A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

but we try to limit her to a few cheese
crackers now and then.” He raised one eyebrow and looked down at the dog.
“Don’t want her to lose the girlish figure or anything.”
    “That makes two of us,” I agreed.
“All things in moderation, right?”
    He laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you
to it then. I hope Tipper shows up soon. Otherwise, feel free to drop those
boxes on our front porch.”
    We shared a brief smile and the
pair crunched back through the snow toward the street. I tried the bell again,
waiting a minute or two before deciding to walk around back and peek in the
kitchen window on the off chance that Tipper was wearing her headphones. She
often listened to music while cleaning, so there was a possibility she hadn’t
heard the doorbell.
    The walkway from the drive around
the side of the house was neatly shoveled, so I reached the kitchen window in a
flash. The trash can lid was ajar, so I paused long enough to nudge it back
into place with my hip.
    “Please be in there rocking out,” I
whispered. “I do not want to sit in the car and wait any longer than—”
    The thought went unfinished as I
noticed the back entrance.
    The door was ajar.
    An unfired bullet sat on the
threshold.
    And there was something on the
handle that looked far too familiar from my days as a PI in Chicago.
    “Blood,” I said in a hushed murmur.
“That definitely looks like blood.”

CHAPTER
6
     
     
    I stood on the stone walkway, my
heart beginning to gallop in my chest and a chill spreading down my spine.
    “Don’t panic,” I whispered. “Take a
breath.”
    As I filled my lungs with the icy
winter air again and again, I gave the surrounding area a quick glance. I
didn’t see anything in the snow or on the dark stones underfoot, so I finished
the trek along the back of the house.
    When I reached the small cement pad
outside the kitchen door, I repeated the process to ensure that I wasn’t
stepping on anything that might be a helpful clue if I needed to call the
Crescent Creek Police.
    “If,” I said. “If they need to get
involved.”
    As I shifted the bakery boxes in my
arms and leaned toward the window in the backdoor, my mind raced with a few
innocent explanations. Maybe she was cooking something that involved red
meat. That could be blood from a roast. Or maybe it isn’t even blood. Maybe
it’s strawberry jam. Or beet juice.
    Despite the hopeful and optimistic
speculation, my gut was telling me something entirely different. If it wasn’t a
household accident caused by a sharp knife or broken glass, the relatively
fresh blood on the backdoor was more likely the result of a wound caused by
some type of violence.
    “Please let it be okay,” I said in
a hushed, trembling voice.
    But as I peered through the
pristine glass, I saw instantly that it wasn’t going to be okay.
    On the far side of the kitchen, two
legs extended into the room from the hallway that ran through the center of the
house. They were dressed in Tipper’s favorite pair of bleach-spattered jeans,
accessorized with fur-lined moccasins and the zebra print trench coat that she
bought at Becca Hancock’s vintage clothing store a few weeks earlier.
    “Oh, Tipper…”
    I quickly leaned down and put the
Sky High boxes on the ground. Then I used my elbow to ease open the door.
    “Tipper?” My voice split the frosty
silence. “Are you okay, hon?”
    I glanced down at the white tiled
floor. A zigzag trail of crimson drops led from the doorway to where Tipper was
sprawled on her back. As I stepped carefully around the reddish spots, I
reached into my purse and found my phone. After pausing long enough to dial the
three digits, I crossed the expansive kitchen.
    “Police Dispatch,” a man said
calmly when the call connected. “What’s the exact location of your emergency?”
    “This is Kate Reed,” I said. “I’m
at Tipper Hedge’s place on Hanover. I’m not sure what’s happened, but she’s on
the kitchen floor…and there’s…quite a