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I said as I stood. I was perplexed at how she’d stepped into some of my preserves. Yesterday evening I’d finished making some jam, but I hadn’t left any groceries, products, or supplies out. Or at least I thought I hadn’t left anything out. I never left anything out, but cleaned up the kitchen after each use and deep cleaned it once a week.
    It took me less than a second to stand up, but in that short time I processed the gouges in the door frame that my dog couldn’t have caused. I realized that Hobbit wouldn’t have gone into the kitchen of her own accord; she knew she wasn’t allowed and she never pushed the issue.
    Someone had broken into my kitchen and then shut my dog inside. Who would do such a thing?
    A glint of reflected sunlight hit my eyes when I was fully upright. When I shaded my face with my hands, I realized how the horrible moments I’d just gone through were only the beginning of what might turn out to be the most horrible day of my life.
    The smell hit me at the same time I saw what was causing it. The scent was tinny and sharp and wasn’t coming from some spilled preserves. The smell was instead coming from spilled blood.
    Finding a dead body in my kitchen was the second take-the-wind-from-my-sails experience I’d had that day, but this one was much worse.
    I went back down to my knees. I wasn’t nauseated as much as I just couldn’t catch my breath. My eyes watered and my jaw clenched involuntarily. Hobbit, sensing that the happy moment of greeting was over, whined and licked at my ear.
    I pushed her gently away. There was a body in my kitchen, and I had to see if there was a chance that my sharpest knife—the one sticking up from the body’s chest—hadn’t all the way killed the person attached to it.
    I’ve watched a million movies where someone has no regard for the crime scene; they walk right into it and right into the puddles of blood that might help investigators figure out the identity of the killers. I murmur, “Idiot,” when I see such disregard.
    But when it happens to you, when you are the person who comes upon a body in a pool of blood, there’s not much thought for investigators and evidence detection. There’s only: Holy crap, a body! I have to see what happened!
    I stood and made my way deeper into the kitchen. The area was fairly large with a manageable work space and a huge stainless steel worktable in the center. The body was on the ground, next to the worktable, in a pool of blood.
    I made it only partway before I realized that there was no chance the person on my floor was still alive.
    Later I would wonder why it took me so long to realize who the person was. The face was clearly recognizable, but though I had seen it, I hadn’t really seen it until that second. The body on my kitchen floor was someone I didn’t like in the least, but I hadn’t wished her dead.
    Joan Ashworth, owner of Bistro restaurant and president of the Central South Carolina Restaurant Association, was dead on the floor of my kitchen, killed presumably with one of my knives. She’d insulted my products and now she was dead on my property. Probably killed with the knife that had been used in the preparation of the product she’d insulted. Sick irony thrummed through my system.
    My head was so jumbled that I had to force myself to think about whether or not I had done the deed. I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t, and as a comfort to myself only, hadn’t even considered such a thing.
    I needed to call the police. My friend Sam Brion would be the one to call. He’d become such a good friend that his number was on my speed dial. I reached into my pocket for my phone as I turned and began to walk shakily out of the kitchen.
    The light coming in from the door was suddenly shaded. I gasped as I looked up, fearful of what I’d see. I hadn’t thought about the crime scene, and I hadn’t thought that the person who did this horrible deed might still be on my property.
    I was a double