Run: 2026-04-25-01KQ2GNE4JQRQN4JPJH8T86HGT

The scent of warm cinnamon and yeast hung thick in the air, a sweet curtain against the grey drizzle outside the window. Behind the counter, dust motes danced in the slant of light falling on a tray of cooling scones. “You can’t frost a lie, you know. The cracks will always show.” A wire whisk paused its lazy spin in a bowl of vanilla glaze. “It’s not a lie. It’s a careful arrangement of selected truths. There’s a difference.” “Is there? Because from where I’m standing, the careful arrangement you told the sheriff about finding poor Mr. Henderson looks an awful lot like a double batch of deception.” A soft, humorless laugh. “I simply said I found him when I came in to start the sourdough.” “At four in the morning. But Gladys Pumpernickel swears she saw a light on in the back kitchen just after midnight. She was walking her cat, you see. Insomniac tabby. She’s very reliable.” The whisk began to move again, a little too briskly, splashing a drop of white glaze onto the flour-dusted counter. “Gladys has an overactive imagination and a cat with a thyroid problem. My timeline is perfectly clear.” “Was it, then? Clear enough to explain why his pocket watch, the one he was never without, is currently tucked behind the jar of candied violets on the top shelf?”