Punch, Pastries, and Poison by Harper Lin (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

A flicker of regret passed across his eyes. His voice was softer. “Otherwise, I’m going to get a search warrant.”

Chapter 9

As soon as I agreed to let them search my house and the café, he sent me to get dressed. Then he loaded me into his squad car and drove me over to the café. He must have had the crime scene team on standby because they were already parked outside when we pulled up.

One of the crime scene techs had to unlock the door for me because my hands were shaking too much to get my key into the lock. He pulled the door open and held it for me to walk in first.

The café was exactly like we’d left it before. The tables loaded down with food, big bowls of punch at either end still half full, discarded paper plates and plastic cups scattered on every available surface, some with food still on them. Some of the food even had bites taken out of it. It was the kind of thing you would see at a disaster site where everyone had fled unexpectedly and in a hurry, leaving the remnants of the last normal moments behind. If you dropped a group of people into the room, they could pick back up exactly where they left off, and no one would know the difference.

I would, though.

The night before, the tantalizing smell of fresh-baked pastries, both sweet and savory, had filled the café. The rich, buttery aroma of freshly made cookies and puff pastry, the hint of citrus from the lemon tarts, the warm spices of the sausage—they’d all blended together in an enticing mix that beckoned our guests inside and welcomed them to our party.

Now, it smelled stale—stale food, stale air, and stale—well, a lot of people had been very nauseated, and the bathrooms hadn’t been cleaned. The scene was far more repellant than inviting. And the scattered detritus of the party just drove it home. The night didn’t end because people were ready to go—it ended because they were too sick to stay.

“All right, guys.” Mike’s voice boomed behind me as he and the crime scene techs started filling the café. “We believe the poison was ingested, so we want samples of all the food on the table and—” He stopped and looked around. “You may as well get the stuff people left on the tables too.”

The techs swarmed the room, fanning out with plastic evidence bags in hand, ready to be filled with the food I’d made—food the police thought had been poisoned. Even though I knew the food was inedible, my gut reaction was still that it was such a waste of food.

“Do you want us to take all of it, Detective?” one of the techs asked, his hand poised over a platter, ready to slide every last slice of the mille-feuille into his bag.

Mike studied the table for a few seconds then shook his head. “Just grab a few of each. If the tests come back inconclusive, we’ll come back for more.”

I realized then that the café wasn’t getting cleaned up anytime soon.

The tech dropped a couple slices of the mille-feuille into the bag and moved over to the fudgey chocolate chip cookies next to them. Mike stopped him as he reached out for them. “One thing per bag.” He rolled his eyes and looked at me for sympathy. As much as I wanted to offer it, I couldn’t quite muster it under the circumstances.

He seemed to understand, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning back to survey the techs. After a moment, he glanced back my way. “You can sit down if you want. Probably be a while.”

I sank down into the closest chair. The techs were everywhere, like a colony of ants moving in on a picnic. I watched them warily. I’d seen enough TV shows where the aftermath of a search looked about the same as a thorough burglary—drawers emptied, shelves cleared, everything everywhere. I hoped the local guys would be more considerate than that. Of course, they were from the county, so they didn’t actually know me like the Cape Bay officers did.

“Let’s be careful, guys. We don’t need to toss the place,” Mike said, giving a hard look at a tech behind the counter who was being a little haphazard with the glass jars I used to display different varieties and roasts of beans. I liked having them to show customers when they had questions. Being able to hand someone a few beans to sniff and roll around in their hand went a long way towards helping them understand what differentiated one from another. Plus, they looked pretty and made good décor.

“Sorry about that,” Mike muttered in my direction. “I’m trying to keep them in line.” He looked over at me with something like regret.

I nodded slightly—as much as I could without sending another wave of pain through my skull—and put my elbow on the table next to me. The sign-in sheet and donation box from the night before were still sitting on it. One of us should have locked that up before we left the night before. Someone could have stolen it easily. I’d been too sick to think even of that the night before.

I pulled the box toward me and checked under the lid. I didn’t know how much money had been in it the night before, but there was still a pile of bills and checks inside, so I didn’t think anyone had tampered with it. I’d have to ask Mike about locking it up or going ahead and taking it over to the animal shelter. I didn’t know what I’d do if the crime scene techs wanted to take it for some test or other. Find out how much it was and go ahead and write a check, I guessed. I hated the thought of the animal shelter missing out because of what happened