“I have your order ready, Margo,” Lexy called as she finished boxing up someone else’s order. When she was done she turned to ring up Margo who hadn’t quite made it to the counter.
“Margo?”
Margo blinked, smiled, and headed to the counter. “Sorry — yes. Good morning. Thank you, Lexy.”She was out the door in under a minute, cinnamon buns tucked securely under her arm.
“Oh.” Helen sat up straighter, nose practically to the glass of the window. “The hat menagerie is setting up a table outside. Look at that green one.” She turned back to the table. “Come on, ladies. I need a new hat.”
“You have fourteen hats,” Ruth said.
“I need a fifteenth.”
Ida was already reaching for her purse. Nans was already standing. Ruth closed her iPad with the sigh of a woman who knew exactly how this was going to go and had accepted it.
Lexy watched them go, smiled, and went back to her muffins.
The next twenty minutes were the most peaceful of the morning. The yard sale crowd thinned to a steady trickle, Cassie found her rhythm in the kitchen, and Main Street settled into the comfortable hum of a town happily picking through each other’s discarded belongings.
Then the front door flew open so violently the bell didn’t chime so much as crash, and a delivery driver in a red polo shirt stood in the doorway, white as chalk, chest heaving like he’d run the whole length of the alley to get there.
CHAPTER TWO
“There’s a body in the alley!”
The entire bakery gasped. Someone’s coffee cup went down too hard. A woman by the window stood up halfway and then didn’t seem to know what to do next. From the kitchen came the sound of a muffin tin hitting the floor, and then Cassie’s face appeared in the swinging door, eyes wide.
Lexy was around the counter before the bell stopped swinging. “Show me.”
The alley behind The Cup and Cake ran between the backs of the Main Street buildings, wide enough for deliveries, mostly unremarkable. What was currently remarkable was Everett Pike, face-down on the pavement, his blueberry muffin squished flat beside his outstretched hand. Muffin crumbs were scattered across the pavement in a wide cheerful arc that had no idea how inappropriate it was. A single blueberry had rolled a good four feet and was resting against the base of the wall, apparently unharmed.
Lexy crouched and looked without touching. The newspaper wrapping was shredded under him. His yard sale bag was nearby. Lexy peeked inside: chrome cocktail shaker, fish ashtray. A silver class ring. A set of salt and pepper shakers painted as a matching couple in 1950s swimsuits. No cat. She looked at the back of Everett’s head. He’d been hit with something sharp and hard.
“Call 911,” she told the delivery driver.
He pulled out his phone with the speed of a man very grateful to have something specific to do.
Detective Jack Perillo, Lexy’s husband, arrived in eight minutes, coat half-buttoned, already wearing his crime face — not shocked, not emotional, just fully focused in a way that closed everything else off.
He looked at Everett. He looked at Lexy. “You found him?”
“Delivery driver found him. He’s right there.”
Jack crouched. Looked without touching. Stood. “Go back in, Lexy.”
“I’m good here.”
Jack opened his mouth. Then he glanced over Lexy’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing. Cutting through the crowd at the alley entrance with the combined momentum of four women who had spotted something happening and were absolutely not going to stand in a hat shop while it happened, came Nans, Ruth, Helen, and Ida.
Jack looked at the sky briefly. “Of course,” he said, to no one.
Ida arrived at the alley entrance just as a breeze rolled the escaped blueberry to a stop against her shoe. She looked down at it. She looked at what remained of the muffin. She pressed her lips together.
“What a waste of a muffin,” she said.
Nans was already scanning the scene with quiet efficiency — Everett, the spilled bag, the shredded newspaper, the back of his head. She said nothing for a moment. Then: “He was hit.”
“Nans,” Jack said, from behind the police tape that had appeared with impressive speed. “Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything. I’m standing here.” A pause. “His bag is still there with things in it.” Another pause. “But it looks like something is missing.”