Drop Dead Chocolate by Jessica Beck

didn’t answer; she just shook her head as she dove into her bag for a key. “Nothing in particular. It appears that our mayor is missing, and he wanted to know if I’d seen him.”
    Had he chickened out entirely? I was about to ask when Emma piped up. “What happened? Did he run away? Maybe he was afraid of the competition.”
    Momma fumbled with the key in the lock; she was having a little trouble opening it. “Well, that’s just it. He has another sixteen minutes to file, or by the rules he won’t be able to run for mayor again.”
    “Is that such a bad thing?” I asked Momma with a grin.
    “It would be tragic,” she said, clearly sincere, as she finally managed to open the door. “I want to trounce him fair and square, and the only way I can do that is if he runs against me.”
    I took the first step in the doorway and then stopped in my tracks.
    Momma was impatient. I could hear it in her voice as she said, “Suzanne, you need to move so we can all get in.”
    “Call your boyfriend, Momma. I just found the mayor, and it’s not good.”
    *   *   *
    Inside, Cam Hamilton was on the floor of the shop, a halo of blood spreading out from the back of his head. Someone had taken a baseball bat and had killed him. His face was ashen, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was dead.
    *   *   *
    “Oh no,” Momma said as she started toward the body.
    George put a restraining arm on her. “Don’t go in there, Dorothy.”
    “It’s my store,” she said. “He might need our help.”
    “He’s beyond anything we can do for him,” George said after looking at the body.
    Emma had glanced in for a moment, then stepped back outside. I noticed that she was on her cell phone, no doubt calling the tip in to her father. She’d become a reporter in the field for him lately, giving him anything he might be able to use for the newspaper. Emma and I had clashed over it once when she crossed the line, but since then, she’d been careful not to let it interfere with her work at Donut Hearts. I couldn’t blame her for calling him. This, for once, was legitimate news that he could report.
    And then something my mother had said sunk in. “You own this place?”
    “Yes, along with several other pieces of real estate in town,” she said dismissively. She’d called the chief, no doubt, because within a minute, he was there on the scene.
    He touched Momma’s shoulder gently, and then turned to George.
    “Report.”
    At the moment, I wasn’t at all certain that either one of them remembered that George had retired from the force years ago. He gave a succinct but pertinent report, and the chief nodded afterwards. “Thanks.”
    Only after leaning over the body and checking for a pulse we all knew he wouldn’t find did he turn back to us. “We all need to step away now.” After we complied and were on the sidewalk in front of the shop, the chief said, “I’ll need statements from each of you.” He looked at Momma and said, “The door was locked when you got here, correct?”
    George had just told him that, but Momma nodded. I had a feeling the police chief was going out of his way not to show her any preferential treatment.
    “Where did you get the key?”
    “I own this building,” she said, repeating something I still had a hard time believing. I had to wonder what else my mother hadn’t told me over the years.
    “Did you have the only key?” he asked, though it was clear that asking that particular question was killing him a little.
    “I sincerely doubt it. The store has been empty for years, but it was pretty active in its day.”
    “Have you changed the locks since Hannah moved out?” the chief asked.
    “No, of course not. Why would I?”
    He looked a little exasperated as he explained, “Dorothy, practically anyone could have an old key to the place. There have to be a dozen folks in town who worked at Hannah’s at one time or another, including my ex, two of Hannah’s sisters, William