Death on a Deadline

“We’ll let him watch!”
    “You know the rules, Francee.” Joyce Simms from the Shear Joy team balanced her monogrammed bowling ball on her hip and glared at Francee. “Only employees are allowed on the team.”
    Francee rolled her eyes at the woman in purple and yellow polyester and muttered to me, “Shear Joy should lose for sheer bad taste.” She slapped one hand against the delicately intertwining C-n-C embroidered on her light blue and navy blouse, roughly in the direction of her heart, and ran the fingers of her other hand through her short spiked red hair. “Jenna, I promise to pay you six bucks an hour to wash hair one day a year. You choose the day. How about it?”
    I could feel Brendan’s gaze boring into my back. My cheeks burned. “Thanks, Francee. Looks like Cut ’n Curl is doing fine without me, though. We’re just here for fun.”
    And some fun it had been so far. Brendan and I were finally getting around to our date that had been postponed due to Hank’s untimely demise. I’d suggested bowling, thinking a little physical activity would be better than sitting across a table, making awkward conversation. My mistake. Even tepid dinner conversation would have been an improvement over the competitive tension that had been in the air ever since we walked into the musty-smelling building. The only thing stronger than Brendan’s determination to win was the magnetic pull of the gutter on his ball. He couldn’t roll it straight to save his life.
    “Fine. Have it your way.” Francee laughed. “Joyce Sims is liable to throw that bowling ball at me if we win anyway. Sports can be dangerous.”
    “They sure can,” a small blond beside her piped up. “One of my perms today said the police found a golf club they think someone used to kill Hank Templeton.”
    “Really?” I glanced at Brendan, who had abandoned his pout and was listening intently. “Whose club was it?”
    “They don’t know. But I reckon they’re going to try to find out.”
    As she finished speaking, a Shear Joy team member made a strike, and pandemonium broke out.
    “So a golf club was the murder weapon,” I said to Brendan, then suddenly remembered what Debbie at the diner had said about Hank’s heated conversation with the local pharmacist. “Did Hank play golf?” I was pretty sure he had, considering he and Marge’s house backed up to the golf course, but I wanted to hear from Brendan how well he knew Hank, without asking outright.
    “How should I know? I barely knew the man.”
    “Didn’t you say you were on a zoning committee with him?”
    He rolled his eyes at me. “Well, yeah. And I’m sure I saw him from a distance when I went into the news office to take out an ad for a cashier, too, but that hardly constitutes knowing him.”
    Neither of us mentioned the fact that Brendan played golf. It didn’t seem possible that I might be on a date with a murderer, but it was time I faced facts. Someone in our town had probably killed Hank. “You never had lunch with him or anything?” I asked, fully aware that if Alex were here he’d be kicking me under the figurative table.
    Brendan looked at me like I’d sprouted green antennae and grown an extra head. “Me have lunch with Hank? Why would I?”
    I didn’t spend three years teaching school without learning to recognize an evasive answer. I also knew that sometimes you’re better off to let things drop for the time being. “It’s your turn to bowl.”
    Brendan threw two quick gutter balls, then collapsed back in his seat. I picked up my ball from the rack, but his next question stopped me short.
    “Maybe you should be thinking a little closer to home. Didn’t you say your nephew was taking golf lessons?”
    “So?”
    Brendan tapped the table with the stubby pencil. “It’s perfectly understandable.”
    I huffed. “What’s understandable?”
    “You’re in denial.”
    “Denial? About Zac?” I tried to suck air into my lungs, but it felt like they were trapped on a one-dimensional planet and refused to expand. “Zac didn’t do it,” I said, through gritted teeth.
    “Okay, whatever you say.”
    We’d abandoned all pretext of bowling, but I still clutched the neon green ball. I ran my hand over the slick cool surface and fought the urge to lift it to my hot cheeks. Or better yet, slam it into Brendan’s smug face. The muscles in my jaw ached. My daily Bible study was from James, and I was trying desperately to control my tongue, but biting