"Great way to hide a corpse," Jeff said.

"Made a helluva mess," she muttered. "Murderer probably has the stuff all over their shoes. Forensics can probably even match coffee brands these days."

"Yeah," Jeff said. "We bagged grounds already."

"Good, Sergeant. Now, could you take your witness somewhere else? I've called the van to remove the body, and she'll be in the way. And get one of your police friends to clean up her vomit. I don't want me or my people to step in it."

"I'm really sorry about getting sick," I told Jeff as he guided me back up the incline and across the alley.

"No problem." He used the walkie-talkie feature on his phone and said, "Hey, Rick. There's vomit by the body."

"You need me to collect it?" Rick responded.

"Don't bother. Not evidence. A witness lost it. Just wanted you to be aware if you happened to wander up that way again."

"Gotcha," the man answered.

Seems there was a little animosity between the ME and HPD, just as the press liked to speculate. As we arrived at the back entrance to the Last Drop, Jeff clipped his phone on his belt and held open the door for me. I went into a narrow hallway. By now, my shorts and white blouse were soaked, along with my sandaled feet, so the blast of air-conditioning had me shivering from bottom to top.

I noticed a restroom on the right and a storage area filled with huge, clear bags of coffee beans on our left. The aroma was unbelievably strong, and the room might as well have been a goat pasture—that's how pleasant the smell was to me at the moment. With gritty grounds between my toes and the churning in my gut, I wasn't sure I'd ever love coffee as much as I used to anymore.