A Beeline to Murder by Meera Lester Read Free Book Online Page B

egregious. What could Chef Jean-Louis have done to anyone that would rise to that level?”
    Kat chewed her lip. “Good question.”
    Abby wiped her fingers on her napkin while she considered other options. “So who would want to exact revenge and for what? An ex-lover, maybe?”
    “Possibly,” said Kat. “But who hasn’t been dumped? You get over it. You don’t kill the other person.”
    “Not if you’re in your right mind. But love makes you crazy.” Abby folded the napkin and set it back on the table. She pushed her fingers through her hair, absentmindedly adjusting the comb above her right ear. “Tallulah said Chef Jean-Louis argued with his landlord over the lease renewal.”
    “And the landlord’s motive for murder would be what? When you want a tenant out, you evict.”
    “True,” Abby replied. “I don’t know. . . . Maybe it wasn’t the landlord but someone who wanted to humiliate the chef. Or maybe he took his own life. People do hang themselves. But then, as I think about it, that doesn’t work, either. . . . He put cakes in the ovens and hid his apron and then hung himself.”
    “Good point.” Kat leaned back and laced her fingers together at the back of her neck. A stumped expression crossed her face.
    Abby closed her eyes and mentally reviewed the facts for the umpteenth time, noting the holes. Finally, she looked over at Kat. “I know it’s not my official business, Kat, but I admit to being fascinated . . . and deadly curious, so to speak.”
    Kat smiled and shook her head. “And that’s just like you to say something like that.”
    “I find this case puzzling,” said Abby. “We can speculate all we want, but we’re short on facts. So, to fill in the blanks, let’s take a look at the photos I snapped of the scene. Then, tomorrow, you and your partner can continue with your knock and talk with people in the neighborhood, and you can find out the names of all Jean-Louis’s former lovers, friends, and enemies. Let’s determine who saw him on the last day and night so we can keep working the timeline, and then let’s find out what the coroner’s investigation turned up.”
    While Kat cleared the kitchen table, Abby loaded the file of digital images onto Kat’s laptop. Then Kat sat down and methodically clicked through the images. When she got to one particular photo, Kat zoomed in and pointed to the abrasion marks around the chef’s neck. She clicked to the next picture, a close-up of the chef’s forearm tattoo, which looked like the number ninety-six.
    She and Abby both leaned in for a closer look.
    “Do you think it’s some kind of baking symbol?” Abby asked.
    “We have a file of gang tattoos, but when we can’t identify them, we take pictures of them to the guys who actually do the inking.”
    “Tattoo artists?” Abby asked.
    “Some call themselves ink masters.”
    “Wait a minute,” said Abby. “We’re looking at this upside down. It’s actually more like sixty-nine, but with the numerals on their sides. I’ve seen that symbol before.” Her brow furrowed. “Yes, I think, in the horoscope column of the Weekly. Isn’t it the symbol of the crab’s claws? Cancer. People born in the last week of June and the first three weeks of July are Cancers, aren’t they?”
    Kat smiled. “Well, that would fit with the chef’s birthday of July eighteenth.”
    They stared at the next image—a photo of the chef in the kitchen, surrounded by his employees that apparently had been taken at some earlier time.
    “You said the chef barked at you some time ago and then apologized, explaining that he had been upset with Etienne. I wonder which one of the faces in that photograph is Etienne’s.”
    Abby peered intently. “Hmm, good question.” She stopped on the next image to explain. “I snapped this photo of a photo because it hung on the wall behind the cash register, and I wondered if any of the people, once identified, could help in the investigation. Clearly, that’s