MURDER AT THE LOBSTAH SHACK

No lights lit the front of the small seafood restaurant and fish store. I didn’t even try the door. I hurried around to the alley and went in the back door.

Inside the kitchen, I called, “Tulia?”

She stuck her head out from a heavy stainless-steel door with a handle like those on refrigerated trucks. She waved me over and pushed open the door of the walk-in cooler. “Thank God you’re here. It’s awful, Mac. I didn’t know what to do!”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” What in there could have made her wail and ask for help? Had she spilled her lobster bisque stock? Broken a five-gallon crock of homemade pickles and cut herself? I hurried across the kitchen to join her.

Tulia, shaking, pointed at the floor. She didn’t shake only from the cold. On the cement lay Annette DiCicero, as still as a washed-up log of driftwood. . . .