When I went to Body Time Thursday morning, I found Bobo sitting behind the counter to the left of the entrance. He looked as dispirited as an eighteen-year-old can look. I pitched my gym bag into an empty plastic cubicle, one of fifteen stacked against the east wall, after extracting my weight-lifting gloves. They were looking very shabby, and I knew I’d have to have a new pair soon; another item for my already tight budget. I began to pull them on, eyeing Bobo as I circled my wrists with the straps and Velcroed them tightly. Bobo stared back. He was even sitting depressed: shoulders sagging, hands idle on the counter, head sagging on his neck.

“What?” I asked.

“They’ve questioned me twice now, Lily,” he said.

“Why?”

“I guess the detective thinks I had something to do with Del getting killed.” He took a gulp of a repulsive-looking protein mixture that was the craze among the younger workout crowd. I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole.

“How come?”

“Del worked for my dad.”

Among his many financial pies, Bobo’s father, Howell Winthrop, Jr., owned the local sports/exercise equipment/marine supplies store. Del had worked there, mostly in the exercise equipment and exercise clothing department, though he’d had to know enough about hunting and fishing to sell all the other products Winthrop Sporting Goods carried. Del himself had told me all about it at excruciating length when I’d been buying my punching bag.

“So do a lot of people in town,” I observed.

Bobo looked at me blankly.

“Work for your dad.”

Bobo grinned. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He was really a lovely boy.

“Yeah, but Mr. Jinks seems to think that I decided Del knew something that would ruin Dad’s business, so either I thought of killing him or Dad told me to.”