Silenced by the Yams (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #3) by Karen Cantwell Page A

that another code word?”
    “Come on, Miss Chick at the Flix dot com—‘As Time Goes By’—that’s the song I was whistling.”
    Another light bulb.
    I had to suppress a giggle. “From Casablanca, of course.” Poor Clarence was in sore need of whistling lessons. His “As Time Goes By” sounded more like a bad blues version of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
    “Casablanca—one of my favorite movies,” I said.
    “I know.”
    “You do?”
    “Your website.”
    Right. I kept forgetting how much people could learn about me from my website. An uncomfortable side effect of putting yourself out there on the internet. “Listen, you seem like a nice guy and all, but we need to get to the nitty-gritty here. I have to be somewhere at one o’clock.”
    Clarence nodded. “I have something . . .” He started to stand and reach for his right cargo pocket at the same time when two hands landed on his shoulders, stopping him.
    “Not so fast, buddy,” said a voice behind us.
    I looked up, not surprised, but very happy to see who it was. “Colt! You came.”
    “Colt?” Clarence shouted, jumping so hard that he broke free of Colt’s grip and fell onto the graveled path, nearly tripping another passing jogger. After a second, he righted himself and stood, panting heavily. He looked like a guilty child terrified that he might get a spanking for breaking his dad’s new Blu-ray player.
    I rose carefully from the bench, trying not to startle him. “Clarence,” I said. “This is my friend, Colt. He’s okay. You can trust him.”
    “Colt?” Clarence repeated, the fearful look on his face growing.
    “Dude,” Colt added, spreading his hands out to show he didn’t have any weapons, “everything’s cool so long as you keep your hands out of your pockets.”
    Poor Clarence just wasn’t calming down. He paced in tiny steps and mumbled incoherently causing passers-by to take notice and eye the three of us with suspicion.
     “Listen,” I continued, talking in soothing tones like I do to my kitties when rounding them up for their monthly flea treatment. “I just want to help my friend, Frankie, and you said you had information—”
    “Deal over!” Clarence shouted. The terror on his face was replaced with anger. “I thought I was ready, but I’m not!” He tore off across the grass and through the trees.
    I slapped Colt about a hundred times. “Look what you did!”
    “You’re the one who asked me to come!”
    “He wanted to show me something. He was just pulling it from his pocket.”
    “What if he wanted to show you a knife or a gun?”
    “I thought you had a date with Meeeeeee-gan.” I exaggerated the ee. I couldn’t help myself. The name simply begged for exaggeration.
    We argued like an old married couple for a few more minutes until I realized I was now running up against the clock for my meeting with Guy Mertz. I told Colt about it, and he insisted on coming along despite my argument that he’d already scared off one informant. He promised to be discreet, so we marched off down the path toward the White House.
    Twice along the way, we caught a glimpse of Clarence tailing us. Evidently Colt hadn’t scared him as badly as we thought. His attempts to be covert were weak: each time we turned around, he ducked behind a tree. He wasn’t very stealthy, to say the least.
    Twenty hot, soggy minutes later we stood exhausted on the corner of 17 th and Constitution looking across the street at the hot dog stand where I had agreed to meet Guy. A man wearing Guy’s signature fedora and holding an umbrella stood nearby.
    “Must . . . have . . . water . . .” Colt groaned. We’d long since drained the bottle I’d bought earlier.
    “I’ll bring a couple of bottles back. I think that’s Guy over there now. You stay here.”
    “Make it quick. I feel seconds away from total dehydration.”
    The light at the intersection turned green and the pedestrian crossing signal told me to go. I started to step off the