Show Time by Suzanne Trauth

Episcopal church, next door to a card and gift shop, both dark, as were most of the houses on the street.
    Homes were as modest as those on my end of Fairfield. Some were cottage-sized residences built for a family of no more than four. Some were shotgun houses with small patches of grass for front yards and the occasional early spring flower bed outlining a porch. A handful of parked cars lined the street on both sides. I wondered which house belonged to Rita’s cousin.
    I crept down Ellison until a large, two-story house came into view—the place where Jerome had lived. It was the only one with a light on, in an upper room that faced the street. A car was parked in the driveway next to a sign: R OOM FOR R ENT. The landlord hadn’t lost any time looking for a tenant. Pretty ghoulish considering Jerome wasn’t even buried yet.
    I inched forward and switched off my headlights so that I could turn around in someone’s driveway and not disturb the inhabitants. I was about to swing my Metro in a wide arc when the rumble of an engine behind me caused me to check the rearview mirror. I saw a dark SUV—an Escalade, from the look of it—stop directly across the street from Jerome’s place. It switched off its headlights, too. I felt little shivers run down my spine. What were the odds that another car just happened to be driving down Ellison this time of night? Checking out Jerome’s residence? I completed the turn, and drove home.

Chapter 6
    â€œL ook okay?” the delivery kid said and thrust a clipboard at me.
    I checked off the cartons of food that had been stacked inside the walk-in refrigerator. Enrico was assisting Henry as he concocted his secret-recipe herb-crusted pork loin—I knew about the paprika, basil, and parsley, but there was something else in the coating I could only guess at. Henry was tight-lipped about most of his specials—La Famiglia had definitely made him paranoid.
    â€œExcept for the missing twenty pounds of flounder.” I frowned and signed the sheet. The seafood order was shorted again; I needed to find another wholesaler. Couldn’t be that hard in this part of the state and—
    Benny stuck his head in the kitchen. “Dodie. Got a visitor.”
    I walked out the swinging doors. Pauli sat at the bar drinking a Big Gulp Slurpee and texting. Pauli! I’d been so busy today I’d forgotten we had a meeting. “Hi.”
    â€œHey, Mrs. O’Dell.”
    A polite kid, even if he did have my marital status screwed up. “Dodie. You can call me Dodie.”
    â€œOkay.” It came out a croak: Pauli’s voice deciding whether or not to change.
    â€œSo your mom says you are quite the entrepreneur?”
    Pauli slid his eyes in my direction to see if I was making a joke.
    â€œYour business is growing?” I poured myself a seltzer and sat down next to him.
    â€œI guess,” he said and jabbed his straw into the Slurpee.
    â€œSo how do we start?” I studied a thatch of brown hair falling into his eyes, the spatter pattern of acne across his cheeks, the gangly arms poking out of his hoodie sleeves. “I don’t have a website. I don’t know much about putting one together.”
    â€œPiece of cake,” he said and opened his laptop. “First, we have to get a domain name . . . like from GoDaddy or something.” He sat up straighter on his bar stool. “Like windjammer.com?”
    â€œMakes sense.”
    â€œYeah and then get a Web host and figure out like what you want on each page.” His face was a question mark. “You know what you want on each page?”
    â€œI’m sure I can figure it out. I’ll check out some other restaurant websites and put some copy together.”
    â€œUh-huh and you’ll need, like, some pictures. Like of the inside here.” He looked around, appraising the Web-worthiness of the Windjammer’s dining room.
    The restaurant dated from