Free Killing Kate: A Novel (Riley Spartz Book 4) by Julie Kramer

helped myself to a bowl of pretzels on an end table to avoiding having to respond further. While I chewed, I thought.
    I could see why investigators were looking at him as a suspect. He knew the victim. That’s usually the case in homicides. And sometimes smart killers “find” the body. It’s a convenient way to explain how their DNA wound up at the crime scene.
    Chuck seemed like he might be one of those killers who are better thinkers than talkers, possibly shrewd enough to have thought this whole scenario through. Although his next statement changed my mind about his judgment.
    “They also wanted my fingerprints and saliva. That way they could eliminate me as the killer.”
    That would also make it easier to convict him without havingto go through the bother of a subpoena, but I refrained from saying that out loud.
    “What was Kate like?” I asked.
    Chuck didn’t answer right away. Maybe because the question was complicated or maybe because the Twins and White Sox were now tied.
    “She was a nice enough girl,” he said.
    I was hoping for something a little more personal, but the term “boyfriend” might have been an exaggeration regarding him. He explained that they had met a few weeks earlier while standing in line at the post office. He was buying stamps and she was mailing a large padded envelope. They both worked at home, so they had that in common.
    “Usually nice girls don’t pay much attention to me.” He had a receding hairline and a paunchy waistline. “But now that she’s dead, I kind of wish we hadn’t met. Wasn’t worth the trouble.”
    Just then Chuck reached over and pressed the remote again. His action didn’t affect the TV channel or volume, but gave me a way to change the subject away from murder.
    “What are you doing with that thing?” I asked.
    “Oh, this? I forgot to ask how old you are.”
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “You’re a visitor. They want to know how old you are. I already punched in that you’re female.”
    A few seconds passed before I understood that I was staring at one of the most powerful tools of modern television: a people meter.
    I’d never actually seen one before, and it was all I could do to refrain from grabbing it and switching it to Channel 3. Then I realized the remote only confirmed who was watching; the small black box hooked directly to the television confirmed what was being watched. Networks, TV stations, and advertisers paid dearly for that combination of ratings data.
    In the Twin Cities, barely six hundred people meters represented the viewing habits of 3.5 million people. How Chuck Heyden landed in this secret society of Nielsen families, I didn’t know; but for a TV reporter, meeting him was like winning the ratings lottery.
    So to keep tight, I told him my age. Then casually asked if we could see what else was on TV, maybe even check Channel 3.
    “No, I want the game.”
    Chuck explained that when he watched television, every fifteen minutes he had to press an OK button to verify he was still watching.
    If more than forty minutes passed without him confirming, red lights flashed rapidly.
    He signed a two-year contract last fall to divulge his male TV viewing habits, and for such privileged information, Nielsen paid him twenty-five bucks a month.
    “Don’t tell them I told you any of this,” he said. “We’re supposed to keep quiet.”
    “I know. I know. Believe me, they’ll never hear from me.”
    So I conspired against Nielsen, and promised to keep in touch about Kate’s murder. Whether he was guilty or not, meeting him was going to make Channel 3 an overnight news sensation. Just as soon as I got back to the station and told Noreen.
    “You what?” she screamed. “You met with a Nielsen family?”
    “He was more like a Nielsen individual,” I explained.
    She was more upset about that part of the encounter than she was about me sitting on a couch all cozy with a possible killer. “You could get us