I went up the stairs and down the hall to Eugenie’s office, hoping that Rebecca would have a loaf of bread still warm from the oven waiting when I got home. I knew I had a bottle of the Jam Lady’s marmalade in my refrigerator.
The door to Eugenie’s office was open and the lights were on but she wasn’t there. She had said there was a production meeting scheduled, I remembered. It was possible everyone was in the community center kitchen. If no one was working on a recipe in the space, it was where everybody tended to congregate, probably because that’s where the coffeemaker was.
I headed for the kitchen hoping maybe there would be a pot of coffee going.
The old brick building had a rabbit’s warren of hallways around the main gym/stage area. The double doors to the kitchen were closed. I eased the left one open as quietly as I could in case the meeting was still going on but there was no one inside.
That was odd.
I scanned the room. Only one overhead light was on. I could see a pair of jeans-clad legs in the far right corner of the kitchen. It looked as though someone was bent over the table.
“Hello,” I called.
The person, whoever it was, didn’t straighten up. Maybe they were wearing ear buds, I thought.
I took several steps into the room. An uncomfortable feeling had settled heavy in my chest. I walked around the large island in the middle of the space. My stomach pitched.
The person I had seen wasn’t working at something on the table. She—it was a woman—was facedown in a bowl full of what looked to be whipped cream. She wasn’t moving. I made a strangled sound and bolted the rest of the way across the kitchen.
I grabbed the woman by the shoulders. Her body sagged against mine. Somehow I managed to balance her body weight and lower her to the floor. Whipped cream covered her face and the front of her shirt. It clung to her hair.
I looked around for something to clean her head with. There was a folded tablecloth on the end of the island. I grabbed it and wiped the whipped cream off of her face. It was Kassie, I realized once I could make out the woman’s features. At the same time it registered that she wasn’t breathing.
Where was everyone?
“Help!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
No one came.
“Help!” I screamed again, hoping that somehow Zach would hear me down at the back door even as I knew it was a futile effort.
I noticed a scrape on Kassie’s lip as I used my fingers to scoop whipped cream out of her mouth so I could start CPR. She didn’t respond. She wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t find a pulse in her neck. It seemed to me that her skin was cool.
I pulled out my phone and called 911.
Where was everyone?
I was still doing CPR when the paramedics arrived I had no idea how many minutes later.
They took over and I stood up and backed out of the way. I wiped my hands on my pants and watched the two medics work on Kassie. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. I knew she was dead.
chapter 4
Zach had come in with the first police officer who was now checking out the kitchen area. He pulled a hand over the back of his neck. “Kathleen, what the hell happened?” he asked, shock etched in the lines around his mouth and eyes.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the two paramedics working on Kassie. I wrapped my arms around myself. It was cold in the kitchen. “I don’t know,” I said. “I came in and found her facedown at the table. She wasn’t breathing. I, uh, I called for help but no one heard me.” I turned to look at him. “Where is everyone?”
Zach shook his head. Like me, he was finding it hard to look away from the paramedics. “They went down to Eric’s to have some kind of meeting. One of the production assistants or somebody was going on and on about the pudding cake that Eric makes and the next thing you know they decide to move the meeting over there. They were supposed to be back about now.” His eyes darted from Kassie’s body to me. “Is she . . . dead?” he asked.
I let out a breath. “I think so.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, a lot sharper than I’d meant to. I swiped my hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry, Zach,” I said. “I don’t know any more than you do.”
He nodded. “I’m going back out to the door. There’s going to be more police and stuff coming.”
“Okay,” I said.
One of the two paramedics looked at her partner and shook her head. I should know her, I thought. She’d taken care of me once. I couldn’t think of the woman’s name. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything.
The second paramedic reached for the defibrillator. They shocked Kassie once, twice, a third time. I pressed one fisted hand against my mouth, flinching every time her body jerked at the shock. I could see it wasn’t working.
Kassie was dead. Kassie had been dead before I found her. They stopped CPR long enough to put her on the stretcher they’d brought in with them.
Marcus walked in then with a uniformed officer. He touched my shoulder with one hand as he passed me. “You okay?” he asked softly.
I nodded without speaking. We’d been in this situation before.
Marcus spoke to the paramedics briefly and they left. He had an even shorter conversation with the two police officers. They both left the room, too, probably to secure the area. Marcus came over to me. He took my hands in his. “What happened?” he asked. His blue eyes were narrowed in concern. He looked down at our hands. “Why are you sticky?”
“It’s whipped cream,” I said. “I found, uh, I found Kassie facedown in that bowl of it over there.” I tipped my head in the direction of the table where I had discovered her hunched over. “I did CPR but . . .” I shook my head.
Marcus frowned. “Kassie?”
“Kassie Tremayne. She’s one of the judges on The Great Northern Baking Showdown.”
“I know. What were you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were going home after work.”
“I was,” I said. “I just stopped to drop off one of the cat calendars to Eugenie. She was going to hang it up on the set.”
He looked around the empty kitchen. “She wasn’t here?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t in her office. I thought she might be here. Sometimes they have meetings in this room.” I made a vague gesture in the general direction of the back door. “Zach said they’d moved the meeting down to Eric’s. They should be back anytime, maybe even now.” My stomach rolled over. “Marcus, all those people worked with Kassie,” I said. “They knew her.”
“It’s okay.” He gave my hands a squeeze. “I have an officer at the back door. No one is coming in for now.” He studied my face for a moment. “Okay, so you did CPR and you called nine-one-one?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It seemed to help settle my stomach a little. “I did. I called for help but no one heard me—there was no one to hear me.”
“Think carefully,” he said. “Did you see anyone? Did you hear anything?”
I closed my eyes for a moment and pictured myself walking down the hall to Eugenie’s office and then coming to the kitchen. All I could remember was how quiet the community center seemed. I opened my eyes again. “I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t see anyone. I’m sorry.”
Marcus gave me a half smile. “It’s okay.” He let go of my hands and ran one of his through his thick dark hair. “You can go home,” he said. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“If anyone asks, please don’t say anything more than Ms. Tremayne went to the hospital and that’s all you know.”
“That is all I know,” I said. My hands and my jacket were sticky with whipped cream. I just wanted to go home and take a shower.