A Beeline to Murder Read Free Page B

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