Murder in the Milk Case by Spyglass Lane Mysteries Page A

my math book.” Interruption by child. Morning had begun.

    Doughnuts are in my blood. Hopefully the fat isn’t. My mother began perfecting her doughnut recipes when I was too little to eat them. Now she owns Doris’s Doughnuts. The store is in a tiny strip mall near Four Oaks Self-Storage, so I decided to stop by and pick up a dozen to take for the guys in the meeting. George, the contractor who would be in the office this morning, loves my mother’s doughnuts.
    Since she now offers a lunch menu as well as baked goods and coffee that rival the chains, the store is a favorite spot for everyone from construction workers to cops. I sincerely hoped there would be no cops there today.
    The bell above my head rang as I walked into the bright red-and-white room. The scent of coffee and fresh doughnuts made my mouth water. Ma looked up from behind the cash register. From the glance she gave me, I knew I was in for it.
    “Well, it’s about time.” No one’s voice is louder than my mother’s, especially when she’s trying to make a point. Everyone in the place looked up. “People have been asking about my daughter. I say, what daughter?”
    “Oh, sure. I never talk to you. I’m surprised you even recognize me.” I headed for the self-serve coffee, recalling what the pastor had told me in premarital counseling about one of the sources of my self-esteem issues—my mother.
    “Just like kids, isn’t it?” Gail, my mother’s best friend and longtime help, nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Ungrateful. All of them. We give birth, go through all that agony, and then what?”
    As if I hadn’t gone through labor myself. I ignored them and poured some fresh Colombian into a Styrofoam cup at the self-serve counter. Then I scoped out the fresh, doughy, fattening circles.
    “One day you’ll wish you had visited me every day,” Ma said as she handed a customer a bag stuffed with pastry. “When I’m dead and gone, buried next to your father.”
    “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said under my breath. She was on a roll. The white tables and chairs were mostly filled, which meant she had an audience for her comments—something she reveled in. I tried not to take her seriously, but dealing with her barbs was hard.
    “Are you here to buy?” she asked.
    I took a huge sip of coffee. “Yeah. I need a dozen to take to work. You choose. Oh, and a bear claw, too. That’s my breakfast.”
    “Something going on?” She deftly picked up the doughnuts and boxed them.
    “A meeting with George about the expansion.” The coffee wasn’t settling well in my stomach.
    “I’m surprised you can eat anything after finding poor Jim Bob stabbed to death, sprawled over a grocery cart, guts in all directions,” Gail said as she turned on the espresso machine. “It’s only been four days.”
    Well, there went my appetite.
    “I mean, really, imagine the blood,” she continued as steam hissed from the machine and brown liquid squirted into a tiny cup.
    Ma sadly shook her head in total agreement. “What a mess. I wonder if they hired someone to clean up the floor.”
    My stomach twisted.
    April May came from the back with flour on her hands. “I heard there was gore from one end of that place to another.”
    Ma looked at April and back at Gail. “Now, do you suppose there are companies that do that sort of thing? Clean up murder scenes? Can you imagine? What happens to all the parts?”
    The memory of Jim Bob came back with a vengeance. The coffee in my stomach curdled. “Back in a minute,” I managed to gasp as I slapped my hand over my mouth. I made it to the bathroom just in time. When I finished, I pulled a cleaning wipe from a plastic pouch in my purse and wiped my mouth. I stood for a few minutes in the bathroom, waiting for my stomach to settle. After I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth, I went back to the counter.
    “Are you sick?” Ma asked.
    “I think I have a bug or something.” I was beginning to suspect I was allergic to