Dying For Dinner Rolls Part 3

"We're in." Jose opened the door. "Welcome, my ladies."

"That's called getting the job done." Annie Mae made her way into the house.

We all followed, entering the sitting room first.

I darted my eyes around looking for Lucy.

"Y'all are absolute barbarians breaking in." Bezu strolled about Lucy's sitting area. "My oh my, it sure is nice and cool in here. Maybe I can get a beverage. I'm parched."

"Holy smokes. That's ugly." Annie Mae stood in front of the love seat in the sitting room. She pointed to what looked like a paint-it-yourself, blue and white vase on the coffee table.

"I do declare. Not at all what I expected Lucy would ever purchase." Bezu leaned into the vase, forming her pink lipsticked mouth into a pout.

"It looks like a monkey painted it." Jose walked around. "But I love everything else."

I shook my head. That vase sure looked better in the picture Lucy had shown me earlier. The yellow roses in the vase looked as though they had been shoved in, as a few of the stems were bent over, the flowers scattered on the table. Lucy was a neatnik, so I was surprised she'd leave anything lying around. I picked up the petals and put them in my purse to throw away later.

Annie Mae yelled, "Lucy!"

We began to walk down the wood-floored hallway, four sets of shoes clopping to the back of the house.

Bezu entered the kitchen first.

"Lucy," I shouted.

"Lucy, I'm home!" Jose screamed like Ricky Ricardo had done on the I Love Lucy show.

"Okay. I'm seriously worried now." My chest tightened.

"Me, too." Bezu opened a closet door.

"Where is she?" Annie Mae poked her head into a sitting room.

"Jose, please call your people at the police department." I ran into another room looking for Lucy. "Remember the crossword puzzle?"

"Everyone calm down," Jose shouted. "Let's search every room first."

Jose and Annie Mae looked upstairs. Bezu and I explored the main level. The rooms were very much in order. A cross hung in every room. Fresh flowers sat in vases throughout the house. But it didn't seem that anyone was home. Even though there were shoes near the front door, a sweater thrown over a chair, and dishes in the sink. My heart raced, and my hands began to shake.

I had this ominous feeling that something was wrong.

Really wrong.

We met back downstairs in the kitchen.

"Look here." Jose held the panty door open and pointed at Lucy's purse next to a clear bakery bag of dinner rolls on a shelf. He picked up the bag containing the dinner rolls. "They're already cut in half, too."

On the counter next to the sink sat a cutting board scattered with crumbs. A serrated knife lay near a knife block set-which had two slots empty.

Rocks formed in my gut. "This is not good."

Jose dialed Lucy's cell. We heard ringing coming from the pantry.

I ran in and picked up Lucy's purse. Pulling out her phone, my hands shook. "Call the police now."

"Hold on, Cat. Maybe a neighbor came by, and she got to chatting with them." Jose went over to a window and pulled the curtains back.

"Maybe, but it may not have been a social call. They're fighting with one neighbor, Ina Nesmith, over tree roots." I began to pace the white-tiled kitchen floor accented with red, matching the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.

"What are you implying?" Jose said.

"Things are not right." I glanced around the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place. Yet everything felt askew.

"Have you tried that back door?" Annie Mae pointed to a closed door near the rear of the kitchen leading to a mudroom.

"I'll check it out." Jose strode to the back.

He turned the handle and swung open the door.

Lucy lay on her back on the lime-green linoleum floor, dark red blood pooled around her left arm. Her wrist was slit open. A kitchen butcher knife lay near her right hand.

I screamed.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Annie Mae said.

"Oh my." Bezu's color drained from her face as she leaned against the kitchen table.

My knees buckled under me. I felt contents of my stomach lurch into the back of my throat.

Chapter Four.

Jose checked Lucy's vital signs. "She's dead."

I knelt down and held Lucy's cool hand. My heart raced, and my stomach flipped. Had the crossword killer struck again? No. Lucy said that the paper was already in the box before she'd purchased it. It couldn't be the same killer, could it?

Grabbing a kitchen towel, Jose picked up a folded piece of paper. "There's a note."

"What does it say?" Annie Mae asked.

Jose opened the white paper. "One side is from someone named Ina Nesmith. That's her neighbor you mentioned, isn't it, Cat?"

I nodded.

Jose continued. "It says *Back off, Lucy, or else. -Ina.' The other side, written in what looks like pink lipstick, reads *It's over. Lucy.'" Jose put the note back on the floor where he found it. "This appears to be a possible suicide note. But then again, Ina's note could be construed as a threat. Either way, no one touch anything. This is now a crime scene."

"Why would she kill herself? She was happier than a pig in mud." Bezu sat down in a chair as she pressed her hand to her chest.

"h.e.l.l if I know." Annie Mae pulled a chair next to Bezu at the kitchen table. She reached over and patted Bezu's hand.

"I'm calling my precinct right now." Jose held his phone to his head.

I paced the floor as though my legs couldn't stand still. Filling the room with floral scent, so light and alive, was a vase of fresh-cut flowers sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

"Lucy had been gone less than two shakes of a lamb's tail. How could this happen?" Bezu rocked herself.

Jose held a hand up. "Everyone sit tight. Help is on the way."

I wiped tears with the back of my hand. My taste buds wretched with the taste of bile. I tensed with raw nerves as a chill ran down my spine. And yet, I felt numb.

A short while later, two squad cars and an ambulance arrived. For the next few hours, the house buzzed with activity. Police forensics and EMTs began doing their work. Jose talked with them as they took pictures, dusted for prints, secured the area, filled out reports, walked through the house, and strung yellow tape. We were all interviewed as witnesses. Bezu, Annie Mae, and I sobbed the whole time.

After I composed myself, I walked to Jose just as a detective approached him.

The detective pointed a thick finger at Jose. "This is my case. Back off."

"Listen here, Ray. The vic is my friend. It's not suicide." Jose shook his head. "I'd just seen her right before she left to grab dinner rolls. She was fine. And what about the note left? You need to interview Ina Nesmith."

"Don't tell me how to do my job." Ray stood face-to-face with Jose and poked him in the chest. Ray stood an inch shorter than Jose but had a stout, thick build and a blond crew cut. "This is my case."

Jose's neck flushed as he leaned toward him. "Then do this by the book. No shortcuts."

"You're not my boss. Scarcely my peer." Officer Ray didn't budge. "A suicide note, a knife in the vic's hand. I think this case will be closed by the time the ink dries on the report."

Jose stayed face-to-face with Ray. "You have a problem with me, fine. But keep your beef with me out of this case."

Ray chortled. "The dying for dinner rolls case is cut-and-dry. Case closed."

Jose leaned in, his hands formed in fists. His neck veins bulged.

Ray took a step back. "One day, I'll have proof of who you are, and your a.s.s will be fired."

"If you have something on me, then do something about it. If not, get off my back." Jose narrowed his eyes.

"I don't have anything concrete now. But I will. There is something you're doing that is a disgrace to the department, and when I find out, I'll expose you." Ray clenched his fist.

"You're out of line. You have nothing on me, because I've done nothing wrong. You hate me, and that's fine. But don't let that obstruct this investigation." Jose jutted his chin. "If you're still p.i.s.sed I won at poker, then I can give your money back if that'll make you stop b.i.t.c.hing."

"Shove it." Ray turned and shouted over his shoulder. "All of you need to get out of the house now."

"Jacka.s.s," Jose said under his breath as we exited the house.

We made our way out to the front yard.

"What about Lucy's husband?" Bezu asked. "Did anyone call him?"

"He's been notified and is on his way now," Jose said.

"I can't believe this just happened," I said.

"I feel frozen, like I can't think right," Annie Mae added.

"Me, too," Bezu said.

"It's because you all are in shock. It's difficult to process right away." Jose put on his dark, aviator sungla.s.ses.

We stood in silence on Lucy's front lawn. It was dusk. The smell of fresh-cut gra.s.s permeated the air. A slight breeze moved branches of the oak tree above us. The air hung heavy with the remnants of the humid, hot day.

Each of us seemed lost in our own thoughts. I kept going over the last few times that I'd seen Lucy. Her energy, her talkative nature.

Hearing footsteps, I turned toward the front door.

A jet-black body bag on a stretcher was being carried out by two EMTs.

My gut retched, and my legs felt wobbly.

"Why would she do this?" Annie Mae sniffed then blew her nose into a tissue.

Tears stung my eyes. "She wouldn't. My gut is saying that someone took Lucy's life."

"That's messed up." Annie Mae thumped her fist in the air.

I bit my lip. "This may be the same person who shot my dad. Lucy had found a crossword puzzle like the one found by my dad that night. Although, she did say that it had already been in the box before she bought it."

"You think there's something there?" Annie Mae asked me.

"Y'all are making me nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, talking about murder and a killer. No. No." Bezu pointed to her head. "She must've had some serious issues we didn't know about."

"Mental ones? I don't think so. She told us everything. h.e.l.l, half the time, I didn't want to hear every little detail of her personal business, but that's what she was like. So why wouldn't she have told us she was depressed? Enough to do this?" Annie Mae pantomimed with a knife at her wrists.

"She didn't." I took a deep breath. "That suicide note was too brief for Lucy. Plus she'd burnt her right hand and told me it was hard to grip things. So the whole knife thing doesn't sit right with me. And the threatening note from her neighbor is suspect, too. And did you notice that the lipstick on the note was pink, not Lucy's signature red color?"

"Those are some great observations." Annie Mae c.o.c.ked her head as she looked at me. "So you're still thinking-"

"Someone killed her." I glanced at the half-dozen potted flower arrangements alongside the front porch. There was water on the ground near them. "Everything in her house is so neat and in order. And look at how beautiful she keeps the place."

"And?" Annie Mae raised an eyebrow.

"The cat has food in his dish. These plants are freshly watered. This is all normal routine-type stuff. Not a person on the edge about to kill herself, right?" A tear streaked down my cheek. "She loved her cat, actually all animals. For the past fifteen years, she volunteered at the Humane Society. She would never do this, desert her cat. It was her child."

Jose held up a finger. "Except I've worked on many suicide cases. It's eerie how they get things in order just before they end their lives. So, it seems that all outward evidence indicates suicide. But I agree she wasn't the type. She had lots of friends and hobbies and was very involved in her church. This doesn't sit right with me, either."