Free Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries) by Lee Hollis

dead.

Chapter 11
     
    Hayley gasped and threw a hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe it. She knelt down and shook Karen, but instinctively she knew it was too late.
    Hayley looked around, spotted a telephone on the wall next to the kitchen counter and stumbled over to it, grabbed the receiver, and dialed 9-1-1.
    Bar Harbor being such a small town, several police officers were dispatched instantly and were banging at the door within seven minutes. Hayley ushered them in, and led them into the kitchen and over to Karen’s body.
    Officers Donnie and Earl were among them, two young wet-behind-the-ears patrolmen. Earl gently took Hayley by the elbow and steered her into the living room away from the body. He sat her down on the couch and asked her to stay put until the chief got there. He wanted to question her himself.
    Hayley knew Police Chief Sergio Alvares would want to personally talk to her for two reasons. For one thing, she was the one who had found the body. And second, they were related. Sort of.
    Sergio Alvares was a strapping, impossibly good-looking man from a tiny town in southern Brazil called São Francisco that was nestled along the coast three and a half hours from the nearest metropolitan area of Curitiba. He was the only son of a poor farming family, who worshipped him and wanted great things for him. But Sergio quickly fell into the party scene and spent his early adult years bouncing between the wild, uninhibited nightlife of the two biggest urban areas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
    One spectacular night during Mardi Gras in Rio, he found himself on the private jet of an American mogul flying to Miami Beach for a party on Star Island, thanks to the lustful maneuvers of the businessman’s beautiful college-age daughter. The excitable girl thought she had found her future husband, and her father, seeing how excited his baby girl was over her new plaything, offered to groom Sergio as an executive in the family business as long as he kept her happy.
    But Sergio had an independent streak, and had no intentions of marrying the rich girl. And being the hot-blooded outspoken Brazilian he was, he had no qualms about telling both father and daughter to back off. He was only twenty-one at the time and the last thing he wanted was to get tied down so young. That moment would prove fateful. The girl and her mega rich daddy took off back to Dallas in their jet, leaving Sergio stranded in Miami. He had no friends. No place to stay. And most importantly, no money to get back to Brazil.
    So Sergio started working odd jobs off the books to get himself an apartment and scrape together some cash. He made some pretty influential friends from the South Beach club scene, and soon was being wooed by a famous fashion designer, whose company had just gone public, making him an instant billionaire. Sergio always knew he was gay, but never labeled himself as such because in Brazil, especially at the hot spots where he hung out, it really wasn’t much of an issue. He had dated girls, boys, and some who you couldn’t tell what they were, especially during Mardi Gras. He was young and carefree, and just went with the flow, whatever felt right at the time.
    The designer, who immediately fell in love with Sergio, would whisk him off on fabulous weekend getaways around the world, but soon became possessive and controlling, and Sergio was one man who didn’t take to the idea of being kept.
    Especially by another man.
    On one weekend trip to Maine where the designer and Sergio went to visit the estate of a wealthy blue blood in Northeast Harbor who adored the designer and his fashions, Sergio slipped away to explore on his own. He fell in love with the glorious mountains and peaceful carriage trails of Acadia National Park, the stark rocky shores, and, across the island from the more stuffy, old money Northeast Harbor, the down-to-earth, eccentric, colorful tourist town of Bar Harbor. Drinking at a bar with a few locals, Sergio