Small Business is Murder

Belinda and Kim’s finances were stretched as thin as they could possibly be.

They knew running a small business would be hard and, most likely, not very profitable in the beginning, but they didn’t foresee it being this hard.

“Realisticly, though,” Belinda said as she and Kim sat at one desk in their tiny office in the back of their store, “Why did we ever think running a store and art gallery focusing on dragonflies would be successful?”

“I know,” Kim said, laughing. “What were we thinking?”

“I guess we learned a lesson,” Belinda said. “No one ever got rich overestimating the public’s love of dragonflies.”

“Forget rich,” Kim said. “I’d settle for being able to pay all our bills in full this month.”

“Maybe we should rethink our business plan?” Belinda suggested. “We could branch out into butterflies and fireflies. I mean the Firefly Festival isn’t far from here. It could work.”

Belinda and Kim worked well into the wee hours of the morning re-formulating their business plan. The sun was just starting to peek over the mountaintops when they locked up and started heading toward the parking lot.

“What we really need,” Belinda said,”is for something scandalous to happen near here that will bring in some foot traffic.”

A few hours later Belinda’s ringing phone woke her up.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kim said as soon as Belinda whispered a sleepy “hello” into her phone.

“Kim?” Belinda asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Remember when we were leaving the store and you said what we really needed was for something scandalous to happen?”

“Yeah,” Belinda said. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“In the morning?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kim said. “But listen. I had barely gotten into bed when Kurt woke me up and said he’d just heard on the radio that the police are investigating a murder and the body was found in the parking lot next to ours!”

“You’re kidding,” Belinda said, now mostly wide awake. “When did they find it? Do they know who it is?

“They haven’t said yet whether they know who it is, but they found it at around 5:30 this morning.”

“That’s right after we left!”

“I know!”

“The dead body might have been in the parking lot next door when we were getting into our cars!”

“I know!”

“Holy crap!”

“I know,” Kim said. “Other than who the dead person is and who got them that  way, the biggest question now is: How do we make this work to our advantage and get some people into the store?”