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but I couldn’t find a pulse.” The stench of rotting food and the revulsion she’d felt at touching the dead had worked together until—“And then I threw up.”
    Baker nodded, his expression bland. “Yes, the deputy told me.”
    “I didn’t mean to contaminate the crime scene. It just . . . happened.”
    “How do you know about contaminating crime scenes?” Baker asked.
    “I own Haven’t Got a Clue, the mystery bookstore across the street. I read a lot of crime stories.”
    “How many is ‘a lot’?”
    “Not as many as I used to. Only two or three a week.”
    Baker didn’t roll his eyes, but he looked like he might want to. Something captured his attention, and Tricia looked to her left. Someone had entered through the open back door—a man Tricia recognized from her last brush with murder. A member of the county’s Medical Examiner’s office greeted Baker with a curt nod.
    “Have we got a probable cause of death yet?” Baker asked.
    The man had a laminated ID card on a lanyard around his neck. The name on it was Ernesto Rivera. “Suffocation, most likely. Her face was covered by a plastic bag full of trash. Looks like she panicked when she couldn’t get out of the garbage cart. She couldn’t reach the edge of the can. Looks like she tore the trash bags apart while struggling. Her fingernails have all kinds of debris under them. We bagged ’em, and will know more once we get her on the table.”
    Tricia cringed at that piece of information. Pammy—her chest and abdominal cavities emptied like a gutted deer. Her scalp peeled forward until—
    Tricia shuddered again. Why had she read so many Kay Scarpetta mysteries? The knowledge she’d picked up about autopsies made for an interesting read—if not applied to someone you’d actually known.
    “Did she fall into the garbage can?” Baker asked.
    “No way—the thing’s about four foot tall. She was on her back. Someone had to put her in there.”
    Tricia’s thoughts, exactly.
    “Thanks, Ernie.” Baker turned to question Angelica. “You’re the owner?”
    Angelica sighed theatrically. “Yes. Angelica Miles. Soon to be published, I might add. Penguin Books, Easy-Does-It Cooking , twenty-four ninety-nine—available on June first.”
    It was Tricia’s turn to roll her eyes. Much more information than anyone needed to know.
    She leaned against the counter stool and listened as Captain Baker took Angelica through the same set of questions. His demeanor was just so different from that of his boss. If the circumstances were different, she decided, she might even like him.
    “And why was it you hired Ms. Fredericks?” Baker asked.
    Finally, the question Tricia had been waiting to hear answered.
    Angelica sighed, looked over to Tricia for a moment, and then turned back to the captain. “I figured it would keep her out of my garbage.”
    Baker blinked in disbelief. So did Tricia.
    “Of course,” Angelica continued, “I had no idea someone would actually kill her and put her in my garbage cart.”
    “Wait a minute,” Tricia said, leaning forward. “What do you mean, ‘keep her out of my garbage’?”
    Angelica shrugged. “She came by every day—after closing, of course—and poked through my cans to see what she could salvage.”
    “I don’t understand,” Captain Baker said.
    Angelica sighed impatiently. “To take.”
    “But it’s not like you throw out anything valuable—something Pammy could actually use or sell,” Tricia protested.
    “Apparently she thought I did.”
    Baker held up a hand to interrupt. “What am I missing here?”
    “It’s no secret Pammy was a scavenger. I believe she was employed as an antiques picker at different periods of her life,” Angelica said.
    “What’s that got to do with the café’s garbage?” Tricia asked.
    “Pammy was a freegan,” Angelica said matter-of-factly.
    “A what?” Baker asked, confused.
    “A what?” Tricia echoed.
    Angelica frowned. “She Dumpster dived for food.”