Bloody Murder

By Kate Kulig

Zofia Smith left behind a promising career as a journalist when she realized her former employers meant it when they said, "You'll never work in this business again." Convinced by her best friend to move to New Orleans and start over, Zo opened a bookstore in the Crescent City's French Quarter.

For six years, life was peaceful, enjoyable. Bloody Murder made a profit with its focus on mystery books and its regular patrons enjoyed Zo's homemade muffins and fresh coffee.

Things changed one morning when Zofia walked downstairs from her apartment above the store and tripped over a corpse, landing in a heap of blood and muffins. The clues the police found included a knife with a Polish eagle and the corpse's criminal record that indicated he typically worked for a crime family, though not a local one.

Clues came from and pointed to different directions. A narrow miss with a gunshot, mysterious phone calls, and oddly enough to a man Zofia long thought dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Kulig
• Release date: May 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311772695

Kate Kulig

Kate Kulig was born in Saugus, Massachusetts and denies all responsibility for the hospital burning down at a later date. After growing up in both Wilmington and Andover, MA, she graduated from Hofstra University with a BA in Communications with a minor in English. Five states (one of them twice), several moves and more than a few careers later, including time spent as a disc jockey, stage manger, delivery driver, bookseller and a memorable temp job counting arrows, she found herself happily in New York City. When not working at her day job as a project manager, reading, or writing, she can be found prowling Manhattan's ramen shops, traveling to New Orleans, bicycling in Central Park, dabbling in photography, experimenting in the kitchen, playing an assortment of role-playing games, and watching way too many crime shows.

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Bloody Murder

By Kate Kulig

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Kate Kulig

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 1

I’ve never seen a crime scene contaminated by muffins before.

Next time I discover a body, I’ll try not to trip over it, okay?

The cop snorted. He’d already tried for ironic humor by commenting that a shop with the name Bloody Murder was the perfect place to have one. I was not amused. Instead of the busy, productive morning I had planned, I had a painfully sprained ankle, a hysterical partner and now a fifty-something weather-beaten homicide dick, stress on the ultimate word, from the First Precinct trying to be funny. To top it off, I was bruised and covered with blood. Not my own, but it was making me nauseous and lightheaded. I felt like I might faint again. No, amused was nowhere near my vocabulary right now.

The cop turned to my partner Feliz Castro, who was hovering nearby. Are you sure you don’t recognize the guy? He pointed at the body on the nearby stairs. I was already intimately acquainted with it, having tripped over it on the way down from my apartment this morning. Nothing at all about him seems familiar? If he was looking to the elder of the two of us expecting her to be the more calm and reasonable, he was out of luck. Feliz was no longer hyperventilating, but I could hear quiet murmuring of "ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte"--the Hail Mary in Spanish, a sure sign she was trying to calm herself, before she answered.

I told you, detective. I’ve never seen him before. Her voice was clipped, her accent more pronounced than usual. Zo told you she’s never seen him before, and she’s the one who saw him up close. And personal. Feliz smoothed the flowery caftan she was wearing over her hefty figure. We got three, maybe four part-timers that come in as we need them. Like she told you, Zo lives upstairs. She didn’t see anything until she woke up on the body. I told all this to the other policemen before. So did she. When can we start cleaning up? When can we open? We’re losing money. She was done with her frenzy, and wanted to return to business as usual. Now. Her chunky beaded jewelry made little clunking noises as she fidgeted, and her brown eyes flashed with annoyance. The phone rang again; she ignored it.

Not for a while, ladies. Not what I wanted to hear, either. Over here, guys, he called out, gesturing to the landing at figures walking in my front door. Two more strangers invaded my bookstore with no intention to buy and got to work bagging and tagging. First, we’ve got more questions for y’all. Then we’re going to need a list of all your employees. Also, we want CSU to get what they can from the landing, even though it’s been disturbed.

I held my tongue, which wasn’t easy. I hurt; I was a mess. My white polo shirt was blood-spattered, my blonde-streaked hair was wet and sticky and I wanted to be working. I also wanted clean clothes, my coffee and a muffin, in that order. All were unfortunately out of the question. The muffins I hadn’t crushed to crumbs when I fell were in congealing red-brown puddles. Raspberry sweetness mingled in the air with the coppery smell of all the blood. My stomach turned over, and I promptly thought of something else.

Can I at least make some coffee? Feliz asked the cops impatiently. I’d also like to get Zo some clean clothes. I almost smiled. My partner didn’t sit still very well, nor did she like her routine interrupted. She liked to be busy, have details to focus on. It was one of the things that made her so good at keeping our budget balanced. I hate dealing with financials for longer than necessary, and was slowly beginning to hate dealing with cops. This one anyway. What was his name? Levy, Levine? Levin. That was it, Levin. Somewhat lacking in the people skills department, our Detective Levin. His partner, a tall good-looking black man in the Denzel Washington vein whose name I’d forgotten already, was quiet as he stood at the foot of my staircase where my plans for the morning and my breakfast had gone splut.

If you’ve got the coffee pot down here, go ahead, Miss Castro, Levin replied. No one’s going up those stairs until the Crime Scene Unit has removed the body and gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. I was tempted to ask if they really used a comb, but decided this wasn’t a good time to be literal.

Feliz tapped her foot on the floor. I’m going to make coffee, then if it’s okay with you, She let the and even if it isn’t go unsaid, After that, I’m going to go out the back door on St. Phillip and up the side stairs. That woman, she pointed to me, Needs a clean shirt, more ice and a bandage, since she refuses to go to the hospital. I also could use a shower, but I had a bit of a problem standing up just now.

Thanks, Feliz. I said.

Levin opened his mouth and started to say something, then saw the look on my partner’s face. He wasn’t going to win this argument. Since Feliz had come up with a viable alternative that didn’t interfere with the crime scene, he was stuck, and she was going to be out of his sight for a few minutes. Instead, he gave Feliz a curt nod and turned to me, Miss Smith, where do you keep the cash?

In the safe, which is built into the coffee bar. I was usually on my second cup by now, darn it. Royal Street was starting to get busy as the sun climbed higher into the sky over New Orleans’ French Quarter. I could only see a bit of it from my seat at the back of the store by the fireplace. It was early November, the weather cooling, but it would still be pleasantly warm by mid-afternoon. Usually I’d be walking outside before the store opened to smell the city while it was clean and fresh, sweeping the sidewalk, waving to the neighbors, feeling the breeze off the Mississippi in my hair. I could hear several merchants hosing down the sidewalks in front of their stores to the accompaniment of security gates rattling up. My next-door neighbor would be outside puttering among his flowers before wandering over for his daily cup. Most days, I loved this time of the morning, when the French Quarter was just rousing itself for another day of life and business. Today wasn’t one of those days. Instead of the gentle awakening of a normal weekday, there were several regulars outside my door along with at least one person with a tape recorder. I chuckled at the irony. I got to duck the media this time around, instead of pursuing the story. Payback for all those politicians I ambushed back in Chicago, I supposed.

Okay, that might explain why he was headed upstairs, figuring you kept it in your residence and not the shop. Levin mused, half to himself, half to me.

There’s nothing in the safe but two empty cash drawers, and a hundred dollars in singles and rolls of change. Oh, and deposit slips. I replied, glad to have something else to focus on. One of us, usually Feliz, takes a deposit down the street to Hibernia National either after we close at nine or the following morning. That’s typical of retail.

The cop made notes on a small steno pad with a black pen. I wished my best friend were here. Marie was good at handling authority figures. I tended towards instant and obvious rebellion; she was better at subtle manipulation disguised as demure obedience. Part of being raised down here, I guessed. I hadn’t been able to get to the phone yet to call her. You say the security system was armed when you woke up? Levin inquired brusquely.

I wondered how many times I was going to have to repeat what happened. I also wondered if I had any aspirin upstairs. Yes, Detective, it was. Try to sound respectful, I heard my mother’s voice chide in my head, of the position if not the person. She’d told me that about the nuns in Catholic school. It had worked back then, at least when I remembered. It worked with this Homicide dick as well. I turn it off from upstairs before I come down in the morning. If I don’t, it goes off when I trigger the motion sensor at the bottom of the stairs. If I’m not opening up shop that day, when Feliz gets here, she triggers a different sensor when she opens the door. The alarm goes off; she enters the code to turn it off. If she doesn’t do that within 30 seconds, it sends an alarm to the company. Someone from there calls here to get a code word, if they don’t get it, they call the cops. The ones in uniforms had arrived while I was knocked out, just before Feliz arrived. Homicide had shown up while I was refusing to be taken to the hospital, a decision I was now thinking twice about. I didn’t like hospitals, and sitting in the ER at Charity was not how I was going to spend the rest of my morning if I had anything to say about it. Still, my head hurt, my ankle hurt and if it got me away from the cops, I just might reconsider.

Levin muttered as he made more notes. So at least one of these guys knew how to disable an alarm and reset it. He had to be working with a partner.

Partner? That thought startled me. Two strangers invading my store and my home? Who said anything about a partner? Who said it was definitely male?

It would have to be, said. Levin’s partner, what was his name? I was bad with names unless I wrote it down or until I spent enough time for the person to make an impression. So far, my impression of this man was of the strong silent type. Bulky physique, probably played football once upon a time. Let’s hope he’s got something to say when he breaks the silence. His voice was low and rumbled from his chest like an engine revving. Whoever stabbed your perp had to be someone he trusted enough to get that close, someone who came in with him. His white teeth flashed in stark contrast to his skin. The perp he referred to was the ex-human sprawled face down on the stairs that led from the shop to my second-level apartment. Not a model of eloquence, this detective, though he seemed a trifle warmer than his partner. He’d let Feliz run to the nearest store for some ice earlier. Using a plastic bag and one of the towels from the coffee counter, it had made an efficient, if temporary ice pack. Now it was a soggy lump and I had put it aside.

What makes you so sure it was a man? Always the feminist, me.

Not a lot of women have the upper body strength to knife someone in the back and hit home first attempt. Washington replied. He looked me up and down appraisingly. Though you look to be in good enough shape to give it a go.

Don’t tempt me, I muttered, while he and Levin got up to confer. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. My ankle was throbbing and another headache was coming on. I briefly considered going back to bed after the store opened, but I knew I wouldn’t. I wasn’t a workaholic, I just owned the place. The building, anyway. Feliz owned forty percent of the actual business. She returned from upstairs, distracting me momentarily from the pain, putting an Ace bandage, a baggie full of ice and a clean t-shirt on the table in front of me without stopping to say a word and headed for the coffee bar. A few moments later, the smell of Café du Monde French roast coffee filled the air. At last. Thus bolstered, I leaned over and inspected my ankle. Mostly red, with some black and green bruises forming. About one and a half times its normal size, too. I knew it wasn’t going to take any weight for a couple of days—mom had been a nurse, can’t help but pick up a few things. I poked it, winced, and reached for the bandage.

When I finished wrapping it, a cup of coffee appeared in my hand and I took a long sip. Three seconds later, I got hit in the head with a velvet hammer. I gave Feliz a subtle thumbs-up. My sneaky friend had slipped a little Irish into my coffee and it felt very nice right about now. That would keep my mind off my pain. Maybe even off the blood. I don’t usually start the morning with booze—the bottle was for the occasional after-hours nip in front of the fireplace--but today I was more than happy to make an exception. The headache on top of my head retreated. The one in my right temple where I’d hit my head in the fall still throbbed.

I called Miss Marie, she said to me. She’ll be here as soon as she can. I gave her a thankful smile and watched her make herself busy bossing the Crime Scene Unit about while they removed the body. One of the crew said something in Spanish too rapidly for me to catch. Feliz got quiet, but I heard her muttering a mixture of Spanish and street slang with a threatening undertone that I didn’t want a translation of while the body was finally taken out the front door on a stretcher. The black detective brought a plastic bag closer to me. It was the knife the guy had been stabbed with—I’d knocked it out of the wound when I fell. I wondered how he managed not to get any of the blood on his tailored suit. I wondered how he could afford tailored suits on a detective’s salary. I gave the bag and its contents a queasily curious glance, enough to confidently say. I’ve never seen it before.

That was insufficient, apparently. What about this symbol, does that mean anything to you?

It was a little hard to make it out due to the congealing blood. I took a deep breath to keep the lightheadedness at bay—I don’t like the sight of blood, to put it mildly--then looked more closely. With a little concentration, I found what he was looking at. A red disc, about the size of a quarter was built into the hilt. A white eagle, not distantly majestic and dignified like you’d see on a quarter before they started with the state ones, but rather like something you’d be scared to meet in a dark alley. Or broad daylight. Ominously spread wings and large meaty legs took up most of the space on the disk. The menacing expression on its face showed no mercy, the hooked beak was meant for tearing meat from bone. It also sported a gold crown atop its head. I hadn’t seen one since I left Chicago.

It’s a Polish eagle. I told him.

A what?

Polish eagle. Patriotic symbol of Poland, though it’s a lot more common to see it without the crown.

How do you know that? His brow creased with suspicion. Not much in the people skills here, either. Oh well.

I shrugged. Polish family. It had been one of our favorite stories when my brother Gene and I were small. A thousand years ago or more, three brothers lived contentedly in their Slavic villages. As their families grew larger, Lech, Czech and Rus decided they needed more room to live. They mounted their horses and rode out into the country, over hill, over dale until they came to the top of a mountain. From there, they went in different directions. Rus went to the right, Czech went to the left and Lech went forward down the mountain, over the plains.

Lech and his troops—I’d always wondered where villagers got troops. Mom had never answered that—stopped one day where a meadow surrounded a large lake. As the sun set, a great eagle circled over their heads. Lech watched, awestruck as the red rays of the sun hit the eagle, making it appear to be all white with gold at the tips of his wing feathers. He decided to build a town there, calling it Gniezno, which means Eagle’s Nest. That was the first capital of Poland.

The next question didn’t surprise me. With a name like Smith? That was from Levin. Again with the sparkling wit. I wished Marie would get here. She could have charmed this guy into leaving me alone. Or at least out of oozing suspicion the way a salesman leaks snake oil.

My parents eloped and changed their name so mom’s family couldn’t find them, I told him, trying to sound less bored than I was. That was the short version, and while I wasn’t trying to be uncooperative, I’d really had enough of explaining myself for one day. For one week.

Interesting story, Levin’s partner’s tone indicated that he thought there was more to it, but he didn’t pursue the issue. That raised him somewhat in my estimation, but not much. To get it higher would require more whiskey and their significant absence. So it’s just a general patriotic thing? Not a symbol of any kind of organization?

Nothing like that, no. Besides, the PNA doesn’t have a lodge in New Orleans.

The what?

Polish National Alliance. It’s a, what’s the word? A fraternal organization.

What like the Elks?

More like the Sons of Italy. History, culture, scholarships, and the like. Life insurance policies, too. Dad & Mom hadn’t been involved, except to get the Polish newspapers, but some of my friends’ families had been. The eagle is part of their symbol, but not all of it.

He scribbled some notes on his pad, and then asked me, How’s that ankle doing? Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? His deep-set eyes were kind for a moment. Just a moment, though. Mistrust seemed to be their natural state.

Yes, I’m sure, thank you. I don’t think it’s broken, just a bad sprain. Sprains hurt more than breaks; the broken leg I’d had at age seven didn’t hurt this much. I should have asked Feliz to check the medicine cabinet. The whiskey wasn’t a great painkiller, but if I had some more of it, I might not care. It’s wrapped tight and I’ll stay off it. Rest, ice, something, elevation. Compression; that was it.

What about your head?

It’s fine, really. I wasn’t nauseous or faint, except when I looked at the blood, so I didn’t worry about a concussion, despite the growing lump on the right side of my forehead. The coffee had chased the other headache away. When can we clean up and open the shop? When will you get out of my face?

Soon as CSU’s finished checking for trace evidence, I think they’ve got just about everything they need. Miss Smith, do you have any enemies, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt you?

I thought for a moment. Part of the deal with me leaving Chicago was no recriminations, so that couldn’t be it. I had kept my word and so had they for several years now. I pissed off several nuns in school, but I don’t think any of them would want to kill me. Revenge isn’t in your average nun’s MO, unless they’re teaching you trig. I’m in retail, Detective. We aren’t talking about a dangerous profession. Except maybe around Christmastime.

He fished out his card and handed it to me. If you can think of anything else that might be relevant, even the smallest detail, call us, okay? It wasn’t a request, even though it was couched as one.

I nodded and took a quick peek at the card. Washington. Arthur Washington. I didn’t ask if he was related to the actor, he’d probably heard that way too many times. Probably a nice guy in normal circumstances, I thought as I watched him give Feliz his card, but nothing was normal about today. I was happy to see the back of him. Both of them. When the door shut on our boys in plainclothes, she came over to my chair by the fireplace and refreshed my coffee. They’ll be back.

What makes you say that? I nodded thanks for the refill and again considered going back to bed. Whiskey on an empty stomach would do that, even with the caffeine, cream and sugar playing counterpoint.

They have to question everyone who works here. Plus, I heard the black one say he didn’t like coincidences as they were walking out.

I’m Polish and I get burglarized by another Pole. What else could it be but a coincidence?

A fiendish plot by the Polish Mafia?

I had to laugh, my first one of the day. I suddenly felt like working again. "The only thing I’ve ever seen or heard about the Polish Mafia was that guy whose costume won at Mardi Gras this year.

Anyway, I went on. "I really need food and we need to open. Sweep up the floor; don’t worry about the blood for right now. Call La Madeleine on St. Ann; see if they can get some pastry over here. I’m not going to bake another batch of muffins. I’ve got a lot to do already."

You’ve got a lot to do? Her voice rose in pitch, though she was smiling. Who’s going to clean all this blood off the floor and pour coffee and all those things that need two feet, and what are we going to feed people? Feliz was mostly back in control, restored to brisk and bubbly, but a little bit frantic around the edges. I took off my shirt and put on the clean one she’d procured. And who’s going to watch the cash register while I’m doing all that?

We’ve got people we can call, Time to play bosswoman. "About the food, I told you, call La Madeleine. People will have to make do with croissants and Danish. Never mind, I’ll do it myself" I made as if to get up and hop over to the phone behind the counter.

That brought her back into focus. Oh no you don’t! She pushed me back down into the chair I’d had no intention of vacating. I suppressed a smile. You are staying right here. No hobbling around on that ankle. I’ll bring you the phone after I’ve talked to them; we got a cordless for a reason. I’ll even set up your computer, She plugged in my laptop and its modem cable for me and hit the power switch. It booted right up. The fall seemed to have done it no damage. If I hadn’t paid the extra money for the warranty, you can bet that wouldn’t have been the case. You can work from here today. Once I get those guys out of here, she glared at the remaining investigators who were putting the tools of their trade away, and make more coffee, we are open for business. She walked over to the landing proceeded to loom over the Crime Scene Unit. Feliz wasn’t very tall, but she was impossible to ignore, even when she didn’t say anything, and it had nothing to do with her bulk. Taking the hint, and their trace evidence, the techs finally told her they were done and the mess could be cleaned up.

Chapter 2

By the time the Crime Scene Unit pulled down the yellow plastic Police Line Do Not Cross barrier that had been by the