newsworthy. Shows what I know about politics.
Parking in the high school parking lot for the second time in as many days, I was struck at how trampled the grounds looked compared to yesterday. Glittering beer bottles littered the frost-crunched grass. I grabbed the digital camera and strode toward the main tent, the sour smell of a day-old party assaulting my nostrils and sliding down the back of my throat like thick oil. My stomach bucked, but I persevered. For all my laziness, I had a good work ethic, and snapping photos was a job I enjoyed. At least I used to enjoy it. Unfortunately, what was sashaying out of the main tent and toward me wearing clothes like a truck wore tires could squeeze the joy out of potato chips.
“Honey, is that the new Goth look you’re sporting? It doesn’t sit so well on you. With those high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, you look like Skeletor.” She walked up to air kiss me, enveloping me in a cloud of oily perfume. “Never mind that. I was hoping to run into you today. Have I got a business proposition for you!”
I coughed, idly wondering if I had been Pol Pot in a past lifetime. This much bad luck did not spring forth organically. I disregarded her proposition and studied her. Usually, with Kennie Rogers, current mayor and self- appointed police chief of the Battle Lake Police Department, it’s the clothes that attract your eyes. This time, it was the color of her skin. “Why are you orange?”
She pushed her lips together. “I am not orange. I’m Bahama Brown.”
I shrugged. One woman’s Bahama Brown is another woman’s Tangerine Terror. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Kennie and I had an odd relationship. Actually, Kennie had an odd relationship with the world. She’d spent her whole life in Battle Lake, carving out a niche for herself on the local political scene, all bluster and bossiness. Last May, I’d uncovered a tragic chapter in her beauty queen past. She’d overcome that and still clung to her youthful beauty with claws and a mascara wand, dressed like a teenage girl with a time machine, occasionally adopted a Southern accent, and was cannier than Chef Boyardee. She was only ten years older than me and had earned my grudging respect, though I’d sooner switch wardrobes with her than let her know. Ultimately, I avoided her when I could because she was always more trouble than she was worth.
“Yes you do! You’re my test dummy.”
She was probably half right. “I’m
She grabbed my hand and shook it. “Okay, then you’re the new Vice President of the Kennie Rogers Corporation, LLC.”
“Pass.”
“You don’t want to make $250 in one hour?”
Kennie was notorious for her business schemes, the most recent ones involving nudity, coffins, and sheep. “I really don’t.”
She talked over me, and not for the first time. In an effort to distract myself from her words, I forced myself to truly acknowledge her outfit. It was a catsuit sewn of some shiny red and blue fabric, and this cat had caught more than her share of mice. Odd puffs of flesh bulged over and under the gold belt ringing her waist, and across her chest was a huge yellow “S.” She looked chilly enough to cut diamonds with her chest. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she was wearing shiny-white running shoes. In the tent behind us, the wheeze-oompah-whomp- whomp of accordion music was starting right on time.
“Sure. That’s nice,” I said, when she paused. I hadn’t heard a word.
“Wonderful. Tuesday night. Bronze and Bond Speed Dating begins!”
“Hunh?”
“It’ll be fantabulous. I’ve reserved the party room at Stub’s. We’ll have privacy booths set up, and you’re in charge of spray tanning anyone with a coupon. Come a little early so you can help me decorate the dating tables. After we’ve tanned our clients into a sexy version of themselves, everyone goes to their assigned dating seat. Each person gets three minutes before moving to the next table in search of the love of their life. Maybe we should come up with conversation cards? Fun!”
Fun like cramps. “I’m not going to spray strangers with orange body paint.”
She hummed. “Already said you would…”
I felt like I was falling, and leapt for practicality. “Everyone in this town already knows each other. Why would they sign up for speed dating?”
“Haven’t you been listening? There’s been another murder! That always brings fresh blood to town.”
8
“This morning. A dead man found at the new motel.”
I didn’t want to give away my recent proximity to the corpse so played it cool. “That’s horrible! But how do you know it wasn’t suicide?”
She eyed me suspiciously for a second, but was distracted when the tent flap opened and a strapping farmboy in tights and shortpants, a feathered cap perched on his head, stepped out to calm his pre-polka nerves with a cigarette. “Unlikely,” she said, reapplying her lip gloss. “The body was found in a second-floor room, bag over his head to make it look like suicide, but he wasn’t blue. The coroner said the lips of a person who dies of suffocation are always blue. And probably their fingernails. But this guy was as white as a sheet. His best guess is that someone killed the man by smashing his head in and then bagged it like a cantaloupe.”
A chill crept out from my stomach and trickled down to my fingers and toes. Studying the death scene in my mind’s eye, I knew she was right. Bob Webber, whiter than cream, the skin on the side of his forehead soft-looking, like a rug draped over a hole. I tried to play back other details to see if I’d missed anything, but I’d been too blurry- eyed from a lousy night’s sleep and too certain it was a suicide to scope out the room. “Suspects?” I asked.
“Too early to know for sure, but everyone who was in the motel is being questioned.”
Her words induced an ice bath that made my skin dimple. Had Johnny put my name on the room? “Probably a lot of out-of-towners staying there for the festival.”
“Probably. Swydecker and Glokkmann were there for sure.” She said Glokkmann’s name with a perverse sneer, and I wondered if the two of them had a past. They must be close in age, I judged, and had grown up in the same neck of the woods. “But so far we know that Glokkmann and at least one of her people don’t have an alibi for last night.”
I let out a deep breath. Better Glokkmann than me. “Shouldn’t you be there right now, being as you’re the Chief of Police?”
She clapped her hands and her face lit up. “I left as soon as I realized what a tremendous business opportunity this would be. The tanning/speed dating idea initially started percolating when I got my first spray tan last night in Elbie Johanssen’s basement. I thought, why couldn’t I do this? Then, when I heard the murder announced over the police scanner this morning, I thought, new people in town! And who doesn’t want to be romanced when they’re feeling all tan and sexy? The plan came together like peanut butter and jelly. I pulled on this outfit and headed directly to the motel.”
That meant she hadn’t bought the speedy catsuit specifically for her business. It had already been hanging in her closet. I found myself wondering what the heck she had on deck. “And you managed to get your picture taken in your speedsuit by many swarming reporters?”
“If we’re lucky.”
“Aren’t you concerned about finding the killer?”
She returned her full attentions to me, her eyes glittering, mouth in a sharp smile. “I’ll leave that up to our new police deputy, a Mr. Gary Wohnt.”
With the mention of his name, my skinned knees began smarting. “Wohnt
