A Beeline to Murder

Abby steered her Jeep away from the lodge toward Main Street. She had left Philippe a note telling him they would meet at noon. She couldn’t remember when she had felt so exhausted, and only hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel while driving back to the farmette. Even her eyeballs hurt. According to her watch, it was 4:45 a.m., nearly the hour of early morning when Jean-Louis died. Although she was tired, Abby’s instincts told her to drive by the back of the pastry shop, see what it looked like at this early hour, determine how well it could be seen in the glow of streetlamps and neighborhood porch lights, and see who might be roaming about.

Pulling the Jeep into a parking space under a dense magnolia tree shading the back side of Lemon Lane, Abby parked, flipped off the headlights, and fought the urge to nod off. She stared at the pastry shop. Nothing obstructed her view of its back door, the theater exit, the Black Witch Bar’s rear entry, and the Dumpster. Since she’d parked in the shadow of the tree, the pale predawn light made it possible for her to see without being seen. The starlight was growing fainter, and only a sliver of moon hung in the sky. The streetlight behind the pastry shop had burned out. The lane was quiet except for crickets chirping and frogs croaking along the creek that ran through the town a few streets away. Overhead, the mockingbirds had awakened and intermittently warbled off a medley of songs: the tweets, trills, dzeets, cheeps, and peet-a-weets of other birds and their own familiar worky-worky-worky.

Suddenly, a car approached. Abby’s senses went on high alert as the small four-door sedan drove past. The car slowed. Stopped. A man wearing a dark knit cap climbed out. When Abby saw he wore a work apron for collecting coins and carried a bundle, she relaxed. Newspaper carrier. Delivering newspapers. What time is it? Almost five o’clock.

Abby watched him drop the bundle and hustle back to his car. Disregarding the marked lanes, the man drove right down the middle of Lemon Lane, tossing papers to the left and the right, over the top of his car when necessary, onto porches and sidewalks. At the end of the lane he didn’t even stop at the stop sign, but turned the corner and disappeared.

So, no one has canceled the pastry shop’s newspaper subscription. Suppose Philippe will have to do it. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, Abby rested her head against the seat and closed her eyes while her thoughts rambled on. Had a newspaper bundle been delivered on the day Jean-Louis died? Where was that bundle now? Had a newspaper hitting the sidewalk made the scudding sound a neighbor claimed to have heard the morning Jean-Louis died?

With monumental effort, Abby forced her eyes open. She yawned, straightened her posture, and scanned the lane for other signs of life. After a few minutes, a porch light went on. An elderly, balding man in a bathrobe moseyed out with his cat to retrieve his morning paper. After removing the rubber bands and slipping them into his bathrobe pocket, the man shuffled back to the door, then stopped momentarily to look for the cat, which had disappeared. The lane became quiet. Even the cat was gone. So the newspaper bundles are tied with twine, but the subscribers’ papers are banded.

Her watch ticked away another few minutes. Listening to the mockingbirds, she fought against the urge to sleep. Then something at the end of the lane moved. Abby peered toward the darkness at the end of Lemon Lane. A figure emerged, pushing a shopping cart bulging with bags, and trudged toward the Dumpster. Dora. No mistaking you, even in the dark. But this is your routine, isn’t it? Waking up and coming to the pastry shop for coffee? What did you see when you came around that morning? What did you do? What did you take?

Dora shuffled right on down toward the Jeep, then finally stopped at the Dumpster. She hesitated, looked at the back door of the pastry shop, up and down the lane, and then at the Dumpster. She leaned over it, reached in as far as her arm would go. For the next few minutes, Dora riffled through the contents. Abruptly, she stopped, stone still. She peered into the dark shadows, looking straight toward the tree under which Abby was parked. Abby froze.