“Shelley, that's crazy," Jane said. "Killing somebody over a zoning ordinance?"

“Killing somebody over anything is crazy," Shelley reminded her. "And it could have been accidental. Suppose they got into a shouting match in the storage room and Hanlon got so furious he wanted to take a shot at Stonecipher and angrily shoved at the rack instead?”

Jane made a so-so motion with her hand. "Maybe. Except I don't think there was a shouting match. I was in the bathroom and heard the crash and I hadn't heard yelling before that."

“Well, a hissing match, then," Shelley persisted.

“You'd really like it to be Hanlon, huh?" Jane said, smiling.

“I wouldn't mind. Remember when I was on that planning committee for the well-baby clinic and he made such a nasty flap?"

“Only vaguely."

“He was certain that what he called 'riffraff' was going to descend on us like locusts. To hear him tell it, wild-eyed pinko liberals were going to hire buses to gather up mothers and children from the streets of inner-city Chicago and bring them out here for free treatment." Shelley paused. "Which sounded like a pretty good idea to me, actually. There was a strong odor of bigotry about the whole thing. Ugh. Nasty man," she said, shuddering elaborately.

Jane thought for a minute. "You know, it would be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, if he'd gotten mad enough at Stonecipher to kill him. What better place to do it than the deli? A murder at the deli might also hurt Conrad's business enough to shut him down."

“I think we're wandering pretty far afield here," Mel said. "Could we go back to the list, please?”

They filled Mel in on Conrad, Sarah, and Grace. "I think Grace is a partner in the business," Shelley said. "She talked about 'we' and 'us' and 'our' business.