Chapter 9

Now determined, Doreen walked into the kitchen, grabbed the leashes, and put both Goliath and Mugs on a leash, even though Goliath gave her a look of disdain. She shook her head. "Either you're staying at home or you're coming on a leash."

At that, he submitted, as if he completely understood. She figured what he understood was her tone of voice. She meant business, and every one of them understood that much. As soon as she got her animals and then herself in the car, she headed down to the Chinese food place.

She could have walked, and maybe she should have, but, at the moment, it seemed a whole lot easier to figure out exactly what was going on with wheels, since she would have multiple stops, she was sure.

As she arrived at the Chinese restaurant, she stepped inside, the animals on the leash. Mr. Woo, the owner, came out, took one look and started scolding her.

She raised both hands. "I know. I didn't pick up the Chinese food from my previous order, and I'm sorry." He just glared at her. "I also didn't kill him." The look of astonishment on his face made her smile. "Yeah, because I found him and because he's my ex-husband, a lot of people think I might have killed him."

Immediately he shook his head, then shook his finger at her.

"No, I know. I wouldn't have done it either," she murmured. "Yes, I would still like my Chinese food, but I need to pay for that today and for what I didn't pick up yesterday." She winced at that though, talk about a waste of money. Not to mention a waste of good food. Yet her fault for not having gone into the restaurant and gotten it.

"Food gone," Mr. Woo said. "You had bad day. I had bad day. We make bad day go away. I give you hot food. You pay half price."

Considering what they'd both been through, and probably the state of business that he hadn't been able to conduct because of the mess going on, she thought that was very fair of him. "Okay, but I'm here to ask you a bunch of questions though."

He stared at her, his eyebrows going up. "You police?"

"No, of course I'm not police," she stated, giving him a look. "But you also know that I do an awful lot of work solving the mysteries of the cold cases."

He nodded slowly.

"Have the police been here? Did they ask you about whether another man was hanging around?"

He nodded again.

"And was he?"

He shook his head.

She sighed in exasperation. "Mathew was killed two hours before I came to pick up the food."

His jaw dropped. "Two hours?"

She nodded. "Yes, so he was here sometime before, so somebody must have seen something."

"I was in kitchen, cooking."

"I get that. Did anybody come in during that time?"

He shook his head. "No. We just open when you come. That's why you come then."

"That's true," she stated. For once the Chinese restaurant in town didn't wait until three o'clock to open. Thankfully this one opened at noon, so she'd ordered early to beat the rush. "Did you go out for supplies? Did anybody come in? Did you get any deliveries?"

He stared at her, and she could see him trying to think. He frowned, his face cleared, then he frowned again, and then he slowly shook his head. "No, I do prep work in the kitchen. No one came."

She nodded. "So somebody was sitting around outside your place for two hours, and you didn't know?"

He nodded slowly. "I didn't know."

"Right." She sighed and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Okay, do you have any cameras?"

He shook his head. "No cameras."

"That's not helpful either."

"No cameras, no see nobody. You want Chinese now?"

She shook her head. "I'll be back though." She looked at her watch and frowned. "Give me about an hour and a half."

He nodded. "Ready in ninety minutes. You be here this time."

"I will, provided there is no other dead body."

At that, he gave her a look.

She nodded. "Yeah, that's about how I feel right now myself. I really don't want any more dead bodies."

And, with a small smile, she turned, left, and headed outside to the back of the restaurant. There, she noted that the crime scene tape was put away. Maybe for that reason alone, she felt a little bit more comfortable about walking around, but still the place had an odd feel to it, an odd smell. Blood was like that.

As she walked toward the site, Mugs's nose was low to the ground all around. The crime scene people had made a horrific mess. All the yellow yarrow flowers were trampled to the ground. The whole area was dirty, and some garbage was on the ground. She sighed, as she stared at it.

"Nothing pretty about the after effects of a murder," she murmured. "Absolutely nothing is here that makes me happy." Of course nobody would care about making her happy at this point. It was all about making the guilty party pay.

Now, if only she had the answers on how to make that happen.