Down Home and Deadly

“Do we need the EMTs in here?”
    I shook my head , and at the movement, my hand flew up to cup the lump on the back of my skull. “Ow.”
    “Get someone in here to look at her,” Seth growled over his shoulder to Ricky.
    The tall cop put his notebook away then disappeared into the diner.
    Seth pulled up a chair next to me and sat down. “You look pretty pale. Is it bleeding?”
    “I don’t think so.” I ducked my head.
    He carefully parted my hair and grunted. “No blood, but that’s a prize-winning goose egg.”
    “Thanks,” I said dryly. “It’s nice to be a winner.”
    “You’re always a winner to me.”
    Something in his voice brought my gaze around to meet his.
    He smiled. “You still dating Alex?”
    “Last time I checked she was engaged to him,” a deep voice said behind me.
    I turned toward the familiar voice. Alex Campbell filled the doorway, his face taut with worry. “You okay?”
    I nodded, so glad to see him, I couldn’t speak.
    He covered the distance between us in two strides and bent down to hug me.
    Seth jumped to his feet and took a couple steps backward. He even held out his hand as if offering Alex his vacated chair. Alex had been the high school quarterback when Seth was a lowly tenth - grade bench warmer. Old habits die hard.
    “Thanks,” Alex mumbled, his attention still fixed on me. He released me as he sat down, but held on to my hand.
    A female EMT came bustling in, her black bag in her hand. She checked my vision and examined the lump on my head. When she finished, she looked at Alex and smiled. “Everything looks okay to me. But you probably want to get her over to the ER to get this checked out. A hit hard enough to knock someone out usually causes a concussion.”
    Hello? I started to wave my hand to remind her who was the patient here. But I was too tired. I was used to this phenomenon when I was out with the town’s most eligible bachelor. Even my new engagement ring hadn’t seemed to slow the attention down much. I glanced over at Debbie. Tonight the waitress was more interested in her cell phone, but usually she spoke to Alex instead of me. In Alex’s defense, though, he always kept his own gaze fixed on me —w hich was one of the many things I loved about him.
    As soon as the EMT left, Alex turned me to face him. “What happened, honey?”
    “Might as well just tell it once, ‘honey, ’ ” someone said gruffly.
    I looked up to see our chief of police standing in the suddenly popular doorway. “Hi, John.” We’d been friends since the sandbox, but my penchant for sniffing out the truth drove him up the wall sometimes.
    “You know, Jenna, it’d be funny if it weren’t so horrible.” He walked in with Ricky right be h ind him.
    Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “I know.” It hadn’t been long since I found the queen of country music dead in her Branson dressing room, and less than a year before that , I’d gotten embroiled in the murder of our local newspaper editor. So I knew what he meant.
    “You all right?”
    “I guess. Physically , anyway.”
    “What is it with you and dead bodies?”
    I shrugged , and an involuntary shiver ran up my spine. Alex put his arm around me and pulled me against him.
    “I—”
    John held up his hand. “Forget I asked. Let’s just concentrate on this one. Tell me about finding the body.”
    “I was taking out the trash,” I stammered. “It was almost closing time.” I glanced at Carly.
    She nodded. “It was right at eight o’clock . We only had a few stragglers when you went out.” Her face flushed , and she spoke to John. “We were busy cleaning , s o we didn’t notice when she didn’t come back right away.” She flashed me an apologetic look.
    He waved away her implied apology and turned his shrewd gaze back to me. “So what happened when you got out there?”
    I told him as coherently as I could. Ricky scribbled in his little notebook while I talked.
    “You felt for a pulse?” John said, looking at my apron.
    I glanced down and froze at the sight of the rusty fingerprints. Apparently I’d instinctively wiped the blood off before I was clobbered. I clutched Alex’s hand tightly and nodded. “Then something hit me in the head from behind.”
    “Did you lose consciousness immediately?”
    “I must have. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up staring at a tire.”
    “What time did you come back in here?”
    I glanced at Debbie, who shook her head. Then Marco , Harvey,