A Beeline to Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

urged.
    “Well, that’s when I heard voices in the kitchen. Mr. Dobbs had come around back to talk with my boss. Chef Jean-Louis had just turned off his CD player, so I could hear them really clearly.” She wiped her nose again. “You know, the chef, he loves opera.”
    Abby smiled. “Yes, I know.... Can you remember what they said?”
    Tallulah bit her lip. “Um, let me think. I had just finished wiping down the counters and was refilling the napkin holders. Mr. Dobbs sounded really mad. The two of them were shouting, talking over each other. Chef didn’t back down, even after Dobbs made threats.”
    “Threats? Like what?” Abby knew Otto should be and would be asking these questions, but she couldn’t just turn off her instinct to probe—she had cared about the chef, too.
    “He told Chef that their lease deal was not valid. He sent Jean-Louis to hell and said that the renovation was going to happen whether Chef Jean-Louis liked it or not. But Mr. Dobbs was pushing out only the pastry shop.”
    “And you know this because. . . .”
    “Chef Jean-Louis spoke with the proprietors of the theater and the biker bar. Mr. Dobbs hadn’t asked either of those tenants to vacate.”
    “So what else did Dobbs say?”
    “He told Chef Jean-Louis that the pastry shop’s lease would be broken, even if he—that is, Mr. Dobbs—had to ice him.”
    “ Ice? He really used that word? Goodness, sounds like Mr. Dobbs has been watching too many mafia shows,” said Abby.
    “I avoid people like him.” Tallulah shifted from foot to foot, swayed from side to side, as if the rhythmic movement could somehow help her cope. “That horrible man is nothing but a selfish bully with a giant ego, a hothead with a big mouth.” Tallulah pushed the purple forelock from her eye. “I’m a pacifist, like Gandhi and Reverend King. I hate arguments. But that night I had to get my purse from the kitchen, where they were going at it. The tension in there was terrible. Shaking off that kind of negative energy, it’s hard for people like me.”
    “What do you mean by ‘like me’?”
    “Empathic.”
    Abby shot her a quizzical look.
    “I feel other people’s energy. The chef and Dobbs . . . their energies were intense. I mean, off the charts. We’re talking major testosterone. Chef had gotten right into Dobbs’s face. I could feel electricity streaming out of his head. We empaths feel emotional energy more than other people. My intuition is as finely tuned as a crystal, receiving and magnifying energy, positive and negative.”
    “And so you went to the pastry shop kitchen to get your purse?” Abby asked, sidestepping what she considered the bogus hocus-pocus.
    Tallulah pressed fingers against the corners of her eyes, where new tears were forming. “He just can’t be dead,” she said. “This doesn’t happen in real life . . . does it?”
    Abby sighed. “Unfortunately, it does.” She waited a beat. “And so you went to get your purse, and then what?”
    “It was hanging on the coat rack. I snagged it and beat the heck outta there. I don’t think either of them even noticed me.”
    “So you didn’t hear anything else? Did Dobbs or Jean-Louis say anything as you were leaving?”
    “Nope. They were just evil eyeing each other, kind of like fighting dogs panting before the next onslaught, if you know what I mean.”
    Abby noticed the small studs in Tallulah’s earlobes, along with a ring of tiny hoops going up her left ear. “You’ve got pierced ears. Lost an earring lately?”
    “No, I rarely lose my earrings. I use the screw-on safety backs. Only thing is, you have to tighten them on all the way. Oh, occasionally one will pop off.”
    Abby nodded. “The police will want your statement, Tallulah. Just tell them everything you can recall, okay? That way we can figure out what happened to our chef.”
    Tallulah put three fingers against her lips, as if doing so would hold back the sob building inside.
    Abby stepped forward and