Read Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) for Free Online Page A

argument.
    “You have no hold over me,” came the disdainful reply. But from whom, or even what gender, I couldn’t tell. A hundred horses on the move will drown out all but the loudest voices. I turned to watch as the herd made its nightly procession to the upper pasture, and forgot everything else, lost in joy.
    When the horses had passed, I strolled back to the Lodge with the crowd that had gathered to watch the parade. I replayed the overheard snippets in my mind’s ear. But they had been tense, colored by rage, beyond recognition.
    What had I actually heard?
    Sound and fury. But what, if anything, did it signify?
    *   *   *
    T wo hours later, I finally felt sure that the software was working properly and that we did in fact have all the jam, flour, eggs, and pasta the bits and bytes reported.
    One last chocolate mousse cup in hand—portable paradise—I descended the half flight of stairs from the Merc’s office. I double-checked the front door—just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean stuff won’t happen, and the locks on this pile of bricks are original. In the kitchen, a light glowed over the six-burner gas stove, and when I stepped inside to flick it off, I spotted Fresca’s copy of
My Life in France
by Julia Child on the counter. Astonished that Stacia had never read it, she’d insisted Stacia borrow her own dog-eared copy. But there it lay, forgotten.
    Easier to drop it off tonight than try to find the time—and Stacia—later in the week. I was driving by the road to the Lodge anyway. My own place was just a short hop south of the Lodge. I tucked the book in my bag—a bright blue leather hold-all I’d bought in a teeny-tiny shop on East Pike in Seattle—and strode out the back door.
    A stream of light from Red’s courtyard shone into our space, highlighting the empty corners, picking out the spaces between the worn cobblestones. I may not understand Liz’s talk about using the five elements—fire, wood, earth, water, and metal—to enhance the flow of energy, but she had a way of making me want to believe.
    That’s why I’d hung a red metal star on the back gate earlier this summer, to burnish the Merc’s fame and reputation. I adjusted it now.
    Several weeks past solstice, the sky had already begun darkening sooner than I would like. This time of year, it becomes impossible to deny that the seasons will change.
    I turned my sage green Subaru off the highway onto a long, narrow road leading to the turnoff for the Lodge, keeping my eye peeled for deer. The pesky critters have a straight shot down the mountain, across the highway, through the dark woods and deserted fields to the water. And they rarely travel alone.
    My headlights glinted off something on the right. I slowed. Not roadkill—something shiny. A black trash bag? Something that had fallen off the top of a car or flown out the back of a pickup?
    No shoulder on this road, so I pulled over as far as I could and stopped the car, beams shining on the asphalt and the dense brush beside it. I grabbed the Maglite from my glove box and flicked it on. Stepped out.
    Stepped closer. No.
    No.
I knelt beside Stacia’s crumpled body, the lights picking up those highlights in her hair, and felt for a pulse.
    From the opposite direction, more lights approached. Too fast. Too close.
    No.

•  Four  •
    I punched 911 on my cell and forced myself to keep a steady voice as I told the dispatcher who, what, and where.
    But why?
Why?
    I’d gone thirty-two years without finding a dead body. Then, two in two months. In mysteries, the person who finds the body is always the obvious suspect.
    Criminy
.
    Kyle had stopped his car twenty feet from where I stood next to Stacia, waving my flashlight. Turned out when he saw the lights, he thought someone had hit a deer and needed help. After checking the body—a phrase that made me shiver—he’d backed his car up and angled it across the road to block all traffic coming from the Lodge. Now, as I