A Beeline to Murder

by Meera Lester

  Abby and Kat had witnessed plenty of public drunkenness and brawls at the bar, a favorite of bikers, who frequently stopped in for one last cool drink after a long day of riding in the mountains or visiting wineries. The bar and the dead chef’s pastry shop shared space in the same building that also housed Cineflicks, the local theater. Occasionally, the business owners along Main Street would complain of the stench of urine, sure that the culprits were bar patrons. Having worked the streets for years, Abby had seen many crimes and criminals during her tenure in the downtown, but homicides—those were few and far between in Las Flores.

  Abby sighed, “What about the county sheriff? Couldn’t Chief Bob Allen request some extra officers from him?”

  Kat shot an incredulous look at her. “Are you kidding? Chief Bob Allen threatened to withhold our uniform-cleaning allowance to reduce departmental spending. That is, until the comptroller told him he couldn’t do that. Ask for outside help? No way.”

  Abby frowned. “Well, what if I take the crime-scene pictures for you . . . ? I’ve got my camera in the Jeep.”

  Kat rubbed an earlobe between her thumb and finger as she weighed Abby’s offer. “You know the rules. I’m supposed to say no. But seeing as how it’s you, I don’t think the chief could get too flipped out.”

  “Just trying to help,” Abby said. “I’ve got to deliver a file to the DA’s office by noon and head back to the farmette. If I don’t rescue my bee swarm, they’ll take off for parts unknown. So if you want pictures, speak up, or I’m out of here.”

  “Oh, what the heck! Let me grab the crime-scene tape from my cruiser.” Kat turned and walked to the back door.

  Following her to the parking lot, Abby opened the door of her Jeep and rummaged through the glove compartment until she located her digital camera. She slammed shut the door and, with camera in hand, said, “Just like old times.”

  “Yep,” Kat replied. “Let’s start inside and work our way out. I’ll bag and tag everything on the countertop.”

  “I suppose you’ll want me to get some shots of the scene, the body, and close-ups of the ligature mark on his neck.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kat’s gaze swept the room, as though she was searching for something, anything that could help her understand what had happened here that had resulted in the death of the town’s award-winning chef. Once the crime-scene tape had been strung, and evidence collected and labeled, Abby pulled the camera from her shirt pocket. “Besides the interior photos and the body, anything else you want me to shoot?”

  Kat motioned toward the kitchen’s back door. “In the café, get some shots of the baker’s rack and close-ups of items on the shelves like the recipe binders and that box up there, but don’t remove anything.”

  “Okay,” Abby replied.

  Kat looked around. “I want images of the blue metal Dumpster between the pastry shop and the theater, a shot of the back door of the pastry shop all the way to the biker bar, and a panorama shot of the back of the building, since those two other businesses share common walls with the pastry shop.”

  “You got it. Are you thinking that somebody from the theater or the bar might have had a run-in with our chef?”

  “We can’t rule out anything at this point,” Kat said. “I think a Dumpster search for a rope or the apron might be in order. The murderer could have tossed them, unless, of course, the chef hung himself, which I’m not buying.”

  Abby walked across the alley and turned to face the building’s back side. She took several shots of the weather-beaten, stucco-covered grand ole lady, which the townsfolk considered a landmark of sorts. Built in the 1930s, it had remained unchanged as businesses emerged and closed while the town evolved into a chic little enclave of stylish shops and restaurants. The old building had endured the October 17, 1989, earthquake in the Bay Area, with only a few horizontal fissures to prove it, but the city engineers had found it stable enough to leave it standing.

  Other buildings in town had not been so lucky. Bright red CONDEMNED notices had been tacked or taped to them, indicating they were to be torn down. The replacements, such as the row of small office buildings on the opposite side of the Lemon Lane alleyway behind the pastry shop, provided commercial tenants more functionality, but without any of the charm or character of the older buildings, which reflected the pre–and post–World War II architecture of Las Flores.

  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.”

  “Me, too,” Kat replied. “Dunno about this one.”

  The young woman slammed the van door and introduced herself in a loud voice. “Dr. Greta Figelson, assistant investigator with the coroner’s office.” She flipped her hand in a backward motion over her shoulder to a young black man with an Afro, who seemed hesitant to exit the van. “My driver, Virgil . . .” She couldn’t seem to recall the rest of the man’s name.

  “Smith,” the driver called out through his open window to finish her sentence.

  Abby looked down and suppressed a smile. Yeah, Smith’s so darn hard to remember. Kat jotted their names in her notebook.

  Dr. Figelson marched over. Abby wondered why the coroner’s assistant had even bothered to come with such an attitude. Two workers were needed to handle the gurney, although Abby recalled that the newer gurneys had electric controls and could be operated by one person. Maybe one of the workers had called in sick and the doc had to fill in, doing grunt work along with her regular duties today.

  “So, where’s the body?” Dr. Figelson asked, pulling a yellow mask with white ties from her khaki pants pocket. “I’m just here to pronounce him. Don’t have all day.”

  Kat jerked her thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “In there.” She stepped aside to allow Dr. Figelson to pass.

  Dr. Figelson disappeared inside the pastry shop.

  Finally, Kat’s backup arrived. The second cruiser, red light flashing and siren screaming, wheeled into the empty parking space next to Kat’s police car.

  Kat called out, “Really, Otto? You needed lights and siren? Seriously?”

  Otto Nowicki, a hefty, balding man with skin the color of an unbaked pie crust, hoisted himself out of the seat. Once upright, he spent two minutes adjusting and readjusting his gear, guns, and nightstick on his duty belt. Abby knew Otto was always talking about becoming police chief one day. He had a thing about looking and acting official. Both she and Kat believed it was unlikely, since Chief Bob Allen had no plans to leave and would never be pushed out, but Otto kept on acting like he was in charge.

  “Ya thinkin’ pastry shop . . . doughnuts?” Kat winked at Abby.

  “Uh, no,” Otto replied, running his hand across his spare tire of a belly. “I’m on a diet. Wife says I gotta eat more like a caveman and stay away from sugar.”

  “That right?” Kat quipped. “Does your wife know about the four teaspoons in your coffee at roll call every morning?”

  Otto grinned sheepishly. “Jeez, the station’s coffee is like drinking turpentine. I’ve got to put something in it, or it doesn’t go down.” He hooked his thumbs into his duty belt, sucked in his belly, and stood a little straighter.

  Abby noticed Otto had lost a little more hair and had gained a few more pounds from when they had last worked together. His pate was bald except for a few sprigs of gray-brown hair standing up like beleaguered dried grass on the California hills during the dog days of summer.

  Kat lifted the yellow crime-scene tape, allowing Otto to enter.

  He trained his eyes on Abby. With a deadpan expression and a slow drawl, he greeted her. “Hello, Abby. Seen ya around. You don’t drop by the station anymore. Don’t you miss us?”

  Abby inhaled deeply before answering. “You know, Otto, I kind of do miss the work, but then again, there are some things I don’t miss.”

  “Yeah? Like what?” Otto asked.

  “Well . . . for starters, being micromanaged by Chief Bob Allen. In my new life, I’m the boss. I like it that way.”

  Otto nodded. “Know whatcha mean. So how’s the hand?”

  Abby winced. Otto never shrank away from asking the direct questions. He was good in the interrogation room. He was the one who made the bad guys squirm.

  “Healed. Thank you,” she said, sliding her hand into her jacket pocket. Abby turned and walked through the back door. Standing just inside, she let go a deep sigh.

  There was no need to share her medical history with Otto. He certainly didn’t need to see the scars left by her surgery, which the doctors had hoped would repair the ligaments of her right thumb. The surgery hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. To shoot her gun, her thumb had to be consistently stable. Hers wasn’t. And she didn’t want to talk about it anymore to anyone, least of all to Otto, whose tongue had a tendency to wag in gossip about as much as it did when licking doughnut sugar from his thin lips. Still, to his credit, he could also shut down and clam up, especially in matters involving police business.

  From where she had been examining the body, Dr. Figelson stood up and untied her mask. “I’m finished.”

  Abby wasn’t wearing a police uniform, and she was pretty sure the assistant investigator to the coroner would resist telling her anything, but she asked, anyway. “Time of death?”

  Kat entered through the back door.

  Dr. Figelson ignored Abby’s question. She said, “Get my driver. Tell him to tag the body with a blue label, wrap the hands, and let him know that I’ve authorized the removal. You’ve no knowledge of any infectious diseases here or any involving the deceased, have you?”

  Abby looked at her wordlessly. She shrugged. Now, how would I?

  “Good. See to it, then.”

  Abby’s forehead creased in a frown.

  Dr. Figelson addressed Kat. “Obviously, he’s dead. Did he have a regular physician I can talk with?”

  Kat shrugged. Abby shook her head.

  “Our office will do a limited investigation,” Dr. Figelson said. After writing on a form, she handed it to Kat. “Here’s the release number and my contact information. Now I’ve got a call to make.”

  Abby didn’t like the assistant’s attitude. Generally, the coroner’s office and the police adhered to an agreeable level of professionalism. This woman was irritating. When Dr. Figelson brushed past, boot heels in paper covers clicking against the black-and-white porcelain tiles, Abby looked at Kat and shook her head. What arrogance. Oh, well. Helping the coroner’s driver to remove the body would present an opportunity to take a closer look. On the other hand, Abby wasn’t a police detective anymore, but even when she was, her pesky curiosity had gotten her into trouble more times than not. Still, she reached for the box of gloves on the counter, grabbed two more, slipped them on, walked to the door, and motioned for Virgil to come inside.

  Virgil slid out of the driver’s seat and dropped to the ground. He looked taller perched behind the wheel than standing at full height. Abby guessed he was a head taller than her own five feet three inches. He scampered over.

  Abby tapped her watch. “Your partner says it’s time to load and go. Oh, and she said to wrap the hands.”

  Virgil’s blue-black forehead and cheeks glistened with sweat. He glanced furtively at the body lying on the floor next to the counter and swallowed hard. Twice.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re new, too?” Abby asked.

  “Uh-huh.” His complexion assumed a greenish cast.

  “Why don’t you go get into your protective gear and bring the sterile sheet, the hand wraps, and a body bag?” Abby said.

  He nodded, but then cried out weakly, “Toilet!” His hands flew to his throat. He doubled over.

  “No. Do not vomit. Not now. Not here.” Abby pushed him in the direction of the restroom. “There.” For the next several minutes, Abby clenched her jaw and waited for the disgusting sounds from the restroom to cease. Newbie. Another reason why she didn’t miss police work.

  Tips for Maintaining a Strong, Healthy Beehive

  • Plant lavender, sunflowers, and such herbs as basil, thyme, and sage near your honeybee hive. When the food source is close to the hive, the hive tends to grow robustly in less time than if the bees have to fly off in search of food. Also, flowering food sources keep the bees on or near your property, where they will pollinate your garden vegetables, flowers, and fruit trees.

  • Avoid using pesticides to control pest infestations
on your flowers, as the chemicals will poison your honeybees.

  • Place the hive on an elevated stand or platform, and off the damp ground, to aid with air circulation, help prevent frames from molding, and keep marauding animals from molesting your bees. And don’t forget to control ants.

  • Keep the hive dry, and face it toward the east and southeast for warmth, dryness, and light.

  • Use a screened bottom board under the hive. It allows mites (which harm bees) to fall through to the ground, thus ensuring the mites will perish and will not reenter the hive.

  • Feed your bees, especially if the autumn and winter seasons have been harsh, to prevent starvation.

  Chapter 2

  An herbal tea made of meadowsweet, chamomile, or peppermint can calm an upset stomach.

  —Henny Penny Farmette Almanac

  Abby watched as Virgil Smith wiped his mouth on a paper towel from the toilet’s dispenser as he dashed past her and through the back door of the pastry shop to the van. Poor guy . . . looks pitiful. Newbie driver for a newbie coroner’s investigator. . . I wonder how that’s working out for the county.

  When Virgil returned, his face still had not lost its greenish cast, but at least he had donned examination gloves and slipped sanitary booties over his shoes. He rolled in the gurney, fingers clamped over the sterile body drape, the hand wraps, and the body bag. Once he neared the corpse, he seemed dumbfounded as to how to get the body from the floor onto the gurney.

  Exchanging a look with Kat, Abby already knew what her former partner was thinking . . . and it was best left unsaid. Virgil didn’t seem cut out for this line of work. He probably wouldn’t last too long as a driver of the dead. His lack of experience might also explain the assistant’s foul mood.