"Look for yourself," she said.

I brushed past her and glanced outside. There were at least sixty people on the sidewalk and stoop waiting in line to get in, all of them dressed in their Sunday best.

"I'd better go get ready," I said, more nervous than ever at the prospect of cooking in front of such a large audience.

Marge must have seen the terror on my face. She patted my arm as she said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Make me proud."

"I'll do my best," I said as I hurried back to the kitchen so I could don the smock and hat before my audience was admitted. As I settled the tall hat down in place over my hair, I gave myself a little pep talk. There was no reason to be nervous. I made donuts for a living, and the beignets I was about to prepare were very much donuts, despite their fancy name and appearance.

Taking a deep breath, I trotted out my brightest smile and prepared for the mob of visitors.

"If you'll all quiet down, I'll get started," I said. Even in the spacious kitchen and the adjoining sitting area, the room was packed with folks eager to see Marge's kitchen, and while they were there, watch me make a pastry.

Once they settled down, I said, "Today I'll be making beignets, and though they are traditionally made in the shape of squares, triangles, and even diamonds, though they lack the hole we're used to, they are donuts just the same. I've been told that even the name, in Cajun, means 'French donut.' Using flour, sugar, shortening, milk, eggs, salt, and yeast, the result is a spectacularly decadent treat, drenched in powdered sugar as it cools for a final touch of elegance." I held a photo I'd taken of some of the beignets I'd made practicing for today, and they looked suitably impressed. So far, so good.

I went on. "My recipe today uses baking powder instead of the traditional yeast. It's a shortcut I've come up with for our demonstration. When I make these in my shop, I prefer using yeast so they have time to rise, but these are quite tasty as well, as you all will soon find out."

As I laid the ingredients out on the counter, I was about to start mixing when a scream pierced through the room.

"She's dead," a voice cried out behind the crowd, and all eyes turned to the garden, visible through the windows where I'd watched the birds flitting in and out before. I didn't need to see the victim's face to know who was lying there beneath the feeder. I'd seen that outfit before; just that morning, in fact.

Someone had murdered Peg Masterson, and I knew that my time with the Kitchens Extraordinaire tour had ended before it had barely even started.

As everyone rushed to the window, I said loudly, "You all need to calm down. There's no reason to panic." I don't know why I said it, but it seemed to get their attention.

An older man in informal attire headed for the door to the garden.

"You shouldn't go out there," I said.

He barely slowed down as he said, "I'm a doctor. She might not be dead. I'm going to check on her."

I couldn't argue with that. "Fine, go ahead, but everyone else needs to stay right where they are." I said to the rest of the crowd, "Somebody needs to call Chief Martin and get him over here." That was one telephone call I had no desire to make. The police chief and I had clashed too many times in the past, and I had no desire to add anything to the list, though I knew he'd be cornering me soon enough.

A dozen hands went for their cell phones, and I looked around for Marge. She'd be shattered by a murder happening at her home, no matter how she might have felt about the victim.

But she was nowhere in sight.

I started toward the rest of the house to look for her when she bumped into me coming down the stairs.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"I had to change my clothes. Silly me, I accidentally spilled coffee on my suit after I took up the tickets at the door." She noticed everyone staring out the window. "What's going on? Why aren't you making beignets?"

"I'm afraid there's been an accident," I said, not knowing how else to tell her that her chief rival was most likely dead.

Marge grabbed my hands and quickly looked me over. "Are you hurt? What happened? I've been worried about that hot oil all week. Oh, dear. Was it one of our visitors?"

I took my hands back from her. "Marge, I'm fine, and no one was injured during the demonstration. Something happened outside."

She craned to get a look out the window, but I stepped in front of her and blocked her view.

"Suzanne, move over. I can't see. Who is it? It's my house; I have a right to know what happened."

I couldn't argue with that, so I didn't try to stop her as she stepped around me. After a moment of silence, she asked softly, "Is that Peg?"

"It appears to be," I said.

"What happened to her?" Marge asked. The flat tone in her voice was something that caught me completely off guard. It was as if she'd just learned that oranges were six for a dollar.

"Marge, it looks bad."

My statement caught her attention. "For me? Just because it's my house? I didn't kill her, Suzanne. You can vouch for me. I've been with you all morning."

I hated myself for saying it, but I had to let her know what was on my mind before Chief Martin arrived. "Marge, I didn't see you while I was setting up, and you weren't there when I started my demonstration. There's at least fifteen minutes when you were out of my sight completely."

She looked at me as though I'd just stabbed her in the chest with a butcher knife. "What are you talking about? I was right here the entire time."

I shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I can't vouch for you with the police. You just told me yourself that you were upstairs changing your outfit."

Marge frowned. "Suzanne, if you're going to be that way, then I can't tell them you were with me the entire time, either, can I?" There was an odd expression on her face that I had trouble reading. Was she trying to imply I'd had something to do with what had happened to Peg?

"I've got a great alibi. I was standing in front of a crowd of sixty people," I protested, not believing that she was trying to turn the tables on me.

"They weren't here the entire time. You were alone in the kitchen when I started taking tickets on the front steps, and there's a French door that leads straight out to that patio. How long does it take to kill someone, Suzanne? You could have done it and I never would have even seen you slip out the door."

I shook my head. "This isn't getting us anywhere. I didn't kill her."

"Neither did I," Marge said.

I patted her shoulder gently. "Hey, I never said you did. Honest, I don't think you killed Peg, Marge."

Her eyes began to melt tears. "You don't? Truly? But I thought that was what you just said."

"No, what I said was that I couldn't give you an alibi for the entire time. I just realized that you're right. It works both ways. I guess the chief is going to have to look hard at both of us."

"You didn't have a motive, though, did you?" Marge asked softly.

"Everybody in town had a motive, when it comes down to it. Peg wasn't exactly Miss Congeniality, was she?"

Marge shrugged. "I know most folks weren't all that fond of her, but did anyone else really have a reason to kill her?"

That line of reasoning surprised me. "I don't know. Did you have a motive yourself? Is there something you're not telling me?"

She looked startled by the question. "Me? No, of course not. Peg had a beef with me and my family; it wasn't the other way around."

"Then that's what you should tell the chief," I said.

"Tell the chief what?" I heard a voice ask that was much too familiar to me. Chief Martin, our head of local law enforcement and a man who'd kindled his crush on my mother like a hearth fire, walked into the room. He'd put on some weight recently, though he tried his best to hide it with a jacket he didn't need. The chief must have been a nice-looking man when he'd been younger, but the years had not been as kind to him as they had been to my mother. I couldn't imagine the two of them ever dating, but then that was ancient history, a time in their high school lives that was long gone, and never to be repeated, according to my mother.

"We were going to tell you that we've been waiting for you," I said.

"I got here three minutes after someone called," he said. "How much faster did you expect me to be?" He looked through the doorway into the kitchen and lounging area. "You pulled in quite a crowd," he said in disgust. "That isn't going to make it any easier."

I didn't know what to say to that. The chief and I had our differences, most of them stemming back to the time I was born. He'd resented my dad's presence in Momma's life, and I was a testament to the fact that she'd chosen someone else. Things weren't exactly all warm and fuzzy between us before my propensity to show up near dead bodies began.

Finally, he turned back and stared at me. "Are you telling me they all actually saw what happened?" I could tell in his voice that he was hoping this one would be wrapped up before lunch.

"As far as I know, no one saw a thing," I admitted. "They were all watching me."

He looked into the kitchen. "Then that had to give you the perfect view of the murder, didn't it," he said.

"If it happened while I was giving my demonstration, I didn't see it," I confessed.

"Suzanne, how could you not notice?" he asked fiercely.

"I was busy talking, measuring, and trying not to throw up," I said.

The chief turned to Marge. "I suppose you didn't see anything, either."

"Not a thing. Sorry," she said.

"Great. Why don't you two go on in with everybody else. I just want to have to say this once."

Marge and I walked in after the chief, and the second my audience realized that the police chief was there, they converged on us like we were giving out free samples of food.

As Chief Martin was being pelted with questions from a dozen different directions, he held up his hands. "Quiet, everybody. I need you to listen to me."

Everyone stopped talking, and I envied the chief's ability to silence them so easily. I looked over his shoulder and saw the doctor walking away from the body as he shook his head, and that's when I realized that Peg was indeed dead. Was there any chance it was from a heart attack, and not a homicide? I wanted to go out and ask, but I doubted that the chief of police of April Springs would have appreciated it. He tended to frown on my involvement with his police investigations, especially when it involved a dead body or two.

"First off, did anyone here see anything out on the patio?" he asked.

The silence continued. "Fine. If there are no witnesses, I'd like you all to give Officer Strickland your names and addresses, and then you can go."

"Is the kitchen tour canceled?" a well-dressed woman in back asked.

"It is at this stop," the chief said.

"What about everywhere else?" the man with her asked. "We've got tickets, and if we can't go to the other houses, I want my money back."

"I don't know anything at all about the kitchen tour. Why don't you all go find out? File out one at a time, and have some identification with you when you do. The officer will have to verify that each of you have a current ID."

"What if we don't?" an older woman dressed in her Sunday finest asked.

"Then I'll have to vouch for you myself if you want to get out of here before dark. Now form an orderly line, and we'll get you out of here as fast as we can."

The group started to do as they'd been told, but Marge and I followed the chief as he walked, not to the window, but to where I'd set up my cooking station.

As he stood there, he said, "Suzanne, are you honestly telling me you didn't see anything from here?"

I looked toward the window from what had been my vantage point, and clearly saw a police officer kneeling over the body taking pictures. "I'm sorry. There were a lot of people blocking my view. I realize it doesn't look good, but I honestly didn't see a thing."

"I've heard that before, haven't I?" Chief Martin said snidely.

I chose not to respond to that. Beside me, Marge asked, "Should Suzanne and I join the line?"

Martin shook his head. "Don't worry about it. You two are already at the top of my list."

"As witnesses, or as suspects?" I asked, before I realized that it wasn't the most delicate thing I could have said.

That got his attention. "Why, did either one of you have a reason to kill her?"

Before Marge could answer, I said, "You don't even know if she died of natural causes, or if it was murder. Aren't we all jumping the gun a little here?"

He stroked his chin, then said, "You know what? You're right. I need more information. Both of you should wait right here."

As the chief walked outside toward his officers, Marge took my hands in hers, and I could feel that her skin was clammy and icy cold. "Suzanne, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm terrified by all of this."

"It would be odd if you weren't," I said.

"Do you mean that you're afraid, too?"

I looked her in the eye. "I'm shaking like a leaf inside."

"You certainly don't show it," Marge said.

"Trust me, it's all bluff and bluster. I'm as scared as I could be, if that makes you feel any better."

Marge smiled sadly. "Oddly enough, it does."

"Good. I'm glad I could help, then."

Ten minutes later, the chief walked back in as the line started to dwindle to just a few people. He wasn't smiling, but then again, I could count the times I'd seen his grin on one hand in all the years I'd known him, so it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Suzanne, we need to talk," he said gruffly.

That didn't sound good. "What about? What's going on?"

"You need to come outside with me," he said.

"Aren't you even going to tell me why?" His tone of voice was scaring me even more than it had before, though I hadn't imagined that would be possible.

"Outside," he repeated, and I followed him meekly through the door. I glanced back at Marge, and she was looking at me in a way I wasn't entirely comfortable with. Was that open suspicion in her gaze?

Once we were out in the garden, I found myself avoiding looking directly at the body, as if it were the sun, and I was in danger of being blinded by the sight.

"Does that look familiar?" the chief asked.

"It's Peg, I knew that when I was inside," I said, still not looking down at the body.