Read Online Five-Alarm Fudge by Christine DeSmet - Free Book Online Page B

jeans that had designer rivets on the pockets. Since meeting John, she seemed to buy new clothes every other week. Her long black-brown hair was as loose and beautiful as a TV commercial, while my hair had been hastily gathered into a ponytail that was already drooping on the back of my neck.
    The tart, bitter taste in the air made me roll my tongue around my mouth. “Mom didn’t mention a fire.”
    Pauline said, “Up in the loft. Look.”
    Feathers of smoke had marred the high ceiling area stretching from the loft and partway into the nave. The smoke had dulled the west wall and one of the stained glass windows.
    Yellow crime scene tape crossed the bottom step of the staircase. There was no noise up there. “They must be in the basement.”
    “Who do you think was murdered?”
    I thought about Fontana trying to sneak back inside the church yesterday morning. “Fontana?”
    “That’s wishful thinking.”
    Pauline and I walked up the center aisle. With the morning sunlight doing a direct hit on the stained glass windows to our right or toward the east, the nave seemed surreal with the refracted light. The two tall angel statues had light dappling the candles on their heads, as if the candles were lit.
    When we reached the kitchen to the west of the altar, we heard voices. The basement door was open.
    Pauline hugged her purse, whispering, “I’m not going down there. I’m only here to drive your truck back home after you get arrested.”
    I whispered, “We’re doing this to protect my mother. You like my mother, don’t you?”
    “Do you like your mother?”
    “Very funny. Of course I do. Come on.”
    With me in the lead, we trooped down the ancient, short staircase to the basement.
    Muffled voices came from the far room. We passed under the hanging cobwebs, then around the old plumbing pipes.
    I walked first into the last room where we’d gotten sooty yesterday.
    The sheriff swung toward us with a hand out. “Stop. Don’t touch a thing. Where’d you go? I thought you’d be waiting for me here.”
    A body lay prostrate on the hard floor, feet to this end and the head—bloodied—near the wall. A woman was putting small bags around the hands of the dead person.
    “I . . .”
    Pauline said from behind me, “We were at church. I mean, I was at church. She came to pick me up.”
    Jordy looked at his watch. I cringed. I knew he was tucking away facts about my comings and goings. “So when did you discover the body?”
    My head was muddled. The man was facedown, with dark, coagulated blood on the back of the head. He lay near where the old furnace might have sat, not far from the covered vent hole. The man wore dress shoes, tan pants, and a dark suit coat that looked navy in the harsh light somebody had set up next to the body. The man’s arms were outstretched somewhat toward the wall over his head.
    I didn’t know our medical examiner, a woman who’d recently taken over following the retirement of a doctor who’d been in the position for a couple of decades. The woman was maybe forty, shorter than me by four inches, with blond hair worn in dreadlocks down to her shoulders. A camera was slung around her neck.
    She was taking off rubber gloves. “I’m done. You can remove the body.” She flashed a suspicious look my way, then addressed Jordy. “I’ll have a report in a couple of days. But it looks like death from blunt trauma to the head.”
    I was dying to hear the details, but with the way she was peering at me I realized she harbored uncertainty about my status.
    “I only found the body,” I blurted, pleading to her. “I didn’t do it. Who is it?”
    She removed the camera from around her neck, then packed up her small case of tools, snapping it shut. She ignored me, saying to Jordy, “Let’s talk tomorrow, say at nine? I’ll be in the morgue.”
    Jordy nodded.
    “I’ll get my assistants,” she said.
    The woman left, stepping gingerly around us, careful not to touch us or the walls or