I didn't do it and I didn't see anything. (Expressed with hands in air in mock arrest position.)

The kind officer didn't take too well to my expression of humour late in the afternoon yesterday. Had I thought for a nano-second, I would not have responded in such a disrespectful manner.

We have many customers-in-uniform of all sorts who will pop into the store to pick up chemicals or drop off their dirty hot tub filters to get cleaned. For example, just last week we had a large pumper truck in the parking lot and eight firemen wandering through the store while one of them received a full-scale hot tub presentation. And today two ambulance attendants from V'hoof stopped for some supplies. It's all in a day's work.

But yesterday when the officer brushed off my attempt at humour and began to seriously interrogate me, my attitude was quickly brought into check. I don't know what I was thinking. For the previous hour we had been listening to the radio and standing with our faces pressed to the window watching the action across the street where someone had just been shot and killed in the parking lot. This is serious stuff.

Today I had a customer express shock and disgust that the restaurant had been closed down for the rest of the evening yesterday. ... uh, hello?? Someone has been killed. Dead. In our little town. Of course I didn't fess up to my own lack of respect, as I reprimanded her saying, "If that was my son laying dead, I'd demand that no stone was left unturned in the investigation and every scrap of evidence possible be gathered in the most diligent manner."