A Beeline to Murder

Returning to the chef’s kitchen, Abby determined the best angles for her shots. She wanted clear and focused images for the investigation. Police chief Bob Allen didn’t need another reason to be angry or upset with Kat . . . or her.

To establish the distance and relationship of the back door to the island and the restroom, she positioned herself at the back entrance to the kitchen. Later, she shot images from the opposite direction. Then, climbing on a chair next to a tall wire baker’s rack, Abby clicked off a couple more photos. When she leaned into the last one, she nearly lost her balance. Grabbing the top of the baker’s rack to steady herself, she knocked over a basket of dusty faux ivy that concealed a small security camera. Dismounting from the chair, she sidestepped the camera until Kat could bag and tag it, tugged a pencil from her pocket, and used it to pick up a plastic cup that had tumbled to the floor. Before setting it aside for Kat, Abby sniffed it and made a mental note to tell Kat about the booze smell in the cup.

Working the room, Abby photographed from every conceivable direction and angle. As she zeroed in on the area occupied by the body, Abby recalled the first homicide she and Kat had worked together. The victim had been a local divorcée who had met a man for drinks at the Black Witch. The man had driven the woman home. The next morning, the woman’s boyfriend had found her on the floor of her cottage. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

The victim’s boyfriend had called police. When his alibi had checked out, he’d been eliminated as a suspect. Strangely, it was the boyfriend who had noticed the woman’s colorful patterned rug had gone missing. He gave a description of it to police. Then Kat, a flea market addict, spotted the rug a month later. Las Flores cops began surveillance of their new suspect, a Turkish immigrant whose family had ties to carpet weaving in the old country. He had a good eye and had, apparently, recognized the rug as a Ladik prayer rug from central Anatolia. Abby and Kat arrested him for selling stolen property and, after having the rug tested for trace evidence relating to the homicide, charged him with the woman’s murder.

Abby knelt and took some shots of the chef’s body. She noticed tiny particles of dough on the cuticles of the first and second fingers on his right hand. She also noted the lividity, or discoloration, from blood pooling in the parts of the body touching the floor. Pressing a gloved finger against the chef’s right hand where it rested upon the tile, Abby realized that although the chef’s body was not yet cold, it was stiff. She surmised that the corpse was in the early stages of rigor mortis. Abby knew that blanching would not occur after four hours from the time of death, so she deduced that Jean-Louis was probably killed sometime within the past few hours or just before dawn. Her estimate, she knew, was rough; the coroner would give a more accurate time of death.

Putting the camera back into her shirt pocket and removing the gloves, Abby walked outside, to where Kat was leaning against the wall, jotting notes in a spiral notebook. A white van pulled in and stopped just behind the flares. The van sported the blue coroner’s department logo and insignia—stalks of wheat curved into a half circle.

“She’s new,” said Kat as she watched the young woman, in her late twenties and wearing her chestnut hair pulled back in a short ponytail, hop out of the driver’s side.

“What happened to Millie?” asked Abby.

“Maternity leave.”

“Oh, gotcha.” Abby recalled Millie, with whom she had worked over the years. Her chirpy voice and quick smile for first responders—regardless of how grisly the scene was—somehow made the scenes of death more bearable.

“Millie married the son of the fire chief, didn’t she?”

“Yep.”

“Liked her.”