I was up bright and early the next morning, hoping for a better day. I gave Waffle his usual breakfast of lettuce, carrots, and bunny food, then let him out into the front yard to hop around while I got ready for the day.
Waffle spent most of his time outdoors during the day, in his bunny hutch, but he was free to hop around. I’d reinforced the base of the fencing with chicken wire in case he made a bid for freedom, but, so far, he hadn’t done anything like that.
He liked Star Lake. Or maybe, he liked me. I figured it was a combination of the two.
I arrived at the Starlight Cafe at 06:30 a.m., well before any of the other stores in the street had opened, and let myself in.
The kitchen was quiet—Fran wouldn’t come in until about 08:00 a.m.—so I set to work doing prep work. I wasn’t a chef, but Fran had taught me a few basics so that if I ever wanted to help in the kitchen, I knew what to do.
Besides, I enjoyed baking the cupcakes and preparing the waffles—my minimal area of expertise when it came to baking and cooking.
At 07:00 a.m., the bell above the door in the cafe tinkled. I frowned. That couldn’t be Fran.
“Who’s there?” I called. “We’re not open yet.”
“It’s Angela.” The cereal commercial superstar called back. “I came for my coffee. Trust me, I need it this morning. You will not believe what just happened to me.”
“Sure. Just give me a sec.” I was streaked in frosting, so I removed my apron and headed over to the kitchen sink to wash up.
The bell tinkled a second time. Another customer?
“Angela?” I called.
No answer. She must’ve left. I washed my hands and dried them, then switched on the dishwasher. The hum didn’t disguise the tinkling of the bell a third time.
What was going on out there? Was I suddenly flush with customers? Never a bad thing, given the current state of business, but this was highly unusual.
“Angela, is that you?” Still no answer. I’d figured she’d slipped out and come back again for whatever reason. I exited the swinging kitchen doors. “We’ve got waffles and—”
The words evaporated from my lips, and my brain freeze-framed. A millisecond later, my thoughts and senses came back to life.
Angela lay on the chipped linoleum in front of the waffle station. A bottle of maple syrup had been rammed into her open mouth, she had been stabbed in the chest, and her eyes were blank. Dead.
You don’t know that. Check her pulse.
I went through the motions of bending beside her, even though I knew that she was gone.
I scanned her body, documenting mentally, out of habit. Her nails were chipped, even though she’d had them done at the salon yesterday. She wore a pair of scuffed, dirty sneakers, though Angela was definitely a stiletto girl. My guess was that the stab wound had killed her, rather than the bottle of maple syrup.
Facts flew through my head across a backdrop of fear. Angela was dead. In the cafe. Why? How?
The perpetrator must’ve come in, murdered her, then left again. But how? I hadn’t heard anything. Or, not enough of anything.
Call 911.
That was all I could do. I wasn’t a police officer anymore. And even if I had been, I wouldn’t have had the jurisdiction to do anything about this.
I reached for my phone in the pocket of my jeans, and the bell above the door rang. I froze, lifting my gaze, expecting it to be the murderer.
Fran stood on the threshold, white as a sheet. Her jaw dropped. “W-what? What’s going on?”
“Someone killed Angela,” I said. “I’m calling 911.”
Fran stared first at me then at the body. “S-she’s dead?”
“Yes,” I said. “You’d better sit down outside, Fran. They’re going to want to close us for a while.” I remained calm, removed the phone from my pocket at last, and dialed 911.
If I’d thought life couldn’t get any more complicated, I’d been wrong.