Too Dead To Dance by Diane Morlan Page A

coffee stand. So,
what?”
    “To be precise, he was on
the floor next to my booth. Don’t you know who he was?”
    “How would I know? I don’t
hang around with those kinds of people.”
    I bit my tongue. I tried to
control my mouth. But alas, I could not help myself. I quipped,
“You mean dead people?”
    Before he could blow up
again I added, “The man I found dead at the Fest Grounds was Wes
Fischer, your girlfriend’s ex-husband.”
    After he finished
sputtering and became semi-reasonable again, I pumped him for
information. “Where were you two last night? Edwin, the police will
be questioning you. You need to remember the details.
    “Marty and I are completely
innocent. She’d never kill someone and neither would I. You know me
well enough to know that, Jennifer.”
    “I know, Edwin, but the
police don’t know you. They’ll want to know your
whereabouts.
    “I was at home all night.
Marty was at the high school gym for her Jazzercise class. She got
home about eleven o’clock, which was later than usual. I’m sure she
stopped for coffee with friends after class. Although I’ve told her
time and again to come straight home.”
    Since I didn’t know the
time of death, I was clueless as to whether or not Marty had an
alibi. This detecting stuff was harder than I had thought. I needed
more information. I needed to talk to Jacobs or Detective Decker.
It might be nice to see Decker again, I would have to think about
how to do that.
    “You’ve wasted half my day,
Jennifer. I’m leaving. See you at the lawyer’s on
Thursday.”
    I watched him get into his
sports car and then waited for a lull in business before I went up
to the teenager behind the counter.
    “Is the manager
in?”
    “No, he won’t be here for
another hour. Is anything wrong?”
    “Absolutely not, your
service was great. But the coffee could be better.” Pulling a
business card out of my purse, I scribbled a note on it and handed
it to the employee along with a five pound bag of coffee. “Could
you please give him this and let him know I’ll call him in a few
days?”
    “Sure. No problem.” He took
the coffee and shoved it under the counter.
    As soon as I got in the
car, I called Megan. I tend to do a lot of multi-tasking in the
car. The traffic in Hermann is usually light so I rationalize my
bad driving habits. Megan agreed we needed to find out the time of
death. “I guess we also need to know the cause of death. Gee, there
is so much to this investigating stuff. I had no idea it would be
so difficult.”
    “You know, Jennifer, we
don’t need to know who did it, we only need to prove Bernie didn’t
do it.”
    “I don’t know how to do
that either. We’ll have to keep plugging along and see what we can
find out. Right now I need to get back to the booth and relieve
Sally.”
     
    When I finally returned,
Sally grabbed her tote bag and hurried out the door. “Off to
class,” she called over her shoulder. Darn! I had been so
distracted I forgot she taught beginners swimming to a group of
elementary school girls every Saturday afternoon in the summer. She
must have a world of patience.
    “Hi, Jennifer,” Trudy
called to me from her booth. “What a nice girl,” Trudy nodded
toward the door as Sally exited. “I was so surprised the first time
she came in and started working your booth.”
    “You know Sally?” I
asked.
    “Oh, yah. She’s been dating
Bobby for several months. Haven’t you seen her around here with
him? She’s at the closing ceremony every night.”
    “Bobby? Bobby Reinhart from
your husband’s band? No, I didn’t know.”
    “Oh, yah, sure. About a
month after she and Bobby started dating, Sally stopped going to
any of the bands’ gigs. She told Bobby something about not wanting
to be a ‘groupie.’ But I think it had something to do with Wes.
When Wes tried to talk to her, she’d move away as if she hadn’t
heard him. After a few weeks she started to come to our gigs again
but she never did look