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woman behind the sliding glass window that I was there to view Forester’s body. She asked me how I was related to the deceased and I explained my position with the
Cool Ghoul Gazette.
She placed a call and I waited.
    In a few minutes a door opened and a round little man with reading glasses perched atop his bald head entered through a side door. He had a chubby, double-chinned face and looked to be anywhere between thirty and forty. I strolled over and he introduced himself as Dr. Arthur Edwards. Dad says you can tell a lot about a man by the way he shakes your hand. The doctor’s grip was limp and sweaty. He wore a brown suit, scuffed black dress shoes, and a look of irritation.
    “I am afraid I cannot allow you to view the body. Authorized personnel only. Unless you are an immediate member of the family — are you?”
    “No, sir, but I would only be a few minutes.”
    “No media, sorry.”
    Aunt Vivian looked up from her knitting. “My nephew traveled a long way. Flew all the way up from Florida.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I understand,” Dr. Edwards said, “but there are rules.”
    “Rules my foot. I bet if he was whatshisname, that handsome man on
Good Morning News
, you’d bend the rules.”
    Dr. Edwards cut his eyes toward me. I shrugged to let him know
I
didn’t know what guy she was talking about either.
    “Oh, don’t look at me that way, you know who I’m talking about. Dimpled chin, boyish face? Has really nice teeth and a funny name I can’t pronounce?”
    “Even if your nephew was this individual,” Edwards said to Aunt Vivian, “I still could not allow him to see the body.”
    She sighed, put down her knitting, and ambled over. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a church-offering envelope and slipped five twenty-dollar bills inside.
    One hundred dollars?
    “I can only imagine how expensive it must be to run for the office of county coroner,” she said to Edwards. “My late husband was on our local school board back in Asheville. He loved kids but hated politics.” She pressed the envelope into the doctor’s sweaty palm. “This is for your reelection campaign. It’s not much but maybe this will help buy a few yard signs.”
    Edwards pocketed the envelope without smiling. “I will speak with my assistant.”
    “Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”
    Reaching for the door handle, he stopped and turned back toward me. “Yes, I do mind.”
    “I’ll make it quick. The victim, I understand he’s been identified as Barnabas Forester.”
    “I cannot confirm that. You’ll need to speak to Lieutenant McAlhany regarding the particulars of the deceased.”
    “Did you know the victim?”
    Edwards glanced at his watch and made a nervous twitching noise with his teeth that sounded like a rabbit nibbling a carrot.
    “Not really. I know his wife. She and I helped chair a breast cancer awareness event last fall. Lucy has a gallery here in town. From the way she talked, her husband was something of a recluse.”
    “So you and the victim’s wife, you are friends?”
    “Lucy?” For a split second his look of irritation faded. “Of course.” The scowl returned. “Look, are you writing a story or investigating this man’s death?”
    “Both. I’m part of a group that analyzes television shows — crime shows in particular.” I explained how we cataloged the shows and fed the information into our database. “With that information I can run a query of all shows that match certain variables. Like in this case, now that I know he was married, we have a dead husband as the victim, a spooky mansion, a strange-acting innkeeper, those sorts of things. Once I have all the variables, I review any episodes that match those elements.”
    Edwards looked over at Aunt Vivian and back at me. “I cannot imagine that works.”
    “It does, actually.”
    “Look, I have to go,” he said dryly. “I have
real
work to do.”
    When the doctor was gone I said to Aunt Vivian, “You shouldn’t have paid