowly.

  “Something is still bothering me about last night,” Jessie said when she saw a Mighty Mufflers delivery truck go by. “Why was Laurie the only one who wasn’t upset?”

  “She almost seemed glad that it happened because then she could help the Piccolos make more sauce,” Henry said.

  “There’s so much work in the restaurant already, why would she want to make those sauces?” Violet asked. “That’s a lot of work.”

  Benny shuffled along with his hands in his pockets. “And I bet she wouldn’t let us help. Or Nick either!”

  “Nick is the other part of this puzzle,” Jessie said. “At first I thought he was acting strange because of Laurie. But he moved out of the apartment and stopped coming to Piccolos’ before she even started working there.”

  “What if,” Henry began, “what if Mighty Mufflers hired Nick because he did work for the restaurant and knows all about it? If the factory wants to put Piccolos’ out of business for some reason, they could use Nick to hurt the restaurant.”

  “No!” Violet broke in. “Nick would never help anyone harm the Piccolos. I just know he wouldn’t.”

  The other children knew how much Violet liked Nick. She knew him better than any of the other children. He would never cause problems for the Piccolos. Violet was sure of that.

  When the children finally reached the restaurant, there was a new problem to figure out. A truck from the county health department was parked in the driveway of the restaurant.

  “What’s the health inspector doing here?” Violet asked.

  “He goes around to restaurants and food stores to check tha
t everything is neat and clean,” Jessie said.

  “I know the dishes are neat and clean,” Benny said proudly.

  The children weren’t a bit worried about the health inspector. They knew Piccolos’ Pizza was the cleanest restaurant in Silver Falls.

  The Aldens heard a man’s loud voice coming from the kitchen. “Now take out every pot and pan! And all the canisters of flour, too! This freezer needs to be five degrees colder, so you’ll have to throw out what’s in there.”

  “But, but,” Mrs. Piccolo began, “the freezer will be the right temperature in a few minutes. We lost our electricity last night and . . .”

  “Your electrical problems are not my problems.” The man checked off something on his clipboard. “Everything in that freezer has to be thrown out!”

  Henry wasn’t going to let this happen. “Sir, this food has been packed in ice all night. I think if you just open a few containers, you’ll see that everything is frozen colder than your requirements. As Mrs. Piccolo said, the freezer is nearly at the right level now. Please, could you check?”

  “Hmph!” the inspector said. “I’ll check, but if it’s a tenth of a degree off, out this food goes. Understand?”

  Henry nodded.

  The man pulled the tops off several containers of tomato sauce. “All right,” the man muttered. “Now please run through the steps you follow to store your food and prepare your pizzas.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Piccolo explained how they made their dough and grated their cheese fresh every day. Mrs. Piccolo showed off the gleaming jars of tomatoes she put up at the end of every summer from her garden full of tomatoes. She pointed to the pots of herbs sunning themselves on the kitchen window-sill.

  As the inspector checked over and under the cabinets, the Piccolos explained everything from how far ahead they made their sauces to how long they let their pizza dough rise. By this time, the inspector had calmed down. He even looked a little hungry!

  All this talk didn’t interest Benny much. He went out to the dining room. He was surprised to see Laurie Baker sitting at her usual table, right by the kitchen. She seemed to be listening in on the conversation coming from the kitchen, then writing things down in her notebook.