Death on a Deadline

with Bob.
    He swept through the foyer and surveyed the room like a king looking over his subjects. “Is Amelia here yet?”
    Was the king speaking to me, a lowly peasant? Judging by the expectant way he was looking at me, I guess he was. “I haven’t seen her.” I checked the sign-in registry. “Nope, she hasn’t signed in yet.”
    “She’s late then. She was supposed to be here at four.”
    Oops. Let’s throw her in the dungeon. “Why don’t you have a seat in the smoothie bar and I’ll get you a drink while you wait.” Not my job. And I normally wouldn’t make an exception for the king of Lake View, but I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
    “Thanks.” He nodded as if bestowing an honor on me.
    A few minutes later, I slid a tangerine smoothie onto his table and handed him a straw. “Mayor Stanton, I want to offer my condolences to your family. I know you and Hank weren’t close, but I’m sorry for your loss.” Maybe I was overdoing the sympathy here, but I wasn’t sure how to start a conversation about murder with the possible murderer.
    “Thanks. I’ll pass that on to Amelia.” Always politically correct, our mayor. I had hoped to get more of a response than that.
    Maybe he needed a little more prodding. “Do the police know the motive?”
    “Possibly someone was just trying to make our small town a better place to live.” Byron looked over my shoulder as if this conversation was way too boring for him to give his full attention to.
    “I heard he was getting ready to write another editorial about you. Did you know that?”
    “Where did you hear that?” His brown eyes flashed with irritation. I definitely had his full attention now.
    “You know how things are. Word gets around.”
    “Jenna, it sure would be a shame if the police were to have to take your nephew down to the station again for more questioning, wouldn’t it?” He smiled the coldest smile I’d ever seen.
    “You don’t have to get snippy. I was just curious.”
    “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that curiosity killed the cat?”
    I nodded slowly. “I’ve heard that.” A hundred times, but no need to volunteer that information. “So if I don’t butt out, you’re threatening to have Zac hauled in for questioning again?” If this were a made-for-TV movie, I’d be wearing a wire. Unfortunately, it was the real world, and I just wanted to hear him say it flat out.
    “Threatening? Me?” He smiled again. I wished he’d quit doing that. It seriously creeped me out. “I’m a friend, looking out for your family’s reputation.”
    “What family’s reputation are you talking about?” Amelia appeared at my shoulder, in white shorts and a T-shirt, wiping her face with the edge of a towel draped around her shoulder. How did she do that? Pop up with no warning?
    I smiled sweetly. “I’ll let Byron explain it to you.” I spun on my heel and walked through the open area of the smoothie bar, outwardly calm, inwardly a gelatin mass. By the time I got to the doorway, Lake View’s First Couple had their heads together in heated conversation. I’d stirred something up. I just had no idea what.

    *****

    I was still steaming over Byron’s threats when I left work that night. That might explain why I snapped at the Price Cutter cashier. Or it could have been because she was extremely annoying. I didn’t know Marita very well, since she’d been several years ahead of me in school, but when she rang up my frozen pizza, Dr. Pepper, and dog food, she raised her eyebrows. “Big Friday night planned?”
    Many retorts danced through my head. But the one that came out was “Actually, yes.” Technically that was true, since I’d already put in a call to the video store next to the grocery store and the clerk was holding a new release for me.
    She scanned my single-serving pizza and clucked her tongue. “Bless your heart, sweetie. By the way, how’s Zac handling all this?”
    Me being dateless? I knew what she meant, so I decided to play nice. “Fine.”
    “Do you think he did it?”
    “Of course not!”
    “I don’t know. Teenagers these days can be pretty unpredictable.”
    Unpredictable? Last time I checked, unpredictable was missing curfew by ten minutes occasionally. Unpredictable was not beating someone to death with a golf club. I handed her my twenty and took a deep breath. “He didn’t do it.”
    “That’s what people on television always say, isn’t it? The