Page 72 of Kiss Marry Kill

Ruddy color filled his cheeks. “What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything.”

“You’re tone of voice implies you know something.”

I sighed. “I simply asked a question. How about you answer?”

His face twitched. “I don’t recall arguing with anyone.”

“Well, that’s odd. Because I have more than one eyewitness account of you arguing with the victim.”

“Says who?”

“Saysseveralpeople.”

He scowled. “They’re lying.”

“I don’t think so.”

He curled his lip. “Oh,youdon’t think so, huh?”

“That’s right. And frankly, my opinion is the one that matters.”

He didn’t care for that comment at all. He bunched his shoulders and inclined toward me. “You listen to me, Sheriff,” he rumbled. “I’m a very powerful man in this town.”

“And your point is?” It wasn’t the first time I’d been face-to-face with someone who thought they were too important to be questioned. While it wasn’t pleasant, it was necessary to hold my ground. People like Michael Raiden seemed to think money equaled carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. They were wrong.

He sneered. “What do you think the chances of you being reelected are if you get on my bad side?”

I almost laughed, except I didn’t really find his threat funny. “I guess we’ll see when the time comes.”

“Maybe I’ll run against you myself.”

“It’s a free country.”

His eyes flickered. “You really don’t know your place, do you?”

Anger curled in my gut, but I hid it. “Just doing my job, Mr. Raiden. I’m sorry if that’s a problem for you.”

“Does Mayor Gaynor know how disrespectful you are to people like me?”

“I ain’t tryin’ to disrespect anybody. I’m tryin’ to figure out how Archie ended up dead and in the back of his limousine. I need to ask lots of people questions. I need to ask you questions. If that means you’re upset with me, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

He jabbed a meaty finger at me. “You don’t seem to get what’s going on here.”

“What’s going on here is I’m trying to solve a brutal murder,” I grated out.

“And I told you I didn’t do it. Still, you insist on harassing me.”

“Mr. Raiden,” I said quietly, “you were present at the scene of a murder. I have the authority to question you about that murder. If I didn’t question you, I’d be remiss in my duties. If you want to make this into a personal thing between you and me, be my guest. But your anger isn’t going to stop me from asking you questions.”

He looked like he was going to argue some more, but then he sat back in his chair. After a few moments, he said, “I didn’t kill Archie. Nobody in my family killed anybody.”

“Naturally, I can’t just take your word for it.” I sighed. “To be honest, you’re making this way harder than it needs to be. If you’d stop giving me a hard time, I probably could have already asked you everything I needed to ask you.”

His mouth hardened, but he seemed to relent ever so slightly. “Fine. Hurry up and ask your foolish questions. I’m a busy man, and I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

“I don’t consider solving a murder nonsense.”