Page 20 of Autopsy of a Fairytale

“Violet?” Bel corrected.

“Yes, her. I don’t interact with the customers or deal with the baking. That was Emily and the girls’ thing…” David’s face crumpled. “How am I supposed to tell them about their mom?”

The man dissolved into tears, and Bel pressed a sympathetic palm to his shoulder. Flashbacks to when her own father sat her and her sisters down to inform them of their mother’s passing assaulted her memory, and she had to push down the bitter bile climbing up her throat with a forceful swallow. It was a fate no family should have to endure.

“I’m sorry,” David sniffled.

“Don’t apologize.” Bel rubbed his arm. “This is incredibly difficult. Take your time.”

“I handled the books,” David said after his breathing was under control. “I had a corporate job when we first got married, but when the Espresso Shot grew beyond what Emily could handle alone, I quit and took over the business aspects. Emily and my daughters—when they are home from college—deal with the customers, but I remember Violet. She stands out, and she always buys coffee in bulk. Other than her coming into the shop, we have no relationship with Lumen.”

Bel and Garrett exchanged a look. It had been a long shot. Nothing about this case was obvious. Nothing made sense. Why would the choice of victims be different? And using Violet’s purchases as a connection was grasping at straws. The entire town ordered their coffee from The Espresso Shot.

“So, this is a family business?” Garrett asked.

“Yes.”

“Who will inherit the shop?” Bel asked, understanding where Garrett’s line of questioning was headed.

“My daughters.”

The detectives exchanged a wordless conversation. Unlike Lumen’s Customs, where the assistant stood to inherit millions, The Espresso Shot was a family unit. It was unlikely that Emily’s college-aged daughters had murdered their mother for ownership of a company they already had a hand in.

“David, we have to ask. Where were you last night?” Bel asked. In most homicides, the spouse was the killer, but the similarities to Lumen’s scene made this question mostly a formality. She couldn’t picture the slightly overweight, middle-aged husband of a baker having the power or cruelty to disfigure both bodies.

“I was in bed. Emily always leaves… left for work early. I got the girls ready for school when they were younger.”

“Can anyone verify that?”

“My daughters are home for the summer. They were both there, but asleep.”

“Would it be okay if we talked to them?” Bel asked, hating herself for having to mention it.

“Can I tell them first?” David asked. “They should find out from me.”

“Of course.” She doubted the girls knew anything, but there was a chance they were privy to their mother’s secrets. In her line of work, it no longer surprised her just how often spouses were clueless. “I have a few more questions, and then we’ll take a break. Did Emily come home last night?”

“Yes. She came right home after closing. We had dinner, watched tv, and then she went to bed early.”

“What time did she leave for the shop?”

“We open at 6:00 a.m., so she usually got up at 3:30 so she could be there by 4:00. It gave her two hours to bake. It was her favorite part of the day.”

“Did she leave on time this morning?” Garrett asked.

“Yes… no, actually,” David said. “I’m not a morning person, but Emily always woke me up to say goodbye. It was two something, so, earlier than usual.”

“Was she agitated? Upset? Did anything about her or her appearance seem off?” Bel asked, grasping for something, anything, to point her in the killer’s direction.

“No, she was energetic. She had a recipe she was excited to try.”

“What was it?” Bel’s heart twinged, realizing that never again would Bajka wake up to a brand-new Emily concoction. She had touched the hearts of so many with her baking.

“Rose shortbread cookies,” David answered, and Bel froze, roots of dread diving from her feet to embed into the asphalt, welding her where she stood. “With rose water buttercream.”

The employee interviewsoffered what Bel and Garrett already knew. Emily was well loved, and, like Lumen, she was unproblematic. The scene had been void of evidence save the ones the killer intended them to find, and as the detectives drove down the wooded road to the Reale Mansion, frustration coiled in Bel’s gut like thorny branches scoring her organs.

“The killer’s escalating,” Bel said.

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