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then stopped moving.
     
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    I couldn’t bear to go out into the showroom, considering there was a dead body lying out there on the tiled floor. So instead, I stayed in the back, sitting on a brown stool and breathing into the paper bag that Thyme had given me. Thyme was out in the showroom, past the swinging doors, waiting for the police to arrive.
    By the time they did arrive, I felt marginally better. At least I didn’t have to breathe into a paper bag anymore. My head was buried in my hands with my elbows on my knees when I heard the swinging doors open. I looked up and saw two cops, both in blue uniforms. A man and a woman. The man was in his forties and had bushy eyebrows as black as the hair on his head. His chest was large and barrel-like, and he looked very strong. The woman had a wide smile, but her eyes looked stern.
    “Are you Amelia Spelled?” the woman asked, and I nodded. “Mind if we ask you some questions?”
    I shook my head. Of course, I knew the police would need to ask me questions, and I knew there wouldn’t be much point in putting it off. I would rather get it over with, and then maybe they could work on getting the dead man out of my brand new business, a business, of course, that I didn’t know how to run.
    The cops stopped in front of me. The man introduced himself as Sergeant Greer and the female officer as Constable Stevens.
    “We talked to your employee,” Greer said, hitching a thick thumb over a broad shoulder. “She’s going to give us a few minutes.”
    It was odd to think of Thyme as my employee, and for a moment I thought they had the wrong person. I had never been someone’s boss before.
    “Oh,” I said. It was all my muddled brain could think of at the time.
    “You know the man out here?” Greer asked, flipping through a few pages of the small notebook he had produced from one of his pockets. He licked the tip of a pen and prepared to write my answer.
    “I met him yesterday, at the funeral,” I said.
    The woman cop nodded. “Your aunt died, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Constable Stevens said, again with the wide smile.
    “Your aunt left you this place?” Greer asked, his voice scratchy and gruff, matching his eyebrows perfectly.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You bake cakes?”
    “I guess so,” I said.
    The male cop lifted one of those brows, an inquisitive look. “What’s that mean? ‘I guess so’?”
    I was irritated by the question. “I mean, I was left this business by my aunt. I have no idea how to bake cakes.”
    “So why not sell it?” Greer asked. “A nice little place like this! Why, you could sell it and go back to where you came from.”
    I shook my head. I did not want to tell them the whole sordid story of what led to me moving to town. I simply said. “It was my aunt’s wish that I stay and run the business.”
    “That’s good of you,” Constable Stevens said, smiling again.
    I wished she would stop smiling all the time. No one smiled that much in real life, and her smile did not look genuine. It creeped me out.
    Greer went on with his questions. “You know the guy’s name? The deceased man in your store out there?”
    “Brant,” I said. “McMurphy?”
    “McCallum,” Greer corrected me.
    I nodded. “Right.”
    “He took a bite of your cake and keeled over, huh?”
    “Yes, he took a bite and looked at me oddly. His eyes widened; he clutched at his throat, and he fell,” I said, and suddenly I was reliving it all. For one wild moment I was sure I would need that paper bag again. I reached for it but then stopped myself. I took a deep breath, and tried to get myself back under control.
    “She must really not know what she’s doing,” Constable Stevens said under her breath to Greer, who shot her a warning look.
    “I did not bake the cake he ate!” I exclaimed, but then realized that Thyme had.
    Greer towered over me. “Is there any of the cake he ate left?”
    I nodded. “A little. He