Down Home and Deadly

tell Lisa that since membership enrollment was down, we’d have to let someone go.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “When you left, so did members.”
    I felt my cheeks grow hot at the implied praise. No doubt the mass exodus of members was more because of Lisa’s inept management than because of the absence of my amazing management skills. “Go ahead.”
    “Anyway, he told her to get rid of one employee. No matter what Bob intended, he should have known she wouldn’t fire her man. So she and J.D. cooked up this little story to get Marco fired.”
    “How do you know it isn’t true?”
    “I counted the cash in the register that night. Then I checked with the bank to see how much the deposit was. Every penny was deposited.”
    “Wow. So do you think they wanted to get rid of Marco specifically? Or just any employee so J.D. could stay on?”
    “I think they picked on Marco because they knew he wouldn’t fight them on it. Plus, he hadn’t been here as long as the rest of us. I’m so glad you hired him at the diner.”
    “Me , too. So you weren’t a fan of J.D.’s?”
    “Nope. He and Bob had some kind of history, too. Did you know that?”
    “No. What kind of history?”
    “I’m not sure. I just heard him say something about telling Lisa about ‘our shared past. ’ I was under the impression that he may have been holding something over Bob’s head.” She shrugged. “You know, threatening Bob. But I can’t imagine why.”
    “Me either.” But I was certainly going to find out.
    When she left, I retired to the sauna. In the steamy quietness, I sat for a minute and mulled over the life and death of J.D. Finley. When he drove to the Dumpster, did he have death on his mind? Did he have an appointment with a murderer? Or had it been a surprise attack?
    I rolled up a towel for a pillow and stretched out on my back on the hot wooden bench. Closing my eyes, I worked my way down my mental suspect list. Even though Lisa owned the murder weapon, why would she have done it? Had J.D. proven hard to shake as a boyfriend? That seemed a flimsy excuse for murder. More in keeping with Lisa’s personality would be if J.D. w ere the one trying to get out of the relationship. I could see her, in a fit of anger, using her toy gun to take care of the pr o blem. But I couldn’t see her keeping it to herself and playing the innocent so well. She really didn’t act guilty at all. What if someone really had stolen her gun? The more I thought about it, the more likely that seemed.
    And who better than her husband , who seemed like a raving maniac when I’d seen him at the club the other day. And he definitely knew where the gun was. Any man who would beat his wife might also kill her lover. How closely were the police looking at Larry?
    My eyes fluttered as I suddenly remembered what Gail had just told me about Bob. It sounded like my ex-boss had motives of his own for getting rid of J.D. The only thing that didn’t add up there was him letting his precious princess take the fall.
    I sat up and punched my rolled - up towel a couple of times to fluff it again and stretched back out. I wasn’t having much luck with the relaxing part of this little sauna visit.
    So many people were acting weird. Debbie, even Carly—not that I thought hers had anything to do with the murder—and of course, Marco . He seemed flustered so much of the time , and often he acted like he didn’t want to leave the diner. I’m not sure what was wrong about that, but it just felt odd.
    On the other hand, he’d hardly had the opportunity to commit murder unless he’d excused himself to go to the bathroom and slipped out back, shot J.D. , then slipped in to work without anyone noticing. Which was possible, yes. But probable, no.
    And what about motive? He obviously resented J.D. getting him fired, but was the soft - spoken mild-mannered student capable of cold-blooded murder? And framing Lisa for his actions? I didn’t think so. And since I’d had a hard time believing he would steal, and from what Gail said, I was right, I tended to go with my gut feeling about Marco .

C hapter Eleven

    Lettin’ the cat out of the bag is a lot easier’n puttin’ it back in .

    Closing time. Finally. Carly had sent Debbie and Susan home already , and Marco and I were gathering the last of the garbage. Since the night Marco told Carly how badly he needed hours—and proven how well he could clean the men ’ s bathroom—he’d helped clean up.
    “You