A Beeline to Murder

“I want my coffee.”


“The chef can’t give you coffee today,” Kat explained. “You have to leave.”

“No, he told me, ‘Later. Come back later.’ ”

“When did he tell you that?” asked Kat.

“He always tells me that.”

“Okay, well, there is no coffee today. So out you go.” The officer took Dora by the arm and escorted her through the back door.

“You should talk to her. She gets around,” Abby said when Kat had reentered the kitchen. Abby pulled another pair of gloves from the box on the counter and slipped them on.

Kat looked at her with a wary eye. “Yeah, but usually her conversations are with those voices inside her head, so I’ll get right on that, girlfriend, but I’d like to see the body first.”

“Over there.” Abby pointed to the opposite side of the island.

“And why, may I ask, were you here?”

“Delivering my honey. What else? When I got here, Kat, he was already dead, lying just like that. I swear.”

“Uh-huh. And of course you didn’t touch anything, did you?”

Abby had anticipated the question. “I promise you won’t find my fingerprints on anything here except my honey jars.”

“Good.” Kat walked over to view the body more closely. She scanned the scene, taking special note of the area where the chef lay on the black-and-white tile floor.

“No blood, no splatter, unless you count stipples of frosting,” Abby observed.

“So how did he die?” Kat asked. Unsnapping the fastener on the small pouch of her duty belt, Kat removed a pair of latex gloves. Sliding her hands into them, she knelt to look closely at the body. She leaned in to see the ligature marks on the neck. “What could he have possibly done to anyone to get himself killed?”

“Well, he could have killed himself. Take a look at the pantry doorknob . . . on the inside.”

Kat stood and walked to the pantry. “I see what you mean. So if he hung himself, who took the ligature from around his neck and laid out his body on the floor? And what did he use to stand on?”

“All good questions I’ve been asking myself,” said Abby. “Since the only chair in here holds a ten-pound bag of meringue powder, I’m guessing he didn’t use it to stand on. Maybe a café chair from the other room?”

“Yeah,” Kat said with a peculiar look. “And I guess after he hung himself, he got up and moved it back?”

“Well, someone else was here. When I arrived, the back door was ajar. Perhaps someone he knew.”

Kat’s expression grew more incredulous. “Would that be the someone who couldn’t bear to see him hanging? Or the someone who wanted to tidy up after murdering him?”

Abby chuckled. “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor. Clearly, if he was murdered, there would have to be a motive.”

“Pretty much everyone on Main Street has experienced the chef’s temper.”

“Yeah,” admitted Abby. “Even I have felt the brunt of his temper. But he was also generous to a fault. I mean, he doled out coffee and sweets to unemployed vets and the homeless.” Abby watched as Kat surveyed the kitchen before strolling into the adjacent room, where glass display cases and small wooden café tables and chairs filled the cramped space. Fleur-de-lis wallpaper above dark wainscoting was partially obscured by the numerous black-and-white posters of Parisian scenes. Above the cash register a memento board hung slightly askew. Its crisscrossed red ribbon secured photographs of customers and friends posing with the chef.

Kat leaned in for a closer look.

“I’ve come through that door many a morning while his ovens were still on and the smell of freshly baked dough permeated the place,” said Abby. “People would line up outside, all the way down to the antique store. Well, you know, he always had free coffee and fresh pastries for us cops. He liked having law enforcement around.”