"Good," I said, "but did you hear what happened?"
"No," she said. "What's up?"
By the time I finished telling her, her face had gone from happy to sad to determined.
"There's no way we're going to let this shop go down," she announced with the optimism of youth. "And there's no way you killed Cal Parker." She glanced at me. "Not that I'd blame you if you did. In fact, it was kind of a public service."
"Still."
"I know, I know," she said.
"You know this town inside and out," I told her. "Sylvia Berland from the Salty Dog came by earlier; Denise thinks she's worried her husband Jared may be responsible. From what I hear, Cal was making life difficult for a lot of folks in Snug Harbor."
"You're not wrong," she said.
"We need to make a list of all the people he's ticked off."
"We could probably fill one of those blank books," she said, pointing to the display of journals I'd set up close to the register. "It's a testament to the power of money that he got elected, frankly."
"Well, then," I said, reaching for a pad of legal paper and a pen. "Let's get started. Who's first?"
Bethany grabbed a duster and began running it over the tops of the books on the shelves as she considered my question; there was still a good bit of dust from some of the renovations we'd done. "His ex-wife, of course," she led off with as she swept the duster over, perhaps appropriately, the romance section, going back to retrieve a feather that had fallen onto a buxom young lady's barely satin-clad bosom. I was looking forward to finding out who in Snug Harbor was a romance devotee; you could find out a lot about a person based on the books they chose.
"What do you know about his ex-wife, Gretchen?" I asked, watching as she moved on to the science fiction and fantasy section.
"She lives just outside of town; they divorced two years ago when she found him with one of the administrative assistants in the copy room. Unfortunately, he'd talked her into signing a pre-nup, so she's been working as a waitress at the Chart House and cursing his name ever since."
"She was here yesterday, wasn't she?" I asked. "I talked to her... she told me her ex was in cahoots with Scooter."
Bethany nodded. "Hair in a French twist, wore a pink dress, shot daggers out of her eyes at her ex for the five minutes they were in the store together."
"So she stays on the list," I said, circling her name. "Who else?"
"Well, there's the councilwoman he unseated, of course."
"I met her last night, too," I said. "Meryl Ferguson."
"That's the one," she said. "If looks could kill, Cal would have been dead at least twice over before he left the shop."
"I got the impression she had an ax to grind, to say the least. So that's two possibilities," I said, feeling slightly brighter. "He wasn't the most popular guy in town, was he?"
"No," she said.
"What else do you know about him?"
"I think he's got a string of ex-girlfriends, but nobody I know personally. Oh... and he's also been causing trouble for the Chinese restaurant on the corner of Cottage and Garden Streets. They were trying to get a liquor license, and he's taken that opportunity to find all kinds of violations."
"Why was he going after them?"
"Well, rumor has it one of his companies bought two other buildings on that block, and they've got a five-year lease they're only two years into, from what I hear."
"So if they went out..."
"He would have been able to upgrade the space and rent it out for more money. Or go high and do condos."
"Very quaint," I said dryly. "Isn't that a conflict of interest, though?"
"Who was going to go after him?" she asked. "The restaurant is in violation of some of the more archaic codes, evidently, and there's no proof that his plans were to turn the whole block into something profitable for him."
"That's the pits," I said, thinking again that it was hard to believe such language would come from a young woman almost half my age. She spoke like an English professor. In fact, she spoke more eloquently and precisely than many English professors I'd met.
"Exactly," she said.
"Why was he after the bar, then? Is that to make money?"
"Oh, no," she said. "He thought his ex-wife cheated on him with Jared."
"So he was trying to shut him down?"
"That's the word on the street," she said. Bethany grinned at me. "All kinds of intrigue in town, isn't there?"
"On the plus side, at least I'm not the only suspect in Snug Harbor."
"No," she said. "But he was found dead behind your store. And you did agree to talk to him later."
"And it was my doorstop embedded in his head."
She shrugged. "There is that."
I sighed. "Does he have any family?"
"His parents passed some time back; he picked up their business. He has a brother, though."
"Is he involved with the business, too?"
"Nope. He never went to college; he just wanted to be a fisherman."
"Not even a stake?"
"From what I hear, the whole business went to Cal."
"Huh," I said, enjoying the breeze filtering through the windows as I rearranged the Maine section. "Money seems to be a bit of a problem in families. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have an inheritance coming my way."
"That's one way to look at it," she said. "I can tell you, there's no love lost there. Josiah campaigned against his brother in the election."
"Wow. Really?"
"Spent weeks handing out leaflets talking about what a selfish jerk his brother was. It didn't work, of course." She shook her head. "I guess
