Cappuccinos, Cupcakes, and a Corpse (A Cape Bay Cafe Mystery Book 1) by Harper Lin Read Free Book Online Page A

again and just nodded. From the look on his face, I wasn’t sure he could have spoken if he’d wanted to.
    My stomach clenched as I opened the folder. A picture of Mr. Cardosi was on the top, stapled to a report bearing the words “Autopsy Report: Office of the Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” across the top. I looked at Matty. His face was drawn. I resisted the urge to reach across the table and take the hand he rested there.
    I looked back down and read the report. There was a lot of medical jargon and terminology I didn’t really understand. It went through the physical examination and findings in detail, including specific information about Mr. Cardosi’s health prior to his passing. I kept reading, absorbing what I could. No tumors, no significant narrowing of the arteries, no brain abnormalities, no blood clots, some mild arthritis. It appeared that for an older man, Mr. Cardosi had been in excellent health. Then I saw what must have caused that look on Matty’s face.
    Significant presence of potassium cyanide in blood, tissues, and digestive system… consistent with intentional poisoning… until further investigation can be completed, the medical examiner’s office determines the cause of death to be homicide.
    “Dear God,” I whispered. I looked at it again, certain I had misunderstood, but I hadn’t. It almost looked as if the words “cyanide,” “poison,” and “homicide” were in bigger, bolder print than the surrounding text, but when I looked closely, I could tell they weren’t—it was just the horror of them that made them seem that way. “Poison?” I looked at Matty. “Poison?” I said louder, as the weight of it came down on me.
    I must have said it louder than I thought because I heard a clatter from the backroom and saw the few lingering afternoon customers look at me.
    I gave them all a smile and a little wave. “Sorry!” I hoped they would all just think I was talking about Poison the band, not poison the killer. “Matty, what—? Who—?” I couldn’t get words out of my mouth. I had so many questions. I couldn’t comprehend what I was reading.
    “I don’t know,” Matty said. “They don’t know. Mike said they’ll do an investigation, but—”
    “But what?” I asked.
    “But with the amount of cyanide in his system, death would have been nearly instantaneous.”
    I looked at Matty, trying to process what he was saying. “Do they think someone injected him? Like some lunatic ran up while he was sitting on the back patio and stabbed him with it?”
    Matty shook his head. “He ingested it.”
    “What? Like a cyanide capsule? Like spies use to kill themselves if they’re captured by the enemy?”
    “No. More like a food… or a drink.”
    Then it dawned on me. Ingested . Nearly instantaneous . “The coffee!” I gasped.
    Matty nodded, covering his face with his hands. I couldn’t believe it. Someone had snuck cyanide into Mr. Cardosi’s coffee to murder him. Then another thought occurred to me.
    “The autopsy report said homicide.”
    Matty nodded.
    “But they don’t think he could have—” I wasn’t sure how to even say the rest. “Done it to himself?”
    Matty dragged his hands down his face. After a minute, he said, “No. I asked Mike the same thing. He said that since there was no note and no indication that he might have been considering it, and he still had most of a pot of coffee inside, they’re going to investigate it as a murder. I mean, why would you make a whole pot of coffee if you just needed one cup to kill yourself, right?”
    I nodded. It didn’t make sense. Not unless you added the poison to the pot itself, thinking you might need more than one cup, but even then, why not just add more poison to the one cup? Then I had another terrible thought. “Matty?”
    “Yeah, Franny?”
    “What if the whole coffeepot was poisoned? We drank out of that coffee pot.”
    Matty held up a hand and shook his head. “I thought