Grilled for Murder by Maddie Day Page B

broken was a blessing, as long as it didn’t set me back too far financially.
    Now that that chore was finished, I didn’t know what to do with myself on a Sunday morning at eleven thirty. I hadn’t had a Sunday off since before I opened in early October. I puttered around, returning the uncooked bacon and sausage to the walk-in, stashing the clean dishes, sweeping up. At least I hadn’t made a big batch of pancake batter I’d have to throw out. A batter made with baking powder wouldn’t freeze well or keep in the cooler, either. The coleslaw I’d made yesterday for today’s lunch would probably keep, although by Tuesday it might be too wilted to serve. I might as well chip away at it for my own lunches. I drew out the bowl full of the colorful salad—a cheerful mix of green and red cabbages and carrots—from the walk-in and headed for my apartment.
    At the door, I turned back to look at the cookware wall. That empty space where the press had been bugged me. I wanted to hang something over it, move a frying pan or a popcorn popper into its place. But the detective would certainly want to check out the wall for prints or DNA or something. I turned into my apartment and locked up tight behind me.
    After I let Birdy out of the bedroom, he sauntered after me into the kitchen and rubbed against my leg.
    â€œHey, kittycat.” I rubbed his head and picked him up, putting my face close to his until I got one little scratchy lick on the nose, then he squirmed out of my hands and jumped into the sink. A dutiful cat mom, I turned the faucet on low and watched him lap up the running water, an H 2 O source apparently much preferable to fresh water in a bowl on the floor.
    But I kept picturing Erica. Wondering who’d killed her, who’d broken into my store. I’d never seen a dead body before. It’d been an upsetting, terrible sight. I knew some funerals included an open casket, but I’d never been to one. And in that case I was sure they prettied up the dead.
    It was Sunday, so maybe the puzzle would distract me. I downloaded and printed out the New York Times Sunday puzzle from my subscription, clamped it onto my puzzle clipboard, and found my special pen, which Buck had returned to me after it was found at the scene of the crime in October. It was one of the pens my mom had had printed with the logo for her cabinetry business, a long table inscribed with J EANINE’S C ABINETS . I put my feet up on the futon sofa and got to work.
    After I’d filled in the top left corner, though, my mind drifted back to the Who Killed Erica puzzle. Even though she wasn’t well liked, she didn’t deserve to die at the hands of another. And I sure didn’t deserve to have a dead woman dumped on the floor of my store. I couldn’t figure out the connection. Why kill Erica? Why leave her here?
    I watched Birdy perform feats even the best yogi couldn’t master as he bathed his lithe black-and-white self in a spot of sunlight on the floor. Solving this murder wasn’t my job, of course. But it might require the same kinds of contortions, except of the mental variety.
    * * *
    After I finished the puzzle, it wasn’t even noon. I stretched my arms as I wandered through the kitchen to the back door, pushing it open. The sunshine was already melting the couple of inches of white stuff. Early snows this far south never lasted long.
    I still wanted to distract myself from the deeply disturbing events of the morning. But there was too much snow on the ground for me to want to take my nice road cycle out for a long ride. Good thing I’d ordered a bike trainer I could click my cycle into. I set it up in the living room, changed into biking shorts and a tank top, and put on a collection of arias sung by Luciano Pavarotti. I was the only twenty-something I knew who liked opera. It was one more thing I’d picked up from Mom, and after I learned my father Roberto was