 
JOLIE GENTIL COZY MYSTERY SERIES

BOXED SET

APPRAISAL FOR MURDER

REKINDLING MOTIVES

WHEN THE CARNY COMES TO TOWN

ANY PORT IN A STORM

Elaine Orr

Copyright 2014 by Elaine L. Orr

Scoobie's Poetry by James W. Larkin

The Lava Poem by Miles D. Orr

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781310496394

License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be reprinted in any form. All rights reserved.

www.elaineorr.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS

### Appraisal for Murder

### Rekindling Motives

When the Carny Comes to Town

Any Port in a Storm

More Books by Elaine Orr

Author Bio

Dedication

To my sister Diane, supportive friend and favorite fan.

APPRAISAL FOR MURDER

Elaine Orr

First Copyright 2011

### Description

Can a real estate appraiser in a New Jersey beach town get in this much trouble? If your name translates to "pretty nice" in French, you've probably gotten used to teasing. It doesn't prepare you to find out that your soon-to-be-ex-husband has a gambling problem, raided your assets, and embezzled from his bank. Jolie Gentil moves to Great Aunt Madge's bed and breakfast at the Jersey shore, taking her cat Jazz, and joining Madge's pair of prune-eating dogs. Jolie does not view this as a retreat, just a smart change. She had no idea her life was about to get even more complicated. Jolie is reestablishing friendships with Scoobie and Ramona, dodging low-level wise guy Pedone, and (oops!) finding a dead body. The late Ruth Riordan is Aunt Madge's closest friend and mother to Michael, a former arrogant classmate who can still push all of Jolie's buttons. Jolie and Aunt Madge seem to be the only ones who think the police are wrong in accusing him of his mother's murder. Soon, the mundane work of appraising real estate and dodging suggestions that she go to the ten-year high school reunion becomes mixed with calls from reporters, scary suggestions from Pedone who wants her to repay her ex-husband's gambling debts, and requests that she help the local busybody with First Presbyterian's social services work. And there's still Scoobie, the high school friend she hung out with most. With his blue jeans and longer hair, he's the antithesis of oil company executive Michael, and much easier to be with. His haunting poetry reflects how different his life has been since Jolie knew him. Jolie must balance her fear of Pedone, conviction that Michael is innocent, and friendship with Scoobie. Her growing list of other possible murder suspects includes Michael's soon-to-be ex-wife and a couple other beneficiaries of Mrs. Riordan's will. Those suspicions don't include Scoobie, but he makes it to the police department's list. Jolie tries various ways to prove both friends innocent. But will Pedone's plans leave Jolie alive to find the truth?
APPRAISAL FOR MURDER
CHAPTER ONE

THE ONLY REASON I DIDN'T SHOOT Robby was because I couldn't think of how to do it without getting caught. About two weeks later I found out that in addition to embezzling from his bank my husband also stole money from our joint retirement account. I should have thought harder.

It all happened pretty fast. I like to think that if Robby had blown the money over more than a couple months I would have wised up to it. Or, maybe not. The only bank statement I ever looked at was my separate checking account. After all, my husband was Mr. Commercial Banker. That's how I met him. I was Ms. Commercial Real Estate.

But, not any more. I did not exactly flee Lakewood. I quit my job and left. There's a difference. And now I need a job.

I walked faster, hearing the thunk of my footsteps on the nearly deserted boardwalk. Three months ago I could not have imagined leaving my deluxe condo in Lakewood, New Jersey and moving into Aunt Madge's Cozy Corner B&B in Ocean Alley. Three months ago I didn't know my husband had been gambling away our assets in New Jersey casinos on evenings I thought he was at Rotary or Lions or one of his other clubs.

My memories of Ocean Alley are mixed. As a kid I especially liked the beach. It wasn't because of the boardwalk, cotton candy, or suntanned lifeguards, but because Aunt Madge was a lot less strict than my parents. She also fell asleep pretty early, so I essentially had the run of the boardwalk after she tucked me in at 8:30.

My parents also trusted me to Aunt Madge the year they were 'working out issues' in their marriage, so I spent my junior year of high school with her in Ocean Alley. I was mad at everyone about being there, including my sister, who was in graduate school and thus able to retain some control over her life. I did a lot of roaming by myself. I had few friends, and didn't like the way half the boys teased me about my name. Those memories are one reason that I didn't keep up with anyone. I visited Aunt Madge many times through the years, but when I came to see her I didn't stroll through town that much.

Right now, I'm especially glad I kept my own name when Robby and I married. Jolie Gentil. It's pronounced Zho-Lee Zhan-tee. The "J" is soft, which distinguishes my name from a southern moniker, such as Bobbi Lee. It's rare than anyone gets it right on the first try. As a child I did not like this one bit. Now I consider it a useful way to recognize telemarketers.

My father is of French descent, as he will tell anyone within shouting distance if he gets the chance. Jolie means pretty in French, and Gentil means nice. Clearly, my parents were not thinking straight when they named me. I attribute the name to the twenty-two hours my mother was in labor, something she does not hesitate to mention.

I shivered. It was cool for October, even for the shore. I had a hooded windbreaker over my loose-knit yellow turtleneck, which I thought went well with my dark brown hair with its blonde highlights, the latter courtesy of whatever brand had been on sale two weeks ago when I decided to leave Robby. I stood by him when he had his probable cause hearing, and was greatly relieved that he later decided to plead guilty to the embezzlement charge. I didn't think I could take sitting behind him during a trial looking like the loyal wife. He was barely willing to talk to me about what he had done. He acted as if this was just a slight financial setback – as if his 401(k) account had gone down a little – rather than a federal crime.

Since Robby hadn't had a chance to steal much from his bank and he had no prior record, his lawyer is encouraging about no jail time if he pleads guilty and makes restitution. I don't figure he'll get that fortunate. He's lucky I'm not suing his ass for forging my name to steal from our retirement account. My father advised me that I would spend a lot in legal fees and the amount I would recover, since Robby is broke, might not be worth the time and trouble. Fortunately, I was able to talk my parents out of coming up from Florida for Robby's hearing. My mother would have made me nervous. And my father might have hit Robby.

I checked out the ocean as I quickened my pace. I know that it won't go anyplace, but it amazes me how different it can look from one day to another. Today the breakers were foamier than yesterday and there was a gray cast to the sky, making the water seem darker. The wind was from the land, so the smell of saltwater and brine did not reach the boardwalk.

I determinedly pushed thoughts of Robby out of my mind as I entered Java Jolt, one of the few boardwalk businesses open year round. The year I lived in Ocean Alley it had been an arcade, and I had spent a lot of time trying to make the highest score in a video game called "Screw the Bunny." Every time you could make the male and female bunnies run into each other there were suddenly six more bunnies. However, if you made two females or males collide, four vanished. I regret to say that I sometimes fed my bunny addiction with quarters that guests left as tips on Aunt Madge's small breakfast tables.

Java Jolt owner Joe Regan nodded at me as I slipped off my jacket and draped it over a chair. Although he only moved to Ocean Alley about five years ago, you'd think he had lived here forever. He has the lean good looks of a strong surfer. All he's missing is the sun-enhanced blonde hair, his being brown with a hint of red.

I'm not into designer coffee, so I helped myself to the regular brew that sits on the counter in large thermoses. Once the tourist season is over, Joe leaves an oversized sugar bowl on the counter and you pay for your coffee on the honor system. I eyed the pastries longingly. I had no reason to eat any; Aunt Madge has a well-stocked breakfast nook. I reached for a chocolate chip muffin, chastising myself even before I took the first bite.

"The usual, I see," came Joe Regan's voice. He has a way of smirking with words that can be annoying.

"I wish you'd keep the chocolate chip ones behind the counter so I'd have to ask for them. Then I wouldn't be so tempted."

"That'd be good for sales," he said, grinning as I turned my back on him and moved toward the two computers that sit against the window. The Cozy Corner B&B does not have Internet service, so I do a lot of my job hunting with Joe's open access computers.

I settled into my email inbox, where I had offers to order products as diverse as Viagra, cappuccino recipes, and Bibles. You could buy all three and stay up all night reading scripture. I started to giggle when the door to the coffee house opened with more vigor than usual. The man who entered looked to be in his late twenties, and I wondered idly if he had been at Ocean Alley High when I was. The voice confirmed it.

"Black, large, extra strong," he said to Joe. No pleasantries here. Michael Riordan had run for senior class president at the end of junior year. He got his butt kicked. To an outsider, this might have seemed hard to believe, given his good looks and dark blue convertible. However, he tended to date girls for a few months and then drop them. Thus, he was not the candidate of the girls I heard talking about him in the bathroom in between classes. This had not been discussed much prior to the election, in case he won.

I had my own reasons not to remember him too fondly. We were in -the same homeroom, and he came up to me the first day of eleventh grade. At lunch that day, he sat with me and introduced me to a number of other classmates who stopped by the table. Nearly tongue-tied in his presence, I rehearsed a couple of lame jokes and tried them at lunch the second day. By the third day, it was as if he didn't know me. Didn't say hello in homeroom and sat with a couple of cheerleaders at lunch.

In the grand scheme of life it was not a big deal. At the time, stinging from what I saw as my parents' rejection and mad at being away from my own friends, it really hurt. I spent a couple of days wondering what he was saying about me to others, and the rest of the school year practicing rude comments in case he talked to me again. No worries there. Now, I can ruefully acknowledge he probably felt as awkward as I did – what do you say to a new kid who doesn't seem able to talk in your presence?

As I returned my gaze to the computer screen Michael turned slightly to his left and I could feel him look at me. I wasn't up for pleasantries any more than he seemed to be, so I didn't acknowledge his vaguely quizzical expression. I'd seen it a number of times in the ten days since I'd moved in with Aunt Madge. The do-I-know-her? look. I ignored him.

My attention went to the Internet classifieds, and I searched job listings for the area. Pickings are slim unless you want to work in a hotel or restaurant or maintain an office computer network. This was also the sixth day in a row I had read the listing for an exciting career in the trucking industry ("short hauls only, no overnights"), but I wasn't up for regular tours of Jersey and Manhattan. Since I didn't know what I was looking for, I didn't spend a lot of time at the site. Despite my hopes, there just isn't going to be something interesting, well paying, and fun with my name on it.

The door banged again as Michael Riordan left, and I turned to meet Joe Regan's glance. He held up a five dollar bill. "Not exactly Mr. Personality, but he tips well." He grinned.

"I guess so. That's what he gave you for a cup of coffee?"

"Yep. I hear he did real well in some job in the oil industry." Joe pocketed the bill.

"Not in Jersey, I take it."

Joe laughed. "Nah. Texas, I think."

"He just back here visiting?"

Joe's expression grew serious. "Mother's dying. Cancer."

"That's too bad." Not sure what else to say, I turned back to the computer. I hadn't seen the guy for ten years and couldn't recall meeting his mother, though I thought she was a friend of Aunt Madge's.

I went back to the job listings, expanding my search to towns as far as twenty miles north or south of Ocean Alley. A sidebar offered advice for job seekers. "Define your best skills and look for jobs that use them." That qualifies as remedial job seekers' advice. I define my best skill as persistence, although others tend to label this as my stubborn streak.

After a few minutes, I logged off, refilled my coffee cup and started a slower walk back to Aunt Madge's. She lives three blocks back from the ocean, which she says gives her the illusion of being safe from hurricane damage. Ocean Alley is almost two miles long but only twelve blocks deep, with each street that is parallel to the ocean named for a letter of the alphabet. I've heard that when Ocean Alley incorporated there was a move to change the names of all the streets and arrange them alphabetically, but the City Council could never agree on the names so they just used letters. However, the alphabet starts with 'B.' The Great Atlantic Hurricane removed the old boardwalk and most of 'A' Street in 1944. It's the main reason Aunt Madge won't live any closer to the ocean.

At the corner of C and Main I entered the Purple Cow, Ocean Alley's small office supply store. If I was going to get serious about looking for a job, I probably needed some bond paper for my resume. Of course, I had to figure out what 'career objective' to write on the paper. Near the door was a white board on which someone had written, "It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do." Elbert Hubbard.

I realized the sales clerk was staring at me. What, did I dribble coffee again?

"Didn't you go to high school here?" she asked.

"Yes, I did, but just for one year." Her face was familiar. I didn't have any negative memories, so I held out my hand. "Jolie Gentil. I was here for 11th grade, but that was more than ten years ago."

She had wide eyes, which gave her the appearance of perpetual amazement, accented by large, octagonal glasses. Thin blonde hair fell to nearly the middle of her back, and was pulled back from her face in a large clip. She was almost four inches taller than my 5'2" and looked as if she enjoyed the fashion of the 1970s. More important, her smile was friendly.

"I'm Ramona Argrow. We had geometry together. You did a lot better than I did." Her voice had a kind of dreamy quality, so I was surprised that her handshake was firm. "Where did you go?"

Her name sounded familiar, as if it should mean more than just geometry class. "Go..?"

"Why didn't you come back to senior year?"

It was such a simple question I had not followed her logic. "My parents lived in Lakewood. I was just down here for a year with my aunt while they sorted some stuff out." In 11th grade, I had said they were on a long trip through Europe.

"That's right; your aunt has the B&B. I like her. She buys her nameplates here."

Aunt Madge makes small little signs that she inserts in a four by six picture frame affixed to the wall outside each of the guest rooms. On it she puts the name of the guests, ostensibly so they don't wander into the wrong rooms. One couple was quite put out by it, said they didn't care to advertise their whereabouts to the world. In retrospect, I suppose they were lovers out for a jaunt. Aunt Madge still makes the signs, but now she asks each guest if they want to place one by their door.

"She's terrific," I agreed. Now what? All I could remember about Ramona was that she always had a faraway look and probably took art class, since she often carried a portfolio with her. I had tripped over it once in geometry class. "You, uh, still paint?"

She shook her head. "Just pen and ink now. In the summer, I do caricatures of people on the boardwalk. Pays better than here."

"So, you never left?" As soon as I asked I regretted it. Probably sounded as if I was implying that she should have.

"Nope. I like the beach." She gestured in the direction of the ocean. "I walk two miles on the sand every day."

No wonder she was so slim. I automatically sucked in my small tummy. I always tell myself that tomorrow I'll eat less and lose five pounds within a month. Never happens. "Could you, uh, help me find some bond paper?"

"Sure." She moved toward the back of the store and I followed. "We have regular white and ivory bond, and a couple pastel colors. The colors are more expensive."

I could feel her eyes on me as I looked at the paper. I hadn't planned on an audience, and it made me nervous. In general, I don't give a tinker's damn what anyone thinks or if they stare at me for an hour, but after the last couple months, I feel as if everyone is looking at me as the wife of Robby Marcos, embezzler. I grabbed a small box of the ivory bond. "This'll do."

Ramona took it and walked toward the front. "Most people use this for resumes."

I felt like saying I wasn't 'most people,' but in this case, I was. "Yeah. I'm thinking of recareering. Decided to have my mid-life crisis early."

She smiled as she scanned the paper. "I'm not that far along yet." As she reached for a small bag, her eyes met mine. "I'm sorry about your husband's stuff."

"Oh. Thanks." I didn't realize she would know, and I didn't like it. I could feel my face burning and I dropped my purse as I reached in for money.

"I guess I shouldn't have said anything," she said. "I just..."

"It's okay. I appreciate the sentiment." I handed her my money. "Um, do you mind if I ask how you heard?" I knew it wouldn't be Aunt Madge.

"Local busybody, Elmira Washington." She put my resume paper in the small shopping bag. "Nobody pays much attention to her, and she doesn't talk much to people our age. I have to listen to her when she comes in here." She handed me the bag. "What was your first career?"

"I've been in real estate."

"Ooh. You can make a lot of money with that here. My uncle does it."

That's why her name sounded familiar. Lester Argrow's photo was plastered on a billboard on the south side of town. "Sure. I remember his sign now. Where's his office?"

"It's a small one, above First Bank. He usually meets his clients in their houses or at the Burger King. It's easy for his clients to park at Burger King."

Sounded as if Lester Argrow had made some conscious decisions about not becoming a major force in the real estate industry. All I said was, "I know where First Bank is."

"If you want some advice about getting into real estate here, just tell him you talked to me." She smiled again as she handed me my bag. "There's a group planning the ten-year reunion. I think they're going to do it Thanksgiving weekend, because a lot of people will be home. Even if you didn't graduate with us you could come."

I thanked her, made no promises about the reunion, and stepped back into the brisk October air. I wasn't up for seeing a lot of people until I had my wits more about me. Aunt Madge says I'm still in the "reeling stage," though I think I'm close to moving to what I have decided to call a "slow spin." I am definitely feeling better about life now that I've put most of my stuff in a storage locker and left the town where people greeted me with either words of encouragement or a sad smile.

AUNT MADGE LIVES ON the corner of D Street and Seashore. Her three-story Victorian has three turrets and a wrap-around porch that is populated with an array of comfortable chairs and a porch swing. She has the house repainted every three years, white with blue trim. She repairs porch boards herself when they start to rot, though she no longer saws her own lumber. When I was little, my sister Renée would read picture books to me as we sat on the porch swing. She took her role as big sister very seriously, and unless she was trying to make me do something I didn't want to, I mostly appreciated her attention.

Aunt Madge is technically my mother's aunt. Madge's sister, Alva, was my late grandmother. They grew up in Ocean Ally in what old-timers at the diner just off the beach call the 'glory days' of World War II. Aunt Madge is a woman who knows her own mind. She does not often feel a need to tell it to you, but when you look at her it's clear she is reflecting on what's going on around her.

Where my grandmother left her hair at its natural white, Aunt Madge says white hair makes her face look like it belongs in a casket, and she tries different colors. Today it is a very light red; or was when I left the house, anyway. She tried deep auburn but she said it made her look like an old lady trying to pass. As a younger one, I suppose; I didn't ask. She doesn't use permanent color, so after twenty or thirty washes she's close to white and can try another look. My father still laughs about the time she tried deep black, leaving a dashing white streak straight back from her widow's peak. He told her she looked like a skunk and she washed her hair thirty times in one night to get it out.

I was still smiling about her 'skunk hair' as I climbed the front steps. Even on the porch I could smell Aunt Madge's cheddar cheese bread. She bakes it and a loaf of wheat every day, and puts them out with coffee, tea and ice water at 4 p.m. She is the only one of the four B&Bs in Ocean Alley that provides an afternoon snack. She says she does it so she can charge more and keep the riff-raff out, but I think she does it so she has a reason to talk to her guests. She is a lot more outgoing than I, though you never hear a word of gossip pass her lips. I admire her for this, but it has always made it tough to get any town news out of her.

I could hear her two dogs barking from the small back yard, which is unusual; she usually has them in the back of the house with her. Behind the large guest breakfast room is her enclave—her huge kitchen with an old oak table, which adjoins what home magazines today call a great room (and she calls her sitting room), her bedroom, and a large bath. At the back of the great room is a set of back stairs, originally the servants' stairs according to Aunt Madge, who has none. I put my package at the foot of the main set of stairs so I would remember to take it to my room, and made my way to her.

Aunt Madge was taking the breakfast dishes out of the dishwasher. Like my grandmother and mother, she is tall and thin and stands and sits very straight. If you don't know her, you expect a rigid person who purses her lips a lot. As I smiled in her direction, she turned to me and puckered her lips for an across-the-room air kiss and motioned to a chair at the kitchen table. "Enjoy your coffee?"

"Yep." I tossed the empty paper cup in her trash.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"Not unless I want to drive short-haul trucks or tend bar." I settled in a chair at her large oak table. "Or computers. Every office needs computer geeks."

I caught sight of the larger of Aunt Madge's two shelter-adopted mutts, Mister Rogers, who had his nose pressed against the pane of the sliding glass door. He wagged his part-retriever tail as he looked at me. "Want me to let the guys in?"

"Heavens no." She turned to glare at him. "The dogs have been in the prunes again. They have to stay outside until they do their business." She checked the oven knob to be sure it was off.

She has to be making this up. "Prunes. Your dogs eat prunes?"

"Whenever they can. I store them in plastic bowls now, but if I leave the pantry open, they go in after them and chew through the bowls." She shut the oven door. "I may have to stop making my prune danishes."

"That would be a loss."

She glanced at me. "Too healthy for you?"

Mister Rogers suddenly dove off the porch and squatted in the small garden. His co-conspirator, Miss Piggy—also part Retriever but with even more mixed parentage—looked down at him and then peered in at me, wagging her tail. "I think you may be able to let Mister Rogers in."

"Oh no, he'll be busy for a while."

Since she was so serious I tried not to laugh. "I ran into someone who knows you. Ramona Argrow, at the office supply store."

She nodded. "Nice girl. In your class, as I recall." She sat at the table with me, bringing with her a stack of cloth napkins that she started to fold into triangles. I grabbed a few and began folding. She studied me for a moment and asked, "So, if no luck on the coffee shop computer do you want me to ask around town?"

"Nope. I'm seriously thinking I should go into bartending." She looked at me with interest, and then realized I was kidding. We watched Miss Piggy run down the steps and Mister Rogers took her place at the door.

"You don't want to try real estate here? Your license would still be good, wouldn't it?" she asked.

"Yeah, but there's not much of a commercial market, and I don't see me schlepping families with kids from beach house to beach house."

"You did appraisal work first, what about that?" She finished her stack and reached over to turn the knob on the electric kettle. She drinks about ten cups of hot tea every day. When it's really cold she adds amaretto to her evening cups.

"Maybe, but you have to know the local market and land values really well. I'm not sure Stenner and Stenner would be interested in me now. Old man Stenner's retired anyway, hasn't he?"

"Yes, but his daughter took over. You may remember her; she was a class ahead of you."

Jennifer Stenner. Of course. One of the cheerleaders Michael Riordan had dumped, now that I thought of it. "My class, if she's who I think. Tall, light brown hair, lots of white teeth?" Jennifer was something of a snob, to boot.

"That's her. Of course, she has competition now, you know."

This interested me. "Who?"

"Older man, Harry Steele." She poured tea into a mug. "His grandparents lived here and he spent summers here for probably twenty years. He retired from someplace near Boston and came here and opened Steele Appraisers."

She was concentrating very hard on draining excess water from her teabag. "His wife died after he retired, and he wanted something to do besides play golf and visit grandchildren. He bought the house his grandparents owned at G and Ferry and turned the first floor into an office."

"Sounds like your kind of guy."

She smiled. "He goes to First Presbyterian, too. All the women of a certain age," her eyes showed her amusement, "invite him to Sunday dinner."

"Have you?" I tried to keep my tone casual. As far as I knew, she had not been interested in anyone since Uncle Gordon died.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to chase the boys?"

I laughed. "I don't remember that. She was a lot younger than you. I think it was OK to at least call them when she was dating." I passed her my small pile of napkins. She would probably refold them, but at least I hadn't just watched her work.

She sipped her tea. "You could call Harry. Use my name."

That was the second time today someone had told me that. A good sign, perhaps. I glanced at the dogs, now sitting calmly on the porch. "They may have worn themselves out."

She turned and looked at them. "You can let them in now, but watch where you step in the garden until I go out there with the hose."

I decided to take this sage advice, and to think about calling Harry.

CHAPTER TWO

I UNLOCKED THE DOOR to my room (Aunt Madge insists I lock it, despite her belief that she keeps the riff-raff out) and Jazz greeted me. I've had the tiny black cat for three years, and she was often my sole comfort the last couple of months I lived in Lakewood. Not that others didn't try, but they needed me to tell them that I was OK, and Jazz did not require any such lies. She just assumed I was fine and issued her usual commands for food, scratches, and trips outside.

Her prior owner had declawed her, something I did not believe in, but it meant she was no danger to Aunt Madge's furniture. When she wanted to go out she stood on her hind legs and pawed relentlessly on the door. At the moment, she was in the mood for a scratch.

I obliged, and sat in the small rocker thinking about my next move. If I kept to my current routine of chatting with Aunt Madge, getting coffee and muffins at Joe's place, and scratching Jazz I would be broke and five pounds heavier in short order. It was time to get back to my usual spontaneous behavior. I stood and Jazz jumped to the floor, meowing to let me know she was put out at being dumped so quickly.

I was going to go see Harry Steele. The only question was, should I tell Aunt Madge before or after? Manners, Jolie. I mentioned it to her on the way out.

I drove along G Street to Harry's, slowing every now and then to see how a house I'd been in during high school had changed. My good friend Margo had lived in a small blue bungalow, and I thought I'd missed it until I realized it now had a second story and yellow vinyl siding. Ocean Alley, town of transitions.

Harry Steele's place also looked as if it had been built in the Victorian period, but it had not been kept up as well as Aunt Madge's. Paint was in early stages of peeling and a gutter dangled from the right side.

The house looked as if he was working on it. The front porch, with its rails and intricate lattice work, had some new boards and was partially painted. It looked as if he was going to go with what I think of as a gingerbread house design. The rails themselves were a dark green, the latticework beneath them was yellow, and trim on the windows on the porch was a lighter green. I never understand why people make painting so complicated.

I rang the old-fashioned bell and heard a deep bong inside the house. Hurried footsteps brought an older man to the door and he greeted me as if he'd known me for years. "Madge Richards' niece. What an honor. Do come in."

"I take it Aunt Madge called." I should have figured.

He laughed, showing a full set of teeth. He was quite a bit taller than I, but then, who isn't? He had a red face and hair that was auburn mixed with white. Though you wouldn't call him exceptionally fit, he was in pretty good shape for a man I judged to be in his mid-sixties, not much younger than Aunt Madge. Despite his Anglo-Saxon name I pegged him for someone with a lot of Irish blood, which I also have, through my mother's side of the family.

I murmured something polite and followed him into the room on the right. It had once been the formal drawing room, but had at some point been divided in two. He had taken out the partitions that had split the room and replaced the wood in the floor that had been damaged by the two-by-fours that had held the partition wallboard.

There was an ornate fireplace at one end, a huge pie safe in a corner, and a large, old-fashioned desk. Under the windows near his desk was a table similar to Aunt Madge's kitchen table, and on it were piled stacks of file folders. The only truly modern thing in the room (besides his computer) was his desk chair, which looked very ergonomically correct.

I glanced at him, and realized he was watching me survey the room. "I was just admiring your progress at renovation," I felt myself flush under his gaze.

"It's a labor of love, I tell you. Madge has been advising me on where to get wood that comes close to matching the old trim in this room. She's quite a lady. Did she tell you that my grandparents owned the house for thirty years?" He spoke fast, almost as if he was nervous.

"She said you enjoyed your time here." I tried to imagine a five-year old Harry in a wet swimsuit, tracking sand into this house.

"Boy did I. My kids think I'm nuts to be renovating it, but if you don't do something crazy in your life, why bother living?" He gestured that I should sit in one of two chairs in front of his desk, and he sat next to me.

I liked this man immediately. "My mother thinks I'm crazy to come here to live, so we're even."

He smiled. "And you might be interested in doing some appraisal work?"

"I'm thinking about it. I've kept my appraisal credentials in order, but I haven't used them in more than six years. I've been doing commercial real estate work in Lakewood." I hesitated. "Did Aunt Madge tell you why I came back?"

"Nope, but do you know Elmira Washington? She did." His eyes looked kind.

"I keep trying to remember that compulsive gambling is an illness. He's in some kind of treatment program, and he goes to a lot of meetings." I didn't add that I figured with the extent Robby avoided talking about his compulsion he'd be stuck for five years on step one, admitting he had a problem.

"Good attitude." He grew businesslike. "I don't have a lot of business yet. Truth be told, I spend more than half my time renovating this place." He waved his hands toward the hallway. "I'm doing a lot myself. The rest of the house doesn't look nearly as good as this room." As his eyes met mine he continued, "I'd be willing to talk to you about some part-time work, pay you on a case-by-case basis. I could use a colleague who has a better feel for the town's neighborhoods than I do at this point."

I almost told him I hadn't spent much time here the last few years, and then remembered I was supposed to be selling myself, not selling myself short. "I've never thought of Ocean Alley as having neighborhoods, but I guess it does." My humor returned. "Do you appraise much near the bowling alley?" "Best Bowl" is on the far southern end of town, and the area around it has houses in various stages of repair. A few years ago, someone painted theirs a garish chartreuse and since then nearly every repainting job has entailed an equally prominent color.

"More people than you think want those popsicle houses. That neighborhood has the only real bargains left in Ocean Alley."

That stopped my jokes. I really was out of date. "I figure you'll want me to spend some time going over your recent appraisals, and I'd be happy to do that on my own time." I decided I wanted to work with this man, and needed to demonstrate some level of personal commitment.

"Sure. There are only seven though. I'm just starting to get serious about the business."

"Seven? That's serious?" I winced at my own lack of tact.

"I do need to do some marketing. You can help," he said, easily.

We talked about his family for a few minutes and I side-stepped most discussion of mine, except for Aunt Madge. When we shook hands as I was leaving, he said he would have some cards printed for me, and that I could feel free to pass them out at local real estate offices.

INSTEAD OF DRIVING straight back to Aunt Madge's I drove the few blocks to the boardwalk and walked along it. I was restless and anxious, two emotions I don't usually have, and wanted to walk. More than half of the boardwalk stores had closed for the season, and the few that were open had huge sale signs as they tried to get a little more business before shuttering for the winter, which they would do after Thanksgiving weekend. It had not been a good tourist season for Ocean Alley. It was cool and rainy on Memorial Day weekend, and that set the tone for a cooler-than-normal summer. Threats of the remnants of a hurricane, which had not materialized, kept Labor Day traffic light, too.

I turned toward the ocean and took a deep breath. The wind had shifted, so there was a hint of salt in the cool sea breeze. As I started walking again, I saw Michael Riordan about fifty yards ahead, sitting on a bench facing the ocean. He certainly seemed to have a lot of free time. I should talk. I debated going up to him, and decided that if I was going to let people know what I was doing in Ocean Alley I was going to have to talk to more than Aunt Madge, Jazz, and the dogs. Maybe he wasn't as big a jerk as he was in eleventh grade.

I paused near his bench. "You're Michael Riordan, aren't you?"

He jumped slightly in surprise. He must have been concentrating very hard on something. "Yes." He stood. "I saw you this morning. You look familiar." He had a very direct way of looking you in the eye as he held out his hand, which I took.

"We didn't know each other well. I spent a lot of summer time here, and went to high school at OAH for 11th grade. Jolie Gentil." He was quite tall, maybe 6'2" and there were a few flecks of gray in his dark brown hair. Oil business in Texas must be pretty stressful.

He nodded in recognition and started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. He gestured to the bench. "Would you like to join me in the view?" he asked.

His attitude was one of perfunctory politeness, but I sat anyway. "I've decided to move here. I'm staying with my Aunt Madge. She owns Cozy Corner B&B."

His look was friendlier now. "Sure. She goes to First Presbyterian, same as my mother. Every now and then I see her when I visit Mom."

Church is not part of my life's routine, has not been since I first went to college. I had forgotten that so many of the permanent residents here described one another in terms of the church they, or someone else, attended. "In fact," he continued, "she taught Sunday School for a few years. She threw me out of her class a couple of times."

"You must have really been a bad boy. I didn't know she ever tossed anyone out."

He grinned. "My parents would say I was so bright I was bored, but I just hated to sit in a classroom on a Sunday. Nothing personal to your aunt. Why'd you move back here?"

The abruptness jolted me, but it was a logical question. "Left my husband, wanted a change of pace."

His expression became somber. "There's a lot of that going around." He resumed looking at the ocean.

"I'm sorry. I heard your mom is sick, too. Tough times."

"Yeah. It's all enough to make you drink."

I must have stiffened, because he half turned his head to look at me, and his look softened somewhat. "Sorry," he said. "I guess I'm a little self-absorbed at the moment."

A little? I figured his mother had the bigger problem. I struggled for something to say. "I'm sure your mother's glad you're here."

At that he gave a half-smile. "She loves it when I visit. Older parents of only children tend to be that way." His expression darkened again. "I just wish I could do something that would really help her. She helps everybody else."

"Being here is the best thing you can do," I volunteered.

"Yeah, right." His sarcasm hung heavy, and I shifted my weight, ready to stand up.

He looked at me again, and crumpled the coffee cup that had been sitting by his feet. "I can be an asshole, sometimes."

"There's a lot of that going around, too."

He gave a genuine smile and held out his hand. "Does the high school have your address? The ten-year reunion is at Thanksgiving."

"Ramona told me, I might..."

"Ramona," he interrupted me. "Talk about someone stuck in a time warp."

Just when I had started to cut him a little slack. I returned his handshake and was surprised that he held my hand a couple seconds more than a customary shake requires. "You look really good," he said, looking at me very directly.

"Thanks," I withdrew my hand as I blushed.

He grinned and turned to walk north on the boardwalk, tossing me a look over his shoulder. "I'll give you a call at Madge's."

His friendliness surprised me, and I hadn't liked his comment about Ramona. You could use a friend. I told myself he was going through a bad time because his mother was dying. Maybe he was less critical of people when he wasn't dealing with something that tough. I decided it would be okay if he called, though I certainly wasn't looking to date anyone. The ink was barely dry on my separation agreement.

Feeling directionless, I walked into one of the few tourist traps still open and stood looking at the conch shells lining a display. If anyone ever finds one of those on the beach in Ocean Alley, I'll eat cat food. As I glanced up, a man in what could only be described as a very loud golf outfit—lime green shirt and pants with a small green plaid—looked away. I was sure he had been staring at me, then remembered the time a woman on the New York subway had hit me with her umbrella because she was certain I'd been eyeballing her, when all I was doing was studying the subway map above her head.

I walked up and down aisles of useless knick knacks, ashtrays, and magnets. I soon tired of wondering how small a person's fingers had to be to make miniature crabs out of shells and left the store. After standing idly for a second I turned, to walk north on the boardwalk, and almost walked into the loud golfer. He jumped almost as high as I did.

"Sorry," he said.

"No problem," I felt my heart pound.

As I started to pass him, he spoke again. "Umm, are you Jolie Gentil?"

Since he knew how to pronounce may name correctly, I must have known him, but he looked a good 10 years older than I am. "Yes. Are you my personal bodyguard?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I'm Joe Pedone. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"No thanks." I didn't mean to be unfriendly, but the more I looked at him, black patent shoes and well-coiffed hair, I didn't think I recognized him. "Do I know you?"

"No, but I know your husband." He studied me as he backed up half a step, apparently trying to ascertain if knowing Robby would make me slug him.

"I've learned there were a lot of people who knew him who didn't know me. And it'll be former husband as soon as my lawyer makes it legal."

He cleared his throat. "I'm really sorry about what you've been through." He gestured to a bench. "Could we sit for a minute? My bunion's killing me."

I hesitated, then figured the boardwalk was as good a place as any to talk to a stranger. "Sure." We walked to a bench, one facing the boardwalk rather than the ocean.

He cleared his throat again. "Sinus," he said.

The man is a walking calamity.

"The thing is," he continued, "your husband owed some money to some people."

"I'd be top on that list, I think. He raided all our joint assets, even my personal retirement account. And his bank is more than a little irritated at him."

"Yeah, I read about that." He cleared his throat again. I was tempted to tell him just to have a good spit in the sand, but I didn't. "See, my boss lent him some money, to kind of help him out."

"Your boss was a fool."

"Well, he don't like to be put in that position, you see." He looked sideways toward the ocean, and then back to me. "He wants me to talk to you about paying some of that debt."

My laugh was so harsh and loud that two seagulls squawked and flew off the bench next to us. "I don't think so."

"You see..." he began.

"My lawyer said that since I saw no benefit from the money I'm not responsible for any gambling debts Robby incurred on his own, or for money he embezzled. The law firm published some notice to that effect in the newspaper."

"Yeah," he said, "we saw it."

"Who's we?" I was growing more than a little tired of these illusions to a boss I figured might not exist. This guy is trying to con me.

He slipped off one of the narrow black patent loafers and began massaging his foot. "You could say that my boss lends money to people down on their luck, especially when they frequent certain casinos in Atlantic City."

Suddenly, I felt chilled all over. Am I in some sort of mob movie or is this real? "I don't like casinos. Too much cigarette smoke." I stood. "I need to go now."

"Please," he shoved his foot back in his shoe and stood. Despite his seeming friendliness, I felt nervous. "The next request, it might not be so nice."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I'm really not. It's just how things are."

I turned and walked away quickly, without looking back.
CHAPTER THREE

I SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS trying to put Joe Pedone out of my mind. This was easier than it would have been a few days ago because I was driving around Ocean Alley looking at the houses Harry Steele had appraised and the prior sales that he listed as comparably priced to each one he was working on. I had thought of Ocean Alley as a place to relax rather than in terms of its real estate values. I was going to have to spend a lot of time looking at past sales.

I spent several hours researching a bunch of other prior sales in the Miller County Court House. It was built in the early 1920s, the previous one having been severely damaged by fire. Uncle Gordon's mother was the county elections clerk at the time. She heard the fire engines and ran to the building in her bath robe to try to save records. When the firefighters refused to let her in, she snuck in the back and closed several of the heavy interior oak doors, thus keeping the fire from spreading into several offices. Every time someone told that story when I was young my mother would add that while her actions had saved a lot of valuable records, no one should ever run into a burning building. This was not a lesson she really needed to reiterate, but I suppose she felt obliged to stress this.

This court house was built on the site of its predecessor, and includes several of the old oak doors and some other fixtures that survived the prior court house's fire. It sits in the center of town. As I entered the building, I detected what I always think of as the smell of history. It's a mix of musty books, worn hardwood floors, and the stacks of files that sit atop old filing cabinets.

As I looked through the records for the homes Harry had appraised, I said a silent thank you to Uncle Gordon's mother. While none of the seven houses were built in the early 20th century, many other houses in town are that old. If Uncle Gordon's mother hadn't shut those old oak doors, it would have made title searches tough for those properties. Unclear titles can reduce prices and thus agent commissions. You idiot, you aren't selling real estate now.

I concentrated harder on what I was doing. Harry Steele had supported the prices of six of the seven homes, so I paid special attention to that seventh sale. He had believed the sales contract was for more than the house was worth, and he seemed to have the comps to prove it. There were a couple of really nasty faxes in his file from the real estate agent, none other than Lester Argrow. "If you'd spent more than 20 minutes in this town you'd know the Marino's house is worth a helluva lot more than $228,000."

When Harry stuck to his guns, with a much more polite reply, Argrow had fired back, "Next time I'll get a professional appraiser. You don't know your ass from your elbow." Perhaps that is what passes for professional real estate talk in Ocean Alley.

In the end, the sellers had come down $15,000 in price, since no bank would write a mortgage for more than a house is worth. This reduced Lester's commission. Probably there had been no other offers and the sellers realized Harry was right. They appeared to have a better grasp of anatomy than Lester did.

Now that I was working, even though I had not been paid yet, I felt better about life. I had a reason to get up in the morning other than to feed Jazz or respond to my own hunger pangs. I even considered an evening run along the boardwalk. It would be 50 degrees at about seven o'clock, and since Jersey was still on daylight savings time, it would not be pitch dark.

I try not to be unreasonably concerned about safety stuff, but I'm not stupid, despite not having wondered about the amount of time my husband said he spent with clubs or clients when he was actually in casinos.

I STOPPED BACK AT Harry's to drop off the three files I'd reviewed that day. It had taken me the better part of the day because of the time I'd spent at the courthouse to look at some more sales that were similar to the house Harry had found was overvalued. I wanted to form my own opinion, and it was that Harry was right to stick to his guns.

Harry was applying extra coats of paint to the new porch boards, apparently trying to get them to look the same color as the repainted older boards. Would never happen. "Hey, you still at it?"

Duh.

"Getting ready to close the old paint can for the day," he said. "What did you think?" He nodded toward the files I was carrying.

He must have figured I would really dig into the Marino's house sale. "I think Lester Argrow won't bring you any more business, but if you let people know that, you might get some from other agents."

He laughed. "I won't call him again, that's for sure. You can, if you want, of course," he said, genially.

Since I wasn't up for turning away any business, I thought I might use Ramona's name to get my foot in the door with him. What did I care if he called me names?

He stuck his paint brush in an old can that held turpentine or some other foul-smelling stuff. "I got a call today about another house. Thought you might want to tackle it."

Who would have thought I'd get an adrenalin rush from the chance to appraise a house, I who had negotiated top-dollar deals in Lakewood. "You ready to trust me?"

"More than willing to let you take the first stab at it. We'll go over your results together, of course."

"Of course." That was fine with me. I figured him for a gentle tutor rather than a 'see-what-you-did-wrong' kind of guy. "I can get started tomorrow."

"You know Mrs. Riordan?" he asked.

The surprise must have shown in my face, because he gave me a quizzical look. "I don't think I know her, but I know her son Michael a little. I talked to him a couple of days ago on the boardwalk."

"Small world," he said. "I asked him how he got my name, and all he said was that he didn't want to go to Stenner's."

I grunted, with half a laugh. "He dumped Jennifer Stenner in high school. He probably doesn't want to deal with her."

"You are going to be useful to have around."

"I don't really know either of them well, just girls' bathroom talk from 11th grade."

"Either way we, I should say you, have a 9 a.m. appointment tomorrow." He placed all his painting paraphernalia in a small plastic tub and started for the door. "You won't need a key. Someone will be there." This simplified things. I wouldn't have to fuss with picking up the key at the realtor's office and returning it after I did the appraisal.

I stepped in front of him to open the door for him. "You sure it's OK if I go alone?"

"How else will I find out if you're worth what I plan to pay you?" He winked.

That night, Jazz drank from the glass of ice water I fixed for myself after my run, and I didn't even care.

THE NEXT MORNING, I got up at 6 a.m., full of energy. I set the table in the breakfast room for Aunt Madge's two sets of guests and turned on the coffee pot, which she always leaves ready the night before.

I love Aunt Madge's kitchen, probably because I helped her redesign it. A few years ago I received a large commission for convincing a developer that the site of the old bowling alley in Lakewood would be perfect for luxury condos, and he bought the lot for half a million dollars. My half of the 6 percent commission might not seem large by New York City standards, but it was the most money I'd ever made for about 40 hours of work.

Robby and I toyed, yet again, with buying a house, but we didn't want to be bothered with shoveling sidewalks and trying to decide whether to use pesticides on a lawn. Since he probably would have done a second mortgage on a house behind my back, this turns out to have been a particularly good decision.

In any event, I told Aunt Madge I was going to buy her a really big present, so she might as well pick it out, and she surprised me by saying her kitchen counter tops were getting a bit old. This was an understatement. Even oak will show its age after several thousand loaves of bread are punched into shape on its surface.

Aunt Madge did not have in mind anything as elaborate as I did, and we had to do it in the winter, so she wouldn't have to turn away many guests. I convinced her that her cabinets were falling apart, which was nearly true, and even talked her into a garbage disposal, dishwasher, and a stackable washer and dryer, so she would not have to go down to the cellar so often. She drew the line at a double sink, which she deemed impractical in case you had a really big turkey to stuff.

The pecan cabinetry with butcher-block countertops looks new but blends well with her oak table and antique ice box. Aunt Madge is quite pleased with the lazy susan in the corner cabinet, and I'm partial to the trash compactor, since it means less garbage for me to take out.

I was alone in the kitchen, reading the paper, when Aunt Madge came in about 6:30. Breakfast is not until 7, unless someone asks for an early one. "Aren't you the early bird," she offered, as she glanced at the coffee pot, which had finished brewing.

"I have paying work today. Who would have thought I'd get so excited about that?"

She smiled, "Good for the soul." She bustled about, taking the batter she mixed the night before from the fridge and placing it in paper-lined muffin tins. I had known better than to do this for her. She has precise ideas about how much dough makes the perfect muffin.

"I meant to ask you last night if you knew how sick Mrs. Riordan is. I'm wondering what to expect when I get there."

She didn't answer right away, and I looked up. She was holding a spoon with dough poised over the muffin tin. "Aunt Madge?"

"Oh, yes. Ruth's not too bad, yet. I mean," she took a little dough out of one muffin cup and put it in another, "it's terminal, unfortunately, but she was in church Sunday looking quite good. She's taking chemo, but she's on a break."

"Why's she taking chemo if she's not going to make it?"

Aunt Madge shot me what novelists call a withering look. "It could buy her considerable time, months or a year, not weeks."

"Of course," I was appropriately chastened. I always wondered what I would do in that situation. Would I be willing to feel horrible for weeks at a time so that I would live longer, even if I knew I'd eventually kick the bucket? I guess it would depend on what was going on in my life. Mrs. Riordan must like her life at the moment, or at least she didn't want to let go.

"You know her pretty well, right?"

"Yes. We've known each other through church, of course. Since she and her husband divorced we've done quite a bit together outside of church." She smiled at me. "We've even gone to bingo at St. Anthony's a couple of times."

"Did you win?"

"Good heavens, no. It's just money down the drain, but it's kind of fun." She smiled at me but her smile faded as my face must have shown I knew all about money going down the drain.

To change the subject, I took her electric kettle to the sink and dumped out yesterday's leftover water and began to fill it. "Is this what you use to fill the hot water thermos in the dining room?"

She gestured toward the stove. "You can fill the tea kettle on the stove for that. And don't ask me why I do it that way, I don't know." Miss Piggy ambled into the room from Aunt Madge's bedroom and sniffed. "Not for you, dear," Aunt Madge addressed her. "Would you let her out, Jolie? Mister Rogers is already out there somewhere."

I opened the door and Miss Piggy went out, still sniffing. In a moment she had spotted Mister Rogers and leaped down the steps. From the amount of nose-to-brick sniffing going on out there, I figured the rabbits had been out the night before. "I saw Mrs. Riordan's son on the boardwalk and talked to him for a minute a couple days ago. He seemed a bit...distracted."

Aunt Madge glanced at me as she put the muffins in the oven. "I hear he has a lot on his mind."

"OK, it's not gossip unless you embellish it," I wanted to know more.

"Well, in addition to Ruth dying, his wife left him a few weeks ago, and I hear he's had a falling-out with some business partners."

"Wow." That is a lot.

"I suppose the up-side of it is that he's able to spend some time with his mother. Ruth was forty when she got pregnant; she was more than a bit surprised, I can tell you. Anyway, since Ruth and Larry divorced several years ago, she's really wanted to spend more time with Michael."

She set the timer for twenty minutes and continued. "Ruth also has a lot to talk to him about, and I think she wanted to do it in person."

"About her illness?" I asked.

"About the house." She took jars of jam from the fridge and began spooning some into small bowls. "Ruth isn't going to sell the house, she..."

"Why am I doing an appraisal then?" Aunt Madge's look was enough to silence me and I made a zipping gesture across my lips.

"She wants to give it to the local Arts Council to use for shows for area artists and for poetry readings and such. They can use the downstairs for that and have their offices upstairs. They're crammed into a tiny space in the library. The appraisal is largely to establish the worth of the property for tax purposes."

I gave a low whistle. "That's one heck of a gift."

She nodded. "Since Michael is her only heir, she wanted to be sure he didn't mind. She's concerned that," she paused as she put the jam and some butter on a tray, "he may somehow feel cheated."

"Maybe all that's why he seems a bit...moody."

She waved a hand as she sat down next to me to wait for the muffins to cook. "He's always been like that. Although, his mother says he's mellowed a bit the last year." She seemed about to say more, and stopped.

I shrugged. "I didn't really know him at school." I started to say he didn't want to know me, but instead I stood and kissed her cheek. "I'm going upstairs to shower. I didn't want to wake anyone earlier."

I took more time than usual getting ready. Scrubbed and dressed in a light wool, tan pantsuit with a hunter green turtleneck and earrings that matched the suit, I appeared in the kitchen for Aunt Madge's compliments. With her encouraging words in my ears, I walked out to my Toyota to drive to the Riordan's. Why does my car look lopsided?

"Damn." The right front tire was flat. I must have driven over a nail. It just reinforced my current opinion that anything with tires or testicles was trouble. I looked closer. The back one was equally deflated. For some reason, Joe Pedone's face flashed to my mind. I glanced at my watch. Nothing to do but tell Aunt Madge I had a flat (and hope she didn't notice two) and borrow her car. It was too far to walk. Double damn.

I made my way to the Riordans' large home on the north edge of town, the neighborhood of two and three-story homes built from the 1890s to early 1940s. Many of the newer ones were brick or had brick facades, not too common at the beach. The older homes are Victorian and much larger than Aunt Madge's. Several have guest cottages behind the main house. It is easily the priciest area of Ocean Alley.

I had tried to look up prior sales for the Riordan's home, but it was pointless. Her parents had bought it more than fifty years ago, and they left it to her. At least the appraisal when Ruth's parents bought it (for all of $21,500) listed the size of all the rooms and showed the appraiser's hand-drawn layout. Jennifer Stenner's grandfather had had a steady hand. "Third-generation family business," as their ads said.

I was about to push the doorbell to the Riordans' when Michael opened the door and said, "Don't ring the bell."

I almost stumbled into the house. "It's just such a handy way to let people know you want to come in." Probably not the reaction Harry Steele would have. I needed to remember I was working for him.

"Sorry," he said, grudgingly. "My mother's still asleep. Late for her, so she must need it." His tone was protective.

"I'm glad you caught me before I rang." I looked around the elaborate foyer, with its faux-marble floor (or maybe it was real?) and elegant crown molding. "Will you be showing me around, then?"

"No. I have some business in town. You can find your way around, can't you?" He was pulling on a light suede jacket.

"Of course. Since I have to measure every room and closet, I'll probably be here awhile. Will your mother mind getting up to a stranger in the house?" My mother certainly would.

"I told her you're Madge's niece. She's looking forward to seeing you. If she's not up, just go in her room."

"Oh, I could come back..."

"No," he said with his hand on the door, "Go on in. She has a meeting of the church's Social Services Committee at eleven, and I doubt she has her alarm set."

"I'll, uh, knock first." I said this to his back as he walked out and he didn't reply. What a turd. Thou shalt not call clients turds. I decided I didn't care about his promise to call me at Aunt Madge's.

The house was set up in a common style for center-hall colonials. On the left was a huge living room, with a twelve-foot ceiling, more elegant crown molding, and beautiful hardwood floors. It was surprisingly stylish, with bright white paint for the molding and window trim and a deep tan on the walls. The furniture had a mix of tan and burgundy tones, and I liked it immediately. Anything wood was antique oak.

I chastised myself about admiring the furniture, which has nothing to do with a house's value, and set about measuring the room and checking the windows.

The room to the right of the foyer was a truly formal dining room, with a stunning color scheme of bright yellow walls and naturally finished chair rail and molding. As with the living room, there were hardwood floors and very expensive area rugs, these in a light brown that accented the molding. A large oak hutch and antique ice box were along one wall, matched perfectly to an oak table. Oak seemed to be the preference for the over-sixty Ocean Alley crowd. This room was almost twenty by forty feet, and the table seated twelve. I wondered idly if Michael Riordan had children who spilled orange juice on the rugs.

The kitchen was behind the dining room and had newer windows in three adjoining sections, with the middle one somewhat wider and taller than the two side sections. They were natural wood, perhaps oak, and matched the thoroughly modern cabinetry.

I hurried my measurements a bit, anxious to get to the large family room across from the kitchen and to the upstairs. The family room was clearly where Mrs. Riordan spent most of her time, though it was still House and Garden quality. Furnishings were more modern, almost contemporary, except for what I took to be Mrs. Riordan's favorite spot. There was a tall rocker with comfortable-looking cushions and a foot stool in front. A small table next to it held a basket of needlework and a small stack of books. Not a television in sight.

I finished the measurements and hurried up the open stairway to the top floor. I tried to imagine what the master bedroom would look like; it probably had a four poster with a canopy. I paused, counting doors. Four were wide enough to be bedroom doors, and were shut. A bathroom door stood open, and there were two smaller doors I took to be linen closets. I glanced at my watch. Ten o'clock. Surely Mrs. Riordan would want to be up by now. I would knock on her door and call out that I was Madge Richards' niece. I hoped that would not startle her too much.

I assumed she would sleep in the master bedroom, and guessed it was the one at the end of the hall. I knocked lightly, then harder. "Mrs. Riordan? It's Jolie, Madge's niece, the appraiser." No answer.

I opened the door slightly. The room was still dark, shades drawn. I pushed the door open a little more to let some light into the room. Mrs. Riordan was on the left side of her bed, with open eyes staring at the ceiling.
CHAPTER FOUR

I SAT ON A LOW BRICK WALL that encircled a raised garden, just outside the Riordan front door, sipping a can of soda that a policewoman had placed in my hand. She had escorted me out so they could "secure the scene." I'd watched enough TV to know she meant they didn't want me in the way while they looked around, but I vaguely wondered why someone had called a police photographer to take pictures of an elderly woman who died in her bed.

I had never seen a dead person outside of a casket, and was quite shaken. There had been no real logic to my immediate decisions. I called Harry rather than an ambulance, and sat on the floor in Mrs. Riordan's room until an ambulance crew and the police arrived, thanks to Harry's call to them. It didn't seem right to leave her.

The EMS staff didn't need more than a quick look to tell Mrs. Riordan really was dead, and then one of them turned his attention to me. He said something about me being in shock. I didn't think I really was, though never having been in shock, how would I know? I do know that I can't say "kick the bucket" again. It now seems very disrespectful.

An older police officer walked out of the house and asked me if I knew where "the son" was, making him the third one to ask about Michael Riordan. I repeated his "business in town" comment, and was tempted to remind him that 'town' was so small they should be able to find him easily. Instead I said, "He does buy coffee at Java Jolt." I wished I had thought to say this earlier.

"Yeah, we knew that."

The officer was probably in his mid-forties, but he dressed like someone in their seventies – polyester pants and a tie with a pattern that had been in fashion about the time I was born. Only his shoes could be called modern, a dark-colored athletic shoe that I knew sold for well more than twice as much as I spend for my jogging shoes. I supposed he was on his feet a lot, so he acquiesced to comfort over cost.

His badge said 'Sgt. Morehouse.' "Why are there so many police here?" I gestured with the soda can to the three cars, which I figured were a good portion of Ocean Alley's force.

"Unattended death. We have to investigate." He waved to what looked to be a hearse.

I realized it said "County Coroner" on the side. It seemed the investigation meant poor Mrs. Riordan was not going directly to the funeral home, not that it would matter to her either way. Still sitting, I touched Morehouse's elbow. "But she was sick."

"Yeah, but not that sick."

I drew a quick breath and his tone grew kinder. "We just have to document the cause of death. Probably a heart attack or something." He turned his attention to the coroner's staff. "You can take her in about twenty minutes. We're almost finished dusting."

For prints? All I could think of was the beautiful paint and woodwork. Before I could ask him why they were looking at fingerprints when it looked like a heart attack, a silver Mercedes pulled up and Michael Riordan got out. It must have been in the garage, I would have noticed that car in the driveway.

"Where is she, what happened?" he demanded of Morehouse, and tried to follow the coroner staff into the house.

"Whoa. Just hang on a minute," Morehouse said. "I'll explain..."

Riordan turned on the man. "Explain now!" His face was reddening fast and I sensed that if Morehouse hadn't had a badge pinned to his sport coat Michael would have shaken him.

That ought to endear him to the police. I glanced back to Michael and realized his gaze had shifted to me. "I'm sorry Michael, she seems to have passed away."

"That's not possible," he said, as if there was simply no option for that. "She was fine when I left."

"I thought she hadn't been up," Morehouse said, quickly.

"No, but I looked in on her a couple of times. She was breathing and...everything." His voice trailed off, and he suddenly looked a lot less arrogant. I held out my soda can. "No thanks," he said, and turned to Morehouse. "When can I go in?"

"It won't be too long. Why don't you have a seat with the young lady," Morehouse gestured to me, "and I'll come get you soon." He went back in the house.

"They throw you out?" he asked, looking at me.

"They brought me out. I needed some fresh air." I wasn't sure what to say. "I sat with her, until the ambulance people came."

"I appreciate that." He turned his gaze from me and looked straight ahead, so I studied his profile for a moment. His angular face was taut. After a moment I could tell his thoughts had gone elsewhere. It was a relief for me not to feel I had to comfort him. I was still kind of jittery myself.

I began to reflect on the last hour. I had gone upstairs and called to her, and Mrs. Riordan didn't answer. Since I hadn't heard her moving around, I'd opened the door and looked in, and there she was. There was nothing more to it than that. Nothing suspicious, like a loud thump before I went upstairs.

The female police officer, who was quite a bit younger than Sgt. Morehouse, walked toward Michael and me and addressed her question to me. "Ms..." she glanced at her small notebook, "um, Gentle."

She pronounced it way most people did when they first tried out my name. I corrected her. "The "L" is silent. It's pronounced zhan-tee, it's French." I have this memorized.

"Oh, okay. Mind if I sit down?" She moved closer to me, on the opposite side of Michael.

"Sure." I glanced at her name badge. "Corporal Johnson. Did you meet Michael Riordan?"

He nodded at her but did not extend a hand. Instead, he stood up and walked a few feet away from us.

"Tough day for him," I was not at all sure why I was making excuses for him.

"I'm sure it is. I have a couple of questions for you, if you feel calmer now." Michael cast a glance at me, and then moved farther away. When I didn't object, she continued. "Exactly what did you see when you went into the bedroom?"

I told her what I'd seen, which did not require a detailed explanation. She took notes, and only interrupted me once. "Her eyes were definitely open, then?" I assured her they were. I wouldn't forget that expression for a good while.

As she stood to go back into the house, Harry Steele's car pulled up and Aunt Madge got out of it faster than I'd seen her move since the time I fell down her front porch steps. But, she didn't come to me; she went straight to Michael. I saw her take one of his hands in both of hers, and then she gave him a hug. I also noticed her hair was now blonde.

Harry walked toward me. "Are you all right? I wanted to come sooner, but I thought I should bring your aunt, and one of her guests said she had walked to the grocery store. I missed her there, and then went back to her house, and..."

I smiled at him, and he stopped. "I'm okay. It was just a bit of a shock. I'm really sorry if I scared you, calling like that." I couldn't resist. "You didn't mention anything like this in any of your other appraisal reports."

He looked dumbfounded at first, then shook his head slightly. "I guess your aunt knew what she was talking about when she said you'd be okay. She was much more worried about him." He glanced toward them, and Michael and Aunt Madge were walking toward us.

Aunt Madge looked to me. "Won't you tell Michael how many extra rooms I have? I want him to know he can stay with us if he wants to."

I almost gulped at the thought. "She does, really. But if you would rather stay here, if you'll stop by for muffins, she'll feel better."

Michael almost smiled. He looked at Aunt Madge. "I'll probably stay here, but I promise if I'm lonely I'll come find you. I know you would be glad to have me."

I didn't realize he could be that gracious, but then remembered he said she'd been his Sunday school teacher.

I was introducing Harry when Sgt. Morehouse came back out. "Would you folks like to come into the house? I didn't mean you should all wait out here." He nodded to Aunt Madge.

I found his words odd, as he had definitely wanted us outside. We followed him in and he offered condolences to Michael. "If you'd like to go upstairs and see her now, that would be okay. I have to ask you not to touch anything." He led Michael upstairs, and I heard him repeating his explanation of how the police had to handle an unattended death.

Aunt Madge slapped her hand against her thigh in frustration. "Such a shame she had not registered for hospice yet." In response to my questioning look she added, "If you're in hospice, they don't treat unattended deaths this way."

This must be one of the things you learn when you get to be her age. Corporal Johnson came up to us. "You can go now, Ms. Gentil." She pronounced it correctly. "I know how to contact you if we have any more questions."

She walked away, and Aunt Madge looked upstairs. "I think we should wait for Michael," she said.

Harry and I looked at each other. "We could..." I began.

Harry gently cut me off and spoke to Aunt Madge. "My sense was that he would call you if he needed to."

"I suppose you're right. I just hate to think of him all alone," she said.

"He must have friends here." I was anxious to get home and give Jazz a good hug.

"Not so many," she said, as we turned to leave.

AS SOON AS WE GOT HOME, I called the local garage and asked them to come put two tires on my car. I said I'd be down to pay them later, and that the car key would be under the driver's side floor mat. There are such advantages to small towns.

I didn't realize how tired I was until I hung up the phone. Harry declined Aunt Madge's offer of lunch. I, never known for declining a meal, said I wanted to take a short nap. Aunt Madge was certain it was because of the shock of finding Mrs. Riordan, while I attributed it to getting up at 6 a.m. Whatever the reason, I was asleep by 11:30 and didn't wake up until almost 1:30. I might have slept longer, but Jazz was pawing on the door. She had had enough of this afternoon nap stuff.

When I couldn't deter her by saying "Here kitty, kitty," I finally got up. I slung her over my shoulder and headed downstairs. I was trying to get her used to the dogs so she could have the run of Aunt Madge's living area; so far, she would have none of them. She sat on top of the refrigerator (reached by jumping from floor to counter top to flour canister to fridge), and hissed at the dogs, who were most anxious to meet her.

The dogs were outside and Aunt Madge was nowhere to be found. I stepped into the small backyard and spent the obligatory half-minute scratching the dogs before wandering back to the garage, where Aunt Madge kept Uncle Gordon's small boat and her gardening tools. The garage was so small there was barely room to walk around the boat, a flat-bottomed dory that Uncle Gordon used to launch into the ocean from the surf. Aunt Madge often comments about how he loved to fish. I peered in, not really expecting to see Aunt Madge, and saw that the boat had a fairly fresh coat of paint. Since she never takes it out, I was surprised.

Turning to go back to the house I saw Aunt Madge's car was in her small parking area, next to a guest's, so I went back into the house. It was then that I noticed her half-empty tea mug on the oak table, with a piece of paper beside it. The small note said, "Be back in a couple hours." Since I didn't know when she left, I could not guess when she'd be back. It struck me as odd, since by now she would usually be working on her bread. I peered in a large bowl that was covered with a kitchen towel, and saw it had been rising too long and had deflated.

The tire guy was still working on the flats, so I walked the short distance to the in-town grocery store. Aunt Madge's guests would expect their afternoon snack, and I was fully familiar with the loaves of bread you could buy in the frozen food section. However, I could not remember how long it took to thaw or cook them. It turned out there would be just enough time to do both and have the small loaves ready by 4 p.m. No cheddar bread, but it would still be good.

The dogs paced the kitchen as I put the preformed loaves on cookie sheets. This was not my usual job, and they seemed to want to supervise. I had just put the loaves in the oven and reached up to take Jazz off the fridge when the front door opened and I heard Aunt Madge's deliberate footsteps approaching the kitchen. Thank goodness. I had no idea how to make small talk to guests I'd never met.

The dogs raced to the kitchen door and sat expectantly in front of it. She gave them an absent pat as she entered and stopped when she saw me and the empty loaf bags, which were on the table. "Oh, good. I knew there was no way to save the bread dough; I thought I was going to have to make muffins, and people don't like surprises." She took off her coat and poked a few stray hairs into her blonde French twist.

"I've had enough for one day myself." Jazz had gotten onto my shoulder from the top of the fridge and was now trying to climb to the top of my head. Aunt Madge took her from me and gave me a kiss, then reached into a small canister and took out two large dog treats. "Outside, you two." They slobbered as she led them to the door.

"What, no prunes?"

She returned Jazz to my outstretched arms, and turned the warmer on her electric kettle to make her tea. "Very funny." But, she didn't look amused.

"Where were you?" I sat Jazz on the floor, took a fresh tea bag from the tiny basket next to the kettle and dropped it in a clean mug for her.

"At the funeral home with Michael Riordan."

"You're kidding."

She raised one eyebrow. "He showed up at the front door and said he'd like some company while he made arrangements. I didn't mind, of course."

I was astounded. "Why you? Isn't there family, or something?"

She shook her head. "He knows I was good friends with his mother. His father moved to Atlanta after the divorce. Apparently he met some young woman at one of those resort things in the Bahamas, and he moved to where she lived."

"No shit." I thought that stuff only happened to rich people. Wait, the Riordans were wealthy.

Aunt Madge ignored what she had once referred to as my "shit slip" and continued. "Ruth has a sister, but she's in Phoenix. And," she hesitated, "Michael isn't too popular around here."

"What do you know that I don't?"

"Quite a bit," she said, dryly, pouring the water into her mug.

"Let me rephrase that. Would you like to let me in on any of it?"

"Since anyone who lives here knows, I guess it isn't gossip." She ignored my rolling eyes. "When Michael married, the wedding was here, because his bride's parents were supposedly unable to host the event. Ruth and Larry went all out, even though they'd been divorced for a year. They could not have been more gracious to her, never a word about arranging, and paying, for everything."

"Dad would have liked that."

"Your father always jokes a lot about the costs of your and Renée's weddings, but you know how proud he is of you."

I nodded, mildly chagrined.

She continued, "Within two months, it was as if Ruth and Larry were Michael's wife's worst enemies. She wouldn't come to visit and she didn't want Michael to. No one ever knew what happened, but I can't believe either of them did anything so awful. Anyway, if one of them did, why would she have been mad at both of them? They were divorced."

I thought about this for a minute. "So, how does that translate to Michael not having anyone else to ask to go to the funeral home with him?"

"It was very hard on Ruth. Larry had remarried and I guess she felt pretty alone. People thought Michael should have been here more often. He did come occasionally, maybe once a year. By himself, of course."

It seemed to me to fall in the 'nobody's business' category, but Ocean Alley is a small town. There is a collective mindset about some things, like "tourism is good" and "the ocean never really warms up until July," but it seemed in this case it had been applied to Michael Riordan. Sort of a town perspective on gratitude, or lack of it.

Later I helped Aunt Madge put out margarine and jam with the warm bread, but excused myself and Jazz before the two couples came in to eat. I thought I would take a slow jog on the boardwalk before supper, maybe even try to talk Aunt Madge into letting me take her out for dinner, my treat. After all, she'd had a hard day, too.

NEWHART'S DINER IS SMALL and always crowded for dinner, a reflection of the great price for the off-season blue plate special. Today it was meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes made from real potatoes, gelatin salad, and chocolate cake. In the summer, the menu is largely fish, including sushi, which owner Arnie Newhart sells to the tourists for pretty high prices. From October to April, Arnie and his wife Marguerite take it easy, as he puts it, and they scale back the menu and add the blue plate special. I had been willing to splurge and take Aunt Madge to a more formal restaurant, but she wanted Newhart's.

We were seated at a booth near the door, and three people had already stopped by to say hello to Aunt Madge. She introduced me each time, and I would make appropriate comments and turn my attention back to the walls, which are lined with photos, framed newspaper articles, and various Ocean Alley memorabilia.

When I was here during high school, the collection was displayed in a helter-skelter fashion. Now, each news article is matted in a thin wood frame that is painted the same color as the booths. Aunt Madge told me on the short drive to the restaurant that Arnie's aunt had left the couple $30,000 a few years ago and they put half of it into redecorating the diner.

Arnie served us himself. "How do you like my new photo?" he asked. He pointed to a framed head shot above the door. "Bob Newhart. And he autographed it, too."

I looked more closely and could see the words but could not make them out. "What's it say?"

"It says 'To my favorite cousin.'" Arnie laughed.

Aunt Madge looked skeptical. "I didn't know you were related to him."

"We aren't. I asked him to sign it that way, for a joke." He looked quite pleased with himself.

"Why put it up so high?" I asked.

He frowned. "Some jerk would take it, wouldn't you know?"

"Hey, Arnie." A food server looked out from the kitchen. "When's the next batch of meat loaf done?"

We turned our attention to our dinners. We had both gotten the special, and what the food lacked in glamour it made up in volume. I figured we'd be asking for doggie bags.

Aunt Madge had just started on her salad when she frowned. I turned to follow her gaze and saw an older woman in a blue wool coat, which kind of matched her hair. She had her coat on and money in her hand, making her way to the cash register by the door. "Who is she?" I asked.

"Elmira Washington," she said, with a small frown.

"Ignore her," I turned back to my food.

"I don't like to be rude, but she's the one who's been letting people know why you moved here."

"I heard. She's a jerk. I don't care what she says." I pushed my dinner plate toward the edge of the table and pulled the cake toward me. "Is this as good as it looks?"

"Better," said Aunt Madge, as she looked directly at her plate. I took this as a sign that Elmira was approaching.

"Good evening, Madge!" Her voice was loud and had a sing-song quality. I didn't think I'd ever met her, but her voice alone was enough to make me want to stay far away from her.

"Evening, Elmira," Aunt Madge said. She gave the woman a brief nod and continued eating, even after Elmira paused at our table.

"So," Elmira said, "this is your niece."

I gave her one of my best smiles. "Yes, the one you've been talking to folks about."

Aunt Madge reached for her water glass, but she didn't fool me. I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

Elmira stiffened. "Talking about you? I never..."

"Come on, Elmira. There's no point in being a gossip if you don't want to own up to it." I continued to smile pleasantly.

"Really, Jolie." She looked to Aunt Madge, as if she expected her to reprimand me.

"How are you this evening, Elmira?" Aunt Madge asked her, as she patted her mouth with her napkin.

"Very well, thank you," she replied stiffly. "I was going to ask how you two are, what with Ruth's death."

Suddenly, my stomach roiled. For a few minutes I'd forgotten about Ruth Riordan. "We're fine." I almost snapped the response.

Elmira ignored me and looked at Aunt Madge as she spoke. "Just a few days ago Ruth and Michael were in here for dinner."

"I'm sure you're glad you had a chance to see her," Aunt Madge replied, evenly.

"Oh, I didn't talk to them. It looked like they were having a pretty heated discussion."

I resented how pleased Elmira looked. She wanted to sound as if she was somehow in the know about Ruth and her son. I could only imagine what she would say about me finding the body.

"I'll see you at church Sunday." Aunt Madge's nod was curt. Elmira probably couldn't tell that the look on Aunt Madge's face was pain, but I could.

Elmira didn't reply, but continued her walk to the cash register. I'd never seen Aunt Madge rebuff anyone. I leaned over and touched her hand. "I'm sorry. Do you want to go?"

She shook her head. "She makes me so mad. She knows Ruth and I were friends. She didn't even say she was sorry about her."

"She's a witch," I was trying to be sympathetic.

"There's no need to follow her example," Aunt Madge said, as she reached for her cup of tea.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, I did not get up at 6 a.m. the next day. Although I wanted to finish the appraisal, I thought it unlikely to be rescheduled until after Ruth Riordan's funeral. I planned to stop by Harry's office mid-morning. He had fixed up a small workspace for me and said that after we did a few more appraisals he would buy a second computer. I offered to bring my laptop to the office, but he said not to bother, I could use his whenever I needed it.

I took my time showering and blow-drying my hair. There was no urgency to the day, and I felt disappointed at that. Jazz, unaware that I was out of sorts, or perhaps ignoring this, was impatient with my slow pace. She walked across the small dressing table as I applied make-up and raced toward the bedroom door every time I stood up.

When Jazz and I went downstairs about 9:30, I first looked out the window to check on my car. All four tires were inflated. I was surprised to see the newspaper on the kitchen table. Aunt Madge usually left it in the dining room for guests to look at throughout the day. No sign of her. After Jazz had some dry food and a small saucer of milk, I carried her back to my room, then scribbled a note to Aunt Madge and struck out for Java Jolt.

The air was damp, though not too cold. I inhaled the smell of seaweed and ocean breeze and climbed up to the boardwalk. I had only gone a few steps when I saw a man sitting on a bench, carefully applying duct tape to his worn sneakers. Next to him was a bag from the local dollar store.

Something about him seemed familiar, but I didn't think I knew anyone who had to tape their shoes. The man had an open knapsack on the ground beside him, and it was crammed. Sticking out of the top were a bottle of water and a couple of books. Homeless people were rare in Ocean Alley at this time of year. A small number appeared each summer, but most had left by now, heading for a warmer winter climate.

He must have been aware that I slowed my pace, and he lifted his head and looked at me. "Son of a bitch, if it isn't Jolie Gentil."

His greeting took me by surprise. I looked at him more closely and saw that his jeans had a small tear on the left knee and his brown hair hung to his shoulders; it was clean, but uncombed. The bangs that reached his eyebrows and full beard made it difficult to discern his features. "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid I don't remember you."

"Sir!" His laugh revealed teeth that were white and straight, a sharp contrast to his ragged appearance. "Is that what you call the only person who had a higher score than you did in 'Screw the Bunny?'"

"Scoobie? That's you?" For the life of me I couldn't think of his real first name. Scoobie and I had hung around a lot in 11th grade. I wasn't sure why he was allowed to stay out so late, but I had been glad of the company.

"Yep, it's me. I saw you were back." He grinned. "You look almost the same, except for the preppy clothes."

I automatically looked down at my blue Dockers and cotton sweater of blue and yellow that showed under my unzipped jacket. "This is not preppy, it's...stylish."

"Stylish, preppy, take your pick. You look good."

It was a simple compliment, and I felt myself flush. It seemed almost wrong that I lived in comfort and he couldn't afford new shoes. "Gee, Scoobie." I wasn't sure what to say. "I'm going to Java Jolt. You want to join me and get caught up?"

His hesitation was brief. "You get it, and bring it outside. It's warm enough." He turned and waited for me to walk the few paces to him and we fell into step.

We walked in a fairly comfortable silence, but my thoughts were anything comfortable. Where had Scoobie been the last ten years? How did he end up with what looked like all his possessions in a knapsack? When we had traversed the hundred yards or so to Java Jolt, I turned to him. "What's your pastry preference?"

"I like their blueberry muffins." When I started to push the door to enter, he added, "Decaf with cream, no sugar." This was a change. In high school, Scoobie had lived on high-voltage soft drinks.

As I approached the counter I was conscious that Joe Regan was looking at me very directly. "You know him?" he asked.

"We went to high school together. I haven't seen him since then." I busied myself fixing the two cups of coffee and ordered two blueberry muffins.

Joe continued. "He's been in and out of rehab. Be careful."

I felt annoyed at the advice, but tried not to show it. "Thanks." I paid for our food, and added, "I never thought of Scoobie as dangerous."

Joe shrugged. "Probably not. As far as I know, his only arrests have been for using and selling pot." He grinned as he gave me my change. "I hear it was good stuff."

Swell. I slipped the handle of the small plastic bag of muffins over my wrist and picked up the coffees. "Not that you'd know," I threw over my shoulder.

Scoobie opened the door for me and took the paper coffee cups. "Thanks. Let's go to a bench over there." We walked on the boardwalk for about half a block and settled on a bench across from the small store I'd browsed in just before meeting Pedone.

"So, did Regan tell me to keep away from me?" he asked as I indicated which coffee was decaf.

"Not exactly. He said to be careful."

Scoobie peeled the paper off a muffin and took a huge bite. He chewed and swallowed quickly. "Probably not the worst advice you'll ever get, but I don't think you'll need it." He grinned. "I'm reformed. In fact, it's rare that you'll see me raiding garbage cans these days."

"I didn't know you needed to. Reform, I mean." I watched as he continued to eat, noting that even though his appearance was ragged his nails and hands were clean. "We used to goof around, but we never did anything really bad." He said nothing as he tried to peel the plastic tab off the small opening on the coffee lid so he could take a drink.

I sipped my coffee and regarded him. "You could have stabbed me under the boardwalk any number of times, but you didn't." I smiled at him.

He grew somber. "You were a good friend. Don't you remember, hardly anyone would talk to me in school?"

"You know, I don't remember that. I guess, gee, I guess I was too busy thinking of my own problems."

He nodded. "You've just defined adolescence—the certainty that your own problems put you at the center of the universe."

I peeled my muffin paper, wondering when Scoobie had become a walking psychologist. "Sounds like me back then. My life did get better though." I took a bite, much smaller than his. "My parents got back together and had actually worked things out, and I liked college."

"Me too, but my major was marijuana manufacturing, so I never graduated."

"Do you, uh, still...?"

"Nah. I might have stopped anyway, but I've been arrested a few times for possession and once for selling. For that I spent several months boarding with the county." He grinned. "I'm eventually trainable. Now I spend my evenings in Narcotics Anonymous meetings."

"And your days here?" I asked, gesturing to the beach and boardwalk.

"A lot, unless it's below freezing. Then you can find me in the library or Java Jolt." He probably sensed my next question. "I have a room in a sort of permanent half-way house. It's warm, but not where you want to spend a lot of time."

Talk about different roads traveled. I tried to think of something witty to say, but was fresh out.

He continued. "So, when did you get into the appraisal stuff?"

"Gee, what are you, the town crier?"

"No, I saw the article in the paper. The one that said you found the old lady murdered."

I spit out a sip of coffee, narrowly missing him. "She wasn't murdered! She was just dead, in her bed, even."

"Huh. Maybe I read the paper wrong." He stared at me as he drank his coffee.

I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "That's why Aunt Madge left the paper in the kitchen." I picked up my muffin. "I gotta go. I'll look for you again."

He said nothing as I turned to half jog back to Aunt Madge's.

I sat at the table and picked up the paper. "Police Investigate Suspicious Death of Prominent Resident." The article was brief, noting that while she had cancer, Mrs. Riordan had looked and acted better in the last few weeks than she had in months.

I scanned quickly, wishing not to see my name, and was of course disappointed. Though it appeared near the end of the article, I was referred to as the "woman who found the body, Jolie Gentil, of Steele Appraisals." Oh well, they say even negative publicity is a good thing. Maybe Harry would get some new business. If anyone remembered me from 11th grade, they'd know I was back and what I was doing. Instantly, I felt as if I'd trodden on a grave, not that I really know what that feels like.

There was also mention that Michael had been staying in the house, but that he was not home when I "discovered" the body. As if I'd been looking for buried treasure. When I reread the article, all it really said was that the cause of death was not yet determined, but suspicious. I couldn't understand why the paper made such a big deal out of it; and on the front page, yet.

I pushed it aside and tackled the rest of the blueberry muffin. Miss Piggy came out of Aunt Madge's bedroom and stretched. "This is not for you." She immediately plopped on the floor and put her paws over her ears. This was a trick she had learned before coming to Aunt Madge, and it must have earned her doggie treats in her prior home, because she always removed her paws and wagged her tail expectantly.

"You're impossible." I tossed her a piece of muffin.

"Don't do that," Aunt Madge said as she came through the swinging kitchen door with a small sack of groceries.

"Yes ma'am." Immediately reduced to age twelve. I jumped up and opened the door to the fridge as she took a half-gallon of milk out of her bag.

"Aunt Madge, I ran into Scoobie today..." I began.

"Adam, dear, Adam." She spoke absently as she took a small box of artificial sweeteners from her bag.

"That's it. I couldn't..."

The phone rang and I answered it, annoyed that my thought about Scoobie was interrupted. "Miss Gentle?" a man's voice asked. Obviously not someone I knew well.

"That's 'zhan-tee.' What can I do for you?"

"I'm George Winters at the Ocean Alley Press."

Not being fond of the media at the moment, I let his words hang there. "Did you want something?" I finally asked.

"I wondered if you had any comments about the cause of Mrs. Riordan's death."

"Comments? Of course not." I really wanted to hang up, but I was in Aunt Madge's house, not mine, so I couldn't.

"Have you heard?" he asked.

"Heard what?" I held the phone away from my ear, aware that Aunt Madge was now standing next to me. The blonde color was already fading; I had a fleeting though that she must have used a cheaper brand of color.

"That the coroner has ruled that the cause of death was due to suffocation or strangulation. Hard to tell just yet."

I said nothing. I couldn't. It was impossible.

"Miss Gentil?"

"I really don't have any comment. I'm sure you can get any information from the police." I hung up and looked at Aunt Madge. "That means she was murdered." This isn't how it is supposed to be. Wealthy old ladies die in their sleep.

Suddenly, I started to shake and sat down quickly. "I was...whoever did it...might have..." Absurdly, I couldn't finish the thought. Not out loud anyway. Whoever killed her could have been in the house when I was.

Aunt Madge sat down across from me and held onto the edge of her chair as she stared past me. "Poor Ruth. How can this be happening?"

I realized Aunt Madge had just lost a close friend and went to her chair and leaned over and gave her a hug. "They have to be wrong."

She let me rest my head on her shoulder for a second, and I could almost feel her sag an inch. I kissed her on the cheek. At that, she straightened. "I'm going down to the police station and find out what's really going on."

I took my hand off her shoulder and looked at her. My aunt, the no-gossip woman.

She picked up her purse and glanced at me. "Are you coming?"

I wouldn't miss it for anything. Next thing I knew, they'd be accusing me.
CHAPTER FIVE

THE PANELED WALLS and hard plastic chairs of the police station's small waiting area did not provide a welcoming atmosphere. Fortunately, the uniformed officer behind the counter said she didn't think we'd have long to wait.

I'd only been in here once, in 11th grade when I got picked up for smoking on the boardwalk. I didn't realize it wasn't a crime or I wouldn't have gone with the cop, a guy in his early forties named Sgt. Tortino. He knew Aunt Madge and wanted to scare me straight or something. I was far more scared of her than him, of course. She hauled me home and wouldn't let me watch TV for two weeks. Since I had only smoked a few times, to be cool, I decided to quit rather than fight.

As luck would have it, a now-older Lieutenant Tortino came out when the front desk clerk called back, and he escorted Aunt Madge and me to his small office. He'd gone from light brown to a mix of brown and gray hair and put on about twenty pounds since I'd seen him. He still had the same firm walk I remembered when he was parading me down the boardwalk to his car.

We sat down facing him, and I thought I detected a look of amusement when he glanced at me. "I promise, I quit smoking that night."

"Was that before or after you finished cussing me out?" He grinned.

Aunt Madge turned to me. "You didn't."

"Um, of course not." I tried to glare at Tortino without her noticing.

"So, what on earth is this business of Ruth being murdered?" she asked him.

He was somber. "It's definite. Someone applied pressure to her windpipe." He paused. "There are some other indications, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to give a lot of details."

"But, she looked so...peaceful." OK, her eyes were staring straight up, but that was sort of normal for a dead person, at least in all the mystery books I'd read. "I guess I didn't look real close..."

Tortino looked at me now. "I read your statement after your aunt called. I can see why you'd think she looked peaceful."

"But," I persisted, "if you strangle someone, they would like, fight with you wouldn't they? Her bed wasn't messed up at all."

"They would resist, probably. Unless someone had drugged them. We're waiting for toxicology reports." He paused. "I'd appreciate if you wouldn't mention that to anyone."

"A reporter called me this morning. I told him to call you guys."

Tortino was interested. "I'll pass that on to Sgt. Morehouse in the Detective Division. Who was it?"

I glanced at Aunt Madge. "George Winters," she said.

He sighed. "He's young. Always trying to get a big story."

"Sounds as if he's got one," I said, glumly.

"Where's Michael?" Aunt Madge asked. "Does he know?"

"Uh, yeah," said Tortino. He sounded like a kid trying to hide something. I could relate to that.

He stood. "Listen, Jolie, they're going to ask you for your fingerprints." The shock must have shown in my face. "Not because anyone suspects you, because we'll have to compare the fingerprints we lifted to those of people who were supposed to be in the house."

I nodded, and he continued, "If you think of anything else, call Sgt. Morehouse, okay?"

So, we were done. Aunt Madge continued to talk to him as we walked out. "I feel terrible for Michael. Ruth said they were so enjoying their time together the last two weeks."

"Were they?" he asked. "That's nice."

When we got to the small waiting area Tortino left us. Aunt Madge seemed not to want to leave, as if she hadn't gotten what she wanted. She gave her head a slow sideways shake. "Ruth would hate this." I started to say Ruth didn't have to worry about that or anything else, but stopped myself.

As we stood there for a few seconds, there was a loud slam of a door behind us, and we both jumped. Michael Riordan stormed into view. He was walking rapidly toward the back door that leads to the parking lot, and didn't notice us. He tried to slam that door, too, but it was hydraulic, so he couldn't.

Aunt Madge looked after him and then at me. "I was afraid of that," she said.

"Of what?"

"They think he killed her."

"That doesn't make sense." I didn't quite know why. He certainly knew how to demonstrate a temper.

"You know what the police shows say, he had motive, means, and opportunity."

I had to stifle a laugh. "Aunt Madge, are you saying he knows how to drug people and then strangle them?"

"No, of course not, but it will look that way. You mark my words." She led the way out, and I followed, not certain when my aunt had started watching police shows on TV. Last I knew she was into the reality shows that masquerade as talent contests.

I TRIED TO TALK AUNT MADGE into getting coffee at Newhart's or Java Jolt, but she wanted to get home. "The dogs will need to go out."

Aunt Madge's hands were in her lap. Usually, when I drive she leans her head against the seat, but today she sat slightly forward and held her purse tightly to her. I'd rarely seen her look so tense. "They went out right before we left. It's been a rough morning, you could use a break."

She shook her head. "I'm better when I'm busy. Besides," she glanced at her watch, "I still have one room to make up."

"Will you let me help, for a change?"

I took a quick glance and saw the beginning of a smile play around her lips. "You can run the vac in the upstairs hall."

So I don't do hospital corners when I make a bed. I've never understood the big deal about making a bed a certain way. "The vac it is."

I STOPPED BY HARRY'S after lunch to see if he had any more work (preferably without dead bodies) or if he knew when we would finish the Riordan house. It occurred to me that if Michael was Ruth's heir, he might not want to give it to the Arts Council and would put it on the market. If he did that, he probably would not want me to finish the appraisal now. He'd wait and let a prospective buyer pay for it.

But, Harry said that Michael had called that morning to say he would get in touch again after the funeral. His father and his wife were coming into town this afternoon, and he had invited them to stay at the house. He didn't want a lot of other activity. I was surprised he'd had the presence of mind to call. Had to be before his scene at the station.

No other work, but Harry had had what he termed get-acquainted calls from three agents that morning. He tried not to look too pleased, since we both knew it was probably because of the mention of me and his firm in Mrs. Riordan's article. "I'm not sure that everyone is as pleased with Stenner's as they once were," he said, trying to appear tactful.

"I bet they told you more than that." I was fishing for info.

He shrugged. "Jennifer's very competent, but I hear she can be a little brusque."

Gee, she and Michael could get together. I left his office headed for the boardwalk, and walked a couple blocks looking for Scoobie. The boardwalk had a forlorn air about it, as if it missed having hordes of visitors and the smell of fries and cotton candy. The benches, which were usually not repainted until spring, showed the effects of a summer of wet bathing suits and many had the usual hearts with names of teen lovers. When there was black paint over a few inches of bench I knew that meant those carved words were less polite.

No Scoobie, so I headed for the Purple Cow. I was confident that I didn't need to do a resume, at least in the short term, but I was thinking of getting a new business card case. Mine was gold-plated and had the seal of my old real estate firm on it.

As I drove to the Purple Cow, I tried to memorize every street name. It seemed an appraiser should know where each street is, at least in a town the size of Ocean Alley. The blocks of the very long alphabet streets are intersected many times with cross streets with names like Seaside, Fairweather and Conch Shell.

There are a number of large Victorian homes that probably had at least a half-acre of land around them when they were built. However, the wealthy city folks who built those homes are long gone, and before Ocean Alley instituted its current lot size requirements people built as many as two or three bungalows or summer cottages between them, more on the streets closest to the water. Some of them started as two-room cottages with no indoor plumbing and now have a small concrete addition in the back. Here and there are small tool sheds that were outhouses in a prior life. Although it's a hodge-podge, I find the lack of order appealing.

I drove through the center of Ocean Alley. While not a town square in the true sense, the block that houses the court house also has the post office, police station, library, and small in-town grocery, so it is as close to a downtown as a small beach town can get. I parallel parked in front of The Purple Cow and locked the car, wondering as I did so if I would ever live in a place where I didn't think to lock my car. Not if people murder elderly women in their beds.

Today, the store's white board said, "All beginnings are somewhat strange; but we must have patience, and, little by little, we shall find things, which at first were obscure, becoming clear." Vincent de Paul. It took up all the room on the board. Clearly, someone at the Purple Cow was into life changes. It was a little too kvetchy for me. I pushed open the door and waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to light that was dimmer than the brilliant sunshine.

Ramona, her long hair held back with a dark purple bow, greeted me with more than mild curiosity. "I saw you in the paper. That must have been terrible."

She didn't know the half of it. "It was a more than a little unnerving."

She nodded. "George Winters was in here this morning. He said she was murdered." Her always-wide eyes looked owlish. "Did it look like it?"

Death can bring out the tactless in some of us. "Not to me. Looked like she just died in her sleep." Before she could ask me another question, I mentioned why I was there, and she led me to the business card holders.

"Do you like working for Mr. Steele?" she asked, as she took several card holders from a case that held small leather goods and expensive pens.

"Harry seems real nice." For some reason I wanted to make it clear that in the adult world we call people by first names. Stop thinking like a bitch, Jolie.

"Jennifer was really mad that someone else got into that business in town."

"That's not very realistic. You'd think she'd even like it, with interest rates so low." I realized she did not get this, so I added, "There's almost too much work for appraisers. Everyone's trying to refinance their houses."

This did not interest her. "The paper said Michael wasn't home."

"Yes, I saw that." She must think I hadn't read it, or maybe she wasn't connecting on the fact that I had actually been there.

"He could have been, you know. It's a big house." Ramona looked away as she spoke.

"Ramona!" I stared at her, half amused, half irritated. "You're starting a rumor."

She shrugged. "I never liked him. He always called me 'Monaramona.' He knew I didn't like it."

"That doesn't mean he murdered his mother." I paused. "Maybe he was teasing you because he liked you." Given his comment about her, I doubted it, but that's what my mother always said when boys teased me.

"People think he wanted her money." She gazed at me directly. "I heard his business is bad."

"But you don't know any of this, Ramona." I was irritated with her, but didn't want to show it too much. I might want to know what else she heard later. At least as it pertained to me.

I paid for my business card case – burgundy leather, very cool – and left the store. Yesterday I had been so purposeful, but today I felt very much at loose ends. I decided to go back to Aunt Madge's and take Jazz outside. I wanted her to get to know the area a little, in case she accidentally got out.

My plans were waylaid by the sight of a silver Mercedes in Aunt Madge's small parking lot. What does he want with me? Then I remembered that he was more likely to be here to see Aunt Madge. She greeted me at the door, with a sort of odd expression. Michael was right behind her.

"They act like they think I killed her." He was very upset. I hoped Aunt Madge's guests were out. "How can they think that?" He paced to the window and back to the foyer and faced me.

"They're probably just fishing around." I tried to sound reassuring.

"Do you think I did it?"

"No. I can't prove you didn't, of course, but I don't think you did." It was true, for some reason I didn't believe he killed her. Not that I would have said I thought the police were right, even if I did, in his state of mind.

"Good," was all he said.

"Let's go back to the kitchen," Aunt Madge said, quietly. My guess was that he was a lot calmer now than he had been when he first arrived.

Aunt Madge turned up the warmer on her tea kettle and offered us both a cup. He shook his head, but she fixed him one anyway, with honey. Aunt Madge is convinced that tea calms anyone.

"They can't have any real reason to suspect you." I tried to ask a question without framing it that way.

"The police don't tell you what they think," he said bitterly. He took a sip of the tea. "You know I left, right?"

"I saw you leave. Where did you go?"

"You mean do I have an alibi?" He gave a harsh laugh. "I was mostly at the beach, just walking. I sent a fax from the Purple Cow before I parked my car by the beach."

"Someone must have seen you. Or at least your car."

He smiled grimly at that. "Not after I left the Purple Cow. I parked the car in the municipal lot, but it's too chilly for most people to be on the beach. I don't recall seeing anyone, anyway. I was...thinking." He looked away from me, then back. "I suppose I could have walked by people and not noticed."

"As Jolie said," Aunt Madge put in, "people will remember the car."

"Yes," he was fuming again, "but this is a small town. Our house may be at the edge of it, but it's only a fifteen-minute walk." He took another sip of the unwanted tea. "Someone will say I could have parked the car, gone home, killed her, and walked back." He paused, teacup in midair. "Or they'll say I killed her just before you got there."

"But, you didn't," Aunt Madge said.

"No, but I can tell they think I did." He splashed tea as he set the cup down hard.

"They have to have a reason to think that." I remembered that Elmira Washington said he seemed to be arguing with his mother in Newhart's a few days ago, but that hardly seemed like a reason for the police to suspect him of murder. "You, uh, didn't go around town bad-mouthing your mom, did you?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Of course not." He sighed. "I'm her sole beneficiary, except for her plans for the house, plus my business is not doing as well as it was. And," he gave a forced smile, "some people think I'm an asshole."

"But surely not everyone on the police force."

He half laughed, but Aunt Madge said, "For heaven's sake!"

He grew immediately somber again. "They already called my partners in Houston. A lot of people know I'm here because we had a major falling-out."

"That doesn't sound like a motive for murdering your mother. Your partners, maybe," I said.

He looked at me directly, "I'm not going to walk away from the business with much cash. We have a clause in our partnership agreement that says if one person voluntarily leaves the firm they only take what they brought with them plus a portion of last year's profit." He paused. "It was not our best year."

I was dying to ask him why he was leaving the firm, but I caught Aunt Madge's eye and decided not to. "Sorry, Michael, still no motive."

"OK, here's one. My wife is divorcing me, and I'll probably need a lot of cash for the settlement."

"Yeah, okay. But your mom was going to die anyway. What's the rush?"

Aunt Madge sat up straighter, but didn't say anything.

Michael looked at me as if he had never seen me. "I'm known to be somewhat impatient," he said, dryly.

"So, an impatient asshole." I saw Aunt Madge flinch. "That could relate to state of mind, but not motive."

This time he really laughed. "I don't remember you being funny in school."

"The only time you talked to me was the first couple days of school and when you were running for class president and you wanted my vote."

"That's probably true," he said, almost amiably.

"To be honest, I didn't vote for you." Am I flirting with him?

Aunt Madge interrupted. "When does your father arrive?"

He glanced at his watch. "In about an hour at Newark. I need to get on the road." He stood. "Thanks for the tea." He looked at me with an expression I could not interpret.

"On TV, they usually don't arrest family suspects until after the funeral."

"Thanks for that nugget," was all he said, as he bent over and kissed Aunt Madge's cheek.
CHAPTER SIX

JAZZ AND I WERE ON THE FRONT PORCH sweeping sawdust from Aunt Madge's latest carpentry project into a dustpan when Sgt. Morehouse came by in the late afternoon. He glanced at the dustpan. "What's she working on now?"

"She's putting crown molding in one of the upstairs bathrooms."

"A bathroom? Isn't that kind of fancy?"

I shrugged, and looked at him more closely. He looked as if he hadn't slept much, and I figured there probably weren't too many murders in Ocean Alley. Although he was not wearing the same clothes that he had worn yesterday, today's polyester pants, nondescript blue shirt, and old-fashioned tie were so similar that it was as if he was in uniform.

I invited him to sit and he sank wearily into a wicker chair. Jazz ran to the other end of the porch and jumped on the railing. I could hear the dogs barking in the back yard; they knew someone was out front. "How's it going?" I asked.

"You and your aunt came to the station this morning." So much for him answering my questions. I told him about the call from the reporter, and that Aunt Madge was especially upset by it.

"I hate that guy," he said.

I shrugged. "Isn't he just doing his job?"

"Yeah but he always calls before we're ready for him."

"Then he must be doing his job really well." I was intentionally needling him.

He grunted. "You sure you told us everything yesterday?"

"Gee, why don't you ask me if I did it?"

"Did you?"

"Of course not." I was offended. "Why would you even ask?"

"You seem pretty friendly with the Riordan kid."

"The 'Riordan kid' and I didn't even socialize in high school. I was just there because I'm doing some work for Harry."

"Yeah, I know." He signed heavily. "You don't have an obvious motive, but I have to ask."

Somewhat mollified, I asked, "Do you have any idea who did?"

"Just theories," he said. As if he'd tell me. "The funeral home said Madge went with him to make arrangements. I kinda need to talk to her."

I led him back to the kitchen and excused myself. Aunt Madge would probably defend Michael, and I wasn't ready to go that far. My instinct said he didn't do it, but I really had no reason for any opinion. On the other hand, Aunt Madge seemed convinced that Michael and his mother were having such a great couple weeks that he couldn't have done it. I can trust her instincts.

Since I'd left Jazz on the porch, I went back there. At first I didn't see her. Then I looked to the sidewalk in front of the house and saw Joe Pedone holding her. "What the hell are you doing? Give me my cat." I was down the steps in two bounces and he handed her to me without comment.

"Did you flatten my tires?"

"Gee, you had a flat? I'm sorry," he said, looking away.

I took in his clothes. No more loud golfer outfit. "You didn't answer my question."

"That's a no," he said, pleasantly, adjusting his obviously expensive tie. I couldn't help but be struck by the contrast between his clothing and Morehouse's. Pedone obviously didn't live on a civil servant's salary.

"You probably had someone do it." I stroked Jazz, who seemed to want to go back to Pedone. I held her tighter.

He didn't reply to that. "Did you give any more thought to repaying your husband's debt?"

"Look, I don't have the money. He cleaned me out. Anyway, Robby owes it, not me."

"But, Robby ain't got it." He said this as if this was the only clarification I should need.

"Do you want to pay my student loan?" I asked him.

He looked puzzled.

"Same logic." I walked back into the house. I didn't want to admit it, but I was shaken. This was not something I wanted to bother Aunt Madge with when she had just lost a good friend, and I wasn't about to bring it up in front of Morehouse. I could call the lawyer who had advised me on my rights as the wife of an embezzler, but what would that accomplish? Just a huge bill, probably.

At least Pedone hadn't threatened to break my legs. I pondered whether I would mind if they did this to Robby, and tried to remind myself that his compulsive gambling was supposed to be an illness. I pushed Joe Pedone out of my mind with the vigor I usually attached to eating chocolate ice cream, and went upstairs with Jazz.

WE DIDN'T SEE MICHAEL all weekend. I figured he had his hands full with his father and stepmother and funeral planning. I spent a good part of the weekend trying to put together an easy-to-assemble computer desk I had bought at Wal-Mart. There were some really nice ones at the Purple Cow, but with very limited funds in my bank account the $29.99 price at Wal-Mart was more in line with my checkbook. When I had six screws left over and it wobbled, Aunt Madge took pity on me and suggested that there must be another piece to brace the back. I found it wrapped in paper at the bottom of the box. Not amused at my swearing, Aunt Madge lent me her electric screwdriver but did not help with the disassembly and reassembly.

I hauled the box, empty except for Jazz, downstairs and placed it on the sitting room floor. It was long and thin, which meant Jazz could crawl in easily but all the dogs could do was insert a nose or paw. It took less than thirty seconds for this to become a popular game. Jazz would dive for Mister Rogers' paw. She let go each time he pulled it out.

Aunt Madge came into the room as Miss Piggy was inserting her nose into the box and Mr. Rogers was head-butting her in the midsection so he could have another turn. "I see you're enjoying yourself," she said, somewhat curtly.

"You want us kids to play outside?" I asked.

"No." She sat next to me on the couch. "I'm sorry if I'm short. I just can't believe the police would consider Michael a suspect. Ruth would be so upset."

I squeezed her knee, not sure what to say. "I trust your instincts, Aunt Madge, but..."

"But what?" she bristled.

"What makes you so certain? I mean," I saw the protest coming. "You've hardly seen him for years, have you?"

She answered immediately. "It isn't just that Ruth said they were enjoying each other's company. They talked about how he would help her through the next few months or year, and he was going to go with her to the assisted living place to help her pick out an apartment there. You just don't talk about those kinds of things and then off your mother."

"Off your mother?" I couldn't hide my smile.

"Oh, you know what I mean. It just doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense." Her voice cracked and she put her hand to her mouth to keep from crying. I leaned over and put a hand on her wrist. Mr. Rogers came over and put his head in her lap. "You're a good boy," she said softly, petting him.

Miss Piggy pulled her nose out of the box and gave a soft grunt before loping over and trying to move Mr. Rogers' head from Aunt Madge's lap and insert her own. She laughed and stood. "I don't know what I'd do without these dogs." She pointed to the door. "Come on, out you go."

I watched as she slid the sliding glass door so they could bound into the back yard. I would do anything to help Aunt Madge feel better, if only I knew where to start.

WHEN SHE CAME HOME FROM CHURCH the next day Aunt Madge said she had seen Michael's father in church, but he sat alone and left before she could talk to him. "You know who was there," she added, "Your friend Adam. It was almost forty degrees. We generally don't see him unless it's much colder."

"Scoobie goes to church?" I was more than a little surprised.

"The library doesn't open on Sundays until one o'clock. Our service is one of the shorter ones." She slipped off her pumps and sat them on her long oak table. "And we always have coffee and donuts or cookies afterwards."

I sat at the table and turned up her electric kettle. "Just before that reporter called, I started to ask you about him. Then I forgot. What happened to him? Where is his family?"

Aunt Madge actually made a tsk-ing sound. "He's better off without them. Didn't you ever wonder why he was the only other child out late on the boardwalk with you?"

I stared at her and could swear she almost smirked. "You knew where I was?"

"As I've heard you say, Ocean Alley is a very small town." She poured her tea. "I decided that as long as so many people were keeping track of you on the boardwalk, I'd let well enough alone."

I continued to stare at her, saying nothing. All these years I thought I'd been so smart to thwart her rules.

She glanced at me. "If I had confronted you, you would have started going to someplace more remote than the boardwalk. I didn't want that." She strained her teabag and placed it on a saucer. "And I certainly didn't want to have to stay up until you went to bed. I'm no night owl."

I decided to take the focus off me. She was enjoying this too much. "What did you mean that Scoobie is better off without his parents?"

"His mother drank a lot. His father tried to ignore it. When he couldn't, he left. Adam seemed to almost raise himself." She leaned over to turn the temperature up on her electric kettle. "Think how angry you were that your parents paid more attention to themselves than you in eleventh grade, and imagine what Adam must have felt."

"I can't." I took a moment to get Jazz out of her box, and then went upstairs. I lie on top of the bed, staring at the ceiling. All the time Scoobie and I had spent together, I had thought he didn't have a care in the world. I hadn't known him at all.

IT SEEMED THAT HALF THE TOWN attended Ruth Riordan's funeral on Monday. Larry Riordan and his wife, who looked to be all of thirty-five, sat in the front row with Michael. I thought that was pretty tacky, not so much that Larry Riordan was there, but the new wife. Ruth's sister from Phoenix sat on Michael's other side. Aunt Madge and I had gone to the funeral home the night before and I'd noticed Ruth's sister had studiously avoided talking to Mrs. #2.

When the minister asked if anyone wanted to say anything about Ruth Riordan, Aunt Madge surprised me by getting to her feet at once. She walked purposely to the front of the congregation and up to the pulpit. However, once at the microphone, she hesitated, then seemed to collect herself and began to speak. "Ruth Riordan was one of the kindest women I've known. She could have spent her time playing bridge or traveling, but you were more likely to see her helping at the food pantry or fixing food for an after-funeral meal here at the church."

She paused, and I thought for a minute she would cry, something I've never seen her do. "She was an intensely private person who would never burden a friend with her troubles, and if you trusted her with yours, you could be sure she would never repeat your confidence." At the front of the church someone blew his nose loudly.

"She was quiet but she had a great sense of humor. Not everyone got to see that side of her. If you didn't, it was your loss." She stopped again. "And she loved her son, with all her heart."

When she sat down next to me, Aunt Madge stared straight ahead. I touched her on the arm and was surprised to see a tear leaving each eye.

We moved as lemmings from the church to the cemetery, where I saw Sgt. Morehouse at the edge of the group of mourners. It was pure cop TV. After that, we went to the Riordan's house. I might have skipped that, but Aunt Madge had made three loaves of cheddar cheese bread and insisted on taking them. This was a much smaller group, as tends to be the case.

The house looked nothing short of elegant with the well-dressed crowd moving around the dining room sampling the plates of canapés. A maid in a black uniform and white apron served white wine from a silver tray. She looked either very sad or very tired, and I wondered if she'd been hired for the day or had known Mrs. Riordan well. If she had, it must be tough to have to serve food while everyone else could take the time to grieve.

I saw Jennifer Stenner on the other side of the room. Her blue suit struck the appropriate conservative tone of a funeral, but the white blouse afforded a good view of her firm cleavage, which I guessed was helped by an underwire bra. This I do not normally associate with proper mourning attire.

I had wanted Harry to come because it would be a good place to meet a lot of folks, but he had demurred. Since the only time he had seen Michael was the day his mother died, Harry thought his presence would be a reminder of a difficult day. Such a gentleman. Not good for business.

As I stood filling a plate with assorted goodies, Jennifer approached me. "Jolie," she said, "I wouldn't have recognized you." This was an unkind reference to the fact that I looked much better these days than I had in the camouflage pants I wore half the time in 11th grade. In retrospect, the bangs in my eyes hadn't helped, either.

"You look about the same. Same blonde Jennifer." This was my revenge. The blonde had to come from a bottle as her hair had been brown in high school.

"I hear we're competitors," she continued.

"Technically, you and Harry are. I just freelance for him."

"I'm amazed you didn't come to see me first."

I was tempted to say something about the fact that she only spoke to me in high school if she bumped into me, but settled for, "Harry is a friend of my Aunt Madge's. I've really grown to like him."

"You certainly had a tough first day," she said.

I nodded. "Tougher on Michael, though."

She agreed and moved on to a group of women dressed as sleekly as she. She seemed to pay particular attention to a woman in a black silk suit that looked as if it might have cost a thousand dollars. I probably had gone to school with some of the women, but didn't recognize them. None of the few friends I'd had lived here anymore, except Scoobie, of course. None of the women introduced themselves to me. I found that odd, but didn't really care.

A short, older woman with loosely-permed white hair introduced herself as head of the First Presbyterian Social Services Committee. She said her name was Mrs. Henriette Jasper – "that's Henriette dear, no 'A' at the end." Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her two-piece dress of navy blue with white trim made me think of a sailor. She said that she regarded Ruth Riordan as the church member most devoted to helping the needy. "Your aunt's remarks were wonderful. I wanted to say something, but I was just too choked up to speak."

As she began to tell me how many truly needy people there were in Ocean Alley, Aunt Madge walked up and asked me to help clear away some dishes. She whispered that I would have "been there all day" otherwise, since Henriette tended to talk a great deal about her work with the church. I said this sounded like gossip, and Aunt Madge said it was a fact.

I helped Aunt Madge clear away empty paper plates that had accumulated around the living room, and wished we could leave. As I carried a pile of plates into the kitchen, I stumbled into a little girl who ran around a corner, straight into me. Red gelatin salad spilled down the front of my blouse, and I was barely able to stop myself from swearing loudly or knocking over a woman using a walker. Instead, after I steadied the fortunately good-natured woman, I assured the little girl's mother that the blouse was washable and refused her offer to have it cleaned. It was pure silk, and the dry cleaner would have no more luck with red food color than I. One for the waste basket.

I hurried to the kitchen sink, where the maid handed me a wet paper towel, saying nothing as she did so. "Oh, dear, that's too bad." Jennifer appeared at my side, daintily holding a glass of white wine.

"Yes, well, accidents happen." I blotted at the stain with the paper towel. Useless. Plus, the wet blouse now offered a great outline of my right nipple.

I went back to the dining room and looked for Aunt Madge. She was talking to Larry Riordan. Not a lot of Ruth's friends had sought him out. Aunt Madge saw me and beckoned. "Jolie, did you ever know Mr. Riordan?"

"Larry," he said, extending his hand.

"I don't think so. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances." What else could I say? How's life with the young honey? Just then, she walked up. Though her clothes were clearly expensive, the lines were not those of classic tailoring. Rather than an A-line fashion, the skirt of her rust-colored suit had a ruffle at the hem and the jacket had large buttons in a tiger-eye design. A person would only buy such an outfit if there were twenty others in the closet and she didn't have to wear it one day with a yellow blouse and another day with tan.

"Jolie, this is my wife, Honey Riordan."

Thank goodness I didn't have anything in my mouth. I sputtered a vague hello.

"Isn't this a lovely home?" she gushed.

Could she be more tactless? Maybe she would ask Michael for some of the furniture. "Yes, it is." As she turned to look at some crystal figurines on a shelf, I turned to Aunt Madge. "I'd kind of like to change." I gestured to my shirt. "Would you like me to come back for you?"

"No, I can leave now. I'll just collect my bread board and butter plate." We said goodbye to Larry and Honey (whose name I would certainly never forget) and headed for the kitchen.

Michael came up to us as Aunt Madge loaded the bread board into her carrying bag. "Sorry about the blouse," he said, with a look of mischief.

I gave him a look I hoped would discourage further comment. "I probably did that to someone when I was her age."

"More than once," said Aunt Madge, absently.

"They say payback is a bi..bear." He hesitated. "I wanted to thank you both for being so supportive. I know I'm not the easiest person to be around."

"I'm sure you've said that more than once." I found myself smiling at him.

"Jolie!" Yet again I'd embarrassed Aunt Madge.

"Mostly it's said about me." He smiled.

Jennifer came up and took him by the arm in a very possessive fashion. "Dear Michael. I just wanted to say good-bye and to let you know to call anytime."

I have to admit, I was pleased that he did not look happy about the interruption. What do you care? I don't. Or, I don't think I do.

SURE ENOUGH, the next day the police arrested Michael just as he returned to town from dropping his father and Honey at the airport. The next day's paper said the bail hearing had been held two hours after he was arrested, and implied that not everyone would get this courtesy.

However, the Ocean Alley Press did not detail the county prosecuting attorney's basis for filing the charges. It said the prosecuting attorney was "not releasing all of the evidence at this time." I resisted the temptation to call George Winters, who might know more. He would only turn the call into an interview.
CHAPTER SEVEN

I DID AN APPRAISAL A DAY for the next three days, often looking over my shoulder for Joe Pedone. It seemed he had forgotten me and returned to whatever hole he'd crawled out of. I figured if he was going to bug me again he would have already been back. I began to relax.

Harry was very happy with my work, and was teaching me to use the computer-aided appraisal software. Years ago I had done my drawings by hand.

Three days after the funeral Michael called and asked that I return to finish the appraisal. He told Harry that, given all the stuff going on, he would stay at the house while I worked. I was glad to hear that, since I wasn't looking forward to measuring Mrs. Riordan's bedroom. Plus, I might also be able to talk to him about his mother's death. Aunt Madge would be so relieved if he wasn't guilty. And how about me? I would like that, too.

I drove to the house on a Friday morning and parked my Toyota in the driveway next to his Mercedes. This time he let me ring the bell, and opened the door without comment. Things looked pretty much as they did little more than a week ago. I glanced up at him. "How are you holding up?"

"I think the traditional reply is 'as well as can be expected,' but I'm still really ticked off." He was wearing gray sweats and an old pair of running shoes, and didn't look anything like the successful Texas oil executive.

"I would think sad, too." I fished a tape measure out of my purse.

"Yeah," he led me upstairs, "I am, but the arrest is so frustrating I mostly think about that."

We didn't talk as I measured and made notes. Fortunately, he had opened all the curtains in the master bedroom, so it looked nothing as it did the day I found his mother in ultimate repose. The upstairs was in the same immaculate condition as the first floor. Someone had done a good job cleaning up the fingerprint dust, which impressed me given how long it had taken me to clean the ink off my own hands.

One of the bedrooms had been turned into a den of sorts, complete with a large-screen TV and computer, which was housed in a very expensive wall unit that looked like solid maple. That must have been a bear to get up the steps.

I stopped at the threshold, taking in the green walls, maple crown molding, and rich brown carpet. A man's room if there ever was one. I glanced at Michael and he was smiling at me. "Yes, she decorated it with me in mind."

I must have flushed because his smile broadened. Since I could think of no smart comeback, I said, "It's lovely," and got to work.

As we walked downstairs I asked him if he needed help with anything. "Mother's friend, Mrs. Jasper, keeps calling to see if I want help going through mother's things. It seems a bit early to do that." He sighed. "I know she's just trying to help, and mother really admired how much she did for First Prez."

"I met her briefly at the house after the funeral." I hesitated and then told him Aunt Madge's assessment of her talkativeness, trying to make it sound funny. I failed.

"Yeah, Mother didn't have an answering machine, but I bought one to screen calls and I don't answer when it's her anymore."

"How about Sgt. Morehouse's calls?" I realized this was a mistake as soon as I said it.

"That bastard doesn't have the nerve to call." He had led me to the kitchen and gestured to some mugs on the counter near a coffee pot. He helped himself and I did the same. "It's still not clear what they have other than the firm belief that I wanted my mother's money sooner rather than later."

"Surely they have to tell you."

"Eventually. My lawyer says we'll learn some at the probable cause hearing, where the judge hears information so he can decide if the case will go to trial." He frowned as he took a drink of coffee. "And if he rules I do go to trial, my attorney and I will learn a lot more during discovery."

From crime novels, I recalled that this was the process through which the two sides shared a lot of information prior to the trial. "Maybe it won't even get that far." I tried to be encouraging. "Maybe they'll find the real killer."

"Thanks, but I don't think they're looking."

"There must be a way," I was thinking out loud, "to plant a seed of doubt about you. As far as killing your mom goes, I mean."

His smile was genuine. "What are you, girl detective?"

"I used to sniff out some pretty good real estate deals. For all the good it did me." I was starting to get letters from all kinds of creditors I'd never heard of. I simply forwarded them to my lawyer, and was resigned to paying him a lot of money to handle it and having a really lousy credit rating for a decade.

"Sorry you came here?" he asked.

"Not at all. Sorry about the mess my ex-husband left in Lakewood."

"Did you meet my ex at the funeral?" he asked.

My surprise was so evident I didn't need to say no.

"She hung around with Jennifer a lot," he said. "Black silk suit. Would be good as a burial outfit."

"I did see her, but I didn't know who she was. It was, uh, kind of her to come."

He snorted. "She's not kind. She wants me to think she is so I don't fight so hard about the size of her settlement, now that I've come into Mom's money."

"Sooo, maybe that gives her a motive."

"How do you figure that?" I had his interest.

"If your mom lived until after your divorce, it would be all your money when she died, right?"

"Sure, but geez, I don't think Darla would kill someone, even my mother."

I realized I had not known her name. I plowed ahead. "Aunt Madge said she, Darla I mean, wasn't too fond of your mom."

He sighed. "She was jealous. It had the same effect of dislike. She tried to drive a wedge between me and my parents, especially my mother."

"Why should she care? I would think, given what you stood to inherit, that she'd want to be on their good side."

"There's no figuring Darla. Took me awhile to figure that out." He studied me for a moment. "You probably thought you knew your husband pretty well, but there were some things you really didn't know."

I grimaced. "You can say that again."

"What I found out was that Darla has a hard time maintaining relationships with very many people." He stood and poured himself another cup of coffee. "She was even estranged from her parents when we were married. At the time, I thought it was her parents with the problem. Wrong."

"Maybe you could talk to Sgt. Morehouse about what Darla has to gain..."

"I'm not talking to anyone but my lawyer." He was quite firm on that.

"What if I..."

"Give it a rest, Jolie," he said shortly.

I sat stiffly, stung by the tone he used to reject my offer to help.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm paying this lawyer a lot of money, and I figure she has people who work on stuff like this." He smiled. "I'll pass your idea to her."

I smiled in return, though in truth I thought he should be more aggressive about his own defense.

THAT NIGHT I SAT IN BED and tried to think of ways to test my theory on Sgt. Morehouse. More specifically, ways to test it without Michael figuring out I had done so. I told myself I was doing this because Aunt Madge would hate to see Michael in prison, but I can rarely totally fool myself. This was something I could dig into in a way I hadn't wanted to dig into anything in the last few months. Since learning about Robby's crimes I'd alternated between wanting to hibernate and figuring out how to leave Lakewood. And it seemed Michael was growing on me. Maybe I even liked him a bit. So what if I do?

Any good lawyer would probably consider that Darla had a lot to gain if Mrs. Riordan died while Darla was married to Michael. Plus, unless the police knew a lot more than they were letting on, it seemed unfair to accuse him. Of course, I didn't know him well. He could be a serial ax murderer in Houston. Though if he were, the Ocean Alley police would probably have matched his fingerprints to some left at a crime there. Unless he wore gloves...

I stopped my train of thought and frowned as I played absently with Jazz, who was trying to attack my toes which, fortunately, were under the covers. Even a cat without claws has teeth. "Why do you do that?" I asked her. "You have no motive to maim me, I feed you." I picked her up and held her under the front of her belly, with her face facing mine. She tried to swat me. "Nice." I put her down.

I examined my interest further. There was a great deal I didn't know about Michael. Maybe the split with his partners was actually because he was hard to work with or was lax about business procedures. There was a lot more to find out before I stuck my neck out. Right now, I was relying on Aunt Madge's and my own instincts. Hers might be good but, hell, I never figured out Robby was draining our bank accounts. How good were my instincts? Maybe he did kill his mother. I pushed that thought aside.

I WAS MORE RELAXED THAN I had been in a long time, and spent the weekend walking on the beach, reading a Sue Grafton novel and trying to convince Jazz that Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy only wanted to smell her, not eat her. Aunt Madge suggested that I simply leave Jazz alone, perhaps sitting on the bookcase, and she would get used to the guys. I was convinced that I needed to protect Jazz until she had her confidence about the relationships. One of the best things about Aunt Madge is that she only makes her suggestions once.

Every time I went out I looked for Scoobie. I thought of going to the library, but reasoned that it would be invading his space. Who am I kidding? We had been good friends for one school year, but was there a reason to strike up that friendship again? We had had a lot of fun, though. I decided that's what I was looking for, something fun to do. I debated calling Michael, but decided even though I thought he was innocent it bordered on nuts to invite a possible murderer to lunch. If I hadn't found anyone to hang out with besides Aunt Madge by next weekend, I'd visit my sister and do some shopping at the Mall in Lakewood.

On Monday I went to Java Jolt before I stopped at Harry's to see if he had more work. I had thought of a way to learn more about Michael. I didn't even know the name of Michael's firm, but I figured if I Googled "Riordan + Houston + oil" I'd get something. Sure enough, Michael Riordan was still listed as vice-president for operations of USA Energy Distributors. The company web site said the firm distributed "home-grown Texas oil" throughout the western United States. Home-grown? These guys could use a botany class.

I found a Houston newspaper on line and a brief article said Michael would be stepping down at a date to be determined, but it was only a short note on the business page. I scanned the business section and saw an article by Joel Kenner about the drop in home heating oil prices because OPEC had lowered the per-barrel price. Maybe Mr. Kenner would know more about the circumstances behind Michael's departure. I went to switchboard.com and found the phone number for the paper and jotted it down.

Thank goodness for mobile phones. Mine is programmed not to give out my name or number on anyone's caller ID. I wasn't sure I'd be exactly honest with Mr. Kenner about who I was. I went out to the boardwalk and sat on a bench. Kenner took my call and listened as I explained I was a reporter for the Ocean Alley Press and was looking into Riordan's background in conjunction with a piece I was doing on him. When he asked, I hesitated a second and then said my name was Georgine Winters. Damn, that was dumb.

Good reporter that he was he wanted to know more about the story I was working on. The murder accusation was public information, so I started to give brief background when he stopped me. "You're telling me Michael Riordan has been accused of murder? Let me get my pen." My heart almost stopped. This is not good.

I spent a couple minutes telling him that I was one of a number of people who thought the police evidence against Riordan seemed flimsy, and that's why I was doing the story. He wanted a lot of particulars, so I told him he should consult the paper's web page, as I had not done the prior articles. That stopped him, and I was able to ask my questions.

"All I could find in your paper was a brief piece saying Riordan was stepping down as VP for operations at USA Energy Distributors, but a couple folks here have said he had a falling out with his partners. Do you know any more about that?"

"I don't know a lot yet, though I'll be doing some more digging now." I winced and he continued. "There's been talk about some accounting irregularities, and accounting's under him, or was. I heard the concerns don't seem to rise to the level of Securities and Exchange Commission violations, but investors are really squeamish these days, you know what I mean?"

I said I did, and asked if he knew why Riordan had not resigned outright. He didn't know about that, and mentioned it seemed to be a "gentleman's agreement" that he resign. He was, after all, one of the partners, not just an employee.

"Listen," he continued, "you've been a big help. How about I get back to you later today or tomorrow?" I told him I was going to be moving around a lot and would call him, and hung up. Probably not what a good reporter would do, but it got me off the phone. I was furious with myself. If Kenner thought I'd been a big help that was probably not good for Michael. When would I learn that my persistence was not, as my mother had often told me, always a virtue?

I folded my mobile phone and stuck it in the pocket of my jacket. How stupid can you be? As I turned to face the ocean, I stared into Scoobie's face.

"So," he said quietly, "Now you're a reporter."

"Are you going to rat on me?" I asked, in a definitely grouchy tone.

He smiled. "Hell, if I were going to tell on you I'd let your aunt know that you used to sit under the boardwalk and squirt water up at people."

"That was you." I felt myself relax. "I just filled the big squirt gun for you."

"We did some pretty stupid things for kids our age. Better watch that you aren't now." He gave me a half wave and strolled away, knapsack on his back.

WHEN I GOT TO HARRY'S a few minutes later he had his hands folded on his desk and was listening attentively to Mrs. Jasper, who was seated in front of him and had her handkerchief in her lap. Today she had on an old-fashioned, but designer-looking, suit of pale blue. It gave her a very washed-out look. Harry jumped up as if I was the Publisher's Clearinghouse prize announcer and introduced me to her.

"Yes, we met after the funeral." I took her hand, and very directly asked if she was going to be selling a home soon and needed an appraiser. I really didn't want to give her time to launch into something I had no interest in. Besides, I sensed she felt sorry for herself, and right now I wasn't up to coddling anyone.

"Oh, no," she said. "I'm just visiting new businesses, asking for donations for the church's Social Services Committee. Our food pantry is getting low and, as you know," she dabbed one eye, "I don't have Ruth's help anymore."

"I just told Mrs. Jasper I'd be happy to donate a hundred dollars," Harry said.

"Why don't you grab your checkbook and I'll keep Mrs. Jasper company while you write the check?" He looked at me as if he thought I was very insensitive, and pulled his checkbook out of the bottom drawer.

"You found Ruth," she said, looking at me intently.

Since I knew this, I was tempted not to comment, but instead said, "Yes, it was quite a shock." Seeing her stiffen, I added, "She looked very peaceful."

She blew her nose. "It doesn't sound as if she died peacefully."

I closed my eyes for a second and tried to remember she was old and had lost a friend. "Ruth's face looked very relaxed, as if she was sleeping." I decided not to mention her staring eyes.

"It's just so awful that everyone thinks Michael did it." She dabbed at her eyes with the other end of the handkerchief.

"I don't happen to think Michael killed her," I said.

Her eyes widened, and I saw Harry look at me, too. "Why not?"

I shrugged. "Aside from the fact that he seems to have been genuinely fond of his mother, why would he set himself up as the prime suspect? He doesn't strike me as stupid."

"Oh, of course not. His parents were very proud of him." Her eyes narrowed. "But he wasn't very smart about that girl he married, was he?"

That comment hit too close to home. "We all make mistakes." Harry had finished writing the check and torn it from his register, so I picked it up and handed it to her. "I'm so glad we could help the Social Services Committee."

She actually got the hint and rose from her chair. She was surprisingly agile for a woman her age, which I judged to be at least mid-seventies; no need to grip the arms of the chair. "I can't thank you enough," she said to Harry.

He started to say something, but I cut him off. "Let me walk you out. Do you need any help on the stairs?"

"Oh no. I walk the boardwalk every morning."

I made a mental note to be sure to walk in the evenings.

Harry came from behind his desk, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but I moved Mrs. Jasper toward the door. "It's very good of you to do so much for the church."

"It's my life." Her tone changed. "Did you get to finish your work at Ruth's?"

"Just Friday." I opened the front door for her.

"Was everything...in order?" she asked.

At first I wasn't sure what she meant, then I wondered if she wanted to know if the upstairs still looked like a crime scene. Nosy woman. But, Ruth Riordan had apparently been close to Mrs. Jasper. "It was lovely. Ruth had excellent taste."

She brightened. "I helped her redo the den. She wanted a place Michael could relax, and she didn't want a TV downstairs."

We were on the porch now. "I'll let Aunt Madge know I saw you."

"Please do." She walked down the steps without even touching the rail.

I shut the door. When I turned around, Harry was looking at me as if he didn't know me. "She would have been here all afternoon. Ask Aunt Madge. I just couldn't take it today."

"Whatever you say." His tone was reserved, and I could tell he did not like the way I had treated her. I felt bad for a moment, then decided I could take his reservations about me more than I could take an hour with Mrs. Jasper.

"Anything new?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Have you given any more thought to dropping by some of the real estate offices? I did it when I first opened, but it wouldn't hurt for them to see a new face."

OK, so he wanted me out of his sight for a while. "Good idea. It's so nice outside, it's a good day to do it." I picked up a stack of my cards from their holder on his desk and gave him what I deemed a jaunty wave as I left.

TWO HOURS LATER, I'd met some very friendly people. I was smart enough to know that every agent saw me as a potential homebuyer, so I didn't take their sociability too personally. Fortunately, there was no home number on my card, though half of them knew I was Aunt Madge's niece. That's what discovering a dead body does for you.

There are six real estate offices in Ocean Alley, which is a lot for a small town, but most of them also do beach house rentals as well as sales. I'd gone to five of them, and left Lester Argrow for last. Did I really want to find him? No, but I could use Ramona's name, and he could make decisions that would add to my checkbook.

I went into the side entrance of First Bank, which led to the offices housed upstairs. It was a frame building that had been covered in yellow vinyl siding. Though the front had a plate glass window that revealed the small bank, the windows on the side of the building were trimmed in a shade of green clearly meant to resemble the ocean. As I walked up the exterior stairway I was treated to several plastic fish that were fastened to the siding. The interior hallway was well-lit and brightly painted, so you didn't have the feeling of being in a corridor as narrow as it was. Lester's small office was at the end of the hall and the door stood open. The smell of cigars wafted into the hallway, and my heart sank. I hate cigars; they give me a headache.

He had his feet propped on the small desk and was reading the comics. He looked about 45, and his balding pate looked as if it had been sunburned many times. So, he smoked and let himself get sunburned. Smart guy. Viewing him in profile, I could see a neatly trimmed mustache. He also had a large mole beside his nose. Definitely a distinctive look.

At my knock, he threw the paper on the desk and rose, stubbing out his cigar as he did so. "Hello," he extended his hand. "Sorry about the smoke, I wasn't expecting anyone." He was very short, and he seemed to buy his suits in a regular size, since the jacket was way too long, even in the sleeves. He did have a friendly smile and firm handshake.

"I can come back..."

"No, of course not. I just meant I wouldn't have been fouling the air for company." He gestured to a chair. "Please sit down."

I introduced myself and he nodded. "Ramona said she told you to stop by. Glad you did." He grinned. "Heard you're working for my favorite appraiser."

I handed him a couple of my cards. "Yes, I read some of your poetry in Harry's files."

He barked a laugh and thumped his fist on the table. "Yeah, my friends say no one should let me near a pen or a phone when I'm pissed."

I had not expected to like him, but found his frankness appealing. "That would probably be good advice for me, too." I grinned back at him. "I thought maybe you might be willing to try Harry's company again. I hear we're $25 cheaper than the competition."

"Yeah, that's why I went there. Would you do the work?"

"Yes. But, I have to be honest and tell you I agreed with Harry's appraisal on the Marino house. I reviewed it pretty carefully, and pulled up some other comps."

He screwed up his face as if in pain. "The Marinos seemed to take him at his word, too."

"No other offers on the house?"

"Not right then. Mighta been later, you know." He leaned forward as if trying to convince me.

I nodded. "I just don't want to give the wrong impression. I think I'm pretty flexible, but I have to go with my professional judgment."

He studied me for five seconds, which is a long time if someone is staring at you. "Okay, I hear you." He looked at my card. "I'll call again." His tone changed. "Too bad about Mrs. Riordan."

"Yes."

"Ramona said you don't seem to think Michael did it."

I shrugged. "Just my instinct. Aunt Madge's, too."

"I don't either," he said. "He's a straight shooter, Michael. No pun."

"Actually, she was strangled." What the hell is wrong with me?

He stared at me before barking another laugh. "You're a pisser." He grew somber. "A lot of people think Michael's big-headed. Maybe he is, but he was always respectful to his parents. I heard his father say that, when the kids graduated from high school."

"Some people seem to think he wasn't so good to them after he married Darla."

He shrugged. "Dames. He came every Thanksgiving, I can tell you that. By himself. That woulda pissed off any of my wives. Shows guts."

Any of his wives? If there'd been only two, he probably would have said both wives. All I said was, "I see what you mean."

I stood to go and held out my hand. "I hope we get to work together." I meant it.
CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ARTICLE IN THE TUESDAY HOUSTON paper was very one-sided. I knew that because Aunt Madge had a faxed copy, which Michael had left when he stopped by earlier. "I tried to give it back to him before he left, but he said he wanted you to read it."

Uh-oh. I figured that was my guilty conscience reacting, because there was no way he could know I'd talked to Joel Kenner. Kenner's article was long, but he listed only one source by name.

"Some people just have a problem with their tempers," is how Sgt. Morehouse of the Ocean Alley Police characterized Michael Riordan, when asked why he might have murdered his mother, as he is accused of having done earlier this month.

Kenner had not bothered to get quotes from anyone who questioned Michael's arrest or had anything positive to say. He did say he had learned of the murder from a friend of Riordan's. I figured it hadn't taken Kenner long to learn there was no Georgine Winters at the Ocean Alley Press.

Interspersed with the details of the crime were references to the fact that Michael and his partners had "mutually agreed" that he should resign as vice-president for operations for USA Energy Distributors. Again, no mention of why he had not yet acted on that resignation, or even why he was leaving.

I glanced at the top of the fax to see where it had come from. Someone at Michael's firm had sent it, as it bore their name and fax number across the top. This was terrible, and it was all my fault.

When he returned a few minutes later, I could tell that Michael was at least entertaining that possibility. "You up for coffee at Java Jolt?" he asked. He didn't extend the offer to Aunt Madge. Probably wanted to talk to me out of her earshot. He picked up the article from the kitchen table as we left.

"It's too bad about the article." We walked toward the boardwalk.

"Yeah, it is." He glanced at me. "I called Joel Kenner, whom I know pretty well. He said a female reporter called him."

"From here?" I asked, feigning innocence.

"So she said, but she seemed to have her name mixed up."

"Oh?"

"She seemed to think her name was Georgine Winters."

"Is she related to George?" I asked.

"I'll tell you why I think it was you." His tone was mild, but I sensed he was controlling it. I said nothing and he continued. "First, you're pretty quick, and if you hadn't done it, you'd be following what I'm saying better, probably jumping in with more than just 'Oh.'"

Gulp.

"Two, you know how to be cagey, so I don't think you're above calling Kenner and using an assumed name. Though that was probably not the brightest one to choose."

He has a point there.

"And, three, the article said he heard about this from a 'friend of mine' and you seem to be one, and to think I'm innocent. Although," he said almost amiably, "I'm not sure that's to my advantage."

I had to smile at that. But, I should have known his seemingly good mood would not last. He stopped and faced me.

"So, I'm telling you for the last time, Jolie. Stay out of my business!" His face was inches from mine. He turned and started to walk away and turned back pointing his finger at me. "And I'll tell you one more thing. My parents told me to be nice to you at school, because you were Madge's niece. I never would've talked to you otherwise."

I TOOK AUNT MADGE TO SUPPER that night. Newhart's was extra busy because the blue plate special was crab cakes, and the ones Arnie Newhart makes taste as if they have more crab than breading. Plus, he always serves pasta with the crab cakes. I needed something to distract me from the acid in my stomach ever since Michael had yelled at me. I kept hearing him say, "I never would've talked to you otherwise." What did I care? The thing was, I did.

We ate in companionable silence for most of the meal. Aunt Madge had the decency not to ask about Michael's article. As well as she knows me, she had probably figured if Kenner had a call from someone in Ocean Alley it was me. Bless her, she would have assumed my motives were good but, like so many other aspects of my life, things had not worked out as I'd planned.

I swore that the only business I would mind from then on was my own. I would emulate Aunt Madge, no gossip, no poking into anyone else's life.

Arnie stopped at our table, picture frame in hand. "What do you think of this?" he asked Aunt Madge.

She took the eight by ten-inch frame and laughed. "Local rumrunner gets his boat back," she read aloud, and passed it to me.

The old photo was dark, but I recognized Uncle Gordon and the small dory that Aunt Madge still keeps in the garage. The photo looked to be a good copy made from the original print, but the small article was a photocopy of one from an old Ocean Alley Press.

I looked at Aunt Madge, who was asking Arnie where he would hang it and following his gaze to a spot not too far from our booth. I turned back to the article. The two paragraphs said only that the local police had confiscated Gordon Richards' boat the day before Prohibition ended and that Mr. Richards had traded the local police chief two bottles of "pure Jamaican rum" to get it back. As Arnie walked away I looked at Aunt Madge. "I thought Dad just called Uncle Gordon a rumrunner for fun."

She shrugged. "I met him much later, of course. You can see how young he was in the photo." I nodded and she continued. "He told me that he helped an uncle if there was a lot of fog. He'd stand on the beach and have a line in as if he was surf fishing, and a very small fire next to him, like he was going to cook what he caught. If he saw any local police or revenuers he'd quickly add to the fire so his uncle wouldn't come in along the cove, he'd go further down."

"I thought all the bootleggers were in the Mafia."

She shook her head decisively. "First, true bootleggers usually made the stuff, and rumrunners just went out to sea a mile or so to bring in cases of liquor. Some of it was really big business." She took a bite of her cooling crab cake and continued. "Your Uncle Gordon's uncle just brought in a few cases at a time, what the local hotel needed for its speakeasy."

"But," I protested, "if it was Prohibition, what was the hotel doing selling it?"

"You don't think that stopped people from drinking, do you?" she asked dryly. "Speakeasies were sort of underground bars. I'm told this one was on the third floor of the hotel. The rooms on that floor were only rented to people who were going to be imbibing."

Aunt Madge kept eating, and her expression reminded me more of Ramona's faraway look than her own practical alertness. When she met my gaze again she was smiling. "It was Uncle Gordon's boat – he had spent two months building it. His uncle's boat had been seized a few weeks before." Her smile faded. "People did what they could to feed their families."

"He's lucky he got it back." I turned to my pasta.

"No luck about it. You remember me telling you about his grandmother, the one who closed the doors in the courthouse during the fire?"

"I thank her every time I visit the Registrar of Deeds."

"Uncle Gordon said she marched into the police chief's office the day after they seized the boat and gave him, if you'll pardon me, hell. Told the chief he only took the boat because he wanted a good fishing boat for himself, and if he didn't give it back to her grandson she'd make sure everyone knew that the chief snuck off to go fishing a lot of Friday afternoons in the summer." She was smiling again, and craned her neck to look at the framed photo, which Arnie had since hung on a nail a short distance from us.

That reminded me about the seemingly fresh coat of paint I'd seen on the boat in her garage. "Who painted the boat for you? Looked as if it was just done."

She waved her spoon dismissively. "I get it painted every couple of years. Salt air will weather it too much if I don't." When I started to ask another question, she added, "I picked up two guests for the weekend. Pretty good for late October."

"Where are they from, or are they from different towns?" I asked.

"Texas. Houston."

Uh-oh.

THE NEXT DAY, THE county prosecuting attorney's office called to schedule a time to have his staff talk to me. "But, I don't know anything." I was distressed that I would once again be butting into Michael Riordan's life.

"Then it won't take too long," said the woman, who probably had to listen to all kinds of excuses when she made these calls.

"Do I need a lawyer or something?" I asked.

"Not unless you think you do."

What a stupid answer, I thought, as I drove to Harry's office. I wondered if I should call my divorce lawyer, but he would say I should have someone with me and recommend a lawyer who would probably cost quite a bit of what little money I had in my bank account. I had just bought two tires and made my student loan and a credit card payment – the only card that a bank had not canceled – but Harry was supposed to pay me today. We had agreed on every other week, and I would get $200 of the $400 of each appraisal fee.

I would feel better after I deposited my paycheck in the bank. If I thought of my pay in terms of an hourly wage, it was far lower than I was used to. However, I was able to be with Aunt Madge and had little pressure in my life, other than that I created for myself, that is.

Harry had a house for me, but I couldn't go until tomorrow. Still, I could drive by today, and get a sense of what houses I could use for comps and pull that information. He also had a phone message for me, from George Winters.

The big disadvantage to not having your own place is that you don't have your own phone line. You can't screen calls, and you really can't hang up on people if you are in someone else's house or place of business.

My face must have reflected my lack of enthusiasm for the message, because Harry seemed sympathetic. "You can just say you don't have anything to tell him."

"He already has the general impression that I don't want to talk to him."

I was in a funk as I drove back to Aunt Madge's. I decided to change into jogging clothes and do my half-run-mostly-walk exercise earlier than usual. The day was cool, but there wasn't much breeze, so it wasn't the kind of damp chill that makes you understand why people go to Florida in the winter. I walked slowly toward the boardwalk, stopping every now and then to stretch my calf muscles.

I hadn't counted on seeing Joe Pedone again. He was sitting on a bench outside Java Jolt, reading the paper. It was about 45 degrees, and he was wearing a winter coat. Not used to October beach weather, I thought.

"What the hell are you doing bothering me again?" I threw at him as he walked over to me.

"Thought I'd give you a few days to think about my offer."

"What offer?"

He smiled, a not especially pleasant expression for him. "It was implied."

I felt a chill. "I may have to talk to the police."

"You have a job now, you can make payments. My boss would go for, say, $1,500 per month."

I felt my chest tighten. "That's not only more than I could make some months, you don't seem to get the point that I'm not repaying any of my husband's gambling debts. They're his."

"I warned you," was all he said, and walked away.

"Who was that?"

I turned sharply. Michael must have just walked out of Java Jolt. "He wants me to pay some of Robby's gambling debts. I don't think they were the kind of loans you get at a bank."

He frowned. "It's against the law to collect on some gambling debts." My face must have brightened, because he added, "Of course, not all the people who lend the money would feel obliged to abide by that." His attitude was decidedly cool.

"Look, I'm really sorry about calling Kenner."

"You should be," he said.

"I said I was." This came out more sharply than I had intended, and I winced.

"Wishing you could take it back? I recognize the expression." He smiled at me.

Maybe he wasn't so mad anymore. Did I really care? Yes.

"I was just thinking..." I began.

"Don't," he said. "It's dangerous for all concerned." He turned and walked away, but I figured he probably wouldn't have hollered if I followed him. Remembering Aunt Madge's axiom about not chasing boys, I began my steady jog, going in the opposite direction.

I knew I needed to talk to the police about Pedone, but I was still reluctant to do it. I kept thinking that if I ignored it he would go away. I have often tried this, and once or twice it has worked. It cannot always be said that I am always a fast learner. Since my talk with the prosecuting attorney's staff was scheduled for the next day, I figured I'd see if Sgt. Morehouse was there and talk to him.

MY APPOINTMENT IN THE OFFICE of the Prosecuting Attorney was scheduled for ten a.m., and I arrived early. I was supposed to appraise a house in what Harry called the popsicle district at 11:30. I figured I had plenty of time to get there.

As I walked slowly down the hall looking for the office to which I'd been told to report – "Trial Team One" – I saw Sgt. Morehouse sitting on the narrow bench outside that office. He greeted me almost coldly, and I wondered if I had somehow managed to offend him. "I thought I'd get a cup of coffee to take in with me. Can I get you one?" I asked. This seemed to relax him a little.

"I'll walk down to the cafeteria with you," he said. He didn't speak until we were by ourselves in the elevator. "Noticed you been gettin' pretty friendly with Riordan."

"I'm not sure I'd say friendly. In fact, he's not really speaking to me at the moment."

"You were on the boardwalk with him yesterday," he countered.

"Are you following me?" I was astounded.

"Nope. Just happened to be up there myself."

What a crock. "Then you would have noticed we only spoke for a minute when he came out of the coffee shop."

"So, he's not your buddy?"

"My buddy," I repeated. Do not mouth off to cops. "He's fond of my aunt. You already know she helped him make funeral arrangements, and he's stopped by to talk to her other times. I do live with her, you know."

"Yeah." The elevator opened and we walked to the coffee machines in the small courthouse cafeteria.

"I'm curious, when do we get to find out why you suspect Michael?" He shot me a quick glance and I continued. "It just seems that he'd be kind of...stupid to have done it. Especially to have done it and had me discover her, when he had just left."

He finished adding cream to his coffee. "No one said murderers are smart."

"If they were, we wouldn't have so many good cop shows and murder mysteries on TV." I gave him what I hoped look like a sincere smile.

"Smart asses never do as well in the world as regular people," was his only reply.

I wasn't going to get anything out of him, so I changed the subject. "I need some advice."

"Get a lawyer," he said, testily.

"Not about this. It's about a guy who's been bothering me."

He grew businesslike. "I can put you in touch with another officer who works almost full-time on stalking cases and domestic violence."

"I'm not sure this would fall into either of those categories." As we made our way back to the prosecuting attorney's suite of offices, I described my experiences with Pedone, including my suspicion that he had flattened my tires.

He was definitely interested. "If he's threatening you, this is very serious. I could have him picked up."

As we again sat down on the bench outside the Trial Team One office, I went over Pedone's language. "When he says stuff like his 'offer was implied' it seems like a threat to me, but maybe he could convince a judge he was kidding, or something."

A woman came out of the office and invited me in. "I'll see if I can find out who he is," Morehouse said, crushing his coffee cup and tossing it into a waste basket. He strode down the hall. I realized he had only been sitting there so he could talk to me, and I didn't like it.

The room in which the staff was questioning me was very small, barely big enough for the tiny desk and three wooden chairs that looked about 40 years old. "Annie Milner," said a woman about my age as she extended her hand, "and this is Paul Damon. He's a special investigator in the prosecuting attorney's office." I took that to mean he was not a lawyer. He was even younger, and gave me a slight wave without getting up.

"Do I know you?" I asked Annie.

"We may have been in the same class in high school for the year you lived here." Her eyes met mine. "I looked quite different then."

Noting her tailored clothes and what looked to be an expensive haircut, I figured she could well look better as a lawyer than a high school girl. "Paul will ask most of the questions today," she said, nodding to him.

At first it seemed to me as if the prosecuting attorney's staff could have asked me the questions over the phone. I told them exactly what I had told the police. After a few minutes of this, the tone of the session changed, at first almost imperceptibly. "How well did you know Michael Riordan prior to the day you first went to his house?" asked Paul.

"I didn't really..." I began.

"Surely you remember him from high school," he interrupted.

"If you had let me finish, you'd have heard that I knew who he was in high school, because he ran for student body president." I wasn't about to say I'd liked him. He nodded as if to acknowledge that he shouldn't have interrupted, and I continued. "I talked to him for a minute on the boardwalk one day not long ago and, frankly, he pi...ticked me off. He mentioned that my aunt had thrown him out of Sunday School class, and I could understand why."

"Sgt. Morehouse said your aunt seems pretty sure Riordan didn't kill his mother. Why is that?"

What an odd question, I thought. "If you want specifics, you'd have to talk to her." I paused, thinking I really didn't want her to have to go through this, and continued. "She's known him a long time, and despite the Sunday School stuff, she just doesn't think he would do it. He was good to his mother." I shrugged. "Aunt Madge knew Ruth Riordan a lot better than Michael, of course."

"She has no definite information, then."

"Of course not." I was starting to get irritated.

"You don't think he's confided in her?"

I was now thoroughly annoyed and, I had to admit, nervous. He was implying Aunt Madge was hiding information about someone he thought to be a murderer. I glanced at Annie Milner and back at him. "Again, you'd have to ask her, but I think their confidences have been limited to discussions about the funeral, the fact that she knew his mother loved him, the kind of stuff people say to someone who's lost a parent."

I stood. "I am happy to answer any questions about what I remember the day I found Mrs. Riordan, but I really can't think of more that I can add."

"Thanks," he said. They didn't get up as I left, but Annie did nod at me.

As I did the appraisal I had an internal debate about how much of the conversation to relay to Aunt Madge. On reflection, I decided to give her full details. I didn't want them surprising her with questions later.

"That's balderdash," she said as she unloaded some towels from the dryer. "Those people are paid to think of all kinds of things; angles, I think they call them."

I took some of the folded towels and put them in the basket she used to carry them upstairs. "Maybe it's not. Maybe they think you're hiding something."

"I'm not," she said, in her usual practical manner. "I don't care what they think."

Miss Piggy barked once, and I opened the door and let her in. I sat on a kitchen chair, and she placed her head in my lap. I bent down to pat her and smelled something distinctly unpleasant. She dropped a mangled piece of what had probably been a bird in my lap. I screeched and jumped up.

"Sorry, dear," Aunt Madge said as she resumed folding. "I should have told you never to let them put their heads in your lap when they first come in. They sometimes bring presents."
CHAPTER NINE

AS MICHAEL HAD TOLD ME EARLIER, you learn what the prosecutor has for evidence at the probable cause hearing. It was scheduled for Monday and would be open to the public; according to George Winters' article, the hearing would be "the first time Ocean Alley Press readers learn the facts and issues of the case." Most of the article repeated the circumstances of Mrs. Riordan's death, but this time Winters added that not only had I "discovered" the body soon after I had been with Michael Riordan, but that he and I had gone to high school together.

"He writes as if Michael and I plotted to kill his mother!" I had been pacing around Aunt Madge's kitchen and sitting room as I read the article aloud to her.

"You're reading that into it, dear," she said as she shaped her bread mixture into a loaf.

"And so will anyone else." I threw the paper on the couch.

"No, they won't," she said, more firmly than she usually spoke. "You're upset. Have some tea." She gestured toward the electric kettle.

I avoided telling her tea was not the panacea for major problems by telling her I would take the dogs for a walk and grabbing their leashes. I let myself out the sliding glass door and into the back yard.

WHEN SGT. MOREHOUSE CALLED the Friday before the probable cause hearing, he said that I was not likely to be called as a witness. He would be asked questions about what I had told him. "Now, if youda seen somebody wielding an ax, they'd have you up there." Cop humor. Not funny.

Before the hearing, I had to get through a weekend in the B&B with two guests from Houston, one of whom was Joel Kenner. It had to be more than a coincidence that they picked Aunt Madge's Cozy Corner. I was sorely tempted to stay in a motel or go visit Renée and her family in Lakewood. I discussed this with Aunt Madge who tactfully told me she thought I considered myself more important to what Mr. Kenner and company were doing than they did. Point taken. Plus, Renée and I would shop, and I shouldn't spend money I didn't have.

At least Friday night was Halloween. I put an orange ribbon around Jazz's neck, and she wrestled with herself on the steps trying to get it off. Aunt Madge opened the kitchen door so that the dogs could see through the dining room into the hall. Since she didn't want them bolting to the door every time Trick-or-Treaters appeared on the porch, she put a child barrier across it. They would have had to take a running leap to get over it, and Aunt Madge had learned they couldn't get the proper traction on the tiled floor, so they were safely relegated (from Jazz's point of view) to the kitchen.

To avoid Joel Kenner, I put eyeholes in an old sheet and distributed candy in costume. When a little kid was afraid to come to the door, Aunt Madge would go out to them with raisins or candy. While she was not fond of my 'get-up,' as she called it, she didn't insist I behave like an adult.

Kenner and another man, whose name I did not get since I stood on the front porch as they checked in, arrived about 7:30 and then went out in search of crab cakes. Avoidance tactic #1 had worked, and I had not scared too many children.

SATURDAY MORNING I STOPPED by the Purple Cow, ostensibly to buy envelopes but hoping to see Ramona. She seemed to be a good source for the kind of information Aunt Madge was not willing to hear, or at least pass on.

The message on the white board was, "Change is not merely necessary to life, it is life." Alvin Toffler. I was tired of change, at least the disruptive kind that had characterized my life lately, and asked Ramona who put up the quotes.

"I do." She seemed quite proud of them. "Usually people like them. A couple of times, when I wasn't looking, someone erased my message and put another one." She leaned against a counter and pushed her long hair, which she was wearing down today, behind her ears.

This interested me. "Like what?"

"Last week, I had something up there about making sure you think about what you say so you don't hurt anyone, and someone erased it and wrote 'make sure brain is engaged before marker is in hand.' I thought that was rather rude."

I thought it was funny, but didn't say so.

"Did you decide if you're going to the reunion?" she asked, as she rang up my envelopes.

"I think I will." As if.

"Good. People are asking about you." She looked at me. "All the time."

"Swell. Like what?"

"Jennifer wanted to know if you were dating Michael."

I laughed. "Has she forgotten he dumped her in high school?"

Ramona did not laugh. "Oh, I don't think so." She leaned closer to me and lowered her voice. "But he wasn't rich then."

"Is that all you've heard?" I didn't have the patience to hear more about Jennifer's hoped-for love life.

She shrugged. "The other stuff is just rumors, like you said last time."

My words were coming back to haunt me, as usual. I changed the subject a little. "Are you going to the hearing?"

She shook her head. "It's Monday, and I have to work. A lot of people are, though. People liked Mrs. Riordan."

"It just doesn't seem fair," I fumed, "that they seem to have made up their minds on Michael."

"Fairness is not a concept that is innate to humans."

I stared at her. I could never quite figure her out. One minute she seemed like someone stuck in the time-warp Michael mentioned, and the next very insightful. "I suppose you're right." I picked up my envelopes. "See you next week, probably."

As I reached the door, she called. "Jolie. You never answered Jennifer's question."

"Question?"

"About whether you're dating Michael Riordan." She didn't wait for an answer, but turned to walk toward the back of the store.

FOR THE REST OF THE DAY I watched for Joel Kenner, whose picture I had looked up on his newspaper's web site, but he did not come to afternoon tea. Not that I planned to meet him, but I had hoped to hide in the kitchen to eavesdrop on his conversation with whomever he sat with. Aunt Madge had not been too enthused about this.

I waited until past dusk to go for my jog. Since there would be few people on the boardwalk at that time I took Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy. I had them on long leashes, and planned to let them run on the beach a bit, unleashed. They were not very good jogging companions, as they tended to stop a lot to sniff the garbage cans or anything else that required their personal attention. However, they loved the boardwalk and beach, and I was growing very attached to them. Unfortunately, Jazz had still not warmed up to them. I left her in the kitchen with Aunt Madge since 'the guys' would be out.

We ran north first, but there were more restaurants at that end, and Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy thought the doggy bags people carried out were for them. We switched directions and were soon in a less crowded section; not that anything was truly crowded in late October.

I let them off the leash and they ran onto the sand. Miss Piggy immediately ran north and Mister Rogers ran south. "Hey, get your tail down here," I yelled. She stopped, but it had nothing to do with my command. Something in the sand interested her. I'd have to watch what she had in her mouth when she rejoined me. Mister Rogers barked twice, and she ran toward him. So much for remembering who fed her.

They galloped ahead of me, which was what I liked. I could keep an eye on them. In their younger days they ran into the surf a lot, but now they keep away from it. Aunt Madge said they had jumped in one day when there were hordes of jellyfish floating about, and the dogs had not been fond of the experience.

I had gone about two blocks when someone stepped from behind a public phone booth, directly in my path. Joe Pedone. Damn. I realized there was a car with its engine running sitting in a parking space just off the boardwalk. What is this, the movies? I stopped, not wanting to run in the opposite direction because the dogs were far ahead of me.

"Thought you were pretty smart, didn't you, talking to that cop about me?" He did not look remotely friendly anymore. I guessed Morehouse had talked to Pedone and wished he had told me he'd done that.

"It seemed like the thing to do. I can't really afford more tires."

He moved a couple steps closer, and I backed up. "We're way past tires now." He cocked his head toward the car and the door opened and two men got out. Robby stood next to someone who was a good six inches taller than he. However, Robby looked even shorter than his usual 5'10", as he was somewhat stooped.

"What are you doing here?" I called to him.

"He's not here to talk," Pedone said. "He's just a reminder of why you want to make payments."

I was frightened and furious at the same time. How could this happen in Ocean Alley, on the boardwalk at 8:30 p.m.? "You won't hurt him, or me." I spoke more firmly than I felt.

"Of course not. Or your Aunt Madge, or your cute cat." He let that sink in. "Because you're going to start repaying some of your dear husband's debts."

"I want to be sure Robby's okay. Let him come up here." I really didn't want to set eyes on this man who had ruined major aspects of my life, but I figured it was better to have him up here than down there. Not that I had some sort of plan. This was not the movies.

Pedone nodded and the other man pushed him forward. Robby walked unsteadily up the few steps to the boardwalk. His normally impeccable clothes were wrinkled and he had a bruise on his left cheek. Given the way he walked, I assumed he was stooped over because he'd been punched in the stomach.

"So, you seen him. Go back down, Robby."

I reached over and grabbed his hand. "I think he's better off if he stays with me."

Pedone laughed. "Gee, I'm getting the unhappy couple back together again." He reached for Robby's arm.

"No!" I yelled, and pulled Robby back. The soft padding of numerous paws made me look over Pedone's shoulder. Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy were running toward us on the boardwalk. They had no intentions of jumping anyone, of course, but Pedone didn't know that. "Get him, guys!" I called, and pulled Robby closer to me.

Pedone jumped down a few of the steps. As Mister Rogers stood at the top, tongue panting, he laughed. "They don't look too..."

A window opened on the second level above the shuttered ice cream shop. "Everyone OK down there?" a man's voice called.

"Please call 911," I yelled.

Pedone looked at me as he backed up. "You just made a really big mistake."

My eyes followed him to the car, and as I turned back toward Robby I saw Scoobie just a few feet behind Robby, holding a good-sized piece of driftwood. He said nothing, but turned to walk away.

TWO HOURS LATER, I was so frustrated with Robby I would have left him if I hadn't already done that. He sat there, his black hair disheveled and Armani shirt untucked, moodily staring at the floor. He had refused to say anything to Sgt. Morehouse, who had now left the room, apparently hoping that I could encourage Robby to change his mind. Obviously, I rarely had a clue of what went on in Robby's mind, so I had no methods to change it.

I sat next to him. "They'll only do it again."

He looked at me, tears welling in his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

I looked away. When I looked back, he again had the floor in his gaze. "I know you are. I'm not mad at you anymore."

He looked up, almost hopeful.

"I'm done with you, but I'm not mad."

He gave me a half smile.

"But these guys will be back if you don't give Morehouse a reason to pick them up."

"They'll be back even if he does, or someone else will. I can't make them any madder than they already are." He looked at his hands and almost whispered. "I like my fingers."

I winced. I could tell Sgt. Morehouse that there was another witness to what happened, but I was pretty sure that Scoobie didn't want to get involved. Why else would he have walked away? Still, I was certain he had been willing to clobber Pedone, and I was grateful.

The door opened and Sgt. Morehouse stood back to let Michael Riordan enter. The sergeant did not look happy. "Your aunt called him," was all he said, and shut the door behind him.

I introduced Robby and Michael, and saw the questions in Robby's eyes. Did I have a lover already?

"Why would Aunt Madge call you?" I asked.

Michael shrugged. "She probably knew I'd come, and Sgt. Morehouse told her she shouldn't be here." This much I knew to be true. Morehouse had personally come to the boardwalk and then driven the dogs home before continuing to the station with Robby and me.

Michael turned to Robby. "Madge and my mother were friends, and she just helped me with my mother's funeral arrangements and such." Robby murmured his sympathy and seemed relieved that Michael had not introduced himself as my beau.

"What are you going to do about all this?" he asked Robby.

"I don't know," he said, floor in his line of vision again.

"Nothing isn't an option," Michael's tone was gruff. "They aren't going to leave Jolie alone, and this is a lonely place in winter. She'd be an easy target."

I started to say something about defending myself, thank you very much, but he didn't give me a chance.

"You either roll over on these guys, or you find a way to give them back their money."

Perhaps it was the firmness of his voice, but Robby sat up straighter and looked at him. "They won't stop at me, and I don't have eighty thousand dollars."

I stood up. "Eighty thousand dollars! Who would lend you that much?" Even when I was making my big-time realtor salary, no one would have lent me that much money, unsecured.

He grimaced. "It stared out at forty-six thousand, but these guys have higher interest rates and compound more often."

Michael pressed him. "You must know something about them that would help the police." When Robby didn't answer, he said, "Kidnapping alone carries a pretty stiff sentence. You've got to work with the cops. If they can't get at Jolie they'll go for Madge or other people in your family. They're pissed off now."

"They were before," he said, but something in his tone had changed. He was very fond of Aunt Madge.

Sgt. Morehouse opened the door again. "We don't have time for a pity party."

Robby stood, and he seemed to have new resolve. "I'll tell you what I can, but if you let me walk away from here, they'll kill me for sure if they find out."

Morehouse nodded. "I've been making some calls. The prosecutor in Atlantic County is working on something big on Pedone's boss. Seems like he lends money up and down the coast, and his tactics to get it back are usually a lot rougher than with you. The prosecutor can maybe work with the feds to get you in Witness Protection."

Robby looked doubtful. "Testifying against a couple of guys who lend money to gamblers? That doesn't sound like something that would interest the federal government too much."

"I believe I said something big," said Morehouse, emphasizing his last two words. "If there's more to it than I know about, you can bet there's more to it than you know."

"Great, insult him." Why am I defending Robby?

"I'm trying to help you out here," said Morehouse, yet again irritated at me.

"What about Jolie?" Robby asked.

"If she doesn't know where you are, she can't tell them anything," replied Morehouse, quite curtly.

"I meant what about..."

Morehouse cut him off. "We'll handle it." He opened the door wider, and Robby looked back at me as he walked out. He didn't say anything.

"Party's over. You two can leave." Morehouse left the door open.

I looked up at Michael. "I'm so sorry she..." I began.

"It's okay. I'll drive you home." He gestured that I should walk ahead of him.

We didn't talk, and I stared out the car window as we drove through the familiar streets. The houses and small stores loomed like shadowy guards rather than the well-maintained businesses and homes that they were in daylight. The wind had come up and the brightly colored banners that flew in front of some of the homes whipped smartly. Idly I watched a fast-food bag blow across the street in front of us.

What could Robby have been thinking, borrowing that kind of money? And how little did I know him if he had been so heavily in debt and never spoken to me about it? We'd been doing less together, but I had passed it off on our busy careers. Many nights I showed a property, went to a civic meeting, or had dinner with a potential commercial builder or lessee. But still, we did things with friends every weekend, and we never really fought. What had I missed?

It was a moment before I realized that we had gotten to the Cozy Corner's small parking lot and Michael had shut off the engine and opened his door. "I'll say goodnight to your aunt and be off."

She hadn't heard us drive up and was sitting at the kitchen table, tea mug in front of her, stroking Jazz. She rose quickly and hugged me, looking at Michael as she did so. "Thank you."

I felt like telling her she didn't need to send Robin Hood to rescue Maid Marian, but I resisted. I had to give him credit, however grudgingly, for talking Robby into working with Morehouse. "I'm fine, really. Sit down and finish your tea."

"I'm off," Michael said. "I just wanted to deliver your package and..."

The door to the kitchen swung open and Joel Kenner stood there with another man. "Michael. Good to see you." He held out his hand, but Michael didn't take it. "Sorry about the article," he said, withdrawing his hand. "It's my job, you know."

Aunt Madge broke the awkward silence. "Why don't you all have a seat in the breakfast room, and I'll make some coffee and tea."

"Kenner," Michael said, "you might like to meet Georgine Winters."

IN THE END, Michael had let himself be persuaded to have coffee. I helped Aunt Madge fix it, and she and I joined them. The conversation was stilted, as could be expected given that Kenner and his colleague, a young man named Peter Sellers (really), were there to cover the hearing for their Houston paper. Mostly Kenner told Michael what was going on with people he knew in the oil industry in Houston.

I banished my thoughts about the conversation and rolled over in bed and looked at the sun coming in through the slats in the window. Jazz walked off my pillow and onto my face, and I pushed her to one side. Now that she was sure I was awake, I'd have to get up and feed her. My new strategy was to give her the daily dose of canned food in the kitchen so she'd have a reason to like the room. However, she was no longer allowed to jump on the fridge. Aunt Madge said it was unsanitary.

I showered quickly and Jazz and I went downstairs. The guests were long gone, thank heavens. Kenner had been delighted to meet me; he hadn't had a clue who called him. I think Michael told him so Kenner would pester me. All's fair.

Aunt Madge was at church, so Jazz and I had the run of the house. The guys were outside, anxious to come in because Jazz was visible through the glass door. She was growing bolder. She paraded in front of the sliding glass door and they whined. "You hussy," I told her as I drank my orange juice.

The phone rang, and I answered, wondering if it would be Morehouse telling me what was going on with Robby. Instead, the voice said, "Georgine?"

"Nooo. Who's this?"

"Hi, Jolie. It's George Winters." I could hear the humor in his voice.

"I guess you've talked to Joel Kenner."

"Yeah, I've been showing him around town. Reporter courtesy." He paused, but when I didn't respond he continued. "How come you talked to him and not me?"

"Thought he might know something that would help me."

"Help you do what?" he asked.

This was turning into a soap opera. "My gut tells me Michael didn't do it. And don't ask me why, I don't know."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

I regret to say that I exploded. "What the hell is it with you people? Why ask me that just because I think he's not a murderer?"

"Maybe," he said, evenly, "it's because you and your aunt are about the only people in town who say that out loud. Why don't you tell me why you think that? What do you know?"

"I don't know anything. It just seems that he would be really stupid to set it up that way. He was the only one in the house before I got there." I could hear the scratching of his pencil, and was horrified. "Are we, like, on the record?"

"You didn't say we weren't," he said, very businesslike. I hung up, and didn't answer the phone when it rang again. I put my head on the table. When will I ever learn?
CHAPTER TEN

I WAS DEFINITELY GOING to the hearing, and Aunt Madge said she was, too. She even got someone to let the dogs out and told her non-court-attending guests, as she called them, that there would be no afternoon tea. Instead, she arranged for them to go to Java Jolt, her treat, should they want to. Both couples were more than 70. I did not envision them as Java Jolt customers, but Mr. Hammond, who was visiting from Virginia, said that he'd been going there every day to email his grandson. Go figure.

Miller County is the smallest county in New Jersey, and its courthouse is sized accordingly. The judge's bench was raised, but not as high as in TV courtrooms. There were two small tables in front of the judge's bench, each with three chairs. The jury box was so small it barely held the twelve empty chairs. Idly I wondered what would happen if a juror were obese.

The probable cause hearing started at 1 p.m., and we had arrived in the courtroom at 12:45. We got two of the last seats on the six rows of public benches. I recognized a number of the people as having been at the Riordan house after the funeral, and I wondered if they were there to support Michael or glare at him. No Jennifer Stenner, however. Larry and Honey Riordan sat directly behind the table that I assumed would be for Michael and his attorney, who walked into the courtroom shortly after one o'clock.

Unfortunately, we did not get the last two seats, and Mrs. Jasper sat down on the bench next to me. I groaned inwardly. At least I would not have to listen to her during the hearing. "Shame about the article," she said.

I turned to face Aunt Madge, who looked straight ahead. "What article?" I hissed. Before I could query her more the judge walked out of a back room and people stood.

Judge Kevin Rommer gaveled the crowd to order, reminded everyone that this was not a trial but a probable cause hearing that would provide him with the information he needed about whether the case should go forward, and asked the county's prosecuting attorney to call his first witness. As he called Sgt. Morehouse's name, I glanced at the prosecuting attorney's table. Next to Attorney Martin Small's large briefcase sat Annie Milner, legal pad in front of her. She looked more like I would envision a prosecuting attorney – an expensive suit and erect posture – than the man himself, whose shirt was partially untucked and suit jacket lay carelessly on the back of his chair.

As Small paced in front of him, Sgt. Morehouse recounted Harry Steele's call to 911, and finding me sitting on the floor of Mrs. Riordan's room, "stunned." I felt Mrs. Jasper's hand on my knee, and ignored her.

The prosecuting attorney then asked Sgt. Morehouse if he had been able to verify an alibi for Michael Riordan at the time of his mother's death. Exactly as Michael had predicted, they discussed that he could have killed her just before he left or made it from his car (which had been seen in the lot even though no one noticed him on the beach) to the house and back easily, before the police located him.

Next Mr. Small asked Sgt. Morehouse how Michael would have gotten in the house without me hearing him. Morehouse noted that Michael could have easily come in a side door near the first-floor laundry room and gone up a back set of stairs. I thought about that; he could have.

"What about an alarm system?" he asked.

"He said he turned it off the night before, so he didn't forget to do it when the appraiser arrived."

Michael's attorney, Winona Mason (whoever met an attorney named Winona?) had few questions for Morehouse. "Mr. Riordan was not at the house when you first arrived?"

"That's correct," he said. "Took us about a half-hour to find him." He added that after driving through Ocean Alley and alerting other local jurisdictions' police to the Mercedes they were looking for, local police had finally come across him in a Dollar General parking lot. This struck me funny. I wondered how many Mercedes parked in that lot.

"Did he say why he was there?" she asked.

"He said that the day before his mother had asked him to pick up some light bulbs, and that's where she told him to go."

No wonder Aunt Madge had liked Ruth Riordan so much. They both knew what Aunt Madge would call "the value of a dollar."

I'm no attorney, but I'd watched enough television to recognize that all of the evidence thus far was circumstantial. Morehouse had said that the only fingerprints on the door to the room were Michael and Ruth Riordan's and mine. The maid had cleaned the day before, so all sets of fingerprints were fairly fresh. At least ten people turned to look at me, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue.

When the medical examiner took the stand Aunt Madge shifted in her seat. She did not like anything remotely grisly. I wasn't too sympathetic at the moment, still somewhat annoyed that she had not mentioned whatever article Mrs. Jasper had read.

The examiner noted that the time of death would have been "within an hour, maybe less" of the time I found Mrs. Riordan. He based this on body temperature and the fact that rigor mortis had not set in.

Why, Mr. Small asked him, did he think it was strangulation that killed Mrs. Riordan rather than natural causes? The medical examiner went into great detail about what causes asphyxia – spasms (such as from asthma), obstruction (such as a piece of food or other 'foreign body' that will not go down), or compression, which means someone gets a good grip on your windpipe and does not let go until you are history. These are my summaries, of course. Other methods of compression can include someone holding a pillow over your face, but this was not the method used, in his opinion.

He thought the cause of death was strangulation by compression. If she had been smothered, say by a pillow, there would have smudging of her nightly moisturizer. In addition, there was "just the slightest imprint of a finger" on her throat. He believed someone had blocked her windpipe just long enough to deprive her brain of oxygen. Eventually her heart stopped beating.

None of this added to Michael as a murderer, as far as I could tell. Besides, her covers had not seemed mussed to me. Wouldn't it be normal for her to have fought an attacker, and wouldn't the bed have been rumpled? Wouldn't I have heard something? I now wished they had asked me to be a witness. I'd ask them some questions.

As if he read my mind, the prosecuting attorney asked the examiner why the finger imprint was not deeper, or had not left a larger bruise. He attributed this to the fact that Mrs. Riordan had been drugged with probably 30 milligrams of cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxer; this was three times the normal dose. It was also the same prescription muscle relaxer that was in Michael Riordan's bathroom. He occasionally took it for back spasms. The judge rapped his gavel to silence the buzz in the courtroom. I looked at Michael, and he looked as surprised as anyone else.

In the medical examiner's opinion, the muscle relaxer made Mrs. Riordan's breathing very shallow. Perhaps the killer had even hoped the pills would kill her.

Michael's attorney asked the medical examiner if he could prove this medicine specifically came from Michael's supply of pills. He could not. That was her only question. Michael had said he was paying this woman a lot of money. What the hell for?

To my surprise, the next witness called was Mrs. Jasper. No wonder she had on such a new-looking green suit, complete with cream trim and earrings of cream and green. The outfit would be worthy of an elderly Jennifer.

As with the other witnesses, she was sworn in and said she would tell the truth. Idly, I wondered if Mr. Small would be able to get her to shut up. He began by asking her whether Michael Riordan had been estranged from his mother since his marriage. Mason objected, and the prosecuting attorney told the judge that Mrs. Jasper's comments would provide 'direct information' about the status of Mr. Riordan's relationship with his mother. The judge allowed the question.

With, in my opinion, the sincerity of someone hawking diet pills, Mrs. Jasper relayed the hurt that Ruth Riordan had felt when her son (no mention of the jealous wife) stopped calling and visiting very often. She knew all about Mrs. Riordan's pain because she was her best friend. There was some rustling in the courtroom, and I sensed that there were those in the group who did not think Ruth Riordan would have characterized the relationship this way.

When Mr. Small was done, Michael's attorney asked Mrs. Jasper to explain how she had met Mrs. Riordan, and the kinds of things they did together. Winona Mason pressed with questions until it was clear that the two women had met through their church and that most of their interactions were through the church Social Services Committee.

"Did you have any social interactions with Mrs. Riordan other than at church?" Mason pressed.

"I was always invited to her New Year's Day open house, of course."

"And how many other people were there?"

Mrs. Jasper shrugged. "I'm not sure, maybe twenty or thirty."

"I think it was more like seventy-five, Mrs. Jasper."

She was nonplussed. "Well, not all at once."

There were titters, and the judge rapped his gavel without saying anything.

Michael's attorney continued, "It sounds to me, Mrs. Jasper, as if you considered yourself a better friend to Mrs. Riordan than she considered you."

"Objection," said the prosecuting attorney.

"On what grounds?" asked the judge.

He looked at Annie Milner, and she seemed to mouth something to him. "Relevance," Martin Small said.

Winona Mason pointed out that if the prosecuting attorney was presenting Mrs. Jasper as an expert on the relationship between Mrs. Riordan and her son it was important to know the true nature of the friendship between the two women.

"Overruled," said the judge.

"She asked me to help redecorate her den," Mrs. Jasper said.

"She asked, or you offered?" asked Mason.

Mrs. Jasper paused. "I honestly don't remember."

This seemed to satisfy Winona Mason, and she sat down. I felt a small grain of sympathy for Mrs. Jasper. She believed she was Ruth Riordan's best friend because she wanted to be that person. She was shaking slightly as she sat back down.

Next Mr. Small called the attorney who had redrawn Mrs. Riordan's will after the divorce. Porter Harrison was, there's no other word for it, portly. He was one of those men who seemed to think that if he wore a very large vest over his very large stomach that the proportion of the latter might not be as obvious. Wrong. His chins jiggled as he talked, and every now and then his glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back.

Harrison recounted that prior to the divorce Mrs. Riordan had planned to divide her property equally between husband and son. She had also had each man as equal beneficiaries in her life insurance policy.

After the divorce, the will had been revised to leave all to Michael except for $20,000 to her maid of ten years and ten percent of the net worth of the estate to be divided among various local charities, specifically, the local Red Cross, Hospice, and First Presbyterian Church, with special instructions that the money go to the latter's social services work. Mrs. Jasper nodded firmly and leaned over to me. "I asked her to do that," she said.

I ignored her. Mrs. Riordan had been generous to her maid. I liked that.

"While the will had not been recently revised," the prosecuting attorney continued, "I believe there had been discussion of revisions."

"Not that I'm aware of," replied the attorney.

Though I could only see Mr. Small's profile, his irritation was obvious. "Mr. Harrison, I believe you are aware that Mrs. Riordan planned to leave her house to the Ocean Alley Arts Council."

"No," he replied patiently. "She planned to deed it to them prior to her death. She did not intend for her home to become part of the estate."

"And now this is up to her heirs?" Mr. Small asked.

"Yes," said Mr. Harrison, nodding all his chins.

"And what would happen if Michael Riordan were found to be the cause of his mother's death, other than in an accident?" Mr. Small asked.

"Mrs. Riordan, of course, had no provision for that, but the State of New Jersey would not permit him to inherit."

"Who would get it?"

"Barring lawsuits from others who felt they were entitled, his portion of the estate would probably be divided among the other beneficiaries, primarily the three charities, since she designated a specific amount for her maid."

Despite their mission to help those who are dying, I couldn't quite see the Hospice organization actually planning Mrs. Riordan's death. I stifled a giggle and Aunt Madge gave me a reproving look.

The prosecuting attorney had no other questions. Winona Mason asked Mr. Harrison if he knew if Mrs. Riordan had planned any further changes in her will, and he said he did not know of any. "So, as far as you know, she had no plans to take Michael Riordan out of her will, or reduce his share of what would ultimately comprise the estate?" she asked. He did not know of any such plans.

Mason had only one more question. "If Mrs. Riordan died when Michael Riordan was still married to his wife Darla, from whom he is now legally separated, would his wife be entitled to a share of the estate?"

Mr. Harrison shrugged. "A lot of those decisions are resolved in negotiation between the attorneys of the two parties seeking a divorce." He hesitated. "She would of course have a better chance of securing some of it prior to the divorce rather than afterwards." There was again a buzz in the courtroom, but it died as the judge picked up his gavel. He didn't even have to use it.

The prosecuting attorney's next witness was Elmira Washington, which seemed to surprise a lot of people. "Mrs. Washington, would you describe the encounter you saw between Mrs. Riordan and her son Michael in Newhart's Restaurant a few nights before she died?"

She looked decidedly uncomfortable. I noticed that Mrs. Jasper leaned forward in her seat, anxious to hear.

"Well, I'm not sure encounter is the right word..."

"Just tell us what you saw," Mr. Small said.

"They were talking," she said.

"Just talking?" Impatience was creeping into the prosecuting attorney's voice.

"It looked as if they were arguing," she said, looking quickly at Michael and then away.

Exasperation oozed from Small's every pore. "Mrs. Washington, you used the word 'fight' when you first discussed this with my office."

"Argument, fight. What's the difference?"

"As you described the event," he continued, his voice even, "You said it appeared Mrs. Riordan was..." he turned around and Annie handed him some papers. He consulted them and read, "Mrs. Riordan looked as if she was really upset with Michael. Like she was kind of mad about something." He looked at Mrs. Washington. "Those were your exact words."

I saw Michael's attorney lean over and say something to him and he nodded.

"I might have..." she rearranged herself in the witness chair, "I mean, it was noisy in there. I didn't exactly hear what they were saying."

There was true fury in the prosecuting attorney's posture when he said he had no more questions for Mrs. Washington. Winona smiled at her as she approached the witness stand. "Kind of nerve-wracking to be up here, isn't it?" she asked.

"It surely is," Mrs. Washington nodded and smiled weakly.

"Tell me, Mrs. Washington, I infer that you did not hear what Mrs. Riordan and her son were discussing that evening in the restaurant. Is that true?" Winona asked.

"Not the words, no." No smile now.

"Then how do you know it was an argument?" Winona asked.

"The expressions on their faces," was the prompt reply.

After several more questions it was apparent that Elmira Washington could have seen a discussion about local politics or whether it would snow by Christmas. My guess was that she wanted to appear in the know and had not expected to have to take her story to the witness stand. She had the decency to look embarrassed as she stepped down.

But still, what if they had been arguing? I didn't like where this train of thought was heading, and decided to ignore it, at least for the moment.

The prosecuting attorney's final witness was Roger Handley, another vice-president from USA Energy Distributors. He seemed to try to catch Michael's eye, but Michael stared at some notes on a pad in front of him. Mr. Small asked Handley to describe the business Michael helped found, and he said that it had been formed to buy energy from a variety of sources, generally companies that had an excess supply, and resell to utilities in the West.

"So," Mr. Small said, "you were formed after the legislation to deregulate the energy industry in 1992?"

"That's correct. We didn't form until after California deregulated, which was several years later."

"Would you say your firm has been successful?"

"Some years have been better than others. We were somewhat caught up in the last big energy crisis that hit the west, especially California." My sense was that Handley was hedging a bit. As I recalled, it was the consumers who got shafted during those brownout and blackout times, not the energy companies.

The prosecuting attorney did not pick up on this. Instead, he switched to Michael's relationship with the firm. "I believe you fired Mr. Riordan, did you not?"

Handley reddened. "Absolutely not."

"How would you characterize his departure from the firm?" he persisted.

"First, it was simply a disagreement among the founding partners. Second, he hasn't left yet."

"Just a disagreement?" Mr. Small acted as if he were puzzled. This was probably the most attention he'd ever had from the media, and he was milking it for all it was worth. "But this disagreement was going to cost Michael Riordan about $200,000 per year in salary and some nice profit sharing, was it not?"

"Yes."

"And why is he not off the payroll yet?"

Handley really didn't seem to like this question. "Because, because of his mother's illness and his impending divorce."

"So," the prosecuting attorney said, "you would call yourselves a 'family friendly' company, would you?"

Handley said, "You can call it what you want, sir."

"When will he be leaving the company?"

"In the near future."

"And at that point," the prosecuting attorney continued, "he will lose that salary and any share of the profits?"

"Yes."

"Is his silver Mercedes a company car?"

"No." Handley was really going for the mono-syllabic answers now. I couldn't understand why he looked so uncomfortable.

"Is it paid for?" Mr. Small asked.

"You'd have to ask him."

The prosecuting attorney actually smiled at the row of reporters sitting near the front of the courtroom, "I already know there is a substantial note on the car."

Winona Mason had no questions. This whole business about USA Energy Distributors was pretty boring to me. Who cared what his company did?

Now it was Michael's lawyer's turn to call witnesses. First she called the local pharmacist and, after noting Michael had had his own prescription filled in Texas, asked the pharmacist how often he filled prescriptions for cyclobenzaprine. He said it varied from summer to winter, because of course there were so many more people in Ocean Alley during the summer. In the end, he characterized it as a very common drug for back spasms, strained muscles in other parts of the body, and even headaches that were caused by tension in the neck. The prosecuting attorney had no questions.

Ms. Mason's next witness was Madge Richards. I almost tripped her on her way past me, for not telling me. Aunt Madge did not characterize herself as Ruth Riordan's best friend, but said one of the reasons they were fond of each other was because they both enjoyed people but "not talking about people," so they could spend time together without gossiping. I blinked back tears. How could I have even thought about tripping this dear woman? Especially in a court room.

Then Mason asked Aunt Madge to talk about recent changes in the relationship between mother and son. "I wouldn't actually characterize the relationship as changing, just evolving to spend more time together again." When asked, Aunt Madge said that Ruth Riordan had been very sad when her son's wife did not want to spend time in Ocean Alley and did not want Michael to do so, either. However, she said, Michael had always made it clear to Ruth that he loved her and his father very much. It was Larry Riordan's turn to dab his eyes.

Winona Mason's final witness was Michael himself. He answered very directly that he had not killed his mother, and said he missed her very much.

"Were you and your mother arguing in Newton's Restaurant, Michael?" she asked.

"We were having a discussion about when I would finish up with my firm. She favored sooner rather than later." He paused. "I was trying to find a nice way to tell her it was none of her business." There was some brief murmuring and the judge banged his gavel without saying anything.

"Why," she asked, "do you believe that the police and prosecuting attorney have accused you of this crime?"

"Because they haven't had a murder here in many years, and don't have the faintest idea how to investigate one."

This did not appear to be the answer his attorney had coached him to give, as she turned crimson.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS JUST AS WELL that Aunt Madge had not shown me the Ocean Alley Press article before the hearing, as I might have gone after George Winters in the courtroom and it could have reflected badly on Harry's business, to say nothing of Michael's defense.

The gist of the article was that Michael and I were "close friends from high school" and the implication was clear—I was in cahoots with him to murder his mother before the house, assessed for tax purposes at almost $400,000, was deeded to the Arts Council. The article also noted that my former husband was a confessed embezzler who had raided our personal funds as well, and implied that I thus had a motive (the almighty dollar) for helping Michael. Perhaps I should rethink hanging up on reporters.

The only real good news was that after we were back at Cozy Corner, Joel Kenner told me he had a better understanding of why I thought Michael might be innocent. "Really," he said, "it's all pretty circumstantial."

"Too bad you wrote that first article before you knew much about what the police were going on, isn't it?" He walked away without comment. Oh well, no one in Houston knows me.

I wondered if George Winters would see it as Kenner did. In truth, it only mattered what the judge thought. He said he would issue his ruling in about one week as to whether the case should go to trial.

THE NEXT MORNING I was in the county Register of Deeds Office in the court house looking up recent home sales in the popsicle district when who should come in but Winters himself. "You know, you really have a knack for pissing people off."

I assumed he was talking about Kenner, but all I did was shrug. "We all have our special talents." Then, I couldn't resist. "I see that innuendo is one of yours." He left.

The house I was appraising that morning had had two separate additions, done under different owners, neither of whom appeared to take special pride in how the additions blended with the original exterior. While the bright purple paint with lavender trim obviously appealed to whoever had offered the contract, it did little to hide the architectural hodge-podge.

The interior was nicely done. Wallpaper can hide a world of blemishes. However, when I got to the large great room off the kitchen in the back of the house, the first of the two additions, I sensed a definite downward slope. I would have to take careful measurements. This did not bode well for the seller's asking price.

Back in the office, I relayed my thoughts to Harry, and said I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to support the price. This especially troubled me because it was Lester Argrow's sale, and I had hoped he would get over his past funk with Harry and bring us more business. He was very popular with the popsicle district crowd and there were a lot of sales there.

I spent much of the afternoon embellishing the value of some of the house's better features—a hot tub in the new master bedroom (second addition), maintenance-free lawn (read gravel) and hardwood floors in the living room and dining room (original to the house, in need of refinishing). Harry's attitude was that if the house appeared structurally sound, I should merely mention the slope and see what I could do to reach the $154,000 selling price.

Eventually I got the numbers to work without totally compromising my integrity. I wouldn't buy the sucker for $120,000. Who was I kidding? Thanks to Robby, I couldn't get a loan for $10,000.

It was a lot of work for $200, almost all day. I reminded myself that a lot of people make minimum wage, but it didn't help much. When you've had a beautiful apartment and the ability to eat out at the best restaurants without considering the impact on your budget, it's hard to go home to a single room and a budget that doesn't include too much dining out. Thank goodness I like pasta and chocolate.

I had my car since I'd been all over town that day, and I pulled into Aunt Madge's next to a shiny Toyota sedan. It still had new tags, though the sticker had been taken out of the window and was in the back seat. Turned over, so I couldn't read the price. I hadn't realized Aunt Madge was getting a new guest.

Michael Riordan was sitting on the couch in Aunt Madge's great room with Jazz on his lap and Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy at his feet.

"How did you get her to stay off the fridge?" I asked as I sat across from him.

He grinned. "Your aunt had a theory that you were transmitting your fear about the dogs eating Jazz to dear old Jazz here. Since I have no such trepidations, Madge brought her down to me, and we've been sitting here for about half an hour."

Aunt Madge, animal psychologist. I gave him a half smile. "Where is Aunt Madge?"

"She insisted on going to the market to get some butter." He nodded to a paper bag on the counter. "I brought a couple dozen crabs."

"Aren't you supposed to be in jail or something?"

"I suppose that could still happen, but after today I think it's less likely." He shrugged. "I wanted to celebrate, and since my dad's already gone and half the town won't talk to me, I came over here."

"I dunno, I think Aunt Madge scored you a couple of points."

He nodded. "That's why it's only half."

I realized my ridiculous verbal sparring was a product of nerves, and vowed to stop. "Is that your new car?"

"I ordered it a couple of weeks ago."

"Cheaper payments?" I grinned.

"That prosecuting attorney is really a bastard." He placed Jazz on the seat next to him, and she didn't seem inclined to run. Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy were lying on the floor below her. "I did make a point of telling your twin brother George about it, in case he cares to mention that I've reduced expenses."

I let that pass.

"By the way," he added, "Kenner thinks you're a real jerk."

"He wrote a biased story. All he did was talk to Winters, and maybe one of the cops. All those people in Houston probably think you killed her."

At that direct reference to his mother, his face grew somber. "Somebody knows who did it."

I nodded. "I bet if we talked about it more, we could figure out..."

He shook his head, and his expression could only be described as dangerous. "I told you..."

"I know, that's why you pay your lawyer all that money. Frankly, she didn't impress me one bit."

"If you keep this up, I'm taking my crabs back."

I like crab meat a lot, but I hate to pick through the crab looking for it. Many people say they don't like eating crabs because it's tiresome or they get little cuts from the sharp shell, but I think of all that poking around for meat as a major invasion of the crab's privacy. However, all that aside, I decided I'd rather spend time with Michael than have him leave. He was growing on me.

I hadn't realized I'd been quiet for at least several seconds, long for me if I was trying to get my way, and flushed. Luckily he couldn't read my mind. "I'll give it a rest." For now, I thought.

Aunt Madge returned with a pound of butter and I teased her about clogging her arteries. "I know," she said. "But there's just no substitute for real butter when you have crab."

She instructed me to place newspaper on the table, which I knew was the only way to go when you shell crabs, and told me she'd moved the nut crackers and picks to a lower drawer. I found them and poured three large tumblers of ice water while she warmed the butter and transferred it to an old fondue pot to keep it melted.

Michael was sitting on the floor with Jazz in his lap. He would occasionally lift her to one of the dogs, she would smell them and they her, and he would gently put her back in his lap. However, when Aunt Madge called him to the table she did not want to be left on the couch but ran to a chair and jumped from there to the top of a bookcase. Now that the dogs had had a good sniff of her, they did not follow.

"Did you hear any more from my favorite cop about the guy who was bothering you?" Michael asked as he dug into his second crab.

So, we can talk about my problems but not his? "Not a word. I figure if Pedone doesn't want to be found it may take a while."

Aunt Madge cracked a crab. "We don't know a thing about where he's from, so it's hard to tell them where to look."

"I'm sure Robby knows," I said dryly.

"Too true," she said. As she dug crab meat out with a pick she spoke to Michael. "Who do you think gave her those pills?"

He paused in his wrestling with a crab claw and looked at me. Luckily, I did not need to feign innocence. I had not asked her to question Michael.

"I've thought a lot about that, of course. Winona says it's the only really damning thing they've got."

"Were you missing any pills?" she continued.

He shook his head. "Unfortunately, I take them so rarely I can't say. She, Winona, counted the pills left in the bottle and she insists I should remember when I took the ones that are gone, but mostly I can't." He popped the piece of crab in his mouth. "Had 'em almost a year. It's not like I got them the week before...she died."

"Maybe you should try harder," I offered. Not helpful, I guess, as he just looked at me.

"Who else goes in the house?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Of course, I don't know all Mother's friends any more. She occasionally had people over for coffee, and then there was Elsie, the maid. She comes every week. More lately, just to see if Mom's OK."

"So, have Winona ask everyone your mom knew."

He seemed to be tiring of the questions, as his voice assumed the tone one reserves for talking to cantankerous children. "Winona wants to, but I told her to wait until after the judge's ruling. If he doesn't think there's enough evidence to go ahead, there's no point in getting people riled up."

"It's a murder charge," Aunt Madge said. "They can reopen it any time they want to. Those old people will die. She should talk to them now."

Since Aunt Madge rarely butted into people's business, he seemed to be considering her point. "I hadn't thought of that."

Aunt Madge could tell he'd had enough, so she asked him how he liked his new car. He clearly preferred this topic.

I looked down and noticed Jazz sitting by my foot. Apparently the smell of crabmeat was enough to get her off the bookcase. The guys were napping on the great room rug. I gave her a piece. Probably because we had company, Aunt Madge did not scold me.
CHAPTER TWELVE

MICHAEL MIGHT NOT want to pursue much before the judge's ruling, but I did. After all, I had been somewhat implicated in Winters' stupid article. I did not sense that Morehouse thought I was involved in Mrs. Riordan's death. That was fortunate, as I had enough problems looking over my shoulder for Pedone all day.

When I checked with Harry on Wednesday, he had no houses, but he had had several calls. Apparently the agents were getting used to working with him and did not hold it against him that his sole stringer was bandied about as a friend of Michael Riordan's. Thank heavens for small favors.

My lack of work left me with too much free time to think about my problems – especially the one who wore patent leather shoes – so I decided to focus on Michael's. I decided to talk to Ruth Riordan's friends. I really didn't want to talk to Mrs. Jasper, whom I did not believe was all that close to Ruth anyway. I knew I would have to eventually, and stalled by going to visit Ramona.

Today's quote was, "A collision at sea can ruin your entire day." Thucydides. I stared at this for a few seconds, and decided this was Ramona's way of telling the world to keep things in perspective.

Scoobie was standing near the entrance inspecting the prices on some steno pads. "Hey. Sorry I ran off the other day. I still want to sit and talk."

He seemed preoccupied. "Good, good." He selected a pad. "I'm on a writing binge. Gotta go." He walked toward the cash register.

I had many good memories of hanging out with Scoobie, and felt bad that I'd hurried away from him when we were having coffee. I hoped that wasn't why he was unwilling to talk to me.

I looked for Ramona, and saw her in the back of the store talking to someone in a tie, so I figured he was the manager. As she nodded in response to whatever they were discussing her large hoop earrings bobbed. They finished their conversation, and when she came toward me I said, "I just came by to chat."

"That's OK, but we need to look like I'm showing you something." She nodded toward the side wall. "How about the graph paper?"

"Uh, sure. Graph paper?"

"People from Jennifer's office sometimes buy it."

This woman was much smarter than her loose-fitting, greenish, tie-dyed long dress and orange beret let on. "They must have some folks who like to draw to scale when they work."

"Don't you?"

I shook my head. "I do a rough sketch and let the computer figure out the scale when I tell it the measurements."

"What did you want to chat about?" she asked.

"Did you read the article in the paper about the hearing?"

"Every word. It wasn't such convincing evidence," she said, "except for the pills."

I told her I agreed and asked her, casually of course, if Ruth had come into the Purple Cow very often.

"Not too often. Mostly before her big New Year's Day open house. She bought the invitations here, and Roland ordered special napkins for her."

"Roland?" I asked.

She nodded toward the back. "Mr. Purple Cow himself."

"How'd it get that name, anyway?" I asked, allowing myself to be distracted.

"He was trying to think of a name and he heard some kids say that old rhyme. You know," she said, sensing my perplexity, "I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one. But I can tell you anyhow I'd rather see than be one." She looked at me closely. "The rhyme by Gelett Burgess."

I stared at her for several seconds. Obviously, my childhood had missed something. "And that's why he picked the name?"

"Oh, yes. He said he'd always liked the rhyme and he was glad he heard them say it before he picked some silly name, like 'Ocean Alley Office Supplies.'"

Heaven forbid.

There was no getting around it, I'd have to be direct. "So, who would you say Ruth's good friends were?"

"Ooh. You're investigating." She looked thrilled.

I tried to appear nonchalant. "Winters has me tied into this somewhat, so I figure I have a stake in how it comes out."

She nodded. "That wasn't very nice of him. If he were really good he'd know that it's Jennifer who's chasing Michael."

While this interested me, I couldn't let myself get distracted again. "Was Ruth friendly with Jennifer's mother, for instance?"

This got her into some deep thinking. "I don't think so. She liked your Aunt Madge, I know. I saw them Christmas shopping in Lakewood one time."

Aunt Madge went to Lakewood every year to do her shopping, and when my parents still lived there, my mother would meet her at the mall. I had no idea that she'd partnered with Ruth Riordan after my parents moved. The things I don't know.

"Who else?"

"Roland said that Mrs. Jasper said she was her best friend, at the hearing." When I nodded, she added, "I wonder why George Winters didn't interview her before?"

I snorted. "He'd have to talk to her for an hour to get one quote."

"That's true," she sighed. "I have a very hard time waiting on other customers when she comes in here. And she always wants Roland to give her a discount on office supplies. She says they're for the church." Her tone implied she did not think so, but I really didn't care. I already knew about Mrs. Jasper.

"Mrs. Riordan and Mrs. Murphy were friends," she continued. "I remember when the paper interviewed them about the bazaar to benefit the First Prez Social Services Committee. They joked that they were the most Irish people in their church."

I did not recognize Mrs. Murphy's name, and said so.

"She's very short, and she walks with a walker. You don't see her out much, unless her daughter takes her."

I remembered the woman whom I had almost knocked over at the Riordan's after the funeral, and when I described her Ramona felt certain this was she. She was likely to remember me, that was for sure, and Ramona told me she lived in an assisted living facility on the north side of town.

Feeling as if I'd worn out my welcome, especially given Roland's looks in our direction, I bought a mechanical pencil and some refills for it. At least I wouldn't have to sharpen pencils for a while.

MRS. MURPHY WAS DELIGHTFUL. She was definitely in a lot of pain ("just a crushed vertebra, but did not want me to focus on that.

Her eyes teared when I mentioned Ruth Riordan. "She was one of the kindest people I've ever met. She visited me once or twice a month, and there were a lot of people I used to know better who always say they'll come by, but don't."

I said I wished I'd known Ruth and was trying to get a handle on who might have killed her. She eyed me with some suspicion. "Are you a reporter?"

"No, ma'am. I'm a friend of Michael's, and..."

She interrupted me. "Of course. The girl from the paper."

It was hard not to sigh. What a way to get known in Ocean Alley. "Yes, but we really are just friends." It was not so long ago that I denied this. I mentioned that I was Madge's niece.

"A very hard-working woman. Ruth really liked her." She nodded, as if agreeing with herself. "Ruth would be glad Michael was friends with Madge's niece."

I decided to plunge ahead with my theory. "Can you think of anyone Ruth thought was a friend, but really wasn't?"

She shook her head. "I've thought all week about that. I can't believe anyone would murder her. She never riled anyone."

This might be true, but it was not helpful. I needed her to describe someone who disliked Ruth, or envied her for her money, or something.

"Of course, there was Michael's wife." She frowned. "Even at the wedding, I thought she was a user."

"Of...drugs?" I asked, in surprise.

This made her throw back her head and laugh, which then brought a grimace of pain. "No, not drugs, people. She seemed phony, and it wasn't but a few months after the wedding that she started telling Michael his mother was against her, and he shouldn't visit so much."

I nodded, this was helpful, and she leaned forward. "She might have had a key, you know. Michael had one. She could have copied it." She laughed, and pointed at a large bookshelf full of books, mostly mysteries. "I have an active imagination."

The key was, well, the key. Even with the security system off, someone had to be able to get in the house without breaking a window or jimmying a lock. Michael would not have left a door unlocked, not with his mother in there.

"Can you think of anyone else she knew well enough to give a key to?"

She thought for a moment. "Not really. She was a friendly person, but she didn't have a lot of close friends. She and that jerk husband of hers socialized a lot as a couple, but you know how that is."

I was surprised at her characterization of Larry Riordan (not that he might not be a jerk, but that she would say so), and told her I didn't understand her point.

"When a woman is widowed or divorced, people just don't ask her around as much. Of course," and she seemed a bit bitter, "they keep inviting the men. Even try to fix them up."

I decided not to ask about her own experience, but turned instead to Larry. "Was the break-up not mutual?"

"They had drifted apart some, but a lot of people do after thirty or more years of marriage. I think," she leaned forward onto the walker parked in front of her chair, "that if he hadn't met that young slut he'd have come back by Christmas of that year. Ruth made a huge deal out of Christmas."

Mrs. Murphy was full of surprises. I plowed on. "I can't think of any reason Larry would have for harming her, can you?"

She shook her head vehemently. "They were very civil about everything. Ruth even told him he could bring that Honey-thing to Michael's wedding, but he had the good manners not to."

I stayed a few more minutes and asked her where she had lived in Ocean Alley before coming to what she called the "old folks' home," and she described a house not too far from Aunt Madge's. She said her two daughters still lived there, both divorced. "But," her eyes lit up, "I have wonderful grandchildren. Two boys and a girl."

I admired their photos, which sat in front of the books, and left her on that happy thought. I took a close look in the dining room and reception area as I left. It was all very elegant, and I figured her 'old folks' home' cost a bundle. It hit me that Aunt Madge might eventually need to live in one of these small apartments, and I didn't like the thought.

Mrs. Murphy seemed to have a pretty good grasp on Ruth Riordan's life. I decided not to explore for more friends, but knew I would have to talk to Mrs. Jasper. I decided to wait a day.

WHEN I GOT BACK to Aunt Madge's after my afternoon run there was a message to call Sgt. Morehouse. I looked at her and all she said was, "He didn't offer so I didn't ask."

All he had to say was that they had found Joe Pedone's apartment in Atlantic City, but a neighbor had seen him leave a couple days ago with a suitcase. The woman didn't know which day and didn't really care. "I figure he's going to stay out of the picture until he thinks we've forgotten about him. Which we won't."

In Morehouse's opinion, I shouldn't worry about Pedone. "He knows we're onto him. He's a bully, but nothing in his record says he's stupid."

Maybe, but I'd underestimated the funny-looking guy with the bunions the first time I'd met him, and I had no intention of doing so again. Instead, I asked about Robby. It seemed I should.

"Don't know too much about him," he said.

"You mean you let him go?" I was astounded.

"Of course not. The FBI came for him the next morning. If he helps them, they'll help him."

Though I did not at all like the way Morehouse had treated Michael, I was grateful to him for helping Robby and said so. "You sure know how to pick 'em," he said. Grateful, but I still didn't like Morehouse's supposed humor.

I told Aunt Madge what he'd said, and she remembered to tell me that Michael had called and said he was going to be in Houston for a few days. I was surprised he could leave the state, and felt a sense of loss. I realized that when he finalized the transfer of his mother's house to the arts council, which could be in the next few weeks or so, he'd be gone. What else had I expected?

With this less-than-cheerful thought, I wandered back to the boardwalk in search of Java Jolt coffee. It was almost dinner time, and I tended to go in the morning. I was surprised at the larger number of people there, and more surprised when Lester Argrow waved at me from the back of the shop. I did not associate him with a smoke-free coffee house.

He cheerfully held out a chair and thanked me for the appraisal "of the purple place."

"It's not a matter of thanks," I told him. "I thought it met that value." I then asked him if he'd skied in the great room, and he laughed.

"They should have flattened the soil better before they poured the concrete. I really don't think it'll settle much more." He then changed tacks with the speed of a sailor in a race. "Ramona tells me you're investigating Mrs. Riordan's murder."

I put my forehead on the table and wondered how I could have been so stupid. If Ramona spoke freely to me, whom she hadn't seen in years, she'd talk to her uncle. When I sat up, I realized people at a couple of other tables were looking at us, and I made a face at one of them. The woman looked away, offended.

"That's too strong a word," I spoke in a much lower tone than Lester's. "After George Winters mentioned me in that article the day of the hearing, I got a little more interested in who did it."

His face showed disappointment. "That's too bad. I was gonna offer to help. I always wanted to be a detective."

"Your fax is enough of a weapon. I don't think you'd be a good person to have a gun."

He laughed loudly, again attracting attention. "I haven't shot anything but deer." He grew more somber. "Listen, kid, I know everyone in town. What do you want to know?"

Kid? He probably was a golden opportunity, but what could I ask? I was hitting dead ends. "I guess you never heard anyone say bad things about Mrs. Riordan either."

"You talked to the reverend at her church?" he asked.

"You think he'd say bad things?"

"Nope, but he knew her pretty well. After old Larry left, she spent a lot more time helping at that church."

It was a good suggestion, one I might not have thought of. I insisted on paying for his coffee.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

REVEREND JAMISON WAS MUCH younger than most ministers I'd met. He was not wearing his black garb, but was in a pair of thin-lined corduroy pants and a green turtleneck. He looked more like a college professor than a minister.

Aunt Madge had called him on my behalf. Heaven only knows how she described me, because he talked to me as if I were a wayward child. Which some would say I had been, but that was quite a while ago.

"I'm just trying to get a sense of her life."

He stared at me, no comment.

"From what Aunt Madge said and what I heard at the hearing, I don't think Michael killed her, and I'd like to know who did."

"Don't you think that's up to the police?" His smile was polite, but I could tell he thought I was poking into something I shouldn't.

"With all due respect, I think they made up their minds pretty quickly."

He digested that. "Ruth was thrilled when her son said he planned to visit for a few weeks. Frankly, though she'd never have said so, I think she was glad his marriage was ending."

"Did you marry them?" Irrelevant, but I was curious.

"I only came two years ago, and they were married before that."

"You probably read that at the hearing Michael's attorney mentioned that his wife would get some of his inheritance if Ruth died before the divorce was final." He nodded. "Did you ever meet her, Darla I mean?"

He shook his head. "From what I gather, most people only saw her at the wedding. If you want more on her, you might talk to Mrs. Jasper. She knows a lot. Or," he hesitated, "talks a lot about things."

Even a man of the cloth felt a need to comment on Mrs. Jasper's loose lips. There was no way around it, I'd have to talk to her sooner rather than later. I thanked him and left. So much for Lester Argrow's detection ideas.

Mrs. Jasper lived just three blocks from the church, in a well-cared-for bungalow. There were pansies in the front yard, with a half-empty bag of mulch next to the pansy bed. The last couple of years, more people have planted pansies in the fall, the thinking is that they would last until there is snow. I never understand why people create more garden work just when they are raking leaves, but I chose to live in an apartment.

Judging from the brown slacks she was wearing and the tennis shoes neatly placed on paper just inside the front door, Mrs. Jasper must have been working in her garden very recently. She welcomed me and offered coffee, which was very gracious considering I hadn't called.

While she was in the kitchen making coffee, I took in her living room. Her small bungalow had been built as a summer cottage. The floors may never have been varnished; in any event, they were now painted a bright white, which matched the wide trim around the windows. The walls were a pale blue and the stuffed furniture – which I judged to be at least fifty years old – had lace doilies where a head would rest. On each of two end tables were large photos of a man I took to be her late husband. All in all, the décor reminded me a lot of Mrs. Jasper; a bit frilly, but serviceable.

She reentered the room, with two steaming mugs of coffee on a small tray. "Of course I know you and Madge don't think Michael killed his dear mother. Wouldn't that be wonderful?" She sat on the edge of her chair, as if waiting for me to outline exactly who had committed the crime and how.

"You knew Ruth Riordan so well, I thought you could help me understand what she had been doing the last couple of days before she died, maybe help me figure out who she'd been spending time with." Mrs. Jasper was the only person I'd talked to who seemed to accept that Michael might be innocent. I should be gratified, but I found even her eagerness to help to be annoying. I really need to work on my attitude.

"Hmm. You know she died on a Thursday, right?" She sat up a bit straighter. "Of course you do, you were there. So, you're talking about Wednesday, or even Tuesday."

I nodded. "But if you think the days before that would be helpful, that's fine."

"Of course, Sunday we were all at church. Ruth sat in her usual pew, third back on the left."

I listened without comment for several minutes as she talked about the church service, and when she wore out that topic she said she knew that Ruth and Michael had eaten out Sunday evening, because she had seen Ruth at the grocery store on Monday and she had mentioned this.

She knew nothing of Ruth's schedule Tuesday, but had seen her Wednesday at the beauty parlor. I had visions of Ruth Riordan changing her hair appointment each week in the hope of missing Mrs. Jasper at the beauty shop. I pushed the rude thought out of my mind.

In Mrs. Jasper's opinion, Ruth seemed distracted on Wednesday. She had the impression Ruth and Michael had had a disagreement, but it was just an impression. Mrs. Jasper had asked Ruth about Michael, and she had not had much to say. This was unusual, because since he had arrived home two weeks before that, she had been "bubbling over."

The one piece of information Mrs. Jasper provided that interested me was that she had talked to Ruth Wednesday evening, to be sure she was coming to the Social Services Committee meeting on Thursday morning at eleven o'clock.

"And she sounded fine?" I asked.

"Oh yes. Same as usual." She paused. "I think Michael must have been out. Since he's been back he's been answering the phone." She couldn't remember exactly when she called, between seven and eight p.m., she thought.

I didn't recall Michael saying where he had been the night before his mother died, and wished I had thought to work it into a conversation previously.

As penance for asking my questions, I had to listen to more than twenty minutes of Mrs. Jasper talking about First Presbyterian's work with the local food pantry and with teen mothers. I considered both very worthy causes, but I wanted to focus on Ruth Riordan. I managed to sidestep her request that I volunteer at the food pantry by saying I was not sure how long I would stay in Ocean Alley.

AFTER EATING DINNER WITH AUNT MADGE and walking the guys, on the well-trafficked street rather than the boardwalk, I sat down to make a list of what I knew and what I needed to learn more about. I did this sitting at the kitchen table while Aunt Madge watched a rerun of Happy Days. She was not pleased about my sleuthing now that I had broadened it to interviews.

What I knew was:

Ruth Riordan had no obvious enemies.

She seemed to have been alone at least some of the night before she died.

She had intended to go to the next day's committee meeting (or at least said she did).

Aunt Madge doesn't think Michael killed his mother.

Everyone in Ocean Alley thinks Mrs. Jasper talks too much.

Darla had a motive.

Michael did not.

What I needed to know was:

Did Michael really fight with his mother?

Did Michael think his mother was alone Wednesday night?

If she was, where was Michael?

Could anyone besides Michael and the maid have had a key to the house?

Why would anyone want to kill such a nice woman?

Where was Darla Riordan Wednesday night and Thursday morning (and how in the hell would I find that out)?

How angry would Michael be if he found out what I was doing?

Why was Michael in Houston?

These last two questions did not directly relate to Mrs. Riordan's murder, but they interested me.

I was trying to remember what Darla looked like (I could remember the suit), when I recalled that she had been with Jennifer Stenner. Maybe Jennifer knew more about Darla's life, or would at least be willing to talk to me more about it than Michael would.

There was no realistic pretense for calling her. There was always, "I'm thinking of falling for Michael Riordan (at least until the next time he really ticks me off). What are your intentions?" Somehow I thought that would close more doors than open. I wanted to stay away from talking about the appraisal business. If she got under my skin it would be too tempting to say that people were coming to Harry because they didn't like her style.

Jennifer had been homecoming queen, or maybe she was on the queen's court. She was probably working on the reunion. Did I want to pretend that I wanted to go to that? No. Did I want to talk to her about Darla?

THE NEXT MORNING I CALLED Jennifer's office. It seemed the receptionist was gone for quite awhile before she returned to tell me that Ms. Stenner could see me at 2:30. She never asked why I was coming.

I told Harry where I was going and why, because I didn't want someone to tell him I'd been seen going into Jennifer's office. He might think I was trying to get work from her.

When he gave me a short lecture on leaving police work to the police, I assumed Aunt Madge was the one who had told him about my other inquiries around town. However, he let me know it was Reverend Jamison. "I want you to know you are the first young person he has met whom he hasn't immediately invited to church."

Rather than being offended I was practical. "He probably didn't want the roof to fall in."

Harry just raised an eyebrow at me as he handed me a file. "Looks as if your friend Lester was pleased with your work."

More money! I grabbed the file it eagerly, and saw that it was only a few houses away from the purple popsicle house. "I remember this one. His sign was in front of it and what grass there was is a foot high."

Harry nodded. "It's vacant, but he has a buyer. Should make it a short job. He left the key here."

Empty houses are much easier than those crammed with furniture or, worse, lots of little kids. I had the small house examined in an hour and was at the courthouse looking for comps when I saw Lester Argrow in the hallway. I hid behind a pile of ledgers, but it was too late.

"I was just thinkin' about you," he said, approaching as rapidly as a train and stopping abruptly barely a foot from me. "You know who you should really talk to is the maid. Maids know everything."

It was a good idea, but I wished he would lower his voice. "I think I've heard her name, but I can't..."

"Elsie." He pulled a piece of rumpled paper from the pocket of his over-long suit. "Elsie Hammer. Want me to go with you?"

I demurred, but he insisted. For this he did lower his voice. "It's not a very nice neighborhood. But, it's a good place for a bargain, if you know what I mean."

Good old Lester, always thinking about his commissions. I decided that I wouldn't mind his company, and even let him drive. This was a mistake, as his car reeked of cigar smoke. I couldn't imagine a real estate agent driving customers around in it. But not many agents meet their customers in Burger King.

Elsie Hammer's house was almost as far south in Ocean Alley as you could get. From a real estate perspective, the neighborhood could at best be called locationally challenged. Unlike the house next to hers, Elsie's had neatly trimmed grass and all shutters were in place. They were real shutters, the kind you could close during strong storms, not just decorative pieces of wood or aluminum.

Neither of us knew Elsie, though I had seen her at the Riordan's after the funeral, so we first introduced ourselves. I could tell my name meant something to her; she would, of course, have read any articles about Mrs. Riordan's murder. She invited us in without further comment.

I launched into my reason for being there, with Lester interrupting me repeatedly. He might have a good sense of humor, but he had no sense of politeness. "Anyway, Ms. Hammer, I wondered if you could think of anyone who visited Mrs. Riordan the last day you cleaned for her."

"Mister Michael was there, but you don't mean him, I guess."

"Yeah," Lester butted in, "we mean somebody else."

"There was no one else there during the day, but Mrs. Jasper called. I sort of thought she was coming that night." This surprised me, as Mrs. Jasper had only mentioned calling.

"I don't think she went? She mentioned to me that she called Ruth that Wednesday evening."

Elsie nodded. "That's possible. Mrs. Riordan got tired easily after she got sick. She could have told Mrs. Jasper to call first, and then said not to come."

The phone rang and she went to the far side of the small living room to answer it. "So, whaddya think?" Lester asked, in nothing less than a stage whisper.

I glanced at Elsie, who appeared somewhat upset by the call, and was writing something on the pad of paper next to the phone. "I think if you keep acting like a TV private eye we'll get thrown out of here." I spoke in a normal tone of voice.

Elsie rejoined us sitting even more stiffly than she had previously. "Is everything all right?" I asked.

"Fine," she responded, very quickly. "Just my husband, he's having...car trouble."

As a practiced fibber in my younger days, I knew she was being less than truthful, but it really was none of my business.

Lester then asked Elsie if she owned the house and wanted to sell, and I spent several minutes being embarrassed at having brought him. I finally stood. "I think we've taken up a lot of your time."

"Unfortunately, I have too much time." She hesitated, then asked, "Does your aunt ever need help at the Cozy Corner?"

"Gee, right now she does it herself, but I'll mention that you asked. I expect if Mrs. Riordan liked having you around she would, too."

As the door shut, Lester turned to me. "That went very well, don't you think?"

I didn't punch him.

AFTER LUNCH I HEADED to Jennifer's office. I had avoided having lunch with Lester by saying that I had promised to help Aunt Madge change some sheets at the B&B. This was not true. She says the way she keeps fit is by keeping busy, so pretty much all she ever lets me do is weed the small yard, take out the trash, and water the flower boxes on her porch. I told her about Elsie's interest in employment, but Aunt Madge didn't seem to share it.

It was warm for early November, and before leaving for Jennifer's office I changed into a straight blue skirt and a red, short-sleeved knit top with a dark blue necklace, and low heels. I rarely wear skirts in Ocean Alley, probably a hold-over from thinking of it only as a place for fun. Since I noticed Jennifer had dressed formally at the funeral, I was trying to look like one of her 'crowd.' I hate it when I get into people-pleasing, but I told myself this was a good cause.

Jennifer kept me waiting for fifteen minutes, which I could have predicted. Her outer office was small. Appraisers don't have many customers who need to visit their offices. The furnishings were Shaker design, but rest of the décor was not nearly so plain. Above a small credenza was a print of a Thomas Kincaid painting, with a small cottage and lots of pink and yellow foliage. Every chair had pink and yellow pillows. I doubted her father had used the same decorating scheme.

Eventually, her receptionist led me to Jennifer's office, which was decorated in the same colors. I had expected her to be wearing a formal business suit and was surprised that she had on a sleek plum-colored skirt and silk blouse. A long scarf of plum and blue appeared to have been carelessly wrapped around the blouse collar and then slung around her neck, but I figured she had spent time to achieve the look. It suddenly hit me that she might not have planned to be an appraiser in a small town. She was dressed for a job in Manhattan, preferably one in fashion.

Jennifer greeted me coolly and offered coffee, which I refused. After a minute of small talk about changes I noticed in Ocean Alley now that I was living here again, I told her I was interested in learning more about the reunion. Her entire demeanor changed. "I should have talked to you about it. I didn't think you would be interested."

I told her how much I'd enjoyed my junior year here (retch), and said I was looking forward to seeing everyone. She launched into plans for this major event—"the tenth is the first one a lot of people come back to, almost nobody goes to the fifth"—and said she thought there would be about eighty people attending.

"You were homecoming queen, weren't you?" I asked.

Her expression clouded a bit, then cleared. "I lost by two votes. Of course, I'm not supposed to know how close the vote was, but the principal counted the votes and he always liked me."

It must have been a fun evening, in any event."

She laughed. "Much more fun than college homecomings."

She asked if I would like to help with the planning, and I said I'd be delighted. How do I get myself into these things? I took out my calendar and penciled in a planning meeting for Sunday evening. As if.

That done, I plowed into my planned approach to Darla. "I wanted to compliment you on spending time with Darla Riordan after Mrs. Riordan's funeral. That was very gracious of you."

"I'd seen her at the funeral home, and no one was talking to her." She paused, "I sort of didn't want to, because I thought Michael might think I was taking her side in the divorce stuff."

"I didn't realize you knew Darla," I continued.

"I didn't know her well. I had lunch with her several times when she and Ruth were planning the wedding. Of course, she didn't visit much after that." She frowned. "I never understood that."

"Neither does Aunt Madge." I wasn't going to pretend I had any knowledge of Darla's psyche.

Then, the hook. "Is she still in Houston? Michael is down there for a few days."

Her eyes literally widened. I thought that was only in books. "Oh, he is?" She quickly changed to moderate indifference. "She's still there. A couple of times she said it was a really miserable climate, and that no one there has any fashion sense. She just went there because of Michael's company. She wants to move to Manhattan."

That would put Darla Riordan a little too close for my comfort. "I heard some talk after the hearing." This seemed to interest her. "I guess the DA's case didn't look too strong to some people, and they were saying Darla had more of a motive than Michael did."

She waved her hand. "That's silly. She's going to get a lot of money from the divorce. It would hardly be worth killing for more."

"Oh, sure," I wondered how much money she would say was worth killing for.

"Besides," she said, "She flew to the funeral from Paris. Didn't Michael tell you she'd been over there shopping?"

That explained the exquisite suit. "No." I couldn't resist. "We rarely talk about her."

Jennifer's attitude was slightly frosty after that comment, but she warmed up again when I said I'd see her Sunday.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I KNEW A LITTLE MORE, but while it seemed to rule out Darla from personally killing Mrs. Riordan, it was of no obvious help in learning who did kill her mother-in-law. Impatiently, I put aside my list of "known and unknown" information. Why should I spend time on it when Michael had mentally turned everything over to his lawyer? Because you think he's a fool to do that, that's why. More important, because Aunt Madge believed him, and she would be distressed if her good friend's son had to go to trial for murder. Most important because I didn't want any more snide innuendos about me in the local paper.

I picked up the list again. In court the lawyer had said that the only beneficiaries besides Michael had been the three charities and Elsie. Idly I wondered why Elsie was so anxious to find more work if she stood to inherit $20,000 in the fairly near future. Admittedly, it was not enough to live on very long, but it would more than take the sting out of a few weeks with fewer work hours. I didn't know anything about her life other than that she had a husband whose car had a problem. I frowned. I should probably see if there was a reason for Elsie to want that $20,000 now rather than later.

But there was not much I could check into now. It was Saturday morning and the dogs and I could be trotting along the boardwalk. I looked at Jazz, who was sitting in a chair near the window, basking in the morning sunbeam. "You want to come ride on Mister Rogers' back?" I asked her. Since she did not reply, I left her there.

The temperature was not going to reach forty degrees, the first really bone-chilling day of the fall. Naturally, the dogs ignored the elements in favor of several seagulls, and spent half an hour trying to catch them. The birds could easily have flown far away, so I gathered they were playing with the dogs as much as the dogs were playing with them.

Unfortunately, Miss Piggy decided to follow one rather large gull into the water. She came out fast enough when she found out how cold it was, but she was still a mess. I'd have a job cleaning her up before I could take her into the house. To arm myself for the task, I stopped at Java Jolt for some strong coffee.

Michael was sitting at a table with a steaming mug and a scowl. The latter seemed to relate to something he was reading in a newspaper spread in front of him.

"Hey," I stepped to the take-out counter. "You're back." I winced inwardly. He obviously knew that.

"Yeah, got in last night."

He went back to the paper and I paid for my coffee and left, figuring he was still pretty angry with me about the Kenner article. He'd been friendlier the night we had crabs, but he'd just been in Houston, so people had probably talked to him about the story.

I let Mr. Rogers into the house and attached Miss Piggy's leash to the stair rail at the side entrance to the B&B. As I wrestled with her and a towel outside Cozy Corner, Michael's Toyota pulled up. Miss Piggy tried to get loose from me to greet him, and I lunged at her.

"Are you trying to clean her or dirty yourself?" he asked.

Miss Piggy tried to sit on me, which meant we both sat on the blacktop. "Very funny. Next time I'll let her get to you."

"OK, I won't needle you when you can aim a dirty dog at me." He stooped next to her and picked up the other towel. "Give me your paw," he said sternly. She obliged, and immediately sat still.

"That's so...so..." I began.

"Irritating?" he asked, with what could only be called a wicked grin.

When I nodded, he continued. "Same as the deal with Jazz. She's picking up on your nerves."

His certainty about this was even more irritating, but I was still glad to see him. "Are you over being angry with me?"

He glanced at me as he cleaned another paw. "Depends. What were you up to when I was gone?"

I sidestepped that by blaming my visit to Elsie on Lester, implying that he had waylaid me in the Register of Deeds Office and would have gone to see her alone if I had not agreed to accompany him.

"Lester Argrow?" He frowned. "What does he care?"

"I, uh, guess it's because I told Ramona I didn't think you did it, and he thinks you were respectful to your parents in high school." At his raised eyebrow, I added, "And he talked to Elsie about selling her house."

He frowned. "Ramona repeats everything you tell her, in case you didn't know that." He stood, and I realized Miss Piggy was as clean as she was going to get without a visit to the dog groomer.

"Thanks." I took Miss Piggy's leash. "You coming in?"

"Yeah. What did she say?"

"She...Oh, Elsie. We, Lester, asked her who'd been around the day before your mom died, and if she knew if anyone was coming over Wednesday night." Mister Rogers was barking in the kitchen, and Aunt Madge opened the door to the kitchen to let us in. I let Miss Piggy off the leash and he gave her a good smell.

"I'm asking Jolie about her detective work," he said as he gave Aunt Madge a kiss on the cheek.

"And I was afraid you wouldn't like that," she said.

He raised an eyebrow at me again, and I ignored the apparent question there. "Anyway, Elsie thought Mrs. Jasper was going to come over Wednesday night, but Mrs. Jasper only told me she called." Damn! I hadn't planned on telling him who else I talked to.

"You talked to Mrs. Jasper, too?"

Thunderclouds were gathering on the Riordan horizon. "You know how she is. She was in Harry's office, and she talked to me."

"Don't I know her style." He grimaced as he took the cup of tea Aunt Madge handed him.

"Do you know if Mrs. Jasper was there?" I pressed.

He shrugged. "I knew she was supposed to come, so I went to the movies by myself. Mother was in bed when I got back, and I didn't...have a chance to talk to her again." He looked away.

"Hmm." Aunt Madge said. "I suppose if Henriette had been there she would have been letting people know she was the last person to see Ruth alive."

It made perfect sense, of course. "That sounds like a very catty thing for a person to say, if she says she doesn't like to gossip," I teased.

"It's true," Aunt Madge and Michael said together, and they both laughed.

Michael's expression quickly changed. "It will all be moot when the judge issues his ruling. Could be any day now."

Thinking I would divert to a safer topic, I asked, "How was Houston?"

"Not good. I have some difficult decisions to make about the business." He paused. "The good news is Kenner did another article, and he talked about the flaws in the DA's case."

His look said to change the topic, so I did. "Jennifer asked me to help on reunion planning."

"And you told her no, right." He stated it as a given rather than a question.

"I said I'd go to a meeting Sunday, but that doesn't mean I will." I looked away as he gave me a hard stare. "It's the first time she talked to me that she wasn't snotty. I figured I'd be polite."

"You'd hate it. It's all the people who've stayed here because they had no choices."

"Wait a minute," Aunt Madge said.

That caught him up short. "You like it here," he said quickly, "And you have a business. People like Jennifer and her crowd had it made here as kids and by the time they realized they should have left it was too late."

I was staring at him, and he met my gaze almost defiantly. "So," I asked, "does that mean you think someone would be crazy to come back here?"

"You're twisting my words." He was impatient now.

Apparently sensing his mood, Aunt Madge asked, "When will the house transfer be final? I know a few people on the Arts Council, and they are so grateful that you will do as Ruth planned."

"In a month. I hate to think of it. There's so much to do." He ran his fingers through his hair and suddenly looked very tired.

"Do you need some help?" Aunt Madge asked. "It'll take a while to go through things, you know."

"Elsie needs some work," I added.

"I was volunteering our time, dear, not finding ways for Michael to spend money," she said.

I shrugged, and grinned at Michael. "I guess since Aunt Madge found me paying work I can find ways to make you Elsie's donor."

"Gee," Michael said, ignoring my humor, "When I told Elsie she didn't need to come for a while, I wasn't thinking about her income going down."

"I'm sure there's plenty Elsie can do for you," Aunt Madge continued, "but you will need a lot of help going through family things, and that might be a better job for friends."

Before I had a chance to say anything else, she and Michael had arranged for us to go to the Riordan's Sunday afternoon to help Michael go through his mother's clothes and jewelry and such.

SUNDAY MORNING I TOOK the dogs to the beach while Aunt Madge went to church. I was as much looking for Scoobie as I was getting exercise for me and the guys, and I was rewarded by seeing him in Java Jolt, sitting near the window. Since the guys had had a good run, I figured it was safe to tie them to a lamp post at the edge of the boardwalk.

"Hey," I slid into the chair across from him. He had his steno pad open, but wasn't actively writing. It looked as if he had filled half the pad.

"Yo, Jolie." He raised his cup as if toasting me.

I had forgotten that he had often used that greeting, putting emphasis on the 'yo' and the 'lee.'

"Sorry I was kind of short with you the other day. I had some demons I had to get out."

"It's okay." I nodded to his pad. "Did you get the little devils into your book?"

"Mostly." He gestured to the coffee thermoses. "Get your battery acid and come back."

I winked at Joe Regan as I put my coffee money in the 'honor bowl' and returned to the table, where Scoobie was studying his words.

"The thing is," he said, "I've filled about twenty of these pads, and I still have wild thoughts puttering around in my head." His smile didn't pack a lot of joy.

I was uncertain what to say. I remembered that when Robby first started going to Gamblers' Anonymous he grumbled about the fact that some of the others stressed writing down his thoughts. He had gone so far as to question when 'journal' became a verb, which was one of the few times I was able to laugh with him about what was going on. I've never been one for writing much.

"I know some people who swear by putting your thoughts on paper to help think more clearly." Well, I didn't, but Robby did. Wherever he was.

He shrugged. "Yeah, but they probably have a better idea where they want to go with what they're thinking about."

I snorted. "I wouldn't know. I'm more into the 'ignore it and it'll go away' gig."

"Take this," he said, and began to read.

I'm still rehearsing arguments

We never even had

And even when I let me win

I end up feeling bad

Conversations

I've rehearsed so many times

We'll never get 'em right

Concerning

What I'll say when

You say what I know

Will start a fight

Argument Infinite

With no clear goal insight

He pointed to the last word, to be sure I knew he wasn't talking about visibility.

"Wow." My inarticulateness contrasted with his eloquence.

"Is that a good 'wow' or a 'that really sucks' kind of wow?" He stared at me intently, and I felt my eyes fill with tears.

"It's a, a, 'I think I've been there' kind of wow," I almost whispered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"No, your poem is wonderful." I dabbed at my eyes. I could almost sense Joe Regan looking at me, and felt embarrassed. But I wasn't embarrassed at Scoobie seeing my tears. What does that mean?

"Here you are," I struggled for words. "Trying to get at what's gone on in your life, and I'm sitting here, Miss Preppy," I gestured at my fashionable sweats, "just pretending everything is okay when it really stinks."

He grinned. "It's not always a bad defense mechanism." He grew more serious. "As long as you don't let it go on too long."

"But, enough about me, what do you think about me?" I needed to let the smart ass in me take charge.

He shook his head, but still smiled. "You did that all of 11th grade, you know."

"What?"

"You know," he said. And I did. If anyone got too close for my comfort zone, which was quite small at that point, I deflected with humor or sarcasm. With Scoobie, usually humor.

I picked up my coffee cup with both hands. I wasn't actually shaking, but no sense making Joe get out the Java Jolt mop.

"You're right. And I guess your poem gets at me now because I argued with Robby so much about his gambling." I grimaced. "Once I caught onto it, dummy that I am."

"Not dumb," he said. "People who don't have an addiction or compulsion don't suspect, or understand."

"Did I do something wrong?"

He was shaking his head at me.

"What if I'd, like, been more understanding..." I stopped as his head-shaking grew more vigorous.

"Your husband was at the point of embezzling from his company." I inwardly cursed George Winters for his thoroughness.

He lowered his voice. "And if I remember the article, he looted your joint money. Who wouldn't be angry?" He paused. "And, it looked to me on the boardwalk the other night that he pissed off someone besides you."

He didn't ask about Pedone, but I volunteered the story. "So," I concluded, "I don't know where Robby is or if I'll ever see him again."

His head had been bent in concentration as he listened to me, and now he looked at me directly. "That'll make it hard for you to address some of the issues you have about what he did."

I smiled wanly. "What are you, a counselor?"

"No." He was quite definite. "Given my history," he grinned, "I've been around a lot of them. Have you, uh, talked to anybody?"

"Nope. Too much to do."

"When you're ready, you will." He shrugged. "Or maybe you won't want to."

"We need a more pleasant topic."

"I'm used to all this stuff, I guess," he said. "OK. What else do you want to talk about?"

"Why does it have to be up to me?"

"Uh oh," he said, glancing out the window. "Those are your dogs, right?"

I turned to look out the window, groaned, pulled on my slicker, and was out the door in two seconds. Miss Piggy had climbed onto the bench next to the light post and Mister Rogers was lying under it. She was reaching down with her paw, trying to hit him. Several people were watching. As I walked out I heard a woman say, "She really whacked him last time, maybe we should call someone."

"They're fine," I walked over and started to untie them. "Sometimes they act like cats. They must have grown up with them."

I bent down to entice Mister Rogers to come out from under the bench, and he licked my face, from chin to forehead. "Ugh." He had sand on his tongue. It was hard to guess what he'd been licking off the boardwalk.

"Don't you know about your own dogs?" the woman asked.

I looked up at her as I wiped my face. She was about forty-five and wearing clothes that could only be described as dowdy. I assumed the two young boys with her were her children, so I did not tell her to mind her own business. "They're adopted."

She was still standing there as I separated the dogs' leashes, which had of course become intertwined. "I think it's safe for you to continue your walk." I said this as nicely as I could.

"Humph. I never tie up my dogs outside a store." She turned and walked down the boardwalk, with the two boys craning their necks to watch me.

When she was out of hearing distance, I mumbled, "At least I don't look like one."

"Now, now," Scoobie said, but with laughter in his voice. He had come outside, coffee cup in hand. Miss Piggy jumped up on me and I pulled dog treats from the pocket of my now-dirty slicker and gave her one. "I see the dogs really have you trained," he observed.

"Very funny." I sighed as I looked at the slicker. "I guess I should be going."

"Yeah. Don't want the dogs to get bored." He laughed as he watched me walk away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I WAS NOT IN THE BEST MOOD as Aunt Madge and I drove to the Riordan house. Thoughts of Robby swirled in my mind, every now and then mixed with some about Michael and Scoobie. I'd been separated less than a month, and I was mildly interested in two men. What's wrong with me?

There was no smart retort to this question, so I turned my attention to Aunt Madge, who was driving. "How long will we be part of this circus?"

"If you want, I can take you back." Her tone was sharp, and it surprised me.

"I don't mind helping," I said, chastened.

She relaxed. "You were moody at lunch."

"Yeah, lots of demons in my head."

"You can always join me for church," she said, and I detected a glimmer of amusement.

"Thanks, but no."

We drove in silence for a couple moments before I remembered to ask a question that had kept retreating to the back of my mind. "Do you suppose Elmira really saw Michael and his mother arguing?"

Aunt Madge frowned slightly. "Doubtful it was more than a talk about Michael's business or her treatments. She told me Michael wanted her to go someplace like the Mayo Clinic for more aggressive treatment, and Ruth wanted to stay here."

That made sense to me. Anything that made Elmira seem foolish was fine with me. Still, if the discussion was more heated, it was the only piece of the puzzle that could show Michael as less than a doting son. I had to force my expression to relax as we approached the house.

MICHAEL GREETED US at the door and offered coffee. Aunt Madge declined, but since I'd had little of my Java Jolt cup, I accepted. "The hardest part for me," he said, "will be mother's closet, so I figured if we started there I wouldn't mind the rest of it as much."

Aunt Madge complimented him on tackling the toughest part first, and I concentrated on not spilling my coffee as we climbed the stairs.

The walk-in closet was huge, and packed with clothes, shoes, handbags, and more. There was a rack along the back wall for belts and another for scarves. Many of the clothes were housed in garment bags, and a top shelf, which would not be reachable without some sort of stool, held hats, scarves, sweaters, and a couple small overnight bags.

"The funny thing is," Michael said as he watched us eyeing the contents, "Mother didn't spend that much on clothes. She just never threw anything away."

"It could well come back in style," Aunt Madge said.

Michael and I exchanged an amused glance and I thought again that Aunt Madge and Ruth Riordan were well-paired as friends. "Especially if it involves flared pants."

"You're being a twit," Aunt Madge said, simply. "I suggest we have a couple different sorting categories." While I looked at her with my usual respect for her organized mind, she outlined her idea that we have some for the church thrift shop, some for Goodwill (the ones not now in style or more worn), and a few of her better things for Michael.

"I'm really not into cross-dressing," he said.

"You've been with my niece too much." You may have children someday, and it would be nice for them to see a couple of your mother's lovely outfits."

While Michael did not look as if he agreed with this, I knew he wouldn't argue with Aunt Madge. "There's also her costume jewelry. She had some good stuff, which I'll keep for my kids," he nodded at Aunt Madge, "but she didn't go into buying a lot of gold and gems. She had a lot of pretty decent costume stuff."

Aunt Madge nodded while I craned my head, trying to figure out how to get to the top shelves. Michael must have followed my gaze, because he said, "A couple times a year she has Elsie bring in the stepstool from the kitchen, and they change summer stuff for winter, or something like that." He seemed to realize he was talking about his mother in the present tense, and looked away.

With her usual efficiency, Aunt Madge assigned Michael to get the step stool and told me to pull the jewelry stand into the bedroom and start going through it. She began flipping through the clothes, occasionally pulling out a pants suit or dress.

I inched the jewelry stand out of the closet by making it 'walk' on its legs, and Michael lifted it the rest of the way from the walk-in closet into the bedroom when he returned with the stepstool. I half-listened to them talk as they went through things and carried clothes into the bedroom and laid them on the bed in different piles.

Aunt Madge had probably assigned me to the jewelry because she remembered the times Renée or I had gotten into her much smaller jewelry box and tried on the clip earrings and long necklaces that she favored. Naturally, I was the only one who ever broke anything.

It didn't take me long to figure out that almost every necklace had its specific pair of earrings, and I tried to match them. Fortunately, she wasn't into bracelets or rings, so this process was not as complex as it could have been. She easily had forty pairs of earrings. Unfortunately, she was also into clip-ons, so as much as I liked a few of them, I could not ask Michael if I could have a pair or two. Here you are, sorting through a dead woman's jewelry, thinking of yourself.

"Jolie." Michael stood right next to me and I felt myself flush.

"Having a tough time matching colors?" he asked, seemingly amused at my blush.

"Nope. What's up?" I tried to sound professional, as if closet sorting was my occupation.

He held out a round, blue earring that looked as if the small bauble could have been a sapphire. "This was on the floor. You probably have the mate."

I took it. "Haven't seen it. Funny." I turned it over. "If it's a real sapphire it would be a shame to lose the other one."

He shrugged. "Not that it matters now." I winced as he turned away.

I went back to work, glad that it was Aunt Madge working in the close quarters of the closet with Michael. As I sorted and placed sets into the plastic bags I had asked Michael to get from the kitchen, I tried to think of reasons to ask him to do something with me. He said he'd gone to a movie the night before his mother died, so he must like them.

Michael ordered Chinese food, and when it was delivered we went to the kitchen to eat. By that time, I had graduated to folding sweaters, checking the boxes of shoes to see which were the most worn, and going through the dresser drawers to sort summer tops and nightgowns. It was amazing that sorting clothes could get you so tired.

I half-listened as Michael and Aunt Madge talked about tackling the kitchen next, followed by guest bedrooms. Aunt Madge was outlining a timetable for the next week, figuring they could do a couple hours a day. The den would be last, as that's where Michael spent most of his time.

It was such a short while ago that I had sorted through the apartment I'd shared with Robby for six years. A major wave of sadness swept over me.

"Jolie?" I realized this was probably the second time that Aunt Madge had said my name. "Are you okay?"

"Just having a brain fart." I smiled, probably too brightly.

Michael glanced at his watch as Aunt Madge continued. "Are you good for another hour?"

"Sure." Suddenly, I would have preferred to go home and hug Jazz and play with the dogs. "Oh, the dogs. Don't they..."

"Goodness, it's been four hours." Aunt Madge stood. "I can go and come back."

Michael shook his head. "I'm more tired than I expected to be. Why don't you head home, and I'll bring Jolie in a few minutes."

My thoughts swirled as he and Aunt Madge said their goodbyes and he walked her to the door. I was putting the empty food boxes into the trash when he came back into the kitchen.

"So, Gentil," he walked close to me. "You already think I'm kind of arrogant and like to get my own way, right?"

I knew I was flushing and wished I could control it. "And your point would be...?"

His voice was huskier as he pulled me toward him. "Here's what I want now." He pulled me to him and his kiss was long and passionate.

I faced him and stood on my toes as he leaned into me, pushing the small of my back into him. I returned his kiss with the same passion, wondering wildly if I'd thrown away my diaphragm. Then I forgot about everything.

He pulled away first, breathing ragged, and his eyes met mine. "If we don't stop now, I might not want to."

Who said I did? "What are you scared of?" I was fighting for breath.

He relaxed his grip and then swatted me gently on my bottom cheeks. "I'm not scared of anyone but that damn judge."

Reality rushed back. "Now that's a good birth control device." I tried to keep my tone light.

He took my hand and led me to the living room where we plopped on the sofa. "You're a pain in the ass, Jolie, but I like you. I'm just not sure we should rush into anything."

I nodded, realizing he was being a gentleman. Damn it all. "Yeah, we've both been through a lot. So," I had to grin, "have you got any timeframes or sorting methods in mind for this?"

I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING in a good mood, happy to know someone found me attractive. I wasn't sure what I wanted in the long run, but the prospect of having fun in bed with someone I liked was very appealing. My nose itched and I opened my eyes to see Jazz's tail. "Soon you may not be my only bedmate, you know." She meowed and jumped down, certain that she had my attention, and began pawing the door.

I snuck down the back stairs and fed Jazz in the kitchen while Aunt Madge carried a new thermos of coffee into the guest dining room. Jazz was now willing to be on the floor when the guys were in the room, but if they approached her she took off for the bookcase or for a slide under the sofa.

As she ate I glanced out the sliding glass door. Winter was knocking at the door, as my father used to say. Most of the leaves were off the trees, and I knew that the light wind was a cold one. The sky was overcast, and I thought I remembered that it was supposed to rain later.

If Harry had work for me, I hoped I could get it done in the morning. Otherwise I'd have to dig out some rubber-soled shoes, and I had no idea which box they were in in the closet. I hummed as I showered and dressed. Maybe my life wasn't going to stay in the toilet after all.

WHEN I GOT TO THE OFFICE, Harry had just gotten a call from Lester Argrow, but I could not appraise that house until tomorrow. Lester also thought he had a prospective buyer for another house, who would pay cash. While there was obviously no appraisal required because there was no mortgage, the buyer wanted an objective opinion, as Lester put it, on the value of the house.

"Your buddy Lester said he tried to talk the guy out of getting the appraisal, told the buyer it was a waste of money." Harry chuckled. "I don't think Lester ever thinks about what he's about to say before it pops out."

"I'm certainly not a waste of anyone's money," I informed Harry, who regarded me with an amused expression.

"Feeling your oats?" he asked.

"Just in a good mood." I offered no explanation. Just then the doorbell bonged and the phone rang. I was closer to the door, and immediately wished I had gone for the phone option. Mrs. Jasper waved at me through the pane of glass.

"Come in, won't you?" I wished I had an appraisal. Maybe I could say I had to go to the courthouse.

"Phone's for you, Jolie. It's Jennifer Stenner." Harry did not seem happy about that as he turned back to Mrs. Jasper.

I picked it up. "Hey, Jennifer."

"We missed you yesterday," she said.

It took me a couple seconds, and then I remembered the reunion planning meeting. "I should have called. Michael asked Aunt Madge and me to help him sort through some of his mom's things." There was no response. "Jennifer?"

"Of course," she said sweetly, "that would take priority."

"I am sorry," I lied. "I just completely forgot once that came up."

She told me the next meeting was the following Sunday and we hung up. I didn't write it down. When I turned, Mrs. Jasper was at my elbow, and I quickly stepped back.

"You went through Ruth's things?" She appeared more angry than upset. "I told Michael I would help him."

"It was, uh, spur of the moment. He stopped by to see Aunt Madge, and she offered."

She turned and headed for the door. "I'll let you know more later about how we used your donation, Mr. Steele."

As the door shut behind her I turned to Harry. "I did not have anything to do with that."

He shrugged. "I guess she's having trouble adjusting to her friend's death."

I looked at the door, making sure she was out of earshot. "I hope she doesn't bother Michael."

Harry picked up the file on the bungalow I would appraise the next day. "This one is right on the beach. You'll have to look for water marks around the base. And ask them if they put up that vinyl siding in the last few years. I think that area had some flooding a couple years ago, and it might be hiding some water stains."

I DROVE SLOWLY toward the Cozy Corner. Lester Argrow was still our biggest customer, but in terms of dollars he probably had the least sales volume of all the local firms. I wished I could think of new ways to market Steele Appraisals.

Almost on a whim, I turned around and walked toward the Purple Cow. Maybe Ramona could order some magnetic signs for me to put on my car.

Today the white board in front of the store said "Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?" George Carlin.

I was laughing as I entered the store, and barely had a chance to step out of Ramona's way as she stormed out the door and began to erase the board. She did not look like her usual tranquil self.

I followed her out and watched her write, probably rewrite, her day's slogan. "People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges." Joseph Fort Newton. This definitely had nothing to do with shooting tourists.

She turned to face me. "It's at least once a week now. It's always something insulting or crude." She walked back into the store and I followed. I had unfortunately missed the crude ones.

Ramona put her marker in a cup that held pencils and pens, and turned to face me. Her expression switched to her usual serene self. "Can I help you with something?"

Still trying to hide my own smile, I asked her about the magnetic signs and she pulled a book off a shelf behind the cash register and began to describe the options. It wasn't too expensive. For $75 I could get two small signs that said "Steele Appraisals" and the phone number. I decided to do it without asking Harry, and ordered them.

As she wrote the order, she asked. "A man was asking about you the other day. Did he find you?"

"Someone from high school?"

She shook her head as she wrote. "No. He was from a bigger city, I think."

"Ramona," I waited until she looked up at me, her glasses forward on her nose. "That's really not the kind of description that can help me figure out who you mean."

She went back to her writing. "He was probably a few years older than us and he had patent leather shoes."

Patent shoes? Why was that familiar? Joe Pedone. "Did he have black hair, not too tall?"

"That sounds about right," she said as she finished writing the order.

"When was this?"

"Mmm. Let's see, he liked my Shakespeare quote, you know, 'To thine own self be true,' so that was, maybe, last Thursday."

"Did he say why he was looking for me?"

She thought about that for a moment. "I guess not. He just said he knew you."

As I walked out, I was more worried than I'd been since the night on the boardwalk. I headed for the police station.

AFTER TALKING TO SERGEANT Morehouse for what seemed like an eternity, I turned the car toward the Cozy Corner. My mind was playing two tapes almost simultaneously. I was finally really worried about Pedone, but I couldn't think of anything more I could do to protect myself than tell Sgt. Morehouse and take precautions like looking into the back seat of my car before getting in it.

The other issue swirling in my brain, of course, had to do with Michael Riordan's guilt or innocence. If Darla was in Paris, the only other person to benefit financially besides Michael was the maid, Elsie. She hardly seemed a logical suspect. Although...Jennifer Stenner had said that the money Darla would gain if Mrs. Riordan died before the divorce was "hardly worth killing for." Who was to say what Elsie deemed worth killing for?

AFTER LOOKING THROUGH the library's indexes of several years of the Ocean Alley Press, my neck was stiff and my stomach growling. The indexes had seemed the logical place to start looking for less-than-complimentary references to Elsie Hammer. The only mention was her photo as one of a group of volunteers at St. Anthony's church's bazaar. Wait. They called her 'Mrs. Hammer.' That made me think I should look for Mr. Hammer. Maybe there was more to him than just car trouble.

I changed my search of the index for the name 'Hammer' without the name Elsie and almost immediately found Mr. Paul Hammer, who had been arrested three years ago for a drunk driving offense. It also mentioned that he was cited for "driving while barred," which meant that he had lost his license for a prior offense. I looked to see if the article gave his address, but it didn't, so I could not tell if he lived where Elsie did.

However, two articles about arrests the next year did give his address, and it was the same as Elsie's. One arrest was for public intoxication and the other for attempted burglary at a house near theirs. I thought about this. There would be fines to pay. I could look that up in court records. Other records at the old courthouse might also tell me if there were serious financial problems, such as a bankruptcy or possibly a court-ordered lien on the house.

I put the microfilm I'd been using back in the drawer and considered what to do next. I could look up the court records the next time I was looking up comps. Or, I could do it now.

AT THE COURTHOUSE I asked for help in looking up judgments against individuals. "Why do you want to know?" asked an older woman with bluish permed hair.

"Maybe I'm doing research for an upcoming trial," I was trying to be civil.

"No you aren't. You're Madge Richards' niece." She peered out me over the top of her half glasses. "You're in some kind of trouble."

"I'm not in trouble! George Winters just writes articles that make it look that way!"

She literally sniffed. "You young people always want to blame someone else."

I almost said something about her salary being paid with my tax dollars, but stopped myself. "It doesn't matter why I want to know. Just show me how to look up the information." She stared at me. "Please," I added.

She told me there was a computer for use by the public in the Clerk of Court's Office down the hall. "Instructions are next to it." She turned her back on me and walked back to her desk.

I fumed as I walked down the hall. In some kind of trouble. How I would love to make trouble for George Winters.

There was only one person in front of me, and I practiced patience as I waited. On the walls were photographs of the courthouse, including one of the fire that Uncle Gordon's grandmother had stopped from spreading to the records storage area.

The woman ahead of me left and I stepped up to the computer. A small sign said, "No Internet Access from this computer." So much for taking a peek at my email. The instructions were clear, and I did a search for Paul Hammer's name. I had expected it to pop up, but not nine times. He was a busy man.

Mr. Hammer had been arrested four times for driving under the influence, and had lost his license after the third time. He had two burglary convictions, three arrests for public intoxication, and one for lewdness on the beach. As I recalled, this usually meant relieving oneself on the sand. The fines for the second and third drunk driving arrests had been $1,000; for the fourth it was $2,500 and 30 days in the county jail. This was one expensive husband. I can relate to that.

I didn't bother to look up the other fines. Assuming Mr. Hammer's job, if he had one, did not pay much more than Elsie's housecleaning work, his brushes with the law could easily have put them in dire financial straits. Elsie could well have needed the money, but would she have killed for it?

I must have looked puzzled, because the woman behind the counter was looking at me. "Can I help you?" she asked.

She looked as if she meant it. "Would I be able to find out if someone had been served a foreclosure notice on their home?"

If she thought my question odd, she didn't show it. "I can show you if there is a lien."

She came through the swinging half-door and I moved aside. Fingers flying on the keys, she pulled up one screen and then several more, finally ending at a place where I could key in a name. "I'll let you take over from here," she said with a smile.

"Thanks." She's worth my tax dollars.

I keyed in Paul Hammer's name, and found nothing. However, Elsie's name showed a foreclosure notice had been issued just four weeks ago and the bank had placed a lien on the property. I stared at the information for almost a full minute. She must have used mortgage money to pay his fines, or maybe he was running up other bills. Now they were coming after her house. She was a better wife than I was. I still resented paying the retainer for Robby's lawyer.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO COZY CORNER I took the portable phone to my room and called Sgt. Morehouse. He wasn't there, and when he called me back a few minute later he was most definitely annoyed at my question about whether he had looked into Paul Hammer as a suspect. When I started to outline my reasons he stopped me.

"I know who he is, and I know his wife had a key to the house."

"And...?" I asked, letting my question hang there.

"And I'm really trying to find a nice way to tell you it's not your business. Besides, the case is with the county's Office of the Prosecuting Attorney and their investigators are doing most of the follow-up work now. You mighta noticed there was a probable cause hearing already."

I deflected his sarcasm with my own. "I did notice. But whether the prosecutor's information came from your office or theirs, it still didn't make a lot of sense to me." He hung up.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SINCE I DIDN'T HAVE an appraisal until tomorrow, I got Aunt Madge and we headed for Michael's. I debated telling her about Elsie or her husband's potential motive, and decided against it for the time being. Besides, it might not be Elsie. She might not even have known of the upcoming inheritance until the will was read. I definitely wasn't going to tell Aunt Madge that Joe Pedone had made another appearance in Ocean Alley. There was no point in getting her worried, too.

Aunt Madge and I were sitting amid a kitchen table piled with pots, pans, and plastic storage containers when the doorbell rang and Michael, who had been going through a credenza in the dining room, went to answer it.

Although I couldn't hear what she was saying, I recognized Mrs. Jasper's voice. Aunt Madge gave a low groan, and I grinned. "Maybe," I offered, "You can get her to match the lids for the plastic containers." She frowned at me.

A moment later Michael entered, looking irritated, with Mrs. Jasper close behind him. "I was just telling Michael that he should have called me. I so want to help." She wore a huge smile and a pearl gray pants suit and rose knit top, with an elegant gray handbag. "I even wore pants, so I can get down on the floor."

I thought about suggesting the basement floor, but said nothing.

"Hello, Henriette." Aunt Madge gestured that she should sit down and gave her the pile of lids to match with the many assorted plastic dishes of all shapes and sizes. I glanced at Michael who nodded toward the dining room, so I excused myself and followed. I was pretty sure Aunt Madge gave me the evil eye, something new for her.

"She said you told her we were doing this," he said as he picked up a silver sugar bowl and made as if he were about to throw it at me.

"Jennifer called Harry's office just as she came in. I guess I told Jennifer why I missed her planning meeting on Sunday."

Hearing that, he did look put out. "That would have been a good time for one of your white lies. How am I going to get rid of her? I can't very well throw her out."

"Put her in a room by herself. Maybe one of the guest rooms. She'll get bored and go home." This was, of course, wishful thinking, but it could work.

"Jolie," came Aunt Madge's voice. "Would you warm up the water for tea?"

I gave Michael a glum look. "Even Aunt Madge doesn't want to be left alone with her for three minutes."

When Michael reentered the kitchen a few minutes later, he suggested that Mrs. Jasper might tackle the guest bath upstairs. "A lot of the stuff under the sink can just be pitched, but if it looks pretty new you could take it to the girls in the teen mother program Mom volunteered with."

I was actually sorry she liked this idea. Aunt Madge and I had been responding to her with mostly "ummms" and Mrs. Jasper had looked as if she might like to leave. Now that she felt useful, she'd stay.

Michael looked pretty pleased with himself as he came back down alone. "That'll give us a few minutes of peace."

"I need to pray for patience," Aunt Madge said as she poured the last bit of now cold tea down the kitchen sink and reached for the kettle.

I decided that if I prayed for anything it would be that Mrs. Jasper get laryngitis. However, this proved unnecessary, as ten minutes later we heard her walking briskly down the steps, and she went to the dining room to tell Michael she had forgotten all about having promised to pick up some food pantry donations, and left.

Aunt Madge had bought frozen bread loaves to cook for the 4 p.m. guest snack, so we left about two o'clock. The guys needed a walk, and I needed a run to de-stress from the latest Joe Pedone sighting. I had asked Michael if he wanted to come, but he had found a box of photos in the credenza and said he wanted to look through them. I thought I hid my disappointment well.

I RAN UP THE boardwalk until it ended at the far north side of town, then slowed to a walk as began the trek back to Java Jolt. The light breeze was from the ocean today, and I breathed in deeply. I love the smell of the ocean in the fall; it somehow seems cleaner than when the weather is warmer. I would probably like it as much in winter, but it is generally too cold to want to take a deep breath.

Even a run on the boardwalk could not put Elsie and Paul Hammer out of my mind. Elsie would have had access to Michael's pills, and she could have used her key to enter the house at any time – assuming she knew the code to turn off the alarm system once she was in. Though I had not paid much attention to her after Mrs. Riordan's funeral, my impression was that she was upset about her employer's death. Maybe she was just an accomplished actor.

Gradually I grew aware of footsteps behind me and remembered Pedone. I looked over my shoulder and saw Scoobie walking with his head down and hands in the pocket of an old wool pea jacket that looked as if it was a Salvation Army reject. I stopped and waited for him. When he came closer I realized he had trimmed his hair and beard. I called to him.

He must have been deep in thought, because he stopped abruptly and at first seemed not to recognize me. When he did, he gave his most charming smile. "Perfect. Do you have a library card?" he asked.

"For Lakewood," I waited for him to say why this was pertinent to a walk on the boardwalk.

"You could get one here." He was even with me now and we walked together. "They won't let me check out The Prophet for a while. You could do it for me."

For a moment his request didn't register, then I realized he meant the book by Khalil Gibran. "Uh, I guess I could. A favorite of yours?"

"If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one." He grinned. "Thus speaks the Prophet."

The Scoobie I remembered could not have told you who Gibran was when we were in high school. My father liked the Lebanese-American poet, so I would have recognized his name, but certainly could not have quoted him, then or now.

"So, did Gibran replace John Lennon as your philosopher of choice?"

"You know, they aren't all that different. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." When I said nothing, he asked, "John Lennon too heavy for you?"

We turned from the boardwalk onto Sea View, to walk the two blocks to the library. "Not too heavy. Not 'too' anything. Just...different from the Scoobie I used to know."

"Everyone changes." His tone lightened. "For example, I bet you haven't been on the roof of the school since you've been back."

I had to laugh at that. Scoobie had been in detention for stuffing the ballot box for the student government election (his candidate had been Mickey Mouse), and he wanted a distraction.

"You know," I told him, "if you had opened the window a little wider, I could have gotten Minnie and Goofy into your detention, too." I had two small plastic toys attached to a long string and was angling to get them into the classroom through the window.

"You're the one who made all that noise walking on the roof," he said.

"Who knew there was all that gravel up there?" I had been lucky I wasn't caught. The back of the west wing of the school was a berm, and I had just made it down the earthen hill when the head custodian came out the side door. Apparently the detention monitor, an older history teacher named Mrs. Hamilton, had thought the black Minnie Mouse that I had gotten into the window was a large spider. I had wondered what the screaming was all about.

Scoobie started laughing so hard he sat on the pavement. I grew aware of curious stares, and a couple disapproving ones from people coming out of the hardware store, so I sat next to him. "What? What's so funny?"

"Spider," he gasped.

I waited for his laughing to wind down, and said, "We should have known she was half-blind. Remember how she kept pointing to the Philippines and insisting those islands were Japan?" That sent him into another spasm, and I became aware of the cold pavement under my butt.

I stood and extended a hand to him. He took it, and when he stood he grabbed me in a hug that was tight and close. I was so surprised I relaxed into him. When he pulled back, I saw tears in his eyes. "Where have you been the last ten years, Jolie Gentil?"

"In another dimension," I said softly.

He let go and said, "Me, too."

We walked the rest of the way to the library without speaking.

I had not been in the library since 11th grade, and would not have recognized it if I'd been brought in blindfolded and told to guess my location when the blindfold was removed. Gone were drab colors and the card catalogs that had lined the wall near the entrance, replaced by walls of vivid orange and yellow and a group of computers in the middle of the room. Each one was occupied.

The woman at the checkout desk eyed Scoobie as he left me and went into the stacks. When her gaze turned to me, she smiled and I recognized her as a classmate, the only black girl on the cheerleading squad. I had no clue as to her name.

"Well, Jolie Gentil. Everyone knows you're back in town." She laughed. "Still hanging around with Scoobie."

Thank goodness for nametags. "Daphne. It's been a long time." I paused. "I may be causing some trouble. He wants me to get a card so I can take out..."

"The Prophet," she finished. "It's required reading for Senior Honors English at the high school, so I know there will be kids who want it. Otherwise, I just keep letting him check it out."

"I wonder if he'd let me buy him one?"

She shook her head. "He has to have that particular copy."

Scoobie emerged from the stacks, his eyes bright. "How about if I buy the library a copy?" I asked quietly.

"That would be good," Daphne said. "Scoobie, you are so ornery," she said as he came to the desk. But she smiled slightly as she said it. She handed me the brief application for a card.

He grinned, and teased her about being too strict as I wrote out my name and address. "Hey, Daphne. It says I need to show you something with my local address."

She gave a low hoot. "Girl, everyone in town knows you're back."

As we turned to go, I felt a wave of sadness. I hadn't realized Scoobie had so many quirks. Maybe he really was sick or something.

Elmira Washington came through the door, nearly bumping into me. I took a second to feel glad that she had been embarrassed in court, since I still resented that she had told Harry (and surely others) about my life's spiral in Lakewood.

"Daphne," she said, very excited, "Judge Rommer is going to announce his findings about Ruth's son going to trial."

"When?" I asked.

She recognized me and stiffened slightly. "In a few minutes."

"Come on, Scoobie." I grabbed his arm and almost pulled him from the library as he stuffed the book in his knapsack.

"You're going to the courthouse?" He said it as if it were a dirty word.

I slowed. "Oh, yeah. Not your favorite place?"

He shook his head. "On the other hand, since they won't be talking about me, I suppose it won't be so bad." He grinned, but grew more serious when he saw my face. "What is it about this guy? He wouldn't have given you, or me, the time of day in school."

That was definitely the question of the hour. "I just don't think he did it, and I don't like to see anyone get railroaded." I looked down at my burgundy sweats and realized I was not dressed for court. I could only imagine what my hair looked like.

As we approached the courthouse I saw the local TV station crew setting up. Their cameras wouldn't be allowed in the courtroom, but they would try to grab anyone they could on the way in or out. I made sure we steered clear of them as we climbed the steps.

"It's way before 8:30," Scoobie said. "You should call your aunt."

So, he remembered Aunt Madge's sleep schedule. "You're right." I pulled my phone from my purse, but there was no answer at Cozy Corner. "I can't believe they just scheduled this at the spur of the moment," I fumed.

Scoobie stared around the courtroom as we sat. "Definitely better from this side of the witness stand," he said.

Aunt Madge squeezed in next to him. "Henriette Jasper just called to tell me." She nodded at me, then looked at Scoobie. "And how are you, Adam?"

"Not bad. You still make the best muffins in town?"

Her worried expression softened. "Thanks. You can stop by every now and then."

I couldn't see Michael anywhere and assumed he would come in with good old Winona. The smell of rotting food reached me and my eyes traveled to Scoobie's knapsack. I hadn't picked up on it when we were outside. "What the hell is in there?"

"Could be anything. I haven't cleaned it out for a couple days."

"Don't eat it, dear," Aunt Madge said absently as she scanned the growing crowd.

"Hot times in Ocean Alley," Scoobie said to me in a low voice.

He was right. Murders were rare, that of a wealthy woman more so. George Winters slid into a seat behind what would be the defense table. I wished for Scoobie's old squirt gun. I'd put grape soda in it. Winter's rumpled gray suit would look even worse.

Prosecuting Attorney Small and a couple staff members walked out, and he didn't look pleased. I took that as a good sign. I strained to look for Annie Milner, but she wasn't there. A moment later Michael and Winona Mason came out of a side door. He scanned the room and started to smile when he saw me. His expression froze at the sight of Scoobie, and he nodded before he sat down.

"All rise," said a bailiff, and Judge Rommer entered and sat at the bench. After again explaining that the purpose of the probable cause hearing had been to determine if the evidence supported going to trial, Judge Rommer said he found it to be "entirely circumstantial" and that a motive was "lacking." There was a major rumble of conversation that died as he used his gavel. Michael lowered his head and then raised it to look at the judge.

"Mr. Riordan." Michael stood. "The case against you can be reopened if the prosecuting attorney finds additional evidence." There was a brief buzz from onlookers and he cleared his throat and it quieted. "However, from where I sit, it looks as if the police and Mr. Small should be exploring other avenues."

I felt a huge wave of relief and didn't listen as the judge made a few more comments. Aunt Madge reached over and touched my shoulder and blew me an air kiss.

"Lucky stiff," Scoobie murmured.

When the judge rose to leave I expected Michael to turn to us, but he walked through the same door he had entered, ignoring calls from George Winters.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NO MICHAEL ALL AFTERNOON. I needn't have rushed through my shower or shaved my legs. Aunt Madge figured he had a lot of calls to make, and she was probably right. I prowled around the house and finally settled in Aunt Madge's sitting room with a book. I promptly fell asleep.

In my dream I was on a ship trying to find a pier to tie to in Ocean Alley. I was in Uncle Gordon's old dory, which was painted bright red. The boat started to shake and I sat up suddenly. Michael grinned at me. "I hope you were dreaming about me."

I shook my head to clear it. "Indirectly." I held up my arms and he knelt down for a quiet hug. He smelled like the brisk sea breeze, and I could have sat there for an hour. The popping of a champagne cork jarred us after a few seconds, and Michael stood.

"I would have opened that, Madge," he said.

She looked at us both. "It's my pleasure." She held up the bottle. "Our guest brought celebratory alcohol."

I laughed and swung off the couch. Jazz was zooming around the floor, batting the cork, and Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy appeared to be agonizing on the porch because they were not included.

Aunt Madge poured and Michael handed me a glass. When we each had one, he raised his. "To the American system of justice, which only cost me my reputation and almost $20,000."

I almost spit into my champagne. "Wow." I recovered in time to take a sip. "Do you get it back?"

"No way." He seemed bitter, and I didn't blame him.

"We need to focus on gratitude," Aunt Madge said.

From anyone else it would have sounded patronizing, or at least corny.

"It's hard for me, Madge, but I'll work on it," Michael said quietly. Then he took a long gulp of champagne.

We moved to the couch and Aunt Madge let the guys in. "Stay down!" she commanded, and they walked rapidly around the room and settled at her feet as she sat across from Michael and me. I looked around and saw that Jazz had jumped on the back of the sofa and sat next to Michael.

"So," I felt a need to break the silence. "What's next now that you're footloose and fancy free?" I wanted him to say something about going over to his place, and not to sort his mother's belongings.

"I'm not free yet," he looked moodily at the dogs. "I've got to go to Washington."

"Washington!" Aunt Madge and I said in unison.

"My firm seems to have inflated some oil prices when we passed costs to customers in California. We're being investigated by some federal energy regulators and maybe a congressional committee."

Several seconds passed before Aunt Madge said, "Were you involved?"

"Not knowingly," he said. "And I think the investigators believe that."

"Why?" I regretted the speed of my question as soon as the word was out of my mouth.

"Because, Ms. Detective, my bank account did not inflate at the rate of my partners'."

"Thank heavens for small favors," Aunt Madge said.

"Yeah, less for Darla to get." He finished his champagne.

"When do you go?" I asked.

I saw the amusement in his eyes, and figured he knew why I asked. "Not for a couple days."

The phone rang and I jumped. As Aunt Madge got up to answer it he slipped his arm around me and leaned close. "Any reason you're so jumpy?"

His breath was warm on my temple and he kissed me lightly. Warmth spread through me and I felt my nipples tighten. "Must be the change in your legal status." I didn't want to be a smart ass, but it is my most familiar behavior.

"Jolie," Aunt Madge held out the phone. "It's Sgt. Morehouse."

"What does he want?" Michael asked, in a harsh tone.

Aunt Madge's face asked the same question as I took the phone.

"Ms. Gentil," he began, "You didn't happen to call the station early this afternoon, did you?"

"Absolutely not."

He sighed. "I figured it wasn't you."

"Why do you ask?"

"Can't tell you that. Might be nothing." He said goodbye and hung up without giving me a chance to say anything else.

"He's just trying to harass you," Michael said when I explained what the sergeant had asked. I wasn't sure I agreed with him, but chose not to pick a fight.

"Why don't you two go out," Aunt Madge suggested.

The phone rang again and she smiled as she listened and handed it to Michael.

He took it with a questioning look, and then his face lit up. "Dad."

Aunt Madge and I walked back toward the couch. "I think he's in town," she said.

My heart sank. Are we never going to get a break?

Michael hung up and turned to us. "I can't believe he did that. I called him this morning to say the judge was going to announce his findings, and he got in his car and drove straight to the airport. I wondered why I couldn't get him this afternoon."

"That's great," I didn't mean it.

"And the best thing is that Honey doesn't get here until tomorrow."

"Keep an eye on your mom's knick-knacks." I clapped my hand over my mouth.

He shook his head. "You don't have to tell me she's a gold digger." He turned to Aunt Madge. "I can't thank you enough."

She waved a hand. "You just did. Your mother would be proud."

When he bent to give me a kiss I thought his eyes looked misty.

THOUGH I HAD AN APPRAISAL TO do the next day, I was slow to get up. I was happy, wasn't I? As I fed Jazz I told myself I was just impatient at having to wait to spend time, quality time I told myself, with Michael.

It was well past guest breakfast time so I padded around the kitchen in my slippers and bathrobe. Aunt Madge must be at the grocery store. I had finally figured that she went each day as a way of seeing people.

The phone rang and I was surprised to hear Scoobie's voice. "Could you, like, come bail me out?"

In the background, I heard Sgt. Morehouse say, "I told you, you aren't under arrest."

"You want me to come down there?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

I dressed without showering and drove the short distance to the police station. The desk clerk seemed to be expecting me and ushered me into Sgt. Morehouse's very small office. A visibly upset Scoobie sat in the chair next to his desk, his foot tapping fast and his eyes anxious.

"What's up?" I wasn't sure who to ask, so I looked at both of them.

"He thinks I did it!" Scoobie shouted.

"No, I don't," Morehouse yelled. "Put a cork in it for one minute!"

"Both of you, calm down," I used my best Aunt Madge voice. They stared at me. "You start." I pointed at Sgt. Morehouse.

"I got this call yesterday, and this woman with a funny voice says I should look for Scoobie if I wanted Ruth Riordan's murderer."

"Wrong!" Scoobie said.

"Lemme finish," Morehouse growled. "She said to check his knapsack and I'd find some rare coins that had been in the house."

"Your basic circumstantial evidence," Scoobie said.

Morehouse looked like he would like to gag him. "I know that," he snapped. "I found Scoobie this morning at Java Jolt, and the coins were in his knapsack."

"Along with some other great-smelling stuff," I smiled to Scoobie.

"Nah, I tossed the old crab cakes before that." He seemed to be getting calmer.

"All I'm asking," Morehouse said, "Is that you think where you were with that knapsack."

"That's all?" Scoobie asked.

"That's what I been trying to tell you for half a damn hour," Morehouse said.

Scoobie thought about this. "Well, I was at the courthouse yesterday, with Jolie."

"And the library before that." I added, and he nodded. "And after the courthouse?"

"The library, and the diner near it, and then the library again." He thought some more. "Then back to where I sleep."

"Still at the place on F Street?" Morehouse asked. When Scoobie nodded, he continued. "And you had the knapsack with you the entire time?"

"Heck no. I always leave it at my table in the library when I go to the diner." I must have looked at him oddly, because he added, "It's near the reference desk. Nobody bothers my stuff."

Morehouse sighed. "Anyone could have dropped them in there."

"I'm glad you don't think it's Scoobie. How do you even know the coins were from Mrs. Riordan's house?"

"Michael and his father are coming down later this morning, but they checked and a small bag of silver dollars from the 1800s was missing from a cabinet in the den."

"Which I didn't take," Scoobie said.

"I think," Morehouse glared at him, "that whoever killed her took them in case their frame of Michael didn't work." He shrugged. "Or maybe they wanted a memento. Some weirdoes do that."

"So, Scoobie can leave?" I asked.

Sgt. Morehouse nodded at him. "Just do me a favor and think if you saw anyone near the knapsack." He paused. "And try not to let it get to you. You been having a good couple years."

Scoobie didn't say anything, but picked up his knapsack and walked out. "Thanks," I said, quietly, to Morehouse.

"I'll say it again." He had a hint of a smile. "You sure know how to pick 'em."

I hurried from his office, wanting to catch up to Scoobie, and bumped into Larry Riordan. Michael was behind him, his head turned and eyes on Scoobie as he walked out of the station.

"Miss Richards, is it?" Larry asked.

"It's Jolie Gentil. I'm Madge Richards' niece," I extended a hand, reluctantly accepting that I'd have to find Scoobie in a few minutes.

"Jolie, were you here with that loser?" Michael asked, frowning.

"He called me. He was upset." I was angry at his characterization of Scoobie, but tried not to let it show.

"He may have killed my mother you know," he said, voice rising.

"He didn't. Ask Sgt. Morehouse."

"Why were you sitting with him in the courtroom yesterday, anyway?" he asked.

Larry Riordan shifted slightly, and I sensed his discomfort. "Because he's my friend."

"Your friend? He's a pothead. He hasn't done anything with his life." Michael's face was red.

"He, he writes beautiful poetry. And you're, you're arrogant as hell!" I nearly ran out of the station.

I DROVE AROUND for quite a while, checking the library and Java Jolt before I gave up on finding Scoobie. When would I ever learn?

I went by Harry's to pick up the material about the house I was to appraise. My anger was so close to the surface that I almost snapped at Harry. Men are such jerks.

"You don't look as happy as I thought you would, after the judge's ruling yesterday." He started to say something else and stopped.

"I'm sorry." I almost sighed the response. "Just a lot on my mind, and I'm a little worried about Scoobie."

He nodded. "I don't really know him of course, just see him around town." He fiddled with a file on his desk. "He's lucky to have you for a friend."

I sensed he wanted to say something else. "And..."

"You've had a lot going on in your life lately." He looked at me very directly. "It might be tempting to help Scoobie in some way, but you know he has to find his own path."

With a brief nod, I picked up the appraisal file from his desk and managed to thank him for caring.

ELSIE HAMMER'S HOUSE was half a block from the house I was appraising, and I glanced at it as I drew close. An unkempt looking man of indeterminate age walked out the side door. I slowed a bit and watched him light a cigarette and walk toward the pickup truck in the driveway. I frowned. Didn't Paul Hammer have his driving license revoked? A voice in the back of my brain chimed in. Is this really any of your business?

A couple houses down I pulled over and looked in the rear view mirror. Sure enough, the pickup pulled out of the driveway with a man at the wheel. I told myself it didn't have to be Paul Hammer, though if anyone met the stereotype of a disheveled drunk it was he. I busied myself with my purse as he drove by, then for reasons unknown even to me I waited for him to drive a block down the street and followed him. He drove around the block and made his way toward the center of Ocean Alley and pulled into the Burger King parking lot.

I sat at a traffic light. See Jolie, not everyone's up to no good. But no sooner had I chastised myself than he walked across the street, toward the building on the opposite corner – the Sandpiper Bar and Grill. He tripped as he got to the curb and almost stumbled. He seemed to have had a good start on his drinking. For a couple seconds I wondered why he had parked at Burger King, then realized the police probably knew his truck and if they saw it on the street near a bar they'd look for him inside.

I didn't even think of minding my own business as I got to the next red light. My cell phone was in the side pocket of my purse. "Nuts, I don't have a phone book." Under my seat was the Lakewood phone directory, a good resource for any realtor working there to have at hand, but useless in Ocean Alley. I debated whether I wanted to call 911; I didn't. The Purple Cow was two doors down, so I headed there.

Roland looked up as the door chimed, and a quick frown creased his brow and left as he nodded at me. I nodded back. "I'm not here to bug Ramona."

"Can I help you with something?" he asked.

"May I use your phone book?"

He walked the few steps to the counter and pulled it out. "You need a phone?"

I started to say no, but changed my mind. Maybe I didn't want my name showing up on the Police Department caller ID. "If you don't mind."

He walked about a dozen feet away and began to straighten a table of discounted goods.

Morehouse took about five minutes to get on the line. I figured he was hoping I'd go away. Once I began to say where I had seen a man I assumed was Paul Hammer he interrupted me and got off the phone. Since I was in the Purple Cow, I stayed on the phone for the several minutes he was gone; otherwise I would have hung up. If he didn't want to hear about someone driving with a suspended license did I really care? Of course you care. The next car he hits could be Aunt Madge's.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Jolie. I wanted to get someone over to the Sandpiper right away."

Gulp. "No problem. "I guess I don't know anything more..."

"If it comes to it, would you be willing to tell Martin Small or his people what you saw?"

My stomach did a back flip. "Umm, I guess so," I straightened my shoulders. "Of course. He could hurt someone."

"How the hell did you notice him, anyway? I wouldn't think you knew him."

I embellished a bit, telling him I was driving by Elsie's house and saw him stumble as he got into the truck, which got my attention. I could almost see him roll his eyes. There was a slight pause. "I'd hate to think you were sticking your nose someplace it didn't belong."

"I'm not spying on Elsie, if that's what you mean. You can ask Harry if he just gave me a house to appraise a block from the Hammer's." He either believed me or was tired of me, because he thanked me and hung up with his usual style, which meant no goodbye.

When I turned to thank Roland for the use of his phone he was only about three feet from me, and I jumped. "Sorry," he said. "I wanted to tell you that you did a good thing. Paul Hammer is one evil man."

"I don't really know him, just heard he had a lot of DUIs and lost his license."

"That's not the half of it." He walked behind the counter and put the phone back on a shelf under the cash register. "My wife and I went to high school with Elsie and Paul. He gets more like his old man every year." Seeing the question on my face, he added, "He skipped a lot of school and stuff like that, but nothing more. But the older he gets the more he drinks. My wife thinks maybe he hits Elsie sometimes."

"Good God." Though I did not consider my life to be protected from the real world (especially in the last few weeks), I had never actually met someone who beat his wife. Not that I know of.

"So, does Elsie not have anywhere else to go...?"

"She's had offers." He glanced around. "I shouldn't really say, but my wife works in the ER. I know they talked to her a couple times when she came in." He shrugged. "Nancy, my wife, says Elsie is always emphatic that she fell or something."

I thought about how stressed Elsie looked the day Lester and I barged in on her. Sounded as if Paul Hammer was a lot more trouble than a flat tire would indicate. I shook my head slightly. "I hope I didn't buy her more trouble."

Roland looked puzzled for a minute, then caught on. "Oh, if he's pi.. irritated if he gets arrested." He thought for a moment. "I'll ask Nancy to give her a call. Maybe invite Elsie out for supper."

A customer came in, and I left. I knew I did the right thing, but if it meant Elsie got a black eye, or worse, it would be awful.

I was still feeling heartsick about Elsie's situation as I pulled into the driveway of the Cape Cod house on the west edge of town, facing the beach. I concentrated on an attitude adjustment as I stepped out of the car, and promptly stumbled on a child-size green football. "Sorry," a woman called from the back doorway, which faced the driveway. "I didn't quite get finished picking up the yard."

I glanced around at the toys that littered it, and heard shouts of play from the front. "It's okay," I limped forward. "We really only look at the house itself, not stuff that's around."

She hovered by me until I found a polite way to tell her she was driving me nuts. The house had a lived-in look that spoke of an active family rather than poor housekeeping or neglect. As I was measuring the dining room a naked boy of about two ran through, followed by an older sister, clutching a diaper. "Come on, Randy," was all she said, and I sensed this was a regular routine.

Though it was a difficult house to measure, I didn't mind, and even found myself relaxing. By the time I left it was hard not to laugh at Randy as he ran out the back door, again buck naked. "Don't worry, he'll be in real soon, it's cold," the mom said as she reached for a hooded sweatshirt hanging on a hook and stepped into the yard after me.

When Lester appeared at the Register of Deeds Office as I researched for comps, I remembered he probably looked for me on the days he knew I was appraising one of his sales. Crafty guy.

"Did you hear the latest?" he asked.

"Depends on what it is."

"I heard they're questioning that pothead, Scrubbie, about Ruth Riordan's murder."

"It's Scoobie, and the police asked him to help with some information, that's all." I forced myself to think about the information I was writing rather than my desire to scream at Lester.

He pushed up the sleeve of his suit so he could reach into his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. "How do you know that?"

"You know what they say about that little bird." The weak smile I gave him was the best I could do. Before he could ask anything else I said, "I hear you have a cash sale coming up."

"Yeah, I love those. Get my commission really fast." He blew his nose again, emitting a loud, squeaky sound.

Such a gentleman.

"Harry tells me I can do the appraisal tomorrow." I shut the ledger I was looking in and closed my own notebook.

"Yeah, but not until late afternoon. It's vacant, and it's supposed to rain. The buyer wants you to see if any water seeps in anywhere."

I DROVE AROUND FOR ANOTHER half hour and then parked and headed for the boardwalk. I had no idea where Scoobie's "permanent half-way house" was on F Street, and probably wouldn't have gone there anyway. After walking up and down the boardwalk for an hour and peering into Java Jolt twice, I gave up and headed back to the Purple Cow, my local news source.

This time I actually liked what was on the white board. "The greatest part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances." Martha Washington.

"That would be a good quote for Scoobie."

Ramona walked up. "He thought so, too."

"He was here? When?"

The feathers on the top of her brown felt hat looked as if they would fall off as she tilted her head back, seemingly deep in thought. "Oh, maybe an hour ago."

"Did he seem, um, normal?" I asked.

She shrugged. "For Scoobie. He said you helped him at the police station."

"He wasn't in trouble. I guess he was just mad that Sgt. Morehouse hauled him down there."

She nodded. "He gets upset sometimes." She leaned closer. "I think the pot used to calm him down, but he swore off it. I told him that was good. It's supposed to lower a man's sperm count, you know."

Because Roland wasn't around, I didn't buy anything. I gathered he hadn't mentioned my phone call to Morehouse, or Ramona would have asked me about it. She promised to tell Scoobie I was looking for him, and I headed back to Aunt Madge's.

Her car was gone, but Scoobie sat on the porch, collar of his pea jacket up around his ears, writing in his steno pad. The late afternoon temperature had fallen to about 40 degrees, and he was glad to be invited in for a cup of tea.

"I've been writing. Want to read it?" I turned up the kettle and sat next to him at the kitchen table.

You ask

What is this

That you call soul?

It is the stuff

That makes me whole

Not just me

No

But rather

Uniquely me

And it is not for sale

It used to be

"That looks like a good beginning," I was never certain what to say about poetry.

"It might be the whole thing," he said.

We sipped our tea in silence until I said, "You seem to be feeling better about Morehouse."

"I'm not, but I reminded myself I can't do anything about it." He kept studying the poem, and then said, "Whatever happened to that guy from the boardwalk?"

"He seems to be still around. Ramona said he was asking about me."

"Ramona. She's always on my side."

I thought that was an odd thing to say, but decided he meant she was supportive.

"If he's around, you should be careful." He drank more tea. "And the other man, he was your husband?"

I thought Scoobie knew this, and decided he was just checking up on my safety. "Robby'll be my ex-husband eventually. He...well, you know he flushed a lot of money down the toilets that masquerade as slot machines at the Atlantic City casinos. I guess he borrowed money from the wrong people."

He drank the last of his tea and stood. "Hope you didn't mind that I called this morning."

"Nope." I grinned. "I won't say 'any time.'"

He hoisted his knapsack. "You call me if that guy bothers you."

"Thanks." I walked him to the door and was touched when he kissed me on the cheek as he left.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EVEN THOUGH THE APPRAISAL was not until afternoon I was up early. I'd been thinking about Elsie Hammer as I fell asleep, and my sleep was fitful. When I got downstairs, Mister Rogers was running through the great room, ears flapping behind him, making circles around the couch. I let him into the back yard and looked at Miss Piggy, who only yawned.

As I walked into the kitchen area I saw the cause of his consternation. A mound of chewed plastic, formerly a bowl, sat in the middle of the floor. Aunt Madge hadn't been kidding about their affinity for prunes. I made Miss Piggy get up and was ushering her out the door when Aunt Madge came out of her bedroom, dressed for the day. I held up the remains of the bowl.

"Drat. I must not have shut the door to the pantry completely." She took the bowl and threw it in the trash and began to make coffee, muttering to herself about the trouble the dogs caused.

I pulled out two mugs for us and began to thumb through the paper. Yesterday's paper had reported on the judge's finding, and today's had a caustic editorial about how the prosecuting attorney had based the case against Michael on "pretty flimsy" evidence. It urged the police to solve the murder quickly, for the sake of the family and the tourist trade. At least they had put family before tourism.

"I'm going back to Ruth's today, probably for the last time. Can you help?" Aunt Madge asked. When I hesitated, Aunt Madge added, "Michael won't be there. He's leaving for DC this morning."

"I guess he told you I called him arrogant, huh?"

"Not in so many words, but he didn't ask where you were, and all Larry said was that they had run into you at the police station." She took out the muffin batter she had stored in the freezer. "He's not an easy man to be with, I suppose."

"I'm not always eggs-over-easy either." I thought about it for a moment. "I don't have any business falling for anybody now. It hasn't even been two months."

"It's not a matter of time, just who the person is." She glanced at me. "You'll know if it's right."

"Bottom line is, I'll go," I told her, "But I have to leave by three to do an appraisal."

Before we left a couple hours later I checked the small backyard for signs that the dogs had done their business. From the look of the small mulched flower bed and bricked walkway, they had done a month's worth. I let them in, and they waited patiently on a scatter rug while I wiped their paws.

Aunt Madge and I took separate cars, since I was going to work after we helped at the Riordans'. It looked as if it would drizzle or rain lightly all day. I was glad I'd found my sturdy shoes, as any work I did outside the house I was appraising would involve sandy muck.

AUNT MADGE HADN'T MENTIONED that Larry Riordan would be at the house, but I found him much easier to be around than his son. Honey was another matter. She followed me from room to room as I checked in closets and drawers for anything that looked like a family heirloom or memento Michael might like to keep. He was going to keep these and a few pieces of furniture and have an estate sale company take away the rest of the house's contents.

I thought I'd gotten away from Honey when she went downstairs to have coffee, but I heard her and Larry coming up the stairs. I had spread much of the costume jewelry on the bed, trying to decide what to donate to the Church Thrift Store and what to put in a box for the sale, and was sorry she was going to see it all. Surely she would want something.

Larry had a forlorn look about him, and I recalled that Mrs. Murphy had said she thought he and Ruth might have gotten back together if he hadn't met Honey when he did. I tried to be charitable, remembering that he had lived in this house for many years and it must be hard to see it being picked through and packed.

"Hi, hon," Honey said brightly. "Got your work cut out for you in here, don't you?" She walked to the bed and began surveying the jewelry. "She sure liked rose and purple, didn't she?"

"Pretty much." I picked up the single earring that had been on the closet floor the other day and placed it in the drawer of the bedside table. No point wrapping it up; besides, I might yet find the other one.

"Larry, I noticed some mahogany carved ducks in the den. Were they yours?"

He brightened. "I don't think Michael will mind if I take them. Ruth gave them to me for Christmas a number of years ago."

Honey seemed put out by that comment, so I put her to work packing the jewelry in tissue paper and placing it in shoe boxes that would go to the church thrift store.

I LEFT PROMPTLY AT 2:45, and Aunt Madge walked out with me. She had again bought the frozen bread loaves from the store, and I kidded her about becoming a lady of leisure. "Oh, I don't think I'll stop baking bread as long as my fingers can knead it. It's a very satisfying feeling, having your hands in that soft dough."

Lester had given me the key to the house the day before, so I didn't need to stop by his office. However, he had asked that I drop it back there between 4 and 4:30 p.m. I sensed he was more interested in me than the key, and then chided myself about thinking I was some kind of glamour girl.

The two-story house on G Street was toward the south side of town in an area comprised almost totally of summer rentals. It was clean and furniture-free, so I worked quickly. I finished measuring all of the rooms on the ground floor and then opened the utility closet door in the kitchen to verify that the central air and furnace systems were as young as the owner indicated.

"Surprised?" Joe Pedone asked, as he grabbed my wrist.

He was so quick I didn't even have time to scream. He swung me around and pressed my back to him, clapping his hand to my mouth.

"I was just trying to collect some money. Money rightfully due to my boss," he squeezed harder as he said this, "and you had to go make it personal."

When I tried to pull away he just pressed harder against my ribs, and within a few seconds I found it hard to breathe, even through my nose. Think, think! In a self-defense class in college the teacher said never to try to kick a man in the balls, because we were so programmed not to injure men in that area that we might hesitate. No worries there, but I wasn't in a good position to do it.

"You had to go to the police," he hissed in my ear. "You lost me my job. Boss doesn't want troublemakers on the payroll." He pushed my face against the refrigerator and held me there with one hand and a knee jammed in my back as he reached in a drawer next to it and pulled out a pre-cut piece of duct tape and forced it over my mouth. My heart was pounding so hard I wouldn't have gotten out a scream even if I had the breath for it.

He threw me on the floor and reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of strips of cloth. When he reached down I sat up halfway and tried to push myself away.

"Bitch!" He grabbed my arm and reached for the other one. He may have been short, but he was really strong. As he bent over I kicked him hard in the knee, and when he yelled in pain I did it again. Suddenly he was on the floor, but the kitchen was narrow and he was blocking any escape route.

I tried to pull the duct tape off, but just barely had it loose when he lunged at me again. In an instant I went from overwhelmed with fear to angrier than I could remember feeling. This time I aimed my elbow at his eye and hit him with all the force I could muster.

"Ow! Aagh!" He covered his eye with both hands and I jumped up and ran past him. He was running after me in two seconds and I could hear him breathing hard. I'd never make it outside; it was too hard to breathe and I was winded.

I made a sharp left into the master bedroom and lunged into the bathroom. I almost had the door shut when he rammed it with his shoulder. I braced myself against it, the rubber soles of my shoes giving me traction on the tiled floor. I grabbed at the duct tape, finished yanking it off, and took a deep breath.

I still couldn't scream. I pressed my shoes against the floor. I had to keep him out! Breathe in. Breathe out.

"You bastard," I gasped. And I yelled "help" with all my might.

He jumped back from the door and I pushed it shut, turned the bolt and sank to the floor with my head between my knees. I could hear him breathing hard. "Next time. There will be a next time." I heard him run out, and I slumped to my side and began to sob.

It was several minutes before I could stop. If I hadn't needed to wipe my nose on the toilet paper I probably would have lain there crying for twice as long.

Blearily I sat up and took stock. My purse with the mobile phone was in the kitchen, probably on the floor, but I wasn't leaving this room. Pedone might be out there. The window was too high to climb out without standing on a chair, which I didn't have, but I thought I could get it open and yell. For all the good it had done me a couple minutes ago. Almost all the nearby houses were closed for the season. Lucky for me, Pedone didn't know that, which I supposed was why he left. Or did he really leave?

I stood and rubbed my ribs. The window was the old casement type with a lever to open it. I tugged for almost a minute and couldn't get the lever to turn. Unfortunately, the window was frosted, so even when I stood on tiptoes and looked out the lower part of the glass I couldn't tell if Pedone was just outside, maybe with a gun. Don't be ridiculous. This isn't the movies. Maybe not, but he wasn't rational, that's for sure. I wished I'd had the presence of mind to listen for a car engine right after he left.

"Damn!" I tugged at the window but couldn't force it. My ribs throbbed from him holding me tight. Finally, I realized that if I stayed here long enough, someone would come looking for me. I'd told Aunt Madge I'd probably be back by five; Lester wanted his key. I closed the lid to the toilet and sat on it and rested my head on the sink, and giggled. Thank goodness all the cottages in Ocean Alley now had indoor plumbing. My giggle turned to a sob and I cried for a few more minutes.

"OK, Jolie." I blew my nose and continued talking aloud. "If you keep crying you're going to look like hell when the police get here."

I'd think happy thoughts. What happy thoughts? Aloud, I said, "My husband lost all our money and I'm living with my aunt." Aunt Madge's kindly face came into my mind, and I told myself to breathe deeply. You've got a job. OK, it's one where you find dead bodies and somebody tries to mug you." Or worse. Harry's thoughtful face came to mind and again I breathed deeply.

"At least you're not accused of the murder. And you are alive." That was a big plus. I wasn't Ruth Riordan.

Who killed Ruth Riordan? I mused. Even as disenchanted as I was with Michael, I couldn't believe he did it. Darla had been in Europe. Maybe Darla paid someone to do it. That was pretty melodramatic. Would Paul Hammer really have killed his wife's boss just to get her inheritance a little early? Would he have even known about it? I bet he'd do it.

I got back on the floor to lie on my side and closed my eyes. Definitely better than the toilet seat. Who else saw Ruth a lot? Lots of people saw her at church and through its Social Services Committee. They seemed like unlikely candidates.

Mrs. Jasper had an incessant need to talk, but that didn't make her a murderer. Probably people want to kill her. I smiled to myself for a second. I should feel sorry for her, she considered Mrs. Riordan her best friend.

Means, motive, and opportunity. Even Aunt Madge knew to think in those terms. I opened my eyes and stared at the beige tiled walls. I wished the prior owners had left a towel in here. I was getting cold. If I had Mrs. Riordan's cash I'd start a fire in the bathtub.

I sat up. Mrs. Riordan's money. What had that lawyer said about the will? Something like, "barring lawsuits from other people," if Michael had killed her the three charities would get the money. And one of those charities was the First Presbyterian social services activity. Mrs. Jasper?

"That's ridiculous." I put my head on the floor again and crossed my arms to stay warmer. Could Mrs. Jasper have done it? She said she hadn't visited the night before I found Mrs. Riordan. But what if she had? Surely Ruth Riordan would not have gone to bed if Mrs. Jasper were there.

I was getting awfully tired now, and my ribs still throbbed.

"Jolie, Jolie!" In my dream, Michael was calling me and he was very angry. And what was that pounding?

I sat up. "Here. I'm here!"

"She's in here, Madge." It was Harry Steele's voice.

It was dark, and I fumbled for the door lock, forgetting that there was a light switch somewhere. The door opened and I nearly fell into Harry, who grabbed me and held me upright as Aunt Madge reached for me.

"He was here." I was sobbing again. "Is he gone?"

"There's no one here, Jolie." Harry's voice was calm, and it helped. When he turned on the light it helped even more.

Aunt Madge patted me on the back like a baby. I pulled back and looked at her, and read the anguish in her face. "I'm so sorry I worried you."

She stroked my hair, tears on her cheeks. "I knew when you weren't home..." Her lip trembled. "And Harry called Lester and he hadn't seen you."

I'd never seen her really cry, and this jarred me into calming down some more. "I'm okay. I kicked him." I gave a short laugh. "And I elbowed him in the eye."

"Come on," Harry said. "Let's get your purse and lock up and go to the police."

I HAD SPENT MORE TIME in the Ocean Alley police station in the last couple weeks than I'd spent in all police stations I'd been in during my entire life combined. Sgt. Morehouse was at home, but someone called him. I figured I was probably at the top of his shit list.

At some point, someone called Lester. This did not make matters easier, but it did shed some light on why Pedone was in the house.

"Jeez, the guy showed me his bank statement. He had the money." Lester was holding his unlit cigar, occasionally putting it between his teeth and then removing it.

"For sure, this guy?" Morehouse had a photo of Pedone, from the looks of it a mug shot from some previous pleasantry.

"Jeez Louise, that's him." Lester began to pace the small conference room. "He came in last week, said he was looking for a place to put some money he'd inherited, thought a rental property would be a good investment."

"I can't believe I suggested you go into appraisal work again," Aunt Madge said.

"Aunt Madge, it's Mother who's the travel agent for guilt trips. Don't send yourself. Besides," I gave her what I hoped was a halfway cheerful grin. "It's probably the safest occupation for me now. He'd never try that again."

Morehouse grunted. "It might be better if you and Harry did a couple together, just for a while."

I almost mouthed off to him, but caught Aunt Madge's eye in time to avoid it.

"We can work something out," Harry said. He winked at me.

Finally, there was nothing more to do, and Morehouse said he would get the state police more involved in looking for Pedone and keep us informed. "I'll call you every day," he said to Aunt Madge.

We trooped out, with Lester still apologizing.

"Relax, Lester, You're the one who lost the sale." This did not cheer him up, but did silence him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN

I REFUSED TO GO TO a doctor, insisting that if my sore ribs were broken it would hurt a lot more. My theory was that the fewer people who knew about Pedone attacking me the better. Good theory, but I hadn't thought about the fact that reporters listen to the police scanner constantly and look at the police blotter each day.

"Local Appraiser Accosted in Vacant House," read the morning headline. It was a short story, and quoted Morehouse saying that they thought I knew the suspect. It made it sound as if I hung around with people who regularly tried to beat me up. Elsie's face came to mind, and I felt a guilty twinge that I had forgotten about her. I should have asked Morehouse if they picked up her husband.

My phone in Lakewood had not rung so much the morning that the article appeared about Robby embezzling from the bank. Some of the callers were Aunt Madge's friends, but some were people I knew. Jennifer Stenner implied it would never happen to anyone from her firm, and I was tempted to tell her I'd hired someone to go after her. Joe Regan offered me free coffee for a week, and Mrs. Jasper wanted to stop by, but Aunt Madge told her I was lying down.

"Didn't you teach your Sunday School classes not to lie?" I asked, as I poured Jazz a small amount of milk.

"Henriette Jasper is the definition of extenuating circumstances," she said.

At about 10:30 Michael called. He was still in Washington. "This is your arrogant classmate."

My words have a way of coming back to haunt me. "I should probably apologize for that."

"Not necessary. I was out of line."

We were both being very polite. "You were upset; you thought Scoobie might actually have done it."

"I did for a bit. I should have realized he probably couldn't organize all that." I started to say that Scoobie was certainly as smart as we were, and realized it was pointless. We saw Scoobie very differently. "Listen," he continued, "you aren't going to do any more appraisals alone until they arrest this guy, are you?"

"I can usually take care of myself."

"That was obvious." His tone was mocking.

"Michael, did you call to harass me?"

I could hear the amusement in his voice. "Actually, since I'll be hanging around Ocean Alley awhile longer. I was going to offer to ride along the next time you have to do one in a vacant house."

"I guess I'll have humble pie with my coffee."

"Have two helpings," he offered.

I supposed I deserve that. "Listen, I've been meaning to talk to you about something to do with Mrs. Jasper."

He groaned. "I'd rather face a bunch of congressional investigators."

I realized I hadn't asked him about his work in DC, and he said that when he got home he'd pick me up for a trip to Java Jolt to discuss it. He neatly sidestepped Mrs. Jasper, but I had no plans to let go of my idea about her having a possible motive.

That evening Scoobie came over and he and Aunt Madge and I played cards. She wiped both of us out in a game of hearts.

SCOOBIE WAS AT JAVA JOLT when Michael and I arrived there the next day. He said a polite hello and left, and Michael, perhaps reflecting on my anger at his earlier comments, had no comment. He had a lot to say about the accusations about his firm.

"The funny thing is, we weren't one of the companies that withheld energy supplies from California to get higher prices. Of course," he took a sip of coffee, "those firms had to pay a lot of that back."

"Pay back to whom?" I asked.

"Ultimately, consumers." I zoned out somewhat when he described the complexities of making that happen, and tuned in more fully when he started talking about his partners. "Apparently, they figured everyone was paying attention to the California energy crisis, and decided to overcharge for what we sold after that."

"But you weren't in on that," I said.

He nodded. "But I was in charge of all in-house operations, and I hired the auditors every year. It never occurred to me to suspect what was going on, and I guess my partners hid it well enough that the auditors didn't pick up on it."

He shrugged. "Frankly, I'd gotten bored with all of it. If I'd been as involved in things as I should have been, I might have recognized what was going on, at least enough to dig deeper myself or point the auditors toward the mess. When I did start to figure it out, Mom was already sick and I just told my partners I wanted out."

He gave a humorless laugh. "Mom being sick made me think about health insurance, so I said all I wanted was a couple weeks or a month to buy some health insurance."

"So that's why you said you were leaving but hadn't stepped down?"

He nodded. "It was really the chicken-shit approach. Mother urged me to report it, and I didn't want to. Those guys were my friends." He grimaced. "Used to be. That's what we were talking about the night Elmira saw us at Newhart's." He stopped, as if trying not to tear up. "Mother's death made me rethink some things."

"Are you saying these DC investigator types didn't spot all this on their own?"

He took another sip of his coffee. "I heard they had an anonymous tip."

"OK, I won't push."

He raised his eyebrows. "But the bottom line is, the investigators don't believe you were involved in the overcharge stuff, right?" I asked.

"Apparently one of my partners told the government investigators that. If I find out which one, I might offer to let him bunk with me when he gets out of prison."

"Wow." This was way beyond Robby's level of malfeasance. "So, what do you do now?"

"I'll go back to Houston and supervise things until they get sorted out." He looked at me directly. "Want to spend some time in Houston?"

"I...don't know about that." I looked away for a moment, and then back at him. "I'm not sure we have a lot more in common now than we did in high school."

It was his turn to look away, and then he reached for my hand. "Maybe we'd have more in common if we spent more time together."

I felt the same surge of warmth that his touch had prompted in me before, and half of me wanted to pack up Jazz and go with that feeling. The other half figured I might just be back in Ocean Alley a couple months after that. "Maybe."

He slowly released my hand, and his tone was more detached. "Not a very strong maybe."

I shook my head. "It's just, everything, and I mean all the stuff with Robby, too, is just so...new."

"Am I pushing too hard?" A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

"Do you know how not to?"

He shrugged. "Probably not, but I do know some good things are worth waiting for." I must have looked pleased at that, because he added, "But I'm not good at waiting too long."

"Gee, why am I not surprised?" I stirred my coffee, not sure what to say next, so I opted for a complete change of topic. "I wanted to talk to you about Mrs. Jasper."

His gesture was impatient. "You need to give the stuff about my Mother a rest, Jolie."

"I would love to. I just...can't."

"Learn," he said, shortly, and louder than what my Mother would have called an 'inside voice.'

I noted Joe Regan look at us and leaned a bit closer to Michael. "Just hear me out. Please."

He looked at his watch. "I have to leave in ten minutes to take my dad and Honey to the airport. You can have that much time."

"Gee, thanks, sir." Feeling that I should probably not irritate him too much, I launched into my thoughts about why Mrs. Jasper might want a larger share of his Mother's estate, and how she could get it if Michael were guilty of Ruth's murder. He listened, saying nothing.

I plowed on. "She once told me that her work with the church was 'her life.' What if she wanted a lot more money for those causes? What if she did go to the house that night?"

His look was skeptical. "And if that's all true? It doesn't prove," he lowered his voice, "that she murdered Mother. Even if she was there the night before, she would have left. Someone was in there the next morning," his voice tightened. "Someone stopped her breathing." His voice caught and he stopped.

"I know," I used my most gentle tone. "But what if she put something in your mother's tea the night before, and then came back to see if it had killed her?"

His fingers drummed the table. "The key words are 'came back in.' I didn't let her in, and the house was locked."

"But the alarm was off. I'd bet any amount she had a key."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Mother would never have given her one."

"What about when she helped her redo the den?"

He thought about that for a moment. "It just doesn't seem likely."

"But she could have," I persisted. "Maybe to let in a delivery person, or..."

"Jolie, you're grasping," he was getting more irritated.

"We need a way to get her to admit she was there the night before, that's a start."

"Why would she do that?"

"That's where you come in." I had thought about this a lot since my time on the bathroom floor in that little house. "Tell her you want to talk to her about your Mother, you..."

He laughed. "I've spent the time since my Mother's death avoiding her. You want me to call her?"

It took me five more minutes to get him to agree, but in the end, he said he would invite Mrs. Jasper over to take the shoeboxes of costume jewelry to the thrift shop, and ask her if she wanted a couple of pieces for herself. When she was there, he would mention that he had thought she was coming over that night, and ask her about his mother's last evening. Finally, he would say he was collecting any keys neighbors and friends had, so there weren't any outstanding when the Arts Council moved in.

I told Michael I would walk back to Aunt Madge's, and he left to pick up his father and Honey to go to the airport. In honor of convincing him to at least talk to Mrs. Jasper, I selected a chocolate-coated glazed donut and poured a second cup of coffee. Joe Regan grinned at me. "OK, Jolie, one free donut." I stuck out my tongue at him.

It wasn't long before I was aware that people were stealing furtive looks at me from time to time. I considered just standing up and announcing that yes, I was that Jolie Gentil, and no, I did not have a magnet on my back to attract trouble.

AUNT MADGE WAS FURIOUS that Michael had let me walk back to Cozy Corner alone. "What could have gotten into him?"

"Common sense. He knows I'm probably not too much of a target walking from Java Jolt to here in broad daylight." When she jammed a teacup into her dish drainer and didn't say anything, I walked up behind her and hugged her around the waist. "I have a better chance of being arrested for forgetting to take a pooper-scooper when I walk the dogs than of running into Pedone again."

"That's wishful thinking."

It might have been, but it worked for me. I insisted she let me finish the lunch dishes and told her I was going over to Harry's. She didn't argue. Poor Aunt Madge. Her life was a lot simpler before I showed up.

En route to Harry's I saw Scoobie walking along B Street, knapsack on his back, his head bowed against the wind. He accepted my offer of a ride to the library, but did not look too comfortable as he sat beside me in the front seat.

"You mad at me, or something?" I asked.

"Nope. Just wish you'd be more careful."

"Honest, I think that guy was just trying to scare me."

"What guy?" he asked.

Reading the paper was apparently not on Scoobie's to-do list. I explained about Pedone, and he was upset. "You've got to stay away from that guy."

Duh. "I'm not looking for him. Besides, I thought you knew about it. What did you mean about being more careful?"

"I meant about that Riordan guy."

I had to suppress my smile. "He's not as dangerous as he looks."

Scoobie grunted. "His kind never looks dangerous. They just suck the souls out of people around them with their stuck-up attitudes and penny loafers."

I wasn't about to tell him he made no sense, so I played along. "What about the penny loafers?"

"They walk all over you."

I pulled up in front of the library and he got out. Before he shut the door he leaned back in. "You should watch out for the other guy, too."

AS IF TO MAKE UP for sending me to Pedone, Lester had called with two more houses, both occupied, both in the popsicle district. Lester was hot, and interest rates were low. It was a good combination for appraisers.

I couldn't do the houses for another day or two, so I drove by to look at them and then went to the courthouse to research their prior sales and some comps. As I was leaving the Register of Deeds Office, George Winters stopped me.

"What I want to know is, was your life this exciting in Lakewood, or did you just decide to spice it up after you moved here?"

He had his reporter's notebook in his hand, so I nodded toward it and asked, in my most charming voice, "Are we on or off the record?"

He grinned. "We can be off the record."

"Then I'll be happy to tell you what you can do with your question." I shoved open the courthouse door and started down the steps.

"Come on, Jolie. I know we got off on the wrong foot." I kept going. "Okay. I'm sorry I wrote that article that implied you and Riordan were lovers."

"Apology accepted."

"But, since you're my sister and all, I thought I was in the loop."

I stopped, hand on my car door. "Look, I'm sorry I used that name when I called Kenner."

His laugh was more like a whoop. "I love it. You aren't sorry you impersonated a reporter, just sorry you got caught."

"In a nutshell, yes."

As I turned back to open my car door he put his hand on it and opened it. "Listen, who was this guy last night? I mean, I got his name and past record from the police, but why was he after you?"

"My soon-to-be ex-husband owes him some money."

"And so he's after you?" He flipped open his notebook.

I slid into the front seat. "You agreed we were off the record." I smiled as I pulled away, and it really looked as if he was about to throw the notebook at me.

MICHAEL HAD LEFT A message with Aunt Madge saying he'd had an unexpected call from DC and had to go back overnight. This annoyed me, as it meant that he wouldn't be able to talk to Mrs. Jasper for a day or two. Patience is not one of my virtues.

When Aunt Madge was sitting with her guests during their four o'clock tea, I called Mrs. Jasper.

"Jolie, I'm glad you called back," she gushed. "I was so worried when I read about you in the paper."

"Thanks. Listen, I have a favor to ask."

When she assured me she'd be delighted to help, I launched into my rehearsed script. Michael was wrapping up things at the house and wanted her to select a couple pieces of his mother's costume jewelry for herself (this drew a gasp) and then take the rest to the church thrift store. He'd been called away unexpectedly, and I had foolishly left my key to his house inside it and locked the door on the way out earlier today. She had one, didn't she?

There was a long pause before spoke. "A key? No. But..." She stopped again, then continued. "But if Michael hasn't changed the security code on the side door near to the garage, we might be able to use it to get in."

And all this time I had thought only about a key. There was only one door with a keypad. I had noted it during the appraisal, but it hadn't registered as an entry point for the murderer. "That would be great. Shall we meet over there in half an hour?"

When she agreed I was ecstatic. I told Aunt Madge I was heading for Java Jolt and then to the grocery store to pick up some of Jazz's favorite cat food. I felt a slight amount of guilt for lying to her, but not enough to deter me.

I was waiting in the Riordan driveway when Mrs. Jasper pulled up in an older Ford Taurus. She had on a sweat suit and tennis shoes, so I figured she must have scheduled her daily walk for the evening instead of morning. "Good evening," she said brightly. "I'm just sorry Michael couldn't be here. When does he come back?"

"Maybe late tomorrow."

The code turned out to be the same. "We have to walk quickly into the house," she said. "If we don't push the same security code on the alarm pad inside the kitchen, the alarm will go off."

My heart beat faster. If Michael had changed that code and the alarm sounded, I was screwed. He'd be furious and Mrs. Jasper was sure to tell the story at church, which would mean I'd be in hot water with Aunt Madge, too.

Luckily, the code was unchanged, and we looked around Ruth Riordan's beautiful kitchen, now a mass of packed boxes and empty coffee cups. She sighed. "It's just so sad to see the house this way."

I was too excited for empathy. "The jewelry is in some small boxes in the master bedroom." As we climbed the steps, I hoped Honey hadn't made off with all of it.

Again, my luck held. I was surprised at Mrs. Jasper's eagerness to see what was in them. She looked disappointed when she saw things had been neatly sorted and placed in small plastic bags. "Oh, you've been through it all."

"Yes. Some's going to the estate sale, some to the church thrift shop."

"So, I won't see it all then?" My look must have been puzzled, and she continued. "There were a couple things that especially reminded me of Ruth, but of course anything would be lovely."

"Actually, there's no formal inventory, so you can look through all the boxes." This was going to take forever, and I had what I wanted. I knew she could get in the house.

I was only half-listening as she commented on an occasional piece, and I wandered around the room, glancing out the window into the dusk. We both paused at a sound that seemed to come from downstairs.

"Wind," Mrs. Jasper said, and I nodded.

I was nervous now. You have no business being in an empty house, I scolded myself.

"There were some earrings she wore a lot," Mrs. Jasper said, more loudly. "Blue sapphire in the center. I don't see them."

Why did she want those? It means something. "I remember, but I think she must have lost one." I walked over to the bedside table and opened the drawer. The earring was still there, and I pulled it out.

Mrs. Jasper grabbed it from me, a triumphant look on her face. "There you are."

My mind raced. She'd been looking for it. That's why she so wanted to help Michael sort through Ruth's things. It wasn't Ruth's, it was hers. "Did you lose it over here?" I asked.

"Yes. No!" She tried to cover her gaffe. "Where's the other one?"

"There is no other one." I walked closer to her and spoke slowly, looking directly into her eyes. "That wasn't Ruth's earring. It's yours. You lost it here, maybe when you murdered Ruth."

Her face was expressionless, and then she gave me a stilted smile. "You had a difficult time yesterday, Jolie. You aren't thinking clearly."

"Yes, I am. If Ruth was dead and Michael was convicted of her murder, Social Services at the church would get something like one-third of her estate. It would be a lot of money. You would manage that money."

Her eyes studied mine for a moment, and then her voice took on an almost syrupy tone. "You make it sound as if I wanted it for myself. I wouldn't have touched a dime."

I was astounded. She was admitting it. "So you really did it?" In the movies, the sleuth did not sound surprised, but I'd never done this before.

"It shouldn't have been so difficult." She frowned. "I brought over tea bags that night, told her I had just gotten them as a gift and I made the tea It was sassafras, has a strong taste so she wouldn't taste anything I added to it. Those ground-up pills I put in her tea should have slowed down her heart and breathing enough to stop them." Her expression was bitter. "Leave it to Ruth to have such a strong constitution."

"How did you know those pills were there, or was it just a coincidence that you use the same kind of muscle relaxer that Michael had?"

She sniffed. "Ruth was always concerned about Michael, she knew about his back hurting him and never wanted him to lift things for her. She cared a lot more about him than he did about her, I can tell you."

I wasn't about to contradict her, though I thought she was very wrong. When I said nothing, she continued. "I knew he took medicine, so I went into his bathroom one day when I was here to visit with Ruth. I read the label and took a few, and when I looked up the medicine I figured it would work perfectly."

"And when it didn't, how did you know?"

"I came back in when I was sure Ruth would be asleep. Michael came back from the movies earlier than I thought he would, so I went into the closet when he looked in on her. I was going to wait until he went to bed and then help her along, but I fell asleep on the damn closet floor."

"And that's how you lost the earring?" I asked.

"Yes. I didn't notice, of course. And I didn't wake up until morning when he opened the door to look in on her. He almost ruined my plan, but Ruth had told me you were coming, and that Michael was going to leave when you arrived, because he didn't especially like you." She smiled at this.

"How convenient for you."

Her look was almost triumphant. "All I had to do was wait for him to go, and then I could kill her and leave. You work so slowly, I just slipped out the front door when you were in the kitchen."

Her pride in what she had done sickened me, and I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Don't be so wishy-washy," she said. "She was going to be dead in a few months anyway. And she wanted Social Services to have some of her money." She smiled. "I just wanted us to have more. You have no idea how many truly needy people there are here." She leaned toward me, as if confiding something important. "And I had to do it before she transferred the house to the arts council. All those people are rich! They don't need this house."

"Mrs. Jasper." I stopped, uncertain what to say. "You need to come to the police with me."

"Nonsense..." she began.

"I got a better idea. Why don't we all go?" Joe Pedone stood in the doorway, gun drawn, and a sick grin across his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY

"WHO ARE YOU?" Mrs. Jasper asked. I took a small amount of pleasure in her frightened expression.

"I'm a real angry guy," he said, in a pleasant tone. His clothes were rumpled, he had a day's beard growth, and his patent leather shoes were dirty. I was pleased to see a purple bruise under one eye. He gestured with the gun. "You ladies can just walk downstairs and I'll follow."

Mrs. Jasper seemed to regain her high opinion of herself. "You can just put that gun away," she said, rising to every inch of her short stature.

My mind seemed fuzzy. He had been following me, and we had not locked the door. How stupid can you be, Jolie?

"I could kill you here," he said amiably, "but it's such a pretty house."

Mrs. Jasper looked at me again, fear oozing from her. She had no right to be afraid. She was a murderer, too.

"Where are you taking us?" I needed to stall him, think about what to do.

"For a ride."

Despite his tough-guy talk, I sensed he was no more sure of what he was doing than I was. Unless, of course, his arrest record didn't reflect all of his past work.

"We'll go downstairs." I tried to think of what to do. Maybe if we were in the living room with lights on, someone driving by would see us, and notice his gun.

"You'll go where I say you go." Again he gestured with the gun, and I nodded at Mrs. Jasper to go ahead of me.

When we got to the steps, she said, "I need to use the railing."

I stepped to one side and let her go down on my right. We had gone only a couple steps when I remembered her daily walks and how spry she was. I glanced at her in time to see her arm reach out to push me, but I had no railing to grab.

As I pitched forward, I heard Pedone say, "What the hell are you doing?" In the split second before I actually fell I tried to grab backwards for Pedone, but all I grabbed was air.

Those ads about carpet being soft enough to sleep on are a crock. I landed hard on my shoulder two steps down, and then rolled. Every time I rolled on my right shoulder I gave a squeal.

I landed on the foyer floor, out of breath and sore, but pretty sure I was alive. I could hear someone running down the steps, and then a voice called out. "Police. Drop the gun!"

Gunshots are very loud. I had no idea. There was about a two-second pause after the loud crack of a gun, and someone started tumbling down the steps after me. My mind told me to move, but none of my muscles were inclined to follow directions.

Suddenly, I was aware of someone diving toward me, but not from above, from the hallway nearby. He slid into me and pushed me out of the way, so the body coming down the stairs landed behind us.

"Yo, Jolie," said Scoobie.

I fainted.

I REMEMBER SGT. MOREHOUSE tapping me on the cheek, and me telling him not to call Aunt Madge, but I must have passed out again, because I don't remember anything until a while later, in the emergency room. Of course, he called her.

"Jolie," Scoobie whispered in my ear. "I think your aunt's out there. You probably want to wake up."

"What? Oh. Scoobie." I looked at him intently. "You pushed me."

He grinned. "You can thank me later."

They must have given me something for the pain, because my shoulder didn't feel too bad and I was kind of woozy. I thought I remembered someone saying it had been dislocated and they were 'putting it back.'

"She said she was going to get cat food." Aunt Madge came in from the other side of the curtain, Sgt. Morehouse behind her. She saw I was awake, and frowned at me. No sympathy there. "Young lady, don't you ever lie to me again."

Morehouse had the nerve to chuckle, and she turned on him. "That's not funny." He sobered quickly.

"I was just supposed to see Mrs. Jasper." Aunt Madge actually glared at me. "I know, I should have told you, but you just would have worried."

"I wonder why?" she asked, but her expression was softening as she looked at me. "Why does she have that IV in?" she asked Morehouse.

"Uh..."

He was saved from a response by a no-nonsense woman in a nurse's uniform who flipped back the curtain and entered. "There are too many people in here."

"I'll leave," Morehouse said, and beat it.

"I saved her. I'm staying." Scoobie said.

Aunt Madge lunged at him and hugged him, and when she finally released him she fished in her pocket for a tissue. She turned to the nurse. "What did happen to her?" Ordinarily, I would have objected to being talked about in the third person when I was in the room, but as I wasn't sure what had happened in the last half-hour or so, I kept quiet.

"She was pushed down a flight of steps and dislocated her shoulder, but the doctor has fixed it. We've taken x-rays of her head and neck. There is nothing broken."

"That's a good thing," Scoobie said to me, reassuringly.

"The IV is just for pain medicine and hydration." The woman smiled. "She'll be fine."

I was glad to hear that.

"Who pushed her?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Mrs. Jasper," Scoobie said.

"That's right, she did." I tried to sit up and, reminded of my shoulder, sank back onto the pillow.

"If you'll excuse me, I have other patients." The nurse left.

Aunt Madge sat on a chair next to Scoobie. "Was it an accident?"

"No way," Scoobie said. I was happy to let him tell the story. "They were coming down the steps, in front of the guy with the gun, and..."

"Gun!"

Scoobie was very patient with Aunt Madge. "The man from the boardwalk. The police call him Pedone."

"I told you not to go out alone," Aunt Madge said to me, with her severest frown.

"Yes ma'am," I said, very fast.

"Anyway," Scoobie continued, "they were at the top of the steps when Mrs. Jasper just pushed her. Sgt. Morehouse said this Pedone guy should drop the gun, but he aimed it at the sergeant, and Sgt. Morehouse shot him." Scoobie drew a breath, obviously keyed up. "But just in the arm. I think he's somewhere in the hospital."

I did not like that idea.

"And why were you there, Adam?" Aunt Madge asked.

"I saw Jolie pull out of your driveway, and Pedone followed her. I ran to the police." He frowned. "No one believed me, but Sgt. Morehouse was there, and he came out."

"That's why he called and asked for you," Aunt Madge said, nodding at me.

Bless him, I thought.

"He didn't tell me what he wanted," Aunt Madge continued.

"We drove to Java Jolt, and then he thought of the Riordans'. The garage entrance was open, so we went in." Scoobie stopped and looked thoughtful. "That's about all I know, except that when Pedone started to fall down the steps I figured I should push Jolie out of the way."

"Adam, if you hadn't seen her..." Aunt Madge was crying for real, now.

"Aunt Madge. Really, I'm okay. I promise." I tried to reach for her arm, but she was too far away.

Then she was furious. "You could have been killed! What would I tell your mother?"

"Yeah, now I have to tell her," I realized I was in for one hell of a tongue lashing. It only takes two seconds for my parents to make me feel like I'm five years old.

Sgt. Morehouse came back in. "You're in luck," he said to me.

"This is luck?" I was starting to come to my full senses, which is not always a good thing.

"Mrs. Jasper says you and her were there to look at jewelry, but Pedone said he overheard a conversation between you and her." Morehouse grinned. "He says he's willing to tell us about it if we take it into consideration when we prosecute him."

I was actually going to be in debt to Pedone. Who knew?

"So, what did happen before we saw you?" Morehouse asked.

I told him about my theory, and that Michael had agreed to help me find out if there was any substance to it, but he'd been called out of town and I didn't want to wait for his return. As Aunt Madge made tutting and gasping noises, I relayed everything through arriving at the top of the steps. "It wasn't until after we started down that I kind of wondered why she wanted the railing. She's pretty spry."

Morehouse thought about this. "Probably just gave her better leverage to push you."

"But why?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Jolie would be dead, or so she hoped, and Pedone didn't really have a beef with Jasper. That's my guess, but we may never know. She's insisting they were just there to look at jewelry and crying about Ruth Riordan being her best friend."

"I'm surprised she told me the whole story." I said this as much to myself as the others.

Morehouse shrugged. "I doubt she would have owned up to it if you brought her to me. It would have been her word against yours, and where was the proof?"

"She got me this coat," Scoobie said, and we all turned to look at his second-hand pea jacket. "Why would she do that, and then kill somebody?"

"People are complex," Aunt Madge said, gently. "It's rare you meet someone who is all good or all bad."

"In my book, she's just a plain thug with a motive," Morehouse said. "A pretty sick one," he added.

THE HOSPITAL KEPT ME overnight to monitor my blood pressure and make sure I didn't have a concussion. This was fine by me, as I was having trouble maneuvering my arm in the sling I was supposed to wear for a couple of days. I also figured it would be good to let Aunt Madge have a night to get over being so mad at me.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the hospital food was not bad, and the next morning I was trying to butter my toast with one hand when the door to the room pushed open. Ramona looked windswept, her long, blonde hair loose and a deep purple cape over her shoulders. "Jolie!" She stood and stared at me.

"Could you do this?" I shoved the toast toward her.

"Okay." She dropped a small notebook on my bed and started to work on the toast. "I was on the boardwalk on the way to my walk, and Joe Regan hollered at me. He had the paper."

George Winters. I hoped he had the decency not to come to the hospital. "Damn." I chewed hungrily on the toast. "So, everybody knows?"

"They know some guy got shot at the Riordans', and you ended up in here." She wiped her hands on my napkin. "But there's not a lot of why. Where was Michael?"

Michael. Aunt Madge's anger was nothing compared to what his was going to be. "He had to go to DC on business."

"Ooh, and you must have a key. That'll fry Jennifer."

I laughed, really laughed. "You can tell her she has nothing to worry about."

This interested her more than the story of what had happened last night. "Really? She'll be glad to hear that." She reached for the small notebook. "Every day I write down the saying I put on the board. Do you want to borrow it?"

"That's so kind." I had enough of them when I read the board. "I might forget it here. Can I read it later, at the store or something?"

"We'll have supper some night." She stood. "I can't be late for work. I'm opening the store."

She bent over and kissed me, and I thanked her for coming. "Maybe you, me and Scoobie."

She pulled the curtain back to let in sunshine, and added, "Roland was in Java Jolt. He said to tell you Elsie Hammer's going to stay with them for a few days, until she finds another place to live." Ramona looked at me, perhaps expecting a comment on how I knew Elsie well enough for Roland to send that message.

"That's good." My was mouth full of toast.

AUNT MADGE CAME TO collect me, as she said, about 10 a.m. "I was going to come an hour ago, but between the phone and Jazz, I couldn't get out of the house."

"Jazz. What's wrong with her?" This concerned me much more than my shoulder.

"I suppose she's upset because you aren't home. She's been chasing the dogs all over the kitchen and my sitting room."

"Don't you mean the dogs are chasing her?" I asked.

"I wish I did. I can make them stop." She paused in collecting my clothes from a closet. "It took me fifteen minutes to catch her, and then I only did because I opened a can of tuna."

I would have paid to see this, but did not say this aloud. "I'm sorry, Aunt Madge."

"Tuna's cheap," she said.

"No, I mean about worrying you, and all."

She was taking my clothes out of the tiny closet, and turned to face me. "You've always been headstrong. I suppose that's why it's hard for you and your mother sometimes." She paused and then smiled, but there was a wicked twist to it. "But if you do anything like this again, I'll make your mother look docile."

THE FLOWERS FROM MICHAEL arrived in the early afternoon. All the note said was, "You owe me stairway carpeting." Aunt Madge thought this was warped, but I was pleased that he had a sense of humor about what had happened.

Though I didn't think I owned a muscle or joint that wasn't sore, I knew I'd been lucky. As Scoobie said when he visited late in the day, if I'd landed on my head a clam would have more mobility than I did.

I was lying on the couch sipping tea after dinner when Michael arrived. Aunt Madge decided she needed more orange juice for her breakfast guests, which I knew was a lie since there were always extra cans in the freezer.

"You really did it this time, Gentil," Michael said as he settled a few feet from me on the couch. "I have a bullet hole in the wall and crime scene tape all over the place. And I believe I already mentioned the carpet."

"You didn't mention the lack of time in prison if they got interested in you again." I matched his serious tone with my own.

"True. You get some credit for that." He smiled. "What in the hell were you thinking?"

"I'm just not good at waiting. Of course, I thought all I was doing was checking to see if Mrs. Jasper had a key."

"I never use the keypad for the door near the garage; I use the key, since I usually have them out when I get out of the car." He shook his head. "I can't say mother never used the pad, because she obviously gave Mrs. Jasper the code to use it at some point. I can't imagine why."

"Maybe when they were working on the den, or maybe they went in that way once and Mrs. Jasper just watched when your mother used the keypad." I set my teacup on the coffee table. "It's not likely we'll ever know."

At this he grew glum. "I talked to Sgt. Morehouse a couple times today. Other than Pedone's and your testimony, there is not a lot to link her to Mom's death. Not even finger prints on the doorknob. She must have opened it with her skirt or jacket over her fingers."

"She could have even been wearing gloves. Older people get cold more easily." When he looked at me skeptically, I added, "My testimony should be slightly more believable than Pedone's."

"Slightly," he agreed. "It's a lot more than they had to go on with me, and you saw how hard the prosecutor pushed that."

"Scary."

Neither of us said anything for a few moments, and then our eyes met.

"You'd probably hate Houston." When I kept looking at him, he added, "I'm going back there to run the company while my partners stand trial. It'll help our employees keep their jobs, at least for a while."

"Probably too hot and humid for me," I agreed. "I know a B&B where you can have a free room whenever you want to visit Ocean Alley."

"I can probably afford the rate." He stood and then bent over and kissed me lightly. "Thanks for believing in me."

"What are friends for?"

WITHIN TWO DAYS I WAS raring to get back to work. Despite regular visits from Harry, Scoobie and Ramona, it was boring to sit on the couch and play with Jazz and the guys. Jazz had taken to diving off the bookcase or any table onto Mister Rogers' back, which terrified him. Several time a day I had to coax him from Aunt Madge's bedroom. "You're letting her know it bothers you," I told him. "Just act nonchalant and she'll get tired of it."

"I'm not sure that's within a dog's realm of reasoning," Aunt Madge said, as she kneaded a bowl of afternoon bread.

Later I walked down to the boardwalk to enjoy the 50-degree weather, rare for this time of year, and sat facing the ocean. When I came here I could not have imagined such an eventful first month. I was trying to get away from the limelight and restore some order to my life. While my life with Aunt Madge had not been as peaceful as I'd planned thus far, I had

unmasked a murderer, found a job with a nice boss, and renewed friendships. Not a bad inventory for a little more than a month. Something to build on.

"Yo, Jolie." Scoobie was coming toward me on roller skates.

"Pretty cool. Where'd you get those?"

"Traded some guy for my knapsack." He carried a large plastic grocery store bag that was quite full. "I needed a new one anyway, that one was starting to stink. There's a sale at Wal-Mart. You can give me a ride up there."

"Sure."

He circled me and skated to an easy stop beside my bench and sat next to me. "Read my new poem." He pulled it from his bag.

start of a voyage

the end of our fate?

hearts out of storage

kept safe for a soul mate

"This is beautiful. Umm. Is this the whole thing?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. If more comes to me, it won't be."

"If more comes to you. This comes from you, Scoobie." I searched for words. "You're as good as your poetry."

"I may be someday." He stood up. "Who I am now is OK." He grinned. "I'll go stow my stuff, and stop by your aunt's, if it's OK to go to the store now."

I nodded, still thinking about his poem.

As he rose to skate away, Scoobie's plastic bag caught the edge of the bench and its contents spilled. I stooped to help him collect the items, and then sat back on my heels, with a red white-board marker and small sponge eraser in my hands.

"You rewrite Ramona's board?" I asked, amazed.

He grinned as he took them. "Yeah. She really needs to lighten up."

"I never would have guessed you for that."

"You, Ms. Gentil, have a lot to learn."

So I do.

* * * *

Appraisal for Murder is the first book of the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series.

Keep reading to enjoy Rekindling Motives and When the Carny Comes to Town

Table of Contents

REKINDLING MOTIVES

Elaine Orr

Return to Table of Contents

Second in the Jolie Gentil Cozy Mystery Series

First Copyright 2011 by Elaine L. Orr

Description

When Jolie Gentil gets tapped for some appraisal work at her 10th high school reunion she does not expect to find the skeleton of Richard Tillotson in an antique attic wardrobe in the vacant house. He vanished just after his sister married his business partner in 1929. Jolie sees a link to the Tillotson-Fisher family's Prohibition era business and works with friends Scoobie and Ramona to gather clues from old photo albums and ledgers. The albums lead to Mary Doris Milner, Richard's girlfriend, who cherished him and is certain who murdered him. But, she couldn't prove it then and her suspect is long dead, too.

The present day murder of Mary Doris tells Jolie and Scoobie they are on the right track. Did the secret she kept all these years finally kill her? Mary Doris' death means Jolie won't stop until she finds her killer, whether that leads to a culprit in Richard's decades-old murder or not. Between running the food pantry at Christmas and escaping a burning building, Jolie and Scoobie hope to figure out who the modern killer is before someone else gets hurt.
REKINDLING MOTIVES
CHAPTER ONE

I WOULD RATHER HAVE walked barefoot over shards of glass on the boardwalk in January than go to the Ocean Alley High School reunion. However, Scoobie and Ramona combined their charms, so on the Saturday after Thanksgiving I was in the so-called ballroom of Ocean Alley's largest hotel, Beachcomber's Alley. I'm such a wuss.

The 'ballroom' is actually a large multi-purpose room that is the site of the high school prom, but can just as easily be used for after-funeral gatherings for prominent townspeople. For the latter, the room is not adorned with crepe paper in high school colors nor does one wall have a series of poster boards, each sporting dozens of pictures of former classmates in various poses – all appearing happy, popular, and cool. Since this was not how I spent eleventh grade, my only year at Ocean Alley High, I was not in any of the photos. I know because I looked.

There were pictures of students at high school football games posing with the school mascot (a large crab), and others showing students eating lunch on the beach. There was also one of Scoobie. He was lying on the small brick wall that bears the school's name, and the caption is, "Enjoying the spring clouds." Since Scoobie spent a lot of time stoned, he would have been higher than the clouds, which was likely the point.

"You're Jo-lee Gen-teel, aren't you?" A woman who did not look at all familiar was approaching, hand extended. Since she had mispronounced my name (Jolie Gentil is pronounced Zho-Lee Zhan-tee; the "J" and "G" are soft, and the "L" on the end of Gentil is silent) I knew she was not someone who knew me well.

I smiled weakly, scanning the space behind her, hoping to see Scoobie or Ramona. "It's pronounced Zho-Lee, but yes, that's me."

"I'm sorry," she continued. "We didn't really know each other in high school, but I've been reading about you in the Ocean Alley paper. I get it mailed to me in Connecticut. You've had a rough couple of weeks."

Tell me about it. Since coming to Ocean Alley to stay with my great Aunt Madge to decompress after the end of my marriage, I had found a dead body and nearly been killed by a man who was angry with my ex-husband. I had made him angry, too, but in all fairness, that was not my fault.

"Yes, it's been...wild." I shook her hand as I looked at her name badge. "So, your name is really Gracie Allen?"

She was tall, slim, and dressed in a stunning burgundy dinner dress that clung to her like a bathing suit. She looked nothing like the photo of the round-faced girl who was on her name badge. Her laugh was contagious, and I smiled as she explained. "My maiden name was Grace Fisher, and I married Jeremy Allen. I get a kick out of being Gracie Allen, so I told the committee to put my married name on my badge."

I nodded. In a way she looked a bit like the iconic radio and TV actress, but without the curls. I had not shown up for the junior class pictures, so the reunion committee made my badge from a photo that had recently appeared in the local paper. It was not my best picture.

"It's good you have a sense of humor," I was unsure what else to add.

"Actually, I wanted to talk business with you for a minute. I heard you do real estate appraisals."

"I do." I saw dollar signs. "I work through Harry Steele's company."

She waved a hand. "I know all about that. It was..."

"In the paper," I finished for her.

"Right. Jeremy and I have to sell my grandparents' house. I have no idea what it's worth."

I didn't understand why she wanted my help. Usually a real estate agent helps the seller set the price, and the appraiser is not called for until after there is a contract with a potential buyer. "Umm, you won't really need me until after you have a contract," I began.

"I know how it's usually done. But this real estate agent we're working with has suggested a price that seems awfully high." She frowned slightly. "We don't want to sell it under market, but if we price it too high it won't sell quickly. I want to be done with all this estate stuff."

A warning bell dinged in my brain. Ramona's uncle, Lester Argrow, has a well-earned reputation for listing a house for more than the market will usually bear. He wants a higher commission. This has put him at odds with Harry Steele, though Lester and I get along okay.

I was saved from an immediate response as the lights in the room dimmed and a portable spotlight aimed toward the center at the far end of the ballroom. Gracie and I turned to watch Jennifer Stenner, one of my competitors in the appraisal business and a former cheerleader, step into the light.

She was wearing a dress of what I (hardly a fashion maven) would call party-dress material. As Jennifer welcomed everyone to the tenth reunion of our Ocean Alley High School class, I scanned the room again for Scoobie and Ramona. While I wouldn't put it past Ramona to forget, even though we had talked about the reunion the day before, I had really expected Scoobie to be on time. In the two weeks since we made the papers for solving a murder, he has made a point of seeing me on the boardwalk every day or stopping by Aunt Madge's Cozy Corner B&B.

Jennifer had just awarded the prize for coming the longest distance to a couple who now live in London. Their prize was a large plush dog dressed in school colors, making me glad I wouldn't win anything. It was big enough that it would need its own airline ticket, so I figured it would get left under a table.

"And now to the most successful Ocean Alley graduate of our class, Annie Milner." There was more applause for Annie, whom I knew to be an attorney who worked in the county's Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, so I turned to see if she was in the audience. As I did so, my eyes met those of a very pregnant woman who had apparently been trying to get my attention. She waved and pointed toward the back of the room, and started walking that way. Feeling it would be rude to ignore her, I whispered to Gracie, "I'll catch up with you in a few minutes."

Gracie, busy clapping for Annie Milner, didn't seem to hear, which was fine with me. I threaded my way through the crowd, trying to remember why the woman looked familiar. She was about my height, which is five feet, two inches, and had light brown hair. Her only remarkable feature was the watermelon that preceded her.

When we were a few feet from each other, she started to laugh. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

"Ohmigod, Margo." I threw myself at her and hugged. Or tried to anyway, in spite of the watermelon. Margo was my best friend in eleventh grade, the only person other than Scoobie who knew that I was staying with Aunt Madge while my parents 'worked things out' in their marriage. I told everyone else they were touring in Europe.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't..." I stammered, embarrassed at not recognizing her.

"I wasn't exactly pregnant in eleventh grade." Her eyes laughed at me, but she wasn't making fun. "Although, I was kind of lucky not to be."

I felt my jaw drop. "No. You and Eddie...?"

"Just once. Then we were so scared for a month we didn't do it again until we got married."

It was my turn to laugh. "Scared straight. I should have kept in better touch. Aunt Madge told me when she saw your wedding announcement, but I didn't know you were expecting." I looked at her belly. "Boy or girl?"

"I never let them tell me." She was very matter-of-fact. "The little devil kicks like a boy, though."

"So it's not your first?" I, caught up in my own life, could not imagine parenting, much less having a second child at twenty-eight.

Margo laughed so loudly we got a couple of 'keep it down' looks from people near us. She covered her mouth and we moved into the hall. "More like my fourth."

This did not strike me at all funny, and it must have shown in my expression, because she continued, with a slightly defiant look. "Eddie and I always said we wanted four, and we wanted to finish having them before we were thirty." She patted her belly.

"Lucky for her," said a familiar voice behind me, "they look more like Margo than Eddie."

I turned toward Scoobie, about to lambaste him for leaving me on my own for an hour, but the words died on my lips. Gone were his traditional unkempt look and blue jeans. Instead, he wore an old-fashioned tux, reminiscent of Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk, and his blonde hair and beard were neatly trimmed.

"Don't let Eddie hear you say that, Scoobie," Margo chided. "Everyone says our little Jack looks like the UPS guy. You'll get me in trouble."

As usual, Margo had taken whatever came before her in stride. Probably why she could handle three kids with one on the way. I, with no such aplomb, blurted, "Wow! You look really..."

It was a mistake. Insecurity replaced his joviality in an instant and he interrupted. "You don't like it?"

"I do," I said quickly. "It's just..."

"Different," said Margo, in her no-nonsense way. "But you look good."

"Thanks." He acted somewhat cocky again. "I figured since Jolie and I spent junior prom night at Pizza Hut, I'd dress for this occasion."

"Oh God, we did." I had actually been asked by a guy in math class whose name escaped me, but I barely knew him and couldn't imagine spending an entire evening talking to him. Scoobie and I had hung out a lot together, but not as an item, as Aunt Madge would say. It seemed perfectly natural to argue over who got the last piece of pepperoni pizza rather than get dressed up to see if we could get a local restaurant to serve us alcohol.

"Eddie and I went," Margo said, as she looked over me into the ballroom. "I think someone's calling you or something."

Sure enough, I heard Jennifer saying my name into the mike. "Oh, no." I felt my color rise in sync with the case of nerves I felt.

"Ha! Serves you right for being in the paper so much," Scoobie said. He gave me a small shove.

As I walked the few feet into the room, the spotlight shone on me, and I shielded my eyes. "There she is, folks," Jennifer said, and the spotlight swung back to her. Which was good, though all I could now see were blinking lights. I ran into something firm, which turned out to be a good-natured classmate.

"Go on up front," he urged.

I could feel my face turn even more crimson as I walked toward Jennifer, who was looking very pleased with herself. "And for the super sleuth," she began, as several people laughed, "we have a special award."

I stood next to her, trying to look at ease and as if it was perfectly normal for me to be in front of a couple hundred people who knew my name when I didn't know most of theirs. "I can't believe you did this." What I really wanted to say was that I would try to steal some appraisal business from her, but that would be rude.

From a small table just to one side, she took a package about the size of a shoebox and handed it to me. "Open it," Scoobie yelled from the back.

I looked at Jennifer and saw genuine delight in her face, no trace of the usual pretentious attitude that she wears about town. I struggled with the lid for a moment, and then pulled out tissue paper and looked beneath it. Tucked inside were a magnifying glass, bubble pipe, and tweed cap, which someone had inexpertly tried to fashion to look like Sherlock Holmes' hat. I took out the hat and plopped it on my head.

The applause and catcalls had me laughing in spite of myself. "Read the card," Jennifer said.

Uh oh. I recognized Aunt Madge's handwriting. She knows everyone in town, so I couldn't say I was surprised. I removed the card and read aloud, "To the best girl detective in Ocean Alley." An arrow indicated I was to turn the card over. "Now learn to mind your own business." This brought another round of laughter, and I gave a small bow and tried to edge out of the spotlight.

Jennifer would have none of that. She put her arm through mine and drew me to the center of the spotlight. "Now, not everyone knew Jolie when she was here for eleventh grade, but we're sure glad she's back." Only scattered applause for this, as people had started talking to others again. "Even," she raised an eyebrow as she looked at me in mock sternness, "if she is competition for Stenner Appraisals."

I knew she'd get her business name in there somewhere. I suddenly realized people expected me to say something. Jennifer was, after all, holding the mike in front of my face.

"I think I'd like to crawl under the boardwalk." This brought a couple of guffaws, and I remembered coming across two or three couples under there, during junior year.

"Get your minds out of the gutter," Margo yelled from the back.

Everyone laughed, and I felt the tension – my self-created tension, as usual – lessen. "It's nice of you guys to think of me, but, I have to warn you, I might use this," I held up the magnifying glass, "To see what you're up to. Watch out."

After that lame attempt at humor, Jennifer let me leave the front of the room. As she began to award the prize for most children – no doubt who would win that one – I made my way back to Scoobie. Standing next to him, finally, was Ramona. I could understand why she was late. She had taken the time to fix her long blonde hair into a stunning French twist, but she had done it in such a way that there were strands of hair along her neck at perfect intervals. Often known for dressing somewhere between a stylish hippie and a Gypsy, tonight she was in a sleek blue evening dress that was perfect for her height of five feet six inches. Clearly I, in a knee-length hunter green dress that I used to wear to the office, had not gotten the memo about how one is to dress for a high school reunion.

"You look terrific."

Scoobie reached for the box to examine the pipe.

Ramona shrugged slightly. "I should have told you people get dressed up for this."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"But you look good too," she said, quickly.

Scoobie handed back my prize. "They should have given you a bong."

"You're the one who used to smoke that stuff, not her," Ramona said.

"Jolie. We need to finish." Gracie Allen walked up and extended her hand to Ramona. She ignored Scoobie, which made me angry. Just because he lived in a rooming house and spent most of his time on the streets did not mean she was better than he.

I was about to turn away when Scoobie caught my eye and winked. "I heard you were trying to get rid of your grandparents' dump."

She stiffened. "It's not a dump, just older and..."

"I'm sorry, that's right. I heard someone down at Java Jolt saying you were trying to dump their place."

I had to keep my lips together to keep from laughing.

"I do want to sell it," Gracie said, formally. She turned to me. "Would you be willing to come by and take a look? I'd really appreciate it. We'd pay you, of course."

Since my budget is lean, thanks to my former husband's draining our bank accounts to support his gambling hobby, I tend not to turn down a chance to work. "As long as you go through Harry Steele, I'd be happy to do it." This made Gracie happy, and I jotted Harry's number on the back of a napkin she held out for me.

As Gracie walked away the band started to play and almost everyone made a beeline for the food. I stepped back to stand next to Ramona while Scoobie joined the group loading their plates. She smiled at me broadly.

"What?" I asked.

"Jennifer said I had to be sure you came, so you'd get your box of prizes."

"Ramona! You tricked me."

"Not really," she said. "I could tell you really wanted to come. Besides, you did get a bong."

I laughed. "I'll probably use the bubble pipe with my nieces." She was still smiling. "OK, it is a good place to meet people."

I had often visited Aunt Madge in the years since I'd lived with her. My town of Lakewood, New Jersey was less than forty miles from Ocean Alley. However, Margo had moved to Connecticut, and Scoobie and I had lost track of each other, so I rarely ran into anyone I knew. If I was going to settle in here for awhile, I needed to meet more people than those who lived in the houses I was appraising.

Scoobie rejoined us. His plate was piled high. "You two should get over there before all the good stuff is gone." He picked up a roast beef sandwich and took a huge bite. "Isht good," he said, between chews.

As Ramona and I walked toward the spread, someone touched my elbow. "You don't say hi when you bump into people?" asked an auburn-haired man.

"Sorry. All I saw were colored spots."

"I'm Bill Oliver." My face must have reflected my blank memory, because he added, "Math class?"

"Oh, sure. You, huh, sat across from me." I racked my brain. Was he the guy who asked me to the junior prom? If so, he looked much better now, with broad shoulders that said he worked out.

"Yep." He handed Ramona and me a plate and took one for himself.

"Hey, Bill," said Ramona, in her more typical airy-fairy voice. "You haven't been in the store for a while."

"Nope. I moved to Newark. Joined a dental practice up there."

Instinctively I moved my tongue over my teeth to be sure there were no bits of food showing. I felt like my awkward eleventh-grade self. He joined a dental practice, and I had a room in my aunt's B&B because I had less than $4,000 to my name, a car payment, and student loans.

"Deviled egg, Jolie?" he asked, lifting one off the tray with the small tongs.

"Sure." He put half a deviled egg on my plastic plate and it skidded back onto the table. "Oh well." I picked it up and popped it into my mouth.

"You're as bad as Scoobie," Ramona murmured.

"Yeah, Scoobie." Bill glanced behind him. "I heard he's had some tough times."

"He's doing better." I could hear the defensiveness in my voice as I tried to speak with the egg in my mouth.

"Scoobie says he majored in marijuana growing in college," Ramona said, as she picked up a fork. "He's getting back on track."

Bill looked dubious. "I was down here a couple of times this summer, and I saw him on the boardwalk, wearing a knapsack. Looked like it had all he owned in it."

I shrugged, which was difficult as I was trying to balance several olives and some miniature quiches. "He has a room, spends a lot of time in the library. And he writes great poetry."

"But how does he live?" Bill persisted.

I led the three of us toward some chairs in the back of the room, keeping my eyes alert for Scoobie. It occurred to me that I didn't know what Scoobie did for money.

"He's on some sort of Social Security disability," Ramona said. "But he's getting a lot better. He's thinking of taking some writing classes."

Bill's questions, which didn't seem mean-spirited, were still making me uncomfortable, so I figured I'd turn the conversation to him. "How long have you been out of dental school?"

This being a subject Bill was familiar with, he talked for several minutes about finishing undergraduate school a semester early so he could travel to Europe, going to dental school for four years, and then doing a one-year residency in pediatric dentistry, his specialty. I half-listened as I looked for Scoobie. I spotted him dancing with Jennifer. She did not look to be having as much fun as he was.

By the time Scoobie rejoined Ramona and me – after we ditched the very attentive Bill by using the time-honored method of going to the ladies room together – I had looked at pictures of Margo and Eddie's three kids and the sonogram of the one on the way, and Ramona had told me that the reason Bill stayed near the door was that he was divorced from another classmate and they had a deal not to go near each other during the evening. This seemed quite civil to me. I, on the other hand, have no idea where my ex-husband Robby is. Since he agreed to testify against a big-time loan shark who preys on gamblers, there's a chance he'll go into the federal witness protection program.

"Listen, Jolie," Scoobie said in a low voice, "Want to help me stash some food?"

"You're not serious."

In response, he pulled a couple of plastic food storage bags from his tux pocket, and grinned. "Health department rules say they can't save the stuff, and the hotel won't give it away. They're afraid somebody would get food poisoning and sue them. Or not get it and sue."

He took my elbow and guided me toward the table. I suddenly realized that half the crowd had left. Had I been talking to Margo that long? "You know," I took a bag from him, "I have a reputation to uphold."

"Right. That would be the one about being in cahoots with Michael Riordan over the murder of his mother?"

"You know very well that George Winters just implied that because I hung up on him." I had since decided that it was not a good policy to hang up on newspaper reporters.

We were at the long food table, and I took in what was left. "What kind of stuff do you want?"

"I don't have a fridge, so just get bread and crackers and cookies." He poured the remains of a bowl of crackers into his large bag. "Cheese would be OK. I can put it on the window sill."

Feeling as if every eye in the room was on me, I stuffed cheese into the bag he had given me. As I zipped it shut, he handed me another one. I put cookies and a bunch of deli bread slices into it. I was reaching for crackers when a camera flashed just to my right.

"This is great," George Winters said. "Reunion attendees load up for the ride home."

"You wouldn't dare." I moved a foot toward him and he just grinned. He has a cocky grin that seems to go with his red hair. I have thought several times that I could like George if he would stop writing about me. Which it seems he won't.

"Wanna bet?" George nodded to Scoobie. "You want a picture with Jolie?"

"Sure." Scoobie draped an arm over my shoulder and I glanced at him. He looked happier than I'd seen him since I'd come back to Ocean Alley.

"Smile for your fans, Jolie."

WHEN I SAW THE OCEAN ALLEY PRESS the next day, I wished more than ever that I hadn't stuck out my tongue. He had taken a second picture, at Scoobie's insistence, but I knew that if the local paper printed a reunion photo, Winters would be sure it would show my screwed up countenance.

"Why were you holding those bags of food?" Aunt Madge asked as she leaned over to pick up my little cat, Jazz.

"Scoobie wanted to take home some of the leftovers." We were drinking tea at the oak kitchen table, which is in part of an L-shaped open living area. At one end is a kitchen. The bedroom and bath are in the back, behind the kitchen. Guests are upstairs, so she has some privacy.

"That makes sense. Adam is probably on a tight budget."

Aunt Madge is the only one who calls Scoobie by his given name. I glanced at her as I scanned the page to look at more reunion photos. Today her hair was almost a honey blonde. She uses temporary color so she can easily change the shade of her shoulder-length hair, which she usually wears in a soft French twist.

There she sat, widowed for more than twenty years and reading the obituary section of the paper to see who she knew, getting ready to go upstairs and change beds in her guests' rooms because her husband had left little life insurance and she, with a degree in art history, did not have a lot of job prospects. Someone else might find it sad, or at least dull, but Aunt Madge never complains about a thing. Instead, she has used her creative talent to decorate her B&B and has developed some carpentry skills. She makes built-in shelves and small end tables, and she's been working on a doll house for one of my nieces for ages.

She glanced at me and smiled. "Did you see a lot of people you knew besides Scoobie and Ramona and Margo?"

"A lot of people who looked familiar and a few that I did remember. And one woman who wants me to appraise her grandparents' house. Gracie Allen. Her maiden name was..." I couldn't remember.

"Fisher," said Aunt Madge. "It's a great old house. One of the few older homes that wasn't subdivided for apartments. Probably needs some work if she wants a decent price."

"I think Ramona's Uncle Lester is trying to talk Gracie into listing it kind of high. That's why she wants me to look at it."

"You know the story?" she asked. I looked at her blankly, and she continued. "About the house?"

I shook my head as I reached for my tea. "What kind of story?"

"You'll like it, lots of unanswered questions."

I stuck my tongue out at her and she pointed her finger at the newspaper. "You said you were going to stop that."

"What fun is a bad habit if you can't do it at home?"

Aunt Madge shook her head, but I knew she didn't mind what she has called my "somewhat impertinent view of the world."

"Mrs. Fisher, Gracie's grandmother, grew up there. Let's see, what was her name?" She paused for a moment, and waved her hand. "Doesn't matter. She was one of four children, two boys and two girls."

For a moment that sounded familiar, and then I remembered it was Margo's goal.

"Mrs. Fisher, oh, Audrey Tillotson, that was her maiden name, got married in that house. Her brother Richard gave her away, because her father had already died. Why was that?"

I waited patiently. Aunt Madge is not usually one to digress, so I figured she had a point. "Oh, of course. He died of the flu, but after 1918. Anyway, Audrey, Gracie's grandmother, was married in 1929, not long before the Crash."

"How do you know that?"

"It's part of the story." She gave me a reproachful look and continued. "Richard was apparently nervous about his father-of-the-bride type of duties. He was pretty young himself, and he helped himself to a good bit of the rum punch before going upstairs to escort Audrey down the front staircase for the service."

"Wasn't that during Prohibition?" I asked.

"They weren't after the people who had it for weddings. The press would have made police look like fools if they raided weddings. Anyway, Richard was halfway down the stairs with Audrey when he stepped on her dress and she fell forward and then missed a step. He caught her elbow, she wasn't hurt. But supposedly she was mad as a hornet, and so was the groom."

I tried to feign interest. This sounded pretty dull so far. "Doesn't sound like a story for the paper."

"Stop interrupting. The ceremony went fine, but about halfway through the reception, Audrey's husband, what was his name?"

"Fisher?"

"I meant his first name. Peter, that's it. Peter Fisher had had enough to drink that he went over to Richard Tillotson and started accusing him of stepping on Audrey's dress on purpose, to make her look bad, because Richard was mad that Audrey was getting married and leaving him in the house with their mother and the two younger children when he, Richard that is, wanted to move out on his own."

I didn't realize I'd been tapping my foot until Aunt Madge glanced under the table. I stopped.

"Audrey's mother and someone else pulled Richard out of the room because he was ready to hit Peter Fisher. Oh, did I say he'd already thrown his drink on him?"

"You left out that gory detail."

She ignored me. "So that was it, but two days later Richard was gone. Just gone."

"Gone as in he never came back?"

"That's right. After a few weeks, Audrey and her husband moved into the house. They had rented an apartment, but Audrey's mother was supposed to have a 'weak constitution,' and she really needed another adult in the house. I'm not sure why, the two younger children were close to their teens, I think."

"That's it?"

She stood up and picked up both of our empty tea mugs. "Not every story has an exciting ending. I just thought you'd like some local history."

"It's very interesting," I said, quickly.

Aunt Madge shrugged. "I suppose not." She glanced at the door. "Would you let the dogs in?"

Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy are Aunt Madge's two shelter-adopted mutts. Both have enough retriever in them to be incurably exuberant, and they have a fondness for prunes, which Aunt Madge now keeps on the top shelf of her pantry in plastic containers. When Mister Rogers saw he had achieved his goal of getting attention he lowered his head to his front paws and, butt sticking in the air, wagged his tail so fast it was hard to keep track of it.

I slid open the sliding glass door and he and Miss Piggy bounded into Aunt Madge's large sitting room, as she calls her open living area.

Mister Rogers ran around the couch several times, Miss Piggy in pursuit. It was unusual enough behavior for them that I watched for several laps until I realized that Mr. Rogers had something in his mouth. I knelt down and clapped a couple of times. "Here, boy."

Aunt Madge was onto them now, too. "Sit!" she said, sternly. They both skidded to a stop, Miss Piggy landing on Mr. Rogers' rump. That caught him by surprise, and he opened his mouth to give a small yelp. As he did so, a tiny chipmunk sailed out, landed on the throw rug in front of him, and made a beeline for the tiny space under a nearby bookcase. It didn't look any the worse for wear. Mr. Rogers had probably held it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth rather than between his teeth.

I laughed, and my cat Jazz sailed off the back of the couch and stuck a paw under the bookcase. This stopped Mr. Rogers from doing the same, as Jazz tends to terrorize him by jumping on his back for a ride from time to time.

For a couple of seconds we looked at Jazz and listened to the chipmunk chatter at her paw. "No, Jazz." I picked her up, still laughing.

"Bad dogs," Aunt Madge said, which had no effect on them. Instead, they went to her, tails wagging, as if they expected a treat. She glanced at me. "I forgot to tell you. They must have found a nest of ground squirrels, because he had one yesterday. I've no idea where it is now."

This stopped my laughing. That and the fact that Jazz was trying to claw her way back to the floor. "You mean it's still in the house?"

"Yes. I just hope they don't make it to a guest room." She opened the sliding glass door, and the dogs went back out. "Can you imagine if one of them found it in a bathroom at night?"

"Can you imagine if I did?"

"Nonsense. At least you'd be expecting it."
CHAPTER TWO

HARRY STEELE CALLED ABOUT nine o'clock the next morning to say that Gracie Allen had specifically requested that I appraise her late grandparents' house. "I told her," he continued, "that her buyer could well end up paying for a second appraisal if the house doesn't sell quickly. She said that was fine."

"I think Lester Argrow is trying to get her to price it too high and she wants a second opinion."

There was a beat of silence before Harry said, "That's all we need. I heard that at a Board of Realtors' meeting last week he said I wouldn't know the true value of real estate in Ocean Alley if someone wrote it on a stone tablet for me."

"You know everyone thinks he's a bag of wind." Lester, who often meets clients in Burger King because his office is so small, is not a force to be reckoned with in the local economy.

"True. Even so, it won't be an easy one to appraise. The Tillotson family built it and I bet there hasn't been a mortgage on it for decades. Not too many comparables, either."

I knew that comparables, houses that are similar and can thus be used as a basis of comparison when I try to figure what a house is worth, would be hard to find for a single-family home that large and that old. Lester wants Harry to compare four-bedroom homes to a two-bedroom home Lester is selling, or something equally ridiculous, which is why Harry's appraisals are lower than Lester would like. Despite his efforts to get us to appraise a house higher so he can get a better commission, I like him. He's funny.

I told Harry I'd stop by the courthouse to see what I could find in the way of comps and he said Gracie wanted to meet me at the house at eleven. Great. Her presence would add an hour to the time it would take me to go through the place. It's not like I get paid by the hour. I get half of what Harry charges per appraisal. When I was a commercial realtor I made substantially more than that. But, since I'm in Ocean Alley to decompress, I'm happy with what I make.

AS I STOOD OUTSIDE the old Tillotson-Fisher home I counted the windows – nineteen – and looked for indications of wood rot. All in all it was in decent shape, with each window having both of its fairly new shutters and the paint barely peeling. It was a two-story with a cupola on top, and probably a good-sized attic. While few houses in Ocean Alley have basements, it did appear to have a crawl space, which helps prevent moisture from seeping into the house.

Whoever had last painted it had chosen a light grey and used a deep burgundy for trim. If Gracie was willing to spend a pretty penny to get it painted I figured she could add quite a bit more to the sales price. I walked onto the porch and ran my hand along the railing, shaking it lightly every few feet. Solid in most places. I peered in the front window, through a crack where the shade did not meet the window ledge, and was surprised to find the front room empty. That would make my job easier.

As I stood up a car pulled up to the curb. I raised a hand, expecting to see Gracie, and was surprised when Reverend Jamison, Aunt Madge's minister, got out of the car.

"Good morning, Jolie. Thinking of moving in?" He started up the walk toward the house.

"No, I'm waiting for Gracie so I can do an appraisal." I barely know him; in fact, I knew I had not impressed him because Harry Steele had told me I was the first young person Reverend Jamison had met and not invited to come to First Presbyterian Church.

His usually serious expression relaxed into a smile. "Madge told me you'd be over here. I stopped by the house."

"Uh. Great. Can I help you with something?"

He leaned against the railing, facing me. "As you know, I no longer have anyone to run the food pantry at the church."

Uh-oh. "Don't you have a committee for that, or something?"

"Yes, but a committee needs a leader." He sighed and looked toward the street. "They are a good group of folks, but a lot of them are very senior citizens, and most of them are involved in other church committees. Watching you the last month, I gather you're fearless, which never hurts when you have to ask people for donations. So," he turned to face me, "how about running the food pantry for me?"

"Me?" My voice was unnaturally high, and I consciously lowered it to a normal tone. "I don't...I can't imagine..."

"You know a lot of people through your work and your high school friends. If you're half as well organized as your aunt you could do it with one hand tied behind your back."

The honking of Gracie's horn as she pulled up to the house caused me to jump, and I stammered. "I have a hard time managing myself most of the time. I wouldn't know what to do," my voice trailed off.

"Your friend Scoobie helps out occasionally, I suppose as a thank you for getting food sometimes." I detected a glint in his eye. "He could show you the ropes."

"Am I late? I thought I was early." Gracie hurried up the walk, a blue knit cape over her shoulders and a bright red duffle bag in one hand. "Hi Reverend, remember me?"

"I do, Mrs. Allen. You sang a beautiful solo at your grandmother's funeral."

"You've lost all credibility, Rev. I was so nervous my voice cracked on every other note." Gracie joined us on the porch.

Reverend Jamison smiled genially. "Beauty is not always in the tone." He pointed his index finger at me. "Think about it. We need the help, and your schedule is flexible."

With that, he walked lightly down the steps. "Good luck selling the house."

We watched him drive off, and Gracie turned to me. "What are you supposed to think about?"

"He wants me to run the food pantry at First Prez."

"Ha!" Gracie pulled keys from her duffle bag and turned to the door. "That's what you get for having your picture in the paper with bags of leftover food."

I stifled the urge to say something rude about George Winters and followed her into the large foyer. Once inside, the professional appraiser in me took over and I pulled my tape measure out of my bag as I looked around. The twelve-foot ceilings had beautiful crown molding that had been stained in a light cherry. It was fortunate they had never been painted.

"This is where my grandmother put the Christmas tree," Gracie said, standing in front of the largest window in the living room. "You could see it from almost a block away." She looked around almost dreamily.

"I can imagine." I leaned over to place my tape measure on the floor at the far end of the room.

"Oh, I can help." She dropped her duffle back and walked over and put her foot on the end of the tape measure. "You can just pull it over there."

I was tempted to say something about having done this a few times, but didn't. She was, after all, trying to help. I had to tune her out half the time so I could write down the measurements and look under the kitchen sink for any sign of water damage.

"And then my husband got a job in Phoenix and we were there for two years. When he got transferred back East I told him I would never move to such a hot climate again. Not even if he got a big enough raise for a 5,000 square foot house."

I realized I must not have been listening for some time, because last I remembered she had been in Memphis. At this point, we were in the upstairs hallway and I was trying to figure out how to reach the short rope that hung from the trap door that led to the attic. "Is there a step ladder or something?"

When Gracie didn't reply I glanced at her and received a brief, cold stare. With a small degree of guilt I realized I had interrupted her mid-sentence. Can I help it if she talks incessantly?

"There's one in the far back bedroom." She indicated the direction with her head. "My husband brought it up so he could replace light bulbs."

"I'll grab it." I was anxious to get away from her for a moment. It was no wonder I couldn't remember her from high school. I'd probably blocked her out.

Of course it was wooden, not aluminum, so I dragged the stepladder back to the hallway where Gracie stood, careful not to scratch the well preserved hardwood floor. "If you'll steady it, I'll climb up."

"Sure," she said, in what could only be described as a frosty tone. "My mother said there are a few things up there, she didn't think I'd have any problem getting them down. That's why I brought the duffel bag."

I climbed up a couple of rungs, reached the rope and gave a sharp tug. The built-in attic ladder pulled halfway down easily, so I climbed off the step ladder and Gracie pulled it aside. I finished opening the stair-step ladder to the attic. "Here I go," I said, in a falsely bright voice.

As I got to the top of the ladder I pulled the small flashlight from my fanny pack and shone it around the attic. In contrast to the two lower floors it was crammed with stuff, much of it covered in old sheets. It looked like a ghost convention. I sneezed.

"Bless you," Gracie said.

"Did you know how much stuff is up here?"

"I thought there wasn't that much." She paused. "I was here a couple of months ago to arrange to have grandmother's personal stuff and a few pieces of furniture moved out before the auctioneer came, but my mother said she told him not to go up there."

I shrugged in her direction. "You better come up and look. Some of the things not covered in sheets looks better than rummage sale stuff." I shone the light toward a small octagonal window at one end of the large room. If we brushed dust off it there would be some natural light. "Maybe you'll find a pile of antique silver or something."

I heard her start to climb the ladder, and there was bitterness in her laugh. "I think my mother carted off all of that a long time ago."

I hauled myself into the attic, dusted off my jeans, and pulled out my tape measure. This is going to be a real bear. There was way too much stuff to pull the tape measure in a straight line.

I moved out of the way so Gracie could get into the attic and almost knocked over a dress form shrouded in a sheet. "Excuse me." It was involuntary, and Gracie and I both laughed.

She stood, hands on hips, and surveyed the contents. "Damn her. This is going to take a lot of work."

"Maybe you can sell it with the stuff in it. Or maybe an antique dealer would haul it out."

She sighed. "I'll still have to go through it. Actually," she moved away from me, "there was a bunch of quilts grandmother made that I never found." She turned a full circle and gave a deep sigh. "I don't know why I didn't think to look up here. As ticked as I am that my mother left me to handle this, maybe it's a good thing she told the auctioneer not to come up here."

I walked over to the window and brushed away cobwebs and grunge, which let in more light than I had expected. I wiped my hand on my jeans and extended the tape to measure the window. At the sound of metal striking metal, I turned to see Gracie opening the latch on a large trunk. "That old trunk's probably worth a lot by itself."

"Could be." She fumbled in it and drew out a stack of old magazines. "Gawd." She peered at them. "These are Life magazines from the 1950s!"

"Who says there aren't treasure troves in attics?" I continued working, checking the ceiling for obvious signs of leaks (there were none) and then shining my light on the floor. Solid, probably pine.

There was a loud 'plop' and I saw that Gracie had just thrown a pile of stuff down to the floor below.

"Bunch of old blankets and clothes." She shrugged. "Have to start somewhere."

I nodded. "You want to go below and I'll throw you down some of the lightweight stuff?" I figured I could make up a bit for not listening to her babble.

"That would be great." She looked around. "I'll toss a few more things and then go down before the pile down there gets too big."

"Sure." I had the tape measure on the floor and was trying to measure the width of the attic in small bits.

After a few minutes, she started down the ladder. "When you get over this way, why don't you open that wardrobe and throw me down some of the clothes that are in there?"

"Sure thing." As she descended, I studied the room more carefully. It looked as though the oldest items were in the far corners. I could see what looked like a treadle sewing machine and a couple of other dress forms, and a rusty shovel. Next to the shovel was a large rocker with the woven seat in tatters. That would be hard to fix, but it would bring a pretty penny if you did.

I made my way back to the trap door and looked down. Gracie had shoved most of what she had tossed down to one side. "Holler when you're ready."

"Any time." She looked up.

I opened the wardrobe and was surprised at how tightly packed it was. I pulled out about six inches of old wooden hangers and their contents on the far left, and immediately sneezed a bunch of times. My arms were full, so I leaned over and rubbed my nose on my shoulder. Gross.

I turned and threw the batch of clothes toward Gracie and reached into my pocket for a tissue. A couple of good blows and I turned back to the wardrobe. The next group of clothes was much heavier, maybe winter clothes, I thought, so I put half of them back in the wardrobe. As I gathered the clothes the man's suit closest to me felt stiff, and I held it back to look at it.

My scream was instinctive and, Gracie said later, very loud. I had a good look at the head of the skeleton before it rolled onto the floor and I jumped back to topple through the open trap door.
CHAPTER THREE

I ONLY WENT TO THE HOSPITAL because Gracie insisted. She had grabbed my shoulders so my head didn't hit the floor very hard. It was my derrière that hurt, and I walked hunched over down the steps to the first floor.

I have to give Gracie credit. She was very calm until we actually got to the hospital. Then, with me in the capable hands of a nurse, she began to cry in deep gulps. "I thought you were going to end up dead."

I eased onto the gurney, with the nurse's help. "Somebody sure did."

This stopped her tears. "Do you suppose...did you ever hear the story?" Gracie started groping in her purse for a tissue.

"If you can't lie on your back, turn so you face me," the nurse was saying. "I need to take your blood pressure."

"Aunt Madge told me something about your grandmother's brother."

"Are you Madge Richards's niece?" the nurse asked. "You were in the paper again yesterday, weren't you?"

"Ouch. Yes." I tried to get comfortable, but it was a losing battle.

"Our tenth high school reunion," Gracie sniffed. "Who would have thought we'd find a skeleton in the attic?"

"Skeleton?" the nurse looked up sharply from trying to fasten the blood pressure cup to my arm. "Where?"

At this, I got the giggles. All I could think of was a skeleton in the closet.

Gracie sat up straighter. "It could have been murder, you know."

"Whose murder?" the nurse asked, aghast.

Gracie hesitated. "Well, one of my grandmother's brothers disappeared. This was a long time ago."

"Aunt Madge said 1929," I added.

"I'll need to call the police," the nurse said.

"Why?" Gracie and I asked.

"It's my responsibility." She left the room.

We looked at each other. "Does it really hurt?" Gracie asked.

"I'm sure it's just bruised." Seeing her worried expression, I added, "I'm too well padded to do any real damage to my buns."

She smiled weakly. "Should I call your aunt?"

"No need," Aunt Madge said, as she pulled the curtains aside and walked into the tiny examining room. "Sonya at the front desk knows me from the Red Cross."

"You know everyone." I wished that my activities were not so immediately known. Sometimes it feels like I live in a bubble.

Aunt Madge extended her hand to Gracie and they introduced themselves. "I knew your grandmother and mother, of course," Aunt Madge said.

"Of course," I said.

"Don't be sullen, Jolie. You aren't hurt that badly."

"Maybe I broke my back." I preferred sympathy to scolding.

She raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you should tell me what happened." She pulled up a chair and then looked at her watch.

Every afternoon, Aunt Madge makes homemade bread for her guests at the B&B, so I knew she would want to get back there within an hour.

We relayed the events at the Tillotson house, and I played down my fall from the attic. "Really, Gracie made such a good catch she's thinking of trying out for the Mets."

"Try the Yankees," she said, and even Aunt Madge smiled.

WHEN I HIT THE FLOOR, the sharp pain seemed to go from my butt to my toes, and then settled in my tailbone. It turned out I had cracked my tailbone. Obviously this would be easier to recover from than a cracked skull, but I'm not sure it's less painful. I had no idea that wiggling your toes could cause so much pain. And getting off the sofa in Aunt Madge's great room was like getting spanked with a paddle.

I had slept on the sofa so as not to have to walk up the flight of steps to the room I share with Jazz. Much as I love my cat, I was furious with her. The chipmunk was still in residence under the book case, and several times during the night Jazz had walked over and stuck her paw through the small oval opening at the bottom of the bookcase, which caused the chipmunk to chatter incessantly for almost a minute each time.

I relayed this to Aunt Madge when she came out to start the coffee pot for her guests. "At least you know where the darn little thing is." I had gotten off the sofa and was making my way to the powder room that adjoined the great room. This was harder than usual, as I was at a forty-five degree angle, staring at the floor as I walked.

"I've been keeping it in there by putting little bits of nuts and water under the bookcase." She opened the can of coffee and began measuring it into the coffee maker. "I don't want it strolling into the dining room."

I half straightened up, winced, and bent back over. "You're trying to domesticate it?"

"Don't be a twit. Next time I see Adam I'm going to ask him to move the bookcase. I'll have the door open and the poor thing can run out."

Because Scoobie has never corrected her use of his proper name, I recently asked him if he wanted me to use it. "Do I look like an 'Adam'?" he'd asked. Case closed.

It was just as well that I could not straighten up enough to look in the bathroom mirror. I knew my shoulder-length brown hair with its blonde highlights was hanging in clumps, and I had not taken off my eye make-up the night before. I likely would not be able to raise my arms enough to style my hair with the dryer, so I'd have to get used to looking like a drowned rat for a couple of days.

It was becoming apparent that I would have to break down and take another one of the pain pills the hospital doctor had given me. Since it's hard to think clearly on narcotics, I try to avoid them and had been taking only aspirin. Bad idea.

As I made my way back to the couch I heard Aunt Madge emit what could only be called a giggle. "What is it?" I asked.

She crossed the room and held back my covers so I could climb onto my makeshift bed. "It won't surprise you that the paper mentions you finding the body."

I groaned as I lifted my legs onto the sofa. "Skeleton. There's a big difference." I met her eyes and could tell she was suppressing a laugh. "What?"

"Your friend George Winters did not make the skeleton the prime focus of the article." She handed me the paper.

While appraising the home of the late Mrs. Audrey Tillotson Fisher, Ocean Alley resident Jolie Gentil discovered a skeleton hidden in an attic wardrobe packed with clothes. There is speculation that it may be the remains of Richard Tillotson, Audrey Fisher's brother, who was reported missing in 1929.

When asked if he suspected foul play, Ocean Alley Police Sgt. Morehouse said, "We will have to determine whether there was any reason for prior owners to have a skeleton such as those used in medical schools. At this point we've no reason to think so." When asked if he thought it could be Richard Tillotson's body, he merely said, "If so, and DNA tests might show this, it would certainly confirm that he did not leave his home in 1929 of his own accord."

I looked up at Aunt Madge. "Did not leave of his own accord?"

"It gets better." Aunt Madge said.

The paper said that Tillotson supposedly had an argument with his sister Audrey's husband, Peter Fisher, on the couple's wedding day, which was two days before he disappeared. Fisher believed that Tillotson may have deliberately stepped on the bride's wedding gown – nearly causing her to trip – as Richard Tillotson escorted his sister into the ceremony. Several older residents in town said they heard that Richard left because he was ashamed of his behavior the day of his sister's wedding.

An upset Gracie Fisher Allen, Audrey's granddaughter, told the Press that she was never sure whether this story was true or something people made up after the fact to account for her grandmother's brother's disappearance. "I heard my great-grandmother didn't want to think that Richard deserted the family."

Allen explained that Gentil had offered to throw some of the attic's many items down to Allen, who stood on the landing below. "I certainly didn't expect to find a skeleton, and I know Jolie was really surprised when the skull fell off at her feet. She lost her balance and fell through the trap door. I was just barely able to catch her head."

A hospital staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Gentil had cracked her tailbone but did not stay overnight at the facility. Instead, the hospital provided her with painkillers and a foam donut, to make sitting more comfortable.

"What happened to all those privacy forms I signed?" I yelled, then winced.

Aunt Madge nodded. "That was very inappropriate." I could tell she was still trying not to smile. "Would you like one of those painkillers the article mentions?"

"No." I frowned at her and she raised an eyebrow. "No thank you. Well, maybe later."

News accounts of Richard Tillotson's 1929 disappearance contain a number of interviews with family members and friends, but provide little information. Several people remembered seeing Richard late the night of his sister's wedding. He was serenading the newlyweds under their hotel room window, with Fisher shouting from the window that Tillotson should go home. Tillotson ate dinner with his family the next night and said he was going back to the store after dinner. Staff of Bakery at the Shore, which Tillotson and Fisher operated together, said Tillotson was not in the store the next day, and they expected he was "hung over." He was reported missing later that day, when he did not go to the train station to bid the newlyweds goodbye as they left for their honeymoon.

I looked at Aunt Madge. "Somebody had to kill him."

She shrugged. "I suppose so. I can't imagine they'll find out now. That was so many years ago. Anyone with first-hand information is long since dead. Peter Fisher died more than twenty-five years ago."

THIS WAS EXACTLY Sergeant Morehouse's take on it a day later. "Listen, Jolie, any potential suspect is dead, there aren't any suspects, and there's plenty of current crimes to solve."

"You mean you're just going to let it alone?" I did my best to look reproachful, but this was difficult when I was slouched in a chair in his office, much as a senior citizen with an osteoporosis hump in her back.

He took on the parental tone he uses with me when I'm bugging him. "We aren't letting it alone. Before your friend Gracie went back to Connecticut she gave us a blood sample. We'll compare DNA from the skeleton to hers. That may tell us if she's related to the guy."

"You know it was a man?"

"The medical examiner says it was a man, yes. And," his voice rose a bit as he saw I was about to interrupt him again. "If the DNA test shows the two are related we can pretty well figure it's Richard Tillotson. Unless you have reason to think," he gave me a smug look, "there might have been other missing Tillotsons or Fishers."

I hate it when he patronizes me. He has said several times that he appreciated my help in solving Ruth Riordan's murder. I believe him, but I know he thinks I can be a busybody. I'm not. I'm just persistent, and I can't stand loose ends.

He held up his hands when he could tell I was about to ask another question. "Enough already. I've got current stuff to work on." He stood and gestured toward the door of his small office, then seemed to take pity on me as I stood up from my hunched-over position. "If Gracie says it's all right, I'll call you when we get the DNA test results." He shook his finger at me in a scolding gesture. "And it'll be a few weeks at least. It's not a high priority so we aren't paying for a quick-turnaround."

I nodded and called thanks as I walked into the hallway. The officer at the front counter buzzed me out of the office area into the small waiting room that leads to the street. My strategy with glass doors, which seem a lot heavier when your tailbone hurts, has become to wait by them and pretend to be looking for something in my purse. When someone whose tailbone isn't killing them comes along I let them open the door for me. I had rummaged for probably thirty seconds when I heard a polite cough behind me and looked up.

"Can I help you with that, ma'am?" I looked into the face of Lieutenant Tortino, and he had the nerve to laugh. "Sorry Jolie." He swung open the door and stepped out ahead of me. "The way you were standing I thought it was someone older."

I thanked him nicely, since he knows Aunt Madge pretty well, but his comment did not improve my mood as I drove toward Java Jolt, the boardwalk coffee house I frequent.

As I entered the shop, which has a lightweight wood door I could open myself, my eyes met those of Joe Regan, the affable owner. "Coffee's on the house Jolie, since you were in the paper today."

"Thanks, Joe, that's really nice of you." I pretended not to get his sarcasm, and set my purse and canvas tote bag that contained my foam donut on a chair and went over to serve myself. Java Jolt is one of the only boardwalk businesses open in the winter months, and its cozy atmosphere and free Internet access make it a popular place. Luckily it was not too busy now.

I could feel Joe's gaze on me as I added sugar and cream, and looked at him. He smirked. "Jeez, not you, too."

"You gotta admit that you get into some crazy situations. And you've only been back here what, two months?"

I regarded his Irish countenance and made a face at him. "Going on three, and it's not like I create my problems."

"Uh-uh." He turned to wipe the counter behind the large coffee thermoses.

I carried my coffee to the small table, and wished I had picked one further from the counter so my donut would not be so obvious. Lacking a reason to move to another seat in the nearly-empty shop, I pulled it from the tote bag, placed it on a seat, and sat down gingerly. As I winced I met Joe's eyes, which now looked concerned.

"Gee, kid, I didn't realize you were really hurt bad."

I sensed he felt a bit guilty for teasing me, and didn't mind a bit. "The doctor said it's almost as painful as crushed vertebrae." Seeing his increased concern I added, "But this might heal faster."

I hadn't been sitting there long when my mobile phone rang. Harry Steele asked how I was feeling. When I said a bit better, he said he had two appraisals to be done the next week. "If you aren't up to it, I can handle them, of course."

Both were cottages with few steps and I said I'd do them.

"Oh, and Reverend Jamison called. He said you've been considering running the food pantry over at the church." Harry's expression was questioning.

"Reverend Jamison is considering me doing it. I can't see how I could manage that."

"Hmm." He paused for several seconds, and I wasn't sure if he had hung up or was thinking. "You would have the skills, of course. Just a matter of whether it's something you think is worth doing."

"Are you trying to make me feel guilty if I say no?"

"Maybe just a little." I could hear the smile in his voice. He and Aunt Madge both go to First Presbyterian, which they and most of its other congregants affectionately call 'First Prez.'

I sighed. "I'm going to see what Scoobie thinks. He's gotten food from there." I took down the addresses of the houses and said I'd come to the office in a couple of days to get keys if I needed them.

The coffee seemed to have a bitter taste, and I almost said something to Joe when I realized it could be the pain medicine I had taken an hour earlier. Without it, I'd still be standing at a 45 degree angle. However, taking it meant I had to walk and drive very carefully. I could only imagine what George Winters would make of an arrest for being under the influence of narcotics.

My cell phone rang again and I was surprised to hear Gracie Allen's voice.

"I thought you left town."

"I had to come home because I'm the one who drives the kids to school, but I wanted to see how you are. I feel so bad."

I knew her sympathy was genuine, but as I was the one walking around with the pain in my butt, I wasn't inclined to let her totally off the hook. "I'm standing up straighter, but the doctor said it could be a couple of months before I'm pain-free."

"Will you be able to work?"

"Uh, if you mean can I finish your appraisal..."

"Goodness no. I don't even want to think about that house until you're really ready to do it." She was tripping over her tongue making sure I didn't think her unsympathetic. Maybe she was afraid I'd sue, or something.

"I just meant," she paused for a couple of seconds, "I know you're self-supporting. I wondered if I should offer to well, you know, give you some money. It was my grandmother's..."

I laughed. "Harry's already found two houses with no steps that I can do next week. It takes more than a sore tailbone to keep me home."

"That's good. I mean, that you can get out, and all. If you need anything, anything I can do from Connecticut, would you let me know?"

"Sure. You gave me six phone numbers, you know." She had. Two at her house, her mobile, numbers at her husband's office, plus his mobile.

"Listen," she went on, "I'm not sure when I can get down to Jersey again, and I don't like the idea of spending a lot of time in that attic..."

"It beats the floor below." When she didn't respond, I added, "I'm just kidding."

"Oh, right." She stopped, and I could hear her take a breath. "I wondered if, when you feel better, you would be interested in sorting through the attic. For money, I mean."

My initial inclination was to say no, and then I thought about Sgt. Morehouse's reluctance to investigate, even if it did appear to be murder. "Well..."

"We could pay you by the hour, or you can quote an overall amount. I just, I just don't want to go through that stuff. I can't imagine there's much up there I'd want. And now there's all this talk about Richard." Her voice trailed off.

"I don't mind, but you know I can't cart anything out of the attic." Idly I wonder if it would be hard to get things out of there. It's a wide trap door, but it would take at least two people to get some of that stuff down the ladder.

"What about Scoobie?" she asked. "Or when you get it organized I can pay movers or something."

Why hadn't I thought of Scoobie? "Scoobie probably wouldn't mind." The more I thought about it, the more I liked this idea. Scoobie and I would probably have fun.

We talked for several more minutes, discussing the kinds of things she would like to know about ("Mostly if it looks like some kind of heirloom, like the quilts. I don't give a tinker's damn if it's just an antique") and how much she would pay us. We left it that Scoobie and I would go back to look through the attic and work up an estimate for her. Harry still had a key.

As I hung up, my gaze met Joe's. "I could see you salivating," he said, not bothering to suppress a grin.

"I'm not that hard up for money." I tried to keep an edge out of my voice.

He laughed. "I meant about the chance to look around. You know you like getting into other people's knickers."

I tried to look affronted, but failed. "I just like things to add up. This doesn't."

He was still chuckling as he turned to greet a new customer. "If it isn't the king of Ocean Alley real estate."

Lester Argrow barely nodded at him. "Say, Jolie. Ramona told me you were going to try to get out today." Without invitation, he pulled out a chair, turned it backwards, straddled it, and looked at me like a puppy. "When do we start?"

"It'll be a couple of days until I can get back to the appraisal..."

He waved a hand dismissively. "I don't mean that. I mean the investigation."

At the counter, Joe turned his back, probably so I wouldn't see him laughing.

"Lester, you know that's up to the police. Sgt. Morehouse will really get into it."

"That old fart? He doesn't like to do anything extra. Beside," he eyed me with some suspicion, "he said he told you he figures there's not much to be done after all these years."

Caught in a lie of omission, I tried not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. As much as I like Lester's direct approach to the world, his level of tact is many degrees below mine. "I don't know what anyone can do at this point." I carefully did not say we.

"I was thinking," he continued, unrebuffed, "that we could probably poke around that attic. George Winters said the cops said it was full of old stuff. Maybe there's clues."

"That sounds like the perfect place to start," Joe said, leaning on the coffee bar.

I tried to remain unruffled, reminding myself that Joe's coffee shop was the only one open in the Ocean Alley off-season. "We'd need permission," I shot Joe a warning glance, "and I can't imagine that Gracie would want people poking through her family's things."

"I have a key. On account of she's going to ask me to list it."

"But if you enter for another purpose, that's trespassing, isn't it?"

He gave me another dismissive wave. "I could say we need to look around, since I'm trying to establish an asking price and you're the appraiser." He changed tacks seemingly without missing a beat. "You are going to appraise it for a good price, aren't you?"

Since I preferred this topic, I tried to be encouraging. "It's a beautiful house, and they've kept it in terrific condition. But," I needed to put on some brakes, or he'd be trying to convince Gracie to sell it for twice its worth, "It's almost unique in Ocean Alley. You know people don't like to buy the most expensive house in an area because they may not be able to recoup the price when they resell it."

We argued this point for a couple of minutes until Joe said, "Lester, I thought you did your real estate business over at Burger King."

"Yeah." He turned to Joe with a small frown. "But I'm startin' to think they're gettin' tired of it. I think it's since I started getting more popular. You know, bringing more customers there. Usually they only order coffee."

I saw the light bulb go off in Lester's mind, but Joe seemed to miss it.

"Hey, what if I brought them here?" He turned his chair to face Joe by bumping it along the floor. "That could be good for both of us, right?"

I stood, or stooped, at that point, excusing myself by saying I needed to go home to take a pain pill. I was tempted to stay and listen further as Joe tried to tactfully suggest that there was better parking at Burger King, but I didn't want Lester to push me more on the value of the Tillotson-Fisher house. Joe gave me a dirty look as I put on my coat.
CHAPTER FOUR

SINCE HE DOESN'T HAVE a phone, it took me awhile to find Scoobie. Librarian Daphne, another of our classmates, gave him my message when he stopped in for his evening session, as he calls his routine visits, and let him use her phone to call me.

He was enthused about the idea of doing the work together, but not as much about the money. "I have to be careful not to earn much, or I get kicked off of Social Security disability," he explained. "You see," he added, "There's this thing called New Jersey workforce investment, and this counselor, he's trying to help me get some training."

"Training for what?"

He warmed to the topic. "I think I could work in radiology. You know, x-rays." He paused. "Which you certainly know all about."

"Very funny. What, they pay for you to go to school?"

"Yep. If I can be trained in something that I could do without getting depressed or ticked off a lot, then I could go off disability."

"And doing x-rays fits that bill?" I was not sure how to phrase the question.

"It means I wouldn't have to work in a room with lots of people all day. I'm better off that way." He said it very matter-of-factly.

"I don't think of you as easily ticked off," I volunteered.

"That's because I don't find you to be a major source of frustration." I could hear the humor creep into his voice. "But," he continued, "I'm sure Sgt. Morehouse does."

AUNT MADGE HAD TWO of her muffins and a plate of scrambled eggs for Scoobie when he came over at nine o'clock the next day. "I'm concerned you don't get enough protein, Adam." Scoobie thanked her profusely.

She was also concerned that I not go up the attic ladder while I was still so "rickety," as she put it. I heartily agreed, as did Scoobie, who said he didn't want me getting injured on his watch. While Scoobie ate and I had another cup of coffee we agreed that I'd go up to the second floor and take notes as Scoobie yelled down a rough inventory from the attic.

Before we left, Aunt Madge opened her sliding glass door and Scoobie moved the bookcase away from the wall, working slowly so as not to squish the chipmunk. I was not too worried about the little rodent. I was tired of looking for it every time I took underwear out of a laundry basket. However, we were disappointed that he was not in residence. He had left a couple of small black dots, which I took to be chipmunk poop.

Scoobie looked at the plastic lid from a coffee can, in which Aunt Madge had placed two sunflower seeds and a little water. "I don't know why he'd move out with you providing free room and board."

"You're worse than Jolie." She stooped down to look under the sofa.

GETTING UP THE LONG FLIGHT of stairs from the first floor of the Fisher house was not made any easier by Scoobie telling me he'd watch my back side. By the time I finished laughing as we climbed the steps I needed a pain pill. Since I had to walk down the steps in an hour or two, I decided to forgo it until then.

I stood back as Scoobie pulled down the attic ladder and made sure it was fully extended. "So this would be about where your butt hit the floor?" He stamped lightly on a spot a couple of feet from the base of the ladder.

"Not something I care to think about. Get your butt up the ladder."

He saluted and climbed. "Good grief! This place is packed." He sneezed several times and I saw him rub his nose on the top of his sweatshirt. He peered down at me. "Do you have any ideas on where you want to start?"

"Not really. I guess start closest to you and work back."

I watched from below as he turned slowly, taking in the enormity of our project. "I guess I'll start right where I am and work back toward that really old trunk under the eaves. I bet that'll take us a couple of hours."

I groaned. "I should have thought about bringing a chair."

"Wait a minute." He strode across the floor above and I could hear him moving some heavier pieces out of the way. His face, with a cobweb descending from his chin, appeared at the top of the trap door. "Move back and I'll walk this little stool down."

The narrow stool had an oak seat and had metal rungs down each side. He blew dust off the seat as he placed in on the floor. "It goes to that old sewing machine in the back."

"Perfect. Thanks." I put my donut on the seat and sat down.

With another salute, he went back up.

He first hollered down the contents of the wardrobe that had contained "your friend Richard." He thought that most of the clothes were from the 1940s or 50s, which is what I remembered, too. "Are you some kind of fashion expert?" I called up.

His face appeared at the trap door. "Salvation Army sometimes has really old stuff around Halloween. You'd look good in one of those 1940s suits with the huge shoulder pads." He pulled back up as I pretended to be about to launch my pencil at him. "Oh boy. I think one of these little furs has a fox's head on it."

"That's because it was a fox. Anyone who wore that today would probably get paint thrown on them." I wondered idly if there was anyone I'd like to see this happen to. As I wrote down the number and types of items in the wardrobe it occurred to me that these were of much more recent vintage than the skeleton, assuming Richard Tillotson had been killed just after his sister's 1929 wedding. I hollered this up to Scoobie.

His voice drifted down. "We're taking inventory, not solving a murder. Do I need to remind you that the only reason you lived through your last attempt to meddle is because of me?" There was a sound of a metal latch being opened and Scoobie said, "Wow. You should see what's in this little chest!"

"What? What?" A murder weapon?

"It's all these old games and toys. Geez. This is a really early Monopoly game."

I chided myself for wanting something gory. "That'll be worth something on eBay."

I wrote down the number of wooden toys and listed the games – chess, checkers, and a cribbage board in addition to the Monopoly game.

Why was the skeleton in a wardrobe with clothes from the 1940s?

"Scoobie?" He sneezed in response and I continued. "Was there any dirt on the floor of that wardrobe?"

"What do you care? You aren't coming up to clean." He blew his nose loudly.

"Maybe they buried him and dug him up."

Scoobie's head appeared again. "Did anyone ever teach you to mind your own business?"

"No. You don't get to know about potential properties coming on the market if you mind your own business." When he looked puzzled, I added, "When I did real estate work in Lakewood."

He shrugged and disappeared and I heard him reopen the door to the wardrobe. "I don't see any dirt. But lots of people looked up here after you found your friend."

"What? Oh, police." Of course, I knew they had visited the attic during their cursory investigation. Sgt. Morehouse's words came back to me. Any potential suspect is dead, there aren't any suspects, and there's lots of current crimes to solve.

"What are you looking at now?" I stretched my neck, which was becoming sore after looking up at the attic opening for so long.

There was the sound of a something being opened, a metal trunk I thought.

"Wow," Scoobie said, "this is full of old photo albums. Like ten or fifteen of them."

"Gracie will want those. Why don't you start bringing them down?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Because they don't have their own legs and it's the only way to get them out of there."

"I don't have to do this, you know."

I knew he wasn't mad. His backside appeared at the top of the ladder, several photo albums in his right hand and his left reaching down to steady himself as he climbed down the ladder. Dust stuck to the cuff of his jeans and what I could see of the palm of his left hand was darkened with dirt.

"Where do you want these?" he asked as he neared the bottom of the ladder.

"My car, I guess. I'll look through them a little so I can tell Gracie what they are."

"Why don't we go get a drink and come back?" I started to say we'd never get done if we took a break every hour, and then Scoobie sneezed again. I realized he probably wanted a break from the dusty attic and agreed.

We went to Java Jolt where Joe looked less than thrilled to see Scoobie until, while Scoobie was in the men's room cleaning up a bit, I explained what we were doing.

"That's nice of you," Joe said as he poured Scoobie's requested large hot tea. "I was worried his red nose might mean he was drinking again."

"Not that I know of."

Joe gave me a look that seemed to say "Right," and handed me Scoobie's tea. I put it on a table, filled my coffee cup from the thermos on the counter, and dug in my purse for money to put in the sugar bowl next to the thermos. Joe puts us all on the honor system during the off-season.

As I sat on my foam donut, Scoobie came back in and bought two muffins, one chocolate chip and one blueberry. He grinned as I groaned.

"I don't need the calories. By the time I can move around well I'll have gained five pounds."

He shrugged as he took a bite of the blueberry muffin. "Skip dinner."

Since I can never resist chocolate, I took a bite of that muffin. "Did you look at any of the photos in those albums?"

"Nope. I figure you'll spend ten hours on it, so why should I?" He took a sip of tea. "Speaking of skipping dinner, what did you tell Reverend Jamison about the food pantry?"

"I'm avoiding it. Don't you think he'll get the hint?

"Nope. He told me I'm supposed to help you. I think he scheduled some kind of meeting on it in a few days."

"Damn it." I stared into my coffee cup for a moment. I certainly could do it, but I definitely didn't want to. I knew I would be uncomfortable around people who are grateful for food, something I have always been able to assume will be available.

"How much?" I asked. When Scoobie only looked at me I added, "help. How much help will you give me?"

He shrugged. "I can tell you what I don't like about the way it's been done."

"What's not to like?"

"You can get a box of stuff six times a year. It's...."

"Why only six times?" I interrupted him.

"Because that's all the food they have to give." His look told me not to interrupt again. "I'd rather be able to go once a month and get smaller boxes. So would a lot of other people."

"There's got to be a reason they do it that way," I mused.

When I glanced back at him his look was unreadable, but I sensed he hadn't liked my comment. "What?" I asked.

"The people running things always like schedules the way they are. At the treatment center I went to in Newark there's hardly any staff there on weekends because they don't like to work weekends." He gestured with the remaining half of his muffin. "We didn't need any less counseling on Saturday and Sunday."

I nodded slowly. "I get your point. If I do it, I'll look at all of it. Just don't expect," I paused, not wanting to offend him, "Don't expect a lot of changes all at once. It'll take me some time to figure out how everything works."

He stood and began pulling on his jacket.

"Does this mean you're through with ideas?" I asked.

"Nope." He finished shrugging into his jacket. "But it probably makes sense to talk more about it after you get your feet wet. At least after you talk to Elmira Washington." He grinned.

Scoobie knows I'm not a fan of Elmira, who told everyone she knows in Ocean Alley that I left my husband Robby because he embezzled money to support his gambling habit. I groaned. "You mean she's on the Food Pantry Committee?"

"Unless you kick her off. Come on, pick up your little pillow and let's get back to work." He moved over to help me with my coat.

"You an expert on the food pantry, Scoobie?" said Joe Regan from the other side of the counter.

"Did you hear something?" Scoobie asked, looking at me intently.

"I think..." I began.

"Forget it," said Joe.

Scoobie walked out ahead of me, not looking at Joe. I glanced at Joe whose shrug in my direction seemed to be half apology and half 'go figure' expression.

It took me a few seconds to catch up with Scoobie, and only then because he slowed down enough to allow me to. "I, uh, don't think he meant to be rude."

Scoobie's expression was unreadable. "Then he should mind his own damn business."

"Right." We walked a few more steps in silence, and Scoobie stopped, so I did, too.

"I think I'm going to the library. I'll catch you later, Jolie." He turned and strode the other direction down the boardwalk.

I walked the short distance to my car wishing I'd said something different. When Scoobie and I were by ourselves it was easy to forget that he had "issues," as he put it. Maybe Scoobie thought I was sticking up for Joe. "Damn it!" I kicked at the lid of a soft drink cup, and then swore again. My tailbone was not up for kicking anything.
CHAPTER FIVE

AUNT MADGE HELPED ME CARRY IN the photo albums. She placed them on the large oak table in her kitchen/great room combo.

"I'll get some damp paper towels and wipe off any dust," I said.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." She almost stroked the cloth binding on the top album.

"It's not sacred scripture, you know."

"I'm well aware of that. But they are part of someone's life, surely someone long gone. It almost feels as if we'll be trespassing to read them."

I smiled at her use of 'we' as I dampened a couple of towels. Aunt Madge prides herself on not gossiping, but I knew she was as eager to look at the albums as I was. For starters, I wanted to see Richard Tillotson's face in something other than a grainy old newspaper photograph.

The albums weren't that dusty, since they'd been in a trunk. What they were was falling apart. As Aunt Madge opened the top one – its velvet cover a deep red in all but a corner that had evidently been more exposed to light and was almost pink – there was the crackle of aged paper and the three photos slid sideways on the page.

"Do you suppose someone took them out at some point?" I asked.

"No. The glue just dried up, that's all." She moved the photos back to their original spots on the page and closed the book. "I have some of those little adhesive corners you use to put photos in albums. I don't think it would hurt anything to fasten these more securely. I'll help you after dinner."

AFTER I FINISHED DUSTING all the albums, I settled on Aunt Madge's couch and pulled one of them to me. I started with one that seemed close to the time of Richard Tillotson's disappearance. It was a challenge to figure out which photos went with which captions, and I was not sure I should refasten the ones that had come unglued. Eventually I figured if I didn't one of Gracie's kids would grab an album and scatter all the old photographs.

Richard was taller than most men in the 1920s, perhaps six feet. It made me realize that his skeleton must have been bent a little at the knees to stand up in the attic wardrobe. The pre-skeleton Richard had wavy dark hair and a broad smile. This was in contrast to his future brother-in-law. Peter Fisher was almost a head shorter than Richard and his expression was usually somber.

There were several photos of a smiling Audrey Tillotson, and one of the captions said, "The day Peter proposed." Standing next to her, Peter Fisher almost cracked a smile. Two pages further there was a picture of Richard and a woman identified simply as Mary Doris. They had posed with the ocean in the background and were holding hands as they smiled at the camera. I jotted her name in my notebook. If she were still alive, she might know more about Richard's disappearance. Perhaps Aunt Madge would know who she was. I studied Mary Doris more, taking in the flapper girl's clothes and small hat and the long string of pearls that hung to just above her belly button. She and Richard looked as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Mary Doris was in several other photos, sometimes with Audrey and other young women of their age, which looked to be early twenties. This was clearly the Ocean Alley jet set of the times. I smiled at my mental choice of words. These women would never have heard of a jet airplane.

I couldn't take my eyes off their dresses. Did they always get so dressed up? The Tillotson family must have had a lot of money back then. My own has very few pictures of grandparents or aunts and uncles of the time.

When Aunt Madge came into the room a few minutes later I asked her about Mary Doris. "Mary Doris Milner," she said. "She lives at the nursing home on the edge of town. She must be, oh, in her mid-nineties."

"She's alive then? How do you think she'd react to a visit?"

Aunt Madge shook her head. "You need to leave her alone, Jolie. Uncle Gordon said Richard's disappearance struck her so hard that she went to stay with family in the Midwest for quite some time afterwards. She said she didn't want to see the ocean without Richard."

"She must have been embarrassed because she thought he left her."

Aunt Madge settled next to me on the couch and opened a copy of Popular Science magazine. "She got over him just fine, eventually. She got a teaching certificate and worked until she was well into her sixties."

"Did she ever marry?"

"No, but she was so close to her brother's family that her nephew and later his daughter would visit every summer for several weeks." Aunt Madge closed the magazine. "Her brother's granddaughter eventually moved here to stay with Mary Doris. What was her name?" She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at me. "She came her junior year of high school. She fought a lot with her mother, I think, but not Mary Doris."

After looking through another album that was after Richard's disappearance, I was done for the night. The albums had served their purpose. I had a lead in the form of Mary Doris Milner, and she was close at hand.

WHEN I WENT DOWN TO BREAKFAST the next morning Aunt Madge handed me a piece of paper with Reverend Jamison's name and phone numbers. "He won't give up, you know." She eyed me as she poured cream into a creamer. "He's at least as stubborn as you are."

"I prefer to think that I'm disciplined enough to follow through with things." I stuck the note into the pocket of my cotton slacks and helped myself to some orange juice.

Later that morning I called Reverend Jamison, who asked me to come to the vicarage to talk about the food pantry. "Feel free to bring Scoobie, if you want to."

I went alone, and listened patiently as he downplayed the time commitment, talking about how to get volunteers and which food banks donated to the church food pantry. He introduced me to the church secretary as we left his office to visit the pantry, which was adjacent to the church in its community room area.

"You're Madge's niece." She said this as if she thought I didn't know.

I took in her tight perm, slightly pursed lips, and the cardigan over her shoulders. She was probably about Aunt Madge's age, but dressed severely. I sensed disapproval oozing from every pore. "Yes, one of them. You might have also have met my sister Renée, she's the one who was more likely to go to church with Aunt Madge."

"I do remember the time you tried to take money out of the collection basket. For ice cream, I recall that you said."

"Chocolate." I followed Reverend Jamison out of the room.

He tossed a grin over his shoulder. "Mrs. Mackey doesn't think you are holy enough to work with our clients."

I appreciated his comment. "In my defense, I was three years old and didn't understand the concept of the collection plate. Besides, it's not like I'm supposed to make extra bread and fish appear from thin air."

"You may have to do a bit of that." His tone was more somber. "It gets harder to secure what we need. More people need help every year."

"Oh." The sinking feeling I'd had in my stomach dropped to my knees. What am I getting myself into?

He unlocked the door leading to the pantry and flipped on a light switch. The layout reminded me of a dry cleaner's shop. There was a no-nonsense counter at the front, but instead of rotating garment racks there were rows of shelves, none of which was full.

We walked through the approximately twenty-by-twenty room, and I noted that each shelf was labeled – canned fruit, tuna, vegetables, canned ham, and row upon row of pasta noodles. "Nothing fresh?" I asked.

"Rarely. We aren't set up to store it. We get some frozen turkeys before the holidays, but we pass them out the same day."

"So, if someone has kids..." I started.

"Some of the families have food stamps, some don't." He stopped to smooth a label that had come half unattached from its shelf. "If they get some non-perishable goods here it leaves them more for milk and eggs and such."

The door opened again and a young woman with a teenage girl came in. "Good morning Reverend. We're a little early, but I was able to get a ride instead of taking the bus."

"Megan, this is Jolie Gentil. I'm trying to get her to take the helm of the Food Pantry Committee." As I shook hands with Megan, he added, "Megan is one of our most regular volunteers. And," he glanced at the teenage girl, "her daughter Alicia comes with her sometimes."

Alicia nodded but said nothing. It appeared coming here was her mother's idea, not hers. As we left, Alicia was taking things from under the counter and setting them on top – a metal can with pens and pencils, a clipboard that appeared to be a sign-in sheet, and a large stack of paper bags.

We walked back to the vicarage without talking. I had my hands balled in the pockets of my hooded jacket, and was trying to imagine myself being in charge of the food pantry. I really didn't want to do it, but seeing Megan made me think there would be at least a few good volunteers.

"So," Reverend Jamison asked as we walked back to his office, "you want the keys and list of volunteers?" When I didn't answer immediately, he said, "At least give it a try. If it really isn't something you can do, you can always quit."

"The problem is I'm not much of a quitter. Even if I didn't want to do it, I'd let it eat me up rather than quit."

He nodded. "That's what I'm counting on."

I THREW THE KEYS INTO MY small jewelry box and set the two folders on the bed. One had a list of volunteers and the food pantry hours, the other food suppliers. Though the pantry is only open to the public three days each week, and Reverend Jamison stressed I did not have to be there every time it was open, I sensed that I'd spend a lot of time rounding up food. "Damn it, Jolie, how do you get yourself into these things?" Jazz meowed from her perch on my pillow, and I knew this was all the response I'd get.

Aunt Madge was out, so I went looking for Scoobie. I wanted to spend more time on the attic inventory so we could be done with it. I also intended to make him work as hard as I did at the food pantry.

Scoobie was in his usual spot at a table in the library, his notebook in front of him, probably working on some poetry. I placed my donut on the seat across from him and he raised his eyes to meet mine.

"I need to finish this." He bent over his writing again, and I sat still for almost three minutes. I knew it was that long because there is a big clock above the check-out desk.

Finally I stood and went to browse the magazine rack. Five minutes later Scoobie joined me. "What's up?"

Since he was holding the notebook in his hand I nodded toward it. Sometimes he shares his writing. "Can I see?"

He handed me the notebook and I read the few lines.

Midnight's here, the choice is ours

Lowered voices drift up the stair

We can choose to sleep and ignore the rest

Stay unconcerned, try not to care

Pay attention, they're about to decide

Watch the wall, better unaware

I never know what to say when I read Scoobie's poems. I met his eyes. "I thought you were writing something longer."

He reached for the notebook, not offended, but seeming to wish I'd said something different. "This is the first draft. Long is easy. Short takes more thought. Why are you here?"

"You want to go back to the old house again?" I asked. "We probably didn't even inventory ten percent." I tried to discern the mood he was in, but failed.

"I told Ramona she could come with us one of the times. She's really into antiques." He turned to walk back to the table that held his knapsack.

I liked this idea. "We can swing by the Purple Cow and pick her up." The Purple Cow is the local office supply store, and Ramona has worked there ever since she graduated from college. As close as I can figure, it gives her a salary but doesn't involve much use of her brain, which she likes to reserve for her art.

Every day, unless the winds are gale force, Ramona places a white board on a stand just outside the store and puts an inspirational saying on it. Occasionally someone erases it and substitutes a funny or rude message. I recently learned it's Scoobie, though Ramona doesn't know this yet. We pulled in front of the store, and I saw that today's message board read, "I believe that every single event in life happens as an opportunity to choose love over fear." Oprah Winfrey

"Hmm," Scoobie said. "Ramona's creeping into the modern age."

We had called before we drove over to see if Ramona could leave early. She could and had her coat held over her arm as she showed a customer how to use the small photocopy machine.

We waited by the door and she joined us a minute later, her face flushed. "I am so excited about this. I bet there are lots of super things in that attic." She waved goodbye to Roland, the store owner, and thanked him for letting her leave an hour early.

"Did you see any dress forms?" she asked. "I make most of my own skirts and tops you know."

That explained how she had so many outfits that looked as if they were from the 1970s, a period she seemed quite fond of. "I think I saw one. But, um, you'd have to talk to Gracie about it. I had the impression she's going to have an auction or rummage sale."

"She'd let me buy it before then," Ramona said. "I used to help her write her English compositions in high school. She hated to write paragraphs and stuff."

I drove the short distance to the old house and as we got out of the car each of us stared at the top floor. "Hard to believe Gracie didn't know there was such a treasure trove up there," Ramona said.

"Or a dead person," said Scoobie.

I opened the car trunk and pulled out my donut. I planned to sit at the bottom of the ladder and take notes. I hoped Ramona's participation would let us move faster, but I thought it equally likely that she would stop to examine each item.

After an hour, the list of attic contents was growing, but so was the pain at the base of my spine. I was finding it hard to be interested in the whoops of laughter from Scoobie as Ramona tried on a broad-brimmed hat or draped a fox fur over her shoulders.

"Omigosh, this is awesome," Ramona yelled.

"What? What?" I called up to her.

"There's a bunch of really old dolls."

There was a clunk and Scoobie laughed. "And now there's a headless one."

The parts of me that didn't ache wished I were up there with them. "What kinds of dolls? Like Barbies?"

"Better," she said. "Did your mom have any of those dolls that wet themselves? They were my mom's favorites."

"Betsy or something, I think. My sister has it." I added it to the list.

"Damn, look at this train set." I could hear someone pulling a box across the floor toward the attic opening and Scoobie's head appeared. "Do you think Gracie would mind if I set this up at your aunt's to see if it runs?"

I shrugged. "I don't see why not. Then if she wants to sell it she'll know if it works."

He balanced the box on his shoulder and climbed carefully down the ladder. "I'll take it out and put it in your trunk." I tossed him my keys and he headed down to the main floor.

I jotted 'Lionel Trains' on my list. Gracie might have enough in that attic to pay for a couple of semesters of college books for her kids.

"Jolie, there a metal box in the back that's full of little..." Ramona sneezed several times.

"Bless you," I called up.

"Thanks." She sniffed mightily and continued, "Full of a bunch of what look like ledgers. Hmm." I could hear her flipping through pages. "Hard to figure out what they're about."

"Why don't you bring a few down and I'll take them home and look at them?" I couldn't imagine anything more boring, but it's not like I'm out on the town at night.

Scoobie's steps on the staircase were slow, and I figured the almost three hours we'd been here were a lot more tiring for him than Ramona and me, since he was the one who traipsed up and down the attic ladder the most. "You want to head home?" I asked.

"In a few minutes. I saw some old books in the back in a couple of boxes. I'll at least look in them to see what kinds they are." He steadied the bottom of the ladder as Ramona climbed down with an arm laden with the ledgers.

I had been thinking of the larger books with green pages that Uncle Gordon used to use for record-keeping, but these were smaller, maybe six by nine inches.

"Stop looking up my skirt," Ramona admonished.

"I'm not." He winked at me. "It's too long to get much of a view."

He climbed back up and Ramona sat on the floor next to me. "My nose is getting clogged from all that dust." She reached into the pocket of her skirt to pull out a handkerchief.

"We'll go as soon as Scoobie looks in those boxes of books he found." I leafed through the top ledger. They were leather-bound and had several thin pieces of ribbon affixed to the top of the binding. The ribbon was a light yellow at the top of the ledger, but when I turned to one of the pages a ribbon marked I could see the portions not exposed to light were brown. Though it had some pages with figures, more contained entries in sentences, and each entry was dated.

June 19, 1928. New mixer delivered. RT unpacked and read instructions. Painter finished in back room, carpenter did not come to put up shelves. Storm coming in, so left at two.

The writing was small and even, each letter written with precision. I scanned a few more pages. I assumed that RT was Richard Tillotson and that he and the writer were preparing for the opening of a store of some sort. Maybe it was Peter Fisher who referred to Richard as RT. The cramped writing made me think of Fisher's dour expression in several photographs.

More sneezing announced Scoobie as he came down the ladder. "Look at this! This might be a first edition of All Quiet on the Western Front, and there's a 1932 edition of Tom Sawyer."

I closed the ledger, placed a hand on each side of the sewing machine stool and stood, slowly. This was how I had figured to get up with the least pain, and it was hardly elegant. Undoubtedly Scoobie was only refraining from making cracks because I looked so sore.

"Did the doctor say when it would hurt less?" Ramona looked sympathetic as she held my coat for me.

"He said I'd start to feel a lot better after a week." I stretched, something that was already less painful than it had been a couple of days ago.

Scoobie carried the ledgers and his books out to the car, and I drove the three of us toward the Purple Cow, where Ramona wanted to be dropped off. Scoobie was absorbed in a book, and Ramona appeared lost in thought until she said, "You know, I keep thinking about that skeleton. When do we find out if it's Gracie's great uncle, or whatever he was to her?"

"Sergeant Morehouse more or less told me not to bug him about it because it would take some time. Something about not paying for a rush DNA analysis."

Scoobie snorted. "The skeleton's not in any rush."

"Hand me one of those ledgers, would you?" Ramona asked Scoobie.

"There aren't any empty pages for you to draw on." He passed one to the front seat.

We had arrived at the Purple Cow, and Ramona stuffed the ledger into her oversized handbag. "Sometimes numbers tell you a lot."

SCOOBIE JOINED AUNT MADGE and me for grilled cheese and clam chowder. Aunt Madge had moved a small table out of a corner near the sliding glass doors that lead to her narrow back yard. She ordered the dogs to stay a certain distance from the box of trains. Amazingly, to me, they sat about five feet away, occasionally looking at Aunt Madge and giving a short wag of a tail, as if they wanted to see if she had changed her mind.

Aunt Madge, who is always looking for ways to use her carpentry skills, was far more interested in the trains than the ledgers or albums and was soon on the floor with Scoobie going through the box to see which pieces of track went together to create the picture that was on the outside of the box.

When I pulled the third album from the coffee table to my perch on the couch I was pleased to see that it had pictures of the Tillotson house "the day we moved in." A photo taken inside the house also noted the date, which was in 1917. A young Audrey and Richard posed in front of a tea set and their parents in dressy attire as if they were going to a party. You can bet they weren't unpacking the boxes. The real estate appraiser in me took over and I marveled at the full wrap-around porch and shutters at every window. They were stout looking storm shutters and the lattice work around the base of the porch was intricate. The album ended with Richard holding a new baby and Audrey at about age ten standing next to him looking as if she were worried he would drop the little darling.

It wasn't until I looked at that photo that I realized that the fourth Tillotson child apparently wasn't born yet, and the two youngest children were enough younger than Richard and Audrey that they might still be alive. More people to talk to. I glanced toward the corner and was surprised to see Aunt Madge on her hands and knees, apparently trying to peer under a piece of track. Scoobie caught my eye and gave me an almost imperceptible shrug.

"I saw that." She straightened up.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"That piece of track is a little bent, and I want to see where I need to straighten it." She dislodged the piece from its connecting piece of track. Aunt Madge stood and walked toward her pantry where she keeps her indoor tool box, as she calls it.

"Having fun?" I asked Scoobie.

"I am, actually." He glanced towards Aunt Madge. "Learning a couple things, too. Did you know that the guy who invented Lionel trains tried to make the first one with a steam engine? It blew up."

"Nope. No brothers."

Aunt Madge made a harrumphing noise. "You don't have to be a boy to like trains." She had found a small pair of pliers and was walking back to sit on the floor next to Scoobie.

"True, but can you imagine my mother buying Renée or me something with tires other than a baby buggy?" My mother wanted her girls to be girls, as she put it. My sister is trying my mother's patience by letting her girls play soccer.

"Good point." She began to show Scoobie which part of the piece of track needed to be gently straightened.

I decided to wait to ask her about the youngest Tillotsons – she would only accuse me of trying to find more people to bother, and she would be right – and went instead to the stack of four old-fashioned leather books.

Just as I was trying to decipher the titles at the top of the columns on the first page Aunt Madge shouted, "Annie Milner. I knew I'd remember it."

"You mean the girl from our graduating class?" Scoobie asked.

"I most certainly do," Aunt Madge said.

I remembered Annie not from high school but because she worked in the county prosecuting attorney's office and had interviewed me when the windbag attorney was planning his case against yet another classmate. During the probable cause hearing she handed the prosecuting attorney notes a couple of times, leading me to think she was the one with the brains.

Scoobie said, "She got one of the mock awards that Jennifer passed out during the reunion, but I don't remember what for." He continued, looking at me. "She didn't come until the end of junior year. Really quiet, too. You wouldn't have known her."

"So, what about her?" I asked.

"She's Mary Doris Milner's grand niece." Aunt Madge looked as proud as if she'd finished replacing a board on the front porch.
CHAPTER SIX

I WAS HAVING A HARD TIME not calling Annie Milner. It made no sense to talk to her until we knew if the skeleton belonged to Richard Tillotson. I decided to annoy Sergeant Morehouse instead.

He made me wait twenty minutes before he came to the reception area to get me. "Thought maybe you'd get tired of waiting." He keyed digits into the security pad and opened the entry to the bull-pen of officers' desks and the tiny cubbyholes – they hardly qualified as offices – for sergeants and lieutenants.

"But you knew I'd be back, so why bother putting me off today?" I smiled at him and was half surprised when he smiled back.

He gestured to the one guest chair in his small, crowded office and plopped himself in his own. Sgt. Morehouse is about forty, and if he didn't wear polyester pants and inexpensive looking sports coats you might not think of him as a cop. Though he can be quite curt when he wants to be rid of me, his usual expression is halfway friendly.

"I told you we wouldn't get DNA evidence too quickly," he said.

I nodded. "I thought of a couple of other things, though." At his raised eyebrow, I continued, "Did you notice if the skeleton was dirty, or if there were specks of dirt on the wardrobe floor?"

"I'll tell you, Jolie, I don't know the criteria for a clean skeleton, and the floor of the wardrobe was damn dirty after who knows how many years. Why?"

"Because I wondered if it had been buried and dug up. I thought it might have soil on it." I met his eye as he gazed at me, unblinking.

He sighed. "It was dusty, mostly. But, the coroner's office did find some white powder in the back of the shoulder socket. Someone – whether it was a murderer or someone who had a deceased person exhumed for some other damn reason – did a good job cleaning the skeleton." He raised a finger to shake at me, "Like I told you..."

"I know, I know. You have lots of open cases to work on." I kept my tone pleasant. After all, he didn't have to tell me anything. "You may find this hard to believe, but I don't have skeletons jump out at me too often, so I'm naturally curious."

"There is nothing natural about your level of curiosity." His look was direct. "Why'd you ask that, anyway?"

"Because the clothes in that wardrobe were from the 1940s, according to Scoobie and Ramona. Seemed as if the skeleton was put in there long after 1929."

Morehouse made a note on a small pad in front of him and stood. "Gracie did say you could know the results of the DNA analysis. That'll still be at least a few weeks, probably." When I didn't stand immediately, he asked, "Doesn't Harry Steele have enough work for you?"

MY SEARCH FOR INFORMATION to use in appraising the Tillotson house was very frustrating. There were tax records on the property dating to the early 1900s, and I could see the steady rise in the tax bill as the value of the property rose, especially after the late 1950s. In 1918 it had been assessed at $2,600, a reflection of the family's wealth in times when many houses were worth far less.

The most recent assessment was for $380,000, but I couldn't use the tax assessor's value alone to come up with the appraisal amount. Anyway, there was no guarantee someone would pay as much as $380,000 for the house, which was in good condition for its age but would likely require a lot of updating in the kitchens and bathrooms, at least. On the other hand, get the right buyer and they might be willing to pay $425,000 or more. Especially if they were wealthy Manhattanites looking for a weekend place. What I needed were comparable recent sales, and there simply weren't any.

As I sat tapping my pencil on the binder in which the Miller County Registrar of Deeds kindly places information on recent house sales in each municipality in the county, George Winters walked in. "Fancy meeting you here." He sidled next to me at the Formica-topped counter.

"And you thought I was dying to see you?" I asked. "Maybe I wanted my picture taken again?"

"You left yourself wide open for that, Jolie." When I didn't respond he continued, "I heard you and Scoobie were going through the attic. Wondered if you found anything interesting."

"Scoobie really likes the Lionel trains." I put my pencil in my purse.

"You know what I mean, anything related to the skeleton." I turned toward the door and he continued, "Come on Jolie. I can't go in there to poke around."

I faced him squarely. "You promise not to write insulting stuff about me?"

He dropped my gaze.

"Ha! See, you can't promise."

A slow grin spread across his face. "It's just you give me so many opportunities." I pushed past him into the hallway.

"Okay, okay. Nothing insulting." He paused as I gave him a skeptical look. "For how long?"

"See," I, pushed the down button on the elevator, "You look for ways to needle me."

"Aw, Jolie. Come on. You're fun to cover."

We entered the elevator and the door closed. "I'm serious Winters, lay off for awhile."

"Promise. Now, did you see anything interesting in the attic?"

As he opened the courthouse door to the street, I told him, "It's a treasure trove. Lots of old furniture, clothes, games. Ramona wants one of the dress forms. She's the only one I know thin enough to use it. But..." I considered whether to tell him the skeleton was in the cupboard with clothes from the 1940s and decided against it. "I can't say there was anything newsy."

His face fell. "Nuts. My editor keeps insisting there's a big story there. Solve that old murder somehow."

For a fleeting second I thought about discussing the clothes and photo albums. Of everyone in town, Winters might be my best brainstorming partner. Reporters were always trying to put pieces together.

But, Gracie might not like the attention on her family, and she was paying Scoobie and me to look through the attic. Not that we had settled on a price. "There might be a story there, but so far you don't even know if the body was Richard Tillotson's."

"How many other skeletons would be in that attic?" he asked.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE COZY CORNER B&B Aunt Madge had a message for me from Annie Milner. Though I'd seen her a couple of times other than the reunion I couldn't figure out why she'd call me.

"Jolie. Thanks for calling me back." Her voice was smooth as soft butter. "I wanted to run an idea by you, if you don't mind."

When I said fine, she outlined her thoughts about running for the position of county prosecuting attorney in the spring primary. "I don't know if you were aware, but a lot of people thought Martin Small proceeded too quickly in accusing a suspect for Ruth Riordan's murder."

"I tended to agree with them," I said, dryly.

"I assumed you and your aunt did," she continued. "Rushing ahead is Small's general mode of operation. I would ask you not to repeat my opinion," she added hastily.

"Of course." I thought she was already talking like a politician.

"It's my opinion that the citizens of Miller County would be better represented by a more thoughtful approach to litigation. On top of the issue of basic fairness, there is the cost of pursuing a case too hastily."

Although I thought this was probably a carefully rehearsed speech, it also made sense. "So, what are you asking?" I didn't know much about a prosecuting attorney's job, and certainly knew nothing of local politics.

"I'd like you to get to know me well enough to endorse my candidacy."

"Me, why me?" My voice was almost a squeak.

"First, you are becoming well known in Ocean Alley, and this is the county seat."

I snorted and made a disparaging comment about George Winters, and she laughed. "Really, Jolie, it's the substance of your opinion I'm interested in. I've talked to Michael Riordan and his father."

My ears perked up. Michael and I had briefly considered what Aunt Madge would call a fling, but we pretty quickly realized our temperaments were too different. Or maybe too similar.

"Michael shares my views about the current prosecuting attorney," she continued, "but he doesn't want any more attention."

"Can you blame him?" I asked.

"Not a bit. You might not want to talk a lot about that case either, but your name on a published list of supporters would mean a lot." When I hesitated, she added, "You don't have to give money."

"I tell you what, Annie, I am willing to consider it." I paused, thinking about Mary Doris Milner. "Why don't we meet for coffee at Java Jolt this weekend?"

With her delight ringing in my ears, I replaced the phone and turned to see Aunt Madge making herself another cup of tea, probably her tenth for the day. "Did you get the gist of that?"

"Pretty much." She took her teabag out of the mug and setting it on a spoon rest. "I have heard she's very bright, but..."

"Young?" I asked.

"I hate to say that." She paused, then added, "Prosecuting attorney is a big job. Maybe one that requires more experience."

I shrugged. "I guess it depends on whether someone uses their experience well. I sure don't think Martin Small's any good."

"You've got a point there."

There was a scratching noise across the room and we both turned toward the sitting area near her TV in time to see the chipmunk run across the floor and dart under the bookcase again. Aunt Madge looked at me. "He's been climbing the curtains again."

"Great. Have you figured out if he can climb the steps to the bedrooms?"

"So far I haven't seen either of them up there."

THE NEXT DAY I CALLED GRACIE to ask about the whereabouts for the deed on her grandmother's property. Technically, that's more the business of the attorney who handles the closing when the property gets sold, but it occurred to me that since the house had been in the family so long it might require a hunt. Might as well give her a heads up. And, I was curious as to whose name was on it now.

"Deed?" she asked. "Oh dear, I never thought of that."

"Maybe your mom has it," I suggested.

She sighed. "My mom and I have a hard time talking about much more than how cute my kids are."

I could relate to that, except for the kids part. "This will give you some time to talk to her without having to force the conversation."

I hung up and called Harry to see about any new appraisal work. He didn't have anything for the rest of the week, and thought it might be just as well for my back, as he referred to my tailbone.

"It's getting better, mostly hurts when I get in and out of chairs."

"Then I don't feel too bad. You can stay home and rest."

I assured him I would and immediately called the library to see if Scoobie was there. Daphne said she thought he had gone to the diner for lunch but he usually got back just after one o'clock, so I made a sandwich and called up to Aunt Madge to see if she wanted one.

AFTER LUNCH I PICKED UP Scoobie at the library with the intention of heading back to the Tillotson-Fisher house. I let him know that when I talked to Gracie I had asked her to pay Scoobie for doing the lion's share of the work and we had settled on four fifty-dollar gift certificates to Wal-Mart, to be provided each month for four months; that way Scoobie would not earn too much in any one month and get thrown off his disability payments. I didn't mention that I had decided not to take anything. I'd get paid for the appraisal, and I sure wasn't helping Scoobie much at this point.

En route to the old Fisher house, Scoobie decided we should make a detour to Midway Market, the small, in-town grocery store, to introduce me to the manager as the new head honcho at the food pantry, as Scoobie put it.

"Why does he care?" I asked.

"Because when the pantry is really low and needs stuff right away the church passes the collection plate and the money goes to buy food at Midway. He sells it at forty% off the store price."

"How do you know all this?" I asked as we pulled into the small parking lot.

"Because when they need someone to carry it into the pantry sometimes Reverend Jamison finds me."

As we walked into the aging market the overcast sky began to dispense sleet.

"Maybe," Scoobie said as he held a hand out to feel the light pelting of frozen water, "we should get you straight home. I don't want to be around if you fall on your ass again."

"Look, we're here. We'll talk fast." We walked to the door and I stepped on the mat to let the automatic door open. "I wish every door in town were like this." In response to Scoobie's questioning look I added, "You have no idea how much opening a heavy door can make your tailbone hurt."

He nodded, but he was already scanning the aisles for the owner, whom he said was named Mr. Markle. We found him in the back of the store, near swinging doors that led into a warehouse area. Mr. Markle held a clipboard and had been making checkmarks on a list, apparently making sure the pile of boxes next to him held all the products he had ordered.

He regarded me over the top of his reading glasses and did not look at all friendly. "So, you'll be taking over the food pantry."

"With a lot of help." I didn't want to imply that I knew what I was doing.

"All right then." He turned slightly, "Hey Jimmy, get these diapers to the front. Mrs. Nodaway's coming in at two." He turned back to us. "Twins. She's in here every other day. Had to order extra."

He set the clipboard on one of the boxes. "Now, all I ask is if you need to buy give me as much notice as you can." As a clerk walked up, he pointed to a huge carton of diapers, and turned back to us. "See, there's a couple of distributors will give me a better deal if I'm selling direct to you, and I can pass the savings to you. You need stuff already on the shelves, I can't go as low 'cause I already paid more for it."

I nodded. "That's very generous of you."

"You aren't competition." He turned back to his clipboard.

"Not so friendly," Scoobie said in a low voice as we walked toward the exit, "but..."

"Scoobie," yelled Mr. Markle from behind us, "there's a box of dented cans back here."

Scoobie grinned at me, "Get a cart."

Scoobie loaded it and pushed the cart of cans across the now slippery parking lot and I held on to the edge of the cart and focused on keeping my balance.

"What I was going to say was he's kinda grouchy, but then he saves dented cans and stuff that's not selling well and sends over boxes of stuff. For example," he pulled a can of black bean soup from the top of a box, "there's a ton of these in here. The fart club didn't buy enough, I guess."

I giggled as I popped my trunk and he loaded the first box. "The fart club?"

"Yeah, I think Sgt. Morehouse chairs it, he..." There was a ripping sound as the lightweight box he was loading into the trunk tore in the middle and cans cascaded across the parking lot. I stooped to grab one and Scoobie grabbed me by the elbow. "In the car. Your Aunt'll kill me if you fall."

I didn't argue. Telling myself I was doing us both a favor by getting the car warmed up, I slid into the driver's seat and flipped the heater knob as soon as the engine turned over. Two minutes later Scoobie opened the passenger door. "Dang." He brushed water off his coat. "I like the beach, but why the hell can't I like it as well in Florida?"

The weather had made it clear we should not be on the roads much, so we scratched the idea of going to do any more work in the attic, and I decided the food would sit in my trunk overnight. I invited Scoobie to come back to the B&B, but he said he was up to his 'people quota' for the day. I dropped him at the library before heading to the Cozy Corner.

I thought I'd take a pain pill and curl up on the couch and take a closer look through some of the photos or ledgers we had taken from the house. Since normal people don't usually end up with a skeleton in the attic, I hoped the ledgers or pictures would show some of the abnormalities in the Fisher family.

PETER FISHER'S LEDGERS contained ingredient lists, what seemed to be portions of recipes, and notations about prices, and places where he bought items. I had started with what I judged to be the oldest ledger, since it had been held together with twine and had a rotting cover. The first few pages were a hodgepodge of lists and numbers, but eventually he became more methodical. He seemed to buy large quantities of sugar, flour, molasses, yeast, cornmeal, rye, and lard, so I assumed his store was a bakery of some sort. Why hadn't I thought to look in some of the old city business directories when I was in the library?

Aunt Madge was leafing through a magazine about home repair, but she looked as if she could stand an interruption. "Do you know what kind of business Peter Fisher and Richard Tillotson had?"

She looked up and stared at a spot just above my head. "I saw something in the antique store just off the boardwalk that had their name on it. A child's rolling pin. Bakery at the Shore." When she saw my blank look she continued. "They must have sold a toy with their name on it. Why?" she asked, suddenly suspicious of my motive.

I stood and walked the few feet to where she was sitting and showed her the ledger. "I figured it had to do with food. They must have baked a lot of bread – look at all the yeast they bought." I pointed to the neatly inscribed list of ingredients, which included twenty pounds of yeast.

Aunt Madge laughed. "Yeast was also used to make whiskey you know."

"Oh, right. Prohibition." I looked at the ledger again. "A bakery would be a good cover, wouldn't it?"

"Sure." She picked up her magazine again. "Almost everything on there except the lard and molasses could go into hootch." She looked down at her magazine and then back at me. "And some rum recipes call for molasses."

As I settled back onto the couch I decided to forgo asking her how she knew what went into the recipe for hootch.
CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN MY FANNY DONUT and I joined Scoobie in the library the next afternoon he was intrigued by the seemingly nonsensical lists of numbers on some of the back pages of the ledgers. I had given up on these, figuring that if they were income from an illegal moonshine business they would be deliberately obscure.

Scoobie's eyes lit up. "I'm going to play some of these."

"Play..."?

"The lottery." He pulled a small notebook from his knapsack and began writing down several lines of numbers.

I left him to his copying and went to the reference section to look at some of the business directories from the 1920s. I plopped them down on the table next to Scoobie and opened the directory from 1928. Bakery at the Shore was at 227 C Street. I thought for a minute. The 200 block was between Main Street and Seaside Avenue, but it seemed unlikely that the building was still there.

I placed the directories back on the shelves and, after saying goodbye to Scoobie, I drove slowly across C Street. The building at 227 C Street looked old enough to have been standing in the 1920s. It was vacant, and a sign had been covered in white paint. Still visible were the words "Little Mamas Café." Sitting in the window was a for sale sign for none other than Lester Argrow's real estate firm.

After parking in the Burger King lot I walked over to the First Bank building and climbed the side stairway to Lester's small office on the second floor. The last time I'd visited him there cigar smoke had wafted down the hallway. Given its absence, I figured he was out, but as I moved down the narrow hall I could see the light under his door. I knocked.

There was a very loud sneeze and he said, "Come in" as he concurrently blew his nose.

Charming.

I opened the door and he gestured me in. "Hey, Jolie! Good to see you." He moved a pile of newspapers off the client chair and pointed that I could sit down. "What's up?"

"I wondered about the building you have listed at 227 C. Is it..."

"Hey, you gonna break away from the geezer and set up your own shop? That'd be great. We could really go to town..."

"First, Harry is not a geezer." I took a breath, not wanting to antagonize Lester. I like getting business from him. "I wondered who owned it and if you knew the history of the building."

He studied me for a couple of seconds, then grinned. "You're investigating, ain't you?"

Coming here was a mistake. I had forgotten for a moment how painfully awkward Lester's amateur detective methods were. "Not investigating. Just interested in the Tillotson family since I seemed to have met one of its older members."

He barked his distinctive laugh. "You know Mary Doris Milner? She owns it."

Why did I know that name? Then I remembered this was the name of Richard Tillotson's seeming girlfriend. "I think Aunt Madge knows her."

"Funny broad." At my expression he added, "Mary Doris, not your aunt. After she retired from teaching she ran the bingo down at the Catholic Church. Here I am, a Jew, and I still donate to the Catholics." He blew his nose again. "Can't shake this cold."

My mind was going in circles. Why did Richard's girlfriend of so long ago own that building? Had he left it to her? I gave myself a mental slap to the head, reminding myself that Richard likely was murdered long before he thought to make a will, and he probably didn't own the building anyway. Why was I talking to Lester when I could go to the courthouse and trace the building's ownership? I stood, "Gee, I should leave you and your cold alone."

"Hey, you just got here." Lester stood, all 5 feet seven inches of him. I noticed he had trimmed the hair in the mole on the side of his face.

"Really, you're busy," I almost stammered. "I told Aunt Madge I'd help fix dinner." I started out the door.

"Don't you even want to know what she's asking?" he called after me. I turned back toward him and he said, "Only $127,500. It's a steal."

That stopped me. "That is a steal. Why so low?"

He stood outside his office, hands in his pockets, jiggling his loose change. "I think her niece, the attorney, wants to buy it."

"Annie Milner? What could she want with a run-down building?"

He shrugged and turned to go back into his office. "That's what I heard is all."

I walked slowly down the steps and back toward my car. If Annie did want it, wouldn't Mary Doris sell it to her without a real estate agent? Then again, sometimes people put a house on the market just to see what it could bring before they sold it to a family member. Maybe that's what Mary Doris Milner was doing.

I STARED AT THE NOTES I'd made when reviewing the former bakery's ownership history at the courthouse. Peter Fisher sold the building in 1939. I assumed a true bakery did not bring in as much money as a bakery that was a front for liquor sales. During the 1940s, the building changed ownership several times, for less money each time. A couple of times I had a clue what it was used for because ownership was in a business name rather than an individual's. My personal favorite was The Teatotaler's Cup. This was in 1946. It sounded as if someone was sorry Prohibition ended. And maybe needed a spelling lesson.

It had the same owner from just after World War II and into the mid-1950s, a man named Joseph Sloan. Mary Doris Milner bought it from him in 1956 for $17,000. That was the last sale on record. A visit to the Assessor's Office showed 227 C Street was appraised at $171,000. The retired schoolteacher had it for sale at almost $50,000 under its assessed value. I was surprised Lester was letting her get away with this; it would lower his commission. "Why would she do that?" I mused to myself.

"What are you muttering about?" Aunt Madge called from her kitchen table where she writing in the notebook that serves as her accounting records.

"Mary Doris Milner has owned that building on C Street since 1956, and she has it for sale way less than the assessed value." I looked at Aunt Madge. "Why do you suppose she'd do that?"

"Maybe she just wants to be rid of it." Aunt Madge looked thoughtful. "I haven't seen her in some time. I don't know what her mental acuity is."

I DECIDED TO CHECK MARY DORIS MILNER'S mental acuity myself. She lived in the senior living center that I had first visited a couple of months ago. One wing is assisted living, another more a nursing home, and a third is for people with dementia. The small foyer had the same smell of disinfectant, but it was now festooned with Christmas decorations. I signed in at the front desk and got directions to Mary Doris' room from a bored-looking volunteer. She was in the nursing home wing. I knocked gently, not sure what to expect from a 94-year old woman.

"Come in if you've got chocolate," came a much stronger voice than I expected.

"I don't have any today, but I could bring you some tomorrow." What I had brought was a canning jar with some carnations from the grocery store, which I had clipped to fit into the jar. I took in her small room, which had a hospital-style bed and wheeled table but also a large flat-screen TV that sat on an antique bureau, and a tall set of shelves that was crammed with books, photo albums, and several boxes of various kinds of chocolate candy.

Her gaze was direct and not altogether friendly. Mary Doris was sitting in a recliner, and she muted the TV as she spoke. "I don't believe I know you, miss." She looked me up and down, and her eyes met mine when she was done. Though she looked too frail to do much walking, unlike the loose-fitting housecoats most other female residents wore she had on a sweater of deep purple, slacks with an elastic waistband, and a pair of tennis shoes, giving the impression that she was about to go out.

"You don't, but I know your niece Annie Milner." I sat the jar of flowers on a small table next to her bed. My name is Jolie Gentil, and Madge Richards is..."

"Your aunt. I haven't seen her for ages. You're the appraiser who found Ruth Riordan's body." She leaned forward, and I realized that she had a cataract in each eye and probably could not see me very well.

I pulled a small card-table chair close to her and sat. "Yes, that was me."

"I," she said. When I gave her a puzzled look she added, "Not 'that was me.' It's 'that was I'"

I smiled. "Aunt Madge said you taught for many years. I take it your subject was English."

She nodded. "I've been retired more than thirty years, longer than I taught. I don't believe Ocean Alley High has had a decent English teacher since. I base my judgment on the conversations I hear around here." She smiled as she spoke. "Of course, if I correct them they tell me I'm old-fashioned."

I was not sure how to broach the Tillotson family. After all, the photos of her and Richard made it pretty clear they were boyfriend and girlfriend in her younger days. "Right now I'm doing an appraisal of the old Tillotson house."

At my words she sat up straighter and glanced out the window at a bird feeder that was placed close to it.

I continued, "Gracie Fisher, she's Gracie Allen now, inherited it from her grandmother, and she's putting it on the market." I paused, taking in her now-pursed lips.

She turned to face me again. "Why are you coming to me?"

"I don't know if you read about it, but when I was in the attic I opened an old wardrobe and..."

"You found Richard." She said this in a matter-of-fact tone.

"The police aren't certain, they're doing some tests."

"They may not be certain, but I am." Her eyes filled with tears. "He would never have left me." Her voice was almost a whisper. "Never!"

I reached over and touched her arm. "I'm sorry to upset you."

She cleared her throat. "It was a long time ago, but I still think of him often." She regarded me intently. "I supposed Madge has told you what happened?"

"She did, and I read a couple of the newspaper articles. They're on microfilm at the library." I paused, uncertain how to approach the photo albums. "There were also some photo albums in the attic, and there were some pictures of you and..."

Her face lit up like the Christmas tree in the foyer. "Audrey Fisher's albums?" I haven't seen those in, well, I don't know when. Since before the war, I suppose." She looked toward the bird feeder again, and for a few seconds we both looked at the small sparrow pecking at the bits of dried corn sitting on the birdhouse rim.

"Do you have them? The albums?" she asked.

"Not with me, but I'd be happy to bring a couple of them over for you to look at."

"She gave a firm nod, and pointed toward her bookcase." The only photo I have of the two of us is just over there." As I rose to find it among several on the shelves she continued. "The Tillotsons had a fair bit of money, so they were always taking pictures."

I retrieved the frame and studied it as I sat down next to her again. It was one of the pictures commercial photographers took of tourists on the old Ocean Alley boardwalk. Back then, prior to the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, the boardwalk was much wider and a pier extended into the ocean. A smiling Mary Doris and Richard Tillotson had their backs to the pier and the old wooden Ferris wheel was visible behind them. Richard's arm was around her shoulder and her head was tilted slightly toward his shoulder.

I could feel her stare and looked up. "Looks as if that was a happy day."

"It was. That was only about two months before he disappeared. I used to say "before he died," but it upset Audrey. Of course, she's long gone." She sighed. "You should promise yourself you won't outlive all your friends."

I set the framed photo back on her shelf and turned to face her. "So you were pretty sure he didn't just leave."

"Positive." Her strident tone seemed to surprise her as much as me. "Aside from the fact that we were talking about getting married, he and Peter Fisher were fighting like all get-out." She paused.

"I never told Audrey, but I talked to the police about that at the time. But Peter Fisher was an established man of business, and Richard was known more for tinkering with his old Model T and being a bit tipsy. People said he only had a job at the bakery because Peter dated his sister." She frowned. "The police thought I was just a girl who'd been jilted and didn't want to believe he'd simply left."

"I thought Richard and Peter were in business together."

"In a manner of speaking, yes." She studied me critically. "You're not writing some book or something, are you?"

"No ma'am. I feel..." I thought for a moment. "I feel as if finding him, assuming it was him, makes me responsible for learning more about him. I know it's too late to find out what actually happened." I stopped and looked at her. "You probably think I'm just being nosy."

She shrugged. "Doesn't really matter what I think. You say you'll bring those albums?"

"Sure. Tomorrow, if you like." I glanced around her room. "They aren't in very good shape, you couldn't hold them on your lap."

"I'll ask the staff to put up a card table in here for a couple of days. Now, fair's fair. I'll tell you a bit about Richard." She leaned back in her recliner and closed her eyes. If Aunt Madge were with me, she'd say we should let her rest and come back tomorrow. I didn't want to wait until tomorrow.

She opened her eyes again and smiled, more to herself than to me. "I used to sell taffy in the shop on the boardwalk. They made it there, and people would look through the glass at that noisy machine. It was real taffy, not this dry stuff they sell now. Anyway, Richard came in almost every day to buy a couple of pieces."

"I was so dumb, I thought he really just wanted taffy." Her expression brightened. "He finally got up the nerve to ask me if I wanted to go for ice cream with him. He was a bit older than I was, so my parents weren't too crazy about him at first. But, once they got to know him they liked him a lot."

I studied her for a few seconds as she paused, a dreamy look on her face.

"We'd go riding in that silly car of his," she continued. "Every time we went outside of town he got a flat." She stopped and I sensed she was trying to compose herself.

"There were some old ledgers in the attic too. It looked as if they had a pretty busy bakery."

She laughed aloud. "They had a bakery and tea shop, but that was just the public part of the business. What they really did was sell whiskey."

"Whiskey?" I asked, pretending not to know.

Mary Doris laughed. "Your Aunt Madge's husband knew them well. What was his name?"

"Uncle Gordon. Gordon Richards. Aunt Madge told me he helped his uncle bring in bootlegged whiskey and rum from just offshore. My father calls him Rumrunner Gordon."

"That's true. I suppose you could say they were competitors, but your uncle brought in hootch for the speakeasy in the hotel, and Peter and Richard mostly sold to individuals. Folks would come in to buy bread and they'd leave with a pint wrapped in the thick paper with it."

"And they never got caught?" I asked.

"There were some close calls, but a couple of guys in the police department bought from them, so mostly they were OK. When the revenuers from Treasury came snooping they would let local police know, so Richard and Peter had a bit of warning."

She laughed. "They had a large mirror along a side wall, and another on the closet where they hid the whiskey. Of course, customers didn't know it was a closet, the mirror hid the opening. Richard said a couple of times they saw a Treasury guy in the mirror before he actually got in the bakery." She chuckled. "Richard was such a kidder. One day when Peter was in the closet Richard shut him in and put a couple of crates of flour in front of the mirror."

I didn't say anything to this. Mary Doris might think it was funny, but if Peter Fisher was as stiff as his photographs, then I doubted he found any humor in the situation.

"Did they make it in the storage area?" I asked.

"Goodness no. People would have smelled it. Some they bought, some they made up in that very attic you fell out of. Audrey and Richard's mother wasn't too bright. Richard told her it was his 'bachelor pad." Mary Doris thought for a moment. "The hard part was getting glass bottles to sell it in. Mostly they used canning jars. The regulars would bring their own bottles or decanters."

"Were you at Audrey's wedding to Peter Fisher?"

"Oh yes." "Her look darkened. "Richard most definitely did not step on her dress on purpose. Audrey felt very bad later, that she'd accused him of that. She really missed him too." There was a catch in her voice. "She and Richard were a good bit older than the younger two children, and their mother had a 'weak constitution,' as they called it back then. I guess now we'd say she was depressed. Anyway, Audrey and Richard were very good to the youngest two."

"Are they still around?" When she gave me a puzzled look, I said, "The younger two children."

"Oh, Sophie and Robert. He died young. Well, he was fifty, I consider that very young. After high school she went to some school for girls in the city and then she married during the war, and they moved away, Chicago." Her expression brightened. "She rarely came home and I had lost touch with her. But she actually came by the day after...the day after..." She teared up and reached for a tissue, which I pulled from the tissue holder and handed to her.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked." It was one of my rare moments of feeling guilty.

"I don't mind." She dabbed at her eyes. "That's been the one nice thing about the publicity about Richard being found. Other than me knowing with absolute certainty, I mean." She tossed the tissue into a trash can a few feet away and grinned at me. "Should have gone out for the Knicks."

"You would have been a crowd pleaser." I wanted her to continue, but recognized that I couldn't rush her.

"Someone called Sophie to tell her about you and Gracie finding the skeleton, and darned if Sophie didn't have her grandson drive her to see me the next morning."

"From Chicago?" I almost said "at her age" but caught myself.

"She lives in Cape May now. She's been a widow for a long time. In her late seventies but looks 15 years younger. Said she walks two miles every day."

I mentally filed that bit of information. "Richard was the big love of your life, wasn't he?"

"Oh yes." She sighed. "I never did meet anyone else I cared that much about. But," she noted my look of sympathy, "I enjoyed teaching, and I was very close to my brother and his family." Mary Doris glanced at the bird feeder again, and I wondered what fascination it held.

"You said that he would never have left you. Did you think he'd had an accident or..."

"Nonsense," she said, briskly. "I firmly believe Peter killed him. They were having some kind of running fight about their business, but Richard never said exactly what." She shrugged, "Probably over money. Peter put more money into their business than Richard did, but Richard thought he did a lot more of the work. He felt that Peter treated him more like a lowly employee than a partner."

She leaned her head back and her expression was drained. I realized I had probably stayed too long, and decided to try to talk more tomorrow. Maybe I could work in a discussion of the building she had for sale. Or, the photo albums might bring more memories to light. I stood to leave, and as I did so she grasped my hand very tightly with both of hers. "Do you believe me?"

"Of course." I paused. "The photos of the two of you show a couple very much in love."

"Yes, yes. We really were." She dabbed at her eyes again.

"I'm sorry if I upset you."

She dismissed my apology with a wave of the hand. "It's been a long time." She smiled up at me. "I'm really looking forward to seeing those pictures."

I WALKED TOWARD the lobby so deep in thought that I did not pay attention to the person coming toward me in the hallway. When she called my name I came to a quick stop and looked into Annie Milner's eyes.

"Jolie, you look..." she paused, "Is your aunt here?"

"No, in fact, I was visiting your Aunt Mary Doris." Was it my imagination or did she look shocked?

"I didn't realize you knew her." She shifted a shopping bag from one arm to another.

I thought fast. I didn't want her to think I was bothering her aunt. "I don't, but I saw her photo in the albums, the albums from the Tillotson's attic," I explained, at her puzzled expression. "I thought she might like to know of them. I told her I would bring them back tomorrow." I nodded at her bags. "Looks as if you're getting ready to move in."

She smiled, tightly. "Aunt Mary Doris is allergic to fragrances, so I take her nightgowns home to launder."

"That's really good of you." I made a mental note to see if Aunt Madge was allergic to anything. I couldn't remember her talking about any allergies.

"She and I have been close all my life. It's no trouble." We looked at each other awkwardly. "I'll see you." She continued down the hall.

I looked at her back for a few seconds. She's quite a bit taller than my five feet two inches and has very erect posture, almost like a model. I watched her neck-length dark brown hair bounce up and down with a couple of steps and then turned toward the automatic door.

What is she up tight about? It seemed to me that Annie Milner doing her aunt's laundry was the kind of thing that would give her a few points with voters, at least the ones Aunt Madge's age.

SCOOBIE WAS READY TO BE DONE with inventorying the attic. "You aren't up there sneezing your brains out," were his exact words when I met him for coffee at Java Jolt the next day.

I nodded slowly as I sipped my coffee. "That's true. What if..."

"You're going to say what if you did some of the work upstairs, and the answer is still no."

I pointed at the book he had sitting in front of him, the first edition of All Quiet on the Western Front. "You sure you don't want to find any more treasures like that one?"

"I should probably find something less depressing to read." He nodded at two younger men as they came in the door, apparently fresh from a stroll on the cold beach, and turned his attention back to me. "I know what you're doing. You want to guilt me into it."

Scoobie knows me too well. "Guilt, no. I guess the whole thing has my..."

"Dander up?" he asked, not concealing his smile. "Hard-headed nature in full gear?"

I ignored his jibe. "I was going to say it has my interest. It isn't every day you find so many old things so well preserved."

He almost snorted. "You don't give a flying fig. You want to know how that skeleton got in there."

"And you don't?"

He shrugged. "When we didn't know he was there we didn't care. I still don't." He reached in a pocket of his well worn pea jacket and extracted a folded piece of paper. "Read this." He shoved it across the small table.

homesick dreams

fly with angels

where they were born

they'll never die

sometimes lonesome

souls forget

future memory

truth becomes lie

not quite a dream

not near awake

reality of illusion

surreal and sublime

wonderful mystery

eyesight to blind

transcend your karma

in this life time

I sat staring at the paper for a moment. Sometimes I could understand Scoobie's poetry, sometimes not. This seemed to be the latter. I looked at him. "Did you just write this?"

"Yep, can't you see why?"

He had the intent look he often wore when he talked about his poetry. I never failed to feel like an uneducated buffoon, sensing there was so much I didn't understand. "You talk about..." I looked at the paper again, "Truth becoming lies. Are you talking about me wanting to find out how Richard got there?"

"So," he took the paper back and refolded it. "You're on a first name basis with a skeleton?"

Sensing his strong disappointment, I talked fast. "I'm sorry if I don't understand it. You know I'm not, not literary like you are."

At this, he grinned widely. "What you aren't is very introspective. But that's OK." He opened the paper. "Seeing that attic, what they thought of as junk, I figure they had a lot of stuff, and they seemed to like their lives. I mean, they took all those pictures." He paused for several seconds and folded the poem again, "But all that's left is beat-up belongings, ledger books, and of course the dead guy. What difference does it make?"

I didn't like his thought process, and tried to think of a positive spin to put on his poetry. I was also trying to remember the poem. "You talked about homesick, and, uh, souls and flying with angels. They, um, they're all dead, I guess."

At this he laughed so loudly that the few other people in Java Jolt glanced at us. "You're ok, kiddo." He swallowed the last of his decaf coffee. "I'll help you finish the attic, but I've got some stuff to write just now." He stood and bent to kiss me on the cheek, an unusual gesture for him. "I'll meet you here tomorrow morning and we'll head over to Richard's former home." He slung his knapsack over his shoulder and was gone.

I knew he wasn't mad that I didn't get his poem, but I figured he wished I did. I looked over toward Joe, whose eyes had followed Scoobie out the door. He glanced at me and half shrugged. "You're the one who likes him so much. And you don't get him."

Whenever Joe talked about Scoobie it made me want to defend him. "He's just..." I was going to say something lofty, like that he was deeper or smarter than me, but Joe interjected.

"Different." He grinned again. "You're good for him. Used to be he'd come buy coffee and just sit outside. Now he actually socializes."

As Joe went back to arranging a stack of mugs on the tall table that was the self-serve area for the winter crowd I turned back to my own coffee. I was sorry I had not kept in touch with Scoobie. He'd made me laugh a lot during a tough time in my life, and I forgot about him almost as soon as my parents finished 'working things out' and I returned to my cozy life in Lakewood. I stopped as I stood to collect my purse and put on my coat. I didn't even know where Scoobie had gone after high school. What kind of friend are you?

AUNT MADGE WAS NOT PLEASED that I had visited Mary Doris Milner and assumed I was taking the photo album to the nursing home for my benefit and not Mary Doris'. She was right, to a point. "At first I went because I wanted to know what she knows. Now, I like her."

Aunt Madge turned from the fridge, where she was placing leftover muffins from the morning's breakfast. "So what if you do? Those pictures might upset her. She's old."

"Actually," I chose my words carefully, "She reminds me of you. She's, uh, spunky."

"I hate that word," Aunt Madge snapped, closing the fridge harder than usual. "You wouldn't call a career woman spunky."

My eyes actually widened. She almost never snapped at me. "I meant it as a compliment. You've both lost men you loved and you didn't let it stop you."

Perhaps sensing he should put in his two cents, Mr. Rogers chose that moment to sit up from his prone position and give a huge stretch, complete with a high-pitched sort of mutter.

"See," I seized the diversion, "He agrees."

She looked from me to Mr. Rogers and back to me, her expression softening somewhat. "I just don't want her hurt again. She had a lonely life, despite all those kids she taught."

I started to say Mary Doris had her niece, but changed my mind. "Why don't you come to the nursing home with me?"

She shook her head. "I'm having lunch with Harry." She bent to pat Miss Piggy on the head. The two dogs had come up to her expectantly, as if assuming her attention meant they were getting a treat.

"Why?"

"Why do you have coffee with Scoobie?" she asked, as she turned to get the plastic bowl of treats from the cupboard.

"He's my friend..." I began.

She turned and pointed a finger at me. "Bingo."

I WAS HAVING INTERESTING conversations with people, but I wasn't making money doing appraisals and I didn't know much more about Richard Tillotson than I had guessed before I met Mary Doris. As I drove toward her nursing home I went a block out of my way so I could look at the ocean. The wind was fairly steady at about twenty miles per hour, and I wanted to see the whitecaps. The ocean looks so much darker on a cool, half-cloudy day and the tips of the waves stand out even more. I like that.

Some parts of the boardwalk are a few steps up off the street, but as it swings northwest it's lower, so you get a clear look of the ocean from your car. No one was walking on that stretch of beach today, too cool and windy. I turned left and drove the block to the senior home and snagged a space near the front door. I was glad; my tailbone was a bit better, but the photo album was heavy.

It wasn't until I was halfway down the corridor that led to Mary Doris' room that I saw a man in a suit talking to a nurse, and as her eyes met mine she raised a hand and pointed toward me. The man looked, too, and I didn't think Sgt. Morehouse looked at all glad to see me.
CHAPTER EIGHT

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" he asked, sharply.

I nodded toward her room, "Visiting Mary Doris Milner."

Morehouse and the nurse exchanged looks and he said, more quietly, "I'm sorry to tell you she died early this morning."

I can't say I was 100 percent surprised. She was old, but she didn't look sick. And I probably did upset her. I tried to hide my consternation by saying, "I'm sorry to hear that."

He looked at me intently.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked.

Morehouse gave me one of his I-wish-I-never-met-you looks. "It was not expected." He turned to the nurse, "Thanks for your time. Jolie and I are just leaving."

There was no reason for me to stay. I wasn't family, so no one would discuss anything with me. I turned slowly and walked behind Morehouse, whose brisk pace was too much for my derriere. As if remembering my injury, he turned and slowed. "Want me to carry that?"

"That would be great. I'd been looking forward to setting it down." We exchanged the photo album and walked out side by side. When we got to the foyer he asked me to come down to his office, and I agreed. The C3PO character from Star Wars flashed into my mind and I could hear him say, "I have a really bad feeling about this."

I followed Morehouse's older Ford through town to the police station and he waited for me at the door, opening it for me. He must really want something, to be this nice.

When we were settled in his office, I on my donut across from his desk, he asked, "Why were you visiting her last night?"

Pointing to the photo album on his desk, I relayed how we had found it in the attic and Aunt Madge had identified Mary Doris in the photos. "I thought she might like to see the album, but I didn't know what her health was, so I stopped by to visit first. We talked, and..."

"About what?"

I stared at him, uncertain how much of her lost love life Mary Doris would want spread all over town. "She had a lot of fond memories of Richard Tillotson. She said she would love to see the albums."

He wagged a finger at me across the desk. "I'm not going to go so far as to say I know how your mind works, but I do know you can't leave stuff alone. Why did you go there?"

His look was so intense I smiled. "Not to injure her in any way." Seeing that he was about to scold me more, I added, "Yes, I did wonder if she could shed any light on Richard. You don't dance with a skeleton, fall down a ladder and forget about it." I shrugged. "She was nice. I told her I know her niece, Annie, and I think that made her comfortable talking to me."

"Did you talk about Richard Tillotson and Peter Fisher?" he asked, almost accusingly.

"A bit. She didn't like him, Peter I mean." I nodded slightly, remembering. "She said Richard locked him in the storage closet that was hidden behind a mirror, where they stored the bootlegged whiskey."

As Morehouse flipped open a small notebook and reached for a pen, I asked, "Why does this matter, anyway?"

"We got the DNA results just yesterday afternoon. That was Richard Tillotson you found in the attic. Now..."

"What difference does it make? And how did you get the results so fast? I thought you told me not to bug you for ages about it."

Morehouse hesitated, and then said, "Since I know you won't blab to your reporter friend..."

I made a face and he ignored it.

"I'll tell you the results were very much expedited because Mary Doris Milner paid for the cost of a private lab to do the analysis." He seemed to enjoy the look of surprise on my face.

Though I could see why she would want to know, I was surprised the police would accept the results of a private lab, and said so.

He shrugged. "It's not really a case. We aren't likely to be able to show he was murdered. His skull has a crack, but that could have happened before or after he died." He held up a hand, as if expecting me to ask if Richard walked into the wardrobe, "and if he was, anyone who did it died many years ago."

I could feel my temper creeping to the surface. "So, it matters to me, but not to you?"

He leaned back in his chair, annoyed with me. "I didn't say that. But it's not a solvable crime with someone to punish. There's nothing to investigate, and you know it."

I nodded slowly. "I get that. But, you're talking to me now because you want something. Usually what you want is for me not to bug you."

He actually smiled, but it faded before he spoke. "Mary Doris Milner did not have an easy death. She became very ill, vomited so profusely that she was dead before the ambulance arrived. That would seem...unusual for someone who appeared to be in what for her was very good health earlier in the evening."

"Poor woman." I could feel myself tearing up and took a breath. "She was really looking forward to seeing those pictures. She only had one of her and Richard, and there are lots in there." I nodded toward the album.

He opened the cover, and I told him to go to the page I had marked with a tissue. For almost a minute he turned the several pages that had the couple's photos, then closed the album and shoved it across the table, almost in frustration. "Can't imagine these pictures having anything to do with her death."

"What did Annie say?" I asked, realizing I should have thought of her earlier. "She was on her way in last night as I was leaving. Did she think Mary Doris looked sick?"

"Haven't talked to her yet. She's over at the funeral home."

"When I talked to Mary Doris she mentioned Richard still had a sister living. Sophie, I think her name is. She lives in Cape May. They hadn't been in touch for years, but she came to visit after, you know, the skeleton."

He wrote the name in his notebook, and was irritated that I couldn't give him a last name for Sophie.

"Maybe she got married here. Her name will be in the courthouse marriage license files."

"Annie will likely know." He strummed his fingers on the desk, and then said, "You can go."

As I rose and reached for the album I winced. "Tell Annie she can call me if she wants to." I was halfway out the door when he reminded me to take my donut.

I HAD SCHEDULED a meeting of food pantry volunteers at four-thirty and even though I felt very out of sorts over Mary Doris' death I had no reason to cancel it. I got there a few minutes early and stopped by Reverend Jamison's small office, hoping against hope that he would say someone had volunteered to take the lead at the pantry. He was putting on his coat as I entered.

"You aren't coming?"

He smiled, perhaps hearing the desperation in my voice. "If I go everyone in the room will look to me. They need to see you in charge." He handed me keys to the side door of the church that led through the community room to the pantry. "Don't label these, ok? If you were to get your purse stolen I don't want someone to know what the key goes to."

I figured that was all the advice he was good for today, so I murmured goodbye and walked toward the small conference room near the community room. I could hear muffled voices, which obviously meant at least a couple of people had showed up. I had invited Scoobie, since he had gotten food there and I planned to rope him into helping me. Aunt Madge said she would come to the first meeting, since she was the member of First Prez, not me. "I'll introduce you and get a feel for who's there so I can let you know which ones will really do what they say," she had told me that morning.

When I walked in conversation stopped. I didn't recognize anyone, but held my hand out to a short man who was standing by the door. "I'm Jolie Gentil," I emphasized the soft J and G and stressed the long 'e' sound at the end of my last name. Always good to get people to pronounce my name right.

"Doctor Welby. I'm a church member and retired physician." In response to the smile he saw about to crease my face he added, "And I've heard every joke about the TV show, so don't go there."

"Promise." I thought he even looked a bit like the fictional Dr. Marcus Welby.

Dr. Welby seemed to think he was in charge of introductions, which was fine with me. "Lance Wilson, he's a deacon and he's been treasurer of the Food Pantry Committee for many years."

Lance looked to be close to ninety, which made him a good twenty or so years older than Doctor Welby. Lance had light brown hair with only a few strands of grey. He had a gray cardigan that looked as if he wore it a lot.

"Monica Martin. She's pretty good about badgering Mr. Markle at the grocery store about donations." Monica's handshake was soft, and nothing about her buttoned navy blue blazer or round face gave the impression of an ability to badger.

"Sylvia Parrett. She's our newest recruit, started last year." Sylvia's ramrod straight posture barely bent as she reached across the small table to shake hands. Her silver grey hair was in a severe bun, which made me think she was either a retired teacher or had been a drill instructor.

"And last but not least, Aretha Brown. She's great about rounding up a crew when we need extra volunteers around the holidays."

Aretha's broad smile in her dark brown face was friendly, and she was the only one to speak. "You're younger than my daughter. It's about time we had some young blood on the committee."

I could like her. "Thanks. I'm going to try to learn a lot fast." She wasn't so old herself, maybe fifty-five.

As we were taking our seats there was a bang as the door to the outside shut with the wind, and Scoobie's voice drifted down the hall. "I bet they're only just starting."

I recognized the brisk footsteps as Aunt Madge's. She hates to be late, so I figured she must have picked up Scoobie and been sidetracked somehow. The two of them entered the room, faces pink with cold, and there were calls of "Hi, Madge," and a couple of nods to Scoobie.

"Sorry to be late," Aunt Madge said as she sat and shrugged her coat off her shoulders. "We ran into Elmira at the library and she wouldn't let us go." She nodded at the others. "In part, she wanted to make it clear she was not going to serve on the Food Pantry Committee any more."

"Praise the Lord!" Aretha slapped her hand over her mouth in the second that followed, then removed it and smiled, half sheepishly. "Sorry, my Southern Baptist ways lead to loud praise."

No one said anything, but there were polite nods and Lance Wilson almost cracked a smile. I figured Elmira's gossiping ways had probably made everyone wary of talking too much when she was in the room.

Dr. Welby spoke as he moved his chair to make room for Scoobie who was pulling up one of the chairs that sat around the wall. "I assume she heard about Mary Doris Milner."

There was a small chorus of "what-do-you-means" and "what-about-Mary-Doris?" The only one besides Dr. Welby who didn't seem surprised was Lance Wilson.

"She died during the night." Aunt Madge said simply.

Scoobie caught my eye and added, "Elmira wants to know why the county medical examiner took the body when Mrs. Milner had been ill for a long time."

I listened to the expressions of sympathy for Annie Milner and a couple of comments about what a good teacher Mary Doris had been. I would have let the conversation go on longer, but it didn't seem they were going to talk about anything I didn't know, and I was determined that this meeting would end in less than an hour. When there was a two-second lag in the talk, I sauntered into the conversation. "Annie will have some free time now that she is not visiting her aunt, maybe we can invite her to help."

The term "silence is deafening" took on new meaning for me. "I meant," I almost stammered," she might like to have something to do."

Their expressions softened a bit, and I continued. "Reverend Jamison mentioned one reason he asked me to take the lead was that he thought I would continue to meet new people through my work as an appraiser, and..."

"Did he say none of us was willing to do it?" asked Dr. Welby?

My sense was he saw himself as the leader of this group, or at least a person of influence. "No. Did you, uh, want to be in charge?"

He shook his head firmly. "We're all booked pretty tight. As soon as you retire everyone from the Chamber of Commerce to the Lions Club to the animal shelter asks you to volunteer."

"Yeah, but Rev Jamison is the most persuasive," Scoobie said with a grin.

"I'll say." My tone was glum.

Aunt Madge shot me a look.

I continued. "Ok, I went through notes of some meetings to get a sense of how things work. But, that doesn't tell me the nitty gritty. I wonder if each of you could tell me something about what you do, and then maybe we can go around the room a second time and you can tell me what you think needs to change."

Aunt Madge and I had talked about a format for the meeting. She had not been to the Food Pantry Committee meetings, but she is on the church's Social Services Committee. Aunt Madge's sense was that the former food pantry chair ran roughshod over any group she chaired, and this group would appreciate a participative style. Since I was looking for others to do more of the work than I planned to do, I wanted active involvement from the people here.

I listened as Lance Wilson talked about accounting rules for about 5 minutes, and finally said what I was waiting to hear, which was that we had a balance of $2,042.16 in the food pantry account. It did not sound like much to me.

Monica Martin had been on the committee the longest, seven years. In a soft voice she said she had taken the notes at most of the meetings she attended, and offered to continue to do this. I nodded, glad not to have to ask someone to do what I regarded as an onerous job.

Sylvia Parrett spoke in clipped sentences. She had spent the last year trying to drum up additional donation sources and said she had urged, with no success, that they do food drives rather than working with just the main food bank in Lakewood or a couple of local grocery stores. "I guess I should have held that comment for when we talk about suggestions."

I thanked her, and smiled at Aretha Brown as she began to talk. "Reverend Jamison asked me to serve on the committee about two years ago. I came into the pantry and said I wanted to know the hours so I could put up signs in laundry mats. That's where a lot of poor people go, you know. I guess he figured I'd bring another perspective." She smiled almost grimly at Sylvia Parrett. I didn't know what that was about, but figured their perspectives must differ. What have I gotten myself into?

At this point, Scoobie hijacked the meeting. "I have some suggestions for change," he began.

I had not thought Sylvia Parrett's back could get any straighter, but I was wrong.

"I think," he continued, "that it would be good if we went to Mr. Markle's store and the big store on the highway and asked if we could set up a donation truck sometimes. Maybe have a big box in the stores all the time. We get the store to give people a discount to people who buy food for us. And we have a list of what we want at the stores. And if it could include Coco Puffs that would be great."

I could tell by the sidelong glance he threw my way that he added the last part in hopes of irritating Sylvia. It scares me that I know how Scoobie's mind works.

Scoobie continued. "We don't have a lot of money, I know, but I have some ideas for raising some. That way we could maybe buy more turkeys and stuff at Thanksgiving. My best idea," he looked up from his list and grinned at each person individually, "is to have a dunk tank at St. Anthony's Spring Carnival. Get a lot of people, including all of us and every big shot in town, to let people donate money to see if they can dunk us in a big tub."

To say the meeting went downhill from there would be a massive understatement. If Aunt Madge had not been sitting next to Sylvia so she could put a hand on her arm Sylvia would have left. Aretha laughed so loud at the dunk tank idea that even Scoobie looked surprised. I think I was the only one who heard Monica Martin say, "I don't even own a bathing suit," as she hugged herself.

To his credit, Doctor Welby got us back on track. "Brainstorming, that's what we're doing," he boomed. "We used to do it at the state Medical Society meetings to develop ideas to offer to the government to improve Medicare."

"Didn't work, did it?" Lance Wilson asked. He started to offer a comment about the government not balancing its books, but by that time I had taken courage from Doctor Welby and asked the others to continue with their suggestions to improve the food pantry.

Soon I had a list of fifteen suggestions, including several on how to recruit more volunteers. Those were my favorites.

Though I did not expect to like her ideas (something Aunt Madge would chastise me for even thinking), in a way Sylvia had the best one. "We need a name. Something catchy. Something that will let people know what we do without making it sound as if there is a stigma attached to coming here."

"We could have a contest," Doctor Welby said.

I managed to catch Scoobie's eye to keep him from offering an immediate idea. I wasn't sure the group could take it.
CHAPTER NINE

MY TAILBONE WAS KILLING ME from being tense for so long during the meeting, so I let Aunt Madge cook supper and did not even set the table. Scoobie did that while I lay on the sofa with two pillows under my knees. It seemed natural that he drove back to the B&B with Aunt Madge. I wanted to talk to Scoobie about Mary Doris' death and the fact that she had paid for the DNA tests on the skeleton we now knew belonged to Richard Tillotson. I had not decided whether to tell Aunt Madge this, and finally decided she'd find out anyway, which is my primary criterion for bringing up topics that might encourage her to tell me to stop poking my nose into what she perceives as not my business.

For the first time in my life something I said made Aunt Madge stop in her tracks. "Mary Doris paid for the DNA test. And then she didn't get to know," she finally said.

I glanced at Scoobie. "I think she knew. She just wanted everybody else to know." I sat up on the couch, wincing. "She thinks, thought, that Peter Fisher killed him."

"You told me you talked about the photographs!" Aunt Madge looked angrier than I'd seen her since the day I spit chocolate ice cream on Renée as my sister tried to make me sit on the porch swing instead of the front steps.

"I didn't bring it up. She did." OK, I encouraged her, but I didn't ask. I got up gingerly and moved toward the kitchen area. I intended to give her a hug, but Aunt Madge's posture was not encouraging.

"Why would she do that?" Aunt Madge snapped as she took biscuits out of the oven.

"Too late to ask her," Scoobie said. I think he regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, because he turned and went over to the train set on the floor.

I spoke to Aunt Madge's back as she scooped the biscuits into a basket. "I think she wanted to talk about him. She said he would never have left her, and she hoped finding him would prove that."

Aunt Madge's shoulders relaxed. I hated to have her mad at me. All she said was, "You can get the butter out of the fridge, Jolie."

Scoobie's eyes met mine and he wiped his hand briefly over his forehead in a 'whew' gesture.

AFTER DINNER SCOOBIE and I looked at a couple of the ledgers while Aunt Madge watched a detective show on TV and, I thought, deliberately ignored us. After twenty minutes of staring at pages of Peter Fisher's apparent shorthand, I hadn't learned anything except the price of baking ingredients in the late 1920s and that Peter was uncertain of how to spell yeast. He alternated between 'ea' and 'ee.'

"Does your book have any figures about how much they made?" Scoobie asked, as he gently moved Jazz from her spot on his lap to the floor.

I flipped through pages, seeing only the usual routine information on quantities ordered, prices, and delivery dates. "Nope."

Scoobie moved his ledger in front of me. "See, this one is for late 1928. At the end of it," he flipped to a page that started approximately the last third of the book, "you start to see figures about how much money comes in each day."

It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally understood that the numbers represented money taken in. At the top of a page was the date, and at bottom of the far right column a figure that seemed to represent a day's total. In between were sales. Sometimes there were names of customers next to amounts, sometimes product names, such as molasses cookies or tea cakes. Usually there were scratch outs by the day's total, as if the person adding the numbers wasn't very good at it.

"The first part of the ledger," Scoobie flipped back to earlier pages, "shows the ingredients they bought. What's funny," he flipped back and forth between pages at the beginning and end of the ledger, "is that it seems that they were buying more yeast and sugar and stuff, but they didn't seem to have more money coming in."

I could see what he meant and studied it for a minute. "That could make sense if the income is only for the baked good and such, the legal sales. Maybe they recorded the liquor sales in another ledger."

"I suppose so." Scoobie closed his ledger almost defiantly. "There were lots of other ledgers up there, but I gotta tell you Jolie, I'm not too keen about going through them."

I lowered my voice, "You know who's good with numbers," I began, thinking of Lance Wilson.

"You better be talking about Ramona," came Aunt Madge's voice from the recliner she sat in as she watched TV. At the sound of her voice, Mr. Rogers poked his head up from where he had been resting it on his paws. Not seeing any indication that anyone was about to pet him or provide a treat, he resumed his lethargic position.

Scoobie grinned at me. "Ramona is very good at numbers."

I rolled my eyes at him as I shut the ledger I had been studying. "That's exactly who I meant." Which was a lie. The one class I had with Ramona had been geometry, and she spent half the time drawing in the margins of the text book.

THE NEXT DAY'S Ocean Alley Press had Mary Doris Milner's obituary, with a notation that "services would be announced at a later date." As Aunt Madge refilled coffee cups for the B&B customers in the breakfast area that adjoins her living area I read every word of the obit, noting that Annie was the first survivor mentioned. I thought it odd that her name appeared before her father's – Annie was the grand niece, her father the closer relative – but figured it was because she had lived with Mary Doris in high school and visited her aunt so often in the senior home.

As the last B&B guest left the breakfast area Aunt Madge dumped coffee cups in the sink and sat next to me at her oak table, nursing a cup of tea. "Why do you suppose they don't announce the date of the service?" she mused, looking again at the obituary.

I hesitated, figuring she would accuse me of making too much of my conversation with Sgt. Morehouse yesterday. In as offhand a way as I could manage I mentioned his concern that she had not been ill until just before her death, and that he found that odd.

Aunt Madge shook her head. "Poor Annie. She shouldn't have to worry about that. Mary Doris was ancient. She probably had a stomach flu and her body couldn't handle it."

Foul play seemed about as likely as a pale-skinned lifeguard in July, but I didn't think Sgt. Morehouse would let the idea drop until he was sure Mary Doris died of a virus or something equally benign. "I think I'll give Annie a call."

Aunt Madge shot me a look. "To see if she's OK. She was really close to her aunt." I started upstairs to shower and dress before calling her. I had my foot on the bottom stair leading up to my room when Jazz flew across the floor in pursuit of a chipmunk, which darted under an antique washstand that sat in the hallway.

"Damn!" I jerked back and the pain shot from my tailbone to knees. Fortunately, Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy were outside. I looked at Jazz, poised in front of the washstand, ready to pounce. "I can't believe that little thing can outrun you."

Aunt Madge walked over and stood looking down at Jazz. "I'd really prefer that Adam get the thing out of here. Cats play with their captives, and it comes down to torture."

I waited a beat before responding. "Maybe you should ask Scoobie to sleep on the sofa one night."

"Don't be silly. Harry said he'd get me a small live animal trap. Then I can catch it and release it in someone else's yard."

"Didn't you say there were two?"

All Aunt Madge said was, "Hmmm."

ANNIE'S HOME NUMBER was unlisted, so I called her office to see if I could talk them into giving it to me. I was surprised when the secretary put me through to her. "Annie. I didn't think, I mean..."

She politely cut me off. "Prosecutor Small said I didn't have to be here, but it's easier than sitting at home."

"That makes sense. "I was just calling to see if you were okay. She was," I paused, "your aunt was the liveliest ninety-four year old I ever expect to meet."

Annie gave a small chuckle. "She was so excited about the photos you were going to show her she had me go out and buy a couple of small frames. She was going to ask you to make her copies of a couple of them."

Anxious to overcome the lump in my throat, I told her I would be happy to make copies of a few pictures Annie picked out. I doubted Gracie would mind. There was a pause of several seconds before Annie said, "I don't think so, Jolie. I have a lot of pictures of Mary Doris, and I want to remember her the way I knew her."

Though I was surprised, I figured she was entitled to her thoughts. I remembered that Mary Doris had said she had few photos from the time she spent with Richard Tillotson, having characterized photography as a hobby of the rich in the 1920s. "Would your mom or dad like any, do you think?"

Annie's laugh bordered on harsh. "They rarely spoke the last 15 years." As if sensing the tone of her response, she added, "I'll let them know you offered. Listen, Jolie, I have to get ready for a deposition." She hung up.

Aunt Madge, sitting next to me nursing a cup of tea, said, "If Gracie doesn't want those albums, the historical society here would likely love to have them."

The phone rang, a loud tone since the portable receiver was sitting on Aunt Madge's oak table. It took me a few seconds to decipher Scoobie's excited voice. "Remember I told you I was going to play some of those numbers?"

"Uh, play..." I stuttered.

"The lottery, some of the strings of numbers from the ledgers. I just won fifty dollars." His excited voice was loud, and Aunt Madge looked interested.

My brain clunked into gear and I remembered Scoobie talking about the lottery one day in the library. "That's great. You going to spend it all in one place?"

"I'm taking you to lunch today. Where do you want to go? Any place but Java Jolt is OK with me."

Aunt Madge gave me an amused look as she stood to carry her tea mug to the sink. I thought for a couple of seconds. "What about Newhart's? Aunt Madge got me hooked on that."

"Great. I'm at the library. Darlene's letting me use her phone. You can pick me up any time after noon." He didn't wait for me to agree before he hung up.

"So," Aunt Madge said, "Scoobie's flush." She started toward the stairs, likely to check the room of her one guest to see if they had used all their towels or left a note saying clean sheets were needed.

After apologizing for the tenth time that my tailbone and I could not help, I pulled the file of food pantry folders to me. Sylvia Parrett was managing the name contest, with suggestion boxes in several churches and the library. That was a big help, but I still had to figure out what we needed to order from the food bank in Lakewood. This food pantry gig is old already.

NEWHART'S IS A CASUAL place that is popular with summer tourists and year-round residents as well. Arnie Newhart gives large servings and the blue plate specials he serves in the off-season are always a bargain. Mostly it's fun to look at all the local photos and memorabilia that line the walls. A couple of years ago Arnie inherited a bit of money from his mother and he replaced the Formica tables and wobbly metal chairs with booths around the walls and wood tables with Windsor-style chairs that look as if they were built to last a long time.

As we ate crab cakes and clam chowder Scoobie enlightened me on how he had picked the winning combination of numbers. "This one page had so many erase marks it caught my eye. Looked as if they couldn't figure what their take was for that week. Anyway, I needed six numbers, so I took their final daily sales tally from each day – because they were closed Sunday. Everything cost so much less back then that all the numbers were under fifty."

He bit into the second half of his crab cake and I pointed at him with my soup spoon. "If I'd known it was that easy I'd have waited 'til you won a bigger pot and we could go into New York to see a show."

"Ish too much." He swallowed a bite. "I can't make too much in a month or I lose my benefits, and I haven't figured out how to live life without meds yet." He grinned at me. "And anyone who knew me before I got clean and sober and went on meds would be sure to tell you I need them."

"Right." Since I had not seen Scoobie in this phase of his life, I had a hard time envisioning him drunk or seriously stoned. "You still thinking about becoming a radiology tech?"

Before he could answer, someone near the door said, "Hey Scoobie. Heard you came into some money." It was Ramona's boss, Roland, and his smile was friendly.

Scoobie grinned back. "Yeah, it's a lot to me." Roland gave a thumb up gesture and moved to a table on the other side of the small eatery.

Scoobie pulled one of the small ledgers from a pocket of his coat and opened it to a page marked with one of the several ribbons that extended from the top of the binding. "See, today I'm going to use the numbers at the bottom of this page."

I feigned interest. Since Robby's arrest I have little desire to talk about any form of wagering.

Scoobie was onto his third marked page when he looked up and seemed to catch my lack of enthusiasm. "Jeez, I'm sorry Jolie, I should have thought..." his voice trailed off.

I didn't want to be a killjoy. "I'm really glad you won, especially since I got lunch out of the deal. And," I hesitated before continuing, "you're not going to pour all your money into lottery tickets or slots. Most people just have fun." Part of me wondered if my former marijuana smoking friend would be easily addicted to the possibility of winning regularly.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, when I tell them about this at AA at least five of the guys will tell me to watch out for that." His eyes grew brighter as he picked up his mug of decaf coffee. "I'll offer to give them some of my picks, that'll shake 'em up."

We added some of Arnie's chocolate pie to our meals and then I dropped Scoobie at the library and headed over to the Purple Cow to check Ramona's schedule for helping with the attic inventory. Despite their antics as they rooted through old clothes and such, the team of Ramona and Scoobie worked a lot faster than if Scoobie was searching by himself and hollering down to me.

Ramona's white board was inside the store today as the wind had picked up over night. Today it read, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat tire." The first part was in Ramona's handwriting, the second in someone else's, meaning Scoobie must have stopped by to tell her about his good fortune and taken advantage of her inattention while Ramona helped a customer. Since the board was angled toward the entry, she hadn't seen the editing.

"Hello Jolie," came Ramona's lilting voice from the counter near the cash register. She had on a skirt in deep purple that came to mid-calf and a lavender top with deep purple trim around the v-neck. Only Ramona could pull off that outfit, and for the twentieth time since returning to Ocean Alley in October I was conscious of her strong sense of style and my feeling of ineptness around her. No one would call my brown corduroys and gold turtleneck ugly, but no one would take a second look, either.

"Did you talk to Scoobie?" she asked, as she stooped to pick up a pen.

"Yes, and I figured he'd been in." Before she could ask why I added, "We saw Roland at Newhart's and Mr. Purple Cow congratulated Scoobie."

Ramona nodded, but her expression looked more concerned than happy for Scoobie. "I'm worried that a lot of people will hear him talking about what all's in the attic." When I gave her a puzzled look she continued, "There's no security system at the house, at least not that I saw, and there are a lot of antiques in that attic."

"Ah, I get your drift." I watched Ramona wipe a smudge off the countertop with glass cleaner and a paper towel. "Don't you think it would be tough for someone to sneak in and out of there with a load of stuff?"

"Yes, but they don't know that until they're in there."

With this cheery thought rattling around in my brain I set up a couple of times to go look through the attic some more and then trekked over to the Food Pantry. Megan was going to train a new volunteer on how to manage the front counter, and I figured I needed to know how the place worked.
CHAPTER TEN

AS I DRANK ORANGE juice the next morning I stared unhappily at a short Ocean Alley Press article about Scoobie's good luck. Winning fifty dollars was hardly a big news story, but I knew George Winters was looking for anything to write about the Fisher-Tillotson house and its skeleton discovery. At least the story didn't mention the kind of business the ledgers dealt with. I was pretty sure Gracie did not want her family's moonshine roots noted on the front page of the paper.

Scoobie and I picked up Ramona at three o'clock at the Purple Cow and we headed to the Fisher-Tillotson house to continue our inventory. We hadn't been at it long when my cell phone rang. "Where you at?" asked Sgt. Morehouse without so much as a hello.

"At the old Fisher house," I tried to keep irritation out of my tone. I wasn't obliged to tell him what I was up to.

"What the hell are you doing over there?" he bellowed. I dropped the phone, but it didn't keep me from hearing him as the phone skidded across the hardwood floor, stopping just at the edge of the stairs that lead down to the first floor. Words such as "crime scene" and "don't touch anything" drifted up to me.

I leaned down painfully and picked up the phone and held it a few inches from my ear. "We're doing an inventory of the attic for Gracie. What do you mean 'crime scene'?" I looked up to see Ramona's and Scoobie's heads looking down through the trap door.

"I'm on my way over there." Morehouse hung up and Scoobie came down the attic ladder faster than I would have thought possible.

"What are you...?" I began.

"He doesn't like me, and he isn't first on my Christmas card list either," said Scoobie as he started down the stairs.

"Jeez, Scoobie, we're supposed to be here."

He paused and gave me a look that said "that won't make any difference."

"I mean, go if you want, but we aren't doing anything wrong," I added, feeling kind of naive as he looked at me.

Ramona was making her way carefully down the attic ladder. She had to gather her wide skirt in her hand so it didn't catch on a ladder hinge, so she was holding onto the ladder with only one hand. Scoobie walked the few steps back to the ladder and steadied it. "Don't you own a pair of jeans?" he asked as she stepped onto the hallway floor.

"One, but I don't know where it is." She fixed a stern gaze on Scoobie. "You're acting like you've done something wrong. You aren't sitting here smoking a joint."

The slamming of a car door at the front of the house told me the discussion was moot. Morehouse must have been on his mobile phone when he called. "I'll let him in," Ramona said as she walked down the steps.

MOREHOUSE SEEMED TO have calmed down a bit since his bombastic phone call. As he and Ramona walked up the steps together he asked her if she still volunteered as an art instructor at the local Boys and Girls Club. Her answer did not carry up the steps. When he saw me his expression grew harsh. "Have you moved much up there?"

I met his gaze directly. "Of course we have. We're doing an inventory and Gracie didn't say you had asked her not to touch anything."

His posture sagged a bit and he ran his hand through his hair. "We just got the autopsy report from the medical examiner. Mary Doris Milner did not die of natural causes."

Uncertain I could keep standing, I sat back on the sewing machine stool and adjusted my donut. Scoobie leaned against the ladder and Ramona sat on the top step of the stairs that lead to the first floor. Scoobie spoke first. "I liked her. She used to see me working on poetry in the library and sometimes she'd read some of it."

Morehouse gave him a barely perceptible nod and turned his attention to me, but before he could say anything I asked, "How did she die?"

For a few seconds he seemed to have some sort of an internal debate with himself, then he said, "Methyl alcohol poisoning."

"But, but...you mean she drank herself to death?" I couldn't imagine how she had gotten enough alcohol for that. Or whether she would even be able to drink that much.

Before Morehouse could answer, Scoobie said, "It's not the kind of alcohol that's in what you drink. It's made from wood, not grains." He folded his arms across his chest and looked directly at Morehouse. "During Prohibition a lot of moonshiners made whiskey using it and a lot of people died. People would drink anything." He glanced at me.

Ramona's sob brought me back to the present. She bent from her waist and put her head in her lap. Scoobie was sitting next to her and had an arm around her shoulder before I could think about getting off my donut. "Why?" Ramona wailed. "Everybody loved her!"

Scoobie gave her shoulder a hug. "Unless she flunked them."

"Stop it! It's not a joke." Ramona pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt. Even with Mary Doris' death I couldn't help but wonder how many people our age carried a handkerchief instead of tissues.

"I know," Scoobie said.

She blew her nose. "I'm sorry, I just..."

"It's hard for everybody," Morehouse said, more kindly than I'd ever heard him. He turned to me and changed tacks in a second. "The thing is, only you and Annie Milner saw her in the hours before she died, and I have a hard time pointing a finger at either of you." He leaned against the railing that overlooked the foyer on the first floor. "But," he seemed to rally, "you're nosing into her business and Annie, well Annie will be a rich woman now. Everyone in town knows that."

Except me, of course, but it didn't make sense that Annie would murder her aunt. "Annie told me she's thinking about running for county prosecuting attorney. A murder investigation doesn't strike me as a vote getter."

Morehouse glared at me. "You sure you didn't give her anything to drink, or see her drink anything?"

I shook my head slowly. "I didn't bring her anything except some flowers in a jar, and I doubt she drank the water." I thought for a moment. "I don't remember seeing even a mug of tea in the room. But, I wasn't really focused on drinks."

"There was a cup of water. We took it to the lab, but it was just the usual crap that's in our city water. I'm just..." he looked over the railing to the floor below.

"Looking for someone to blame," Scoobie said.

Morehouse fired up. "Yes, damn it, I am." He paused for a moment. "I liked her. She was my mother's English teacher forty years ago. It's always harder when you know 'em."

I empathized a bit, but still did not appreciate his overall attitude. "Can we do anything else for you?" I asked, I hoped coolly.

He looked toward the attic. "You found those photo albums. Anybody know what you were doing up there?"

I looked at Scoobie and Ramona. "Us, Aunt Madge, umm, I told Annie when she saw me with the albums..."

"Roland," Ramona said. "He let me leave early a couple of times to come over here. I didn't ask him to keep it a secret."

"Joe at the Java Jolt," Scoobie said. "And he could have told anyone. Plus, the paper sort of implied it. Anyway, how could cleaning out the attic matter?" Scoobie asked.

Morehouse pulled away from the railing and nodded at each of us as he started down the stairs. "Hearing that you found the albums was the only thing in Mary Doris' life that was different in the last few days. I doubt there's anything in that attic that relates to her death, but if you see something, you tell me." He glanced back up at me as he descended. "And I don't mean a week after you find it."

NEWS ABOUT MARY DORIS' MURDER took the fun out of the afternoon, and without discussing it we began to pack up. For me all that meant was standing up with my donut, but Scoobie and Ramona had to collect a couple of books and ledgers they wanted to take and close the attic ladder.

In the car I asked Scoobie how he knew so much about methyl alcohol. He turned his body rather than just his head, but I didn't want to take my eyes off the road so I couldn't see his expression. "You know where I hang out, right?"

I had to smile. "OK, there are lots of books in the library. How did you happen to read all about methyl alcohol and Prohibition?"

He shrugged. "I just go where the books take me." He paused for a second. "It was right after I got clean and sober and I was reading a lot about alcohol and pot. Maybe there was an article about Prohibition and Ocean Alley or something."

I thought for a moment. "But even if people made that stuff back then, who would have it now?"

"Maybe it's not that hard to make. I'll look it up."

In a brisker tone than I'd ever heard her use, Ramona interjected. "Enough on Prohibition. Let's get back to business here." She tapped me on the back of the head with one of the small ledgers she had brought with her. "They're funny little sets of business records. These two are earlier than the one I took before -- there are dates on the first page."

"How so funny?" asked Scoobie.

"Maybe they wrote them to be hard to follow, but I think the other one I looked at shows they're buying more ingredients but not bringing in any more money." She flipped through a few pages of the ledger on her lap. "I want to see what some earlier ledgers say."

First Scoobie and now Ramona had certainly given me something to think about. If numbers didn't add up, Peter and Richard may have both been trying to hide something from anyone who saw their ledgers. But, what if one of them was cooking the books instead of just bread or whiskey?
CHAPTER ELEVEN

I WASN'T REALLY IN THE MOOD for food pantry work, but having Scoobie around was a reminder that more people depend on the pantry than I would have thought. I had asked Lance Wilson if he would meet me to go over the books for a few minutes and he'd asked that I come to his house. I had a second goal, which was to show him a couple of the ledgers to see what he thought about them, and I pushed them deep into my purse, so Aunt Madge would not glare at me about minding police business.

Lance's tiny house two blocks from the ocean had often caught my eye, though I didn't know it was his until now. Heck, I didn't know him. I figured it likely to be the smallest single family home in Ocean Alley, maybe no more than 600 square feet. The appraiser in my head took in its neat lot – part sand and part grass, all of it neatly landscaped – and the newer vinyl siding and roof. Given that he looked close to ninety and could have had the house paid for long ago, Lance could be sitting on the beach real estate version of a gold mine.

Lance let me in with a brief nod, not saying anything, and I walked down the hall to the tiny living room. However, instead of the older person's sitting room I had been expecting it was outfitted with a large screen TV and a couple of leather recliners, with a large collection of DVDs on a set of shelves along one wall. The hardwood floors were polished to a high sheen and there was a deep burgundy area rug in the middle of the room. There was barely room to turn around, but it was modern and functional.

As he came up behind me I turned to face Lance and took in his impish grin. "Not what you were expecting is it?"

I shook my head.

"People think I'll have shag carpet and easy chairs with doilies, but you don't have to be twenty-five to enjoy a good New York Giants game."

I grinned at him and nodded to the DVDs. "Or watch a good movie."

"Yep." He gestured to a small table and chairs near the doorway, and I noticed a couple of file folders and a small ledger not unlike the ones from the Fisher-Tillotson attic. "Let's get started."

Lance had records going back fourteen years, when he became treasurer. "Don't know anything about before that. The minister at the time kind of ran the pantry out of his hip pocket and on a wing and a prayer. More power to him," he added.

He flipped to the back of a ledger. "I don't record the value of all the food items that come in. Meagan gives me a summary of each week's donations, and she notes where they come from. What I pay most attention to are the cash donations and how we spend that. And I do a list of who gives cash or major food donations so we can do a thank-you letter. Aretha does those once a month, which is swell."

Swell. That's a word you don't hear a lot these days. I smiled to myself as I glanced at the last few pages of the ledger. "It looks as if we get anywhere from $300 to more than $1,000 in cash each month." I could see the pattern; more came in around the holidays.

He nodded. "We use the cash especially for stuff kids like. The Food Bank in Lakewood is never going to send us enough jelly, chicken noodle soup, mac and cheese, or sandwich cookies. Not," he glanced up at me, "that we buy a lot of junk food, but kids can't eat just green beans. And twice a month Mr. Markle orders about thirty pounds of apples for us and we give those out the same week. Don't have a place to store them."

"Scoobie took me in to meet him a couple of weeks ago."

"He can be abrupt, but he's really good about letting us order in bulk and charging us hardly more than he pays for the stuff." Lance shut the ledger. "You have any ideas for raising more money?"

I took a deeper breath. "I liked a few of Scoobie's ideas."

Lance raised an eyebrow.

"I don't mean we should all go in the dunk tank, but maybe a bunch of kids from the high school would do it."

He nodded, seemingly relieved. "I know the churches do special collections for us every month, but do we go to the service clubs, like Lions or Rotary?"

"Hmmm. Hadn't thought about going to them. Kiwanis send us a check for fifty dollars every December."

"I wondered, I mean we don't have a huge volunteer base," I didn't want to seem to be criticizing someone who had given a lot of time to the pantry.

Lance chuckled, "And it's not too spry."

"True, nor am I now." I gestured to the donut I was sitting on. "I thought maybe some of the groups would do some kind of fundraiser for us. You know, fun stuff that would raise some money and get people to know us better."

"You mean, like a bake sale?" he asked.

"Well...more like a silent auction or pancake breakfast. I don't know." The idea of asking service clubs for help seemed good, but maybe it was lame.

He surprised me by slapping his palm on the table. "By golly, you're right. I didn't think of either of those things. They can be in charge of thinking of what to do. Now let's see," his smile faded a bit. "Course, everyone I knew in Lions is either dead or up at the nursing home."

"You don't need to know them, just ask if you can come to a meeting to make a presentation. People came to my Rotary Club in Lakewood all the time to ask for money for their charities."

Lance thought about this. "I'll talk to Doctor Welby and Sylvia about it."

My instinct was to say we didn't need their permission, but I remembered my goal to make this a participative committee. "Great, thanks."

There was a short pause and he added, almost gruffly, "We'll be coming into a little money, of course."

I'm sure my expression was blank, because he continued, "From Mary Doris Milner."

"Oh!" Memories of her death came flooding back, and I felt my eyes prickle with tears.

"Good friend of mine she was." He cleared his throat. "She was several years older than me. When you're kids that seems like half a lifetime, but we got close as we got older. Got so we were the only two from our generation at those annual high school alumni dinners. When she went in the home I quit going."

Sensing he was close to tears and might not want to cry in front of me, I said, "It was very generous of her to leave us something." Us, I'm calling the food pantry group us. "Do you, uh, know about how much it is?"

He cleared his throat more loudly and pulled one of the manila folders toward him and opened it. "The initial donation is $40,000, to let us heavy up the electric and add some refrigeration cases so we can get milk and eggs. That was her specific intent." He looked down at the legal-looking forms. "Then she's set up an endowment of $200,000, but it can only spend the interest each year."

I sat back in my chair, thunderstruck, as Uncle Gordon would have said. I had not fully grasped the positive aspects of that term, having most recently associated it with learning of Robby's gambling debts. "Kept that little secret, did you?"

He looked up at me sharply, and then seemed to relax as he didn't see sarcasm or anger on my face. "I only just learned of it yesterday. When you called to see about getting together I figured you'd seen the lawyer's letter, too." He pointed to my name as one of the three people getting the letter, the others being Reverend Jamison and him.

I shook my head slowly. "Maybe they sent it to the church." I was silent for what seemed like quite awhile to me. "This is great, but," I didn't want to sound ungrateful, "it really doesn't change our financial picture much, does it?"

He nodded. "She was smart, Mary Doris. Getting those refrigerators is really important, but my guess is she didn't want to just give us a lot of money we'd spend and then have to put our hands out again."

"Yes, but her gift will call a lot of attention to us. Maybe someone else will think of us for their will."

"Preferably earlier," he said, dryly.

I laughed. "Right. Goodness," my thoughts were swirling and my laugh died. "We'll have to do a press release. We should do a brochure so other people can have something to look at if they're thinking of giving. And, and..."

He was grinning broadly. "You're really going to tackle this. I figured Reverend Jamison must know you better than that guy at the newspaper."

WHEN I WOKE UP the next day I lay still and watched Jazz's breathing as she slept on my stomach. I'd given up trying to convince her to sleep on a towel at the foot of the bed and finally went to sleep each night with an empty pillow case on my stomach so she didn't get the comforter dirty.

I was so astonished at Mary Doris' gift to the food pantry that I had forgotten to show Lance the small ledgers. This thought morphed into a fast mental list of what I needed to do at the food pantry. What did you get yourself into? My unspoken question issued in the form of an internal yell.

I shifted to my side and Jazz slid off onto the comforter and gave me a sleepy look. Then she walked over and put a paw on my nose to see if I was going to get up to feed her. When that did not look promising she settled into a ball near the crook of my neck.

I stared at the small bookshelf I had recently bought to store notebooks and files in addition to a few books. I had drafted a brief press release sitting in Aunt Madge's kitchen and she had added a paragraph on the food pantry's history. Who could I get to take charge of "heavying up" the electric, as Lance had referred to it, and buying refrigerated cases? Doctor Welby's face floated through my mind.

I sat straight up in bed and Jazz swatted me. "Wait a minute." How could I have not thought of this? Lance Wilson said he had known Mary Doris Milner well. I could ask Lance about Mary Doris and Richard Tillotson. Smiling I slid my legs out of the bed and reached for the packet of cat treats on the bedside table.

WHEN ANNIE MILNER CALLED later that morning her frosty tone caught me off guard. I was in Harry's office going over a couple of appraisal prospects to see which ones were one-story homes. "Aunt Mary Doris' attorney just sent me the information on her bequests. It looks as if you'll be handling the donation to the food pantry."

"Yes, we're really grate..." I began.

"It was one of her last bequests. I wasn't aware of it until this morning."

Did she expect me to feel guilty? I kept silent, no longer sure what direction the conversation would take.

"I suppose you'll want to know when the funds will go to the pantry?" she asked, in an I'm-an-attorney-and-I-know-what-I'm-talking-about tone.

"Ultimately, yes, but I don't want you to have to deal with this now. It must be..."

She interrupted again. "I'm just looking down the road. I'd like to get all the estate stuff as wrapped up as possible before I begin my campaign in earnest."

Stress can do funny things to people, I acknowledged to myself, and Annie had seemed very close to her great aunt. Still, I didn't like her attitude. "I know the others on the board would say we want to make this as easy for you as possible." Bitch. "Lance Wilson said he'd known your aunt nearly all his life."

It was as if a wave had washed over her and Annie had come out of the roil as a different person. "You must think I'm uncaring. I just want to stop thinking of Aunt Mary Doris in terms of an estate to be settled and get back to my memories of her."

How could I have called this woman a bitch? "Makes perfect sense to me. I can contact her lawyer directly to make the arrangements." I could, or maybe Doctor Welby would do it for me.

There was a brief silence, and I broached the topic that was serving as the elephant in the room. "I'm truly sorry your aunt's death was, well, that it does not seem to have been a natural one."

She seemed to brush that off as easily as if I'd said 'please accept my sympathy,' and frost was back in her tone. "I don't believe the police. They must have read some report wrong."

Even I, a master at ignore-it-and- it-will-go-away, thought her logic was as likely to hold true as a crab surviving long on a hot beach. "I hope you're right." I wasn't about to ask her who she thought would kill her aunt.

As I hung up the phone Harry looked at me questioningly. He spent a lot of time in Ocean Alley as a kid, this house he was remodeling having been his grandparents'. But he didn't live here full-time until after he retired, so he had not known Mary Doris or her background. I talked to him a bit after we found the photo albums in the attic, but he had apparently had a longer conversation with Aunt Madge more recently. "She's not taking her aunt's death well, I take it?" he asked.

"I guess not. I mean, who would?" I paused. "She's just a lot more focused on her work and her aunt's estate than I would be a couple of days after Aunt Madge died."

"May that be a long time away." He turned on his computer.

I keep waiting for Harry and Aunt Madge to become an item, as she would say, but they don't give any indication that they are more than good friends. Too bad.

"I'm heading out to check that bungalow on F Street." I picked up the folder of information and headed for the door.

"Look out for George Winters if you go to the courthouse." He smiled as he caught my eye. "He calls here almost every day. Maybe he's getting sweet on you."

I almost snorted at Harry.

DUCKING GEORGE WINTERS IS never easy, and I can't avoid the courthouse, since that's where I look up the information on prior home sales that I use to reach an opinion on the value of whatever house I'm appraising. I was in the Registrar of Deeds Office looking at some older sales records for bungalows near the one I was appraising when he came in with a pleased-as-punch expression on his face. He nodded at one of the women at a desk near the door and as I glanced at her she blushed. He's got her tipping him off when I'm in here.

He sidled up next to me at the counter and I finally looked to the right and saw his wide grin. George Winters is not much older than I am, but he dresses like a high school kid, except he wears khakis instead of cut-offs. I eyed his long shirt for a second – an expensive pullover that was a cross between a dark green t-shirt and a sports jersey – and then went back to the home sale information in front of me.

"C'mon Jolie. If you don't see me for a couple of days you miss me."

"As much as I miss stepping on sand crabs on the beach." I didn't look up.

He drummed his fingers on the counter for a second. "Did you get a look at any of those old ledgers Scoobie has? Do they have information about Peter Fisher's business?"

I turned to face him. "There is nothing up there that relates to the skeleton. I told you before, the attic has some antiques and old furniture, and..."

"What about those photo albums you were taking to Mary Doris Milner the day she died?" The look on George's face had gone from that of a person bantering with a buddy to that of reporter on the prowl – very intense.

I sat my pencil on the counter. "How old do you think Mary Doris is...was?"

"Ninety-four, I wrote her obit. Outlived almost everyone she knew."

"Right. So of all the Fisher and Tillotson friends who were in those old albums, how many do you think are alive?" I was thinking fast here.

"Could be zip. What's your point?"

"So, when Aunt Madge and I looked at them, she spotted Mary Doris in a picture and suggested Mary Doris might like to see it." I rubbed my nose, sure it was getting longer. "Like half the town, Mary Doris was her teacher."

He eyed me for two or three seconds. "Uh uh, Jolie. You and your sore tailbone wouldn't lug those old albums over there ASAP. You wanted her to tell you what she knew."

"It so happens," I closed the folder I was looking at, "that I'm nicer than you think I am. Unless," I sat the folder in the tray for refiling, "I'm talking to you of course." I gave him my sweetest smile and hitched my purse back on my shoulder.

I had planned to look at a couple of other recent sales, but he would probably just stand there and talk to me. Winters trailed me as I walked out. In the hallway, I stopped. "Look George, I'm tired of you coming up to me about the attic."

"Don't you mean about the skeleton?" He grinned.

"Whatever. It's Sgt. Morehouse you should be talking to, not me."

It suddenly occurred to me that he must not know that Mary Doris' death had been a murder, and I realized there had been no news stories about that. What is Sgt. Morehouse up to?

"You know something," he said.

I must have shown the realization on my face. "I know a lot of stuff. See you later George."

He didn't follow me out. I had just beeped open my car door when I realized he was putting a lot of time into the late Richard Tillotson's demise. He had someone in the Registrar of Deed's Office watching for me and he'd talked to enough people at the nursing home to know that I'd taken photo albums over there. I gave a mental shrug. What do I care?

A LOT, IT TURNED OUT, when I read the next day's paper. Winters was giving Ocean Alley readers an update of the "decades old murder," as he put it. He had done more digging and learned that Gracie's grandmother and mother had a long-standing "cold relationship" with Mary Doris, though no one seemed to know why. Though he did not say so, this fact seemed to be what had gotten his interest. At least that's how I read between the lines of his article. He had talked to Gracie, who had told him she'd never met Mary Doris, and then her mother who had told him she'd "forgotten more than she remembered" about the "tragic nature" of her uncle's disappearance. I didn't know George well, but I would bet Scoobie's lottery winnings that it was that comment that had fueled George's interest.

My mobile phone rang as I pulled into the small parking area at the B&B, but I didn't recognize the number so I didn't pick up. Remembering that Scoobie might have called from any phone, I listened to the message as I poured a glass of water.

"Jolie, its Annie Milner. We never did get to Java Jolt for that coffee, and I wanted to get a few friends together to talk about my options."

Now I'm her friend?

"I thought it might be fun to meet in the building I'm going to use as my campaign headquarters."

Sounded as if she figured out her best option on her own.

"Are you free Saturday afternoon about two o'clock? We'll meet at 227 C Street. Call me." She rattled off her number.

I sat on Aunt Madge's sofa holding my glass of water out of Jazz's reach as I thought about the invitation to Annie's campaign meeting. I didn't especially like her, but I didn't dislike her and I thought she'd be a much better prosecuting attorney than the current one. Who I had liked was her Aunt Mary Doris. You barely knew her, I told myself.

"Wait a minute." I said, aloud.

"What minute?" asked Aunt Madge as she came into the great room through the swinging door that leads to the guests' breakfast room. She was carrying a small sack of groceries and opened the fridge to put some cream and butter in it.

"Annie called me to see if I would meet with her and some others to talk about her campaign, or whether she should run, or something." I began. Then I decided to be honest. Aunt Madge would find out anyway. "The building we'd meet in is one that I guess she will inherit from Mary Doris, 227 C Street."

Aunt Madge looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"The building that used to be Peter Fisher and Richard Tillotson's bakery."

Aunt Madge filled her electric tea kettle. "Why does the building make a difference to you?"

I shrugged. "I guess it doesn't. She just seems to be," I paused.

"To be moving kind of fast after her aunt's death." Aunt Madge finished for me. "Which of course you would not do."
CHAPTER TWELVE

I LEFT ANNIE A VOICE MAIL saying I would meet her the next day. It was late afternoon and I still had two of the small ledgers crammed into my handbag. I decided to pay Lance Wilson an unannounced visit, and told Aunt Madge I was going down to the library to look for Scoobie. As I got to the front door I saw the two chipmunks sitting on the landing that was two steps up from the hallway. Each had a sunflower seed. I stopped to stare at them, then proceeded more slowly toward the door. Maybe they want me to open it and let them out. As I got closer they jumped down the two steps and ran under the washstand.

Great, they've learned to climb steps.

If Lance was surprised to see me on his porch he didn't show it. "I wondered if you could look at these ledgers for me." I held them up for him to see more closely. He opened the door and motioned that I should precede him down the hall. I sat them on his small table and he picked one up and flipped through the pages without saying anything. Slowly he sat down and kept reading, still not saying anything. I and my donut sat down.

After several minutes he raised his eyes to look at me. "I'd say they bought a lot of yeast, even for a bakery."

"Aunt Madge said most people knew they brewed and sold some kind of alcohol."

He nodded. "Mary Doris talked to me about that quite a bit the last couple of years. I guess," he stared down at the open page and then looked back at me, "she knew she wasn't going to be around forever, and she wanted to talk to someone about Richard." I stayed quiet, which was a struggle.

He continued, "She really believed that Peter killed Richard but, as far as I could tell, it was just a strong belief, she hadn't seen them quarrel, though she said that Peter thought Richard was cooking the books; I think that was her expression."

"She sort of implied that to me the other night." His eyebrow shot up, and I told him that I had gone to talk to her and had come back the next day with a photo album, but she had already died.

Hearing this, his mood seemed to visibly lift. "Well now, that's nice to know. She was looking forward to something when she died."

I let him think about this for a few moments, and then broached what I really wanted to know. "Is there anything in those ledgers that makes you think one of the two men was shorting the other?"

He shook his head. "Can't tell. You see all these erasure marks and it makes you wonder." He flipped through a few pages. "Maybe someone, for our purposes let's say Richard, took some money out of the till. You can see that the handwriting is different sometimes. One person wrote the original numbers and a couple of lines below it looks like some numbers were erased and others written in."

He slid the ledger to me and I looked again. The handwriting had not looked that different, all the numbers were written with the kind of old-fashioned penmanship that looked very neat to me, as if each letter were formed with care. The sevens had a line across the stem of the number. Looking more closely, I could see that there were differences in the writing styles, but they were not great. I slid it back to him. "It almost looks as if the second person was trying to write like the first person."

He shrugged, "Could be. If you don't mind me asking, why is this important?"

Before I could answer, there was a loud knock on the door and Lance stood up. "I haven't had two people stop by to visit me at the same time in years."

As soon as he opened the door I knew I was in trouble. I heard Sgt. Morehouse politely asked if he could come in for a few minutes. I quickly stuffed the ledgers in my purse. Deep into my purse. When he walked into the small living room I knew Morehouse would have hollered at me if he wasn't in Lance's house. "You! What are you doing here Jolie?"

"Ms. Gentil is the new chair of the committee for the food pantry," Lance said, having glanced at the table and noted that I had picked up the ledgers. "Did you hear about our good fortune?" he asked, gesturing that Morehouse should sit in one of the leather chairs.

I watched Morehouse deflate as he sat down. "Good fortune?"

"Yes. My good friend Mary Doris Milner left the pantry a substantial sum of money. A good bit of it will help us modernize the facility and add some refrigerators." Lance smiled.

"That's terrific." Morehouse paused. "I'm here to talk about Mary Doris, in fact." He glanced at me.

"Would you like me to leave?" I asked, trying to be courteous and hoping he'd let me stay.

"All right with you if Jolie stays?" Morehouse asked Lance.

"Fine by me," he said, appearing puzzled by Morehouse's visit.

"I have some...uncomfortable news. It'll be in the paper tomorrow." Morehouse drew out the small notebook I'd seen him use when he interviewed people. "I know you were good friends. Partially I didn't want you to be surprised by it, and in part I hope you can help me."

"Help you?" Lance asked.

Morehouse took a breath. "I'm afraid Mary Doris did not die of natural causes. She was poisoned with methyl alcohol."

Morehouse and I both jumped to Lance's chair as he leaned forward, almost falling out of the chair. Morehouse kept a hand on Lance's elbow. Which was good, because jumping had not helped my tailbone and I don't think I would have been much help to anybody.

"Steady there. I'll get you some water." I walked down the short hallway into the kitchen and grabbed a coffee mug from the small dish drainer and filled it with water.

When I got back to the living room Lance was sitting back in the recliner, his eyes closed. My own met Morehouse's, and for once he did not look angry at me. He took the mug. "Ready for a small sip?"

Lance waved him away. "It was just the shock. I'm okay." He opened his eyes. "Are you going to find the bastard who did this?"

Morehouse sat back down, placing the mug on the floor and picking up his notebook from where it had dropped at his feet. "I'm going to do that, yes. That's what I meant about you helping."

Lance sat up straighter. When he spoke, his voice was clear and strong. "What do you want to know?"

Morehouse went over the events of the day before her death, including my visit, and the suddenness with which her stomach flu seemed to arise. "That's why we did the toxicology tests at the police lab. The nurse who was on that night insisted that Mary Doris had been healthy as can be. She actually," here a small smile appeared and vanished, "thought Jolie here might have given Mary Doris something that didn't sit well with her."

Lance glanced at me. "Jolie didn't know about the money for the Food Pantry. None of us did."

Great, give Morehouse a motive for me.

"I can't think of anything to arrest Jolie for other than being a pain in the ass." He did smile at Lance then.

"Hey." Then took Morehouse's look in my direction to be a command to shut up.

Lance shook his head slowly. "I can't think of a soul who didn't like her."

"I can't either," Morehouse said. "It just seems like too much of a coincidence that Richard's skeleton is found and then Mary Doris is murdered."

Lance opened his mouth to speak, shut it, and then spoke. "She did have a secret."

I sat up straighter in my hardback chair. "A secret?"

Morehouse didn't even look at me, he kept looking straight into Lance's eyes. "What kind of a secret?"

Lance looked from me to his big screen TV and back at Morehouse. "After Richard disappeared, Mary Doris left Ocean Alley. She said, I heard this later of course, that she couldn't stand to look at the ocean when Richard wasn't with her."

This registered with me. I thought Aunt Madge had told me the same thing.

"The thing is," Lance's eyes filled with tears, "she only told me this a few years ago, and she asked me not to repeat it."

"I don't think anything can hurt her now," Morehouse said, quietly.

"She left because she was carrying Richard's baby. They planned to elope the weekend after his sister Audrey and Peter Fisher got married." He cleared his throat. "They didn't want to take away from that wedding."

Mary Doris' firm assertion that Richard would never have left her made more sense now. "What happened to the baby?" I asked, and was surprised to hear that I was almost whispering.

Lance wiped a tear from the corner of one eye. "She said she gave it up for adoption; she never even said if it was a boy or girl. I don't know why I'm even telling you this, but it's likely the only thing you wouldn't find out any other way." He pulled a tissue from his pocket and blew his nose. "I can't imagine it matters."

Morehouse made a note. "Yeah, hard to imagine it would." He looked at Lance. "How old would that person be now?"

"More than seventy," Lance said, "possibly not even alive."

Morehouse nodded. "A lot more adoptions were private back then. Likely the records are gone, even if we knew where to look."

Lance nodded. "She never did say where she went. I think that was deliberate. She always liked Chicago though. Took a couple of trips to the art museum there."

Morehouse stood. "If you think of anything else..."

"Do you have to write that in a report or something?" Lance asked.

Morehouse hesitated. "I'll mention it to the captain, so two of us know. I won't write it down unless it's important later."

Lance saw him to the door, and I remained rooted to my donut. When he came back into the room we just looked at each other. "Thank you for not telling about the ledgers."

Lance nodded, unsmiling. "I figured you wouldn't have picked them up if you wanted him to see them." He sat down in the chair opposite me at the table and put his head in his hands. "Murdered. It's impossible."

"Would you like me to stay or go?" I asked, quietly.

"Nothing you can do here." When I stood, he looked up, "Could I borrow that album that has some pictures of Mary Doris?"

"I'll drop it by this evening." I let myself out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SURE ENOUGH, THE NEXT day's Ocean Alley paper had a huge heading: Retired School Marm Murdered.

"Marm?" Aunt Madge said in disgust as she ran water in the sink to wash her guests' morning dishes. "No one has used that term in years and years. It's stupid."

I glanced at the headline. If they'd used teacher it wouldn't have fit on one line. I held my tongue.

"And," she turned from the sink to face me, soap bubbles dripping from her latex gloves onto the floor, "that business about the methyl alcohol is ridiculous. It would taste terrible. She would never drink enough to kill herself."

I hesitated, and then said, "Scoobie said if you put methyl alcohol with a strong-tasting drink it might not taste so bad."

"And what does Scoobie know about that?" Aunt Madge asked, furious.

I knew she wasn't mad at Scoobie, just mad. "He says he read about it in the library."

She seemed to sag onto the kitchen sink. "I just can't stand to think of her dying like that."

I walked over and gave her a hug. "Me either." Then inspiration struck me. "That's why we need to keep thinking about Richard's death. They must be connected."

Aunt Madge raised her head from my hug. "Nothing doing."

For once I gave as good a steely glint in the eye as she did. I had no intention of telling Aunt Madge or anyone else that Mary Doris Milner had had Richard Tillotson's baby. That was her business. But, I couldn't help but think a spurned adult child might have found her. "I liked Mary Doris. I want to figure out how Richard got in that attic."

Aunt Madge looked at me for a couple of seconds and then turned back to the sink. "Just don't get shot at this time."

I DECIDED TO WALK to Java Jolt. My back wasn't feeling a lot better, but some, and I felt as if my whole body needed to stretch. As I left Aunt Madge told me to call her if I needed a ride back. Sounded as if she wasn't going to hold it against me that I wanted to learn more about Richard's death.

Which was ridiculous, when you stopped to think about it. It was more than seventy years since the murder. The thing that nagged at me was that the skeleton was clean and stored with clothes from the 1940s. That meant that long after his death – assuming he died when he disappeared – someone knew where to find his body, could get to it to clean it, and could put it in the old wardrobe. That person had to be pretty unfeeling, and downright kinky.

I tried to envision what the murderer had done. He couldn't have buried Richard in Ocean Alley. Beach towns don't have cemeteries. I know this because Aunt Madge visits Uncle Gordon's grave on Memorial Day weekend; I went with her often until I was in high school. When I was about ten I asked her why he was so far from Ocean Alley, and she said you can't bury someone near the ocean; the soil is too sandy and moist. She said that in New Orleans the cemeteries host mausoleums rather than graves. That was certainly obvious after Hurricane Katrina.

I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn't gone to the cemetery with her in years.

My mind went back to Richard Tillotson and his murder. Whoever did it couldn't bury Richard nearby – assuming he was killed in Ocean Alley – and not everyone had cars back then. Even if the murderer did have a car, where do you drive with a dead body in the trunk? And do you just wander into a cemetery and try to sneak in an extra body?

I glanced toward the ocean and decided to climb up the few steps to get onto the boardwalk so I could walk the last couple of blocks toward Java Jolt without a row of houses between me and the water. The sun was bright and I shielded my eyes as I looked toward the water, watching waves roll onto the deserted beach and recede. A lot of years had passed since Richard and Mary Doris had looked at the ocean together.

All this time Mary Doris had kept a pretty important secret. Or had she? Maybe she had told someone. Perhaps, as an adult, that baby had even found its birth mother. But what would that matter? If the adoptive parents had been less than perfect that would not have been Mary Doris' fault. Anyway, if there had been a reunion it could have been decades ago.

I gave my head a shake as I walked along. I could not see any way a long ago adoption played a role in a poisoning death now. A sharp gust of wind made me pull up my collar and then thrust my hands into the pockets of my jacket. I felt the notebook I planned to use as I sat in Java Jolt to think and make a list.

I like lists. Even when things around me seem ridiculously busy, a list of what I need to do instills some order. At least in my mind. After a quick hello to Joe and pouring coffee from his self-serve thermos I plopped my donut and derrière in a chair at the back of the shop.

What I Know

1) Someone killed Richard Tillotson, whom MD loved very much.

2) The killer (or someone else) put the body somewhere for a time. (Attic would have stunk if in there.)

3) RT and Peter Fisher did not seem to get along.

4) RT and PF ran a bakery and were moonshiners.

What I Don't Know

1) When did RT's skeleton get put in the wardrobe in the attic?

2) Who put it there? Duh

3) Did MD know something important about who killed RT?

4) Who benefits most by MD being dead?

My cell phone rang and Gracie Allen's name was on Caller ID. "I can't find it anywhere!" She sounded as if she'd been crying. "And I want to get rid of that house."

It took a couple of seconds before it registered that she may have been talking about the deed to her grandmother's house. "It's not the end of the world, Gracie." There was a loud sniff on the other end of the phone. "You'll likely pay more for the title search and an attorney can draw up a new deed, so it'll be..."

Now she was sobbing. I couldn't imagine why she was so upset. "Really, Gracie, it'll be okay." What do you say to a Connecticut-stay-at-home mom who is bawling into the phone?

She calmed a bit and blew her nose. "That's only part of it. First you get hurt and the paper has articles about Richard's disappearance, then poor Mary Doris Milner is killed, and, and...Oh, and the skeleton. I forgot the skeleton!" She was taking up right where she left off.

"Gracie, Gracie, get a grip." I wasn't sure what to say. "It'll get worked out somehow."

"But it's all my fault. My husband wanted to keep the house and I thought it would be a lot more fun to have a place on Cape Cod." She stopped because I had started to laugh. I couldn't help it.

That probably wasn't good either. I tried to keep the humor out of my voice. "Listen, none of this is your fault. You think poor Richard appeared in that wardrobe because you wanted a place in Cape Cod instead of Ocean Alley? Can you imagine if you kept the house and one of your kids found him? They'd be scarred for life." I was hoping to make her see how absurd she was being, and for a minute it worked.

"I know, Jeremy says that, too."

Jeremy, who's Jeremy? Oh, her husband.

She started up again. "Poor Mary Doris Milner," she wailed. At this point I realized the four other customers and Joe were staring at me. I grimaced at Joe and shrugged. He pointed to a door behind the counter and I walked back there as I listened. "And she was Annie Milner's aunt!"

I walked into the tiny room behind the coffee bar and sat on a stool. "This stuff happened in spite of you, not because of you. Is anyone home with you?"

The response was akin to the local foghorn, followed by words. "You must think I'm an idiot."

"No of course not." Well, maybe a little, it's not as if you knew Richard or Mary Doris. "All of this is upsetting." I glanced around the small room. It had shelves from floor to ceiling along the back wall and they were lined with small plastic tubs, each with a five-pound bag of sugar, dry coffee creamer, or sugar substitute, all carefully labeled. When the tubs ended there were shelves of napkins and disposable cups.

"The thing is," I continued, "it will be over pretty soon, and you'll have your life back. Plus a place on Cape Cod."

It took about five more minutes before I thought she was calm enough for me to tell her I had an appointment for an appraisal and had to get going. I walked back into the shop, which now was empty except for Joe and me. "Jeez, did I scare away your customers?"

"Nah. They were here long enough to have two refills." He looked up from pouring beans into a grinder. "Gracie okay?"

"She will be." I moved back to my table, happy to sink onto the donut and review my list. I sat with my chin resting on my fists as I concentrated. It didn't make sense that Peter Fisher would kill Richard. He could be an obvious suspect, and it would mean he and his new bride would have to move in with her mother and siblings, or at least watch out for them. Of course, it could have been an accident.

I glanced at my watch. It was time to go over to C Street to meet Annie. Joe walked over and picked up my coffee mug as I stood to leave. "Thanks. Anything that saves a couple of steps is good now."

"I wanted to steal a look at what you were writing," he said, with an unabashed grin. "Bet it was about your newest murder mystery."

"If you're so smart, you could solve it." I said this with more good humor than I felt.

THERE WERE FIVE PEOPLE in the former Bakery at the Shore when I got there. You could tell Annie, or someone, had worked hard to clean the place. A recent owner had installed a long bar that looked mahogany. It was clean and had a couple of small stacks of paper sitting on it. Long-dried wallpaper still curled around the mirror behind the bar but the rest of it had been pulled down except for the long wall that included a door that might have led to a former kitchen.

The only person I knew was Jennifer Stenner, and she looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I've warmed up to Jennifer a bit, but not a lot. She was one of the 'cool girls' when we were in eleventh grade and I was miserable, wanting to get back to my usual high school in Lakewood. While my being in Ocean Alley that year was not her fault, she and her friends had been targets of my fantasies to have cheerleading banned, or maybe have all cheerleaders forced to shave their heads. They just looked so damn happy.

One of the three men seated around the table must have just complimented Annie on her work to clean up the place, as she said, "Yes, I've been in here several times. The wallpaper is hard to get down, but it will eventually all come together."

"Hey Jennifer." I sat next to her. "You did a really great job on the reunion."

While she had regarded me with what seemed to be a forced smile, she now gave me a broad one. "I'm so glad you liked it. We worked really hard to be sure everyone had fun."

"The only problem is that Scoobie made off with my Sherlock Holmes bubble pipe."

"He actually brought it into Stenner Appraisals with a bottle of bubbles. Didn't he tell you?"

I could tell half her question was a hidden one. She wanted to know if Scoobie and I were dating. "Luckily he doesn't keep me posted on everything he does."

"That does sound lucky," Annie said as she sat down on the other side of Jennifer and began introducing attendees to one another.

I felt myself redden, annoyed that Annie was putting Scoobie down. I supposed I had given her the ammunition for her comment.

"And this is Hardin Grooms, from City Council," she was saying. As she introduced each person she was giving them a stick-on name badge, already lettered. "I thought I'd make it easy for us to remember each others' names this first time we meet."

It was no wonder I didn't know the other two men, they were attorneys from other towns in the county. I had half forgotten that she was running for a countywide office. Jeff Markham looked to be about thirty-five and was exceptionally fit, while Sam Jefferson, the only African-American, could be fifty or thereabouts. His skin had almost no wrinkles, but the graying hair told more about his age than his face did.

While Annie talked I looked at the papers she had passed out that had her summary bio and a full resume. She had done a lot since high school – finished undergrad in three years, law school, one year in private practice and three with the prosecuting attorney's office. When she wasn't working she was tutoring children with low reading skills and she had already been president of the Ocean Alley Rotary Club. All this and she did her aunt's laundry.

I turned my attention back to Annie as she finished talking about why she wanted to run for prosecuting attorney. "I think the current prosecuting attorney's priorities are skewed. He takes cases to court that could easily be settled, and he lets drug dealers plea bargain to probation." She paused. "I'm not going to prosecute based on public opinion, but I do think citizens are letting us know they want fewer burglaries and car thefts, and the only way to get that in check is to prosecute the people the police arrest instead of putting them back on the street so they can steal laptop computers to support their drug habit. People have a right to feel safe."

She looked at each of us in turn, and I sensed she had expected applause.

Hardin Grooms cleared his throat. "I know several of us on City Council would love to cut the police budget, and if crime goes down we could do that." He paused for a moment, then continued. "As one who has run for office several times, I can tell you it's not cheap. And you'd have to run a campaign throughout the county, not just in Ocean Alley."

Annie studied the old mirror for a moment before meeting his eye. "I was dreading doing that kind of fundraising. However, my dear aunt looks after me even after death." She seemed to be weighing her words carefully. "I'll have much of what I estimate I'll need. I'll still do fundraising, of course. People expect it. It's just that I won't have to spend half my time doing it, and I won't have to take money from people who might expect favors later."

I'm no political expert, but that last part sounded pretty naive to me. Jennifer chimed in that she would be happy to host a "meet and greet" at her townhouse, and I turned my attention back to the room itself. There appeared to have been a hodge podge of renovations, but the tin ceiling tiles were still in place, which was more than you could say for a lot of buildings this old. The door at the back of this large room probably led to the kitchen where Peter and Richard had produced the goods for what I thought of as their cover business. No sign of a closet in which Richard Tillotson might have locked Peter Fisher. The wall that had the kitchen door still had wallpaper, which looked bumpy. I figured the paper covered some architectural sins.

"...do you think the same time would work next week?" Annie was asking. Jennifer and the three men pulled out pocket calendars or smart phones and I watched them agree on a time for the following weekend. I watched without committing to the second meeting and picked up the bio info she had provided and stuffed it into my purse.

As I made my way back to the B&B I thought about the meeting. It seemed odd that the only time Annie mentioned Mary Doris' death was when she was talking about money, but perhaps they had talked about her before I arrived.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE OCEAN ALLEY PRESS RAN an article on Annie and the other two primary candidates. A man named John Abernathy had joined Annie and current Prosecuting Attorney Martin Small in the race. The primary was not until June, but because all three had declared their intention to run the paper was covering their announcements. Given the salary –$120,000 – I thought it odd several attorneys wanted the position. I would clean the meat out of crabs for six months to make that right now, but I thought lawyers could make more money in private practice.

There were two photos of each, a mug shot and one with family members. Looking at the photo of Annie and her parents I was surprised to see how much older they were than my parents. They looked as if they could be her grandparents. I vaguely remembered that Aunt Madge had said Annie and her mother did not get along well, which was why she had moved to Ocean Alley to live with Mary Doris during high school.

Because Annie was running I read the short pieces on each candidate. The two men had much more experience as lawyers, but Annie appeared to be the only one who had come up with a slogan – "Upholding our laws with a fresh perspective."

AFTER LUNCH I PICKED UP SCOOBIE and listened as he outlined his plan to look through the last couple of notebooks in the attic to see if there were any strings of numbers that struck him as worth playing in the lottery. I was tempted to ask him if he thought that he was focusing a bit much on the lottery, but I didn't. I wasn't in charge of his life.

I unlocked the door of the Fisher house and knew there was something wrong as soon as we walked inside. There wasn't usually a breeze coming from the kitchen.

Without talking about it we walked to the back of the house and stopped at the edge of the kitchen to stare at the broken glass in the exterior door. The door had six small panes of glass in the top half, and someone had apparently broken one and reached in to unlock the door. There was no burglar alarm and in winter months there would likely have been no one out at night to see anyone breaking in.

"Come on," Scoobie said, "outside."

I followed him. "You think someone would still be in the house?"

"No idea. And don't intend to find out the hard way." He nodded toward my purse. "Call your buddy Morehouse and ask him to look. He gets paid to check out stuff like this."

I made sure the police knew we didn't have a reason to think that anyone was in the house and then we sat on the front porch to wait. It was warm for December, almost fifty degrees. "I guess the articles about me falling out of the attic and you playing those lottery numbers let people know the house was vacant."

Scoobie shrugged. "Yeah, but it's been vacant for awhile. Could just be somebody wanting in out of the cold."

I regarded him. "When you were drinking or whatever did you live on the streets a lot?"

"Not much. Mostly I was here and I knew people, so there'd at least be a porch I could crash on." He stood up as a patrol car pulled to the curb. "Remind me to tell you about my carny days sometime."

"What's that?" I asked, assuming I'd misunderstood him.

"Carny, carnival. I got a wild hair five or six years ago and hooked up with the carnival that comes to Saint Anthony's every year for the Italian festival and signed on to do site clean-up for a few months."

I stared at him for a few seconds and then extended a hand to the police officer who had been at Ruth Riordan's house the day I found her body. I glanced at her name badge – Corporal Dana Johnson. I would not have been able to come up with it on my own. She let us describe the broken glass and then said she would walk through the house.

She was back out in five minutes. "No one there now. I looked in the closets and behind doors. Didn't pull the rope down for the attic. If that's the only place that has stuff you can look at it with me to see if it looks like anything is missing."

We walked up the staircase in silence and Scoobie pulled down the ladder. "Police coming up," she shouted as she stood on the bottom rung. We watched as her torso leaned into the attic and she shone a long flashlight beam around the space. "Clear," she said. Then she placed her hands flat on the attic floor and nimbly leaned left, raised her torso by leaning on her hands, and then raised her legs in a quick bend-and-straighten motion until they were on the floor. By that time she had flipped her hands forward. She gave a push and came to a standing position and looked down at us.

I know my mouth was open, and Scoobie's must have been because she grinned at us. "Gymnastics when I was a kid." She gestured, "Come on up."

"Jolie's into tumbling," Scoobie said, steadying the ladder for me.

"You just can't let go of anything," I said.

"Listen." He scrambled up behind me. "The time I caught you coming down the stairs was one thing, but if you keep falling without me at the bottom you're going to crack your skull."

Officer Johnson chuckled as I got to the top of the ladder. "Grab on." She extended her hand.

I did and was surprised at her strength as she basically pulled me up onto the floor. I winced at the pull in my back and saw the concern on her face. "No problem." I wished there weren't. "It's just this is my first time in the attic..."

"Since she fell out of it." Scoobie hauled himself up.

We did what all women do when they don't like a comment and ignored him. "Can you tell if anything is missing?" she asked.

Since Ramona and Scoobie had worked up here several times as I sat below on my donut it looked very different. "It seemed a lot more crowded last time I was up here,"

"Ramona took the dress form, and I've got the train set," Scoobie said, but I could hear the distraction in his voice. "Hey, though, look at the trunks in the back. We didn't leave them open."

I watched as he peered into them, then turned shaking his head. "Looks as if the books are still in that trunk, but those last few ledgers or diaries in the other trunk are gone."

Dana Johnson's expression went from half amusement to all business. "OK, down we go."

"But..." I began, half irritated by her words.

"No buts. Just go down, please." Her tone was firm, and she held out a hand. "Steady yourself on me as you go down the first couple of steps.

Scoobie was next to us in a flash. "Me first, for the obvious reason." He began to back down the ladder and called to me to start down.

When all three of us were on the second floor Officer Johnson took the radio off her belt and called for a fingerprint technician because of a break-in and gave the address. She ended her transmission and met our gazes. "If you'd said some antiques were gone I'd be concerned but not so much. I heard Ramona tell someone in the Purple Cow that those ledgers had business records and such. Richard Tillotson's body may have been there for decades, but someone who knows something about his death may still be around and wanting to know what you guys are finding."

NATURALLY, TWO POLICE cars in front of the house attracted more attention than one, and Scoobie and I were soon joined on the porch steps by George Winters. He was in worn blue jeans and a New Jersey Knicks sweatshirt and he looked as disgruntled as I felt. "You two could give it a rest on my weekend off."

"Or you could keep doing what you were doing on your time off," I said.

The porch steps were wide and he sat next to me. "I told my editor to call me on anything to do with this house. And you." He gave me a quick grin as he pulled his thin reporter's notebook from his back pocket. A stub of a pencil was in the spiral rings and he pushed on it with his pinkie until he could pull it out.

Scoobie seemed less irritated than I. "We found a pane out of the back door when we went in, so we called the cops. There was an article in the paper that let everybody know the house is vacant."

"You gotta love sarcasm," Winters said as he jotted notes. "So, anything missing?"

"Nothing we want in the paper," Johnson said as she sat on the other side of Scoobie. "Damn fine day, isn't it?"

Winters leaned around me and looked at her. "Come on Dana, off the record."

"Since you always keep your word on that, I'll tell you a couple of those notebooks you wrote about are gone. That seems to be all." She leaned around Scoobie to look at Winters. "You know anything more than you printed?"

"No." He jabbed his pencil back in the spiral ring and stood up. "I'll just print there was some broken glass and it was hard to tell if anything is missing since the attic's a mess."

"How do you know it's a mess?" Dana asked, a sharp edge to her voice.

"Gracie told me that you guys moved stuff when you went up there after Jolie fell on her ass." He walked down the steps and gave a small wave over his shoulder as he headed back to his car.

When he shut his car door and started the engine Dana looked at Scoobie and me. "He's a pain in the ass, but sometimes we learn as much from him as he does from us, and if he says it's off the record he means it." She stood and stretched. "I gotta get ol' Chuck out of the attic. He collects antique tools and stuff and he'll be up there all day."

When she was back in the house, Scoobie said, "I don't think they watch CSI enough."

I giggled in spite of myself.

We went by the hardware store to buy a piece of glass, some putty and – thanks to the clerk's suggestion – some tiny metal fasteners to keep the glass in place until the putty dried.

I didn't want to be the one to call Gracie so I made Scoobie use my cell phone to call her. "Just tell her I have a sore throat." Seeing his expression I added, "She'll either talk or cry for ten minutes if I call her. I'm not up for it."

With an eye roll worthy of my mother Scoobie placed the call and pushed the speaker phone button as the phone rang. It was answered by a surprisingly mellow-sounding Gracie. "Jolie?" she asked.

Scoobie started to hand the phone to me, but I backed up a step and mouthed, "Caller ID."

"Hey, Gracie, it's Scoobie. I just borrowed Jolie's phone for a minute."

"That was nishe of her," she slurred.

Scoobie tilted his head back and with his free hand mimed holding a bottle of beer that he was chugging into his mouth. "You sound like you're having a good day."

She giggled. "Can you tell? The doctor gave me these, umm, prescription something." She paused. "My husband calls them my happy pills."

Scoobie's expression softened and I felt guilty as hell. "Sorry you needed them. Listen, Gracie, I just wanted to let you know that everything's fine, but..."

"Jolie didn't fall out of the attic again, did she?"

I would characterize her laugh as maniacal.

"No, nothing like that. Jolie's fine, well as fine as you can be sitting on a donut all day." He grinned at me. "I just wanted you to know some jerk strolled into your grandma's house. Broke a pane on the back door, but we already got that fixed."

"Oh dear," she said, and it sounded as if she was clouding over.

"Think happy pills," Scoobie said.

She gave a calmer laugh. "Yes. Thasht a good idea."

"Doesn't look as if they did any damage. I just wanted you to know."

"And Jolie's OK? Why do you have her phone?"

"She, uh, went into the bathroom at Newhart's. We stopped by for lunch." He grinned at me. "She's treating."

"Oh, well, your lucky day. Say," I could almost see her sit up straighter. "I heard you won some money playing numbers from those little, watchyacallits, books."

"Yep. You want a cut?"

"No silly. Well, I need to go lie down for a few minutes before the kids get home from school."

Scoobie told her he thought that was a great idea and hung up.

"You left out the part about them taking some of those little watchyacallits," I said, dryly.

"Why upset her?" he asked.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHEN HARRY STEELE called Monday morning I could almost hear the chuckle in his voice. "You'll be glad to hear even the county prosecuting attorney's staff is not above the law."

"You mean Annie Milner?" I asked.

"I do indeed. Seems she was getting ready to move stuff into the old storefront Mary Doris left her when the executor told her it has to be appraised to determine its value for the estate. He wants it done before she makes any changes to the place."

"And she wants you to appraise it?" I asked.

"Specifically, you. She said you were on her campaign committee."

"She, I never...All I did was go to a meeting with her and a couple of other people over the weekend." If Annie was going to go around telling people I was on her campaign committee I'd have to put a stop to that.

"You have to watch politicians," Harry said, but his tone was light. "I take it you'll do the work."

I thought about it for a moment. "You may need to review my comps. I only did residential appraisals in college."

"Sure. She wants it done pretty quickly, so stop by this morning and get the key. I'll square it with the attorney who's executor."

I sat stirring the pulp around in my juice for a minute and thought about Annie and her run for county prosecuting attorney. I was more than mildly annoyed that she was throwing my name around, on the other hand, the chance to snoop in Peter Fisher and Richard Tillotson's former Bakery at the Shore was way too good to pass up.

I was giving myself a head slap when Aunt Madge entered the kitchen. "Good heavens, Jolie. What's that all about?"

I explained Harry's call. "And I just remembered that Lester Argrow is the real estate agent. Or has been anyway. You know how he is."

Aunt Madge smiled. "I think he's easier on you than he is on Harry." She walked over to the electric kettle and turned up the heat, about to have what would likely be her third or fourth cup of tea, even though it was only about nine o'clock. "Besides, Lester likes you."

THE LOCK ON THE door to Mary Doris Milner's building was surely not the original one, but it was close. I finally figured out that if I pulled the door toward me and jiggled the key I could get in. The smell of must and age was more pungent than during Annie's campaign meeting; she must have aired the place for a good hour before we got there. I hated to close the door, but I've learned the hard way to lock myself in when I work in a vacant building.

I finally located the light switch in the back of the room, not far from the old bar, and made a mental note that the electrical system was woefully out of date. It had been awhile since I'd been in a building with push-button light switches. Dollars to donuts if she were buying the building a mortgage company would require a lot of upgrading before they would underwrite a loan. Maybe Mary Doris left her enough money to do some remodeling.

With light from two overhead single bulbs I stood in the center of the room and turned slowly. The mahogany bar was the only item that kept the room – the entire building, really – from being a true dive. The mirror behind it had been there for decades and had deep scratches in a couple of places. The floor must have been constructed with very hard wood, as it bore few marks. It had been painted white at some point in the past, so it was hard to tell what kind it was. Oak if I had to guess. The exception was a spot near the door that I assumed had led to a former kitchen. That piece of the floor had been replaced with pine and had a couple of deep gouges in it.

Reminding myself that there would be nothing worth finding so long after Peter and Richard had owned the bakery I pulled out my tape measure and got to work. By the time I finished measuring the main room, two small offices behind it, and the old kitchen, which still had a rusty iron wood-burning stove in it, I could not understand why Annie wanted this building. It was a dump. The windows had single pane glass that would surely let in more heat and cold than they kept out, and every surface was likely covered in lead-based paint.

I took more photos than usual. With a building this old I thought we might need more photos in the appraisal documents. I also wanted help from Harry, and I thought the pictures might help him work with me. I dropped the camera in my purse and stood with my back to the kitchen door and surveyed the main room from that vantage point. It was easy to envision glass bakery cases stocked with fresh bread and cookies, perhaps with a hollow area underneath to store bottles of illicit booze. When I was very young, my sister Renée took me to a candy store that would have been near this building, and I could imagine children running in and out of Bakery at the Shore as we had done at the old candy store.

My lower back was sore and I wished I had thought to bring one of Aunt Madge's lightweight lawn chairs. I leaned against the door jamb and pressed the small of my back into it. I sniffed. It smelled like some kind of heavy duty glue, sort of like the old rubber cement Uncle Gordon used to keep in his boat house. I was turning to look at the wallpaper behind me when there was a loud pounding on the front door.

I dropped my notebook and tape measure and jumped, then cursed up a storm at the pain this brought to my back. At the door was Annie Milner, who had the good grace to look chagrined for scaring the crap out of me. I walked over and unlocked the door to let her in.

"I'm sorry, Jolie. I didn't mean to scare you."

"No big deal." Why are you lying? Your heart is still pounding.

Her gaze went around the room and she said nothing for several seconds. "Looks as if I have a lot to do, doesn't it?"

"To be honest, this building's in such bad shape it's hard to imagine why you want it." I pointed to the molding at the top of the room, which had separated from the ceiling by at least an inch. "It's settled quite a bit. If it did that twenty-five years ago and not since, then it's not such a big deal, but my guess is it is more recent."

"Why?" she asked, following my pointing finger.

"It doesn't look as if there was ever a lowered ceiling put in, so anyone who looked up would see that spot. It would only take a ladder and a couple of minutes to move the molding up a bit and hammer in a couple of nails."

She sighed. "I get it. I wish I hadn't promised..." she chewed her bottom lip.

"Promised your aunt you'd keep it?"

She nodded slowly. "I don't know why she liked this old building. She owned two houses in town, used to live in one and rent the other, until she went into the nursing home. She didn't care if those were sold."

I thought for a couple of seconds before replying. "Aunt Madge might have some idea," I began.

She gave a small, dismissive wave. "If you mean that story about Mary Doris dating Richard Tillotson and him having a bakery here, I can't imagine she'd be that impractical."

I took that, and the pain in my tailbone, as my cues to leave. "I'll work up the appraisal tomorrow, I hope." When she glanced at me, I added, "It may take some creative thinking. There haven't been a lot of similar buildings sold lately."

She nodded. "This whole thing is ridiculous. Except for some specific bequests her entire estate comes to me. It seems silly to have this appraised before I move in and do some improvements."

I couldn't resist. "You know how lawyers are."

HARRY HAD GIVEN ME A KEY to the side door nearest his large home office, and I made myself at home there early the next morning. I wanted to start work on the appraisal package before I went to the food pantry to do some paperwork. If I didn't get an order to the main food bank by this afternoon we'd miss our monthly shipment of nonperishable goods.

It was too early to get into the courthouse to look at other commercial sales, so I spent half an hour entering data into the appraisal software program and was heading back out when Harry came downstairs.

"You're up early." He raised his mug of coffee to offer me a cup.

"No thanks. Have to go over to First Prez to place a food order and then I'll swing by the courthouse."

"Have at it." He turned on his computer.

I like Harry a lot, but find it hard to imagine why anyone would want to retire to Ocean Alley and fix up an old Victorian house. None of his kids live within an easy drive. I reminded myself that I live sufficiently far from my parents so they can't drop in; maybe he did the same.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SCOOBIE WAS WAITING BY THE entrance that led to the food pantry, collar pulled up and hands in his pockets. "Scoobie! If you had called I wouldn't have gone to Harry's first."

"I've only been here a couple of minutes." He stamped his feet to warm them as we walked down the short hallway to the counter where volunteers distributed food.

I scanned the area, which was as neat as it had been every time I'd been in there. I'd only met a few of the volunteers who distributed the food and I made a mental note to thank them. I walked toward the file cabinet just inside the food storage area and pulled a file from the top drawer. "This is what I'd really like you to look at." I handed Scoobie the master list of items we could order from the Lakewood Food Bank and a copy of our food pantry's last order. "I want to order things people are used to seeing, but there may be some things you think should have been on the shelves but weren't."

"Mac and cheese," he said, before looking at the list.

"That's a staple for little kids." I looked over his shoulder. "Is it one of the choices?"

Scoobie turned his head halfway to look me in the eye with an expression I can only call intense. I held my hands up in submission. "I'll leave you to look." I wandered to the shelves which were organized similarly to a grocery store—canned fruits and vegetables together, crackers and soup next to each other, and so on. I wasn't sure if all the empty spots were because it was time for an order or if there were always blank spots for sugar and cooking oil.

"Got a pen?" Scoobie asked, still looking at the list.

I took one from the empty can-turned-pen-holder on the counter and he began making small tick marks next to items.

After a minute he handed me the list. "What they ordered before is okay, I just added a few things."

He had checked mac and cheese, tuna helper, and canned pineapple as things to add. At the bottom he had written "Coco Puffs."

I looked up and saw the sparkle in his eyes. "Because, you know, I'm koo koo for Coco Puffs."

"I think I can only order what's on the list, but I can ask Aunt Madge to keep some Coco Puffs on hand for you."

"You'll be getting a lot of local donations in the next couple of weeks." At my blank expression he added, "Christmas. The one time of the year, the second time each year, that people think to give a lot." Scoobie took a piece of paper off the counter and began tearing it into small pieces.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I pulled the order form from the folder.

"What you need – hey maybe it could be a fundraiser – is a contest, you know, like guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. Only this would be to guess how many cans of sweet potatoes would be left over on December twenty-sixth."

I won't say it went downhill from there, but Scoobie had been his most helpful when he was telling me items he thought people wished were available. Coco Puffs aside.

I DROPPED HIM AT THE LIBRARY and went back to Harry's to pick up my folder on the old bakery building. I felt better knowing the order was completed. Rev. Jamison's secretary would fax it to the food bank for me; grudgingly, I assumed, since she did not think me holy enough for the job as food pantry head honcho.

I had a pleasant surprise when researching the Bakery at the Shore building at the courthouse. There were few good comps, which I expected, but in the Registrar of Deeds' folder that held information on all the past sales were several drawings of the earliest floor plan. Usually the Registrar of Deeds would not keep such a drawing, since the original plan and major structural modifications are in the assessor's office. I could see why these were kept. They were precision drawings on heavy paper stock, with notations on the side as to the purpose of each room. It was the kind of old-fashioned document you would expect to see on display in a local historical society.

It was a minute or two before I realized that the handwriting was Peter Fisher's. I would probably have recognized his tiny, perfectly formed letters, but the initials "PF" at the bottom corner and the date – May 6, 1928 – were a giveaway.

The layout was similar to today's, with the kitchen of that day also parallel to the main room. However, the old kitchen had a window that looked onto the street. The window and entry door were separated by only a couple of feet. That surprised me, as I would have thought the two booze sellers wanted as little visibility as possible. But, it had been the custom in the early beach businesses to let people see candy makers, bakers, and others at work. It would likely have seemed odd if they did not have a view into the kitchen.

I looked for the closet Mary Doris said Richard had locked Peter in, and decided it could have been next to the kitchen door. The closet must have been boarded over long ago. I frowned. The hallway was in the same place, and ran back from the main room, starting directly next to where the former closet door could have been. With no office on that side of the small hallway it meant there would be a lot of empty space behind that wall. That was odd. I'd have to ask Harry if that large former closet should be on my drawings.

Harry and I talked at length about the appraisal. The building was assessed at $171,000, so Mary Doris's taxes were based on that. However, there was no way it was worth that now. Aunt Madge thought it had been vacant for three or four years. Mary Doris had kept the utilities on, so the interior had not had to endure wide temperature swings, but it had probably been careworn when Little Mama's Café stopped doing business and looked worse now. If I owned it I'd tear it down, and said so to Harry.

He shrugged. "My kids would have torn this house down, and look at it now."

I glanced around the refinished floors and other woodwork and fresh paint. I knew he'd been doing a lot more than curb appeal type repairs, and figured he had sunk tens of thousands into his grandparents' old house.

"Maybe Mary Doris and Annie had a vision for revitalizing the building," he said.

I held my tongue, always an effort. I almost said that if that was their goal they should have started a decade or more ago. What mattered was what the evidence said the place was worth. We settled on $152,000, and I thought that was generous. "Annie should like it. Should bring down taxes, at least until she gets it fixed up."

LANCE WILSON'S CALL surprised me. His urgent tone told me he wanted to see me for more than a discussion of food pantry finances. He offered me tea as I came in and poured a mug from a thermos on his small living room table.

"Mary Doris' lawyer called this morning." He struggled to compose himself. "In addition to the large donation to the food pantry, she had a small bequest for me." He smiled. "She knew I'd always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and left me a couple thousand for the trip."

I grew a quick lump in my throat. "You must have been very good friends."

He nodded. "That wasn't the big surprise, though," he paused. "You remember what we talked about."

I nodded. Who would forget hearing that Mary Doris had had Richard Tillotson's baby?

He continued, "As far as I know I'm the only one she told about the baby. I guess she wanted someone to know more about that child." He pulled a small envelope from his pocket and opened the letter. "I'm not going to read you the parts about our friendship."

"That's private," I said, quietly.

"And the rest of it should be, too. But since we know she was murdered..." He cleared his throat and began to read her words. "I appreciated you letting me tell you about my little boy. And even more that you never brought him up again."

Lance looked at me. "I don't remember her telling me it was a boy."

I nodded and he continued reading. "I don't know why I need to let you know who he is. It just seems right that one person in town know. Of course, if you die before I do, my attorney will tear up this letter, and no one will know. Maybe that would be better (except for you dying, of course)." He smiled at me. "She was a real kidder, Mary Doris."

His slow pace was maddening. I wanted to scream that he should hurry up. "I told you I gave the baby up for adoption. I didn't tell you that my brother John and his wife took him. They named him Brian, after our father. He never knew I was his mother, that was part of our agreement. As far as I know, John and his wife never told him he was adopted. Secrets were easier to keep back then."

My head was spinning. "Wait. Was Brian Milner Annie's grandfather?"

Lance nodded and continued. "So, Brian thought I was his aunt, and his son Matt called me, as you know, "Grammy" because my brother John's wife died when Matt was an infant and I filled the grandmother role for him. Matt was such a sweet child." Lance looked up. "Matt spent every summer here. Mary Doris taught you know, so she was off and Matt's mom worked. I know Matt brought Mary Doris a lot of joy."

He went back to the letter. "I never really understood why Matt and his wife – Jill, you remember? – had such a hard time with Annie as she got older. When I offered to have her come here to high school in her junior year I didn't expect them to say yes, but it didn't take them an hour to decide. Matt told me that later. Anyway, Annie has been as much a treasure to me as her father and grandfather. I never told her I was really her great grandmother, of course."

Lance folded the letter. "She talks a bit more about Annie, but you've heard the salient points."

I realized I'd been holding my breath and let it out slowly. "Wow."

Lance shrugged. "It doesn't change anything. Knowing how good Annie has been to her, it didn't surprise anyone that Mary Doris left her most of her estate. Turns out she was leaving it to a direct descendant." He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket. "I probably shouldn't have told you. Mary Doris placed great trust in me, to tell me all this."

"Yes, she did. I won't mention it to anyone, not even Aunt Madge."

"Or Scoobie," he smiled.

I could feel a blush coming. "Oh, we aren't...we're good friends, like you and Mary Doris."

"You're lucky there." He reached for a handkerchief.

IT DIDN'T CHANGE ANYTHING, of course. Still, it was hard to believe that Mary Doris had never told Annie that she and Mary Doris were great grandmother and granddaughter rather than great aunt and niece. It hit me that I knew more about Annie Milner's family history than she did.

I was sitting in my car outside the former Bakery at the Shore. I wanted to be sure where the closet had been and wished I knew why it had been covered up. If it hadn't been such a cold December day I'd have peered in the window, but for some reason the cold made my tailbone hurt more.

Even looking through the large window in the main room – which Annie had cleaned completely – I could see that there were about five feet separating the door to the kitchen and the hallway entrance. No closet door, just wall space with some old wallpaper. I closed my eyes, remembering how it looked today. When you walked into the kitchen you made a sharp turn, as it was parallel to the larger room, not behind it. Behind what I was pretty sure had been a closet was the uni-sex bathroom, clearly put there so that the plumbing could run straight back from the kitchen. The two small offices were on the opposite side of the hallway from the bathroom. Why waste all that space? They could have made a bigger bathroom, or had separate potties for girls and boys.

Really, it made no difference. Or did it?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHEN I STOPPED AT THE library the next day to get Scoobie Daphne beamed at me. She pointed to a large mason jar on the counter, then raised it so I could see it had a lot of pieces of paper in it. For a second or two I didn't get it. Then it hit me. "The food pantry naming contest! People really gave us names?"

Daphne laughed. "It was on the radio last week. That DJ who was a couple of years behind us in school." I gave her a blank stare. "Right, you were only there one year. I think he calls himself The Hot Nuts Man."

"Jeez." I watched Daphne dump the suggestions on the counter and then looked around. "Hey where's Scoobie?"

"Not sure." She was preoccupied with the proposed names now spread on the counter.

Food for Thought

The Lord's Pantry

Nuggets for Nourishment

Helping Hands (and Feet)

Ocean Alley Food Cupboard

What the Lord Doesn't Provide, We Do

Sharing the Harvest

"You can bet names like some of these aren't going to be in the submissions from the different churches." I separated them into two groups and glanced at Daphne.

"Yep," she nodded. "Those would be Scoobie's."

We had agreed that Scoobie's were: Nuggets for Nourishment, Helping Hands (and Feet), and What the Lord Doesn't Provide, We Do.

The door opened and Scoobie strode in, face pink from the cold. He had a Christmas wreath on one arm and a grin on his face. "Heard these came in at the hardware store. They run out fast." He took a deep sniff of the pine and said, "Better than a lot of stuff I've sniffed."

"Scoobie!" Daphne spoke in a whisper.

Undaunted, he looked at me. "Thought Aunt Madge might like this."

"She will." I nodded towards our small pile of name suggestions as I picked them up and stowed them in a side pocket of my purse. "We were guessing which ones were yours."

"My personal favorite is Nuggets for Nourishment." He placed the wreath on the counter as he took off his gloves.

"Don't get comfortable. I want you to help me with something."

With an exaggerated sigh he looked to Daphne. "No rest for the weary."

"You taking your stuff?" She nodded towards Scoobie's favorite table, which had his knapsack and a couple of pens.

"Am I?" he asked me.

"Why don't you? If we get done early you can always come back."

When we were settled in the car, he asked, "Are we getting Ramona?"

"She couldn't take off today. And why did you assume we were going back to the attic?"

He rubbed a gloved hand over the passenger side window so I could see out the side mirror. "Because you're not so good at asking for help, and that's the only thing you've asked me to help you with."

"Very observant. But," I turned the defroster on a higher setting, "I want you to look at something first."

"Etchings?" he asked.

That almost gave me a physical start. Scoobie and I had become best buds again, but I didn't see us as a couple. "Nope. We're snooping."

"I would expect nothing less." As we drove the short distance I looked at the grey sky. It was not supposed to snow, but the clouds looked as if they had a different idea.

We pulled up in front of the old Bakery at the Shore. While we looked at it from the warmth of the car I told Scoobie I had done the appraisal and seen the old closet on an early drawing, and thought it was now covered over with wallpaper. "And Mary Doris told me once that Richard locked Peter Fisher in a closet," I finished.

He shrugged. "What difference does it make?"

"Maybe it was big enough to store a body."

"I don't think you could have enough lime to keep the smell down." He peered through the foggy window. "And I don't think the rotting body smell could be covered over by baking cookies either."

"Maybe not, but somebody knew where Richard's corpse was and brought it into that attic a long time after he died."

"True, but if you would accept that you will never know who did that there would be more serenity it your life.

I nodded, knowing he was referring to the Serenity Prayer – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

"Most of the time I don't feel very serene."

He glanced at me and turned to stare at the storefront again. "I know. It takes work."

I started the car. "OK, let's see if anyone else broke in at the Fisher house."

AN HOUR LATER I WISHED someone had gotten into the attic and removed all its contents. I had climbed up to the attic for the second time since falling out of it and had been sitting on a small wooden rocker whose caned seat was half shredded. I had to continually rebalance my tailbone on the foam donut to keep from falling through to the floor. However, we were getting close to having a list of all the attic's items. Several times I had been tempted to tell Scoobie Mary Doris' secret, but I held my tongue.

"Look at this," Scoobie said, staring at a small framed photo. He had taken it from the last trunk we were going through, which contained a hodge podge of metal kitchen utensils, a bunch of bronzed children's shoes, and a couple of table clothes that were so rotted they literally fell apart in Scoobie's hands. He had quickly tossed them on the floor. The photo, however, held his attention.

"This kind of looks like some of those pictures of Mary Doris from the old albums." He walked across the room and showed me the picture, which was a headshot of a woman and small boy, taken by someone standing above them, as if the woman had been kneeling next to the child. Mary Doris was smiling slightly and the little boy had the wide grin of a child who had just been told to smile for the camera. Mary Doris and Brian?

"Could be." I stared at the photo some more and looked up at Scoobie, unsure what to say.

"Cute kid," was all he said, and headed down the ladder to get a plastic garbage bag from my trunk. Without saying anything about it we had known the old tablecloths were not going on the inventory.

I breathed more easily. The photo meant something to me, but would have no meaning for Scoobie, so I didn't need to worry about lying either directly or by omission.

Did this mean Mary Doris had introduced Brian as her son, quietly perhaps? If some of the Tillotsons or Fishers didn't want to acknowledge Mary Doris' and Richard's child, why even keep the photo? "Ridiculous," I said aloud. "You'll never know."

Somehow, I still did not feel more serene.

SCOOBIE AGAIN STAYED for what Aunt Madge called a light supper, and she had cajoled him to help her find the chipmunks, which she thought were in the coat closet in the entry hallway. "Every time I let them out of the kitchen, Jazz and the dogs sit by the closet door."

Mostly the dogs stay in her downstairs living area. They are not supposed to go to any areas the guests use, but occasionally they follow Aunt Madge to the front door when she checks on the mail. As a cat, Jazz goes wherever she wants.

Despite his assurance that he was happy to "catch the little buggers," Scoobie did not look too eager to find them. Aunt Madge gave him a pair of her gardening gloves, and I was trying not to laugh as Scoobie stood with pink-gloved hands on his hips as he methodically looked at the closet floor. He knelt down to sort through the boots, umbrellas and other items that were as neatly arranged as the items on Aunt Madge's pantry shelves.

Aunt Madge walked back into the hallway carrying a very small pet carrier. "You're going to keep them as pets?" I almost shrieked.

"Don't be ridiculous. Harry will take them." She looked at me as if she thought her thought process should be obvious. "The dogs brought them in before the ground was so frozen. I don't want to let them out in this yard when it's so cold. They couldn't make a winter nest now."

"Tell Harry to charge rent," Scoobie said, as he gingerly removed a couple of umbrellas.

"We're going to let them out under his porch. It's got lattice work on the sides so nothing can get them again, and the ground close to his house isn't frozen." She stooped and opened the door to the tiny cage as she set it on the floor.

I stared at her. "They don't just burrow in the leaves, you know. They chew wood and stuff."

She shrugged. "Harry says they may not live through the winter, but at least they'll have a chance."

"Holy shit!" Scoobie had just picked up a boot and a chipmunk hopped on his hand, jumped on the floor and scurried back under the hall washstand. "Damn those little jerks are fast."

All three of our gazes shifted to the floor by the washstand where there had been brief chipmunk chatter from what sounded like two of them, and was now quiet. Aunt Madge spoke first. "Thank you Adam, now I know where they both are."

Scoobie was still on his knees, staring up at us. "You want me to move the washstand?"

She shook her head. "They're too fast. I thought they'd be easier to corner in the closet. If I put a couple of sunflower seeds under the washstand they'll stay put." She picked up the pet carrier and walked through the swinging door into the kitchen.

I stared down at Scoobie and he grinned. "I bet they'd be good in soup."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

NO MATTER HOW HARD I tried not to think about it, I was mulling over a plan. I say tried not to think of it because it involved criminal activity – breaking into what would soon be Annie's campaign headquarters. I figured it couldn't be that hard to locate a closet. If Annie hadn't stopped by when I was doing the appraisal I could have looked harder. My guess was that the door was behind the wallpaper and that was why Annie had not taken it down from the wall near the kitchen door. Though if she knew it was there, so what?"

In the warmth of Aunt Madge's great room I looked at the small ledger in my lap and wondered what someone had wanted with the ones stolen from the old trunk. The one I had most recently looked at was dated June 2, 1929 – January 4, 1930. I had selected it because it had entries just before and after Richard's disappearance. The entries up to October 4, 1929 were mostly in what I assumed was his writing – at least it was not Peter Fisher's precise lettering. After October 4, all the writing was Peter's. Looking more closely I realized that the erasures and write overs stopped after Richard quit making the entries. Either Peter's math skills were better or Richard had been altering the entries so he could take some money from the till.

It looked as if Peter Fisher suspected that Richard Tillotson was cooking more than bread and cookies and had taken over the bookkeeping to get a better sense of the business. Idly I wondered what the exact date was for Audrey Tillotson and Peter Fisher's wedding and went in search of an article I had printed from the microfilm at the library. October 12, 1929.

I tried to put myself in Peter Fisher's place. He would have been furious if he verified that his future brother-in-law was stealing from the business, but might not have wanted to confront him before the wedding, which was only days after the ledger switched to all-Peter authorship. Could they have fought after the wedding? Mary Doris had been convinced Peter killed Richard, and it could be true.

Maybe Richard took off for a long drive in his Model T, had an accident and had not been discovered for a week or two. By then bugs and weather had done their work and his body was too hard to identify. No, his car could likely have led police back to the Tillotson family.

Or maybe Richard didn't really want to marry Mary Doris and just took off. That seemed least likely. Even in the days before Social Security numbers it would be hard to disappear and still make a living. Unless he went to Montana or someplace.

I pushed the thoughts aside. Richard had not left of his own accord, died later, and arranged to have someone place his skeleton in the wardrobe in the attic.

A glance at the clock on the microwave told me it was almost midnight. Scoobie had left about 9, after he thrashed Aunt Madge and me in a game of Scrabble, and Aunt Madge had gone to bed more than an hour ago. Scoobie would never agree to break into the Bakery at the Shore building. He had a couple of marijuana arrests before he changed his habits and he wouldn't want to risk his freedom for something like breaking and entering a decrepit building. But, maybe Ramona would be willing to help. I would, after all, need some kind of a lookout partner.

RAMONA'S NONTRADITIONAL AURA did not extend to B&E, but she did have an idea. "Why don't you ask my Uncle Lester? He'd love to investigate with you." The last line was said with some tongue-in-cheek humor. Ramona knew that I–as did most people who knew him–found Lester to be a bit brash. Or, at least forceful.

But, she was probably right. He'd go with me. I guess I stiffened, because Ramona looked at me with a concerned expression. "Is your back hurting more?"

"No, I just realized..." Should I tell her? Why not? "Lester probably has a key. He was the realtor who listed the place before Mary Doris died."

Ramona and I both broke into broad smiles.

LESTER WANTED ME TO MEET HIM at Java Jolt, but I suggested his prior site for meeting clients, the Burger King near his office. I thought it would be noisier and we would not be overheard. I wasn't worried about my volume of conversation, but Lester can be boisterous.

As I outlined my thoughts about looking for the old closet I realized how outlandish the idea of breaking into the building was. Even Lester looked skeptical, and he fancied himself a sleuth. "Sooo, you want me to use the key, which I do still have, to enter a building, but you don't want me to tell the building owner we're doing this or why?"

I nodded, sure he would say no.

Lester slapped his hand on the table. "Why not?"

"Why not," I said, seriously reconsidering, "is that you could lose your real estate license."

He shrugged. "I'll say I went in to get the paperwork I left there for people I showed the place to, and then I was gonna give Annie the key back."

"And why would I be with you?"

This stumped him for a moment, then he brightened. "You're thinking of using your old real estate license here in Ocean Alley instead of doing the appraisal crap, and we were going to talk about a building I had listed and you appraised."

He looked very pleased with himself, and added, "On account of you're tired of working for that goody-two-shoes Harry Steele and want to be my partner."

I gave him a dour look and he barked his laugh. "Yeah, I know. You like the guy."

NEEDLESS TO SAY, I was not going to tell Aunt Madge where I was going, but planned to strongly imply that I was going to Lakewood to do some Christmas shopping with my sister and might spend the night.

I did tell Scoobie, who was against it. We were in the library, talking in whispers. "I'm not asking you to go." I met his cold stare with one of my own.

"Oh, yeah. I'm going to let you go with Lester to break into a building. He wants to break into your pants, you know."

I laughed loudly, and Daphne gave me a raised eyebrow.

"How do you know that?" I asked, reverting to a whisper again.

"Ramona as much as told me." He scowled. "He's old enough to be your father."

I snorted, but quietly. "He's Ramona's father's youngest brother. He's only about ten years older than we are." As he continued to frown at me, I added, "And I think you and Ramona are wrong. I'd be able to tell if he were..." I groped for a word, "flirting."

"I'll tell Madge," he said.

My eyes widened in disbelief. "Traitor."

We glared at each other, and his expression softened a bit. "OK, I won't tell, but I'm your lookout. Get me one of those burn phones."

"Burn phones?"

"You gotta watch more CSI, too." He began putting his notebook and pens in his knapsack. "Prepaid phones, throwaway phones, whatever you want to call them."

I needed to go to the Wal-mart on the highway anyway, to ask them for food for the pantry for the holidays or a dollar donation. I knew it was late to be asking, but the gig is new to me.

In retrospect, I should have gone alone. The store was crowded, and Scoobie's enthusiasm for helping me pick out a 'burn phone' had waned within minutes of being in the packed store. "You want to wait in the car while I talk to the manager?" I asked.

He gave a quick shake of his head and moved over to the TV area, where it was less crowded. I paid for the phone and walked over to tell him I was going to the manager's office. "OK, Alex and I will miss you," he said, not looking at me. I glanced at the TV and saw he was watching Jeopardy.

The harried-looking Wal-Mart manager clearly did not believe me. Why would he? I was forty years younger than anyone he would have previously dealt with at the food pantry. "Would you mind calling Reverend Jamison? He'll vouch for me. My name's Jolie Gentil."

The manager, Philip M., according to his name badge, looked at me for a moment. "Have I seen your name in the paper?"

I sighed. If I'd been in one of the smaller stores in Ocean Alley someone would have asked me if I were Madge's niece. "Do you remember the woman who was cleaning out an attic and found a skeleton?"

He started to laugh and checked himself. "Not someone you know, I hope?"

"No. An old murder case."

"Oh dear." He gave me a look that boded skepticism. "I'll give Reverend Jamison a call and be right back."

I watched him walk into a narrow hallway behind the customer service desk. Philip M. was probably in his late thirties and had the beginning of a pot belly. Hard to imagine how he got it walking around a store as big as this one.

As he walked back toward me, two employees stopped him with questions and a young mother with a baby in her arms went up to him to complain that the store did not have a brand of formula she preferred. "The reverend vouched for you. I apologize for doubting you."

"No problem. You haven't dealt with me before." He spent a couple of minutes telling me that he would give us some food the next day and a $200 donation. "I can't give more than that without you applying for one of our community grants, which I encourage you to do." He signed a paper on a clipboard a stock boy thrust at him. "What I will do later is give you a lot of baking materials, but I can't do it until a couple of days before Christmas. Depends on what we sell."

I made arrangements to have the first round of food picked up and said I would stop back the next day for the check. And thanked him, of course. As I walked back to get Scoobie I reminded myself that Dr. Welby, Lance and Sylvia Parrett were talking to other groups about donations. I had thought about doing a food drive before Christmas but decided we needed more time to plan and get volunteers.

Scoobie was watching for me. "What's another term for housebreaking?"

"Are we talking puppies or burglars?" I asked.

He glared at me.

"Uh, breaking and entering."

"You forgot to say "what is breaking and entering, Alex?" He sidestepped a child of about seven who was running toward the exit.

"Very funny."

It had started to snow lightly. We were going to Aunt Madge's to set up Scoobie's phone. I had suggested the library, thinking it would go faster using the Internet rather than using a land line phone, but Scoobie nixed that idea. "I don't want a lot of people knowing I have a phone."

As I programmed the phone he swept the fast accumulating dry snow off the porch and the small sidewalk, despite Aunt Madge telling him we were supposed to get less than an inch. He declined dinner and said he'd see me tomorrow.

"What's with Adam?" Aunt Madge asked.

"We were at Wal-Mart. I guess he doesn't like crowds." She nodded as she opened the sliding glass door to let Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy into the yard. I felt a bit guilty lying to her. The crowds at Wal-Mart were less of a worry to Scoobie than what I had planned for the next night.

LESTER THOUGHT WE SHOULD both dress in black, but I pointed out that we didn't want to look as if we didn't want to be seen. He agreed, but reluctantly. We had decided to go about five-thirty. A lot of people would be eating dinner – hopefully Annie among them – and yet there would still be enough natural light that we might not have to turn the overhead lights on. And if we looked as if we weren't breaking in maybe no one would call the police to say they'd spotted burglars.

I parked across the street from the former Bakery at the Shore. Scoobie would sit in my car and call my cell phone if anyone seemed to pay a lot of attention to us. I walked through the narrow alley to the back of the building, where I was to meet Lester, who had keys to the front and back entrances. The buildings in the short block were flush with each other, and there were two between the alley and the back of the old bakery building. Lester saw me coming and got out of his car and walked toward the back door.

He said hello and handed me a clip board and kept one for himself. "Carry a clip board and you look like you're working."

I glanced at it. Lester had placed a copy of the building's former listing sheet on top of a couple of pages of blank paper. He was smart, no doubt about it. Devious, but smart.

The smell of must greeted us. "Nuts. It's darker in here than I thought it would be."

"Not to worry, kid," Lester said. "I came in a few minutes ago and set up a lamp on the bar. Give us a little light, but won't let every Tom, Dick, and Harry see in too good."

Lester flicked the lamp switch and it spread a dim glow. "And what will you tell people when someone asks why you aren't using the main lights?" I asked, mostly teasing.

"Christ. Have you seen how old the wiring is in the place? Could start a fire if you put your average computers and a fridge on at the same time."

"You neglected to mention that on the listing sheet," I said dryly.

He gave me a quick smile and we both turned to look at the wallpaper-covered wall where I thought the closet had been. Lester ran his hand along the wall. "You know, there's a thin crack here...and here." He had reached to his left about two-and-a-half feet.

"Maybe they took down the molding around the door frame and took off the door knob and covered it over."

Lester took a box cutter from his pocket and began to make a tiny slit in the spot where he had felt the crack.

"What are you doing?" I shrieked.

Without looking at me or seeming ruffled, he said, "I thought you wanted to do this kinda quiet like."

I spoke more quietly. "But she'll know someone's been in here."

"Maybe. I'm trying, if nobody else screams in my ear and makes me go crooked, to follow the outline of what mighta been a door here." Lester isn't tall, but neither was the supposed door. In less than a minute he had traced its outline and gestured to me to come closer. "Your fingers are smaller. See what that feels like. If it's not a door we'll seal it back up a little." He pulled a plastic prescription bottle from his pocket. "Wallpaper paste. Pretty slick, huh?" He grinned.

"Very." I could feel the clear, straight line of what could easily be a door. I put my nose on the wall paper to see if I could see through to anything, and immediately sneezed three times in quick succession.

"Great, get snot on the wallpaper."

I sniffed loudly and held my nose as I tried again. "I can't see anything. I think someone put some really thin wood here to fill in the door crack."

"Yeah that would work." He peered more closely. "See these little nail marks?" He pointed to a spot on the wall that was just below my waist and had a few tiny holes in an even horizontal row. "I think they had a piece of molding here, like a chair rail, to hold the door up."

"Why?" I asked.

"Cause they had to take the hinges off the door to hide the entrance. Needed something to hold it upright or it would fall backwards." He glanced up at me. "Unless you can think of another way to keep it standing up with no knob or hinges."

"Nope."

"I'm thinkin' they just took the molding off. If they did it awhile ago, the places where the nails made holes probably woulda ripped by now."

I nodded, thinking. "You can't smell it now, but when I was in here doing the appraisal I thought I smelled something that reminded me of the old rubber cement."

He shrugged. "Maybe somebody started to tear down the wallpaper, found the door, and glued the paper back on."

That someone would pretty much have to be Annie. "I wonder why Peter Fisher didn't just plaster over it," I mused.

"Dunno." He started to put a dab of wallpaper paste here and there. He stopped for a second, thinking. "I guess they coulda glued the door to pieces of wood that filled in the cracks around the door, but glue woulda maybe gotten old after a bunch of years."

"Maybe." I thought some more. It took a lot more effort to put up wall plaster than it does to hang dry wall today. "He wouldn't put up plaster if he had to do it fast."

"Or maybe whoever did it wanted to be able to get back in. Like, to retrieve a body." He grinned at me.

I remembered Scoobie's comment. "If he had a body in there wouldn't it smell awful?" We both seemed to agree that I was talking about Peter Fisher hiding Richard Tillotson.

Lester was thoughtful, something I had not seen him be previously. "They wouldn't have had plastic to wrap it in. Maybe in a canvas tarp in a trunk? Put a lot of vanilla on the floor, something else with a strong smell."

"Vanilla. I guess bakers would have that. Scoobie said he didn't think even lime could hide the smell."

Lester snorted. "He an expert?"

None of us were experts in hiding the smell of a dead body. At least, not that I knew. "I guess there are lots of strong-smelling things in the universe. Lavender, maybe, cinnamon."

He shrugged. "Or use a combo of ten different things. So, now you know there's a door here, what are you gonna do?"

My cell phone rang before I could respond. "Annie," was all Scoobie said.

"Crap!" I unplugged the lamp and made sure I had both clipboards. "Run!" We went quickly down the hallway and out the back door. I hoped Scoobie hadn't seen Annie drive toward the back of the building. Surely he would have said something. I hoped she had walked over from her office.

"Around the corner, quick." Lester said.

"You didn't lock the door." I whispered.

"Screw the door." He walked fast toward the corner of the alley that was away from the courthouse.

When we reached the alley and were well out of sight even if someone peered out the back door, I said, "I didn't even think of an escape plan." I started to laugh, covering my mouth with my hand.

Lester just shook his head.

"Jolie." Scoobie's whispered voice came to us. He had entered the alley from the street.

I motioned him over.

"We can't drive off in your car, she might see us," he said.

"And she'll hear mine if I start it," Lester said. "There's no one in any of these old buildings now, no reason for me to be driving outta there."

"Newhart's," I said. "My treat."
CHAPTER NINETEEN

I DON'T THINK LESTER or Scoobie liked the idea of having dinner together, but they didn't mind me paying for it. Women truly are liberated.

I was into my second helping of fried shrimp – it was all the shrimp you can eat night – when Aunt Madge and Harry came in. Uh oh, I told her Christmas shopping.

Scoobie waved them toward the three of us, but they just waved back and sat at a table close to the door. He turned to me, grinning. "You didn't exactly tell her where you were going, did you?"

I shook my head. "I said Christmas shopping in Lakewood."

Lester, who was on his third helping, shrugged. "Tell her you got done early."

"I'm not lying to her for you," Scoobie said.

I knew he meant it. "I'll think of something."

"I'll lie," Lester threw in.

"The hard part for Jolie will be figuring out a way to explain why she is with both of us."

From his grin, I could tell Scoobie was enjoying this.

Lester shrugged. "Just say you ran into me here."

"I should have thought of that," I said.

Aunt Madge was coming toward us. "I didn't see your car, Jolie."

The jig is up.

"Around the corner," Scoobie said. "Lot was packed when we got here."

"And how are you, Lester?" she asked.

"Doin' great. Talked these two clowns into sittin' with me."

Aunt Madge smiled slightly as she turned to go back to her table. "Jolie is very funny sometimes."

We were all silent for a few seconds.

"You did lie," I said to Scoobie.

"Crud," he said, and Lester barked his laugh.

THE NEXT DAY WAS kind of anticlimactic. Aunt Madge didn't mention she thought I got back early from Christmas shopping. I sent Renée an email asking her to cover for me if Aunt Madge mentioned Renée and I had been shopping together. Renée would probably hope I had a hot date I didn't want to talk about with Aunt Madge.

If Annie suspected anyone broke into her building I didn't hear about it. Like she'd call and talk to me about it. I wasn't sure what to do next. As I saw it, my options were talk to Morehouse about the closet or talk to Annie. Likely neither one would appreciate my efforts. I picked Morehouse.

"You did what?!" Morehouse's voice could easily have been heard throughout the police station.

"Do you need to shout?" I asked, trying to act as if my behavior of the night before was what any citizen concerned about a crime would do.

He walked over and shut the door to his small office. "I could arrest you, you know."

"Based on what? Did you just have a tape recorder going?"

He sat back in his chair and stared at me. "Why do you care about a maybe seventy-year old murder? It's not your family."

I had prepared a response. "I could let go of it..."

"Yeah, right," Morehouse said.

"...if it were just Richard Tillotson's skeleton. It's Mary Doris."

"As far as anyone knows, nothing in that closet relates to Mary Doris." He pulled a notebook toward him and took a pen out of a drawer.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Taking your statement."

"My statement is that I came in here to wish you a Merry Christmas." I stared at him, careful not to blink.

He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, then tried a 'be reasonable' approach. "Why are you concerned with a closet you found on seventy-five year old drawings?"

I outlined my thinking that it was a logical place for Peter Fisher to hide a body. "He could have papered over the entrance, but he'd still have had access to move the body years later."

"I could never prove that," he said.

"I know," I paused. "It's like Watergate, it's the cover-up."

His look said he thought I was mad. "Uh huh. Now we're into politics."

It came into place, just like that. How could I not have thought of it earlier? "Annie is running for prosecuting attorney. Mary Doris left her the building and Mary Doris dated Richard Tillotson, whose body was just found. He was clearly murdered, and now she's been killed." I had to choose my words carefully so I didn't disclose Mary Doris' secret. "Maybe Annie doesn't want anyone to talk about all that when she's running for office."

"Who would give a rat's ass?" Morehouse asked. "It doesn't have a damn thing to do with Annie Milner – Assistant Prosecutor Milner to you. You think I'm going to talk to Annie about this? I'm not about to do anything to piss off the prosecuting attorney's staff."

I stood up and picked up my donut. "Okay."

"What does that mean, 'okay'?" he asked.

"Just okay. I hear you."

"Like hell you do," Morehouse stood. "You never listen to me. You almost got yourself killed awhile back playing detective. You stay the hell out of this." His voice was rising again.

I could feel my face reddening. "You asked me to come to you, if I found something. I did. I'm done." I put my hand on the doorknob, then turned back to him as I opened it and gave him my best smile. "Merry Christmas." I said it loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE. Sort of. Maybe I don't care. Of course you care. The terrible thought that had been in the back of my mind pushed forward again. Would Annie have killed Mary Doris to hide Richard's decades-old murder and the fact that Annie's grandfather was illegitimate? That just didn't make sense. I couldn't remember what percentage of today's children were born outside of a marriage but I knew it was large. It was part of almost everyone's family, if it had enough people in it. No one would care.

Maybe Annie thought that once Mary Doris was certain about the skeleton being Richard's that Mary Doris would make a big stink. The focus would probably end up on Annie. Maybe it had nothing to do with the election and unwanted publicity. Maybe she just didn't want to be on center stage because of someone else's action. I can relate to that.

On most levels Annie's involvement made no sense. Aunt Madge thought Annie was closer to Mary Doris than her parents. Annie probably didn't even know Mary Doris was her great grandmother instead of her great aunt. Or did she? Mary Doris told Lance.

I sat at Aunt Madge's kitchen table, Jazz on my lap, thinking about the last couple of days as I had an afternoon cup of coffee. Harry had asked me to appraise a house about ten miles out of town, someone he'd known years ago who'd found out he'd opened Steele Appraisals. I was glad to do it, but it was ten miles closer to Lakewood, and I'm still not anxious to run into people who know me from my commercial real estate days; more accurately, my days married to a gambling embezzler. I sighed and stood up, which annoyed Jazz. I had to get over those thoughts. I knew I hadn't done anything to be ashamed of. What bugged me was the idea that everyone knew I'd had the proverbial wool pulled over my eyes.

I made a decision. Annie did not kill Mary Doris. It was ludicrous to even think it. No one running for public office would add murder to their resume.
CHAPTER TWENTY

IT WAS FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS. If I'd known how much work the food pantry chair had to do I would have moved. I'm not sure where, anywhere.

In fairness, a lot of people helped. Lance said that the cash donations were more in one month than in the entire last year. That's what asking does. Really, it was no different than being a commercial real estate agent in Lakewood. You had to look for donors as much as clients.

Scoobie, Megan, and I were taking an eyeball inventory of what was left on our shelves. We were also checking dates on cans of some of the recently donated good. "Who eats asparagus soup?" Megan asked.

"Same people who eat all the sweet potatoes," Scoobie said. He was unpacking a large box of sacks of flour that Wal-Mart had sent over. They'd also sent a few boxes of sugar, brown sugar, cooking oil, and chocolate chips. Manager Philip had been true to his word, and had actually sent things over earlier than he said he would. I had asked Megan's daughter Alicia to walk over to Midway Market grocery to buy some baking soda, baking powder, and powdered cinnamon, which Mr. Markle was giving us half-off. He was donating twenty small turkeys on Christmas Eve.

We were opening a half-day each day through Christmas Eve. A couple of people on the board thought that was too ambitious (think Sylvia and Monica), but Reverend Jamison agreed with Scoobie that you had to be open enough hours for new customers to hear about us and come in. Usually recipients have to have been vetted by Salvation Army or the state welfare office, but we had decided to relax that policy until after Christmas. As Dr. Welby said, anyone who came asking for food at this time of year had to be pretty desperate.

And there were a lot of desperate people. Half of me was almost glad to be getting the food pantry more active, and the other half didn't want to know how many people didn't have enough to eat. People who looked normal, whatever that means, said they didn't have enough food to get them through until the end of the month.

A rubber band went whizzing by my ear. Given that there were three of us in the room, I knew who had shot it, but Scoobie ignored me when I turned around.

I WAS SURPRISED ANNIE called me that night. "I don't understand what you mean on the appraisal, the part about the electrical system, and why that makes the property worth less."

I thought for a minute, not wanting to scare her. "It's old knob and tube wiring, and it was used oh, up to the 1930s, maybe..."

"But why can't I use it now?" she asked, her tone showing exasperation.

Thank goodness Aunt Madge redid her wiring about ten years ago. "Obviously, it still works, and it was fine for its purposes back then. When your building was constructed electricity was mostly for lights. In fact, my Uncle Gordon called the electric bill the light bill, I think."

"Mary Doris did, too," she said.

"You probably will want to do more than turn lights on and off." I thought fast. "If it were me, I'd want to redo all the wiring, and this might be a good time to do it." Maybe I can get back in there with her and we can 'discover' the closet together.

"Why now?" she asked.

"If you plan on keeping it, you're probably going to do some remodeling anyway, right?" I didn't wait for an answer. "When they put in new wiring and a circuit breaker box they might have to poke some holes in the walls. Might as well get it done before you paint and stuff."

She sighed, "I hadn't planned on this. Timing is not good."

"Christmas and Mary Doris' death." I assumed this was her thinking.

"Umm. A bit. I was going to move some things into the building between Christmas and New Year's." She paused. "Would you mind showing me what you're talking about?"

"I might be able to..."

"If you want me to pay you for your time..."

"No, of course not. It's just the wiring is behind the walls, and the walls are still up..." I thought for a moment. "If you think you will get the rewiring done, we can poke a bigger hole around a plug or light switch and probably see what I'm talking about."

We agreed to meet when she got off work. Now I wished I had talked to Aunt Madge about the closet. She was the handy woman, and I wanted her to come with me when I met Annie. In the end, I didn't tell her about the closet, just said that I wanted her to help me explain the old electrical wiring to Annie.

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME I'D seen anyone appear to be less than happy to see Aunt Madge. Why is that?

Annie recovered quickly and thanked us for coming. True to her reputation, Aunt Madge had brought a small tool box, from which she pulled a screwdriver to take off the plate that surrounds a socket and a small hammer. After she took off the wall plate she placed the business end of the screwdriver on the plaster near the wall socket and began tapping and then gently removing small pieces of plaster until she had about a two inch by three inch hole. I felt as useful as salad dressing at breakfast.

"Sit here, Annie." Aunt Madge patted a spot on the floor next to her and pulled out a flashlight. Annie did so and her gaze followed the beam of light. "See those little knobs that are nailed into the boards?" Aunt Madge asked. When Annie said yes Aunt Madge continued. "They're ceramic, and you can see the wire runs through them to keep the wiring away from the boards."

"What are those flakes of material on the wires?" Annie asked.

"The wires were originally wrapped in cloth – this would have been before the kind of sheathing used now. Over time, the cloth disintegrates."

"Oh dear," Annie said.

Aunt Madge shrugged as she began to pack her tools. "The wiring is still OK, the knobs keep the wires off the boards. It's just all around better to get a circuit breaker system put it if you're going to have much plugged in. You're better protected from fire, too." She stood. "Now, how about a tour? I haven't been in here since it was an insurance agency about twenty years ago.

I trailed after them as Annie explained which of the small offices would be hers and that she envisioned campaign staff sitting in the larger room. "And I'll have some campaign literature along the bar."

Aunt Madge stood in the middle of the large room and turned a full circle. She glanced at the large mirror behind the bar. "That thing will weigh a ton. Make sure you have several people help you if you take it down." Annie agreed, and Aunt Madge asked, "You need some advice on getting that old wallpaper down?"

Annie's no was said very quickly and Aunt Madge looked at her as she walked over to the wall I was convinced hid a closet. She ran her hand over the paper. "Looks as if you've already scored it." She nodded to the razor thin cuts that Lester's box cutter had left.

"Yes, now I really do..." Annie began.

"The glue's really dry." And with that my aunt, the one who believes in minding her own business, put a fingernail under a piece of the wallpaper and yanked.

The three of us stared at the partially exposed door. "Goodness," Aunt Madge exclaimed, "I bet you didn't know you had a built-in storage cupboard." She smiled at Annie, who did not return it.

"It appears I do," Annie said, stiffly. But, while she was probably annoyed, her expression did not betray any anxiety, or even curiosity.

"It's on the original floor plans." When they both looked at me, I added, "The drawing is in the Registrar of Deed's Office."

I moved closer to the door, trying to think of something neutral to say. "Most people would kill to find such a big closet." Damn, that's not neutral!

Annie looked at her watch. "I need to get going." She took out her key ring, apparently hoping this would hurry us.

Instead, I ran my fingers over the exposed part of the door and peeled back a couple more inches of wall paper. "You can see the end of the door. It looks..."But, I didn't get to finish my thought.

"I'm going to have someone take that down, thanks." Annie's voice was sharp. "I really appreciate the advice on the electrical system, Madge."

Is Annie really in a hurry, or is she antsy about the closet?

When we were back in the car, Aunt Madge said, "You should never entrust a secret to Lester, you know."

SO, PETER COULD HAVE PUT Richard's body in that closet at some point, assuming he had a lot of old fashioned deodorizer. Where does that leave me? "Nowhere," I said aloud.

Jazz, who was lying next to me in bed, rolled toward me and stretched, expecting an ear rub.

"We're going to the food pantry today and that's all we're going to think about."

Jazz yawned and stretched some more. We. Great, I'm talking to Jazz like she's a person.

It's a good thing that's all I planned, as we had literally dozens of people bringing in canned goods all morning. One sweet woman even brought in a plate of brownies, "For the hard working volunteers."

About ten o'clock George Winters called. "I heard my story worked."

"What story?" I asked, holding my cell phone to my ear by balancing it on my shoulder so I could write the name and address of a donor in the notebook on the counter.

"The one about the rejuvenated food pantry."

"Wait, no, I got here early. I didn't read the paper."

"Oh, you didn't read it?" he sounded disappointed.

A short, very plump woman set a box of canned goods on the counter and said, very loudly, "Good thing I saw that article before I went shopping." She turned to leave.

"Would you like to leave your name?" I called.

"Merry Christmas," she said, not turning around.

George had heard the conversation. "See, I wrote something you'll like. When you get a paper, look at page three." He hung up.

I relayed the short conversation to Megan, who put on her sweater and went to the newspaper box a couple doors down and came back reading the paper and smiling. "Rejuvenated Food Pantry Helping More Residents."

It was a short article, and to the point. George had apparently been by when I was out – which was much of the time, since I was entreating churches and stores for donations – and had taken a photo of Alicia on one side of the counter talking to a young pregnant woman standing on the other side. In the background you could see Scoobie's back; he was stocking shelves. I skimmed the article. No mention of Scoobie. That was probably good.

I looked up at Megan. "This is really great. Uh, where is Scoobie?"

She shrugged and turned to the counter to accept two large plastic bags that I could see had stuffing mix. "I need a receipt," the elderly man said, and I wrote one for him and stapled his grocery receipt to my note.

When Scoobie did not show up by eleven o'clock I called Daphne at the library. No Scoobie. Not at Java Jolt and Mr. Markle said he had not been in the grocery store, either.

Aretha Brown came in to relieve Megan and she picked up on my anxiety right away. "Maybe he just slept in."

"He's been here every morning at nine o'clock sharp." It was the day before Christmas Eve. Scoobie seemed to be having the time of his life working at the pantry. Half the people who came in knew him and were delighted to see him. I had the sense that several of them had known him before he stopped using marijuana and drinking too much and liked what they saw now.

After I'd called Scoobie's 'burn phone' several times without an answer I asked Aunt Madge to relieve me for awhile so I could look for Scoobie and left as soon as she got there. I pulled up outside the ancient old house where Scoobie had a room and stared at the place, willing him to come out. If he were in there he'd be furious at me for knocking on his door. Not that I knew which one it was.

It was as I was leaving the library a few minutes later that I decided to ask Sgt. Morehouse. He and Scoobie were not always on the best of terms, but I'd heard him once tell Scoobie he was "doing good," which I took to mean not using drugs for good while.

Morehouse wasn't in, but Dana Johnson told the counter clerk she would come out to the front desk. I took a minute to take in the transformation of the normally drab waiting area. There was a small artificial Christmas tree in the corner, but it was the walls that were most colorful. Apparently decorating them had been an elementary school project, for there were at least fifty colorful drawings taped to the walls. I noted a couple of Menorahs, but most were snowmen, trees, or wreaths, and often they thanked "the policeman" for protecting them.

Dana walked out and nodded to the officer at the counter to buzz me in, which he did. We talked in the hallway, which was quieter than the volume in the large open area that had desks for just about everyone on the small police force. "If you saw him yesterday he isn't a missing person," she said, not unkindly.

"I just want," I paused, not sure what I wanted, "you to know I can't find him. He's with me almost every day and..." I stopped. If I said more I thought I'd cry. Where did that come from?

Morehouse came in through the back door, which led to the parking lot, and our eyes met. Dana had seen my attention was drawn elsewhere and she and I both greeted him as he walked up to us. "What have you done now?" he asked.

That banished any tears of worry. "Nothing! I'm looking for Scoobie."

"Scoobie? You don't know where he is?" As I shook my head, he said, "He's been working with you at the First Prez Pantry, right?" I nodded. "Wasn't that his backside in the paper today?"

"Yes, and he was supposed to meet me there this morning. He always comes."

Morehouse's interest had gotten more of Dana's. "He didn't act like he was coming down with anything, did he?" she asked.

"No, and I know he'll be mad at me for looking for him, but I've checked everywhere I can think of."

Morehouse thought for a minute. "OK, I'm not going to do anything official, but I'll ask the guys to keep an eye out for him and just call me if they see him. Not talk to him or anything."

I don't think he expected me to kiss him on the cheek, because I think if he had he would have deflected it.

"Don't you know it's flu season," he grumbled as he turned to walk toward his small office.

Dana smiled at me. "I bet he's okay."

"I hope so." The officer at the counter buzzed me out and I walked into the light snowfall that had started while I was in the police station.

When I got back to the food pantry there were stacks of food behind the counter, and so many sacks and small boxes that it was hard to move around. Aunt Madge offered to stay so I could be free to come and go, but I said no.

I had done all I could. It was time to practice Scoobie's Serenity Prayer. "Go on home. He might even show up there."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

IT WAS AFTER SIX O'CLOCK when I locked the door. I had sent Megan and Sylvia home at four-thirty. We were supposed to close at four but there was still a line, so we stayed open longer. Even after I locked the door at five people would peer in and I'd let them come in. I had spent the last hour and a half restocking the shelves and worrying.

I was halfway to Aunt Madge's when I pulled over to let two fire trucks roar past me. Idly I hoped it was just a grease fire or something small, nothing to disrupt a family's Christmas. When I turned onto D Street I saw the plume of smoke rising from the business district. Damn. That would ruin a... In the middle of my thought I gasped and pulled behind the second fire truck, matching its speed. The smoke was coming from an area near the old Bakery at the Shore.

IT LOOKED AS IF THE FIRE had started at the back of the building and was moving toward the front. I couldn't think of anything in there that would start a fire, and I thought Aunt Madge had talked Annie into doing nothing until the building was rewired.

When you read about a chill running through someone when they're scared, it's true. I ran up to a firefighter who was pulling on his boots. "There's a closet. Look in the closet!"

"Stand back, miss." He put out an arm to block me from going further.

"You don't understand, someone might be in the closet."

The next two minutes were a blur. The firefighter hollered at the man who was directing the effort and they asked me exactly where in the smoke-filled building the closet was. I stood with tears running down my hot face until a hand pulled me backwards and I saw Sgt. Morehouse. He said nothing.

About ten seconds later two firefighters came out, each holding one side of Scoobie, who had his arms apparently tied behind him and was unconscious. Morehouse kept tight hold of my arm until I stopped screaming, and then he turned me to face him. "Let 'em work on him," he said, referring to the paramedics.

I nodded, not speaking, and turned my head toward the ambulance.

"Can I let go?" he asked.

"Yes." All I could do was stare as a paramedic put an oxygen mask on Scoobie and another one yelled, "Let's go!"

I turned toward my car and Morehouse said, "I'm driving." He took my keys from my hand and tossed them to a bystander. "Move that car down the way, and drop the keys at the station." The man caught the keys and nodded.

"Buckle up," he barked at me as he started to drive the police car. I began to sob and couldn't stop.

"Jolie, listen to me. If he was dead they wouldn't be in such a hurry."

It took me a couple of minutes, but I got control of my sobs and fished in my pocked for a tissue. "Thank you."

Morehouse parked right by the emergency room door and kept his hand on my elbow as we walked in. I guess he thought I'd try to get into the patient cubicles. He asked the clerk at the desk to keep him posted on the guy they just brought in. When the clerk looked confused, he added, "The one from the fire."

Morehouse's phone buzzed and he picked it up, listened a moment, and said, "She's with me." He shoved it back into his pocket. "Two guesses. Well, one."

"Aunt Madge," I whispered.

Even before she got there a man in scrubs opened the locked entrance to the patient area and motioned to us to come in. "Looks like he'll be okay," he said to Morehouse, "but we need to watch him. Quite a bump on the head."

He gestured us into Scoobie's area. I almost burst into tears again. Scoobie had an oxygen canella in his nose and his face was darkened with soot. One nurse was wiping soot off his face and another was adjusting an IV.

Scoobie saw me and tried to sit up. The two women each threw an arm across his chest and the taller one said, "Down!"

He obeyed and looked at me without saying anything. He looked exhausted more than anything.

"Your buddy here knew something was wrong," Morehouse said, tilting his head in my direction.

"I figured you would," he said, his voice hoarse, "then it got later and I smelled the smoke..." His voice trailed off.

"If you hadn't talked about that damn Serenity Prayer I would have kept looking."

At that he gave a full smile and looked at Morehouse. "And you thought she wasn't teachable." His voice was still hoarse, but his words sounded more like Scoobie.

Both nurses had stepped out by now, and Morehouse pulled his notebook from a pocket. "What can you tell me?"

He closed his eyes. "Not a lot. I remembered Jolie and Lester saying they left the back door unlocked, and..."

"Lester, Lester Argrow?" Morehouse turned to me, the more familiar look of irritation on his face.

"He's the real estate agent for the place." I said, defensively.

Morehouse snorted. "Go on."

"I couldn't sleep. All keyed up from working at the food pantry, I guess." He took a breath. "Went over there about seven-thirty this morning, and the door was open. I wanted to look around for myself." He stopped to swallow and asked for some water.

"He didn't go in with us," I explained to Morehouse

I took a Styrofoam cup next to the sink, filled it, and plopped a straw into it. As Scoobie took a couple of sips, I added, "He thought going in there was a bad idea. I should have listened to him."

"Should have listened to myself." He put his head back onto the pillow and winced. "Got a bump on the noggin."

"Did you see who hit you?" Morehouse asked.

"No. I was standing to the side of the bar, looking at that great old mirror, and that's the last I remember."

"And you woke up before the fire?" Morehouse asked.

"Yeah, hours ago. But my hands were tied behind my back and there was a gag in my mouth. I kept kicking the wall, but the buildings on either side are vacant."

You couldn't stand up, let someone see you from the street?" Morehouse asked.

"I was in that closet, and the door wouldn't push open."

Morehouse made a note. "Locked you think?"

"I couldn't tell..." his voice trailed off.

"Adam." Aunt Madge was in the curtained doorway. She looked much more distressed than any time I'd been in the hospital.

"He'll be all right, Madge," Morehouse said. She nodded and sat in one of the two plastic chairs. I avoided her eyes.

"So, you smelled the smoke or what?" Morehouse asked.

"I heard the crackling first, I guess I'd been dozing." He opened his eyes. "I think I smelled gas, well, not really gas, but something sort of like gas."

"Yeah, not likely natural causes," Morehouse said, dryly. "Anything else?"

Scoobie started to shake his head and winced again. The blood pressure cup on his arm started to inflate and he asked me to take it off. "No," said Aunt Madge. And that was that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE DOCTORS LET US TAKE Scoobie back to Aunt Madge's late in the day on Christmas Eve. I remembered Aunt Madge had spoken harshly about his parents, so I gathered he did not spend holidays with them. Without really discussing it, she and I had brought him back to the B&B and put him in the room, next to mine.

"I can stay on the couch," he said as we climbed the stairs.

"You don't go with the Christmas décor," Aunt Madge said. She had placed a pair of men's sweat pants and a t-shirt on the bed. "Jolie and I will step out while you get changed."

We waited outside, not speaking, while Jazz pawed at Scoobie's door. I knew Aunt Madge was really mad at me, even though she said she wasn't. I figured she thought that Scoobie wouldn't have been almost killed if I hadn't led him astray.

Thank goodness for Megan taking charge at the food pantry. She called every member of the committee and they all came in to work.

I fielded calls from people all morning. Even Joe Regan had called. Ramona had been at the hospital for a few minutes the night before. Daphne wanted to know if she could put up a sign at the library saying Scoobie was okay and would be back after Christmas. I told it was probably all right, but to be sure to take it down before he did get back.

Even Gracie heard and called. She also informed me that neither she or her mother had found the deed for the Fisher house and she was going to "let go of it." I suspected the happy pills enabled this attitude.

"I'm dressed," Scoobie called, in a silly falsetto. I gestured that Aunt Madge should go in before me. He was lying on the top of the quilt, and Jazz ran in before either of us, hopped on the bed, and walked up to Scoobie's head and sat down on his neck, seemingly daring Aunt Madge to make her move.

"At least she's not putting her b...tail in my face," he said, pushing her to the side, but rubbing the top of her head. He looked at both of us. "I really am okay. I'm just here so you'll have company at Christmas."

Aunt Madge looked out the window. "It will be a quiet one," she said.

My parents are in Florida. My sister Renée and her husband and two children were supposed to come down for Christmas lunch, but there were about three inches of snow on the ground accumulating toward a foot of the white stuff. Aunt Madge insisted they not be on the roads and we said we'd get together New Year's Day instead.

"I'll make us a pot of tea with honey," she said, and left the room.

When she was gone Scoobie looked at me. "How pissed is she?"

"I think we really scared her. But it's me she's angry with, not you. She figures I got you into this."

He looked at Jazz as he stroked her. "I should have followed my own advice and stayed out of there." Jazz walked onto his chest and plopped down. "On the other hand, we know for sure someone has something to hide." He gave me a grin that was more like his usual self.

"I FIND IT ODD," Aunt Madge said as we ate crab soup for Christmas lunch, "that Annie Milner hasn't called. You'd think she would want to know why Adam was in there, if nothing else."

"Me, too," Scoobie and I both said. We were sitting at Aunt Madge's large oak table, which had a poinsettia and set of Christmas candles festooned in the center. Aunt Madge had gone to church that morning, saying that eight to ten inches of snow wouldn't stop her. I had planned to go with her, but we agreed that someone should stay with Scoobie.

"I suppose Annie could be away." She stirred a few oyster crackers into her soup.

Scoobie's and my eyes met and looked away. We had talked at length in the morning, before going downstairs. Who else but Annie would be in the building? Though, as Scoobie pointed out, the door had been unlocked. Several homeless people stay in Ocean Alley during the winter – most go south – but even if one of them had come into the building to sleep they wouldn't have any reason to hit Scoobie, much less tie him up and set the building on fire.

Suddenly she gave us both a stern stare. "What do you know that I don't?"

Under normal circumstances I'd give her a smart answer, but this time she wouldn't have stood for it.

Scoobie spoke first. "We don't really know anything." He looked at me and I shrugged. "Jolie and I thought maybe Peter Fisher killed Richard and put his body in the closet. But how that relates to what's going on now beats me."

"What I care about," I was still thinking," is who killed Mary Doris."

There was a loud bong from the front door chime, and we looked at each other. Aunt Madge does not accept B&B guests between Christmas Eve and New Year's. She started to get up, but I gestured she should stay down and I went to the door. The dogs seemed to know this was an odd time for a visitor and escorted me, one on each side.

Lance Wilson stood there, collar turned up against the wind and what looked like a tin of fruit cake in his hand. As I greeted him Aunt Madge and Scoobie came out and she and I made a fuss over him, telling him to come in and get warm and have some crab soup with us.

He agreed with no hesitation and as Aunt Madge was ladling his soup he turned to Scoobie. "I'm so sorry about what happened to you."

"Thanks." Lance continued to look somewhat uncomfortable, so Scoobie added. "I'm going to be fine."

As Aunt Madge sat back down he smiled at her and said, "I make a mean fruit cake. They usually get eaten before anyone can use them as a hammer."

I couldn't imagine why Lance had come. You generally don't just drop in on someone on Christmas day. I broke the silence. "You did a lot of work at the pantry this week, you must be tired."

He swallowed some soup. "Yes, but not from that. I'm just...bone tired."

I didn't say anything. I could guess what was weighing on him, and he finally spoke. "You see, I knew some things I should maybe have told a couple of people. But, it didn't seem right." His voice trailed off.

Aunt Madge reached over and put a hand on his. "Lance. Whatever it is, I'm sure you did the right thing."

He set his spoon down. "I thought I did. Well, how could I have known?"

"Known what?" Aunt Madge and Scoobie said together.

He cleared his throat. "You see, Mary Doris, well a long time ago she had a baby."

"Had to be a really long time ago," Scoobie said.

Aunt Madge gave him a look.

"She had Richard Tillotson's baby and gave the little boy up."

Scoobie and Aunt Madge stared at him for several seconds. "Those were," Aunt Madge seemed to look for words, "different times."

"Yes, they were. The thing is, it was not what you would call a stranger adoption."

I could see Scoobie wondering where this was going, but Aunt Madge got it right away. "Annie's father, no have to be grandfather."

He nodded. "I thought I was the only person she told. She only told me about ten years ago maybe. About the baby. I didn't know who it was until after she died; she left me a letter. Now I'm wondering."

"If Annie knows, maybe she doesn't want all this brought up if she wants to run for office," I said.

"That doesn't make..." Aunt Madge began.

"It makes total sense," Scoobie said, at the same time.

"Yes, it does," I added.

Aunt Madge gave me a sharp look. "You knew."

"I told her a few days ago," Lance said, "and made her promise not to tell anyone. It was selfish of me, but when Mary Doris died the way she did..."

Aunt Madge's expression relaxed, but Scoobie kept staring at me. "Wow."

"Where is Annie?" Aunt Madge asked. "They said in the paper this morning that Mary Doris had owned the building and it would likely pass to Annie, but I don't recall her being quoted in the article."

"I saw Sgt. Morehouse after church this morning, and he said she can't be found. But," Lance took a spoonful of soup, "If she was going to be away for a few days for Christmas she may not be following local news."

Lance stayed until early evening. He said he had had lunch with Mary Doris at the nursing home for the last several Christmases, and he hadn't realized how lonely he would be without her.

We were in the middle of a two-team Scrabble game – girls against the boys – when Harry Steele called. I remembered Aunt Madge said he was going to spend Christmas with a son and his family in Maryland. Aunt Madge looked a little flustered when she came back to the table, but all she said was that Maryland was getting a lot more snow than we were.

I took the dogs for a walk in the snow about four o'clock, and while I did that Scoobie napped for a half-hour. At supper time we had grilled cheese sandwiches and more crab soup. Aunt Madge had decided to leave the turkey in the freezer until New Year's Day dinner, and I had stowed the pecans and molasses I'd bought for pie until then as well. After we each had one more piece of Lance's fruit cake he headed home. He said it had been a very nice day.

Scoobie went to bed early, saying his head didn't so much hurt as throb.

"I'm still mad at you, you know," Aunt Madge said as I wiped the counter in the kitchen. "I figured I wouldn't say anything until after Christmas."

"I don't blame you. I should never have gotten Scoobie involved in any of this."

"It was one thing to help Gracie with the attic, but anything beyond that was just busybody work. And then some."

"I know. I just..." I stopped for a few seconds. "I guess I should learn to leave things alone. It's just hard for me to walk away sometimes." I crossed the room and gave her a hug. "Don't stay mad too long, okay?"

"It's not likely I will." She walked over to the pantry and took out a box-shaped item that looked like some sort of a cage. "Live animal trap," she said. "I'm going to get those chipmunks one way or another." She put a few sunflower seeds in it and set it next to the washstand in the hallway, with much help from Jazz, who kept trying to get in the trap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SERGEANT MOREHOUSE called the day after Christmas to say he was stopping by. He accepted a cup of tea from Aunt Madge and complimented her on her red hair.

"I think it embodies the Christmas spirit," she said.

As we settled around Aunt Madge's large table he pulled several photographs out of a folder. It looked like early twilight and the picture of the person in them appeared to have been taken from a distance.

"There were no cameras on any of those old buildings, but I asked the manager of the Happy Dollar Store if any of his could get anything as far away as Mary Doris' building. He thought they got a bit of the area the fire was in, and he spent part of Christmas Eve working with a couple of students in the college photography program, and they made these stills from the video."

He had photos of several different views of the person, who was wearing a hip-length coat with a hood that was trimmed in something furry. It was impossible to see the face. I held one up to the light and Aunt Madge pulled a magnifying glass from a kitchen drawer.

Scoobie shook his head. "I can't even tell if it's a man or a woman."

"Me either," said Morehouse, looking glum. "I'd guess only about five feet, six inches, judging by where the head comes to on the building. But, there's plenty of people that height."

The camera only took in one spot near the Bakery at the Shore building, pretty close to the back of the building that abutted the alley where Lester and I had run to avoid Annie. I asked why Morehouse thought that person had started the fire.

He shrugged. "There's no one behind those buildings except this person between about three p.m. and when the fire started. And if you look close," he pointed to a spot near a gloved hand, "he's carrying something like a small box. About the size of charcoal lighting fluid, which was the accelerant used to start the fire."

"Damn," Scoobie said. "They meant business."

"They did," Morehouse said. "It was two days before Christmas, the block has only vacant buildings, and nobody had any reason to be back there." He collected the photos. "It's just a shot in the dark. Didn't expect you to recognize anyone."

"What's funny," I said slowly, "is that the person found Scoobie early in the morning..."

"By 'found' you mean accosted, right?" Scoobie asked.

Aunt Madge shook her head. I thought she looked pretty upset, so I reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I hear you," Sgt. Morehouse said to me. "Where did the person go between seven thirty or so and maybe five or five thirty?"

I thought some more. "Maybe they went there to burn the building and weren't expecting anyone else to come in."

"And they had to figure what to do once they hit Scoobie," Morehouse said.

"That's a pretty evil person, to plan all day and come back to kill Scoobie," Aunt Madge said.

"You got that right," Scoobie said.

We were all quiet for a few seconds.

"Did you find Annie?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Yep. She went into the city with some guy she works with. I gather," he gave a small chuckle, "staff in the prosecuting attorney's office aren't supposed to fraternize."

"Hubba, hubba," Scoobie threw in.

"She spent the twenty-third with him, had dinner with him and his parents Christmas Eve, and got back here early Christmas afternoon. Fit to be tied, is how I hear it."

"If you tell Ramona half the town will know by tomorrow," I threw in.

"Nothing funny about this," Morehouse said.

Aunt Madge said, "Get a grip you two."

Scoobie looked directly at Morehouse, "I probably know best that it's not funny."

Morehouse ran one hand through his hair. "Sure you do. I just want to get the bastard who did this." He nodded to Aunt Madge, "S'cuz me."

"Did Annie have any ideas who would do this?" I asked.

"Nope. And she is going to be all over this. That windbag boss of hers called already, too. Offered to get any paperwork fast if we need to go to a judge for search warrants or anything."

"I was just in there a couple of days ago," Aunt Madge said. "She could have done a lot to bring that building back to good use. It wasn't that far gone."

When Morehouse looked at her with a question in his eye she explained that I had taken her over there to talk about the wiring with Annie.

Morehouse stood and put on his coat. "I ever need a house inspected I'll call you, Madge. You're a better carpenter than half the guys on the force."

"You should hire more women," she said.

ANNIE CALLED LATE ON DECEMBER twenty-seventh. "I've been very upset, but I'm also so glad Scoobie wasn't hurt."

I started to say a mild concussion was hurt, but stopped myself.

"I assume," she continued, "that he went in to get warm. He doesn't have a home, does he?"

I explained where he lived and repeated the story Scoobie and I had agreed on. He saw the back door wide open with no evidence anyone was in the vacant building. He knew it was Annie's because I had gone to her campaign meeting there, so he knocked on the door and walked in. He was admiring the mirror behind the bar when someone hit him from behind.

"So...I guess the person must have been in there, and he didn't see them," she said.

"I suppose. I still get a chill every time I think he could have died in the fire."

"It's almost enough to make me rethink running," Annie said. "Maybe someone saw the article in the paper about the candidates and decided to target me."

It had not occurred to me that this would be Annie's reaction. Certainly she hadn't wasted a lot of time wishing Scoobie well. "I guess you've prosecuted all kinds of cases."

"That would be an understatement." Her voice sounded grim.

"I hope you were insured."

"The executor continued the policies on everything Aunt Mary Doris owned. My problem is she only owned that building and the fire marshal says the damage to the buildings on either side of it was substantial. The city wants the entire block torn down."

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I hope it doesn't get to be some drawn-out court fight."

"It won't. The prior owners hadn't paid taxes for years. The city owns the other two buildings."

"You know," the former real estate agent in me perked up, "as a vacant lot that site could bring you a lot of money. It's only three blocks from the beach."

That seemed to cheer her. We talked for a couple more minutes and hung up. If she had knocked out Scoobie and set the fire, or hired someone to set the fire not knowing Scoobie would be there, she was a terrific actor.

NEW YEAR'S EVE WAS quiet. Last year I'd been married to Robby and we went to the Florida Keys with two couples we were good friends with. I had no idea my husband had a gambling problem, and certainly didn't know he had borrowed money from some true New Jersey gangsters. This year, I did not know where Robby was, since he was supposed to go into the witness protection program after ratting on said bad guys. And, of course, he's not my husband anymore.

I try not to think much about all that. It's done, I have more or less landed on my feet, I like working with Harry, and I consider Scoobie and Ramona good friends. I had a lot of holiday cards from my Lakewood friends. I gather most of them called Renée to get my address. My plan is to do a "Happy New Year, I'm better than you think I am" letter – when I get around to it.

NEW YEAR'S DAY WAS not quiet, but it was fun to be around my sister and her family. I burned the crust on the pecan pie, but they swore it was good. My nieces seemed uncertain about why I had moved from an 1,800 square foot apartment to a single room, and the youngest asked where Robby was. Renée just said he couldn't be here today, which I guess is good enough for a four-year old.

I DIDN'T SEE SCOOBIE until a couple of days after New Year's. I think he had had far more human interaction than normal for him and he needed a break. He did promise – because Aunt Madge asked him, not me – to call each day. He opened every phone call with, "Scoobie here." Or Adam if Aunt Madge answered. "I'm not in a burning building today."

On his own Scoobie had Reverend Jamison let him into the food pantry and he counted the leftover cans of sweet potatoes. He told me Lance won the guessing contest, but would not accept the prize, which was the leftover cans.

I got up the Monday after New Year's feeling rested and ready for my first full year as a post-divorce, unmarried woman who had plans to make. That lasted until about noon, when I realized that staying in Ocean Alley doing appraisals and watching out for Mr. Rogers' chipmunks was my world at the moment.

After doing an appraisal in the morning I went back to the B&B to make a sandwich for lunch. Aunt Madge was just hanging up the phone. "You'll never believe who called."

"I can't guess, but I might believe it."

"Sophie Tillotson. Morgan, that's her married name."

I stopped with my hand on the refrigerator door. "You're kidding, right?"

Aunt Madge ignored my question. "She's in Cape May now, and said she's been upset ever since Richard's skeleton was found, and the fire in the old Bakery at the Shore just made it worse."

"I didn't know you knew her." I wouldn't have forgotten that!

"I wouldn't recognize her, and I can't actually remember meeting her." Aunt Madge thought for a moment. "Her family went to First Prez, so I may have met her, oh...forty years ago. I didn't even know she was still alive."

"Why did she call you?"

"Because of you," she said, simply.

"Me! Why me?"

"Because," she said, dryly, "you're the one who fell out of the attic with her brother."

"Oh, right." I sat on one of the chairs at the oak table and placed the bottle of milk I'd been holding on the table. "So, I wonder why she didn't call before?" I didn't really expect Aunt Madge to know.

"She didn't say. Just said she'd been reading the Ocean Alley Press on line ever since Gracie's mother called to tell her about Richard, and was upset about the fire. Apparently she doesn't know many people who live here now, and Gracie's mother suggested she call me if she wanted to talk to someone local."

I gave myself a head slap. "I completely forgot. Mary Doris said Sophie had her grandson drive her over here after she heard the news about Richard."

"That's odd," Aunt Madge said. "I had the impression she hadn't been here in years." She shrugged. "I didn't ask her that, of course. We only talked for a few minutes."

A couple of thoughts were brewing. "Do you suppose she knew about the baby?"

Aunt Madge shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"I guess not. I remember Mary Doris saying that Sophie's visit was the only good thing to come out of finding the skeleton. Other than closure for herself."

Aunt Madge gave me one of her looks, and I rose to my own defense. "I didn't ask her about any of it. Anyway, when I talked to Mary Doris I had no idea she'd had Richard's child." I stood to get a glass for my milk and my incomplete thought matured. "Hey, maybe she'd want the albums." I didn't mention that I'd like a chance to talk to her.

"It's Gracie's house, you better ask her," was all Aunt Madge said.

SCOOBIE ANNOUNCED HE DID NOT WANT TO discuss anything more about Richard's and Mary Doris' murders or the fire. "We know what we're going to know," he said, when I tried to coax him into a conversation one day at Java Jolt. "You remember that bit about accepting what you can't change?" he asked.

"I remember it, I just don't like it."

After that, he didn't call or drop by for a couple of days, but I knew he wasn't mad, just tired of me bugging him.

So, I tried Ramona. I went to the Purple Cow to see her, since she'd been away since her brief visit to Scoobie in the hospital. She'd gone to visit her parents in Florida for the holidays. As I walked into the store the white board reinforced that Scoobie was just fine.

He had apparently erased Ramona's daily quote and replaced it with, "Why do you call them hemorrhoids instead of assteroids?" I was laughing as I went into the Purple Cow, but Ramona was ringing up a customer so she didn't see me at first.

The office supply store owner, Roland, was in his small office, so I had to pretend to be looking at something. I picked up some paper clips.

"Sophie," I was saying, "knew Mary Doris from a long time ago. Maybe she would know if she had any enemies."

Ramona was skeptical. "And these enemies waited until now to kill her?"

"I know, it's lame." I thought for a minute. "Although the person I care about is Mary Doris, I'm still curious about what happened to Richard. Maybe Sophie will have some ideas, now that she knows he didn't just run off."

"Doubt it," Ramona said. "I went to the library to look at those articles, too. She was just a kid. Maybe ten or so."

I sighed. I'd forgotten that. "Oh well, she wouldn't want to talk to me, anyway."

IT TURNED OUT THAT Sophie Tillotson Morgan did want to talk to me. I answered the phone at the end of the week, and Sophie said she was going to have her grandson bring her back to Ocean Alley and she would stay at the B&B a couple of days while she made burial arrangements for Richard now that the police were willing to release the body to her. "They were going to do it earlier, but then when dear Mary Doris was killed they said they wanted to hold onto it in case there was a link between...between the two." Her voice caught.

If I had not known her age I would have thought I was talking to someone my own age. Her voice was firm and purposeful. Only the mention of having her grandson drive her gave away her age. "Has anyone set a time for Mary Doris' memorial service?" she asked.

"Not that I know of. I'll call her niece, Annie Milner, and ask her."

Aunt Madge was pleased to have a guest at Cozy Corner B&B, since winter is a slow time for business. She suggested I let Gracie know Sophie was coming. "From what you've said about that attic, there could be some of Sophie's old toys up there."

I called Gracie, who said she was back on her happy pills since the kids were back in school; she had stayed off them when they were home. "They can get in trouble in five minutes." She giggled. "Kind of like you." It turned out she didn't mind if Sophie took any of the pictures or toys. "I wish the damn attic had been empty. Except I like the quiltsh I took."

SOPHIE MORGAN WAS IN terrific shape except for "a touch of arthritis in the knees," as she put it. Her grandson worked as a nurse in Cape May, and was to come back for her in two days. She and Aunt Madge had talked until about ten the night before. For two women who didn't know each other they knew a lot of the same people, many of whom were long dead.

We were having our coffee and rolls later than usual – all of eight o'clock. The weather was mild, with temperatures expected to go up to near forty degrees. I drove Sophie around town, and she commented on a number of changes. "Almost too many to count. I was here a long time after the Great Atlantic Hurricane in forty-four, but in my mind Ocean Alley looks the way it did before then."

"With the big pier and the Ferris wheel?" I asked, smiling. When she agreed I told her that Uncle Gordon had spent an afternoon on the boardwalk with me when I was five or six, and he described the pier and its Ferris wheel and small merry-go-round. "I went home and demanded to be taken to the 'place with the rides,' according to my mother."

Sophie specifically asked to see the burned out store, so we parked across the street from it and stared at the charred wood and police tape. I explained how it was laid out now, and she told me it used to have two chimneys instead of the one. "There was one in the kitchen for that monstrous stove Richard insisted on buying. Luckily it was delivered before they had the glass in the main window, because it wouldn't go in the door."

"Now I get why it's still in there. It doesn't look as if it's been used in years."

She nodded. "Peter closed the bakery about the time the war started. Started for Europe," she amended. "He rented it to several different businesses and finally sold it."

"He sold it to Mary Doris?" I asked.

She shook her head vehemently. "Oh, no. He didn't like to be around her. He knew how she felt about him."

When I asked what she meant, Sophie added, "Mary Doris never said so directly to him, but I know she held him responsible for Richard's disappearance. She told me once that he may not have killed Richard himself, but he perhaps had someone else do it. After that I did not contact Mary Doris too often." She paused, "My brother-in-law may not have been a saint, but I cannot believe the Peter I knew was a murderer."

"I'm glad you have good memories." I didn't know what else to say.

Sophie peered out the car window. "Looks as if anyone could go in there."

I followed her gaze. "I think it would be pretty dangerous. You can see how half the back has collapsed."

On impulse I said, "It was very nice of you to visit Mary Doris after Richard's remains were found."

She stiffened. "We weren't close for years. But I always liked Mary Doris. I know my brother's leaving – I didn't believe he was dead for a long time – was really hard on her." She thought for a moment. "But, if that hadn't happened she likely would not have gotten her teaching certificate and taught all those years."

Yeah, she'd have been married and raising a son.

I dropped Sophie at the funeral home. She didn't want to be accompanied, and I was glad of that.

I popped into the library for a few minutes and sat with Scoobie as he worked on a poem. Given that there were two notebooks on the table, I gathered he had spent a lot of time writing recently. I suppose near-death experiences give you a lot to write about, if that's your thing.

As I stood to go he looked up. "Hang on one second." He finished a line, and then opened the other notebook to a page marked with one of the library's free bookmarks. He shoved it toward me.

The snow will melt and we will see

that the rivers will always flow to the sea.

The tide will always ebb and flow

the sun will rise and set aglow.

The rain will come and the wind will blow,

thunder and lightening will hit below.

The earth will tremble and start to shake,

our homes will sway and begin to break.

And when the mountains decide to explode,

we will have a sea of lava, without a road.

This one I could almost understand. I reread it, and said, "You don't usually use rhyme so much." I looked up at him. "I like it."

"Why?"

I had not expected his question. "Umm. I think I might get what you are saying. Maybe that things are inevitable?"

He shrugged. "I don't always have a message that I know of, but I have been thinking a lot about how you can make all kinds of changes in your life, but if your time is up, it's up."

I shivered. "I'm glad yours wasn't up."

He placed his hand on his neck and stretched it. "I still have a headache, but it's a lot better."

"Seems like a long time. Should you go back to the..."

"No more doctors," he said. "Took me a long time to explain to the guy in the hospital why I wouldn't take the crap medicine they wanted to load me up with."

I smiled. "Congratulations." I looked at my mobile phone. "Almost time to pick up Sophie at the funeral home."

He grinned. "I'd say it's nice of you to take her around, but I'm familiar with your ulterior motives."

"She doesn't know anything about Richard's disappearance; at least not that she's talked about. And, believe it or not, I'm not asking a lot of questions."

Scoobie gave me a smirk and went back to his writing.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE FUNERAL HOME, Sophie was sitting on a small loveseat outside the funeral director's office. Across from her, on a chair that looked too dainty to hold him, was George Winters. It occurred to me that he must have spies all over town that let him know who was where or what was going on.

They both looked up at me, and George had the decency to look guilty. "Mr. Winters has given me a copy of all the articles that mention my family through the years," Sophie said. "I shall treasure them."

I know George better than he thinks I do. He wanted to jog her memory. "How nice of him." I tried not to sound as venomous as I felt. Bothering an elderly woman while she was making her brother's funeral arrangements!

Sophie looked back at George. "You see, young man, I was only ten the day my sister got married." She got a far-away look. "I remember many things about that day. For one thing," she gave both of us a bright smile, "it was the first time I had a bouquet of flowers of my own. I wasn't truly a bridesmaid, but my sister was very thoughtful. I had a dress like the grown-up girls and my own bouquet."

I could sense George's impatience. He had not come to hear of a little girl's first bouquet. "Did you see Richard and Peter Fisher quarrel at the wedding?" he asked.

Sophie gave a dismissive wave. "They didn't really quarrel, just a bit too much to drink, I think. They were very close friends." She paused. "I think someone thought that would sell papers. You know, after he went missing." She leaned over to pat his hand. "You can't believe everything you read in the papers, you know."

To his credit, George did not get churlish.

SOPHIE WENT TO BED by eight-thirty that evening. She said that the day's activities had worn her out. Though we didn't do a lot of walking, I figured she had run an emotional gamut. I was in bed by ten-thirty, but woke up abruptly about one o'clock. "Did you hear that?" I asked Jazz. No response.

After about ten minutes of tossing and turning I got up and went downstairs to heat some milk in the hope of falling asleep again. Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy were asleep on a throw rug near the washstand. They generally slept in Aunt Madge's room, but I figured she let them out to stand guard over the chipmunks. I started to continue into the kitchen when something about their breathing struck me. It seemed a lot more shallow than usual.

I bent over and said both their names softly, then more loudly. Neither stirred. Gently, mindful that a startled dog can nip or bite, I scratched Mr. Rogers' head, then Miss Piggy's. No response from either of them. These are dogs that can hear a squirrel on the patio from two rooms away. I shook them both, still nothing. They're breathing, they must be okay.

I studied them some more. Somebody drugged these dogs. I sat on the bottom step leading upstairs and considered waking Aunt Madge. Sophie's face popped into my mind and I stood up. She was the only unknown person in the house. She had seemed to like the dogs, why would she hurt them?

I walked quietly up the steps and stood outside her room. If I opened the door and she was asleep I could startle her greatly. On the other hand, if she had drugged the dogs, Aunt Madge might do more than startle her. I eased open the door.

The bed was empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I THINK I stared at her bed for a full fifteen seconds, then took in the rest of the room. There was an adjoining bath, a so-called Jack and Jill bath shared with the next room's guests. But, there were no other guests, and no light in the bathroom. I peeked in, hoping not to find her on the floor. No Sophie.

In ten seconds I realized there were no shoes in the room and the clothes she had worn earlier were not on hangers or in her small suitcase. She drugged the dogs so she could sneak out.

I pulled on jeans and a sweat shirt and picked up my shoes so I didn't wake Aunt Madge as I descended the stairs. I knew exactly where Sophie had gone. The driveway was on the opposite side of the house from Aunt Madge's bedroom, so I wasn't too worried about her hearing my car start.

As I pulled out of the driveway I pushed the speed dial for Scoobie's so-called burn phone. Amazingly, he picked up, sounding sleepy. "Jolie?"

"Who else?" I talked fast. "I think Sophie went over to the old Bakery at the Shore building. Can you meet me outside your building, like now?"

He hung up. Either he had gone back to sleep or I'd see him in a minute.

I rolled down my window so I could rub the outside mirror. It had been warm enough to rain sometime since I'd gone to bed and the air smelled of rain and sea. Usually I love that smell, but now it brought no comfort.

Scoobie was coming out the front door of his rooming house as I pulled up and he slid into the front seat. "Are you out of your mind? Wait. Is she?"

There was no one else on the roads so we made good time going the eight or nine blocks to the old bakery. I parked on a side street. "Pull the flashlight out of the glove box, okay?"

Scoobie did so without comment and we walked toward the front of the building. "At least we don't have to worry about what door to go in," he whispered.

The building didn't have enough wood left to pound plywood over a window or door. Still, if it had been summer, with hordes of tourists, the fire department would have found a way to more fully secure the building. Now there were several orange and white sawhorses and a lot of police tape.

When we got to the front of the building we could see a pinpoint of light moving in the area that had been the large front room. I thought Sophie had some guts. She had to walk about four blocks to get to the fire-ravaged building, and here she was wandering around with a flashlight after one in the morning.

Scoobie knelt and I followed suit. It took a moment to adjust my eyes to the near-total darkness. Sophie had what looked like a metal tape measure that was extended at least a couple of feet and she was sliding it behind the mirror, near the bottom. Scoobie and I looked at each other and shrugged.

After about a minute, during which time my knees began to protest their position, she gave a quiet, "Aha!" She worked the tape measure up and down and sideways, and finally something white appeared behind the mirror. She tugged and a long piece of paper appeared. I drew in a breath, and Scoobie stared at me.

I stood up and spoke in a normal tone of voice. "Sophie?"

"Oh my God!" she turned toward us and dropped the paper.

"I saw you were gone." Scoobie moved closer to me, so that our shoulders touched. "Thought you might have taken a night walk until I saw you drugged the dogs."

"You forgot to mention that little detail," Scoobie said to me.

"Sorry." My eyes never left Sophie. She stooped and picked up the paper.

"It's the deed, isn't it?" I asked.

"How did you know?" She looked truly flabbergasted.

"I suggested that Gracie look for it, and she and her mother had no luck. I figured it had been so long since the house was built that it had been thrown away decades ago."

She gave a harsh chuckle. "Not thrown away. But my dear brother was determined to use it as leverage against Audrey's husband."

I nodded. "Peter Fisher figured out Richard was embezzling."

She walked a few steps closer. "I don't think Richard looked at it that way. I was just a little girl, so I don't really know what was going through his head. Not long before the wedding I heard him tell Audrey that he thought Peter didn't appreciate all the time Richard spent at the counter." She smiled. "I do remember that everyone liked my brother. He had a smile for all the customers, and he'd give children pieces of cookie that broke." Her countenance darkened. "Peter hated that."

"So, how did the deed get behind the mirror?" I asked.

"Who cares?" Scoobie's voice was harsh. "It's cold. We should get out of here."

"But then you'll never know how Richard died, will you?" She spoke softly.

She had my attention. "You know?" I asked.

She nodded. "Richard had me walk down here with him. We had a lot of out-of-town company, so we were all awake very late even the day after the wedding. Me latest of all. I was still so excited."

"Peter and Audrey had gone to the hotel, and I read in the paper – the very paper that your friend George Winters gave me – that Richard sang under their window on their wedding night."

I nodded. "That was supposed to be the last time anyone remembered seeing him with Peter, so to speak."

"Except me," she said, sadly. "Mother put me to bed, but I couldn't sleep. My big brother came home late the night after the wedding. He was probably out with Mary Doris." She said the name almost as a sneer. "When he saw me sitting on the couch with my little bouquet, he didn't look too pleased."

She glanced at the deed. "I would guess he did not expect to see anyone up. He said we'd go for a walk after he went upstairs. And we did, to the bakery."

"We should really go," Scoobie said, in a singsong voice. I ignored him.

"We walked down, everybody walked back then, and when he opened the door you could smell that fresh bread smell. Until that night I really loved it."

She glanced toward the mirror and back at me. "Richard went over to the mirror and took a piece of paper out of his pocket, and he slid it behind the mirror. It was a tight fit, and he was probably a little drunk, but he did it."

She pointed to a spot across the room. "And then he sat me in this little wire and wood chair at the edge of the display case, and gave me a cookie. And I sat with my big brother, and..." Her voice choked.

"And then what?" Scoobie asked.

Her tone grew bitter. "Then Peter Fisher came in. He said he'd looked out the hotel window and seen Richard go by. I don't think he knew I was with him until he got to the shop. He was as mad as a hornet that just had its nest knocked down."

"Did he say why?" I asked.

"It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me until years later. I just knew Peter was mad about something with money. Later on I figured he was accusing Richard of stealing money." She sighed. "If Richard had kept his temper in check, maybe... but he was never very good at that. He told Peter that if Peter 'went public' that he'd have a heck of a time selling the building because he'd never find the deed."

She reached into her pocket and took out a tissue to dab her eyes. "I was scared. I'd never seen two people so mad. Richard started saying things like Peter had no idea how much work Richard did and Peter said something about putting up all the money. And then they just went at each other."

She shook her head, then looked at me again. "I was crying by then, I can tell you. They didn't really punch each other much, but there was a lot of pushing. And then," she gave a strangled sob, and I started toward her, but Scoobie put an arm in front of me.

"And then Richard kind of lost his balance, he was still tipsy, and Peter gave him a hard push." She pointed toward the bottom of the bar, across from the closet. "There was a glass display case there, and the corner was quite sharp." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "There was so much blood. All over the floor, just outside that stupid mirrored closet where they hid all the alcohol they were selling."

I remembered that the floor there had wider boards than the rest of the floor. You probably couldn't see the difference now, the entire floor was covered in soot and tiny pieces of burned wood. I had a quick thought that Peter must have replaced the boards that had blood on them.

"And then what?" I asked.

"Then Peter said he was going to take me home and come back to help Richard. He said tomorrow it would be like a bad dream, that I should never again stay up so late. And I was never to talk about what happened." She shivered. "It was very clear to me that Peter had hurt Richard and was letting me know he could hurt me, too."

We were all silent for perhaps twenty seconds, then Sophie spoke again. "I left that house the day after I graduated from high school and I hardly ever came back."

"That's a long time to live in fear," Scoobie said, quietly.

"And I kept that secret," Sophie said, "and I intend to keep keeping it."

"That would be fine, if it weren't for Mary Doris. And I bet you started the fire." I looked directly into Sophie's eyes and saw a pair as resolute as my own staring back. Could this elderly woman really have killed Mary Doris? How on earth could she have done it? What would she know about making a poisonous alcohol?

"I know what you did," Scoobie said softly.

I looked at him, amazed. "What?" I asked.

"I bet you had some old bottles of alcohol, spirits, whatever you want to call it, from Peter and Richard's so-called bakery. Or maybe something they bought from somebody else to sell." Scoobie's voice had a bitterness I'd never heard before. "You went to see Mary Doris, and you gave her some to drink. Only you didn't drink any, because you knew it was wood alcohol, not grain alcohol. You also knew it would take someone several days to get sick after she drank the bad stuff. No one would associate her death with your visit."

After a long ten or fifteen seconds, Sophie spoke. "You are either a very smart man, or a very devious one."

"Smart enough to recognize your deviousness," he said, calmly.

Sophie's voice was almost a hiss. "We helped her. My mother gave her money so she could get her teaching certificate. She owed us."

I gave a violent shiver. I had been so focused on Sophie's story I had not realized my feet had become blocks of ice. It was a warm night for January, but it was likely just below freezing and not a night to stand in the cold as long as we had. Scoobie put one arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick hug.

She continued, more calmly. "Peter kept a lot of the old bottles as souvenirs. Hid them in the basement in a wooden crate. It even said 'poison' on the top of one of the crates. Audrey told me, this was years later, that some of the last stuff they bought to sell was bad. Bad hootch, she called it."

Sophie paused for a moment. "Pretty dumb to keep it around, with Peter and Audrey having kids. I took a few bottles as souvenirs after Audrey died. I can't begin to tell you why I kept a couple of the poison ones." She shrugged. "The labels were a bit different, I guess I wanted samples of each label.

She smiled sweetly. "You'll be pleased to know I made sure the other poison bottles were emptied.

"So, you took a bottle to Mary Doris. But why? What did she ever do to you?" I had a catch in my voice.

"After everything we did for her, everything, that silly old woman was going to tell the whole story, let everyone know Peter killed Richard. As soon as I heard she knew the DNA results, I was sure that's what she'd do."

"So what?" Scoobie said, stomping his own feet a couple of times. "There's no one to arrest, the sins of the father don't always pass to the child."

"That's what you think. It wasn't just Richard. That bad hootch killed several people. You know City Councilman Grooms?"

I nodded.

"His grandfather. Not that he knows the bad alcohol was from my family. The names Fisher and Tillotson mean something in this town. My mother and Audrey gave most of the money for Ocean Alley's library. There's a huge plaque.

"Yeah, there is," Scoobie said. "I'll see it comes down."

"And that's the point!" Her voice was more strident. "If people find out about all this," she gestured around the ruin of Bakery at the Shore, "they'll put it all together. All the good they did, my family's reputation, it will all be down the drain."

"Actually," I felt my blood about to boil; if only it would get to my feet. "If you hadn't murdered Mary Doris, all people would guess, if they even thought about it, is that Peter killed Richard. And it was an accident you said."

"Oh, there's more to it than that. You don't know about her bastard baby." Sophie had a look of something close to hatred.

"Actually, I do. We do." I tilted my head toward Scoobie. "She left a letter with one of her good friends, to be opened after her death."

That seemed to truly shock her. She reached to what was left of the old mahogany bar to steady herself, then looked down at her dirty gloved hand. "Then you know what I have to protect."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The family money. We had a lot, but it's dwindled over time as everyone's heirs got a piece. Those damn Milners will want a share now. And we'll all have to give some to them." Sophie had a hard, angry look now. "That money's for my grandchildren, not Mary Doris Milner's."

My sense was that if she were a man she would have spit on the floor.

"So," she pulled something from her pocket. "I'm not going to ruin our name, and I'm not going to give a dime to Matt Milner and his wife and daughter."

I looked at her hand. She held one of the smallest guns I've ever seen.

Scoobie started to laugh. "That's a twenty-two. You wouldn't be able to hit us." He started backing up.

Sophie's expression looked like a mad woman's and she raised her arm to shoulder height. "Watch me, I can..."

There was a humongous blast. I jumped and landed on my knees. Scoobie darted forward. He picked up the small gun from where Sophie had dropped it when she sat down hard.

I looked at Sophie. She was sitting on the floor, her hands at each side, balancing herself, looking around. Together our eyes traveled to a hole in the wall above her head. There was still sawdust swirling.

I looked behind me for the source of the noise. Aunt Madge was lowering Uncle Gordon's old hunting rifle. "I might have let you get away with aiming at Jolie, but no one hurts my dogs."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I STOPPED BY Annie Milner's office later the same day, to apologize. She didn't know the evil things I'd thought about her, so I didn't really have to. But, it seemed right. She took it pretty well. I didn't say anything about Mary Doris being her great grandmother rather than a great aunt, but she brought it up.

"My dad was mad at Mary Doris one time, I was maybe fourteen. He thought she spent way too much on me at Christmas, it was a lot more than she spent on my brother."

I didn't even know Annie had a brother. And why would I?

She looked at my puzzled expression. "My brother wasn't her grandchild. Technically he was my half-brother, mom's son from when she was married before." She gave a small wave. "We never thought about half brother and sister stuff."

"Anyway, Dad didn't know I could hear what he said. I was at the top of the steps. I'd gone to bed, but I heard them arguing. Mary Doris started to say something about me, and he told her to leave her granddaughter out of it."

"It took me awhile to understand, but I eventually worked it out. I realized my grandfather was born a couple months after my great grandparents got married. We had those wedding photos. Great Grandpa John's wife, Irene was her name, wasn't pregnant." Annie stopped.

I wasn't sure what to say. But, being me, I plowed on. "Was Mary Doris happy that you knew?"

Annie shook her head. "I never told her. My parents were furious when I asked them about it, and they said I had no business talking to her about it, that it was her secret to keep." Annie paused for a moment. "I never really understood her thinking, but I eventually accepted it."

"You know a single woman with a baby would have been a pariah in the late 1920s," I said.

Annie nodded. "For her, she did the right thing. I was furious with my parents for not telling me, for telling me I shouldn't talk to Mary Doris about it. That's why I came here at the end of my junior year of high school." She gave a small smile. "I wanted to get to know her better."

I smiled slightly. "Did your parents get any smarter as you got older?"

She returned the smile. "I got over being mad, if that's what you mean. The more I learned about Mary Doris' life, the more I realized my grandfather was better off in some ways with her brother John and his wife. Not," she said quickly, "that I think Mary Doris wouldn't have been a good parent. But she worked; she lived in small apartments until she was maybe forty."

Annie shrugged. "By the time I knew her she had plenty of money, but she would have had a horrible time raising a child on her own back then. And Grandfather Brian would have suffered, too."

"Kids can be mean."

We both nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LUCKILY THE OCEAN ALLEY police chose not to prosecute Aunt Madge for firing a gun within city limits, a pretty serious crime. Sgt. Morehouse gave her a heck of a lecture though, told her she was "taking a page out of Jolie's book" and it should be the other way around. She sat calmly at her kitchen table, and when he was done she offered him some tea. He accepted.

If Sophie Tillotson Morgan had let things be, no one would have paid much attention to how Richard died. Peter Fisher probably had not meant to kill him. But killing Mary Doris was unforgivable in the eyes of everyone in town. What was most mentioned was the sheer malice that went into Sophie's plans, including trying to burn Scoobie alive.

She'll never get out of prison. The judge denied pretrial release, citing her wealth and lack of remorse. He thought she would do whatever she could to flee.

Annie told me they hoped to reach a plea deal so the prosecuting attorney's office didn't have to use all its resources on one mega-trial. Annie, of course, cannot work on the case. Conflict of interest.

They'll probably never prove she started the fire. It turns out Sophie was perfectly capable of driving herself, and she came to Ocean Alley at least three times before her stay at the B&B. Her grandson drove her when she poisoned Mary Doris. She drove herself to take some of the ledgers from the attic trunk and again when she tried to burn the old Bakery at the Shore -- neither of which she would admit to.

Her daughter said that Sophie said she was going Christmas shopping the day of the fire, insisting that Sophie wanted to finish her shopping on her own. Sophie, of course, was smart enough to have bought a bunch of presents that day, and had the receipts to prove it. As Aunt Madge said, Sophie was perfectly capable of shopping and trying to murder Scoobie in the same day.

Sophie was more than just strong-willed. To hit Scoobie and drag him into the closet took more strength than most people decades younger have. Perhaps we should all walk two miles a day when we're her age.

We guessed that Sophie worked out that Peter Fisher must have hidden Richard's body in the closet. We figured he moved the remains to the attic about the time he sold the building, and she wanted to be sure there was no evidence in the closet.

Scoobie maintained that if Sophie had watched CSI she'd know there wouldn't be anything left to implicate Peter Fisher. That was his only comment on the whole affair, and he went back to his rooming house as soon as Sgt. Morehouse questioned us the morning after Sophie would have killed us.

It still gives me the willies to think that Peter must have had to scrub the remains to make the skeleton so clean. Yuck.

George Winters did a decent article that linked the death decades ago to the current murder and fire. He titled it "Rekindling Motives." He had a detailed sidebar on Prohibition and the dangers of methyl alcohol, which was cheap to make back then but as deadly as arsenic. More so, actually. If the conversations in Java Jolt were any indication, everyone read both articles.

SCOOBIE CAN BE WITHDRAWN, but I thought he was burrowing in way too much, even for him. Aunt Madge reminded me that his parents were "severe alcoholics" and perhaps that was part of Scoobie's need for solitude. He didn't even go to the library.

Finally, Ramona and I went together to his rooming house. Sgt. Morehouse told us which room was Scoobie's, and we had to knock for two minutes before he came to the door.

"Have you heard of the right to privacy?" he asked, blocking the door so we couldn't go in.

I didn't want to go in, I wanted him out.

"Yes, we have," Ramona responded.

"We just don't respect it," I threw in.

I saw the beginning of a smile, but it left quickly. "You know I like time to myself. Everything that went on, it's a lot to process."

"You're isolating."

He looked astonished. "Since when did you get familiar with danger signs in recovery?"

"Gambling is an addiction, you know. I read all that stuff when Robby got in trouble." I stared at him, not flinching.

"The question is, did it sink in?" He looked at us for another couple of seconds. "I'll tell you what, I'll meet you at Newhart's in a half-hour. You," he pointed at me, "are buying."

WE HAD THAT LUNCH, and at seven o'clock that evening Scoobie, Aunt Madge, Ramona, Harry, and I went to the memorial service for Mary Doris Milner. Annie held it in the ballroom at the hotel because no one thought that St. Anthony's Catholic Church could hold everyone. It was a good decision; even at the hotel it was standing room only. Lance Wilson sat next to Annie.

I studied the faces I could see without craning my neck too far. I recognized the mayor, several high school teachers, a couple dozen people who'd been at the reunion, everyone I'd ever met through Aunt Madge, and a lot of faces that I'd seen around town but couldn't associate with a name. George Winters caught my eye and winked. I actually smiled at him.

Mary Doris Milner's life turned out a lot differently than she expected when she was Richard Tillotson's girlfriend, and I'm sure there was a lot of sadness for a time. But her life after Richard seemed to have taken some happy turns. If the number of people at the memorial service was any indication, she had a lot of friends.

I take heart from her life.

* * * * *

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my husband, James W. Larkin, for permission to use some of his wonderful poetry, and to my late father, Miles D. Orr, for the use of his. In dozens of trips to East Coast beaches as a child and adult I got a sense of life in those towns, especially on trips after Labor Day. I owe thanks to every boardwalk vendor and every B&B host I stayed with. If not for the Ottumwa, Iowa Ecumenical Lord's Cupboard and the Ottumwa area Hy-Vee stores I would know much less about how people band together to help those who do not have enough food. I wish every community had such dedicated volunteers and businesses.

* * * * *

Keep going to read the third book of the Jolie Gentil series, When the Carny Comes to Town.

Table of Contents
WHEN THE CARNY COMES TO TOWN

ELAINE ORR

Return to Table of Content

Book three of the

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mystery Series

Though she never liked the idea of sitting on the plank above the dunk tank for the food pantry's carnival fundraiser, Jolie never dreamed what Scoobie saw that day would leave him battling for his life. Scoobie's ex-con mother shows up and there's a murder to add to the mix. Soon Jolie is doing more than appraising real estate. Even that is complicated by home burglars. She grudgingly seeks help from her nemesis, reporter George Winters, and tries to stay ahead of a kidnapper and murderer so she can take charge of her world again. Can she keep her friends safe? Will Scoobie recover enough to plan another silly fundraiser?
WHEN THE CARNY COMES TO TOWN
CHAPTER ONE

I SHOULD NEVER HAVE BET WITH SCOOBIE. I guess I could have bet about what color Aunt Madge's hair would be on St. Patrick's Day, but I should have insisted on a different wager. Whatever.

Here I am, sitting on the plank above the dunk tank at St. Anthony's spring carnival. OK, it's for a good cause. But at this point, it could be to save all the whales on the planet and I wouldn't...

Kerplash!

And who the hell said we shouldn't heat the dunk tank?

When my head came above the water line the loudest laugh was from Aunt Madge. Since she spent more than twenty dollars trying to dunk me, I wasn't surprised that she was so pleased. I'll get her later.

I swam the two strokes to the small ladder and George Winters reached down to give me a lift out of the tank. Honest, I didn't plan it. It was a natural reaction to all the stupid things he's said about me in the Ocean Alley Press. George kind of catapulted over me, somersault style, and there was a really loud splash.

I moved up the ladder as I heard George break the surface. "I'll get your ass Jolie Gentil! You owe me a new phone!"

If I had planned it I'd feel guilty about him ruining his mobile phone. But, I didn't plan it, so no pangs of remorse. Not now anyway. Maybe when I read the paper tomorrow.

"All right, Jolie!" Scoobie scrambled up from where he'd been sitting on the ground laughing his tail off and hurried to steady the small ladder that led down from the dunk tank. He knew I wouldn't pull him in. I wanted to get as far away from George Winters as I could in ten seconds or so.

I accepted the towel from Reverend Jamison and kept moving.

I made it to the ladies room before George could catch me. Since we were on church property he didn't follow me in. Just before I slammed the door I heard Father Teehan tell George to watch his language.

I was sitting on a toilet, bent over laughing, when the door to the restroom opened. I looked under the stall and saw Ramona's ankle-length skirt. Since I hadn't latched the booth door, she stuck her head in.

"I can't believe you did that." Her large eyes were wider than ever. "I mean, I can believe you'd want to, but at a church carnival..." Her voice trailed off and she grinned at me. "You know you'll pay for it."

"It was worth it." I wrapped the already wet towel around my hair and grinned back at her. Ramona is a lot taller than my five feet two inches, so from my sitting position I had to lean my head back to look at her. "If he hadn't written about the hospital giving me a donut cushion when I broke my tailbone I might ignore him."

The door to the restroom opened again. "Jolie." It was Scoobie. "It's safe. Winters went home to change."

Ramona moved back so I could stand and lean out of the stall to look at Scoobie, or rather Scoobie's head, complete with wet beard. He knew better than to walk all the way in. "You're setting me up. He's out there."

Scoobie had the decency not to look offended. "If I could get away with it, I'd help him throw you back in the tank, but he really did leave." He looked behind him and then back at Ramona and me. "I think Reverend Jamison wants to talk to you." Scoobie left.

Reverend Jamison is the main reason I'm sopping wet. He's the minister at First Presbyterian, where Aunt Madge has gone to church for forty years and I now chair the food pantry committee. OK, he's one of the reasons. Having a dunk tank fundraiser at St. Anthony's spring carnival was Scoobie's idea. All the churches in town contribute to the food pantry, so Father Teehan was glad to have us.

As fundraisers go, it was a good one. The last time I saw the list there were more than forty people who'd agreed to sit on the plank and have people try to hit the lever that would throw them into the four-foot deep, soft-side swimming pool.

I pulled the towel off my head and threw it over my shoulder. "I guess I better go face the music." I looked at Ramona. "And I don't believe you have a cold."

Ramona has a strong sense of style, which I do not. I'm perfectly happy in khakis or jeans. She makes a lot of her clothes because she favors the tie-dye skirts and loose-crocheted vests that were popular in the early 1970s, and she wears them well. I had known all along she'd find a reason not to get dunked.

She shrugged. "We make more money if I keep doing my caricatures."

She's right. She usually does them on the boardwalk in the summer, but the chair of the St. Anthony's carnival asked her to do her charcoal pencil drawings at the carnival, and she agreed if half the money could go to the food pantry.

The first person I saw when I walked out was Scoobie. He was still grinning. Instead of his usual jeans and t-shirt, today he was wearing a pair of 1900s-style swimming trunks with horizontal stripes, which hit him below the knees, and a top from the same era. Aunt Madge made them for him.

I looked around. "Where's Reverend Jamison?" I eyed Scoobie with suspicion.

"I lied. Come on, they got the cotton candy machine working again. I'll get some for both of you."

"Uh uh. My clothes are in my car. I'm changing first."

He shrugged. "OK. Come on, Ramona. Miss Party Pooper can find us when she dries off." He studied me for a couple seconds. "You might want to comb your hair while you're at it."

I threw the towel at him.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER my shoulder-length hair was as dry as it was going to get without a hair dryer and my wet clothes were in the trunk of my car in a plastic bag.

"Hey, Jolie."

I knew the person didn't know me too well, since he mispronounced my name. Jolie Gentil is a French name. The J and G are soft and the L at the end of Gentil is silent. Translated my name means "pretty nice." My French Canadian father is very proud of his novel naming idea. I am not, but it's my name so I live with it.

I looked closer and recognized the owner of our small beach town's in-town grocery store. He knows me, since I hit him up for donations to the food pantry, but I guess I've never clarified the pronunciation for him. "Hey, Mr. Markle. Glad you could get away."

"I'm on my way back to the store." He waved as he kept walking toward his car. "I heard you were going on the plank at one, and I was going to try to knock you off."

"How nice of you." I can't be rude, he does give us food.

My car was almost a block from the church parking lot, which houses the carnival, so I had a chance to take a good look at the entire carnival as I made my way back. The Ferris wheel is visible for blocks, but you can't see most of the other rides and booths until you get closer. A few years ago St. Anthony's built a new church on the edge of Ocean Alley, and there are a bunch of larger pine trees that surround three sides of the grounds. Aunt Madge said they used bingo money to buy the big lot.

There were more than a dozen colorful canopies along the edge of the carnival, each one housing a so-called game, such as throw-a-dart-to-pop-a balloon-and-you-win-a-plastic-snake or -- if you win enough -- a stuffed animal. I've played these games enough times that I know the darts or softballs are weighted oddly so you have a hard time winning.

I smiled to myself. When I was about five, I wanted to win a little doll by throwing a coin onto one of many small plates sitting on a low-level table a couple feet away. Every coin skidded off until Aunt Madge gave me a nickel. I won the doll and Aunt Madge told me years later that all the plates had a tiny bit of cooking oil rubbed on them, so the coins would skid off. She had slyly spit on a nickel and rubbed it in a bit of the sawdust we were standing on, so it didn't skid. My aunt, a pillar of propriety.

"Ladies and gents." The loud speaker carried the voice of the carnival's manager for blocks. He gets on the PA system about every five minutes. I wish he'd get laryngitis.

"Ladies and gents. You haven't eaten even half the foot-long hot dogs. You can't come to a carnival without eatin' a dog." His voice droned on.

I got to the edge of the carnival and carefully looked through the crowd. No George Winters. He's the main reporter for the Ocean Alley Press, and he likes to mention that in the six months since I moved into Aunt Madge's Bed and Breakfast I've had a role in solving two local murders.

It's not my fault. A real estate appraiser is in a lot of houses every week. I didn't put the bodies there, especially the skeleton in the Fisher's attic.

My gaze found Scoobie. He was holding the large mallet used to hit a platform to try to make a metal ball go up the pole and make a bell gong. He was imitating a body builder's stance as he showed off muscles. Ramona and Jennifer Stenner were pretending to feel his biceps.

I shook my head slightly and smiled. Scoobie is not a tough guy. Not in the physical sense, that is. In the almost eleven years since we finished high school Scoobie has fought back from alcoholism and an affinity for pot that put him in the county jail a couple times. As he once told me, he's eventually trainable and he decided to stop periodically boarding with the county.

I only went to Ocean Alley High for junior year. I stayed with Aunt Madge while my parents "worked some things out" in their marriage. I was not happy being here then, so it might seem odd that I came back after my now ex-husband Robby was arrested for supporting his gambling habit by embezzling money from the bank where he worked. I came to Aunt Madge, not the town, but the town is growing on me.

A wolf whistle caught my attention and I turned around to see if it was aimed at me. Lance Wilson is the food pantry treasurer. He's also close to ninety, so some would say he should have a bit more decorum. I would not be one of those.

He raised a small ledger into the air. "More than $400 already."

"Wow. That's really good. Who would have thought?" Certainly not me. It's the only time I've agreed with Sylvia Parrett, one of our more rigid-thinking food pantry committee members. I would never have expected so many people to sign up to be dunked. The fact that local election primaries are next month helped. Even the guy running unopposed for coroner agreed to sit above the tank.

Lance caught up to me and we stood watching the crowd for a moment. "So far you're the biggest income source, but I hear Annie Milner and Martin Small are lining up a lot of people."

Annie and I didn't really know each other in high school, but I much prefer her as the candidate to be the county's next prosecuting attorney. Small is the current one and he's a jerk and a half. "What about Jennifer?" I asked. Jennifer Stenner went to high school with us and manages to always look like she walked off a movie set. One where she has a role as a fashion goddess.

Lance smiled slightly. "She gave me a check for twenty-five dollars and said she had other responsibilities today so she couldn't get dunked."

I tried to turn my snort into a polite laugh. "Good for her."

Lance walked left, toward the dunk tank, and I continued toward the "High Striker" gong ringer game. Aunt Madge was watching Scoobie, and I considered sneaking up and goosing her, but that would be childish. And there were too many people around. She turned toward me as I walked up.

"I still have eyes in the back of my head, you know."

"No you don't." I nodded ahead of her. "You saw me in that big mirror."

"The jig is up." Aunt Madge looked toward the large mirror that distorts the images of anyone peering in it. She turned back to watch Scoobie try to get the ball up to the gong.

I stared at Aunt Madge for a second. She's actually my Grandmother Alva's sister, though she's a lot less strict than my grandmother was. At five feet six inches, Aunt Madge is about four inches taller than I am and she keeps her hair in a soft French twist. Today it's black, but not the deep black that's popular with teens and college kids. She doesn't use permanent color, so she can change it at least once a month. I don't know if it's the hair color or her continued use of her carpentry skills, but she doesn't look even close to her eighty-plus years.

The thud of the mallet hitting the bottom of the tower drew my attention back to Scoobie. "You can get higher than that!" I hollered to him.

He grinned at me and handed the carnival worker another dollar. "One for my friend with the loud mouth."

"And the wet head," Ramona added. A couple people laughed.

After another try, Scoobie announced he was just practicing and would be back in a few minutes to show off his real stuff. We hung around to watch Ramona, who diplomatically insisted she did not hit the ball higher than Scoobie.

We trailed each other to a food booth and sat at a rickety picnic table near the booth. Ramona and I split a foot-long dog while Scoobie polished off one on his own. We could see the food pantry dunk tank from where we sat, and in between bites commented on the prowess, or lack of it, of the ball throwers.

"While you were changing they tried to get Dr. Welby to take a toss at the guy who runs the eyeglass place," Scoobie said.

Ramona laughed. "Dr. Welby said he couldn't see well enough to hit him."

I nodded, still chewing. Dr. Welby (who tells you as soon as you meet him not to make fun of his name) is retired and serves on the First Prez food pantry committee. He's a take-charge kind of person, which is my favorite kind of volunteer.

Jennifer Stenner sat down next to Scoobie and jumped back up again. "It's wet." She carefully adjusting her perfectly ironed capris.

"It's just iced tea," Scoobie told her, and winked at me as he leaned over to mop up what looked to be a very small bit of tea.

"Thanks," Jennifer said as she sat down again. "I've been working at the bake sale tables and I needed a break."

"Too tempting to eat the fattening food?" I asked her.

"I have plenty of self-discipline, I'm just tired of standing."

I did an inside-the-mind eye roll. Jennifer is precise about everything. "Why don't you try the high-striker thing? Scoobie's looking for a partner."

"Am not," he said, and looked at Jennifer. "I wouldn't want to be too hard on you."

Ramona choked on her last bite and Scoobie gave her a quick pat on the back. "Come on, you guys, I'm going back to the gong for another try."

We picked up our used napkins and cups and headed over, minus Jennifer who said she'd sit a bit longer. We were almost back to the "High Striker" when Scoobie came to a sudden stop and I walked into his backside. "What are you...," I began before I caught a look at his expression.

Though Scoobie says he doesn't like being around a lot of people on a regular basis, you don't generally see him get really mad at anyone. He's more likely to leave the Java Jolt coffee shop than argue with its owner, Joe Regan, who seems to like to needle Scoobie. Right now he looked ready to hit someone and I noticed he clinched his fist for a second. I followed his gaze to the High Striker, which was now under the watchful eye of different carnival worker. A worker who was looking directly at Scoobie with a smirk on his face.

Scoobie took an abrupt left. "I'm tired of that game. Let's go bowling."

Ramona and I looked at each other and followed him to the bowling game. We've both known Scoobie long enough to expect him to work out his moods in his poetry, so we don't usually ask about what gets to him. After beating both of us hands down he seemed back to a happier self. Plus, he had won Ramona and me both medium-size stuffed animals, mine being a spotted dog that looked like a cross between a cat and a Dalmatian.

THE CARNIVAL STARTS AT NOON and ends about ten o'clock. I hadn't been to it since eleventh grade, back when it was held in the large public parking lot by the ocean. New Jersey beaches are crowded from Memorial Day until well after Labor Day, which is why it's a spring carnival. We appreciate the tourists, most of the time, but the carnival is largely a townie event. Anyone can come, of course. It's like bingo. The Catholics will take anyone's money, just like the Presbyterians will take it for a quilt raffle or bake sale.

I'd certainly never stayed all ten hours, but since the dunk tank was benefiting the food pantry I thought I should stick around and hand towels to the dunkees. If Lance could stay that long so could I. However, I insisted that he not be one of the people on the step ladder to refasten the banner reading "Harvest for All Food Pantry." The banner graced the wall behind the dunk tank. It's new. We had a contest to give the food pantry a formal name. Scoobie had several suggestions, all of them printable, none really appropriate. "Nuggets for Nourishment" was his self-proclaimed favorite. The winning entry was submitted by a fifth-grader who saw a sign about the contest at the library.

I helped Reverend Jamison steady the ladder while a church member I didn't know placed the banner's holes back over a couple hooks. I kept looking around for Scoobie and Ramona. I figured they were trying a last round at the High Striker, since Ramona still topped Scoobie's best effort by almost a foot. That's what walking two miles a day on the sand and lifting boxes in the Purple Cow will do for you.

Ramona wandered over with her sketch pad and pencil box just as I was getting ready to leave. "Where's Scoobie?"

I shrugged. "Thought you guys were back whacking the mallet."

"Nope. I finally let him win." She walked toward my car with me.

"Somehow I doubt that's how he'll portray it."

"Probably not," she agreed.

It was a clear night with little breeze and almost a full moon. We were a few blocks from the ocean so I couldn't smell it, but I figured the surf would be calm. "You want a ride?" I asked this as I avoided stepping in a blob of hotdog and mustard that looked as if it might have been in someone's stomach previously.

Ramona lives about ten blocks from the Purple Cow, the office supply store where she works. She doesn't own a car and doesn't seem to miss one. However, it was late and St. Anthony's was almost a mile from her apartment. I was glad she accepted my offer. Even in Ocean Alley it's probably not smart for a woman to walk by herself through town this late when there's hardly anyone else on the streets.

After I dropped off Ramona I headed for the Cozy Corner B&B and the room I share with my cat Jazz. When I first came to Ocean Alley from Lakewood, New Jersey my little black cat had been my biggest concern. Aunt Madge has two shelter-adopted dogs, Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy. I was worried that Jazz would be constantly fearful of the two exuberant part-retrievers. No worries. She terrorizes Mr. Rogers by jumping on his back for a ride a couple times a day. Miss Piggy either ignores Jazz or races around Aunt Madge's great room so fast that Jazz does not enjoy her perch. Aunt Madge enjoys these antics even less, but she puts up with all of us.
CHAPTER TWO

I WAS UP EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, since I had a couple things to do before going back to the carnival at noon and I had wanted to take a short jog on the boardwalk. When I got back, Aunt Madge had already served breakfast to her six guests, all of whom were in town for the carnival. I heard her laughing with them and remembered a couple guests were people who used to live in Ocean Alley.

It was a sunny Saturday. After my shower I gulped orange juice and inhaled one of Aunt Madge's date muffins before I thought about checking the Ocean Alley Press.

The paper sat on Aunt Madge's large oak kitchen table, and it had a long article about the carnival and a bunch of pictures, but none of me. George had a great one of Ramona whamming the mallet onto the platform, and the caption noted she had done better than any other woman who tried to make the ball hit the gong. I smiled. Ramona wouldn't like the photo, since her face was screwed up in concentration.

"Nuts." I was almost to the end of the article, thinking I'd made George mad enough not to mention me, when I saw the reference to "a spoiled sport" who had pulled "this reporter and his phone" into the dunk tank. Since the next sentence mentioned the food pantry as the sponsor of the dunk tank I figured anyone who knew me would guess who the spoiled sport was. "Oh well."

"Saw the article, did you?" Aunt Madge came through the swinging door that connects the kitchen with the guest breakfast room. She was carrying a tray of used coffee cups and I jumped up to take them from her.

"Yep, could be worse."

"Probably will be at some point," she said, in her usual matter-of-fact tone.

"Who were you laughing with?" I asked.

"Audrey and Jeff Inwood. Before they moved to Florida she and I played hearts with a bunch of gals every third Thursday."

"I figured it must be someone you knew pretty well." I walked to the sliding glass door to let the dogs into Aunt Madge's living area, which is a large open space, with the kitchen at one end. Her bedroom and bath are in a separate area behind the kitchen. I call the living area her great room and Aunt Madge calls it her sitting room. "I'll take them for a long walk on the beach tomorrow," I told her.

"You don't do too many appraisals on Saturdays," she commented as she rinsed the cups and placed them in the dishwasher.

"The owners told Harry they both wanted to be there, and I told Harry I didn't mind." Harry Steele owns the small appraisal company I work for. I did appraisal work when I was in college and just after that. I sold commercial real estate the last few years I lived in Lakewood, and hadn't thought about what I would do in Ocean Alley when I left the town where I had become best known as the wife of an embezzler. I consider it good karma that Aunt Madge's friend had just opened a new appraisal business, and she considers it providence. I don't think Harry has an opinion either way. He's glad to have me and I like him a lot.

I make about a tenth of what I did in real estate, but I don't have a lot of expenses and Aunt Madge refuses to let me pay rent. So I weed the small yard and shovel snow, walk the dogs, and volunteer for other odd jobs. She won't let me change the guests' sheets. Aunt Madge is easy-going in most ways, but she's very precise about caring for the B&B guests.

I grabbed an apple on the way out, told Aunt Madge I wasn't sure if I'd be back before going to the carnival, and headed out. The early morning air was crisp and a little chilly. You never know what beach weather will be like in the spring. I turned on the heater in my little Toyota and eased from the B&B's small parking lot into heavier-than-usual traffic on Seashore Street.

As I crossed Conch Street I noticed two men with a grocery store cart full of what was likely all their belongings. It reminded me of the first time I'd seen Scoobie when I came back to Ocean Alley last fall. He was on the boardwalk and had a knapsack on a bench next to him. He was putting duct tape or something like that on one of his shoes, and at first I had thought he was a homeless person, though it was kind of late in the season. Most of the people who live on Ocean Alley's streets in the summer go to a warmer climate after October.

I looked more closely for a moment and saw the grocery cart was from Mr. Markle's store. He wouldn't like that. I made a mental note to find out how the food pantry reaches out to people who have no kitchen to use to prepare any food we give them.

The house I was appraising was in the middle of Ocean Alley. The town runs along the Atlantic Ocean for close to two miles, but it's only twelve blocks deep. Still, there are a lot of homes crammed into this relatively small town, since most of the originally larger lots were subdivided long before the town had any zoning regulations.

I had driven by the large bungalow the day before yesterday, so I had a sense of what I was about to measure and come up with a value for. I had already pulled a couple of comparable recent sales to use as benchmarks. However, when I saw the interior of the house I realized I would have to look for other comps. Ben and Louise McCarthy had upgraded literally any surface that was nailed down, and they'd added a couple of skylights in the back. The house looked like a feature in a decorator magazine. No wonder they want to be here. Probably want to make sure even the dust mites aren't disturbed. Not that I saw any dust.

My work took about twice as long as it usually does since the McCarthys followed me from room to room explaining every aspect of the remodeling they'd done over the last eight years. When I began asking them to hold one end of the tape measure they tired of the job and left me alone for the last couple rooms. It didn't take me long to take the digital photos that are part of the appraisal package, and I was out of there by ten-thirty.

I stopped by Harry's house, a Victorian that is perpetually enduring remodeling, which also hosts his office. He was out, so it didn't take me long to enter measurements and other information into the computer and print out a floor plan. I wouldn't be able to go to the courthouse to look at recent comparable sales until Monday.

Footloose and fancy free, as Aunt Madge would say, I drove to the library to see if Scoobie was at his usual table. He has a room in a sort of permanent halfway house on F Street, but he's mostly only there to sleep. His usual haunts are the library, Newhart's Diner and, when he's not too annoyed at Joe Regan, the Java Jolt coffee shop on the boardwalk.

No Scoobie anywhere. I haven't seen as much of him since January. Scoobie's been taking a few courses at the community college to prepare for full-time enrollment in the fall. He wants to become an x-ray tech, which he believes is a job he can do without being around people every minute he's at work. He gets some kind of disability income now because of his long history of depression, and he'll likely get grants for tuition. His proclaimed goal is to "get back to the real world," which seems to mean recovering from what ails him and getting a job.

I decided to bug Ramona for a few minutes. It has to be only a few, as the Purple Cow's owner, Roland, gets mildly annoyed if too many people stop in to chat with Ramona. Half the town does. He's not rude about it, of course, as every visitor is a customer at some time or another. But he gives a pretty good evil eye.

Roland must have given himself the morning off, so I sat in one of the very expensive office chairs on display and gently twirled in circles to watch what was going on while I waited for Ramona to finish with a couple customers. The store was more crowded than on a normal Saturday. Newhart's Diner and the Purple Cow are two places Ocean Alley alums frequent when they are home for a visit. Neither is elegant, but Newhart's has great blue plate specials in the off-season and Roland has free coffee in the store.

Ramona and I had just begun to compare notes on the carnival -- which for Ramona is a commentary on what people wore and for me includes a lot of questions about whether Ramona thinks I knew someone from the brief time I lived in Ocean Alley -- when a black Ford sedan rolled to the curb outside the store.

"Uh oh." I looked at Ramona. "Do you remember me doing anything lately that would annoy Sgt. Morehouse?"

"Don't think so." We watched for a couple seconds while he slammed the car door and walked the short distance to the store.

Sgt. Morehouse and I have a sometimes uneasy relationship. If you can call me trying to get information from him when he wants me to mind my own business a relationship. He's only about ten years older than Ramona and me, which puts him in his late thirties or early forties, though he looks older. He wears more polyester than I do and he can be grouchy when he wants me to go away, but he's done me a couple big favors.

He half opened the door, and barked at us. "I need you two to come with me." As we both looked at him mutely, he added, "Now!"

Ramona gestured one arm in a circle. "I'm the only one here..."

"Roland's coming in."

The back door to the store opened and we heard Roland's voice from the storage area as he walked toward the sales floor. "I'm here. Get going."

Ramona grabbed her purse and I hitched mine on my shoulder. "What the..." I began.

Morehouse interrupted me. "It's Scoobie. He's hurt bad."
CHAPTER THREE

MOREHOUSE SHOUTED DOWN our barrage of questions. "I just got the damn call. I told you what I know." He put the cherry light on his dashboard so we got to the hospital pretty fast. He parked the car at the curb near the emergency entrance and we ran inside.

I'm not sure why I was running. I had no idea where we were going, but wherever Scoobie was I wanted to get there fast.

"He still in there?" Morehouse nodded at the emergency room nurse standing by the "patients only" door as she opened it for us.

"They just took him to surgery."

Morehouse stopped and Ramona and I collided with each other. He pointed to a small room behind the triage desk. "In here."

I was ready to scream at him to tell us what was going on. Ramona doesn't scream, but she looked as confused and scared as I felt.

"Sit." He pointed to two of the six chairs in the small room and pulled one around to face us. "Found him about seven-thirty this morning. He was face-down in the sand under the boardwalk."

Ramona and I both shouted almost the same question. "He was out there all night?!"

Morehouse looked at the nurse, who had followed us into the small room. I realized it must be for families of people who died, since there were booklets about the stages of grief on a table. Not a good omen.

"I don't think we know. We can be pretty sure he was injured not too long before he was found." The woman glanced at us and back at Morehouse. "His injuries...I doubt he would have lived through the night."

"What are they operating on?" Ramona asked.

"It's okay," Morehouse said, in response to the nurse's hesitation. "These two and Madge are the same as his family. Couldn't tell you wherever the hell his lazy-assed parents are, anyway."

"There's a head injury," she said slowly. "The doctors want to reduce pressure from swelling."

"They do that here?" I asked. I'd been in this hospital briefly. Though it's been added onto through the years, it's a community hospital, not a place you'd associate with brain surgery.

"Time was of the essence." When she saw the silent tears coursing down my cheeks her tone softened. "He did make it here, that's an important first step."

Morehouse stood up. "Stay here for a second." He left and the nurse followed him.

Ramona and I stared at each other, and she dug in her purse for a handkerchief. I grabbed a tissue from the table.

"Did he stop by to see you and Madge?" she asked in between a couple good blows.

I shook my head.

"Was that a no?" Morehouse asked as he walked back in and sat down. With him was Dana Johnson, who is a more junior officer. Even Jazz would have trouble turning around in the tiny room.

"We left the carnival without him." I looked at Ramona.

"I didn't see him the last hour or so. I was back to my drawings."

"And I was over at the dunk tank," I added.

Dana pulled out a small notebook and began to read from her notes. "We got the call about seven-thirty this morning. Caller wanted paramedics to come to the boardwalk, near the steps close to Java Jolt. Dispatch said the guy who called was pretty calm, had a raspy voice. That's really all we know. Lieutenant Tortino's down there with a couple officers now."

"What did Scoobie say?" Ramona asked.

I glanced at Morehouse and he looked away. I didn't figure Scoobie did any talking if he had brain swelling.

"He wasn't conscious," Dana said, gently.

"So other than you two, who was he with yesterday?" Morehouse commanded.

We kind of played off each other, remembering the day. We both remembered that Scoobie didn't seem to want to go back to the High Striker. I said, "He looked right at the guy, and I'd swear the carnival guy was giving Scoobie a funny look."

Morehouse nodded at Dana. "Find out which one of the carnies that was and talk to him." She left.

Carnies. Why is that familiar? I racked my brain. I could almost hear Scoobie say something about carnies, or carny, or something like that.

"What?" Morehouse asked, looking at me.

"I think Scoobie said something..." I sat up straighter. "We were at Gracie's grandmother's house, on the porch. But...all he said was, like, I should remind him to tell me about his carny days, or something."

"Ocean City, I think," Ramona added, and we both looked at her.

"Ocean City, what?" Morehouse asked.

She shrugged. "He went away for a few months. After the last time he got picked up for smoking pot. Or maybe," she scrunched her face, "maybe it was after the time he got picked up for selling an ounce of pot."

I knew about the pot stuff, but not that Scoobie had left town for a while. "What about Ocean City?" I asked.

"I remember he said he wanted to be near the water but he thought he ought to get away from people here, so he worked at...I don't think a carnival, maybe an amusement park."

Morehouse wrote in his small notebook. "I'll figure it out."

A man I assumed to be a doctor opened the door. "You wanted to talk to me, sergeant?"

Morehouse waved him in. "Whaddya know?" he asked.

"It's not the worst TBI I've seen, but it's a pretty decent one...traumatic brain injury," he said, nodding to Ramona and me.

The door opened and Aunt Madge came in. She still had on the apron she wears when she's making bread for afternoon tea at the B&B. "Is it true?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"Sit down, Madge." Morehouse gestured to the chair next to him.

We all looked at the doctor, whose name badge said he was Dr. Nobles, and he continued. "It's from a pretty severe blow to the back of the head. An injury like that causes the brain to collide with the skull, and in response the brain will swell. In some cases, the surgeon will do what's called a craniotomy, which means they will reduce the increased intracranial pressure so as to avoid brain damage."

He kind of stumbled over the last few words, which I took to mean he couldn't guarantee Scoobie's brain wasn't already messed up.

"There are choices, but whatever they choose to do, it shouldn't take long to relieve the pressure. But," he glanced at Aunt Madge, as if trying to ascertain who was a close relative. "It will be a..."

"In English, Dr. Nobles," Aunt Madge said. "What is a craniotomy?"

"Please," Ramona said, in a soft voice.

I gave her a tiny smile and we both looked again at the doctor.

"Now this sounds more dangerous than it is, plus keep in mind that there are less invasive methods." He looked at Sgt. Morehouse and then Aunt Madge. "A craniotomy entails drilling holes in the skull. Generally a piece is removed and then placed back when danger of swelling has ended."

"And the less invasive methods?" I asked.

"Another option is to insert a catheter into the brain to drain fluid. Sometimes it can be drained once, other times the doctors put in a shunt so they can use a catheter on more than one occasion."

"But you don't know which for Scoobie?" Sgt. Morehouse asked.

"That's a decision to be made in the operating room, in this case. The good news is that the surgeon who was here today has done both surgeries, many, many times. I'm actually not as concerned about the brain swelling as the back injury, which could be more problematic."

"More than drilling holes in his skull?" Aunt Madge asked.

"The brain is incredibly resilient. Crushed vertebrae in the back maybe not so much." He nodded at Sgt. Morehouse and Aunt Madge. "We should know fairly soon if there is substantial nerve damage. I'll keep you posted."

What are we, bedpans?

As Dr. Nobles left, Sgt. Morehouse began to tell Aunt Madge what had happened.

I didn't bother to wonder how she knew to come to the ER. She knows everyone. Instead, I thought about Scoobie, trying to remember if he had said anything about anybody being mad at him. All I could see was him sitting at the table in the library, head bent over a steno pad, writing his poetry.

"Hey," I said. "If they found him at seven-thirty how come we're just hearing about it?"

"He didn't have any ID on him, and he couldn't tell them who he was. When he first came in apparently they were more focused on his injuries than who he was." Morehouse looked up and then went out to talk to a uniformed officer in the hallway.

After Morehouse left the small room Ramona, Aunt Madge, and I went over yesterday again and rehashed what Morehouse had told us. Nothing made sense.

We had been sitting silently for a couple minutes, waiting to know when we could see Scoobie, and I let my thoughts wander. As far as I knew, Scoobie knew half the town but he does not have close friends other than Ramona and me, and I guessed Aunt Madge.

I certainly never heard him talk about any enemies. A few months ago I would have said I knew a lot about Scoobie's schedule and habits, but since he started taking classes in January I've only seen him a couple times a week.

I think I know most people in his life. There's an English teacher at the community college Scoobie said gets mad every time he corrects him on something, but Scoobie hasn't talked about anyone else being annoyed with him.

Who would hurt Scoobie? I remembered the man I thought smirked at Scoobie. Now, of course, it seemed important. But it could have been something simple, like earlier in the day he'd insulted Scoobie about his 1920s-era bathing suit.

If Scoobie is uncomfortable with someone he usually walks away, and that's what it looked like he did yesterday with the guy at the High Striker. All I could remember was that the carnival worker had a swarthy look and a solid build. Probably only about twenty thousand people like that in this part of Jersey.

The woman from the reception desk looked in at us. "You can go up to the third floor. When he gets out of surgery the doctor will want to talk to you." She pointed toward the elevator and added, "Walk right when you get off. You'll see a room called surgery waiting area."

Ramona and I trailed behind Aunt Madge, who knows the hospital as well as she knows every other building in town. There was no one else in the waiting room, so I helped myself to coffee and sat to one side of Ramona.

Aunt Madge was on her other side and had a hand on Ramona's knee as she sobbed softly into her handkerchief. We all looked up as a tall man in scrubs and a paper hospital hat walked in.

He sat sideways on the arm of a large chair so he could face all of us. "The head injury could have been a lot worse. If I hadn't been visiting a couple old friends in the hospital ER when they brought him in, we would have lost valuable time. I had the exact skills he needed."

I'm not usually keen on people who toot their own horn quite that loudly, but in this case I was thrilled.

"Exactly what is wrong with him?" Aunt Madge asked.

"He has a fractured skull..."

Ramona sobbed harder.

"...which is not as bad as it sounds," he continued, and picked up a small piece of paper and pencil from the table with the coffee and quickly sketched a skull.

I shivered, remembering a real one I'd seen last November.

"It's not a deep fracture, but it did cause swelling, and no injury to the skull can be taken lightly." He drew a tiny line from just below the crown and down an inch. "Judging from the size, I'd guess he was hit with something a couple inches wide. Not good, but it could have been much worse." He pointed to a spot on the drawing. "This is where I drilled a very tiny hole to insert the catheter..."

Aunt Madge grabbed a nearby trash can and shoved it at Ramona in time for her to throw up in it. The doctor walked out and came back a few seconds later with a wad of damp paper towels.

Aunt Madge was already patting her on the back and I was holding her hand, so he didn't say anything, just handed the towels to Aunt Madge, who gave Ramona one to wipe her mouth and placed the others on the back of her neck.

While Aunt Madge helped Ramona I looked at the doctor's name badge. Jacob Goldstein looked about my age, but lines at the corner of his eyes made me think more like mid-thirties. He gave me a small nod and glanced at his watch.

"I'm so sorry," Ramona said, sitting up.

She looked more or less done, so I moved the waste basket and its smelly contents a few feet away from us.

"He's someone you care about," the doctor said quietly. He adopted a more brisk tone as he went back to his drawing, which he had stuck in the pocket of his scrubs. "I'm really not that concerned about the head injury. Twenty-five years ago we had poorer quality imaging and couldn't be as precise when we worked on the brain or skull. They'll watch him closely, probably administer some steroids, which also reduce swelling. He should recover fine."

He leaned against a chair. "He has at least two crushed vertebrae, one cervical, one thoracic. They'll be evaluating him carefully to be sure there is no pressure on nerves along the spinal cord. Someone else will talk to you more about that."

I racked my brain. If cervical was neck area and lumbar was lower spine, thoracic must be in the middle.

"So, he fell?" Aunt Madge asked.

Dr. Goldstein shrugged. "That would be my assumption for the back injuries. If I had to guess I'd say down a flight of steps."

"But," I was groping, "you don't think that's how he hurt his head?"

"Anything is possible, but I did my neurosurgery residence in Camden and saw enough skulls hit with beer bottles to think it looked familiar." He stood. "I'm on call in Newark this afternoon. I was just down here with my kids for the carnival. If I hadn't stayed to have breakfast at Newhart's Diner I'd have been long gone."

He shook hands with me and then Aunt Madge, ignoring Ramona for probably sanitary reasons. "I expect you'll know the local doctors who will care for him."

Aunt Madge gripped his hand and looked him in the eye. "I will forever regard you as a miracle."

He pulled back his hand and gave her a tap on the shoulder. "I'll tell my wife you said that."
CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR before anyone came to talk to us again. Once Aunt Madge made sure the right people knew where we were waiting she wouldn't let me go bug them. The cleaning person who came to deal with the trash can refused Aunt Madge's offer to buy him a cup of coffee and a roll. "Comes with the territory," was all he said.

Finally a woman in scrubs came in to say Scoobie had been moved to Intensive Care and we could go to the waiting area there. As we took the elevator to the fourth floor I wanted to scream. Didn't they know we needed to see Scoobie right now?

We sat and I scanned the room for the nearest waste basket. Just in case.

After a few moments Ramona got up and walked to the window. She stood looking out for a minute and then turned back to us. "I can't believe this is happening."

Aunt Madge looked at her and then me, and asked her question a bit differently. "You two are sure you don't know anyone mad at him, right?"

I shook my head. "Everybody, even Joe Regan, talks about how great Scoobie's doing, with school, and everything."

"And half of them say it's because of you," Ramona said, nodding at me.

"Me?" I stared at her. "What did I do?"

"Nothing annoying at the moment," Aunt Madge said, dryly.

Ramona shrugged. "You guys had a lot of fun in high school. You know Scoobie's always been..."

"A little different," Aunt Madge threw in.

Ramona nodded. "You guys hung out all the time in junior year, and you do again. You get him." She shrugged.

I knew what she meant. Scoobie and I had talked a couple of times over the winter about how unhappy we both were during eleventh grade -- not that we had talked about it back then. For me only that one year was really unhappy. My life was okay once my parents got back together and I went home to Lakewood.

Scoobie won't talk to me much about his life then, but I guess his severely alcoholic mother, to use Aunt Madge's phrase, either ignored him or tried to get him to sneak booze to her when his father was not around, which was a lot of the time. I didn't know this at the time. I just figured he was allowed to be where he wanted to be when he wanted to be there. Aunt Madge, of course, kept a much tighter rein on me, but she went to bed early, so if the weather was halfway warm I'd sneak out.

Before I could say anything a nurse walked in. "Hi, Madge." She leaned against a small table and faced the three of us. "He's doing a lot better than anyone thought he would when he got to the ER, but he's got a long way to go."

"Has he been conscious at all?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Several times he responded to commands to wiggle his toes. And about the third time I asked him to squeeze my hand he scratched his index finger on the sheet, and when I looked at it he made a loose fist and then raised his middle finger at me."

I don't think I've ever cried that hard in my life, not even the night Robby told me he was going to be arrested for embezzling. It was a couple minutes before I could stop, even with Aunt Madge giving me a continual one-armed hug and Ramona pushing tissues at me.

"I'm so sorry," I hiccupped and wiped my sweaty face with a handful of the cheap hospital tissues.

"It's okay," Ramona said. She was kneeling on the floor in front of me and she grinned. "At least you didn't need the waste basket."

WE SET UP A SCHEDULE so one of us would be in the waiting area all the time. After they knew Scoobie could sort of respond to questions they had sedated him again, so we couldn't talk to him. It was supposed to help his brain heal better. The hospital would only let one of us into Scoobie's tiny room at a time, and for only a few minutes an hour. We let Aunt Madge go in first. It was her idea. She would let us know what to expect.

"He's banged up, but his face isn't bruised as badly as I expected, and only one eye is swollen." She thought for a second. "They've sedated him a lot, so he doesn't respond, but the nurse said we shouldn't worry about that." She sat down heavily on one of the stuffed, hard plastic chairs. "There's so much equipment in there a seagull wouldn't have a perch."

She stayed a bit longer, but Ramona and I sent Aunt Madge home in the middle of the afternoon so she could see to her guests. She's an early bird, so she planned to come by Sunday morning just after her guests finished breakfast.

While Aunt Madge had been in with Scoobie Ramona and I started calling a few people. We knew word would get out fast and rumors would fly, so we called Jennifer and asked her to tell some of the classmates Scoobie knows best. Ramona called Joe Regan while I called Daphne at the library, since that's where Scoobie hangs out much of the day. Neither of us called George Winters, but about four o'clock he showed up.

His demeanor was not as impassive as it usually is when he throws questions at people. George had his notebook in one hand and pencil in the other and gave us a raised-hand surrender gesture. "You know I gotta ask. Then I'll leave you alone."

If I hadn't pulled him into the dunk tank yesterday I probably would have shrieked at him. Instead I just nodded, and asked him the first question. "Did you talk to Sgt. Morehouse lately?"

"They're wrapping up at the carnival. Doesn't look like they're finding out much. Carnies are mad because they say everybody suspects them of every crime in town when they're here."

I don't give a damn about the carnies. "In other words, nothing."

"Nothing they're talking about and I can usually get something out of 'em." He flipped open his notebook and glanced at it. "Nobody saw him much after the last time he heckled people at the dunk tank about nine-thirty last night. By that time he had changed back into his jeans and a sweatshirt, and that's what he was wearing when they found him."

I nodded, thinking. I'd seen Scoobie then. He'd been trying to get Father Teehan to promise to get onto the dunk tank plank Sunday after Mass, and Father was having none of it. Reverend Jamison reminded Scoobie that Father Teehan was no spring chicken, and it had taken me a minute to figure out that there was some ecumenical hazing going on. "That was the last time I saw him, too."

Ramona described our walk to the car together and that we'd mentioned we hadn't seen him for awhile.

George nodded. "It sounds as if he left shortly after 9:30, but it's kind of odd no one saw him leave. I guess someone may hear what happened and call the police later. They're putting a call out on the radio."

"Who's going to be listening to the radio today?" I asked.

"They're set up at the carnival, like always," Ramona said. "They'll mention it a lot."

"Yeah. Chamber of Commerce'll love it." George continued, "Morehouse is really irritated that they don't want to announce it on the PA at the carnival, but Father Teehan and a bunch of other people think it would "unduly upset" people."

"That's ridiculous!" I stood up and walked to the window and back. "How come it gets to be their decision?"

"It's not like they're warning about a heavy thunderstorm coming in." George glanced back at his notes. "What's done is done."

When neither of us said anything he glanced up. "Sorry," he said, taking in our stony stares. "They figure most people who were at the carnival yesterday aren't there today, except the workers, and they're talking to them. So," his tone grew cautious, "either of you seen him yet?"

Ramona looked at her watch. "I'll let you guys talk. I told Roland I'd come back to the store for a bit. He wants to take his nephew to the carnival." She looked at me. "I'll be back about six or seven and I'll bring you a pillow."

She left and George looked at me. "You're sleeping here?"

"Probably just tonight." I looked away, afraid I'd tear up.

He stared a moment, then repeated his question about whether we'd seen Scoobie yet.

"He looks, well, better than I thought he would. I thought his head would be really swollen and he'd be all black and blue or something."

"He's not so banged up?" he asked.

I thought for a second. "He is. His head is bandaged from where they put in a catheter to drain some fluid from his brain."

George winced.

"But it's not like a huge turban. He has a bruise on his face, and a puffy eye." I thought for a moment. "You can't see the back injuries."

"He awake?" George asked.

I shook my head. "They said once they knew he could hear them and follow a couple instructions they sedated him. It's supposed to help his brain heal faster."

George made a couple notes, and I looked at him more closely. "Did the police tell you what was wrong with him?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," he said, not looking up.

"No they didn't. You're fishing, same as always." I could feel myself redden and it was an effort not to yell at him.

He stared at me very directly. "They said he was hurt in a fall and maybe somebody pushed him. You know cops keep back stuff."

"Because there's always some total ass who will print it." I regretted my word choice almost as soon as it was out of my mouth.

Since he wanted to keep talking to me George didn't show any offense taken. "I don't just work here, I live here. I'm not saying I sugar coat stuff, but if the cops have a good reason to keep something quiet I pretty much go along with it."

Too stubborn to apologize I snapped back. "You're only saying that because you want something from me."

He shut his notebook and stood. "I'll see you around, Jolie."

I SAW SCOOBIE several more times before Ramona came back with a pillow and a plastic bag of grocery store raw vegetables. While she was in with Scoobie I ate a few, wishing they were dipped and fried.

"What do you think?" I asked when she came back.

"Well, you know he's just sleeping. But I watched the numbers on the equipment he's hooked to and his blood pressure and oxygen level look good."

All I'd done was stare at him, and I felt stupid for not looking around the area by his bed.

"When my father had a stroke a couple years ago I learned what all those numbers mean." Ramona helped herself to a couple pieces of cauliflower. "I just don't get who would hurt him."

"That's the $64,000 question. It had to be a long time after the carnival shut down for the night. People would have been taking a shortcut through those trees to get to the popsicle district. If he had a fight with somebody there before he went to the boardwalk people would have heard." The popsicle district is a part of Ocean Alley with small bungalows painted in vivid colors. Thanks to Ramona's real estate agent uncle, Lester Argrow, I appraise a fair number of houses in that area.

She nodded. "I thought that, too."

"Did you hear who found him?"

She shook her head. There was a cough from the area near the entrance to the small waiting room, and we looked up to see Dana Johnson. She was out of uniform, and it took a second to recognize her in a pretty knit top and jeans.

"They're telling people at the desk downstairs that they can't come up, but I figured one of you would be here."

Ramona gestured to a chair and Dana sat. We looked at her expectantly.

"Can't tell you too much more..." she began.

"Because you don't know or you won't?" I asked.

Ramona said, "Jolie..."

Dana gave a half grimace, half smile. "Now I see what Sgt. Morehouse means about you being more than a bit pushy."

"I'm sorry. Really." And I was.

"Tough day," she said, evenly. "No one saw anything or will say so if they did. He's just really lucky someone found him and called it in."

"Who...?" Ramona began.

"Don't know," Dana said. "Just a calm male voice, nothing distinctive. Didn't sound particularly old or young." She paused. "One of the guys even thinks it might even be a woman with a raspy voice."

"As long as they didn't do it I guess it doesn't matter who they were," Ramona said.

"Sometimes people saw more than what they think they did, so we'd like to talk to him. It was an out-of -state cell number, so it could take just a bit longer to figure out who called, or at least who owns the phone."

Dana said she had mostly come to check on Scoobie and left after a couple minutes. Ramona stayed another hour and I insisted she leave. Sunday is her only guaranteed day off and I figured she should at least get a good night's sleep Saturday night if she planned to be here a lot on Sunday, which she would.

I didn't think I would sleep, but when I saw Scoobie about ten o'clock I was falling asleep on my feet. A very nice nursing assistant pulled a patient recliner into a corner in a hallway near Scoobie's small room. There were more people in the intensive care waiting area and they were acting more like it was a party room than a place to keep a vigil for their friend who was hurt in a car accident.

"Always are busy up here on a Saturday night," he said.

I thanked him, and he told me since I wasn't being "too big a pain" the staff had decided I could be closer to Scoobie during the night.

As I fell into a restless sleep I thought Sgt. Morehouse would be surprised to hear I wasn't such a big pain.
CHAPTER FIVE

I WENT HOME TO SHOWER when Aunt Madge got to the hospital about eight-thirty Sunday morning. She had explained to her B&B guests that they would be on their own for seconds on muffins and coffee so she could get to the hospital, and they were very understanding.

It felt odd to be driving through town. At first it felt as if life was real at the hospital and a mirage out here. When I pulled into the driveway I saw all the guests' cars were still there, so I stuck my tousled head into the dining area. There was one man still reading the paper, but he said he didn't need anything.

My room is in the part of the B&B that Aunt Madge rents out least, and it's usually only Jazz and me who inhabit that area. Today the room next to mine was in use and its occupants shared the jack-and-jill bathroom with me. I knocked softly, and when no one answered raised my voice to ask if it was okay if I took a shower. A woman's voice said they were done using the bathroom.

Jazz was very irritated at having been left alone so much, and I couldn't blame her. She walked along the edge of the tub when I showered and tried to get in the medicine cabinet every time I opened it, both things she knows annoy the daylights out of me. You'd think she had a degree in the psychology of irritation.

I carried my hair dryer downstairs to use in the small bathroom off the great room. This is not my usual practice, but I thought I should be where I could hear guests if they called. The dogs were glad to be let in from Aunt Madge's small yard, and Mr. Rogers barked once at Jazz when he could tell she was planning to jump on his back.

"Hey." I frowned at him, and he managed to look chagrined, for a dog. Even the dogs know something's wrong.

My cup of coffee cooled as I called Harry. "Thought I'd check in real fast." I hoped he'd volunteer to finish writing up the appraisal I'd done yesterday morning, but I also wanted to let him know I was okay. Harry's really good to me.

"Jolie, good," Harry said. "Madge just called to let me know Scoobie was still doing well. I'm glad to hear your voice."

Doing well? Of course, even though he's ten years younger than Aunt Madge he's still in the age group where friends kick the bucket every few weeks, so if that's your perspective I guess Scoobie was doing well.

"The nurses said he had a good night, whatever that means to them." I thought for a second. "One of them said they might reduce his sedation today or tomorrow."

"Good, good. I don't want you to think about work until Scoobie's doing a bit better."

As if. "Thanks. Listen, I have a favor to ask." The idea hadn't really formulated until I heard Harry's voice. "Are you going over to the carnival later today?"

There was a two second pause before Harry said, "Jolie..."

Harry's worse than Aunt Madge about thinking I'm a busybody. They can't seem to figure the difference between curiosity and caring. "Honest, it's an easy thing. I know you have a digital camera for the appraisals."

"And..." he said, letting the word hang there.

"There's this guy Scoobie gave the evil eye to. I want you to take his picture."

"Surely you told the police about him. You need to leave this one totally to them, Jolie."

I kept the irritation from my tone. I wanted to stay with Scoobie, not go to the carnival, and Harry was my friend, not just a boss. "I did, but I want a picture for me, and I know Morehouse won't share. I can describe the guy, and tell you maybe where he'll be working."

"No!" Harry stopped for a couple seconds, and then continued. "Do you know how distraught Madge would be if you got hurt? Hurt again," he said.

"Okay, I hear you." In the minute before we got off the phone I mentally rearranged my day. I would go back to the hospital and hope I could talk Ramona into going to the carnival to take pictures. She could use my car. I rummaged in Aunt Madge's junk drawer to see if there were any extra batteries I could use if the ones in my camera died.

AUNT MADGE WOULD WANT to go to First Prez at ten-thirty, so I didn't take more time at home than I absolutely needed to get presentable. I knew she would stay with Scoobie instead of going to church, but I figured she could use the comfort of Reverend Jamison and her friends. And maybe she could do some rumor control.

I put my camera and extra batteries at the bottom of a small canvas shoulder bag in which I also stowed a couple books and a clean pair of underwear. For good measure I threw in an apple and a couple muffins left over from breakfast, rationalizing that Aunt Madge wouldn't want them to go to waste. She makes them fresh every day.

The dogs went out again with no complaint, but Jazz was a different matter. She's really fast. After ten minutes of running up and down the back stairway and around Aunt Madge's sofa, I gave up and made sure the door to my room and its closet -- where Jazz's litter box was stowed since I was sharing the bathroom for the weekend -- were open.

She sat on the bottom step looking at me, poised to run again. "If Aunt Madge comes home and finds you on the sofa, you're toast." She yawned and settled herself against the step above the one she was sitting on.

Traffic around town was heavier than on a normal Sunday, likely because a lot of people were back for the carnival. I still made it back to the hospital by ten fifteen. Aunt Madge looked up, surprised. "I thought you'd take a longer break."

I shrugged. "Say hello to Lance for me." I sank into one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, glad that the group from last night had finally left.

She stood and picked up her purse. "I was in there for fifteen minutes last time. I think they're going to be more relaxed about us being in there today." She shook her head slightly. "I can't see any difference, but the nurse said he mostly had a good night."

I'd heard the same thing, so I merely kissed her cheek. "You're the best."

She studied me for a second. "You're up to something."

I laughed, and realized it was the first time I'd done that since we'd heard about Scoobie. "Maybe you can pray for a less suspicious attitude."

"I'll come back for a bit after church and then go to Cozy Corner." She gave me one more of her appraising looks before she left.

It wasn't a lie, really. Aunt Madge and I have very different definitions of 'up to something.'

THE NEXT TIME I SAW SCOOBIE I thought he looked calmer, somehow. Not that a sedated person looked too stressed, but something seemed different. I asked the nurse about it.

"We've changed his pain meds a couple times, trying to get the best dosage to keep him comfortable but not too doped up. I think we found the right mix." She tucked a folded towel under Scoobie's shoulder.

"What's that for?"

"We don't want to roll him around a lot, but we want to change his pressure points." She glanced at my puzzled stare. "If he lies in one spot to long he could get pressure sores, but we don't want to move his spine too much."

"Can you tell me more about his back injuries?" I asked.

"The doctor could tell you more."

"I don't know when I'll see him. Or is it a her?"

"The orthopedist is a woman, Dr. Cahill," she said.

"Are you allowed to tell me anything?" I asked.

She ignored my snippy tone. "Sure. It could be a lot worse, actually. He compressed T-3, which is about here." She pointed to a spot maybe five inches below her neck, "and C-3, which is in the neck. You know what that means, right?"

"I've heard the term, but I guess I don't know the significance of it." Plus I'd heard lots of terms the last 24 hours. I thought I remembered crushed and compressed most often.

She nodded. "A vertebra on someone Adam's size is maybe an inch tall. You want it to stay the same size, not get crunched, obviously. But," she adjusted his pillow, "If you do put enough pressure on it to compress it some, your spine can adjust. It's important to stabilize it, usually by wearing a brace for awhile."

I thought about this for a moment. "And if it doesn't stabilize?"

"There are so many things that can be done now besides the major surgery, you know, the kind with pins and all that."

I must have looked relieved, because she smiled slightly. "They can even insert kind of a gel, which hardens, to keep it from compressing more."

While it didn't sound like fun, gel sounded a lot better than having pins in your spine. "Thanks for the generic explanation."

"Dr. Cahill can tell you more specifics." She hesitated. "You are family, right?"

"As far as I know he has none. I'm his best friend." Best friend. Yep, that's me.

She nodded and left the room. There was a plastic chair a few feet from the bed and I pulled it close enough that I could sit next to the bed and put a hand on Scoobie's arm. I realized his arm felt really cold and wondered if I could put it under the sheet. I studied the IV line and decided to just pull the cotton blanket higher, so it covered each arm better.

"I'm here, Scoobie," I whispered. "Nobody can hurt you here."

Was that a tiny smile? It couldn't be!

I studied him a couple seconds. "Okay, maybe they'll stick you with needles, but they won't push you down any steps."

Nothing, no tiny smile or any other sign he'd heard me. I sat looking at him until the nurse came to the doorway. "Probably time to give him a rest."

USUALLY RAMONA IS more reasonable. I had tried to get her to take the camera and look for the guy at the carnival, but she wouldn't.

"Are you insane?" She actually whispered in a hiss.

I lowered my voice even more. The parents of the kid who had been in a car accident last night were sitting on the other side of the room. "You know Morehouse. He may show us a picture but he won't give us one. I'm not going to keep the guy's face in my mind forever."

"And you want to hold that thought?"

"Well," I needed a good reason here. "What if he comes back? We need to be sure what he looks like so we can call Morehouse."

She thought about that for a moment. "That's not why you really want the picture." She gave a half sigh. "I don't want to go, but you go and I'll stay here."

THE HOSPITAL is at the far north side of Ocean Alley, less than a quarter-mile from the carnival. I tried to hold back tears, thinking about this time yesterday. What could we have done differently? What if Ramona and I had looked for him as we were leaving? These were the kinds of questions I'd been pushing to a dark corner of my mind since yesterday. With the initial panic subsiding they were demanding to be heard.

Logic told me that if neither of us had seen Scoobie the last hour or so of the carnival that he'd already left. Or he was someplace where he didn't want to be seen. I clenched the steering wheel so hard my fingers hurt, suddenly so angry with Scoobie I wanted to scream.

So I did.

And then I cried, and kept it up until I pulled into St. Anthony's parking lot. "This is ridiculous. You're going to walk in there with a red blotchy face and stuffed nose and Lance or Reverend Jamison will think Scoobie died." I blew my nose hard, and forced myself to think of Aunt Madge with her green hair on St. Patrick's Day. It worked, a little.

I wondered why I could park closer to the carnival entrance, then gave myself a head slap as I realized the gates wouldn't open for another fifteen minutes. "Oh well." I figured I could talk my way in by saying I was with the dunk tank. That's not a lie, you were in it yesterday.

I needn't have worried. There were no carnival workers ready to keep people out of the way as there had been just before the opening hour yesterday, when there were dozens of people waiting to get in.

The only two people at the dunk tank were Megan, my favorite food pantry volunteer, and her daughter Alicia. "Jolie! How is he?" Megan asked.

"They say better than he was yesterday. I guess we'll know more as time goes..." I stopped as Alicia burst into tears.

Megan pulled her daughter in for a hug, and I fought the urge to cry again. "She's been so upset," Megan said as she stroked Alicia's hair.

"I'm not upset!" Alicia wailed, burying her head into her mother's shoulder.

Teenagers. Megan and I half-smiled at each other.

"I can't stay to help, I'm sorry. We're taking turns being at the hospital, sitting with Scoobie. Ramona's there now."

Megan nodded. "This morning at church Reverend Jamison told everyone to pray for Scoobie and then asked for a couple more volunteers." She continued patting Alicia. "About a half-dozen people said they'd be over, and he told them to get together after church and come up with a way to stagger their schedules."

"Right." I had just realized that if the First Prez service was over I needed to start scouting for the man I'd seen Scoobie looking at yesterday. If Aunt Madge dropped by the hospital to find only Ramona she'd know I really was up to something. I gave Alicia a pat on the shoulder and dug out my camera.

After taking a couple photos of the empty dunk tank and the "Harvest for All Food Pantry" sign above it -- which was going to be my excuse for being there, if I seemed to need one -- I looked around the expansive carnival area. People had begun to arrive and I heard the Merry-Go-Round start its first cycle of the day.

"You aren't here to take photos of the dunk tank."

I jumped about three inches and turned to face an unsmiling George Winters. "And you would know that how?" I asked, and turned my back on him.

"Because, sad to say, I know you." He fell into step beside me. "Who are you looking for?"

"I don't know." I glanced up at him and could feel my eyes filling with tears and looked away.

George's tone, absent the bantering quality he often uses with me, did not change. "You'll be back at the hospital soon. If you tell me what you're looking for I can look, too."

That stopped me, and I considered his offer. When I was trying to figure out how a skeleton had gotten in the Tillotson-Fisher attic a few months ago I had considered talking to George about it. A reporter is used to ferreting out facts. I had rejected the idea then and didn't like it any better now. But I'm leaving almost now.

I took a breath, mostly to be sure I wouldn't cry. "Okay."

"Okay, what?" he asked.

"Did you see Scoobie playing the High Striker yesterday?" I asked.

"Yeah," he grunted with a smile. "I saw Ramona hit the ball higher, too."

What had seemed funny yesterday held no appeal today. "When we were over there first a blonde guy was collecting the money. When we went back maybe forty-five minutes later, it was a different guy."

"Different how?" he asked, taking out his thin reporter's notebook and pulling the stubby pencil from its spiral binding.

"Not as tall."

George gave me a look full of sarcasm, and I flushed.

"The second guy was maybe five eight or nine, not a lot taller than Ramona. His coloring was darker, and his hair was black." I paused, remembering. "I'm not sure he was from Greece or Turkey or someplace near there, but that's what he looked like to me."

"So, Mediterranean features, then?" he asked.

I nodded and shrugged at the same time, and George looked away for a moment, and then took my elbow as if to guide me.

"Hey!"

"Enough already," he said in a low voice. "Just walk to the cotton candy lady with me. And pretend you're having a good time."

"Yeah, right." But I followed his lead.

George bought two cotton candy sticks and paid for them. "Now," he said as he handed me one, "you owe me more than a phone."

"I guess I should apologize for pulling you in," I said, grudgingly.

"Gotta love you, Jolie. You aren't sorry one bit." He nodded behind us and said, "Don't turn now, but in a minute look at the game and see if that's the guy."

I put my tongue on the candy, since you can't really bite it, and wished I'd had something other than sweet food today. Maybe I would go to the hospital cafeteria and buy something healthy.

I feigned interest in the Ferris wheel and, with George following my gaze, looked at the High Striker and then turned back toward the cotton candy stand. Same guy. "Yep, that's him."

"Okay, now walk to the dunk tank with me, and tell me what you think he did."

"It's not what he did as the way Scoobie reacted to him. He and Ramona and I were walking back to the High Striker after we had hot dogs." I thought for a moment, trying to remember Scoobie's exact expression. "Scoobie was going to try again to beat Ramona, but when we got closer he stopped, kind of without warning, and I bumped into him."

George looked up from his notebook. "Didn't shove him in a puddle or anything?"

"Don't be a jerk." I scowled at him.

"You got that cornered. Continue."

I gave him what I hoped was a look of pure dislike and continued. "Scoobie was almost rigid, and his face looked mad, but just for a second. I looked to see what he saw, and the guy was looking at Scoobie with a funny expression."

"Funny ha-ha or funny odd?" George asked.

"Odd. It was kind of a...smirk, I guess. And Scoobie turned around fast and said we were going bowling."

"That's it? You're holding back."

I tossed the cotton candy stick in the trash. "Am not. I could just tell Scoobie knew the guy and didn't like him. Didn't think about it again until yesterday morning, when Morehouse asked us about everything. Maybe Ramona would remember more."

He stuck his thin reporter's notebook in the pocket of his Hawaiian-style shirt. "Okay, I'm going to take pictures of a bunch of booths and games. You go back to the hospital."

"But, I want..."

"You want a photo. I get that. I'll email you a copy, and I'll print one off for you."

When I started to protest, he almost growled. "You were with him when Scoobie reacted to the guy. You need to get the hell out of here before he gets interested in you, too."

I left, but not because George told me to.

I BARELY BEAT AUNT MADGE back to the hospital, but she had talked to Harry at First Prez and was fit to be tied. "Can you honestly tell me you aren't going to go to that carnival to take a picture of that worker?"

"Yes."

Ramona looked away.

"I described the guy to George Winters and asked him to do it."

"After you dunked him?" Ramona and Aunt Madge asked, together.

"Yep. He likes Scoobie, and he said he would and would email me the picture." I looked steadily at Aunt Madge, grateful that she had phrased her question in a way that let me answer honestly. I was not going to the carnival, I had already been.

"How will he know what he looks like?" Ramona asked.

"I described him as well as I could. I guess if he sees more than one guy with that build and skin tone he'll have us look at more than one picture."

"That's not the point. What do you want the picture for?" Aunt Madge demanded.

I knew Aunt Madge was really mad. I figured if there were not other people in the waiting area she might even be raising her voice. I adopted an injured tone. Really, how could she doubt me? "If Scoobie says that's the guy who hurt him, I want to be able to stay away from him."

"And not let him near Scoobie," Ramona added.

Still appearing suspicious, Aunt Madge made no comment, but took a seat and nodded at the parents of the car accident victim. Ramona glanced at me and looked away again.

There was still a frosty air to the room when Sgt. Morehouse came in a few minutes later. "Thought we might compare notes," he said, as he took a chair next to Aunt Madge.

That's a new one. He must have sensed my thought as he nodded in my direction and gave, for him, a brief smile.

"Carny guy you think Scoobie was avoiding is called Turk. You hear Scoobie mention that name at all?"

Aunt Madge said, "I never heard Adam mention that name," while Ramona and I just shook our heads.

"Figures," he said. "So, we got the name of the person who owns the cell phone that called in when Scoobie got found, but it's a dead end."

"Why..?" I asked, and stopped when he and Aunt Madge both evil-eyed me.

"The owner's a lawyer from the city who grew up here." He glanced at Aunt Madge. "You remember the Stewarts?"

She nodded. "You must mean Peter."

"Yep," he said. "Someone stole his cell phone while he was at the carnival. Had it in his back pocket, and later he remembered somebody carrying a couple helium balloons banged into him."

"And the balloons were what he noticed, not the person's face," Ramona said, shaking her head slightly. "People do stuff like that on the boardwalk all summer."

"Not bad," I said to her, as Morehouse nodded.

"Now the next part might be disappointing to you," he continued. "About one-thirty Saturday morning one of our guys was in the Sandpiper Bar and Grill. Scoobie was there."

"What was Adam doing in a bar?" Aunt Madge asked. "He gave that up years ago."

"Don't know what he was doing there, but whatever it was he wasn't happy with the guy he was sitting with. No fight or anything, but they were arguing. Not loud though, so don't know what about."

"Same guy from the High Striker, you think?" I asked.

"Can't tell. Our officer wasn't there to look at carnies, and he only saw the guy sitting down."

"Well, there was the Mediterranean guy, and there was the blonde guy there before him, but I don't think Scoobie was mad at the blonde guy," Ramona said, as I nodded.

Morehouse made a note. "I keep telling that damn bar owner to get security cameras inside, but he won't do it."

Aunt Madge almost snorted. "He won't. It's supposed to be the best place in town to buy pot."

"And you know this how?" Morehouse asked.

She shrugged and Ramona added, "Everybody knows that."

Morehouse gave a slight head shake. "Great. None of the carny workers admit talking to him other than the old guy who runs the bowling machines. And there's no way to figure why he was in the Sandpiper Bar and Grill."

"Maybe he remembers it was my favorite bar," said a woman from the doorway.
CHAPTER SIX

IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE grey color of her eyes or the kind of oval shape of her head, but even though I'd never met her I would have picked Scoobie's mother out of a crowd. Penny "you don't need a last name I change it a lot" was polite to Aunt Madge, but did not look at all pleased to see Sgt. Morehouse as he stood to greet her.

"Penny," he said, "it's been a long time." He did not extend his hand.

"Yeah, well, I've been living in upstate New York. What happened to my son?"

The last word was slightly slurred and I glanced at Aunt Madge, who didn't notice me because she was staring mutely at Penny. So was Ramona, but her rigid posture told me she was even less happy to see Scoobie's mother.

Morehouse gestured that Penny should sit and positioned himself across from her while he gave her the sixty-second summary of finding Scoobie and the rush to provide medical assistance. "Beyond that, we know very little," he concluded.

"Seems like if you can bust people for driving with a little beer in them you could spend some time figuring out who tried to kill my son."

Morehouse reddened and was about to speak when Aunt Madge said, "I trust you don't do that anymore. Where are you staying, Penny?"

She is not going to let this witch stay with us!

Penny looked away and then back to Aunt Madge. "I'm not sure just yet."

"Why don't you join us at Cozy Corner? The last of my carnival guests will be gone by this evening." As Penny gave her a questioning look, Aunt Madge added, "As my guest of course."

With what little I knew about Scoobie's home life, including Aunt Madge's disparaging comments about his "severely alcoholic" mother, I had a hard time figuring out Aunt Madge's logic. But it is her house.

Ramona stood abruptly. "I'll catch you all later." She left.

Morehouse nodded at Aunt Madge and me, and then looked at Penny. "I'll know where to find you if we learn more." He walked out, quite fast.

"Like rats leaving a sunk ship," Penny said, misstating the analogy. She said it just loud enough for Sgt. Morehouse to hear, but he didn't look back.

She turned her attention to me. "You I don't know."

"I'm Madge's niece, Jolie Gentil. Scoobie and I were friends in high school, and again now." In eleventh grade, Scoobie never talked about his mother except to say she worked a lot. If she acted then as she did now, my guess was "working" was Scoobie's euphemism for "drinking."

"Huh." She looked around. "No ashtrays, either."

A nurse walked in and began, "He's had a good rest. One of you..." Her voice trailed off as she saw Penny.

I gave her a closer look, too. Skin-tight leotards are best left to high school students or anorexic fashion models. They do nothing for slightly overweight, almost age fifty women. Her golden blonde hair looked as if it needed a color touch-up, and her black low-heeled shoes were scuffed. Combined with the large faux-alligator handbag, Penny looked as if she could be a bag lady, minus most of the luggage.

In a brisk tone, Aunt Madge picked up where the nurse left off. "We can go in to see him about twenty minutes every hour, so we take turns. Perhaps you'd like to go now, and I'd be happy to join you."

Penny steadied herself on the arm of the chair as she stood. "Naw. I'm gonna catch a smoke." She walked toward the hallway elevators without another word.

The nurse was one who had been especially kind the day Scoobie was admitted. I recalled she also went to First Prez with Aunt Madge. She looked at us. "Is that his mother?"

"Yes," Aunt Madge's tone was grim.

"Didn't he...?" she stopped.

"Get taken away from her?" Aunt Madge said. "A couple of us talked to social services more than once, but just like that," she snapped her fingers, "his father would show up again and insist he was going to take care of Adam and get his wife into some kind of counseling."

"I didn't know that." I stared at her.

"I didn't want to bias your opinion of her that much, in case you ever met her."

"No worries there."

IT WAS ALMOST TWO-AND-A-HALF hours before Penny whatever-her-last-name-is came back upstairs. She was chewing gum and her gait was a bit more unsteady, so I figured she added a visit to the Sandpiper to her cigarette break.

I was the only one in the waiting area and she stared at me, then moved uneasily to one of the plastic armchairs and sat.

Bet she can't get out of there this time.

"I was gonna go to Madge's direct, but I forgot where it is." She wouldn't look me in the eye as she spoke.

"It's at the corner of D and Seashore."

I waited a few seconds, to see if she had a response. Aunt Madge had made it clear she wanted Penny at the B&B so we knew where she was. "Adam doesn't need her at the hospital all day," was her comment.

I figured her presence would very likely upset Scoobie, and we both thought that, as the closest relative, Penny could decide who could see Scoobie -- at least until he could make his wishes clear himself. "So play nice," were Aunt Madge's parting words as she left for home.

"Would you, uh, like me to tell you how Scoobie looks, so you aren't surprised?" I asked.

She turned vicious instantly. "You think I don't know what my own son looks like?"

Play nice. "Not at all. It's just that with the bandages and IVs and stuff I think he looks worse than you might expect."

"Oh, yeah." Again, no eye contact. "But he's gonna be okay, right? Nobody thinks he's gonna die or something."

"They say the back injuries will take the longest to recover from, but yes, he should be okay."

She stood, not all too steadily. "I'm gonna go to Madge's and hit the sack."

I said nothing as she left, nothing about her not seeing Scoobie, nothing about the fact that she was about to get behind the wheel when she shouldn't. Reluctantly, because I didn't want to irritate her, I pulled out my mobile phone to call Sgt. Morehouse.

When he picked up, I began. "Penny just left. She probably shouldn't be driving..."

He cut me off. "I hear you." He hung up.

I looked at the phone for a second, wondering if Penny had done more than drive under the influence in the past.

"Is she gone or with Scoobie?" Ramona looked around the room as she walked in.

"Gone, and never saw him."

"In all this time?"

"She went out for a 'cigarette break.'" I did an air caption of the last words. "And now she's gone to the B&B to sleep."

"At four o'clock?" Ramona asked?

"Yep."

The word was barely out of my mouth when Dr. Cahill walked into the waiting area. I knew it was she because her white coat said so, and tried to hide my irritation that she had not come before, despite a couple notes I'd left with the nurses.

"You must be Jolie and Ramona," she held out her hand to shake both of ours.

We acknowledged her leap of wisdom and she continued, "The nurses and the hospital administrator have made it clear that you and Madge Richards are the three I should talk to." She sat and we sat across from her.

"His mother..." I began.

"I've heard. Sgt. Morehouse also called to be sure I knew something about her history with Adam." She ignored our raised eyebrows and continued. "The neurologist and I have agreed to reduce his sedation, starting tomorrow, so you should be able to talk to him not long after that. You will want to be encouraging, but don't encourage him to do more than what Dr. Nobles and I want him to do."

I found her tone annoying. "Can you give us some guidance there?" I asked.

"He'll wear a pretty stiff cervical collar whenever he is not in bed, and a softer one when he's in bed. Most people don't like that, but it's really important to keep his neck fully supported so the cervical vertebra can heal. He'll have a back brace to steady the thoracic vertebra, but most people don't find those nearly as annoying."

She stood and began to walk out. "You can leave another note with the nurses, with specific questions."

RAMONA AND I LET GEORGE join us for a brief dinner in the hospital cafeteria. "Let" is an exaggeration, as he was coming with us whether we liked it or not. I had to be nice, he had brought me a printed photo of the High Striker guy, and it was clear he wasn't going to show it to us unless I talked to him.

"That's him," Ramona said, holding the page of photos.

George said the High Striker guy was the only one who came close to fitting the description I gave him, though he had a couple other photos, "In case you were high or something when you described him."

"Very funny." I stared at the photo, wishing there was a way to know if Scoobie actually knew him. "Oh. Sgt. Morehouse thinks his name is Turk."

Ramona ate another bite of her salad as her eyes traveled from George to me.

"Shit. He didn't tell me that." George pushed the remains of his hamburger halfway across the table.

"That's not my fault," I snapped. I looked back at the photo, trying to think if I'd seen the man anywhere else.

"What are you thinking? Don't hold back on me, Jolie."

"I'm not." My reply was testy, but I'd had about as much sleep as I guessed Morehouse had. I looked up from the photo. "There's nothing to tell. The nurses let us see Scoobie for just a few minutes every hour and then we're back to the ICU waiting area."

"You think they'd let me in?"

"In your dreams," Ramona said, as I shook my head.

George flipped his notebook shut. "You can't think of anything else at all?"

"You mean..." Ramona threw in.

"Well..." I began.

"Cut the crap, you two."

I remembered George said he had known Scoobie a long time. "Did you know his mother?"

"Hard not to. About once a month, maybe more, Penny'd sit outside the Sandpiper and sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" until the cops picked her up." George looked at both of us. "Why?"

"She came by today, and..." I stopped as George got up.

"Damn. That's all Scoobie needs. I'll catch you guys later."

He was a couple feet away when I called to him. "Don't tell Morehouse I gave you the guy's name." He didn't acknowledge me, but I figured he would keep it to himself.

In cahoots with George Winters. Who knew?

AFTER RAMONA LEFT I walked over to the window and back to my chair a few times and finally decided I had to get out of the waiting room. It was at least a half-hour before they'd let me see Scoobie so I opted for ice cream from one of the machines outside the cafeteria, rationalizing that I had decided to stay until about ten PM and needed nourishment.

I found the vending area easily, but I only had a five and a ten. I had just gotten the change-making machine to accept my five dollar bill when someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Excuse me, miss."

He was a bit taller than I remembered, but I hadn't stood next to the guy at the High Striker. I was right about the Mediterranean features, and now that he was close to me they looked pretty menacing. "Can I help you?" I barely heard the clunk of quarters as they hit the change dispenser.

"I think you know my friend, I saw you with him yesterday."

He was deliberately standing closer than people usually do. "I'm not sure who you mean." I moved to go past him and he put a hand on my arm.

"At the carnival. Everybody calls him Scoobie."

My heart was pounding so hard I felt it in my temples. "I know Scoobie, yes. You must have heard he was hurt." He still didn't move.

"Yes, the police were at the carnival a lot today. I thought I would pay him a visit." He smiled, revealing a mouth that had teeth placed only sporadically.

"He's in intensive care, and they're only letting a couple of us wait up there." I pushed past him. "I'm on my way back there."

He called to my back. "Tell him Stefan was asking about him and I'm sorry I missed him. We leave tonight."

I WAS STILL SHAKING when I got back to Scoobie's floor and kept punching the wrong buttons on my cell phone when I tried to call Morehouse.

When I finally did get it right, Morehouse's reaction really ticked me off. "I got eyeballs on the guy since you think Scoobie avoided him, but I can't question him tonight just because he told you to tell Scoobie hello. And yeah," he said, in response to my sputtering, "I agree with you. He wanted you to know he knows who you are."

"If you had eyeballs on him that means you knew he was at the hospital. Why didn't you call me?"

"I said eyeballs, not a damn crystal ball. One of the guys followed him to where you were. You walked right by my guy when you left the vending machines."

I hadn't noticed anyone in particular. All I wanted to do was get away from the man Morehouse said was called Turk. "Oh, he said his name was Stefan."

"Yeah, that's what the carny manager said. He also said he's been with him for about four years and is one of his best employees."

"So now what? Where'd the guy go after he left the hospital?"

"I don't report to you, you know." Morehouse sighed. "It looks like he's going back to the sleazy motel where the carnies are staying. And Jolie."

"What?"

"You left your quarters in the change maker."

IT WAS AFTER TEN when I got back to the Cozy Corner. I'd been fighting sleep as I sat by myself or with Scoobie. I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, knowing that Scoobie would be okay at the hospital. And nurse I had nicknamed Nurse Ratched, after the mean nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, had gone home.

I had just walked into the kitchen when I heard a soft growl coming from the area near the kitchen sink. Since I was pretty sure Aunt Madge and Harry had finally persuaded the two chipmunks Mr. Rogers had brought in to leave the house in March, it had to be Jazz. I stooped and opened the cabinet under the sink and she streaked out.

"How did you get in there?" I asked, turning to watch her path up the back stairway.

Aunt Madge came out of her bedroom, her now auburn hair released from its soft French twist and flowing around her shoulders. "I locked her in there."

Uh oh. "I'm sorry," I almost stammered. "I forgot to tell you I couldn't get her back in the bedroom, and I wanted to get back to the hospital."

"I guess I'll forgive you. She always wants in there, so I left it opened and she wandered in."

I stooped down again to be sure Jazz had not peed under the sink. Thank heavens for big favors.

Aunt Madge started to turn to go back into her room, but turned back and leaned on the arm of her sofa. "Penny was pretty drunk when she got here. I had to help her up the stairs, and I put her in the room next to yours. I want her as far from any potential guests as possible."

She must have read my sullen look. "And you aren't a guest." She gently tugged Mr. Rogers from his goal to smell every inch of me. "I want you to keep an eye on her. I don't want her wandering around much. She used to have a reputation for being light fingered."

I shed my jacket and sank into a kitchen chair and put my head in my hands. How could this be happening? Scoobie still hurting and his drunk-ass mother sleeping in the room next to me.

Aunt Madge put her hand on my shoulder as she sat next to me. "When I said you aren't a guest it wasn't a comment about you being here, you know."

I sat up fully and kissed her cheek. "Hadn't crossed my mind." I forced a smile. "I'm just tired and hate the thought of that awful woman bothering Scoobie."

"You better hope she doesn't vomit in the bathroom either."
CHAPTER SEVEN

AS FAR AS I KNOW Penny didn't vomit anywhere. I heard her fumbling around in the room about six-thirty Monday morning. I could tell every time she bumped into anything because she cursed a blue streak. Quietly I used the half-bath in the hall. I was not about to share a bathroom with her and was glad I had moved my toiletries into my bedroom for the weekend.

As I was coming back down the hall, the door of Penny's room opened and she literally stuck her head out. Her hair was combed, but looked as if it needed a wash.

I bet she doesn't know how she got here. "Good morning, Penny. Hungry?"

At this she stepped into the hallway. "A bit, yeah."

She was wearing the same clothes that she had on yesterday, and they were much the worse for wear. "I'll put my bathrobe on and walk downstairs with you. Aunt Madge is an early riser, so she probably already has a pot of coffee on." I opened the door to my room and Jazz ran into the hallway.

Some people are suspicious about black cats. They may tell you this or they may give a piercing scream. Penny would be in the latter category.

"It's okay!" I yelled as I heard Aunt Madge coming up the steps way too fast. I walked toward Penny who was leaning against the door jamb with her hand over her heart. "She's a sweet cat, she won't hurt you."

Aunt Madge got to the top of the steps and Penny had the good sense to look sheepish. "I'm sorry, Madge."

"Don't worry about it." Aunt Madge's tone was formal, and I saw her visibly try to look friendly, which I don't think I could have done. "Come on, Penny. Coffee's on and I was about to scramble some eggs."

They started down the steps and I looked down to see Jazz had just sat on my foot. This is her 'I'm scared' spot, so I picked her up and rubbed her head as we walked back into my room. "I don't like her either," I whispered into Jazz's ear.

I TOOK A TWO-minute shower and threw on jeans and a yellow knit shirt. No makeup. It didn't seem fair to leave Aunt Madge alone with Penny. She invited her. Yes, but she did it for Scoobie.

The dogs were sitting by the sliding glass door that leads to the small back yard. They looked as if they were on full alert for a squirrel sighting, but they were all eyes on Penny, who was holding a mug of coffee with both hands as she slowly took a sip. My eyes met Aunt Madge's for a second and I walked to the counter and pulled the toaster toward me.

"White bread or whole wheat, Penny?" I asked.

"Don't matter. What's your name again?"

"Jolie."

"Weird name," was her comment.

Aunt Madge deftly slid scrambled eggs onto each of the three plates she had placed on the counter closest to the stove. I got a sudden urge to cry, remembering how much Scoobie likes her scrambled eggs.

"Do you have a suitcase in the car?" Aunt Madge asked as she placed a plate in front of Penny.

She sat up straight. "Where is my car?"

Aunt Madge nodded in the direction of her small parking lot. "Corporal Johnson drove it home for you, and helped you in."

"Crap. Did I get a ticket?"

"I think they got to you before you started to drive," Aunt Madge said, dryly. "They're fond of Scoobie, but I don't think you'll get a second break from them."

Fond of Scoobie is a stretch. But if you were comparing it to Morehouse or Dana's view of Penny, then Morehouse might be about to propose to Scoobie.

Penny stared at Aunt Madge and downed the rest of her coffee. "I gotta check to see if my stuff is all there." She stood, a bit more steady than she was when she left the hospital yesterday.

"I can keep your eggs warm..." Aunt Madge began.

"I don't eat nuthin' in the morning." She didn't bother to look at us as she walked through the swinging door to the guest breakfast room and out the side door to her car.

It was a couple seconds before I moved to look at Aunt Madge. "Who taught Scoobie how to talk?" I asked.

She put a bit of eggs on the piece of toast I had put on her plate. "She didn't raise Scoobie. Books did."

The door to the parking lot banged and there was a plop as something hit the floor just inside the door.

"Shit," Penny said.

"Go help her," Aunt Madge said.

My bet is Penny would have gone back to bed, but Aunt Madge and I each carried a bag and walked upstairs with her, Aunt Madge letting her know that if she needed shampoo or anything she could ask.

Please let her take that hint.

The small suitcase I carried was surprisingly heavy. It was the old-fashioned, hard-sided kind I recalled my mother called a cosmetic case. I set it on the bed and, after a scowl from Aunt Madge, moved it to the small antique washstand. Aunt Madge pulled a luggage rack from the closet and hoisted the slightly larger bag onto it. Apparently not one to take a hint about what Aunt Madge wanted on the quilt, Penny sat her large purse on the bed.

"I'm going to finish getting dressed and head over to the hospital." I made for the hall.

"What are you gonna do over there?"

I glanced at Penny, who looked genuinely puzzled. "They let us into his room for a bit every hour. I like him to know someone who cares about him is there."

She bristled. "You saying I don't care?"

Before I could say anything, Aunt Madge said, "Of course not, Penny. Now why don't you get yourself together and you can go over a bit later."

WHEN I WENT BACK to the kitchen a few minutes later, makeup on and ready to leave, Aunt Madge just gave me a silent head shake. The dogs were at her feet as she rinsed the breakfast dishes. She never lets them be in the way. I wondered who was getting the most comfort from the deal.

"I forgot to tell you, Sgt. Morehouse has warned the hospital staff about Penny."

All she said was, "Good to know," so I blew her a kiss and headed out.

The air was crisp for a morning in May, and I breathed in deeply, catching the scent of the ocean for a couple of seconds. As I unlocked the car door I glanced back at the house. Penny was in an upstairs window, staring down at me.

"Creepy woman," I muttered, starting the car.

It was just a little after seven-thirty, not quite what passes for morning rush hour in Ocean Alley. As I turned onto D street to head to the hospital I saw a dark blue Ford Taurus sitting on a side street, one block down from the Cozy Corner. As I got closer, the window came down and a hand waved. Instead of continuing on down D Street I turned and pulled up next to it.

"Hey Jolie," Dana said.

I put down my window. "I heard you were a Good Samaritan yesterday."

"Hardly. Listen," she paused as if thinking, "I'm supposed to let Lt. Tortino or Sgt. Morehouse know when his mother leaves, so Morehouse can go talk to Madge."

"Can't he just call?"

"Doesn't want Penny to know he's filling you guys in. We found out what part of "upstate New York" Penny was in for the last couple years."

"Uh, okay..."

"A medium correctional facility in Bedford Hills. She was serving a five-year sentence for home burglaries, a boatload of check kiting, and other variations of identity theft. Got out early because there's so much overcrowding."

"Damn it!" I hit the steering wheel with both hands. "Scoobie doesn't need this."

"No," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "he doesn't. If she's just here to see him and move on we'll leave her alone, as long as she behaves. Doubt she will."

My shoulders relaxed. "This might be the first time Scoobie'll be happy about police activity."

"She drinking yet today?" Dana asked.

"Not that I know of. And Aunt Madge gave her coffee."

"Great. A wide-awake drunk." Dana raised her car window.

AS I PULLED INTO the hospital parking lot I thought about how to deal with Penny if she made it to the hospital. She did come when she heard Scoobie was hurt. I decided to tell the nurses we should only do only five or ten-minute visits. I was pretty sure I'd heard somewhere that people in comas later say they were aware of people talking. I didn't want Scoobie to have to listen to Penny very much.

The nursing staff sympathized, but said they couldn't treat her differently than they treated Ramona and me.

"But he hasn't seen her in years, for good reasons," I said.

Nurse Ratched was having none of it. I glanced at her name badge. I'd thought of her only as the rigid bitch. "Listen, Susan, I heard Sgt. Morehouse talked to you guys about Penny. She, uh, has a lot of problems."

We were standing at the nurses' station just outside of Scoobie's small room. She was on the opposite side of the counter and I felt like a kid looking across the teacher's desk.

"I am aware of her issues..."

There was a remarkably loud belch behind us. Nurse Ratched froze mid-sentence, staring behind me. I turned.

Today Penny had on skin-tight white pants that left no doubts about her panty lines. There's a reason people shouldn't wear white until after Memorial Day. I shouldn't have to look at this for another two weeks.

"Penny, this is Nurse Ra..Susan. She's been with Scoobie a lot."

"Hmm." Penny looked at both of us for a couple seconds. "Well, where the hell is he?"

"I've got this," I said to Susan and a couple other staff who were busily doing something and listening to every word. I said nothing as I led Penny into the room.

Scoobie actually looked a bit better. His skin tone was almost his usual, and his face was relaxed. Still it had to be hard for any mother to see her son with two IVs, a cervical collar, a bandaged head, and a deep bruise down the side of his face. Any mother except Penny, I guess. She stared at Scoobie with an impassive expression, and walked out.

Let her go, let her go.

I followed her out, barely able to keep up as she pushed through the door that led back to the waiting room. "Penny, did you..."

She turned. "I'm headin' out."

"Out?"

"Like outta town, maybe not too far. Listen," she turned to face me directly, "I don't know where I'm gonna be the next couple weeks. You think it'll be in the paper if he checks out?"

"They don't usually list when people get out of the hospital..." I began.

She gave an impatient wave, barely two inches from my nose. "Check out, like permanent."

"You mean die?" My voice was about an octave too high.

"Yeah. I'd probably come to the funer..."

"Get the hell out of here!" I yelled.

"Jeez." She hitched her ugly purse onto her shoulder. "You got a nice aunt, but you're a bitch."
CHAPTER EIGHT

I GAVE MYSELF FIVE MINUTES TO calm down and then walked toward Scoobie's room. Dr. Cahill stopped me as I walked by the nurse's station.

"For some reason, Adam's blood pressure was all over the map last night. Dr. Nobles and I think we'll wait until late this afternoon or early tomorrow to reduce the sedation. Assuming he has a good day." She saw my worried expression and smiled. "This is not uncommon. Overall he's doing very well."

I sat with Scoobie for a few minutes, and then touched his hand. "Hey, I know you're in there." No response, of course. "I'm going over to "Harvest for All" for a bit. Need to put in the order to the food bank in Lakewood. Ramona's coming over about eight-thirty. I'll be back about ten."

I looked at him, wishing there was a way to know if he heard me at all. "Scoobie, we're thinking of changing the food pantry name to Nuggets for Nourishment."

Nada.

I WAS GLAD TO GET TO the pantry before it opened. I could work on the order to the food bank without having to talk to anyone. I'd been there an hour when there was a click in the lock of the door that leads to the street in front of the storefront-style pantry. I looked up. Please don't let it be Sylvia.

Thankfully, it was Megan and her daughter Alicia. Megan stopped just inside the door. "Jolie! I'm so very glad to see you. Is Scoobie better?"

I glanced from her to her daughter as she shut the door and was surprised to see a tear working its way down Alicia's cheek. I smiled at her. The two of them had restocked the shelves together a lot in the hectic days before Christmas, with Scoobie helping and teasing. I usually saw little from Alicia other than a mildly sullen attitude. It was nice to see she cared. "The doctors say things like 'he's doing well.' And it doesn't look like he's in pain. I mean, he's not frowning or anything."

Alicia started to cry hard, and Megan drew her in for a hug. "She's still so upset." This time Alicia did not deny it as Megan stroked the back of her daughter's head. "Reverend Jamison said with so many people praying for him all over town he's sure to be okay."

Alicia pulled back abruptly. "I heard you the first time." She shrugged off her jacket, wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and stalked behind the counter to take out the jar of pencils and sign-in clipboard from where they were stored under the counter.

Megan and I shared a quick glance, hers seeming to say something like "now what?"

I turned back to the filing cabinet I had been about to open. A thought buzzed in the back of my brain, but I couldn't quite grab it. I took out a blank order form and put back the folder, and then turned back toward Megan and Alicia. "They aren't letting people up to see him except a couple of us, but everybody up there listens to Aunt Madge. If you want to peek in for a minute I bet she could arrange it."

Alicia had her back to me and turned slowly. "How does he look?" she almost whispered.

"If I didn't know how badly he was hurt I'd say he doesn't look too different."

Alicia's look of relief could only be described as enormous. "I'm, I'm so happy," she stammered.

Definitely something going on here. "Why don't you guys give my aunt a call at the B&B if you want to go visit." I remembered Megan usually took the bus to volunteer at the pantry because she didn't have a car. "I can drive you if you want."

"I may well do that," Megan said.

We left it at that, but I knew Alicia was upset about something more than a recovering Scoobie. I'd have to work out how to get her to talk about it.

I WAS GETTING USED TO THE hospital routine, enough that I was bored silly. Jennifer came by at lunch time and I was actually glad to see her.

"I've called and emailed anyone I could think of. And I said what you said, about he should get better and that people shouldn't come over here."

"That's great." I didn't know what else to say. I wasn't about to ask her how her appraisal business was going. Jennifer now runs her family's business, and they do most of the appraisals in town.

"You think he'll be all right?" she asked.

"Everybody says things about how lucky he's been. If he was going to be a mush melon they probably wouldn't say that."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Scoobie would laugh at that, but hardly anyone else would.

"Oh dear..." she began.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have put it that way."

She actually patted my knee. "You and Scoobie always have had your own...language."

Fortunately, she didn't stay long. Ramona was coming after she got off work at five o'clock, so I spent the afternoon sitting with Scoobie and calling a couple people myself. Reverend Jamison said everyone was praying for Scoobie, and Lance said he'd been by "Harvest for All" and I shouldn't worry about things there for a while.

"I'm not saying we could get along without you, but Sylvia or Dr. Welby or I could probably figure out how to do things like place orders with the Food Bank in Lakewood."

"If I need you to do that I'll let you know. Right now, it's good to have something else to think about besides Scoobie."

"Never good to dwell on the negative." He hung up.

I smiled to myself. Lance might be about ninety, but I'd already learned he knew a lot about friendship. You could take some lessons.

RAMONA AND I WERE sitting in the ICU lounge when Dr. Cahill stopped by at five-thirty. "We're going to wait until at least tomorrow evening to reduce the sedation." Seeing our expressions, she added, "He's continuing to do well. We just want his blood pressure to be relatively consistent for twenty-four hours straight."

Ramona and I talked again about the visit from Turk or Stefan or whatever his name was, and what to make of it. "At least they're out of town now," she said.

"Do you know where they were going?"

"There was a small article saying Scoobie's a bit better. It also said the carnival was going to Asbury Park next."

I nodded. The early home of Bruce Springsteen was only about twenty miles or so north of Ocean Alley. "I suppose kids are still in school, so they only do weekends."

"Why do you care?" she asked, clearly suspicious.

"Just glad to know they aren't here, that's all."

But it wasn't all. After she left I kept thinking about what Scoobie didn't like about Turk. It could have just been a coincidence, but I didn't think so. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go by the carnival at its next stop. I'd need some sort of disguise...

"The hotel." I had forgotten about the "sleazy hotel where the carnies stayed. Or however Morehouse had put it. It could have been one of two, either Stay at the Shore or the Ocean Alley Budget Inn. Maybe Scoobie had gone there with Turk. It wouldn't hurt to check.

"DID YOU SEE MUCH OF ADAM'S mother today?" Aunt Madge asked as I got back to the Cozy Corner about ten o'clock.

"She left the hospital almost as soon as she got there. Sounded like she was leaving town. She didn't stop by here for her stuff?"

"She went upstairs late morning and came back down fairly soon. All she said was she might stay somewhere else tonight, and asked if she could leave most of her things here." Aunt Madge was frowning now. "I always respect my guests' privacy, but in her case I made an exception."

I grinned at her. "You snooped through her stuff?"

"Some of it. Just personal items and a couple ounces of pot."

I made a mental note. How did Aunt Madge know what pot looked like?

"Since she put that smaller case on the closet shelf under the clothes she wore yesterday, I figured she wanted it out of sight. I left it alone," Aunt Madge said, and turned off the main kitchen light.

I shrugged and started for the stairs. "She must still have friends here."

"You're kidding, right?" Aunt Madge said.

"Oh. Right. It's possible that she got picked up for drunk driving."

Aunt Madge stood up. "Lucky you sleep upstairs. I'd bet a month's worth of muffins that she'll roll in here about two A.M. and pound on the door.
CHAPTER NINE

I GOT UP TUESDAY MORNING glad Scoobie hadn't had to deal with Penny. Who knew where she was or why she showed up in the first place?

We were enjoying a Penny-free breakfast as we sat at Aunt Madge's oak kitchen table eating toast and eggs, since Aunt Madge didn't have to make muffins for paying guests. I had even scrambled the eggs.

Aunt Madge kept going over why Penny had bothered to come at all. "Maybe Penny saw that short piece on the early New Jersey news show on Sunday and came through town with her last vestige of maternal interest."

"And then left for awhile so she didn't have to deal with Scoobie?" I asked.

"I doubt we've seen the last of her. Maybe," her face brightened, "she'll get her things and leave without spending another night."

I picked up our now-empty plates and carried them to the sink. "How come you didn't tell me you tried to get social services involved?" I asked.

"I thought Adam should be able to tell you what he wanted." She put some honey in her tea.

For about the hundredth time I wished my dear aunt did not have such scruples about privacy. Penny's luggage aside.

I DECIDED TO HEAD FOR JAVA JOLT before going to the hospital. I wanted something other than hospital coffee, and I thought if I told Joe Regan what Scoobie's status was he could pass the news to anybody who asked.

And I wanted to get on the Internet. The Cozy Corner B&B does not have cable or Internet. I suppose it's to keep costs down, though Aunt Madge says it's to give her guests a chance to fully relax. Some agree with her philosophy, some don't. She does have a good antenna on the roof, so at least there are a couple TV stations available.

I was halfway up the steps to the boardwalk when I realized these might be the very ones Scoobie fell or was tossed down. "Eeegh!" I ran up them and was a few feet from the top of the stairs before I turned around.

"Whaddya up to, Ms. Nosy Bird?"

I like Lester Argrow, really, but his choice of vocabulary is sometimes a mystery to me. I looked at him as he walked closer to me on the boardwalk. Lester is about five feet six, maybe less, and he often has a cigar in his mouth. Today was no exception. As he got closer I could see he had trimmed the hair in the mole on his cheek. Always a good thing.

"Nosy Bird?" I asked. "You think I'm going to talk to you now?"

Lester barked his usual laugh. "Ramona's been telling me what's going on with Scrubbie, Scoobie," he said. "Jeez, he almost bought it."

I nodded and fell into step with Lester and continued toward Java Jolt.

"What was you squealing about?" Lester asked.

"Umm." I hesitated.

"Come on, Jolie, you know you like me to help you when you got a case."

Lester is the only one who acts as if he thinks I think I'm some sort of detective. I've told him at least five times that I just don't like loose ends or unanswered questions, especially if they're about a friend. "Sgt. Morehouse said Scoobie fell or was pushed down some steps, and they found him kind of under the boardwalk. I thought maybe it was those steps."

"Coulda been, I guess. Why was he on the boardwalk that time of night, anyway?" He hummed tunelessly as he walked.

"Don't know, but he could have been just walking back to his rooming house."

Lester opened the door to Java Jolt, and I was almost overcome by the smell of fresh coffee and chocolate chip muffins. I miss this place.

"Jolie! Great to see you. How is he?" Joe displayed none of his mild heckling side, which he sometimes directs at Scoobie. Instead, his Irish features sported a furrowed brow.

"Not much change, but that's a good thing, you know?" I picked up a large disposable cup and began to fill it from the thermos on the counter. Once tourist season starts in earnest the thermoses come off the counter and everybody orders from Joe or a couple summer employees. I knew I'd miss the comfy feeling that Java Jolt has in the winter.

"Jolie's on top of everything," Lester threw in.

Joe gave me a full-out grin. "I don't know, Jolie, you don't always come out in one piece when you snoop."

"I don't snoop. I just...check out stuff." I don't understand why people insist on using that word.

Joe laughed and Lester snorted as he poured his coffee.

"Cut it out, you guys. We're talking about Scoobie," I said.

Joe nodded and turned back to the latte machine, which he'd been cleaning when we walked in. "Ramona's keeping me up to speed. You call anytime."

I had planned to take my carryout cup and get on the Internet and be on my way, but it would be rude to ignore Lester. He helped me out last December, after I found the skeleton in the Tillotson-Fisher attic. And Lester talks to a lot of people.

"So what's next?" Lester asked as he sat facing me, seated in one of the wooden chairs he straddled, backwards.

"There's no next, Lester," I took a sip of my hot coffee and ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth. I leaned back in the chair and consciously relaxed my back and shoulder muscles. Java Jolt, with its combined air of coffee house and beach eatery, is my hangout, and I wanted to feel normal for at least a few minutes.

"You aren't letting some assholes get away with hurtin' Scoobie, are you?"

So much for normal. "You know this is a police matter, right?" I asked.

Lester and Joe snorted in unison.

"Really. Morehouse and Tortino, they're all over this."

Lester looked disappointed. "But, you really think somebody mighta been after Scoobie, right? Ramona said something about the carnival guy who runs the gong thing."

"It's not fair to accuse anyone," I was suddenly aware that there were a few other people at a back table. I lowered my voice. "Ramona and I just thought 1aybe Scoobie saw someone he didn't like." I didn't mention that the 'someone' had been hanging around the hospital Sunday night.

"So, you got nuthin'?"

"Lester! I'm not looking to 'get' anything. Listen, I need to check my email before I go to the hospital. It's been a couple of days."

Lester stood and picked up his cup of coffee. "Ok, I hear ya. But call if you need some help. We worked good together last time." He gave me an exaggerated wink and walked out, still humming.

As I sat at one of Java Jolt's computers I realized Lester was humming "Under the Boardwalk."

SCOOBIE'S NIGHT HAD BEEN "uneventful," which in hospital code means he wasn't getting any worse and maybe was improving. Dr. Cahill had left orders to reduce Scoobie's sedation in the late afternoon. I had plans before that.

I had taken the notes I'd made at the Java Jolt computer into the hospital with me. The Ocean Alley Press had said that the carnival was owned by East Jersey Entertainment. It was in a story about Scoobie's "apparent mugging," and the carnival was mentioned because Scoobie was thought to be on his way home from there.

When I Googled East Jersey Entertainment I learned that it was a fairly large organization that not only had two separate "carnival teams" but also ran boardwalk games and rides in several east coast beach towns, including Ocean City and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Ramona had said Scoobie worked at an amusement park in some town, Ocean City, I thought, but I realized I didn't know if she meant New Jersey or Maryland.

A small bell dinged in my brain as I walked down the hall to see Scoobie for the first time that day. Maybe Scoobie had known Turk/Stefan at the amusement park.

THE OCEAN ALLEY BUDGET INN is worthy of its name. The so-called lobby of the two-story motel was about fifteen feet square, and in addition to the check-in desk it had a counter along the wall that had a dirty-looking coffee pot, Styrofoam cups and a toaster. Looked as if they gave their guests the least breakfast possible.

"My friends were in Ocean Alley over the weekend and one of them thinks he left his camera here."

The man at the desk looked at me through a pair of dirty glasses. "We didn't find a camera," he said. "I know the cleaning staff. If they found it, I'd have it."

"Oh. Well, maybe he was at "Stay at the Shore..."

"That dump?" the man asked. "He should stay here." He leaned across the counter and was close enough that I could smell whatever goop he had on his hair. "I hear they have bed bugs."

"Ugh. Well then, I really don't want to go over there. Can you tell me if Stefan stayed here over the weekend?"

His look, which had been conspiratorial when he talked about his competitor's bed bugs, was now one of suspicion. "Are you a cop? I told them the carnies didn't cause any trouble this time."

Bingo. "Do I look like a cop?" I gestured to my lightweight denim pants. "Stefan was going to catch up with another friend of ours, maybe you know him. Scoobie?"

He was angry now. "I don't care if you are a cop or not, I don't give out..."

There was a whoosh as the glass door to the street was pulled open very fast. I turned slightly to see the newcomer. Penny no longer had on the white pants. Instead she was dressed in a very attractive light blue pants suit and the faux-alligator purse had been replaced by an ivory-colored one that looked as if it was real leather.

"What are you doing here?" she scowled.

"Ha. Now I know you aren't a cop." The desk clerk was almost jeering. "What's up, Penny?"

I could feel myself flushing. "Hi, Penny. We missed you last night."

"Got busy with friends." She walked fully into the room. "I need another key," she said, no longer looking at me.

The manager took an actual key, not a swipe card, from a drawer and handed it to her. "Last one except the master. Make sure you leave it this time."

"Yeah, yeah." She walked toward the back of the room where a door led to a hallway, but turned before she opened it. "She's friendly with cops." She left.

"I, uh, guess I'll be going."

The desk clerk didn't acknowledge me, but pulled out a small ledger and started making a note.

I had learned only what I already thought I knew. What a waste of time.

MOREHOUSE CAME BY late Tuesday afternoon. "Nothing to tell," he said. "Thought I'd see how he's doin'."

"Same." I stood from the lone plastic chair by Scoobie's bed. I noticed the nurses didn't seem to apply the one-visitor rule when it was the police who wanted to come in. "They lowered his sedation, but he's not alert yet. They said that's kind of normal."

"Huh. Good he's not worse." From his pocket he pulled a dirty piece of paper that he had placed in a plastic bag. "Is this one of Scoobie's poems?"

I took it slowly. "You know, he doesn't always like people to..."

"Jolie." Morehouse paused until I looked directly at him. "This is a police investigation, not an English class."

I looked at the paper. It looked like half of a steno pad page.

As she undid the laces

Of her fragile mental health

Revealing to him places

Where she'd never been herself

Breakfast table cordial

Stage direction for the scene

Both being very careful

To not say what they mean

Struggling through the mourning

Of the night before

Juggling

I looked up, aware my face was now flushed. Scoobie had several times alluded to the fact that he thought I had 'issues' I didn't want to face. And we would eat breakfast at Aunt Madge's. Is this about me? I cleared my throat. Get a grip, Jolie. Like he would write about you.

"I haven't seen it before, but it looks like his writing. A lot." I glanced back at the page. "Not just the penmanship, but the kind of thing he'd write. Where was it?"

"Blown up against one of the posts under the boardwalk."

I looked at it again. "The way it's written, it looks as if he got interrupted."

"Yeah, even I got that."

SCOOBIE WAS MILDLY ALERT by about five-thirty, and more awake by seven. The nurses said Ramona and I could be with him together, since we were likely going to be his 'primary support team.'

His half-opened eyes rested on me first, and he said, "Yo, Jolie," in almost a whisper. He closed his eyes again.

"Hey," Ramona stood just in front of me and touched Scoobie's shoulder. "It's so good to see you back in the real world."

He looked at us both now, with his eyes fully open, and I could almost see a dozen questions forming. I went for the familiar. "Plus, you scared the daylights out of us, so you can cut that out anytime."

"I missed you, Ramona," he said slowly, but with a lopsided grin.

"Ha! See what you get, Jolie?" She was trying to heckle me, and having a hard time not crying.

We were on the same side of his bed, so he didn't have to turn his head. "You did scare us." I gave him a light touch on the knee.

"I didn't plan it." He winced slightly.

"I think Sgt. Morehouse will have a lot of questions for you," I added.

"That windbag?" He frowned.

"He's been all over town trying to figure what happened to you."

"I'm not the one he should be worried about," Scoobie said.

I could tell from his eyes that a lot was coming back to him at once, and he moved his legs toward the bed rail, as if he was thinking of getting up.

"Whoa," I said, while Ramona added, "No way."

Apparently he didn't need any convincing of the need to stay put, as a look of pain crossed his face. "Sheeeit," he said.

Someone cleared a throat behind us, and Ramona and I turned to look at Sgt. Morehouse. "Good to see you awake," he said, looking at Scoobie. "Can you answer a couple questions?"

"You first. What the hell happened to me?" Scoobie asked.

Morehouse gave him the sixty-second spiel, and Scoobie said nothing as he seemed to be absorbing it all. Finally, he said, "Might go faster if I just told you a couple things. I'm going to ask them to give me some kind of a shot or something here in a minute."

"Shoot," Morehouse said, pulling a notebook from his pocket.

"I saw this guy, I knew him when I worked on the boardwalk in Ocean City." Morehouse looked up, and Scoobie added, "You heard of Ocean City, New Jersey, I bet."

Morehouse ignored Scoobie's apparent sarcasm. "Name?" Morehouse asked.

"Everyone called him Turk."

"Yeah, I heard that at the carnival." Scoobie looked puzzled, and he added, "Your buddies here said you gave him the evil eye, so I checked him out some."

"He's slick, or was. Bet you won't find a record on him." He shut his eyes for a second and then opened them. "Anyway, he saw me, too. I could tell from the way he looked at me that he was still up to his old routine."

Scoobie cleared his throat and Ramona picked up the cup of ice water with its straw and held it to his lips.

"Thanks. He sold pot, maybe other stuff. Even to kids. Ran the Ferris Wheel." Scoobie paused for several seconds. "It would look like he was helping somebody get strapped in, but they'd be passing him a ten or twenty and he'd give them a small baggie when they got off."

"Do that here?" Morehouse asked.

"Not sure. I went just inside that bunch of trees and brush and watched him for a couple hours, even after the carnival closed. Didn't see him at it. It got damn cold on that ground, and I was going to leave about eleven-thirty when I saw him and a couple guys heading for a car. I walked back into town."

"Hmm. One of my guys said he thought he saw you in the Sandpiper," Morehouse said.

"Yeah. I walked to the drive-up window at Burger King and after I got my burger I saw them leaving the Sandpiper."

Scoobie closed his eyes, and I half-glared at Morehouse. This is too much for Scoobie.

"Just another minute," Morehouse said, seemingly reading my thoughts.

"Turk sees me, and he starts laughing, and calls out that his old friend Scoobie should come over for a drink. The other two guys left and I went into the bar with him."

"And argued with him." Morehouse made it a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. I told him I was giving him the hairy eyeball and to stay away from the local kids. He didn't like that."

"That's enough." We all turned to look at Nurse Ratched, arms folded across her chest. "I told you two minutes, sergeant."

I've never seen anyone give Sgt. Morehouse orders. I liked it.

"Only have one more, then we can finish tomorrow," Morehouse told her. He turned back to Scoobie. "You know who did this to you?"

"Nope. We split, and I followed him over to that dive hotel on B Street."

Morehouse only nodded, and I decided not to mention my morning's foray to the Ocean Alley Budget Inn.

Scoobie had his eyes closed now. "He had an outside room, and I saw what room he went in and I was actually going to call you about him in the morning."

Morehouse smiled, "Stranger things have happened."

"Really strange," Scoobie said. "Anyway, I walked up onto the boardwalk for a kind of pleasant detour home. Hadn't gone but a few steps and somebody must have snuck up and shoved me down that flight of concrete steps, not far from Java Jolt. That's the last thing I remember, until I woke up here."

"Out!" Nurse Ratched said.

I told Scoobie I'd check in on him once more and then probably go home to sleep.

"I heard you slept here." He smiled with closed eyes. "You'd miss me."

"Nah, just your poems."

We walked down the hall with Sgt. Morehouse. A quick look in the waiting room showed it had a lively group, complete with bags of potato chips. "Come on, over here," Morehouse said, nodding toward the bank of elevators.

He leaned against the wall, and I realized he looked pretty tired. He must have been checking out a lot of people about Scoobie.

"It makes sense he don't remember much," Morehouse began.

"Why?" I asked.

"Lemme finish. Thing is, the tox screen showed quite a bit of Rohypnol..."

"He wouldn't..." Ramona said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I said lemme finish," he scowled, including both of us in his annoyed look.

"Scoobie never did anything with needles," Morehouse said. "Plus, it was a really bad needle stick. Somebody already high as a kite might do it that bad, but Scoobie wasn't using. He didn't stick himself." He thought for a moment, seeming to choose his words carefully. "Now, don't get all hysterical on me here, but my guess is someone wanted to kill him."

"What is it?" I repeated.

Morehouse gave me a funny look. "It's a date rape drug. Usually it's not injected, but rarely people, especially stupid people, crush a pill and inject the powder. Somebody either had it with them or came back to finish off Scoobie."

"Mexican valium," Ramona said, slowly.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

She shrugged. "You work at the beach, you hear what people use." She stared directly at Morehouse, as if daring him to ask who used it.

"So, whoever hurt Scoobie is a pretty evil person all the way around..." I began.

The elevator door opened and George Winters walked out. His eyebrows went up and he grinned at Morehouse. "Been calling you."

"Yeah, I know." Morehouse gave him a fifteen second summary, leaving out the so-called needle stick, all the while walking to the elevator. "Scoobie's awake, but he don't know much about what happened. Looks as if someone snuck up on him from behind, pushed him down a flight of stairs."

As if in response to Morehouse's wishes, the elevator door opened and he stepped in, holding up a hand so George would not join him. "Get a new phone yet?" he asked, as the door closed.
CHAPTER TEN

SCOOBIE MOVED TO A REGULAR room on Wednesday morning, and he was allowed to sit in a chair and walk with a walker. He didn't like the walker, but Drs. Nobles and Cahill said it was for balance and to get him to do everything slowly until his vertebrae healed more. He didn't complain when the occupational therapist worked with him, showing him how to do things without straining his back or neck. That was a clue about how much pain he was in. A needed clue, since he wouldn't let on.

I went to get coffee when the occupational therapist worked with him. I know how hard "face time" with people is for Scoobie, and thought he was only being reasonably chilled about everything because Aunt Madge visits mid-morning each day. He wouldn't want her to chew him out. I know his attitudes are what work for him, but I still don't get it. Scoobie seems so at ease with Ramona and me -- most of the time.

When she visited this morning, Aunt Madge had told Scoobie his mother had come and possibly gone. I waited in the hall, not sure what Scoobie would want me to hear. I wasn't eavesdropping, really, but did hear him say, "She still alive?" Then he offered Aunt Madge a piece of fruit from the basket Reverend Jamison had sent over from "your friends at First Prez." Since he never mentioned his mother, I didn't either.

Scoobie was tired after his time with the OT so I decided to go back to Cozy Corner about ten-thirty. Just before I did I remembered Alicia's reaction to Scoobie's injuries and told him about it.

"Huh. I saw her a couple times at the carnival," he said. "She helped Megan some at the dunk tank...hey, how much did we make?"

"Seven hundred and eighty-two dollars. Can you believe that?" I asked.

"Ha! Next time I have an idea don't put it down so fast."

"The most was when Martin Small was up there. He was one of the people who said he'd stay up there as long as there were people who wanted to knock him down."

"Every druggie in town?" he asked, alluding to some of the people Small prosecuted a lot.

"Nope, Lance said it was the cops. Guess they think he's a weenie."

"So, Alicia," he said, thinking. "After she helped some at the dunk tank she went off with friends. They were hanging around the Merry-go-Round a lot."

"Do you suppose..?" I began.

"Drugs? Jeez, Jolie, she seems awful young."

I gave him a look, "And you were how old when you had your first joint?"

"I guess I see your point. But why would she be so upset about me? She thinks I'm a dork."

"If you mean because you kept trying to get people to bet on how many cans of sweet potatoes would be left on the shelves after Christmas, I think she got over that."

"She's what, twelve or thirteen?" he asked.

"I guess. Did you see her talking to any carnival workers?"

He shook his head. "They were doing the usual kid stuff. Ignoring the boys, trying to guess each other's weight on that huge scale. Girl giggly stuff."

I smiled at that. "They might come visit you. Megan and Alicia."

He grimaced and then gestured at the baskets of fruit and candy. "I don't want to see anyone, but I guess they're OK. Tell Megan not to bring anything for me."

AUNT MADGE WAS really pleased that I offered to take Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy for a long walk Wednesday afternoon. "They're tired of the back yard." She loaded me up with plastic bags.

"And you're tired of poop patrol. Sorry I haven't been here more to do it."

"Heavens, nothing matters except Adam getting better."

The Ocean Alley Middle School is about six blocks from Aunt Madge's, so I had to hustle to get there in the neighborhood of two forty-five, which is about when I remembered being annoyed by school buses in that area. Hustling was not what Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy had in mind, and they resented not sniffing every tree or bush.

I knew Megan and Alicia lived two blocks west of the school, as I'd dropped them off a couple evenings before Christmas when we all worked late at the food pantry. I could see the buses parked in front of the school, so I figured we were right on time. I hadn't counted on the dogs freaking out when another bus pulled up, so I was busy convincing Mr. Rogers to keep moving toward the school when the bell rang and kids started pouring out.

It suddenly occurred to me that while the dogs seemed like a good excuse to be walking by the school, I hadn't thought of how they would react to all the kids. No worries. Tails wagging and tongues out, they immediately forgot the big yellow buses and walked toward the groups of kids. I suspected there were some food smells in their knapsacks.

"Oh, they're so cute. Can I pet them?" asked a girl who looked to be about twelve.

"Sure. They love attention." I've never seen them even nip at anyone. What if they bite? I broke into a sweat as six or eight kids surrounded the dogs. Miss Piggy immediately plopped on the ground and put her front paws over her eyes, a trick she learned before coming to Aunt Madge and uses periodically to get attention or dog treats. She was a big hit.

Between keeping an eye on the dogs and responding to questions about how old they were and if they were siblings (who the hell cares?) I would have missed Alicia if she hadn't seen me and walked over.

"Jolie. You have dogs."

"Technically Aunt Madge does. I probably should have walked in the other direction this time of day." I took in her black-on-black outfit, which was nothing I'd seen her in. They didn't look like clothes Megan would buy for Alicia, but what did I know?

"Could you hold one leash, Alicia?" I asked.

She put both knapsack straps over her shoulders. "Sure." She reached for Miss Piggy's leash and urged her to stand. "You going back toward your aunt's?" she asked.

"We can go in your direction for a minute or two. I don't want to keep you from your homework."

There was general laughter at this, and the group of mostly girls said goodbye and moved in different directions.

"I hope I didn't embarrass you. That was probably a dumb thing to say."

She smiled and we stopped while Mr. Rogers smelled a bench near the school's main entrance. "It's okay. They know who you are."

That confused me for a few seconds, until I realized my picture had been in the paper a few times, and Alicia probably talked to them about helping at Harvest for All. Should I be insulted? I pushed that thought aside.

We were past the school boundaries and there weren't any more kids to talk to. Alicia seemed so relaxed I almost hated to bring up the carnival, but that was why I was here.

"Scoobie's getting a bit better every day. He was really pleased that you cared so much about him."

"Oh, uh, sure." She began to look worried, perhaps sensing this was more than a dog walk.

"The police don't really have any leads. I thought it might be this guy who seemed to know Scoobie, but I guess not."

She started to hand me back the leash. "I need to..."

I didn't take it. "Alicia, what did you see? Why were you so upset?"

Her eyes darted from side to side, avoiding my gaze. "I didn't see anything."

We were stopped now, and Miss Piggy was relieving herself on a blooming azalea bush. "Nobody'll be mad at you. I can't imagine you did anything wrong."

"I didn't." She was almost fierce, and she wiped her eyes with the back of the hand not holding a leash.

"But you saw something, something you wonder if you should talk about, but you're afraid to." When she looked away I continued. "You don't need to talk to the police. Just tell me."

She looked back at me. "You won't tell my mom either?"

That got me. "Did anybody hurt you?"

"No." She said this very quickly. "Not at all."

"Okay, I won't tell your mom." Bad thing to promise, Jolie.

She took a deep breath. "You remember when you guys were walking back to the gong thing, but then Scoobie walked away?"

That I didn't expect. "Yes."

"Well, the guy, the worker. He was looking at Scoobie, and when you guys turned away he called Scoobie an asshole, but not very loud. And then," she paused, "he sort of noticed I was looking at him, and he just gave me a funny smile, and then started talking loud again."

"Talking loud?"

"You know, all the dumb stuff they say to get you to play the games."

I smiled at that. "The guy on the loud speaker was the worst."

"Footlong dogs," she said, and we both laughed for a second.

Alicia looked away.

"There's something else," I said quietly.

"And you won't tell?"

"Nope. I think I know what it is, I just want to see if I'm right."

She looked surprised, kind of as if no adult could have a clue. "Well...did you know he sells joints and stuff?"

"Scoobie said the guy used to do it years ago. It's why Scoobie didn't want to be around him."

She nodded. "I didn't buy any." She looked directly at me. "Really."

"That's good. You wouldn't believe all the crud in marijuana smoke." To say nothing about it being illegal.

Her eyes widened. "What kind of crud?"

Bad word choice. "Ammonia, for starters. Look on the internet." This topic was not why I was here.

Her look became resentful. "Are you going to tell me to stay away from all that stuff because of Whitney Houston?"

I sighed. "You know who Len Bias was?"

She gave me a blank stare. "The guys'll know. He was a star basketball player at the University of Maryland, supposed to be one of the best to be going to the NBA that year. He used cocaine once."

"So?" She had adopted a haughty attitude. She probably got a lot of 'advice' from her mom and teachers.

"Died." I snapped my fingers. "Just like that. So much for celebrating the basketball season."

She said nothing, and her look was almost defiant.

"Just marijuana?" I asked.

"I think maybe some pills, but I'm really not sure. I heard one of the guys say he was going to fly tonight."

"I'm not going to lecture you at all, that's not why I'm here." Though she better pay attention.

She looked back at me, probably regretting her offer to take one of the dog's leashes.

"Somebody hurt Scoobie on purpose. I just don't want it to happen again, and I definitely don't want that jerk selling drugs to kids."

"But you said you wouldn't tell!"

"I promise, I won't." I looked into her eyes, which had lost all pretense of teenage cool.

A voice came from behind us. "Jolie. Is that you?"

Megan had a grocery bag in each hand, probably walking home from Mr. Markle's store.

"I promise," I said again, quietly. "Yep. It's me. Alicia helped me organize the dogs. I didn't realize the school buses would scare them."

Megan literally beamed. "Hi sweetie."

Alicia's posture relaxed, and she handed me back Miss Piggy's leash. Miss Piggy, who had been panting on the cool brick sidewalk, stood and gave herself a good shake. I realized she and Mr. Rogers both had their eyes on Megan's bags.

I pulled their leashes closer to me. "Not for you, guys." They ignored me, still focused on Megan. She walked into the street to get around us.

"Sorry! We're just heading home. They haven't had a good walk in days."

"Of course." She frowned. "Scoobie doing okay?"

"He's getting there. It'll be a long haul, but he'll probably recover completely."

We said a couple more of the usual things, and I turned to take the dogs home. This wasn't the first time they'd helped me out, though never intentionally. "You guys get a doggie treat when we get home." They ignored me, preferring to pay attention to a nearby fire hydrant.

I VISITED SCOOBIE AGAIN LATE WEDNESDAY afternoon. Yet again he told me I shouldn't visit three times every day. "You have a life. I know it's a boring one with me in here, but jeez Jolie, if you don't have better things to do you should probably collect shells or something."

I sat my bag on his bed and plopped myself down next to it. Scoobie was in one of those hospital recliners your skin sticks to. Lester Argrow, of all people, had bought him an MP3 player, and Scoobie was trying to figure out how to adjust the sound.

"I really appreciate this, you know, but what makes him think I'd have money to buy the CDs to load onto here?" he asked.

I frowned. "I think I heard you can put audio books on it. Maybe ask Daphne."

"That would be great. Especially if I can use the library's talking books." He grinned at me. "Can't you see me taking a walk on the beach with ear buds in and getting run over by the lifeguard's cart?"

"Can you lend it to George?" I asked.

Scoobie shook his head. "I don't like what he writes sometimes, either, but you should give it a rest with him."

"Yeah, I guess." I jumped in before Scoobie could continue and told him about my conversation with Alicia. "And I meant it when I said I wouldn't tell, but I need to find a way to let Morehouse or Dana know so they can tell cops in some of the other towns."

Scoobie thought for a moment. "Just tell him, without using Alicia's name."

"And if he insists?"

"Tell him you've had a head injury and your brain is foggy."
CHAPTER ELEVEN

EXCEPT FOR THE TIME WITH ALICIA, I was either at the Cozy Corner or at the hospital. "How's the head?" I asked him on Thursday in the late afternoon.

"A lot better. I've been cutting back on the pain meds. Even Nurse Ratched says I shouldn't go so low, but I don't need narcotics in my life again."

Scoobie had adopted my reference to the nurse who was most strict, but there were times when I was pretty sure he liked her a lot. "I'm going to go over to the food pantry, probably tomorrow," I told him. "And Harry says he has a couple houses for me to appraise in the popsicle district."

"I keep telling you not to be here so much." Scoobie was supervising my efforts to build a tower of cans of the meal supplements that masquerade as milkshakes. He refused to drink them, and was tired of them cluttering the table by his bed. We had opted for the window sill.

"Now that you're feeling better, I feel better." I stole a glance at him. He was rooting in a small goody bag Ramona had dropped off yesterday evening, though he had to hold it up to his face as he couldn't bend his neck to look at it. Ramona had brought him a couple candy bars, a steno pad and a few pens, along with a card from Roland that said Scoobie could have free steno pads for a year.

I was starting to feel guilty about not telling Aunt Madge or Scoobie that I'd seen Penny at the Ocean Alley Budget Inn a couple days ago. Penny had not been back to the Cozy Corner after that, so Aunt Madge had packed up her things and cleaned the room. Penny's suitcase and smaller bag were now under Aunt Madge's own bed.

It was almost four o'clock when Sgt. Morehouse came in. Scoobie had once said Morehouse was "not high on his Christmas list," and I assumed this was the result of Scoobie's marijuana arrests long ago. Now, it seemed they had established some sort of truce. When Scoobie gestured to the visitor's chair Morehouse sat down.

"Scoobie, I gotta tell you something hard to hear, and I wish I could wait a couple weeks, but I can't." Morehouse looked at his hands as Scoobie glanced at me and back to him. Then Morehouse looked directly at Scoobie. "I'm sorry to say we found your mother's body early this morning." I'm not sure yet how she..."

"You can go now," Scoobie said. His voice was stronger than it had been since before he got hurt, and pretty harsh.

Morehouse stood slowly. "I hear you." He took a card from his pocket and set it on the bedside table. "My cell and office numbers are on there. You call anytime you want to." He gave me a small nod as he left.

Scoobie looked out the window. No tears, just a stony expression.

"Would you like me to go, too?" I asked.

"I guess I need some time to myself."

"I'll come back about seven unless you call and say not to."

He glanced at me briefly and I blew him a kiss.

I STOPPED AT THE PURPLE COW, which was getting ready to close. I was pretty sure it was the first time I'd given Ramona news she hadn't heard elsewhere. Her reaction surprised me.

"That horrible woman. She screws up Scoobie's life for years, then when he's sick she ignores him, and then she gets herself killed." She slammed the cash register drawer shut and Roland looked over at us.

I left Ramona for a minute and told him what Morehouse had said. When he pestered me for details I just said Scoobie hadn't asked for any so I hadn't either. I didn't mention that Scoobie had pretty much thrown Sgt. Morehouse out of his hospital room.

"I won't stick around long," I told him.

"That's okay today. You stay out of the way when we have customers," Roland said. He glanced back at Ramona who was furiously polishing the glass top of the display case by the cash register, and shrugged.

I walked back to Ramona, and on the way noticed her white board was just inside the front door rather than on the sidewalk, and it was blank. "Where's your message?"

She stopped spraying glass cleaner and looked up. "I just can't think of anything, I'm too upset. And I'm mad at George Winters about it. He's in here every day and bugs me about it."

"I'm always mad at George." I thought this might get a smile, but it didn't. "You, uh, want me to go, too?"

"What do you mean, too?" she asked.

"I asked Scoobie if he wanted me to leave his room and he said he'd like to be alone."

"If it was two years ago I'd worry about that, but I know he can deal with it. Sort of, anyway." She stowed the cleaner in a bottom cupboard.

I walked back to my car, repeating the mental debate about whether to tell Sgt. Morehouse I'd seen Penny at the Ocean Alley Budget Inn. I knew I had to, and the longer I put it off the madder he would be. My cell phone rang and I fished it from a pocket.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I recognized the bellow at Morehouse's and didn't need to ask why he was mad. "I'm on my way to the station now. Honest."

"You damn well better be." He said this at almost bellow level, so I knew he was really mad.

FOR THE FIRST TIME I didn't have to wait in the small lobby for Morehouse, he was at the counter talking to the officer on duty. "Back here," he said, and I followed him toward his tiny office. We continued past it to a conference room a couple doors down.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw Lt. Tortino. It wasn't just his higher rank. He'd hauled me to Aunt Madge when he found me smoking on the boardwalk in eleventh grade. He may not have had a "right" to do that, but I didn't know it. I felt a little like my fifteen-year old self as I sat across from him. Morehouse shut the door.

"Why were you looking for Penny on Tuesday?" Lt. Tortino asked.

"I wasn't."

"Jolie..." Morehouse began.

"I wanted to see if Turk or whatever his name is was staying there over the weekend. And maybe whether anybody saw him with Scoobie. Penny just walked in."

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, then Morehouse did. "Let me get this straight. You called me Sunday night because you were terrified of him at the hospital, and Tuesday morning you go looking for him?"

"No. I knew he was gone." I stared directly at Lt. Tortino, who shook his head.

"See if anything she knows will help," Tortino said, standing and nodding at Morehouse.

I don't like to be talked about as if I'm not in the room, but this didn't seem the time to mention that. Morehouse sat so he was across the table from me and I thought of TV shows where the detectives question suspects.

"What did you and Penny talk about?" he asked.

"We didn't talk..."

"Desk clerk said you did," he said, evenly.

"She walked in, I told her we missed her the night before -- which was a lie, of course -- and she asked the guy for another room key."

"And?" Morehouse asked.

I stared at him for a second. "She told him I was friendly with cops. Which made the desk clerk guy really happy, so I left."

"And what did Penny do then?"

"Nothing. She just walked out the door into the hall. I assume she was going to her room."

"So, nothing else?"

I thought for a minute. "She was wearing a beautiful pants suit."

He looked up, probably assuming I was being facetious, and his expression changed when he could tell I wasn't. "Nice clothes? Penny?"

"Yep, a light blue outfit and an expensive purse. What was she wearing when you found her?"

It almost worked. "Her usual slovenly...I'm asking you." He paused. "Sounds like the same purse, though."

"Hmm. So she was dressed up Tuesday and back in her usual clothes by today?" I wondered what on earth she was doing that required her to dress up.

"Can you tell me anything else, Jolie?" he asked, clicking his pen.

When I said no he stood and walked out without saying anything.

I LEFT AND DEBATED calling Winters, remembering Dana Johnson said he knew how to hold his tongue. I had no idea what his phone number was, since I'd spent a lot of time avoiding him, so I had to wait until I got back to the Cozy Corner.

George was sitting on Aunt Madge's sofa, looking very out of place in his Hawaiian shirt and jeans. Aunt Madge had probably told him to wait while she served afternoon bread to her one B&B guest.

"I was going to call you just now," I sat across from him.

He gave me a "yeah, right," look.

"Honest. You know, then? About his mom?"

"Just heard. You know anything?" He flipped open his notebook.

"Scoobie didn't want to hear, so Morehouse left almost as soon as he got there. All he really said was that they didn't yet know how she died."

"Rats, that's probably true, then." My uncertainty must have showed, because he added, "That's what he told me. He wouldn't have told Scoobie that if he did know. Scoobie?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I asked if I should go and all he said was he wanted to be alone, so I left. I'm not sure if he was sad or mad or what."

He stood to go. "All I know is they found her north of town. Morehouse said her car was full of beer bottles and a bunch of other stuff and he thought she was leaving. He said something about maybe New York, but I figured it was a guess."

"I wonder why she didn't take her suitcase," I said this more to myself than him.

"What do you mean? How do you know that?" he asked.

"Because she stayed here the night she got here. Aunt Madge invited her."

"You said you'd share info," he said, his voice rising.

"Shh. The guest." I nodded my head toward the door to the breakfast room. "I honestly didn't think it was important until now. Aunt Madge wanted to keep track of her, so she invited Penny to stay here. But after she went to the hospital Monday morning Penny only came back for a few minutes. She asked if she could leave her stuff here for a few days, or something like that."

He stood and walked to the sliding door and let Miss Piggy in. "You and Madge didn't think that odd?"

"What was odd was that she was still in town. I saw her at the Budget Inn."

"What were you doing...? Oh, the carnies stay there." He thought for a few seconds. "Penny and the carnies."

"Coincidence you think?"

"Can't be," he said. "But why would she leave stuff here?"

I shrugged. "She had some other clothes. When I saw her Tuesday morning she had changed into something nicer."

"Nicer that her usual, or really nice?"

I considered this. "Really nice, blue pantsuit."

"So," he said. "Penny got some money."

"Maybe she was staying with someone who worked at the carnival."

"She could have, when they were here, anyway." Aunt Madge walked through the kitchen door.

"Why do you say that?" George asked more politely than he talked to me.

Aunt Madge put two tea mugs in the sink and walked to us. "She used to occasionally work at the carnivals when they came through the area. Sold tickets to the rides."

"You forgot to mention that earlier," I tried hard not to sound critical.

She shrugged. "Hadn't thought much about Penny in years. She was better known for being in the Sandpiper a lot."

George tucked his pencil stub back into the spiral of his notebook. "It doesn't make sense that she was in the motel but had her stuff there."

I gave him a look that I hoped said "you're kidding." Out loud, I added, "You knew her longer than I did. Did she strike you as somebody who always made sense?"

I stayed on the sofa while George let himself out through the small back yard. Mister Rogers came in as he left and trotted over to see if I was in possession of dog treats. I stroked him absently, thinking.

Where had she been since I saw her at the Budget Inn on Tuesday and today?

Aunt Madge interrupted my thoughts. "I didn't want to talk to George until I talked to you, so I gave him a cup of tea and said I'd be back." She sat next to me on the sofa. "How is Adam?"

"Could be worse."

AND IT WAS. I tried to talk to Scoobie when I went back at seven, but he answered in monosyllables and asked me to turn on the TV.

I left after about twenty minutes and said I'd be back late morning on Friday, unless he called my cell and said not to come. He just nodded.

I APPRAISED A HOUSE in the popsicle district Friday morning and when I got to the hospital just before lunch it was as if Sgt. Morehouse hadn't given Scoobie the news about his mother. He had a steno pad on the wheeled tray in front of him, though on it were mostly doodles and a few single words in a list. I carefully avoided looking at the pad.

"Would you see if the little kitchen up here has chocolate milk?" he asked, as I sat down my purse.

I came back from the patient kitchen with the milk, already opened and with a straw. "I'm not talking to you about it, but you know I'm around if you want to talk, right?"

"Yeah, I know." He held the milk even with his mouth and stuck the straw across his neck collar. "Hadn't seen her in years. I'm trying to be glad she's gone without wishing her dead. I've wished that a lot, but it's kind of pointless now."

I wasn't sure if he thought that was funny, so all I did was nod. When he didn't say more I picked up the remote and turned to a rerun of "Murder She Wrote." We'd watched MASH the afternoon before, but Scoobie said he had enough needles on his own.

We didn't talk, and my thoughts kept returning to Penny. I realized I didn't know when she actually died, only that her body was found early Thursday. I wondered if I could have been one of the last people to see her alive.

BECAUSE SCOOBIE'S MOTHER was found a couple miles north of Ocean Alley, there was just a short note about her death on the inside page of the Ocean Alley Press. There was no mention that she was Scoobie's mother, and I figured Scoobie had George to thank for that. I did get to learn her last name, though. It was Pittsen. I'd never heard of that name.

"Because she made it up," Morehouse said. He was at the B&B late Friday afternoon, about to go through Penny's suitcase.

"Who makes up a name?" I asked.

"Somebody who gets out of Taconic Women's Correctional Facility in upstate New York and doesn't want to use one of her prior names when she starts stealing stuff and forging checks again."

Sgt. Morehouse pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

"Why are you wearing gloves?" I asked. "You think the stuff in her suitcase has something to do with her death?"

"You saw her, would you touch her stuff without gloves?" he asked. He was carefully putting her makeup in separate plastic bags. "Might have fingerprints besides just hers," he said, in answer to my questioning look.

The suitcase was sitting on Aunt Madge's oak kitchen table and she was standing a few feet away, arms folded. She had told Sgt. Morehouse she went through the suitcase, and he was grouchy about it, so she'd gone into her bedroom for a few minutes and then come back. "Do you see much besides the pot?" she asked.

"Nope. Just trying to cover all the bases," he said, cramming Penny's clothes back into the suitcase. I was struck by the fact that she had no books. Scoobie is usually reading two or three at the same time.

"Don't forget the smaller bag that was in the closet," Aunt Madge said, as it looked as if Morehouse was readying to leave.

"Oh yeah." He reached down to the chair on which she had placed it. "Heavy sucker. What's in it?"

"Locked," Aunt Madge said.

"I thought you said you didn't look because she had clothes over it so you figured it was more private."

She shrugged and we both watched as Morehouse picked the tiny lock with the small pocket knife on the end of a pair of nail clippers.

"We'll just see what was so all-fired..." he stopped.

The small bag was full of sterling silverware and money. Lots of money.
CHAPTER TWELVE

"THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL a game changer," Morehouse said as he stared at the money and silverware.

I kept gazing at the case, unable to stop looking at the fifteen or twenty rubber-banded stacks. There was a one hundred dollar bill on top of one, fifties and twenties on others. There was no way to see if each stack was comprised of all the same denomination without looking through them. I figured Morehouse would cut off my hand and use it for fish bait if I tried.

"It's real, right?" I asked.

"Do I look like the Secret Service?" he asked.

Aunt Madge walked closer for a better look. "I can think of a lot of reasons she'd have that, and none of them are good ones."

"Ya think?" Morehouse sat on a wooden kitchen chair. "This I did not expect." He was already on his cell phone asking for another officer to help him "with the contents of Penny's luggage."

"When did she get out of prison?" I asked.

"Middle of February," he said.

"Wouldn't it be nice if all of us could accumulate cash that fast?" Aunt Madge said.

I looked at Morehouse. "Burglary and kiting checks, you said she was in for that."

"Technically receiving stolen property. I'm thinking she branched out."

"Who would trust her with this kind of money?" Aunt Madge asked.

"Nobody." They both looked at me. "She's dead, right? My guess is she wasn't supposed to have it. Or keep it, anyway."

Morehouse literally shook his finger at me. "You stay outta this."

I feigned an injured look. "You know I always do what you say."

The doorbell rang and I started for the front door, but Aunt Madge put out a hand. "I want to let the dogs out before I let anyone else in."

"I mean it, Jolie," Morehouse said.

I raised my hands in mock surrender. "She's all yours."

THEY DECIDED NOT TO UNFASTEN the packets of money in Aunt Madge's kitchen, so it didn't take long for Morehouse and Lt. Tortino to write and sign a note agreeing to the number of stacks of bills and their height, which they measured with Aunt Madge's pock-marked wooden tape measure. Each stack was about a half-inch tall.

"You want me to donate money for you to get a new measuring tape?" Tortino asked her, with a humorous smirk.

"It was Gordon's." Her expression did not change.

That shut them up. Uncle Gordon's been dead more than twenty years.

I walked them to the front door. When I got back to the kitchen Aunt Madge was sitting at her oak table, hands in her lap, doing nothing. She had not even turned up the lever on the electric tea kettle, so I did, and sat in a chair at the head of the table so I could face her.

"You okay?"

She shook her head. "Someone killed her, probably looking for that money. They could have come here looking for it."

I nodded. "Guess they didn't know she stayed here that night. Cozy Corner is a little beyond her usual price range." I was trying to get Aunt Madge to look less worried, but it didn't help.

Both dogs barked and I looked toward the sliding glass door. Jazz was strutting back and forth in front of it, as if to emphasize she was in and they were out. I let them in. Aunt Madge's phone rang and she answered, saying only "hello" and "I'll tell her."

She looked at me. "Sgt. Morehouse says he assumes we know not to talk about the money."

As if.

NOW THAT WE KNEW Penny had all that money there was no pretending, as I had tried to do, that her death was random. I didn't give a damn about Penny, but I was nervous about what finding this out would mean for Scoobie.

I put it out of my mind as I pulled in front of Harry Steele's Victorian home early Friday evening. I hadn't been there but once since last Saturday, and was stopping by on my way back to the hospital. Last fall Harry had replaced some boards on the front porch and he had been trying to get the paint he put on them to turn out the same color as the paint he put on older boards. This spring he apparently had gotten over that desire, as the porch and first story were all freshly painted a dark green, with slight color variations in a few places. It looked as if the paint stopped at the point Harry could reach standing on a ladder.

Harry's house had not been as well cared for through the years as Aunt Madge's. She repaints hers every three years, white with blue trim and shutters. Harry's grandparents had owned his place, but it had had other owners for more than twenty years when he bought it. They had divided it into three apartments and the last owner had taken as much care of it as slum landlords take care of inner-city duplexes. Harry says, quite proudly, that he bought it "just in time to save it." I'd have razed it, but he has put on a new roof and hung drywall throughout. Only the first floor looks really good, but he says he's in no hurry.

I let myself in the side door nearest to the large first-floor office he and I share and hollered as I walked in. I heard him yell that he'd be down in a minute, so I walked to the pile of files that represented appraisals yet to be done. It's usually only one or two deep, as I grab them pretty fast. Harry pays me half of what he gets as the appraisal fee, and he doesn't mind if I do most of them. Since I hadn't done but one for a week there were four files.

Two were from the popsicle district, courtesy of Lester; one was a multi-unit rental on C Street, and the other a larger single family home about 20 minutes north of town. A note on the folder said it was the home of the son of one of Harry's college buddies. I studied that one first. Manasquan was on the way to Asbury Park, almost at the halfway point between Ocean Alley and Asbury Park. I wouldn't have to explain why I was heading out of town. As a matter of basic courtesy I usually tell Aunt Madge my plans for a day. I'm not saying I'm always one-hundred percent truthful, but I do live under her roof. For free.

"Hey, Jolie." Harry looked as if he'd been painting. He had a large butcher-type apron, which had several colors of paint on it, over a pair of cotton pants and a long-sleeve tee-shirt. "I'm really glad to hear Scoobie is doing better."

"He got your card. That was nice of you." Harry had stuck two tens in the card with a note that said "in case hospital food gets to you." I could tell Scoobie was mildly offended at first, but then he had grinned and said if I took money from Harry he could, too, and he stuck the bills in a book.

"You sure you can do this?" he asked as he finished wiping his hands on a paper towel and threw it in a waste basket. "I was about to do a couple of those, but I'd rather keep painting."

"Yep. I think I'll do a couple of the in-town ones next week and maybe do the one in Manasquan tomorrow, if that's okay." Because the carnival will be open on Saturday.

"Sure, as long as that's okay with the clients. None of the settlements are for at least a month."

We talked for a couple minutes more about the houses and Scoobie, and then I left. As I drove I realized I'd have to look in the Monmouth County courthouse for the house in Manasquan. Usually I'd do it the same day I did the house, but the courthouse would be closed on Saturday. I wouldn't mind going to Manasquan twice, and piously assured myself I would not charge Harry mileage for the second trip.

I WAS DRIVING to the hospital Saturday morning when it hit me. If someone killed Penny for that money they'd still be looking for it, and they might know she'd been to the hospital to visit Scoobie. They wouldn't know the stupid woman never talked to her son or left him as much as a get well card.

A plan began forming in my head. I know enough about myself to know that's not always a good thing. But still...

Scoobie was walking in the hallway with a physical therapy staff member when I got there, so I helped myself to a page from his steno pad and one of the pens on the table by his bed.

What I know

Scoobie is getting better

The carny guy was Turk/Stefan

Penny's been in prison

Penny likely knows some carny people

Penny was up to something

The carnival is in Asbury Park

Morehouse and Aunt Madge would be ticked at me if they saw this list.

What I need to know

Who hurt Scoobie?

Why did they hurt him?

Why did Penny come to the hospital?

Where did Penny get all her stuff?

Who killed Penny?

Why was A upset about Scoobie?

Did whoever killed Penny know Scoobie was her son?

I studied the list. Someone else might say Penny came to the hospital because her son was hurt, but I thought she was a narcissistic woman who would only come if she saw something to gain. I left this off the "what I know" list because there was no way to know. I figured Scoobie would agree with me. Not that I planned on showing him the list.

"Yo, Jolie," Scoobie and his walker came slowly into the room. I watched the therapist help him into bed and replace the large, stiff collar with a softer one.

"Thanks," I told him as he placed Scoobie's walker near the bed.

Scoobie had his eyes closed for a half-minute, then looked at me. "I saw you slip that paper into your pocket. What are you doing?"

"It's my grocery list."

"Bull." He stared at me for several seconds. "You better leave this one alone. I won't be available for ass-saving for probably a few weeks."

Scoobie has every right to take some credit for my well being, but that doesn't mean he's my boss. "I'm not going to do anything dumb."

"Yeah, right." George Winters came in and walked toward the bed. "Had a brain transplant, Jolie?"

I was about to suggest he leave when I noticed Scoobie seemed really pleased to see him. What is that about?

"Thought I wouldn't come by too often 'til you got your sea legs again," George said, looking directly at Scoobie. "Morehouse was actually sharing some info, so that helped me out."

"Yeah, he's been by a couple of times. I keep telling him I don't remember anything after I got hit or pushed or whatever it was."

Since I wasn't needed, I said I was going to get a cup of coffee and, to be polite, asked if Scoobie or George wanted one. George did.

"And I won't offer to pay, since my new phone costs about $120.

Gulp. "Uh, why so expensive?"

"Cause I'd only had it a few months and didn't buy insurance."

"That might be a good thing to buy in your business."

At this he turned toward the chair I was in, just across from the foot of the bed. "I've been a reporter for more than ten years. Guess how many phones I broke?"

I was about to give a smart-ass answer when I noticed Scoobie looked pained by the conversation. "Tell you what George, I'll buy you coffee every time you come by." And then I'll leave.

He just grunted.

I sat in the cafeteria nursing my coffee for about ten minutes, and then headed back to Scoobie's room. The door was open, per usual, so I walked in. George and Scoobie were sitting with their heads close together talking quietly. Unsure if I should barge in, I backed out.

After a few second, Scoobie called, "Come on in, Jolie."

George was standing and he pushed shut the top drawer of Scoobie's bedside table as I walked in. I handed him the coffee.

"One down, 119 to go," he said.

"Don't push it." I said.

"Catch you later, Scoob." He left.

"Scoob?" I asked.

"Don't push it," Scoobie said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT WAS A GORGEOUS MAY day and seemed to say summer would bring a lot of tourists to Ocean Alley very soon. There was a gentle breeze from the ocean so that when I walked to Java Jolt to get coffee for my drive to Asbury Park the air smelled marvelously clean. I felt a little guilty for being glad I wouldn't be at the hospital as much, and told myself I only thought that because it was Saturday.

I walked back to Cozy Corner and was on the road by eleven-thirty. The house in Manasquan was a large cape cod, but the site visit was quick, even though the owners were there. They were mildly annoyed that I had asked to come on a Saturday and I hoped they wouldn't mention this to Harry. Ordinarily if someone implied they wanted a different time I would accommodate them. Harry would expect me to put the customer first. I put Scoobie first.

I was en route to Asbury Park and its carnival by two o'clock. On the seat beside me were a New Jersey Knicks hat, large sunglasses, and my trusty digital camera. I decided I wouldn't tell Morehouse what Alicia said, I'd get proof myself. What other teenager am I around besides Alicia? He'd figure it out and talk to her. Half of me wanted to keep my promise to Alicia and the other half wanted to dodge Megan's wrath if she learned I had talked to Alicia about something so important behind Megan's back.

I thought the carnival should be crowded enough that no one would pay attention to me. The town of Asbury Park had made it easy to find the carnival; there were signs at every possible corner telling me which way to turn. I pulled into the large parking lot that abutted the carnival, then pulled back out and parked on a side street about three blocks away. I had my sleuth thinking cap on. If a carnival worker followed me to check out my license plate, I wanted to make it hard to do that. A worker probably would not walk a few blocks away from his post.

Asbury Park is a good bit larger than Ocean Alley and the beach area is twice the size of ours. The businesses close to the municipal lot, which housed the carnival, were the same as Ocean Alley's. Beach apparel, small food vendors, tarot card readers, and saltwater taffy outlets. And of course, the casino, which I'm pleased Ocean Alley does not have. Like I need any reminders.

There was also a fairly large storefront church, which I didn't recall seeing on previous visits. A large sign in the window read, "God is everywhere, keep your pants up." They were apparently going for the teenage and young adult crowd.

I sat on a bench a couple hundred yards from the carnival entrance. It looked as if there was a roped area around the entire carnival, except for that one spot. I couldn't see the back, of course, but since the Ferris Wheel was there I couldn't imagine an entrance just next to it. If kids today were anything like I was, there would be an occasional peanut drop from the top of the wheel, so it's not a good place for people to congregate.

The size of the carnival was larger, and I saw a kiddie roller coaster that had not been in Ocean Alley. I supposed it made sense to put up fewer rides in smaller venues. A city bus pulled up on the street nearest me and disgorged about ten kids, ranging in age from about eight to fifteen. I followed the kids and caught up with them as they walked in.

"Get your footlong dogs," boomed the overhead speaker. I should have brought a BB gun.

I took out my camera so it wouldn't look like the only photos I was taking were of Turk or whatever his name was. Two younger teenage boys immediately asked me to take theirs in front of the pop-a-balloon-with-a-dart game. They wanted me to email them copies of them with the stuffed animals they had won. For a few seconds I was irritated, then it occurred to me it would be good to look as if I was with some of the kids.

"Why don't you put the tiger between you?" I was getting into the spirit of things.

"Because it's a cocker spaniel," said one of the boys.

"Really?" I looked more closely. As with the stuffed animals Scoobie had won for Ramona and me, it was oddly shaped. I took a couple photos and stopped when they started sticking their tongues out.

One of the boys wrote his email address on an envelope I pulled from my purse. Damn, I meant to mail that. Oh well, the student loan people were going to get paid a couple days late.

A cursory look around did not show Turk at any of the rides. Maybe I wasted the better part of an afternoon. I was sitting on a bench to drink an iced tea when I spotted him leaning against the rail that surrounded a ride across from the Ferris Wheel.

It didn't take long to figure out his routine. He called out to clusters of kids, seemingly daring them to go on a ride called the Inverter, which turned them upside down. When my two stuffed animal buddies got close he did his spiel, and then added something. They stopped to talk to him, then shrugged and moved on. He did the same thing to a couple of tall girls, then again to a group of three kids who might be termed misfits.

I chided myself for the term, especially since I was one in high school in Ocean Alley and had been really unhappy about it. But, I was seeing a pattern. He zeroed in on young people who, on the surface, were not part of the 'cool crowd.' Kids who might think his attention was special.

About ten minutes and another iced tea later, Turk took over operation of the Ferris Wheel. I couldn't see where he would keep a supply of anything to sell. Then I noted he often wiped the steel bar that went across riders' laps. Every now and then he set the cloth on a tiny table, then picked it up again.

I was roasting. I never wear hats, certainly not with my hair folded into one. Aunt Madge's face drifted into my mind, with her telling me to wear a hat in winter because twenty percent of a person's body heat goes out through their head. Mine was stuck there. And now I had to go potty. My two iced teas, bought to help me stay cool, were having an unintended consequence.

One last look before I went in search of a restroom told me what he was doing. He slid the bar over the two tall girls' laps and one of them passed him what looked like a piece of green paper. OK, he has the money, now what? The wipe rag was still in his hand and he fooled with it for a couple seconds as he watched the riders. He walked over to the lever that would slow or stop the ride, and reached behind it. When he stood up, Turk was holding the rag differently.

That's all? Something that simple? I wasn't sure what I had expected, but could not imagine that he could keep a small stash of anything right at his work space. As the next couple chairs of riders got off he shook their hands, pointed back to the chairs as if urging them to ride again. When it was the two girls he shook one of their hands with both of his. As they walked away, the girl kept her hand at her side and they went toward the haunted house. They'll be in the dark. No one will see if they look at it or take a pill.

I just made it to the port-a-potty before I peed my pants. At St. Anthony's the bathrooms near the church community room are easily accessible, much to my distinct pleasure after I pulled George into the tank. Here they didn't even have wipe-and-dry disposables. Yuck. I bought a bottle of water and washed my hands. Don't touch anything.

I took my small camera from the pocket of my capris and took a couple pictures of kids on the Merry-go-Round, waving at them as if I was with them. I ambled toward the Ferris Wheel. I wouldn't get a photo of any money or products, but I thought I could show Morehouse how Turk's system worked, and he could share photos with his police pals in Asbury Park.

It was annoying to take pictures with my big sunglasses on, but no way would I take them off. I got one of Turk reaching behind the lever and another of him shaking hands with my two stuffed animal buddies as they got off the chair. Is it that easy to sell this crap?

Satisfied with my feat, I bought a candy apple to eat as I walked back to the car. I was taking a bite when a tall man carrying a bunch of helium balloons bumped into me.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and kept walking without a backward glance.

I'd gone about ten steps when I remembered the guy's stolen cell phone in Ocean Alley, and reached into my pocket. No camera.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WAS AN EXPENSIVE way to learn I might be on to something. It could also be a coincidence. I had used the camera and made no effort to conceal where I stowed it. The man was out of sight when I turned around. There were plenty of places he could duck into and I didn't want to call attention to myself. Because it confirmed what I thought I knew, I chose to believe the camera was more than the target of a casual pickpocket.

I sat on a bench on the boardwalk and thought about it. If I complained, there would be interviews and my name would be associated with the complaint. "Drats!" I went into a dollar store and bought a disposable digital camera. I hoped the owners of the house I'd just appraised would be willing to let me back in.

I wasn't sure whether to tell the homeowners the camera had been stolen and decided to say it was stolen at the farmer's market just south of Asbury Park. I had an uneasy thought about pictures of their home now being in someone else's hands. The carved wooden sign on their front lawn would likely be visible in at least one of the photos. "Parker House, Manasquan, New Jersey."

TO SAY HARRY WAS SUSPICIOUS of my story would be an understatement. I stuck to it. I told him I'd stopped at a farmer's market on the way home and somebody lifted the camera. For good measure I brought him back some strawberries, and took Aunt Madge strawberries and rhubarb. I remembered to take off the grocery store price stickers.

What to tell Morehouse was harder, but I had to let him know that Turk was selling something to those kids. I settled on telling him that I'd gone to Asbury Park to take a picture of Turk so I could remember what he looked like. Morehouse didn't know George Winters had given me photos. Lying is much more complicated than telling the truth. The bottom line was that he'd be ticked no matter what I told him. And if he told Aunt Madge I'd be in deep kimshee.

"You got a death wish, or what?" he asked.

"I doubt a carny would kill me."

"That's just because they don't know you too well."

How rude.

He pulled a piece of paper from a drawer and had me tell him exactly what I'd done when I was at the carnival. I was in the middle of telling when I suddenly stopped. "I guess it's not just the pictures of the Manasquan house, those two boys were on that camera card, too."

Morehouse jabbed his pen in the air in my direction. "This is why you have no business, no business at all, pulling the shit you do."

I looked in my purse. The student loan payment envelope was still there. "At least the thief didn't get their email address."

"Did you hear what I just said?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Will you butt out?"

"Probably."

He would have thrown me out, but he wanted to hear the rest of what I had to tell him. At this point I didn't care what he did with the information. I knew Turk would have a reason to want Scoobie to keep his mouth shut. But why try to kill Scoobie so he could sell a few joints?

ON SUNDAY I FOUND OUT THAT Morehouse had "accidentally" ratted me out to Ramona, which was like telling the entire town why I'd gone to Asbury Park. Harry said I had "abused his trust" and Aunt Madge said she "needed some peace and quiet" when I tried to tell her why the carnival visit had been a good idea.

"Maybe it's more than joints," George said. We were in the hospital cafeteria by ourselves for a few minutes Sunday evening, ostensibly in search of some healthy food for Scoobie, who maintained that the hospital wouldn't serve anything green that wasn't canned.

I shrugged. "We'll never know. It makes me worry about Scoobie being by himself every night."

"It wouldn't be smart to come back down here. Besides," he pointed to the corner of the room, "the hospital has cameras everywhere."

I felt a bit better. At the moment George was the only person not mad at me, and that was probably just because he wanted to keep learning what I found out. And the promise of free coffee.

"These small-time sales could be part of something bigger," George said. "They get the kids interested and maybe they find a few customers who want something more expensive. Wouldn't take too many of those to make a lot more money than you make running carnival rides."

His words reminded me of Penny's stacks of bills. I hadn't told George about this. Keeping my word to Morehouse seemed less important after my most recent visit with him, but I thought whatever Penny had been dealing in was way above my pay grade. And I did promise, sort of. He talked to Aunt Madge on the phone, not me.

"What?" George asked, suspicion clear.

"I was thinking about Penny." I was. "I can't believe her murder and the attack on Scoobie are unrelated."

"Puns aside," George said, and I made a face at him.

We were in the elevator now. He carried a huge bowl of salad and I had a plastic baggie of vegetables that cost more than two candy bars. "Who in the world," I stopped, I had been about to ask who would trust her with all that money. "Would even know they were related at this point? Scoobie said he hadn't seen her in years, their names are different."

"I've been trying to find where Penny was in the couple months after she got out of the prison in New York," he said. "Since she didn't check in with her parole officer but one time, that's kind of tough."

"Jeez. Wouldn't that mean there'd be a warrant out for her?" I asked.

"Eventually, but it's not like she's a violent criminal. Damage to Scoobie aside," he said as we walked off the elevator. I started to ask what he meant, but he continued. "She was paroled in New York. I don't know anyone there. In fact," he grinned at me, "I took a page from your book and made up a name. Told her PO I was a friend of Scoobie's, and he was very upset about his mother's death, and I was helping him reconstruct his mom's last few days."

I ignored the barbed reference to my one-time impersonation of a reporter. "So did the parole officer talk to you?"

We were getting close to Scoobie's room now. George lowered his voice when he said, "He said the one time she came in she said she was about to come into some family money, so Scoobie might want to check into that."

Uh oh. She got money, all right.

I STAYED AWAY FROM Ramona for a couple of days. I was mad at her for repeating what Morehouse told her. She probably knew I was mad, because she sent me an email and told me he didn't tell her not to tell. There was no point staying angry with her, she's the closest thing I have to a friend in Ocean Alley besides Scoobie. She's also my best source of local news.

I thought Roland might be able to get me a deal on a camera, since the Purple Cow carries a few. Plus, it would give me something to talk to Ramona about besides her tattling on me.

On Tuesday the white board was back in its place on the sidewalk in front of the Purple Cow. Today it said, "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." Henry Ford.

Ramona saw me coming and stopped straightening the sale table. "Are you still mad?" she asked.

"Nope. If he didn't tell you not to tell, how would you know?"

"I think he did it on purpose," Ramona said.

"You bet he did. He's lucky I haven't stopped by the station with a grenade." I caught Roland's eye. "Or a water balloon." I smile sweetly and he shook a finger at me before he walked over to unjam the copy machine for a frustrated customer.

I told Ramona I needed to replace my digital camera and we walked over to the glass sales case that houses stuff Roland has deemed popular to lift, like cell phone batteries, cameras, and fifty dollar fountain pens. Some people have way too much money.

"What about this really thin one?" Ramona asked.

I took it from her. "Lightweight, too." While she took a couple batteries from the bottom shelf I shifted the camera's weight from one hand to the other and put it in my purse to see how much heavier it would make the purse feel. I barely noticed the difference.

Ramona put the batteries in the camera and I took a few pictures in the back of the store and near the front, since I need to take photos in all kinds of light. They were all good shots. I thought I heard someone bump into Ramona's white board, but when I looked out the window I saw only the back of someone hurrying away.

"Sold." We went to the cash register together.

As I walked out I glanced at the white board and laughed. It now read, "Failure is simply the opportunity to try, try again."

Ramona looked out the window, scowled, and came out with her small foam sponge and the erasable marker. "I was beginning to think it was Scoobie, but that's the second time this week that someone has changed it."

That stopped me. I knew it was Scoobie. So who was doing it now? "At least Scoobie's off the hook."

I HEADED TO FIRST Prez for a meeting of the Harvest for All committee, the first one since the carnival. Though not an official member, because he won't agree to be, Scoobie is usually there. Reverend Jamison invited him to help me get the perspective of someone who sometimes uses the food pantry. Although his intentional hazing of some of the stuffier members can get the meeting off track, I knew I'd miss his presence.

Dr. Welby and the mild-mannered Monica were already in the church's small meeting room. Despite the pleasant seventy degree temperature, Monica had on her usual cardigan and carefully ironed blouse. She gave me a small smile.

"Good morning, Jolie." George Welby often speaks at boom level, though he tones it down once a meeting starts.

"Thanks a lot for coming." I still wished I didn't have to.

Sylvia Parrett walked in with Lance Wilson, my only tenth-decade friend. Sylvia is another matter. She was dressed as severely as usual, though she did have on a decorative pin, which is a major fashion statement for her.

"I'll give Aretha another minute to get here." She's tied with Lance for my favorite committee member. Reverend Jamison roped her in when she asked for signs to hang at laundromats, a place she believed would have a lot of people who would use the food pantry's services. As we sat chatting an accapella rendition of "Amazing Grace" floated down the hallway and as she walked in Lance waved a finger as if conducting.

"Lance you are one talented man," Aretha said as she sat next to me.

I took a breath and got started. "Okay everybody. First, congratulations. We made more money at the dunk tank than..."

"First?" Lance said.

"How is Scoobie?" asked Aretha.

I'm not sure I've ever turned a brighter red. "Well..." I began.

"I stopped by yesterday," interrupted Dr. Welby.

Uh-oh.

"Didn't stay long. But I am pleased to report that Scoobie is recovering well. It'll be awhile before he's one-hundred percent, but he'll get there.

I let out a breath. It didn't sound as if Scoobie had asked him to leave. There's a no visitors order for him, his choice, but as a physician, albeit retired, Dr. Welby wouldn't ask about that and no nurse would volunteer the information.

"Thanks, Dr. Welby." I cleared my throat and blinked back a couple tears I thought were trying to leak out. You're done crying about this! "I did let Scoobie know we made almost $750, and he has already said 'I told you so' a couple of times."

Aretha let out a laugh and Monica almost cracked a smile. Sylvia said nothing. I've learned she mostly participates when she has a specific idea, and she had the idea of creating a name that would define our role but not look as if we were a charity. Which we are, but some people are not comfortable coming to the food pantry, and there's no point emphasizing that they can't buy food. It was a good idea.

I had a simple agenda for the meeting. We would discuss the positive reaction to our new name and whether the ten-year old who submitted it should get a plaque or something. Then I planned to ask Lance to give a treasurer's report, which would lead into ideas for another fundraiser. As I walked into the meeting I had remembered I wanted to ask if we did anything special for homeless people, and I jotted a note in the margin of my small notebook.

That was my plan until I heard the door to the street open, followed by a familiar 'plop, shuffle, plop shuffle' sound in the hallway. "Go slow, man," George Winters' voice drifted down the hall.

"Bite me," came the familiar voice.

We were all on our feet in less than a second and Sylvia, of all people, led the way into the hallway.

"Hold your applause, hold your applause," said Scoobie. He grinned but he looked beat.

Thank goodness it's a short hallway. I was trying to hold back tears. This is ridiculous. You aren't a crier.

"Listen guys, I need to get off my feet or I'll be on my ass."

I held the door, but Scoobie didn't look at me as he walked in. All his attention was on getting to the chair the Dr. Welby was holding. From the look of self-satisfaction on Dr. Welby's face, I figured his hospital visit had to do with seeing if Scoobie could come to the meeting.

George caught my eye. "You can drive him back, right?" When he saw my hesitation, he added, "You don't have to really help, just provide the transportation."

"Yeah," Scoobie said. "Because she's a great helper. Never any problems in her life."

Now he was looking at me, a big grin on his face. I nodded to George and just gave Scoobie a raised eyebrow. I still wasn't too sure about tears.

There were murmurs of "you look good," and "so glad to see you."

"Ahem." They quieted as I spoke. "Now that Scoobie has finished disrupting a meeting once again, we can get back to business." They knew I was kidding. Not about the disruptions, but about being irritated about them.

"Lance, you want to tell us where we stand with money?" He explained that we had almost $3,000 in the checking account and he was looking at commercial refrigerators, which we would be able to buy because of a separate generous bequest that can only be used to upgrade our facility. If you can call a large room with shelves a facility.

"So we can have eggnog next Christmas?" Scoobie asked.

"Zip it," I said, and he grinned again. This was my Scoobie. He also looked one-hundred percent comfortable with all of us.

"You're buying," Lance said. "Since most of the food we get from the food bank in Lakewood is without charge, we have enough cash to buy apples and carrots almost every week, probably as long as we need to, since we are bringing in money more steadily."

I nodded. Until we got a refrigerator we could only get fresh food that could be stored in cool temperatures rather than cold. "OK, thanks. I want to spend most of our time on other fundraising or food donation ideas."

Scoobie gave me a huge grin. "I'm going to be quiet until everybody else says their ideas."

"That's a first," I said, and he pretended to be offended.

Dr. Welby spoke first, as is the tradition. "I've talked to Mr. Markle at the market, and he is willing to let us place a couple of pickup trucks with "Harvest for All" signs in the grocery store lot, and he'll give people ten percent off on items shoppers say they are going to donate. We would stand outside with the truck."

"We'd need a lot of volunteers," Sylvia said. "We could ask at the other churches in town."

"Or at the high school," Aretha said. "Get them used to helping us."

Monica favored a bake sale and Dr. Welby gently suggested combining it with the 'truck day' at the market. I was glad of that. People would donate items, but bake sales always seems like a lot of work for not so much money.

After a couple more ideas and a brief lull in the conversation, Lance said, "You're up, Scoobie."

Scoobie had begun to look increasingly tired, but he perked back up. "I'll bet none of you know that September 19th is 'Talk like a Pirate' day,' Scoobie began.

Sylvia sat up straighter and pursed her lips, something you read about in books but very rarely see someone do.

"What kind of a pirate?" Monica asked.

"Well...I guess any kind. Did you have something in mind?" Scoobie asked.

"Oh my. Well, I don't think there were any lady pirates anyway."

"You need to get out more, Monica," Scoobie said, but he winked at her and she gave him a small smile.

"What exactly do you do on 'Talk like a Pirate' Day," asked Dr. Welby.

"I can only imagine," Lance said, dryly.

"There is water involved in this, too, but you don't actually have to get in it."

We didn't exactly go downhill from there, but to say our concentration was broken would be an understatement.

SCOOBIE KEPT HIS EYES shut for most of the drive back to the hospital. "I can't believe you came to this. Thanks."

"Sure. I needed to get out of there for a while anyway." He grinned, but still didn't open his eyes. "Plus, I knew you'd like the pirate day idea."

Scoobie had a list of ideas for the day, all of which would cost small amounts of money for participation. The final item on his list was to pay to be allowed to not talk like a pirate. "Do they give you a pass or something?" I asked.

"Heck no. They said George could wheel me to the cafeteria. I have to get back before supper or they'll come looking for me."

No head slaps when you're driving. "You really are nuts."

"I gotta admit, I'm way more tired than I thought I'd be. And my back's killing me."

"How's your head?"

"It mostly only hurts when I'm up for a while."

"Kind of like now?" I asked.

"You don't miss a trick, kiddo."

We drove the last few blocks in silence. I hadn't told Scoobie about the money his mother had, and I gathered Morehouse had not either. While I knew Morehouse didn't want me to talk about it, it felt like there was an elephant in the back seat, and I didn't like it. I figured Scoobie would be really angry that I hadn't told him, and I was getting closer to confiding in him. But not now. He looked exhausted.

I snagged a wheelchair from the lobby and stood next to it as Scoobie got in it, then parked the car and carried in his walker, which I placed across his lap. He insisted he didn't need it and only used because one of the therapists threatened to beat him with it if he tried to walk without it.

We were just getting off the elevator on his floor when Nurse Ratched came walking down the hall really fast. She stopped when she saw us. "Adam, we've been looking all over for you."

"George and I traded him. I thought he might like some fresh air."

"Hmm." The nurse stared at me for a second or two.

I sensed she didn't believe me. I suppose Scoobie had been gone well over an hour.

"Dr. Cahill has come and gone for today. Now that your head is healing well, she and Dr. Nobles are going to release you for rehabilitative care, and..."

"I'm not going to a nursing home," Scoobie said.

"You don't have to," she said, in what for her was probably a gentle tone. "We have a rehab unit on the second floor, near where you already go for physical therapy."

"Good," he said. The three of us were walking down the hall toward his room. "I like old people, I just don't want to be with them all day."

"You'll prefer it to alternatives when you get up there yourself," she said.

IT WAS ALMOST five-thirty when I got back to the Cozy Corner. In the parking lot was a rental car with New York plates, so it looked as if the tourist season was picking up. Aunt Madge was in the kitchen making dough for the next morning's muffins and her greeting was slightly less chilly than it had been for a couple of days.

"New guests?" I asked.

"Guest. He's a writer who said he wanted a few days of peace and quiet while he finishes a book."

"What kind of book?" I asked, wanting to have something to talk about with her besides my trip to Asbury Park.

"Murder mystery, he said. He can't tell the title, something about being under contract."

"Does he know you don't have Internet?"

"He does now. He almost went to one of the newer hotels, but I told him about Java Jolt and he has Internet on his phone."

Since Aunt Madge didn't seem inclined to talk more I went upstairs and jumped out of the way as Jazz ran out of the room. She used to be content to have our bedroom and bath as her space and just go downstairs when I did. No more. "Nuts." Apparently her psychology of irritation is branching out.

I walked halfway down the back stairs and called down to Aunt Madge. "The door to the breakfast room is closed, right? I don't know if your guest will want to see a cat."

"No problem at all."

I jumped and turned to see the smiling face of a man with snow white hair but a face that looked more like someone in his late thirties or early forties. His close-cropped hair made me think of the military, but his wire rimmed glasses said scholar. "Oh. When Aunt Madge said you were a writer I expected someone with a pony tail."

"I've heard there are no molds for writers." He smiled. "I'm just on my way out. Your aunt has recommended Newhart's Diner."

He turned to walk down the hall to the main stairs and I called after him. "Try the crab cakes."

MOREHOUSE WAS SO IRRITATED with me that I was no longer privy to his thinking about Penny and her murder. It was annoying, but was more like how he usually treats me.

I was in the courthouse Wednesday morning looking up recent sales to use as comparables for the multi-family house I had just visited when I spotted Morehouse coming in the door of the courthouse. I couldn't leave the material I was using on the table to chase after him so I finished quickly and sat on a bench in the main foyer to waylay him when he came back down.

After about twenty minutes I figured he must be there to testify in one of his cases, so I stood to go. I was about to push the glass exit door when he came down the steps from the second floor.

"Hello, sergeant." I used my best formal voice.

"Cut the crap," he said. "You been doing anything you shouldn't the last couple days?"

"Just working, visiting Scoobie, and figuring out how to run the food pantry." When he didn't say anything, I asked, "Anything new on Penny's murder?"

I could almost hear his brain working for a few seconds and he finally said, "Not really. Has Scoobie talked about it?"

"Nope. All he said is he's trying to process it without...without thinking ugly thoughts about her." I wasn't about to say Scoobie had said he wished her dead many times. When Morehouse didn't say anything else I asked if he knew more about the money and silverware Penny had placed in the closet.

"Not a damn thing. I was hoping someone would at least report the silver missing. If Penny had it she was doing something hinky."

I suddenly remembered George Winters said her parole officer mentioned Penny said she was about to come into family money. What she told him was surely a lie, but it meant she knew she was going to do something that would get her some money, whether she was supposed to keep it or not. But, that was George's business, not mine.

"Drugs, you think?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Or maybe somebody's poker winnings. Who knows? Bills aren't sequential, so they likely didn't come straight from a bank."

WHEN I GOT BACK TO the Cozy Corner there were two more cars in the small parking lot and I could hear Aunt Madge laughing with them on the second floor. She came down as I was pouring myself some milk.

"Sounds like you like your guests."

"Mark and Nancy Sapperstein. They live in Pennsylvania now and their daughter's getting married this weekend. They thought they'd stay here so they didn't put a damper on their daughter and her friends at the hotel."

"A damper?"

She shrugged. "Usually the bride's parents live in the town, so they aren't at the hotel."

"So are the groom's parents a couple of swingers who get to stay at the hotel?"

"Don't think so. They're checking in later." She turned off her tea kettle. "We're all going out to supper."

"Sounds like fun." I started up the back stairs to my room. My aunt has more friends than I do.

I COULDN'T SLEEP, so at midnight I still had my small bedside lamp on and was trying to read the newest Sue Grafton book. Daphne knows I like the books, so she had put my name on the waiting list and called to say it was in. Leave it to a librarian.

My eyes were finally getting heavy and I was about to turn off the lamp when I thought I heard a noise in the hall. It wasn't my imagination; Jazz had lifted her head and looked toward the door. It wouldn't be Aunt Madge, and I couldn't imagine it was the guests. Their rooms weren't near mind. Why don't you lock your door?

I gave myself a mental scolding. A noise didn't mean something bad. "Maybe it's a mouse," I said aloud to Jazz. "You want to look?" She curled herself back into her usual ball at the foot of the bed.

I walked to the door and put my hand on the knob, and then thought better of waltzing into the hall in the middle of the night. I locked my door and for good measure locked the one that led into the bathroom I share with the now-vacant room that adjoins mine. Get a grip Jolie.

I DIDN'T WAKE UP THINKING about the noise, but by the time I went downstairs on Thursday I had remembered it and told Aunt Madge about it. "You haven't let a ghost move in, have you?"

"Not knowingly," Aunt Madge said. "I have been thinking of getting the plumber to look at one of the third-floor bathrooms. The pipes have started to creak. I don't want water cascading down the walls."

Pipes. Of course.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I WAS ONLY GOING to see Scoobie once a day. Rehab meant physical therapy would be morning and afternoon for at least a couple of hours. Though they still thought the vertebrae would heal without surgery, he had a lot of other sore back muscles and he said the therapists were doing some great massage and teaching him ways to sit, stand, and lift without putting too much stress on his back or neck. They would get to "the really hard stuff" in about a week, according to Scoobie.

"I mean, I think if I were going to be a veg that would already have happened, but why take any chances?" He was cutting up an orange I brought him, and the steno pad was open on this wheeled table. Since he had to hold the orange almost level with his face, it appeared to be a challenge not to drip on the paper. Of course, he would accept no help.

"Looks like you're writing again," I said.

"Yeah, I had a poem in my pocket. I was working on it when I sat in the bushes watching for Turk. Don't know what happened to it."

Uh-oh.

"You might want to talk to Sgt. Morehouse about that."

He stopped cutting. "What do you mean?"

"He showed me part of a poem that had blown against a piling under the boardwalk. I told him it looked like..."

"And Morehouse still has it?"

I shrugged. "I assume so. Why don't you call..."

"Could you please leave?"

No doubt the shock showed in my face as I picked up my purse.

"I'm not mad at you, or even him, Jolie. I just," he paused, "well you know I don't let just anyone read my stuff."

"Right. Call him." Seeing his still stony expression I blew him a kiss as I left.

I debated calling Morehouse. Scoobie is a full-fledged grown-up, he can handle himself. And I sometimes have trouble leaving things alone.

I was glad I called. "I can't give it to him, Jolie, it's evidence and has to stay with us."

"You mean it's, like, in an evidence room?"

"That is where we tend to put stuff." I detected amusement in his voice.

"That might not be something you want to say to Scoobie. He'd have a hard time with the idea that a lot of people could see his poem." Hard time? Could set him back a lot.

Morehouse sighed. "Thanks for the warning." He hung up.

I STOPPED AT THE Ocean Alley Press on my way home from the hospital. I had never been in the two-story building and thought it looked very much as it might have in the 1950s. There was a long wooden counter just inside the door and behind it was a row of metal desks, maybe six or eight. There was a partition that stood about two feet tall on the top of each desk, but the concept of privacy clearly did not extend to this news room. And I hated the smell. Ink, I supposed.

I could swear the woman at the desk smirked at me when she heard my name, but maybe I was imagining things.

George came out, looking harried. "I'm on deadline whaddya need, Jolie?"

"I don't need anything. Just wanted to talk to you about Scoobie and stuff. Call me." As I turned to go I caught the receptionist's eye. Definitely smirking. And I could swear I heard George chuckling to himself as he walked back to his desk.

GEORGE CALLED ABOUT SIX-THIRTY. "I'm frustrated as all get out," I told him. "The state police aren't going to keep after Penny's murder. They have nothing. And what if someone thinks Scoobie has the money and goes after him?"

"What money?"

Crud, crud, crud, crud.

"Uh, Morehouse didn't tell you?"

"Jolie. We were going to help each other, remember?"

I sighed. I honestly had not meant to tell him about Penny's mountain of money. I just plain forgot. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Morehouse made Aunt Madge and me swear."

"What money?" George's voice had gone up a few decibels.

"She had a small bag in the closet, and Morehouse came and got it after they found her. He opened it and it was packed with cash and silverware." There was perhaps ten seconds of silence. I wasn't sure if George was counting to one-hundred or about to explode.

"That kind of puts her murder in a different light," he said, sarcasm almost dripping through the phone.

"I'm sorry, George. Morehouse was pretty firm about not talking about it."

"Yes, he was," said Aunt Madge, from behind me.

Uh oh. I dropped the phone and bent over to pick it up.

"What the hell are you doing, playing pick-up sticks with the phone?" George asked when I put the receiver back to my ear.

"I was talking to Aunt Madge." I looked at her, stony expression and hands on her hips, something she rarely does.

"Oh boy," George said.

"I gotta go." I hung up.

There are times when I assert myself as an almost-thirty year old woman with a responsible job, and there are times when I feel about twelve. This was one of the twelve-year-old times.

"Think of all the times you were furious with George Winters for printing things you would rather not have had half the town read." Her voice was quiet, but that was almost worse. "And here you are, babbling to him about something you have no business telling him."

She turned and walked back toward her bedroom.

I ALMOST SLUNK OUT OF THE HOUSE Friday morning. Certainly I left a lot earlier than I normally would. Aunt Madge was sitting in the breakfast room with her old friends, and the mystery writer guest was telling them about the time his computer crashed, and he lost a nearly complete manuscript. He retyped it from a printed copy and then learned that there was a way to recover it from his lifeless machine. I know this because I listened at the door. Reaction to his riveting story sounded more like polite acknowledgement than interest.

I left Aunt Madge a scribbled note that said I'd be back in the late afternoon. It was only eight o'clock, but I thought Joe Regan would be open so I drove down to Java Jolt. I normally walk, but it seemed better not to stroll back to the Cozy Corner to get my car until Aunt Madge had a lot of time to cool off. I figured I'd find things to do around town all day.

As I walked down the boardwalk I saw the two homeless men I'd seen last week. Today they were sitting on a bench a couple doors down from Java Jolt. They didn't have the grocery cart now, so I hoped that meant they had a place to stay. On impulse I stopped in front of them. "Hi, I'm Jolie. Can I talk to you for a second?"

The younger of the two said, "I guess," but the older man, whom I judged to be about thirty-five, just stared at me mutely.

"I hope I don't offend you, but I work with the "Harvest for All" Food Pantry. I wanted to be sure you know where it is."

Nada.

"Okay. If you do want to stop by, it's at First Prez, First Presbyterian Church."

"We know," said the younger man, who appeared short for a guy. "We've been there already." He spoke very fast, and then seemed to be self-conscious and shut his mouth very deliberately.

After a few seconds I turned to continue toward Java Jolt.

"Thanks," said the older man.

I was doing an internal cringe as I walked into Java Jolt. Did I offend them? Would it look like the "rich" lady was being condescending? I decided I couldn't worry about that. At the food pantry meeting last week I'd learned we didn't have any outreach to the homeless, and I had planned to think more about that. You have other things on your mind.

I paid for my coffee and a chocolate muffin, my favorite and a treat to myself, and sat in front of one of the two computers. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I had to be able to find out something about Penny or Turk or somebody. I wasn't sure why I thought I'd be able to find something the police couldn't, but I told myself my mind probably worked differently than the state police or Morehouse's. I almost giggled. He'd certainly think so.

First I searched for the name of the prison Penny had been in, Taconic Women's Correctional Facility. Correctional facility. Who are they kidding? You couldn't correct her in twenty years. The facility web site was little help. There were descriptions of how the women were housed, what kind of work they did while incarcerated, and how much time they could spend "recreating" each day.

There was a link to inmates, which showed their prisoner number and some info about their sentence. I keyed in "Penny Pittsen" before I remembered Morehouse implied she made up the name after she got out of the facility. I wasn't sure if the information would help even if I knew her name.

"What are you doing, Jolie?" Joe asked. "You've been scowling at that screen for twenty minutes."

"Trying to figure out more about Scoobie's mom."

"Why?"

"How many people do you know who get murdered soon after visiting their son in a hospital?"

"The key word there is murdered," Joe said. "I'd stay the hell out of this one."

"Nice to know what you would do, Joe."

He went back to making some fresh coffee.

I decided to try a different tack. I googled various combinations of Penny, check kiting, New York, Taconic Women's Correctional Facility, forgery and sentenced. Plus a few other terms as I thought of them. If I could just get her name I could look her up in the "courts on line" database. I was about to give up when I substituted Ocean Alley for New York.

Bingo. One article had a photo of Penny Marks, formerly of Ocean Alley, who had been arrested for forging a total of eighteen checks that she had stolen from a woman's purse. The woman had foolishly left her open purse in the top of a grocery store cart and Penny helped herself. She had bought a lot of stuff with the checks and then tried to sell it. "Wow."

"Find something?" Joe asked.

"I'm not sure," I lied. "I was just looking at some of these identity theft articles. Makes you want to bury your money in your backyard."

"Unless you live near the ocean," Joe said.

I found a couple more articles, including one from the Binghamton paper that had mug shots of Penny and two others who were arrested with her after they tried to sell, on eBay and to pawn shops, some of the items they bought with the forged checks. Who knew Penny could use a computer? The other woman's hair was even more unkempt than Penny's, though Penny had a better smirk for the camera. The man looked a lot younger than the two women, but it was harder to gauge his age because he had brown hair longer than mine and facial hair that could have been a true beard or just a week's stubble. He squinted as he looked at the camera.

I entered Penny's name in the "courts on line" database and was rewarded with a list of court cases for everything from public drunkenness in Brooklyn to forgery in Manhattan to possession of stolen property in Binghamton. She certainly got around. There was not a statement of resolution for every case, and I could tell she had pleaded guilty to lesser charges in several cases. The Binghamton article noted she was considered a habitual offender and probation was no longer an option. I remembered Dana thought Penny would likely still be in the women's prison if it weren't for overcrowding. Too bad for her, she might still be alive.

So, I knew what she had been arrested for -- though probably not everything -- and had no idea what to do with it. If I had to guess, I'd say she was funding a drug habit, but I supposed it could have been just plain old unwillingness to work. Despite the joints in her luggage, there weren't any drug arrests.

I jotted down the web addresses of a couple articles and was irritated that I didn't have a printer. That meant the library.

DAPHNE TOOK MY MONEY for the article copies I printed and didn't even ask what I was doing. Since we would generally chat about such things, I had been prepared to tell her I was looking up articles on Ocean Alley's growth. After all, a real estate appraiser should know something about a town's economic history.

I had the articles on Ocean Alley on top of my small pile and stood to one side of the front desk as Daphne checked out books for a mother and two young sons. After they left, Daphne began to tell me about the many comments about Scoobie's attack. "Sign the card, Jolie. Everyone except Elmira signed it."

Elmira Washington is a first-class busybody who made sure everyone knew that I moved to Ocean Alley because my ex-husband embezzled money from the bank where he worked. In Newhart's one evening I let her know I knew this, and she didn't like that. She probably wouldn't sign Scoobie's card because she considered him guilty by association. Of what I don't know. The card was one of those foot-tall ones, so there was a lot of room left. I signed it, "Yo, Jolie," and drew a smiley face.

I was about to leave when Aunt Madge's writer-guest came in. He saw me and his face lit up. "Jolie, I hope you can vouch for me."

I might if I knew your name.

"I went to the coffee shop to use the computer and it's packed and noisy. Joe, I think that was his name, didn't think I could use these because I'm not a card holder."

I turned to Daphne. "You know Aunt Madge has the B&B, right?"

"Of course. And still no Internet I take it?" She looked from me to writer man.

Daphne's smile is always dazzling, in part because her perfect white teeth are offset by her coffee skin tone. The guest responded with an equally large smile and I felt as if I was in a toothpaste commercial.

"No Internet. She says it's to give guests time to relax, but this gentleman is here to work. Finishing a book, aren't you?"

"Yes." He reached across the desk and Daphne took his hand for a firm shake. "Marcus Hardy, mystery writer."

"We have that cardholders-only policy so we don't have every wet bathing suit in town coming here to check their email." She came from behind the counter and walked toward a computer, with Marcus-the-mystery-writer following her. "Now, if it was next week, I'd probably have to enforce the policy or people would accuse me of favoritism."

I realized this weekend would be Memorial Day. I was about to be reminded of the element of Ocean Alley I least like -- tourists. I said a quick good-bye as Daphne was asking Marcus-the-Mystery-Writer if he had a web site so she could read about his books.

I HAD THOUGHT HARRY would have gotten over his snit about me taking pictures in Asbury Park, but I was wrong.

He was literally pacing around his large office as he talked. "The house in Manasquan? Burglars hit it last night. You think that's a coincidence?"

I looked him in the eyes. "Probably not. I'm really sorry, Harry. What can I do?"

That took some of the wind out of his sails. "I already told them I'd pay the deductible on their homeowners insurance. Your half would be $250."

"I'll pay all of it," I said, with as much meekness as I could muster. "I agree it's because of the photos on the camera card. What, uh, makes them so sure?"

"Because everything taken was visible in the rooms where you took photographs, and that's all that was taken. Mostly electronics. They didn't look in closets or even take her purse, which was on the dining room table." He ran his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair. "The police think they planned based on the photos and were in and out in less than ten minutes, while the Parkers were walking on the beach."

"I'm really..." I began again, and he interrupted.

"You know what makes it worse? You lied to me, Jolie. I thought we were friends."

I haven't felt so thoroughly miserable about my own behavior since I "borrowed" my sister Renée's high school class ring. I was twelve and tired of hearing about proms and graduation parties. I gave it back, of course, but not for about a week. After my mother found it in my sock drawer.

"We are friends. I didn't want to worry you. I shouldn't have..."

"You're damn right you shouldn't have. As of right now I'm not worrying about you one bit. You don't come back from an appraisal on time it won't be me looking for you." He stopped, having noticed my wide-eyed expression. "I might look after a couple of hours." He walked to his desk and pushed the button to turn on his computer's monitor.

I swallowed hard. I didn't want to tear up. "I promise I won't lie again." I paused. "I can't promise that I will always tell you what you want to hear."

He gave me a shrewd look. "Fair enough."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I SAT IN NEWHART'S to read the articles again. It was the middle of Friday afternoon and it was crowded with "first day of summer" beach-goers. Even so, I figured I wouldn't see as many people I knew as I would in Java Jolt. In case someone did join me, I kept the Ocean Alley articles on top of my small pile.

I pulled out the most recent article about Penny, assuming it could be most relevant to what happened to her. You know what it means to assume. Makes an ass out of you and me. It was one of the few things I could remember Uncle Gordon saying, probably because it was the first time I, at age five, heard an adult say 'ass.'

The article in the Binghamton paper was from slightly more than three years ago.

Local Woman Sentenced to Five Years

Penny Marks of Binghamton was sentenced to five years for forgery and possession of stolen property, third offense. In her two years in Binghamton, Marks has become a fixture on the police blotter, with regular arrests for public drunkenness.

Though never charged with a violent crime, Judge Patterson warned her in June, when she was arrested on a prior charge of receiving stolen property, that he was giving her only one more chance and would then order her incarcerated. In announcing the sentence, he said he was "outraged by the sheer volume of your thefts in the last three months."

Marks would place an ad for work as a cleaning lady, work long enough to know a family's schedule, and then return at a time they were out and steal laptops, jewelry, cash, silver, and any collectible items, such as baseball cards or glassware. Because she worked in different parts of the city it took police almost two months to associate the thefts with her work in the homes. Marks is originally from Ocean Alley, New Jersey and has also lived in New York City and Albany.

Arrested with Marks in August were Alex "Fun boy" Masterson and Gina Rathway. Masterson was given thirty days in the county jail for his second offence, and Rathway, with no previous record, was placed on probation.

I reread the article. I would never have guessed Penny was smart enough to orchestrate a series of burglaries. On the other hand, Scoobie had to get his brain from somewhere. Hers probably worked better before she pickled it.

George Winters had agreed to meet me at Newhart's, but he was almost a half-hour overdue. I ordered another glass of iced tea and looked at the desserts. If he didn't come soon I would be forced to order the warm brownie with vanilla ice cream.

The door banged open and George scanned the room for me. "Sorry. Got a couple calls."

"That's okay. Look at these." I shoved the articles across the table.

"Before you buy me coffee?" he grinned. Spring had officially morphed into summer temperatures, and George was wearing his usual Hawaiian style shirt, but with what I think of as long shorts for men, rather than jeans.

I signaled to the waitress and mouthed "coffee" and pointed to George as he started to look at the articles.

"Jolie, I wrote the one on the change in the local business climate."

"Not the top ones. Underneath."

He flipped through them and looked at me wide-eyed. "I was searching under Pittsen," he said. "I never found these."

I repeated Morehouse's explanation about her changing her name to make it easier to start forging checks again. "I just googled combinations of words until I found this. I thought you might be able to get someone to look up the other two people she was arrested with. See if any of them are around here."

"Morehouse must have done this." He said this almost to himself.

"You'd think. But she wasn't murdered in Ocean Alley, so how hard would he look? Even if the state police shared stuff, they might be focused on crime scene stuff for the murder rather than her history in another state."

"Did you show these to Scoobie?" he asked.

"Nope. He doesn't want to talk about her at all."

"Can't blame him."

I remembered something he said earlier. "What did you mean about Penny not being a violent criminal, damage to Scoobie aside, or something like that?"

He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. "It's his business," he said slowly, "let's just say she is supposed to have neglected him a lot when he was too young to take care of himself, and one of his arms got broken twice. That much is in the public record."

I sat back on the booth bench. "He only told me she drank a lot. Aunt Madge said a couple people tried to get the state to take custody and his dad would show up and make a lot of promises."

George nodded. "You'd need to talk to Scoobie about anything else."

I wondered how George knew about anything that wasn't "in the public record," but figured that a lot of gossip, true or not, made its way around the newsroom. After an awkward few seconds I asked, "Now what?"

"You're the snoop," he said. "I usually just follow you around."

"Very funny." I picked up one of the articles and pointed it at him. "There's a lot more to this than some of the other stuff I've..."

"...butted into?" George added.

"I'm serious. I can't think of anything to do with this except give it to Morehouse."

"The only article with any real substance is the one about her sentence three years ago. The others somebody picked up from a police blotter." He paused. "There could be a good reason not to look into this more, for you, I mean. Scoobie really doesn't want to talk about this. He probably doesn't even know the names she's used the last few years."

"I hear you."

George added about four teaspoons of sugar to his coffee. "No you don't. You think you're doing something that needs to be done. You think it may help Scoobie in some way. All I'm saying is he may really disagree with that."

I bristled. "I don't want those guys coming after him again. They don't know he doesn't know..."

"They may not even know there is a Scoobie." He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "You could be putting him in danger, not keeping it from him."

George had a funny look on his face, as if he was trying to decide whether to say something or not. You don't know him. Maybe he's just trying to pass gas quietly.

"The thing is, Scoobie has helped you out a few times. But it's also true that he never had his life in danger until you came back here. There was that stuff at Christmas, then..."

"That's ridiculous." I tried to keep my tone neutral, but I could hear it sounded pretty argumentative.

He leaned across the table and spoke more quietly. "This is a different kind of crime. It's not a couple people who know each other taking pot shots or something. Penny wasn't killed in a hit-and-run, she was killed by somebody probably a lot meaner than she was. You gotta think about Scoobie, not just what you want to do."

I'd heard enough. I was half way to the door before he could finish his sentence.

I GUESS WHAT UPSET me the most was that George had a couple of good points. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was right. People might tell me I'm "good for Scoobie," but I have gotten him involved in some dangerous stuff. I pulled into the hospital parking lot and turned off my car and let my seat go back so I was looking at the car's dome light. On the other hand, he's gone back to school, and I think I helped him get the courage to do that. Or know he could, anyway.

What difference did it make who hurt him or killed Penny, as long as they wouldn't be back? And you would know that how? Since I had no answer to that question I sat up and pulled the car seat into a sitting position and sat staring at the hospital entrance. George was probably right. Scoobie was relatively safe when he was in the hospital. It was only in the movies that bad guys snuck into hospitals to finish off somebody.

But he wouldn't be there too much longer, and when he got out he would eventually walk along the boardwalk, sit in the library, and take classes. I knew the end of May was a break in classes, but I didn't know when they started up again. That would give me a neutral topic to talk to Scoobie about.

I knew Scoobie was in his room because the walker was at the bottom of his bed. I leaned my arm in, waving a tissue.

"And people think I'm the strange one," he said. "Come on in, Jolie."

"Thanks." I tossed another orange onto the bed near him and sat in the guest chair. "You look beat."

"I'm doing a lot better. Rehab is a lot of work though. They have stuff for me to do but I have to do it in exactly the right way so I don't hurt myself more, especially the one in the neck."

I nodded. "Do they think you'll be able to go back to school in early June?"

"Maybe, if I only take one class, and if I make it a one-day-a-week class. All I'm doing now is taking electives so I can concentrate on the x-ray stuff when I start that program in the fall."

"So, what'll you take?"

He grinned. "How are you at college math? I haven't had any since high school, and I wasn't so great then."

I shrugged. "I didn't take a lot in college, but I did okay. I can try to help if you need it."

"I probably will. It's the only math class required for my associate's degree, and I need to get it out of the way." He looked at me more closely. "You look funny."

I looked down at my tan capris and dark green top and back at him.

"I don't mean your clothes. I mean your expression."

"Aunt Madge is mad at me about something. I hate that."

He gave me a questioning look and I realized I didn't have a follow-up for that bit of information, and I didn't want to tell him the truth. Or not the whole truth.

"What did you do now?" Scoobie asked.

"Why do people assume I did something?"

"Because they know you," he said, with a brief smile.

"She heard me on the phone. I asked Morehouse if he had any news on what happened to you." It's half true, I used Morehouse's name. Well, maybe less than half true.

He frowned, and I continued. "It makes me nervous that you're in here, where anyone could walk into your room. I want them to catch whoever did it."

"That'd be okay with me, but there's nothing you can do about it. Or me either. Remember what I told you about the Serenity Prayer?" He looked at me with suspicion. "You aren't doing anything to look for bad guys, are you?"

"All I did was walk around the carnival when it went to Asbury Park."

"Jeez, Jolie, what for?" He looked as if he would like to shake me. Not that he ever has.

"I wanted to see if that Turk guy tried to sell drugs to kids."

"And..."

"Looks like it. I told Morehouse so he has a reason to tell his police buddies to keep an eye on him."

"And that's all?" he asked.

"I never want to see that guy again." I wasn't saying that's all I had done, and I definitely did not want to see Turk again. Though I wouldn't mind having my camera back.

He didn't say anything for a moment. "I guess it let you talk to Morehouse without ratting out Alicia, but you really, really need to stay away from those carny guys."

That reminded me of what I wanted to ask Scoobie. "You said, when we were on the steps at Gracie's grandmother's house, that I should ask you about your carny days sometime." I studied his face as he took this in.

"Yeah, well, I planned to tell you the funny stuff, not the bad stuff."

"So, tell me a funny thing."

He started to say something, probably to tell me to quit bugging him, but seemed to change his mind. "There were some nice people. Couple families that had worked at the Ocean City Amusement Park for years, and their parents did, too." He paused. "I didn't actually work too much at a carnival..."

"Yeah, Ramona said she thought it was the rides in Ocean City." He scowled and I continued. "When you get your head bashed in people talk about you." I smiled at him. "If you don't want to, Morehouse makes you."

"I suppose." He stuck his finger under the soft collar he was wearing. "I hate this thing."

I said nothing, just met his eyes and raised an eyebrow.

"So I worked on the carnival for a few days when it left St. Anthony's a bunch of years ago, but then I got on with them at the amusement park. I told you that."

I nodded.

"So, there were some nice people, and some of them were really good with kids." He smiled to himself. "You know that game, where the kids pick up a plastic duck that's in water, and the writing on the bottom says what prize to give them?"

"Yep. I loved that."

"Me, too. Anyway, this old guy ran it. He thought the prizes were pretty cheesy, but he didn't pick 'em. Skinflint owner did." Scoobie frowned. "Anyway, this old guy, Sam I think, he wrote over a bunch of the writing on the bottom of the ducks so there were more ducks that let the kids have better prizes. Then he had this box under the counter, and when the owner groused about spending too much money on the prizes he'd stick a bunch of the better ducks -- that's what he called them -- in the box for a couple days and get them out again later."

"What if the owner found them in the box?"

Scoobie shrugged, and then winced. "Sam put a bunch of the prizes on top of them."

"But not everybody was a Sam," I said, softly.

"There were jerks," he said, "but most of the people at the amusement park were long-time employees. Carnivals have a lot more temporary workers."

A thought occurred to me. "Who owned that amusement park?"

"What do you care?" His look oozed suspicion.

"Just wondering if it was the same people who ran the carnival that was here when you got hurt." I tried to look innocent.

"There weren't signs about who owns it. How do you know who ran the carnival?" Scoobie asked.

"Think George."

"Oh, right. I think they were called East Jersey Entertainment."

AUNT MADGE HAD TWO more guests by Friday evening and her calendar for the next few weeks was pretty full. That boded well for me, less time for her to focus on being mad at me. Mister mystery-writer-Marcus seemed to see himself as an unofficial tour guide. I heard him offer to walk the parents of the groom, who had never been in Ocean Alley, over to Java Jolt on Saturday morning.

I sat in the rocking chair in my bedroom and reread the articles about Penny, and then went over my list again. The only question I'd answered on my "need to know" list was why Alicia was upset about Scoobie.

"You need two lists," I said aloud.

Need to know about Scoobie

Who hurt him?

Why would anyone hurt him?

Who found Scoobie?

Why didn't they wait for police?

Need to know about Penny

Why did she go to Budget Inn?

Did she know Carny people there?

How was Penny killed?

Where did she get the silverware?

Why leave her luggage here?

In some ways it was easier to make guesses about Penny. She probably stole the silverware herself. It might be hard to resell it as tableware, but there was probably a market for it simply as silver. I recalled silver sold for a great deal per ounce and people melted it down or something.

It made sense that Penny left her luggage at the Cozy Corner. If she didn't have the money and silver with her no one could steal it from her. There didn't seem to be anything in her larger suitcase that she could not easily replace, especially if she had a good bit of money in her ugly purse. What happened to that purse?

Penny and the carnival. Penny and the carnival. I'd never seen her with anyone from the carnival. If only I'd been a fly on a booth at the carnival. George's pictures. He had taken a lot of them. Suppose Penny was in some of them?

"Damn, Jolie. You took pictures." I didn't take many on Sunday, but I took a bunch on Saturday. Probably not too useful, as they were generally of people sitting above the dunk tank. With a sinking feeling I realized they were on the card in my stolen camera.

A lot of people took pictures. I called Ramona and Jennifer. I was mad at George and wasn't going to call him, but since he likely took the most pictures I called him, too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WE CERTAINLY COULDN'T meet at the Cozy Corner with our smart phones or cameras, so Jennifer, George, and I met at the paper at noon on Saturday. Ramona was working, and said the only picture she took was of me on the dunk tank plank, but it was a "really good one," just as I was falling in. I didn't want George Winters near that one.

I'd forgotten that traffic quadrupled overnight between Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, so I got to the newspaper office about five minutes after the other two.

"You really should be on time for appointments you set," Jennifer said, as she smoothed the hem on her expensive-looking skirt.

George grinned widely, and stopped when he saw my face.

"Sorry, I had an appraisal appointment and it went longer than I thought." This was not true, of course, but, I figured this would keep her from giving me any more advice.

George turned on a computer that had a large monitor so we could see the pictures better. He had taken more than one-hundred. Some we could rule out quickly. Even if Penny was on the top chair on the Ferris Wheel we wouldn't be able to tell who she was. Turk's back was to the camera for the only one he seemed to be in besides the ones George deliberately took of him on Sunday.

"Why didn't you take any of the ticket booths?" I asked. I was tired of sitting on a hard stool as George inspected every picture for what seemed like forever.

"Oh yeah, that would be a fascinating picture for the front page of the paper," he said.

I leaned forward to pay better attention. "Hey, go back one."

In the center of photo forty-four was someone holding several helium balloons. The person's face was in profile. "There was someone with helium balloons who stole at least one cell phone." I put my nose close to the screen.

"We have this amazing technology, it's called zoom," George said, as he put the back of his hand on the front of my shoulder and pushed me away from the screen.

Jennifer giggled.

"Do you think it looks like someone we know?" I asked, looking at the now slightly blurry photo, in which the helium-balloon holder's head was almost an inch round.

The three of us looked at the person intently. I was pretty sure it was a white woman who had her hair pulled back from her face, but I could tell nothing more.

George clicked the mouse and the next photo had the same person, this time looking straight ahead. As George and I said, "Penny," Jennifer asked, "Is that Scoobie's mother?"

I sat back and stared at George. "She was actually at the carnival."

"Why does it matter if she was there?" Jennifer asked. "The police don't think she was killed there, do they?"

"Nope," George said. He looked at the date on the bottom of the picture. "I took that Friday afternoon at four-thirty."

"It means she likely knew the carnival people pretty well." I stared at the photo. I didn't know Penny from a hole in the wall at that point, but even if I had I might have walked right by her. She had on a jumper, as a clown might wear, but it was unadorned. Because of the balloons a carnival goer might think she was part of the show, but I thought it more likely she was dressed to simply give that impression, likely so she could walk around and pilfer.

"She wanted to be there to steal stuff," George said, quietly.

"Go through more," Jennifer said, and we sat quietly as George moved quickly through the rest of his photos. When there were no more Penny sitings. Jennifer held out her camera's card and he took it and popped it into a slot on the computer.

"Mine are all from Friday night," Jennifer said. "My batteries were dead when I turned it on Saturday."

The lighting wasn't quite as good in her photos. The camera was not a professional one like George's, and it looked to be about six o'clock or thereabouts. There was no time stamp on her pictures.

"Oh my God."

Penny was leaning against the railing that surrounded the Ferris Wheel. She wasn't talking to Turk, but he was maybe five or ten feet from her, carefully helping an older woman out of the Ferris wheel chair.

AFTER GEORGE PRINTED COPIES of the photos for each of us and uploaded Jennifer's to his computer, she said she had an appointment to get her nails done and left.

"So," George said. "Penny seems to know Turk. She might have carried those balloons so she could distract people and steal stuff."

"And she might have stolen the cell phone used to make the 9-1-1 call for Scoobie. You think she...?" I couldn't say it out loud.

"Tried to kill Scoobie?" He thought about his own question for a few seconds. "I doubt it. For one thing, he said he didn't hear someone come up behind him, and she's as graceful as penguin on ice skates."

"But maybe she knows who did."

"Knew, the key point is she can't tell us," George said.

"I can't believe she just 'found' Scoobie. It's too big a coincidence."

George nodded. "I wonder what else she took?" He printed a couple more copies of the photo Jennifer took. "Ocean Alley has three pawn shops. I'll see if she got rid of anything."

"I can..." I began.

"No you can't," George said as he turned off the computer.

"You can't be in three places at once."

"The shop owners all know me." He looked at me. "They mighta heard of you, but they wouldn't talk to you."

I supposed he was right, much as I hated to admit it.

SO I MADE OTHER PLANS. I took a detour to go by the police station. I doubted Morehouse would be there, since it was a Saturday. On the other hand, it was the first big summer weekend, so that might bring him in.

"And you think I would let you listen to that tape why?" he asked.

"Because I think you said the voice of the person who called 9-1-1 was raspy, or somebody said that. Maybe I'll know the voice."

"No."

"Come on, sergeant. I talk to a lot of people. Maybe I'll know the voice."

"Something made you think of this. Tell me what and I might play it for you," he said.

I wasn't about to tell Morehouse that George and I had Penny's picture at the carnival. It wasn't just that I might spoil George's story if Morehouse deemed it evidence that couldn't be in the newspaper. I might even like that. It was more that George had connections I didn't, and I wanted to keep hearing about them.

"Penny smoked. Her voice was kind of raspy."

"It was a man, in case you forgot." Morehouse tapped his pen on his desk.

"How can you be sure?"

He stared at me, impassive.

"It could be her," I insisted.

He sighed and turned to his computer screen. "I'll play it once."

"From your computer?"

He gave me a withering look. "It's all digital."

The voice was slow and sounded fairly calm. "You need to come to the boardwalk. Near the steps by Conch Street. A man is hurt. Come now."

"You ever hear Penny sound like that?" he asked.

"What if she wanted to disguise her voice? She lowers it. Calm would be a disguise for her, too. So would good grammar."

He grunted and played it again, concentrating more than he appeared to the first time he played it. Then he played it again.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Maybe, but a really big maybe." He sighed. "I don't have anything to compare it to."

"I think it's her." I stared at him directly.

He stood up. "Tortino arrested her a lot, for drunk and disorderly. I'll get him to listen again, but I don't know what it gets us."

"It might mean she knew to look for him."

His look was skeptical. "As in she knew someone hurt him? That's a stretch, even for your imagination."

"Maybe the person who hurt him didn't like that she got him help. Somebody didn't want her around anymore."

"A lot of people probably didn't," Morehouse said.

I DON'T THINK SHE meant to cause trouble, but Jennifer nearly ended my friendship with Scoobie. If I had just gone there before I went to see Sgt. Morehouse I might have stopped Jennifer from talking to Scoobie about the photos. How could she have even thought of telling Scoobie?

I walked into Scoobie's room ready to toss him an orange and stopped in the doorway. His face showed a combination of rage and hurt that I'd never seen before.

"So you and George want to know if my mother knew Turk," he said.

"I, we thought..." I began.

"No, you didn't think. You didn't think about whether I would want you to dig into her life. Or I guess I should say her death. That's your thing, isn't it, Jolie?"

I swallowed, but no amount of swallowing would moisten my throat. "It's possible she was traveling with the carnival."

"And what, she decided to sneak up behind me on the boardwalk and erase the mistake she thinks she made by having me in the first place?"

"No, not that. Not that at all."

"And you know this because you were such pals with my mother? You never met her until she came to the hospital."

"She may have saved you, Scoobie."

He stared at me for a couple seconds. "What do you mean?"

I started to sit in the chair by his bed.

"You don't need to sit."

Scoobie isn't usually petty. If he hadn't picked that time to be, I might have continued to stumble through the conversation, making excuses as I went. But he ticked me off, so I found my voice.

"You want to know, I'll tell you. I don't need your snotty attitude." I glared at him. My guess was his face mirrored mine. If he had been able he would have stormed out of the room.

"You know what? I don't want to know. I didn't ask you to dig around in my life. Or hers. You can tell George that, too."

"Tell him yourself." I walked out.

THE WORST THING WAS, I couldn't even walk on the beach or take a run on the boardwalk. Every inch of beach was covered by well-oiled bodies sporting bikinis or Speedos. And half of them shouldn't have come within five yards of a swimsuit without losing forty pounds. I sucked in my tummy and wiped tears of fury from my eyes.

Ramona was working, and she'd just say she told me to back off. Jazz. She was never mad at me. I pulled into the Cozy Corner B&B and got the last parking spot in Aunt Madge's small parking area. I rationalized that any guest who wasn't in the B&B would be at the beach for many more hours.

"Rats." The side entrance was locked. Aunt Madge is fastidious about locking it once the beach season is in full swing. I hadn't carried a key all winter, since she only locked the door at night in the off-season, and I didn't want to knock. However, since it was now summer rental season, the front door would probably be open.

I walked around the side of the house and onto the front porch. Since I was in that part of the house I went up the main staircase and walked toward my room, which is closer to the back stairs.

As I walked from the staircase landing onto the second floor, I saw Marcus Hardy in the hallway just outside the room I still thought of as Penny's room. Why is he here? His room is on the third floor.

He looked startled for a second and then gave me his wide grin. "I should never drink in the middle of the day. I'm on the wrong floor." He steadied himself on the door jamb.

He didn't look really drunk, but then again I didn't know how drunk differed from sober for him. "I can relate to that," I said. "You, uh, need directions?"

"Nope. Ta taa." He gave me a four-fingered wave and walked past me and climbed the stairs toward the third floor.

"Ta taa?" I repeated, softly.

When I opened the door to my room Jazz darted from under the bed and tried to charge out, but I scooped her up and shut the door behind me. While she would usually swat at me for impeding her exit, this time she put her front paws around my neck and snuggled in.

"What's with you?" I sat in my rocking chair stroking her, still thinking about Mr. Mystery Writer Marcus. As an occasional sneak myself, I recognized the guilty look. What did he want in another guest's room?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I CARRIED JAZZ DOWN THE back staircase and walked into Aunt Madge's living area. She was at her oak table with a cup of hot tea and a recipe book.

"Going to try something new?" I asked, hoping she wasn't still too mad.

She didn't look up. "One of the guests gave me some special flour for his muffins for tomorrow. He's allergic to gluten." Her tone was cool, but not totally unfriendly.

"How long is Mr. Hardy staying?"

"Marcus is going back on Tuesday or Wednesday."

Marcus. She never calls her guests by their first names.

"How's his book coming?"

At this she did look up. "I don't know. The way he chit chats and goes to Java Jolt I can't imagine he has a lot of time to write."

"Does he strike you as a bit...odd?" I asked.

"Odd, how?" she frowned.

"I don't know. I just found him on my floor wandering around. He was by Penny's room."

"I'm not sure I like your nomenclature," she said, dryly.

Nomenclature? Sometimes I forget Aunt Madge was an art history major with an English minor. "Yeah, me either." I sat next to her. "He said he guessed he was on the wrong floor."

She thought for a moment. "That is about where his room is on the third floor. And he does seem kind of fickle sometimes." She shrugged. "Aren't all writers a bid odd?"

"I guess. Makes me want to lock my door."

"You should in the summer." She went back to her recipe book.

I stood. "I'm going to the library. You have anything that needs to go back?"

She looked up for a second. "I don't think so."

"I'm getting some books for Scoobie."

At that her fact brightened. "I'm so glad. He said just yesterday he wasn't reading much because the pain medicines make it hard to concentrate."

Nuts. Caught in a lie I didn't even have to tell.

DAPHNE SAID SCOOBIE had been reading a lot of Agatha Christie novels just before he was hurt.

"Agatha Christie? That doesn't sound like Scoobie," I said.

"He reads anything, but, personally, I think he's trying to figure out what makes you tick." She shrugged at me.

"I can't even do that." I started toward the mystery section. "Can you tell me what he's read?"

"Only if he says I can."

I looked back toward her. "Privacy." She turned toward a child who wanted to check out a book.

"Rats," I mumbled. I'd just have to guess. I picked out two that were near the end of a listing of her books, rationalizing that he would have started with her early ones and worked forward. Then I went to the racks that had the last month's newspapers. It made sense to me that Penny had been pilfering while she was in Ocean Alley. I hoped I would see a crime with her initials on it.

The crime report is usually on the second page of each day's Ocean Alley Press. There's no Sunday paper, so Monday's is a long list, especially in the summer. I went to the Saturday of the carnival weekend. There were several DUIs, one public indecency arrest, and two car break-ins. Not too bad for a weekend. I looked at the break-in locations, noting they were nowhere near the carnival.

Monday was a different story. In addition to the usual post-weekend number of DUIs, three people had reported "items stolen from person," which I figured meant pick pocketing. Two were "location unknown" and one said only "church parking lot." I thought for a moment. The unknown locations likely meant someone noticed the theft but didn't know when it occurred. There were no names with the listings.

"That's no help," I muttered to myself. There were two more indecency arrests (you can always tell when the weather's warm) and there had been a fistfight outside the Sandpiper on Sunday. That wouldn't be Penny, she was passed out at the Cozy Corner.

Since I didn't know much about where Penny was after her last appearance at the hospital, I checked Tuesday through Thursday. Nothing looked relevant. I looked at Friday, which had the very short note about Penny's death. At the top of that page was a two-paragraph article about the Landon family arriving home after several days' absence to find "a number of items missing from their home." Among them were a set of all of the state quarters, an "unknown amount of cash," and the "family silver service." Someone had gained entry by making a slit in the screened porch and then going in the unlocked door that led from the screened porch into the house.

Why didn't Morehouse say anything about that after he saw the silverware in Penny's bag? Because he would consider it none of your business.

I usually thought of "silver service" to be a tea service, but I'm hardly an Emily Post kind of gal. It could be silverware. My instinct said "an unknown amount of cash" didn't necessarily mean the amount Penny appeared to have in her small suitcase, though I didn't know exactly how much she had.

My mind wandered. On Friday, Scoobie saw Turk and told him to stay away from local kids. Turk was mad and maybe beat up Scoobie, and maybe Penny found her son. Penny left her stash at Aunt Madge's, surely planning to return. Then someone killed her. Was it someone who knew she had called an ambulance for Scoobie? Someone who wanted her stash? Then I remembered the nurse said that Scoobie's head injury probably was inflicted not long before he was found. How did that fit in?

My cell phone chirped and I jumped. "Hello?"

"Why are you whispering?" George asked.

"I'm in the library."

"Meet me at Newhart's." He hung up.

I fumed as I gathered my books. Who does he think he is, ordering me to meet him at Newhart's?

GEORGE HAD TWO MILKSHAKES sitting in front of him and was almost bouncing in his chair. "Bow to the master," he said, as I sat.

"In your dreams. What? What did you find out?"

He pushed the chocolate shake toward me and opened his thin notebook. There was a list of items. "The Friday of the carnival weekend Penny pawned a laptop, two solid silver picture frames, a very old men's pocket watch, a bunch of Hank Aaron baseball cards, and two smaller flat-screen TVs."

"Didn't the pawnshop owner wonder where she got all that?" I asked.

"If she had taken it to one place, maybe, but she went to all three shops."

"So...she came into town with all that?"

"My guess would be that she steals stuff one place and pawns it in another."

I nodded. "Makes sense." I paused. "She might have stolen some silverware while she was here."

"Why do you say that?" George asked.

"Short article in the paper the Friday after the carnival. Family had been away and found some things taken when they returned."

"That's right, the Landons. I saw that."

"I figured you wrote it."

"Nope. Newbies do the police blotter and stuff like that."

"So, she steals stuff and pawns it. Wait! Maybe that's why she was wearing better clothes the day I saw her at the Budget Inn."

"Yeah, makes sense," George said, slowly. "I don't know what we gain by knowing that."

"Doesn't matter. It gives me a reason why she might have had money for better clothes."

"Oh yeah, 'cause if you have a reason everything's okay." He said this with a sarcastic look.

"Cut it out." I drank more of my milkshake. "So, we don't know if she still sells on line." I paused. "Nuts, even if she pawned stuff and sold it other ways, it doesn't sound like a lot of money, nothing like how much was in her little suitcase."

"I thought you didn't know the amount," he said, suspicious.

I shrugged. "I don't. Just looked like a lot." I shrugged. "Maybe some was from selling stuff she stole and some was in one of the houses she broke into."

He slurped his milkshake and then sat back in his chair. "Maybe she was working with someone."

"And they were dumb enough to let her hold the money?" I asked.

"Yeah, they'd have to be pretty dumb," he agreed.

"Did you ever find out what happened to the two people she was arrested with in New York?"

"They haven't been arrested again, that I could find out, anyway." He flipped back a few pages in his notebook. "Guy got out of the county jail after his thirty days and wasn't on any kind of parole. Girl was on probation, but her time was up more than a couple years ago."

We stared at our respective milkshakes. "I made Morehouse play the 9-1-1 call about Scoobie. I think it could have been Penny."

"You're kidding. He would never do that for me."

I shrugged. "Maybe he has different rules for reporters."

"And...?" he said.

"I thought it sounded like it could be her, making her voice really low."

"What would make her even look for him?" George asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe she followed Turk?"

"Followed from where?" George said.

"The Sandpiper," we said, together.

"My favorite joint," said Lester Argrow.

I looked up at him. "I thought you liked Burger King."

Lester motioned that I should move over and he slid into the booth next to me. "I knew you was gonna do some detecting about Scoobie. You shoulda called me."

From the look on his face, George was about to lose his milkshake.

"We're just talking," I said. "Kind of odd that Scoobie gets hurt and then his mother gets killed."

"Scoobie getting' hurt, yeah, but I woulda off'd that broad if I coulda gotten away with it. I had to watch out for her every time I went to Burger King to meet clients."

George grinned. "I forgot you use Burger King for your office."

"Saves me makin' coffee in the office. Course I gotta buy them theirs." He frowned. "I was goin' to Java Jolt for a while, but the coffee's a lot higher."

"What do you mean watch out?" I asked.

"If it was the end of the month she always wanted to 'borrow' a couple bucks," he said. He got a food server's eye and mimed drinking coffee.

I remembered George saying Penny used to sit on the curb outside the Sandpiper. "Hey, Lester." I pushed my milkshake away and turned to face him. "Your building is kind of catty-corner to the Sandpiper, right?"

"Yeah, which is why I gotta walk by it to get to Burger King, brainchild."

George's eyes lit up. "Brainchild?"

"Do you have cameras? Security cameras, I mean?" I asked.

"Couple, yeah. Mostly just to scare people off..."

"Do they show the Sandpiper entrance?" George asked, catching on.

"Sure, somebody gonna piss on the sidewalk near the steps up to my office or throw up in the planter on the ground floor they're probably coming from Sandpiper," Lester said.

I almost asked why he was concerned about that, but I didn't really care. "How long do you keep your tapes?"

"I don't keep any," Lester said.

My heart sank.

"But the company monitors them keeps them for a few weeks, then reuses them. Why?"

LESTER ARGUED WITH THE security firm for ten minutes. They were not going to go through the tapes to find the ones from two weekends ago, not on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.

"How about for a hundred bucks?" he finally said.

When whoever he was talking to didn't seem to respond immediately I knew we were going to get to see those tapes.

WE COULD SEE THEM, BUT ONLY IF WE WENT through them ourselves. Sitting between Lester and George was kind of like being squashed on the New York subway on a hot day. Plus, they were crabby, each wanting to be the alpha male of security tape screening.

George had expected an organized box of videotapes so we could watch in some order, but the security firm box said only "Argrow, May" on the side. "I can't believe they don't put dates on these," George fumed.

I couldn't either, but I kept my mouth shut and put another VHS tape into the player. After the fourth tape, I said, "You know, Lester, if you get a security firm that uses digital recordings they could label the files more easily and keep them on a computer indefinitely."

"So I could watch people barf on the curb over and over?"

Charming. "Good point."

Penny was on the seventh tape we fast forwarded through. Thankfully she had on the same leotards she'd worn to the hospital that first Sunday Scoobie was in there, so she wasn't hard to spot.

"Okay," George said. "She's in, now we have to see when she goes out."

"You learn that kind of thinkin' in college?" Lester asked.

"And we need to see who walks out before her," I said, before George could respond.

We were still fast-forwarding, but more slowly. After about ten minutes I'd guess maybe an hour of time had passed on the tape. Turk and two other men walked out of the Sandpiper, and Turk pointed in the direction of Burger King. For Lester's benefit, I said, "Scoobie said that Turk saw him and called that Scoobie should join him for a drink."

"Scoobie don't drink no more," Lester said.

"No kidding," George said, looking at the screen.

Scoobie entered the frame and he and Turk walked into the Sandpiper. "He knew that guy before," I said.

Though the tapes weren't timed in any way, my guess was less than ten minutes went by before Scoobie came out, walking fast and looking angry. "From what he said, I think that's about one or one-thirty," George said.

I nodded. Turk came out less than a minute later and followed Scoobie, and soon after that came Penny. She looked up and down the street and then walked in the direction Turk had gone. She looked steadier on her feet than she did when I met her on Sunday, but she was not a fast walker.

George ejected the tape. He nodded at Lester. "I'd like to keep this, if it's okay."

"For the hundred bucks I paid you can have five of them," Lester said.

I'd had enough of Lester and George to last me for a month. It took a while to ditch Lester, but George I needed to talk to. I finally said I had Scoobie's library books in my car and George said he had to finish a story on Memorial Day traffic headaches.

Without agreeing in advance, George and I drove to the hospital. He walked over to my car as I was getting out.

"I need to tell you about Scoobie," I said.

"You mean like he's in the hospital after someone tried to kill him?" George asked.

"No, I mean after Jennifer was at the paper with us she told him we were looking at pictures of Penny and Turk. He's really, really angry with us."

George stopped walking and faced me. "She did what?"

I just nodded. "Really mad."

He leaned against a car. "Damn. I never trust a woman who gets her nails done."

Doesn't sound as if George dates too many women. "He already basically threw me out. Why don't you try talking to him?"

GEORGE WAS BACK in the lobby in less than ten minutes. "Ramona's with him. They ganged up on me."

"Yeah, she thought I should leave it all alone, too."

"He'll get over it," George said, seemingly more to convince himself than me.

It was well into Saturday evening, and the drive to the hospital had been slow because Ocean Alley's streets were teeming with beach-happy visitors. I wanted to go home.

"I'm ready to call it a day. I don't know where to go with any of this except the police."

"Uh, uh," George said. "I've got a story here."

"I thought you were worried about bad guys learning more about Scoobie."

George gave me a look that seemed to imply I could drop dead anytime. "I'm holding it until I can say who they are and maybe help get them arrested."

I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT Mystery-Writer-Marcus, but when I got back to the Cozy Corner Saturday evening he was playing Scrabble in the kitchen with Aunt Madge.

"There she is," he called, giving me his toothpaste-commercial smile. "I heard you tattled on me."

I tried not to look as surprised as I felt. A guest in the enclave? "You did surprise me, that's for sure."

"I have promised Madge I will learn to count better."

He missed Aunt Madge's eye roll in my direction. But when he turned back to her she smiled.

She's having fun.

"Are your friends at the wedding?" I asked.

"Yes, the reception should be more than half over by now," she said.

Marcus grinned at me. "I tried to talk Madge into crashing the reception with me, but she didn't seem to think that was very proper."

"I'm not too interested in going where I'm not...expected." She gave me a meaningful look.

I ignored her barb and nodded at the board. "She usually wins."

I begged off their request to join them in a new game and was brushing my teeth, with Jazz keeping me company on the edge of the sink, when I heard Marcus climbing the back stairs to his room. I didn't especially like him using "my" stairs, but if Aunt Madge was willing to play Scrabble with him that was good enough for me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE BEST THING ABOUT the Internet is you can find information almost instantly. A not so good thing is that sometimes I need more time to think before I act, and instant information kind of hinders that.

I walked over to Java Jolt Sunday morning to use the Internet. East Jersey Entertainment's web site said its two "carnival teams" would be in Point Pleasant Beach and Atlantic City for Memorial Day weekend. Atlantic City was not practical for a quick visit. It is a long way south of Ocean Alley. More important, I had no intention of setting foot in the town where my ex-husband said he "lost big at the tables." Point Pleasant was even closer than Asbury Park, so I hoped Turk was at that carnival.

I know George goes to Saint Anthony's on Sunday morning, so I had no one to talk to about my idea. No one to talk you out of it. Besides, he might want to do something his way, and I generally preferred mine.

It was ten-thirty. Aunt Madge wouldn't be home from First Prez until at least noon, later if she stayed for coffee. I would leave her a note saying I was visiting Scoobie and it would be awhile before she wondered where I was. I would have time to go to the carnival in Point Pleasant and get back to Ocean Alley before she thought about me. Much.

I figured Scoobie was still mad at me, but I did have the Agatha Christie books for him, and if I stopped by the hospital I would not be totally lying to Aunt Madge.

It was almost eleven when I got to the hospital. Scoobie's room was empty, so I looked down the hall. He was dressed in sweatpants and a tee shirt and was walking along the hall holding onto the handrail. A nursing assistant was trailing him with Scoobie's walker. When they turned to walk back toward his room, Scoobie took the walker from the nursing assistant.

He concentrated on his walking and I noticed Scoobie's gait was more natural now. Apparently he was in less pain. He saw me from about fifty feet away and just shook his head at me. He said nothing to me as the nursing assistant walked him back in the room and helped him settle in a chair.

"You don't have to talk to me," I said, when I was sure the man was out of hearing distance.

"Thank you for reminding me I have freedom of speech, and it includes not speaking to anyone," he said.

I put the two books on the bed. "Daphne said you like Agatha Christie."

"I'm tired of her."

I felt my mouth twitch and tried to look serious again.

"I'm seriously mad at you, Jolie."

"I know. I'm just here for a minute and I'll leave you alone."

"That would be good."

I left.

I HAD ONE STOP TO MAKE en route to the carnival. Two really. I bought flowers from the small refrigerator of flowers in Mr. Markle's store and plopped them in a vase that was in my trunk. I had taken it from Scoobie's hospital room a couple days ago. After his flowers had died, of course.

It looked as if Manasquan was as crowded as Ocean Alley for the holiday weekend. The Parkers were on the deck at the back of their house, which faced the street, when I pulled into their driveway. Bob Parker was on a chaise lounge and had a laptop in front of him. With guilt I figured it was probably a replacement for one stolen when their house was burglarized.

"Jolie, is that you?" asked Mrs. Parker, as I got out of the car.

I had meant to look up their first names. My brain seems to be foggy about half of everything since Scoobie was hurt. "Yes, Carol, it's me."

"Caroline," she said, still smiling.

Mr. Parker, whom I thought was named Ralph, stood and placed the laptop on his lounger. "What brings you back again?"

He didn't look especially happy to see me, and I didn't blame him. What appraiser loses her camera and comes back with a throwaway camera to redo the pictures? And then has her stolen camera become the apparent basis for a home burglary.

I reached into the floor of my car's back seat and pulled out the vase of flowers. "I thought I'd bring a peace offering."

"Goodness, it wasn't your fault someone stole your camera," Caroline said. She was walking the few steps down from the deck and held her hand out for the small vase. "They smell wonderful." Caroline Parker was petite and lithe at the same time and her light brown hair practically shone in the sunshine. I sucked in my tummy a bit.

"Come on up and have some iced tea," Ralph said, gesturing to one of several chairs on the deck.

My flowers seemed to have wilted his reserve, so I sat and Caroline placed the vase of flowers on their expensive-looking picnic table on the deck. "I appreciate your attitude, but I still feel very badly about the burglary. You had so much taken."

Ralph waved his hand. "Nothing that couldn't be replaced."

"They even left my purse," Caroline said.

"I heard that." I took the tea she poured for me. "Harry said that's one reason the police thought they studied the photos and planned from there."

Ralph nodded. "We've decided that our next house will not have our name on a sign out front. Though I suppose they could have found us anyway. I'm sure Harry told you we declined his company's offer to pay our five-hundred dollar deductible."

Funny he didn't mention that. All I said was, "That's generous of you." I wonder if Harry cashed my check? "I know money can't fully replace what you had."

Caroline's face lit up. "Oh, we're getting a lot of it back. They found it in a pawn shop in Newark. It will be awhile, though. The police said they want to see if it's tied to any other thefts."

"They seem to think there could be a few thieves working together, stealing things and pawning them in different towns," Ralph said. "In fact, they borrowed our security tapes to see if they can identify anyone." He shrugged. "I doubt they will. I looked at them. The people had on hooded sweatshirts and huge sunglasses. You can't even tell if they're men or women."

TWO DAYS AGO I'D never thought of looking at anyone's security tapes, and now I was interested in two sets of tapes. Not that I'd be able to see the ones from the Parker's house. I was still thinking about who I could convince to let me see their tapes when I pulled into Point Pleasant. My plan was to let Turk see me and hope he wouldn't ignore me. I'd find a way to tell him Scoobie was doing much better but couldn't remember what had happened after he left the Sandpiper the night he got hurt. For effect, I'd say he couldn't even remember much of that entire day. That would let Turk know he didn't need to worry about Scoobie saying anything that would implicate Turk -- whether about selling joints or pushing people down stairs. Scoobie would be safe.

In the meantime, George's story aside, I needed to find a way to tell Sgt. Morehouse about Turk seeming to follow Scoobie out of the Sandpiper and Penny definitely following Turk. I hadn't worked out how to let Morehouse know I knew this. If Lester told Ramona about the tapes, then Morehouse or Tortino would know the same day, and I could honestly tell George I didn't mention the security tapes to the police. I hoped Lester would tell her.

One month ago I'd have ratted out George on anything that would get him in hot water. Now that he might find out something I wanted to know, I'd have to keep my more petty inclinations to myself. And Scoobie did seem to like him a lot.

My cell phone chirped as I got out of my car at the Point Pleasant carnival site, which was on a large lot at the edge of town.

"Where are you?" George asked.

"I'll be back in town in a bit." I turned off the car.

"You're up to something," he said.

I didn't bother to ask why everyone said the same thing to me. "I thought of a way to keep Turk away from Scoobie."

"So where are you?" he asked.

"Not too far out of town."

"Damn it, Jolie. I don't know whether to be madder because you're being shady or because you might get to part of the story before I do."

"It's not a story to me." I slammed my car door. I could feel my face redden with every step I took toward the carnival entrance. "It's not a game, George. It's about..."

"Keeping Scoobie, all of us, safe. I get that. Did you stop to think what you're doing could work against that?"

"I'll see you later, George." I hung up the phone and did not answer when he called three more times.

THIS CARNIVAL SITE WAS more similar to the set-up in Ocean Alley than the one in Asbury Park. It was smaller, without the kiddie roller coaster. The booths were more crammed together, so that I sometimes had to step sideways to pass a cluster of people buying tickets for the rides or waiting in line for food.

I hadn't bothered with my baseball cap or large sunglasses. I wanted to be seen. After a quick walk-through I spotted Turk at the Ferris Wheel. Idly I wondered why he'd been at the High Striker in Ocean Alley, if only briefly, and decided carnival workers need potty breaks, too. If only he hadn't been there, if only Scoobie hadn't seen him.

There were no obvious indications that he was selling anything, but I didn't really care about that. Alicia's face floated into my brain and I decided I did care about kids having easy access to drugs, but I cared more about getting this guy to forget about Scoobie.

Unlike amusement areas that sit on or near the boardwalk, there were few children in wet bathing suits or parents running after them with sun screen. There were more groups of families, some of whom looked as if they might have come from church. I sat on a bench across from the Ferris Wheel and chatted for a few minutes with a young mother who had a two-year old on her lap and looked ready to deliver another kidlet any day.

After about fifteen minutes Turk finally saw me. I smiled and gave him the kind of four-finger wave Marcus had bestowed on me. He stared for at least five seconds and then turned to slow down the Ferris Wheel so riders could get off and on. I hoped I made him nervous.

After a few minutes I bought lemonade from a nearby food vendor and took my seat again, this time next to a couple of teenagers who couldn't keep their hands off each other. A couple of times Turk glanced at me, careful to pretend he was looking at something else.

After another half-hour went by, the blonde carnival worker who had also overseen the High Striker walked over, seemingly to give Turk a break. I stood as Turk walked out the small gated area that surrounded the Ferris Wheel. He ambled toward me, hands in the pockets of a pair of faded blue jeans that had a streak of grease across one knee. His expression was a combination of cocky and cautious.

"Hello, Stefan." I used the name he had introduced himself with when he came to the hospital. "I thought you'd like to know how Scoobie is."

His expression grew less wary, but he still looked uneasy. "Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about Scoobie."

I bet you have. "He's walking, doing a lot of physical therapy, and he'll likely be able to go back to college for the summer term." I gave him what I hoped was a sweet smile.

"College? Scoobie? You're kidding."

"Of course not. He's very smart. Surely you remember that from when you worked together before."

The wary expression returned. He seemed to realize that I had talked to Scoobie about how they knew each other. "Yes, very smart," he said.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. "It's too bad his memory isn't as good as usual. He has no idea how he hurt himself a couple of weeks ago. Can't even remember most of that day."

"That's, uh, too bad," Turk said. I thought he looked relieved.

"I'll let you get back to work." I started to turn, but he reached out and gripped my right hand with both of his.

"Tell him I think of him often," he emphasized the last word, then let go of my hand and quickly walked away.

Though I was a bit flustered by the handshake, I gave myself a mental pat on the back and walked toward the exit. This had gone even better than I had hoped, and I'd be home by the middle of the afternoon.

As I unlocked my car a man's voice said, "Please turn around slowly."

For some reason I wasn't scared. It was daylight and I was in a carnival parking lot, not a dark alley. I turned to look at a man in his mid-forties who was in shorts and a knit cotton top. "Ok, who are you?"

"I'm with the Point Pleasant Police, and we'd like to ask you a few questions."

I SAT IN THE SMALL POLICE STATION, and cursed inwardly. I was pleased that local police were keeping an eye on Turk, but collaring me was not what I had in mind when I told Morehouse I thought Turk was selling drugs to kids.

Officer McMichaels listened to me when I said why I was there, but he still drove me to the station in his unmarked car. He didn't make me sit in the back seat, but he did make me show him the contents of my purse before we got in his car. McMichaels said he would call the Ocean Alley Police to verify that they knew me and I was not likely to have talked to Turk about buying drugs. I hoped that was what he was doing. I wanted to get home. I heard him laugh as he came back down the small hallway.

He looked at me and grinned. "Sergeant Morehouse says I'm supposed to ask you how it feels to be hoisted on your own petard?"

The exact meaning of the expression eluded me, though I thought it meant to mess up big time. "I take it he vouched for me?" I stood.

"I wouldn't go that far, but he did say you wouldn't be buying anything illicit." He grew more serious. "He also said to please call him when you get back to Ocean Alley."

"He said please?" I asked.

"Actually, no. He said to get your ass in gear and call him when you get back to town."

I WAS NEVER GOING TO hear the end of it. Morehouse was furious with me for "yet again butting in," and he apparently thought that the best way to get me to at least consider minding my own business was to tell Aunt Madge where I had gone. He must have called her as soon as I left the station.

"When you were young your mother and I would just say you were hard-headed. Your father actually thought you were adorable when you insisted on wearing what you wanted when your mother wanted you to wear a dress." She was mixing the dough for the next morning's muffins, and it looked as if she would stir so hard the wooden spoon would soon poke out of the bottom of the bowl.

"But..." I began.

"There are no buts!" She waved the spoon at me and a splatter of dough fell to the floor. Mr. Rogers beat Miss Piggy to it.

"It's just..."

"I can't even imagine how your mind works. Do you know how dangerous it could be to talk to a man like that? And on your own, no less?"

"I was making it less dangerous for Scoobie." I stared at her, determined not to be made to feel like an errant child any longer.

"You don't know that. You might just as easily..."

There was a knock on the door that led from the kitchen to the breakfast room and we both turned toward it. Mr. Mystery-Writer-Marcus stuck his head in. "It doesn't usually sound like a war zone around here."

Aunt Madge looked aghast. She had probably thought all of her guests were at the beach. "I'm so sorry, Marcus."

I didn't mind seeing him. "Come on in."

He nodded at me, but his attention was for Aunt Madge. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. "I'm just mad at Jolie about something. Families get that way sometimes. I'm sorry if we alarmed you."

We? I wasn't yelling.

"I can occasionally be annoying," I said.

"Occasionally?" Aunt Madge said, under her breath. She returned to stirring her muffin mix.

I looked at Marcus. "I was doing something on behalf of my friend who's in the hospital. Aunt Madge thinks," she shot me a glance, "that I should perhaps leave well enough alone."

Mystery-Writer-Marcus's expression was sympathetic. "I know you've both been very concerned about your friend."

"In fact, I'm on my way to see him now." Pleased with the opportunity to escape Aunt Madge's ire I picked up my purse and walked through the guest dining room to the side door and out to my car.

George Winters was about to knock on the Cozy Corner front door, and he looked like the cat who swallowed a canary. "I can't believe you pissed off Sgt. Morehouse again."

I should have hidden in my room "How do you hear this stuff so fast?"

"You know how I make my living, right?" When I just looked at him, he added, "I'm friends with a couple of the younger cops."

Once he'd heard about the conversation with Turk it was fairly easy to ditch George. I went to the hospital and told Scoobie what I had done.

He wasn't angry with me, "Since it wouldn't matter to you anyway," as he put it. Scoobie accepted that I had been "acting in good faith. But you might want to try a different religion or something."

I was sitting in his guest chair with my feet on his bed. He was in the patient recliner eating supper, carefully raising his fork so he could extend the bites of food across his cervical collar. "Personally, I think it was pretty smart to go see him in broad daylight, in front of God and everybody," I said. "He can't come looking for me now, everyone would know I maybe made him mad."

"Maybe?" He dropped mashed potatoes on his tray and tried another scoop.

"I don't care if he's mad at me or anybody else. He's the one who pushed you Scoobie. And the nurse said your head injury was probably long after you fell down the steps, so he must have gone back in the morning."

He regarded me stonily. "You don't know that." He considered his words. "Not that I'm sticking up for the son-of-a-bitch." He laughed, wryly. "Wait, that's me!"

"You really are sick," I said.

"And you think I'm in the hospital for the food?"

I knew I had to tread carefully. "I listened to the 9-1-1 tape. I think it was Penny who called it in."

That stopped him. He sat down his fork. "And you know her so well you recognized her voice? Hey, Morehouse told me a couple days ago that it was a guy."

"Sounded like her, disguising her voice. Morehouse was going to have Lt. Tortino listen. I guess he knows her better."

"If she was so hell-bent on saving me, why didn't she even stick around to see me?" He considered this. "Not that I wanted to see her."

I didn't know what he knew of his mother during the past few years, and I certainly hadn't told him anything about where his mother lived until earlier in the year and what she'd done to land herself in prison. And I wasn't about to. "I'm not saying she was a good person or anything."

"How do you make the leap to even think it was her on the phone?"

"For one thing, it was a stolen cell phone..."

"That sounds like my mother."

"Belonged to a guy who had it stolen at the carnival. And the pictures George and Jennifer took of her at the Ocean Alley carnival make it look as if she wanted people to think she worked there, but she really didn't."

I told him about the unadorned clown jumper and helium balloons, and that the phone's owner said someone carrying balloons had bumped into him and likely taken the phone at that time.

"Humph. That was one of her tricks of the trade." His voice grew bitter. "She thought she made everything all right by bringing me a balloon."

"I'm sorry, Scoobie."

"It's not an 'I'm sorry' deal. She was a lousy mother, a lousy person. I don't wish anybody dead. Well, maybe Hitler." He paused. "But I'm really glad I never have to see her again."

I decided to skip telling him about the security camera tapes. Lester surely would. I felt guilty for avoiding the topic, but I didn't need to be thrown out of Scoobie's room again.

Ramona came in and stood looking at me. "Tell me you didn't."

"OK. I didn't."

She looked at Scoobie. "I can't really nod, but she did." He looked at me. "Don't lie to Ramona."

I'd had enough of being told off. I sat up in the chair and turned to look directly at Ramona. "He won't bother Scoobie now. He wouldn't dare."

She just stared at me.

"How did you know, anyway?" I asked her.

"George. I think he's working on a story."
CHAPTER TWENTY

I KNEW IT WAS TOO GOOD to be true. George Winters was going to be sure I was in a story and I wouldn't come out of it in a good light. He asked me to meet him in Java Jolt and said he wanted me to read something.

Though it was Monday of Memorial Day weekend, Java Jolt was not as crowded as I'd expected. There had been a large concert in the municipal parking lot the night before and a number of visitors were apparently sleeping in. As I'd walked along the boardwalk it looked as if some of the sun worshippers were actually sleeping it off on the beach.

I ordered an iced coffee and selected a table that was not close to others. George banged the door as he came in and plopped a page of text in front of me. He stared at me until I started to read.

Acting on her belief that a carnival worker was responsible for serious injuries an Ocean Alley resident sustained two weeks ago, local real estate appraiser Jolie Gentil went to Point Pleasant on Sunday to confront the man she believes shoved the resident down a flight of concrete steps. (The Ocean Alley Press does not identify crime victims if doing so could endanger them.)

Though the carnival worker's behavior has not been determined, Gentil made a point of visiting him to let him know the local resident was recovring. She believed this would annoy the crap out of the man and he would stay the hell out of town.

"I've been thinking about what you did. This," George said when he saw I had finished reading, "is what I'll write if you do anything that stupid again."

"You aren't my mother. And you misspelled 'recovering.'" I smiled with what I hoped was an innocent expression. We were talking in hushed tones, since Joe Regan seemed very interested in our conversation.

"Look, you can get yourself killed whenever you want, but for Pete's sake, go out doing something exciting, or noble, or at least interesting. Then I'd have a story." He got up to order from the counter.

As Joe passed George his coffee he winked at me. "Lester was looking for you, Jolie."

"Great." I needed Lester like a barefoot beachcomber needs sharp shells on the beach. On the other hand, I did appreciate his insistence that his security firm let us see the security tapes.

George sat back down. "Listen," he began.

"Are you going to show Sgt. Morehouse those tapes?" I asked.

"When I finally write a story he'll hit the ceiling and my editor will turn them over."

"I'm surprised he hasn't made you already. It shows Turk following Scoobie and Penny following him. You guys aren't in the business of covering up crimes."

"I'm not dumb enough to show them to my editor yet. Besides, the tapes might qualify as a lead, but they don't show a crime."

He added more sugar to his coffee. "And I checked businesses near those steps Scoobie got pushed down. None of them point cameras there. And back when it happened, for two days running I talked to people who have businesses there. No one saw anything. It was too early in the morning."

"Except maybe Penny."

"And she's not talking," George said.

"You do your thing George, I'm done."

"Whaddya mean you're done?" His voice rose. "We don't know who did anything!"

"All right, George," Joe Regan said.

George scowled at him.

"I know what I think I need to know," I lowered my voice even more, "to keep Scoobie safe. Everything about how Turk acted at the hospital that night and at the carnival in Pleasant Point yesterday tells me he went after Scoobie. And now he thinks Scoobie won't tell anybody about that."

"But you don't know why," George said.

"I don't need to know why, that's your department. Besides, I have a lot of fences to mend, starting with Harry." And I want to know if he'll tell me the Parkers won't take my money for their deductible.

"Damn, Jolie. Just when I get used to you, you turn everything upside down. You're being a spoilsport."

"Nope. I'm just willing to read all about it in your paper."

"See, you are still interested." George's expression reminded me of a kid asking for just one more piece of candy. "Come on, Jolie, you like working with me."

I considered that as I stood to leave. "I don't know if I'd go that far, but I like it when you're focused on somebody other than me." I gave him my four-fingered wave. I'd have to thank Marcus-Hardy-mystery-writer for giving me that little gem.

MOST OF MONDAY I did homebody things like laundry, walking the dogs, and beating Aunt Madge to the sink to do the dishes from the afternoon tea she served her guests. She could tell I was sucking up to her, and a couple times I could swear I saw something like a smirk on her face.

I decided I wouldn't go to the hospital until early evening. Better Scoobie should have a chance to miss me. When I got there Ramona was sitting across from Scoobie in a patient lounge area. They were playing chess and I could tell Scoobie was beating her. I wouldn't bother to play with him. He'd beat me in six moves.

"Hey guys," I plopped into a chair.

"How's the mayhem maker?" Scoobie asked, without looking up.

I took his tone to mean things between us were back to normal. It felt good.

The chess game was over in short order. We spent more than an hour playing a game of Trivial Pursuit that was in a bookcase in the lounge, which has a more homey environment than the rest of the hospital because the rehab patients can be there for weeks rather than days. We finally realized that it was the original version of the game and a lot of the answers had been superseded by time. Pluto is no longer the smallest planet and most of the sports records had been overtaken in the last couple decades.

I HAD STAYED LATER than I'd planned at the hospital and it was nine-thirty when Ramona and I walked to my car. I popped the locks and was pulling open my driver's side door when Ramona shrieked and tumbled out of sight. I ran around the car and saw Ramona sitting on the ground with her ankle in the grip of a gloved hand.

I kicked at the hand and missed and got Ramona in the thigh. "Ow!" she shrieked.

I reached for the hand and it disappeared under the car. I looked toward Ramona and got half a face full of pepper spray.

"My eyes!" I stood up fully and jumped in place. One eye was almost completely shut and the other streaming with tears.

I could hear Ramona getting to her feet. Someone grabbed my shoulder and I wrenched myself away, not sure if it was Ramona or whoever belonged to the hand. The hand felt much bigger than Ramona's. It seemed to run halfway down my back.

"Hey, are you okay?" It was a man's voice and I could hear feet running toward us, but all I could think about was my burning eyes.

"Jolie, I'm so sorry. I have some water in my bag."

I could hear Ramona fumbling in her shoulder bag and I groped in my pocket for a tissue. The only thing streaming down my face more than tears was mucus. What little I could see told me an orange man was running toward us. All orange. I shrieked.

A man's voice said, "We need the police in the visitor parking lot at the hospital."

LUCKILY I DIDN'T have access to a mirror. I could only imagine what I looked like. At least my eyes burned less. I didn't get to the ER for a few minutes. Whoever the orange man was he led me to the ladies room just inside the hospital front door and told Ramona to keep my head under the water running in the sink. Ramona told me later he stood outside the door until the police came.

"Oh my God," Ramona said for the fifth, or twenty-fifth time. "I'm so sorry."

"Was that guy really orange?" I asked.

"Orange?" she asked.

"It can be a side effect of pepper spray," Sgt. Morehouse said as he walked into the ER cubicle. "Makes you confused and afraid for a few minutes." He nodded at Ramona. "Better make sure you don't let Winters near her with a camera. Even I wouldn't wish that on her."

"That's not funny." I could hear how stuffed up my nose was.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

From what I could see of Morehouse's face through my puffy eyes, he was trying to hide a smile as he pulled out a notebook. "How come you're wearing shorts?" I asked.

"Barbeque," he said. "Called me at home. Big fight outside the Sandpiper so all the guys are down there."

"It's my fault," Ramona said, blowing her nose.

"It's the hand's fault," I said. "The hand under the car."

"Was it attached to a person," Morehouse said, patiently.

"Yes," Ramona said. "It was wearing a glove. A black glove."

"Okay...What else?" Morehouse asked.

"We got to the car, and I popped the locks on both sides. I guess...Ramona did you open your door first?"

"I'm not sure, but when I started to pull it open, somebody grabbed me from underneath."

"I thought she fell," I said, "so I ran around the car, the front of the car. And I tried to kick the hand..."

"But you got me," Ramona said. "In the thigh." She raised the hem of her skirt and I could see a bruise had formed on the side of her thigh.

"Yuck. Now I'm sorry. And then, then what? Oh, I reached down, I was going to grab the hand."

"But I'd gotten my pepper spray," Ramona said. "I was trying to spray under the car, but Jolie bent down just then and I guess I got her."

"I think so," Morehouse said, dryly. "You always carry pepper spray, or somebody been bothering you?"

"Nobody. I just, you know, I walk everywhere, even at night." Her voice trailed off and she looked at me. "I'm so sorry."

"If you say that again, I'm going to get my own pepper spray."

"Damn, I should think so." George Winters was in the doorway.

"No camera," Morehouse said. "And you gotta wait in the lobby."

George walked over and pulled me into a hug. "Damn, Jolie." He held on for several seconds and then pulled back. He looked at Morehouse. "Will you talk to me after?"

"Yep," Morehouse said.

I think I was more in shock from the hug than the pepper spray for the next couple of minutes. Sgt. Morehouse found it hard to believe we hadn't seen anything of the attacker. Well, almost nothing. We saw the hand, and Ramona had a glimpse of his back, but all she knew was he was tall and seemed to have short hair.

"He had on a knit cap," Morehouse said. "The guy who brought you back inside saw that much, but not much more."

"Who brought us in?" I asked.

"Larry Budd," Aunt Madge said, from the doorway.

Morehouse gestured her into the room. "I'd say we gotta stop meeting like this, Madge, but she'll probably do it again."

"I didn't DO anything." I blew my nose hard.

"Who's Larry Budd?" Ramona asked.

"He works maintenance at the high school," Morehouse said.

"His wife just had twins," Aunt Madge said.

We talked for another twenty minutes, with Morehouse making Ramona and me go over the last few hours of our day. He wanted to know if we had seen anyone 'hanging around,' as he put it, or noticed anyone paying attention to us when we were visiting Scoobie. Ramona and I were clueless.

"Whose hand was on my back?" I finally remembered to ask.

"Mine," Ramona said. "I guess you didn't know it was me."

"It felt huge." I looked at her hands.

"Side effect of pepper spray. Like I said, you feel confused." Morehouse closed his notebook.

"You think it could have been the guy from the carnival?" Morehouse asked.

"Turk? I kind of don't think so."

"Because you made sure he didn't have any suspicions about Scoobie?" Aunt Madge asked, irritated.

"Because it looked like a bigger hand." I tried not to sound annoyed with her.

"I think that, too," Ramona said.

"You two an expert on hands?" Morehouse asked.

"I draw them, you know," Ramona said. "It looked like the hand of someone larger. The Turk guy wasn't much taller than I am."

Morehouse stood. "I asked hospital security to check around. Not likely they'll find anything." He yawned. "I'm gonna talk to Winters. If you're gonna get cut loose soon, I'll follow you home." He walked out.

"Thanks," I called after him. I looked at Aunt Madge. "I was not 'up to something.'" Not all day."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE GOOD THING about "the hand attack," as Scoobie christened it, is that no one thought I had done anything to bring it about so no one was mad at me. Because it was Memorial Day weekend, Sgt. Morehouse thought it might have been a drunk or drug-addled vacationer. I might have agreed with him if it hadn't been for the glove. What drug-addled robber hides under a car with gloved hands? In the summer?

The best thing was that Harry Steele was talking to me without apparent reserve. I always know Aunt Madge will forgive my transgressions eventually, but I knew I'd wounded Harry by lying to him and I hadn't figured out how to get beyond that.

"So, anyway," I said to Harry, "the Parkers said some of their stuff turned up in pawn shops and they may eventually get it back." It was Tuesday morning and I was sitting in Harry's office at the small table I use to work with the computer-aided appraisal software.

He opened his bottom desk drawer and reached for something. "They also said they wouldn't accept our offer to pay their deductible." He slid my $500 check across his desk and I took it.

I looked at it for a few seconds, then slid it back. "Why don't you use at least some of it to make a donation to Harvest for All?" He looked at me. Usually you can tell which direction a person's train of thought is headed if you know them well and look at them closely, but I couldn't guess his thoughts.

He slid the check back. "I'll pay you one hundred instead of $200 for your next two appraisals, and then I'll donate $400 from the company to the food pantry -- half from me, half from you."

I grinned at him as I felt my stress melt away. Harry isn't mad at me anymore!

THAT SAME TUESDAY Marcus announced that he had finished a first draft of his book and would be leaving on Wednesday. Aunt Madge seemed almost relieved. Even though she seemed to like his company, guests generally don't hang out with her. She's friendly, but she likes her privacy.

"So, when can I read your book?" I asked him. Since he was leaving soon I decided to be friendlier and was sitting with him in the breakfast room Wednesday morning.

"It takes longer than you'd think," he said. "My publisher will edit it, work with people to design a marketing plan, lots of other steps."

I held out my hand as I stood. "Please let Aunt Madge know when it comes out. She'll tell me."

When I walked back into the kitchen Aunt Madge made a zipping gesture across her lips. Maybe she wasn't interested in hearing a lot more from Marcus-the mystery-writer.

ON MY WAY TO HARRY'S after breakfast on Wednesday I stopped by the police station to see what Sgt. Morehouse would tell me. It was the last thing I planned to do in connection with Penny's murder or Scoobie's attack. Other than helping Scoobie recover I had decided to put everything that had happened out of my mind. I was working on believing the hand under the car was a random attempt at a carjacking or robbery. That was harder, but I wanted life back to my version of normal.

As a professional courtesy, which was Sgt. Morehouse's term, the state police were keeping him up to date on Penny's death investigation. There wasn't much to tell. For a reason she couldn't tell us, Penny had stopped at a small roadside picnic area just north of town. The general police assumption was that she planned to meet someone there. "She obviously did meet someone, right?" I asked. "I mean, somebody killed her."

Morehouse gave me a withering look. "Good one, Sherlock. It almost had to be someone stronger than she is. Penny was no pixie, and it takes a lot of strength to strangle someone."

"Ugh."

"You asked," he said. "There were two recent sets of fingerprints in her car, Penny's and the man she was arrested with in Binghamton, Alex "Fun Boy" Masterson."

George had said he couldn't find anything recent on Masterson. Sounded as if there was something going on, he just hadn't been caught yet. "Just two?" I asked.

"I thought you just told me you were going to butt out."

I said nothing.

He continued. "There were a number of latent prints, but I gotta agree with state police theory, which was that they belonged to prior owners. There were no matches to the fingerprints in any databases. And because someone scratched off the Vehicle Information Number there's no easy way to find a prior owner to provide prints we can match or rule out."

Sgt. Morehouse opened a file on his desk. "They did give me a more recent photo of Masterson than when he and Penny were arrested. You see this guy around?" he asked.

I shook my head. The stringy brown hair was shorter and he had a mustache instead of a beard. The seemingly perpetual smirk was the same. "Half the guys who hang out on the boardwalk have hair like that." I started. In a way the photo looked like the shorter of the two homeless guys I'd talked to.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I asked the state cops why they don't look harder for him, but they seem to think if they put out a BOLO for him he'll leave the area, even if he had nothing to do with Penny's murder. They've passed this photo to all the local departments."

"BOLO?" I asked.

"You don't watch much TV," he said. "It stands for 'be on the lookout for.' It's a cop term, which you don't need to know because you aren't in law enforcement."

I took that as my cue to leave and headed for the hospital. I was familiar enough with Scoobie's therapy schedule to know he'd be done soon, for the morning anyway.

I kept going back to the conversation with Morehouse and the newer photo of "Fun Boy" Masterson. I would have to be really certain about that before I mentioned the homeless guy. The police would certainly haul him in for questioning, and if he wasn't Masterson it would probably be hard on the guy. What if he is Masterson?

I shook my head to clear it. I wasn't going to deal with anything except Scoobie. The police had photos of Masterson. If it was the homeless guy they'd figure it out. Maybe I'd plant the idea with George.

SCOOBIE WAS IN THE hallway and his walker had been discarded in favor of a cane. "Arrgh!" He pointed it at me and made a gesture like a sword fighter. I did note that he kept his other hand on the hallway hand railing.

"What are you, a three Musketeer?" I asked, as we walked into his room.

"Have you forgotten about 'Talk Like a Pirate' Day?" he asked.

"I did, but I doubt Monica and Sylvia have."

He grinned. "They'll come around. Anyway, we have time to plan, it's not until September." His face lit up. "You think your aunt will make me a costume?"

"Probably." I plopped in his chair as he sat on the edge of his bed and then swung his legs up so he could lean back against the raised head of the bed. "How long do you have to use the cane?" I asked.

He winced as he bent his knees. "Not too long. I favor my right side a lot because the pain from the lumbar vertebrae runs down there. They want me to use the cane so I walk sort of normal."

"Can they fix it?"

He gestured at himself. "Don't I look fixed?"

"You look terrific." And he did. After more than two weeks his face was no longer bruised. His hair was shorter than usual, his concession to "even things up" because the doctors had shaved his head in a couple places where they'd gone in to place the catheter to release the pressure on his brain.

"I might get out at the end of the week," he said, and looked out the window.

I noticed he had ignored my question about whether they could fix his pain. I remembered a nurse saying something about putting gel in a crushed vertebra, or something like that. "I know Aunt Madge'll say come to the B&B."

"It's summer," he said simply. "She needs to rent all her rooms."

I thought about this for a moment. "You can sleep in my room and I'll sleep on the couch downstairs. She won't care."

"I can't make you move out of your room."

"My clothes and stuff will still be there. You might get Jazz, too. She's pretty used to the other pillow on my bed."

He nodded slowly. "I'll talk to Madge."

"About what?" She walked into the room.

Aunt Madge has an uncanny ability to walk into a room just when you're talking about her. My sister Renée and I have talked about that since we were little kids.

I let Scoobie go over our idea, but he only got it halfway out when she said, "Why Adam, I just assumed you'd stay at Cozy Corner for awhile." She placed a foil-wrapped muffin on his bedside table. "Then Jolie can drive you to therapy or the library when you need to go. It will keep her out of trouble."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE FRIDAY OF FOURTH OF JULY weekend Scoobie, Ramona and I walked along the boardwalk admiring the easels that had local artists' work. It's a Fourth of July tradition in Ocean Alley, and gives locals a chance to sell their work to the tourists. Ramona had six black and white, pencil drawings on display. They ran the gamut from seagulls on the beach to a single, gloved hand reaching up from the bottom of the frame. I knew where that idea came from.

We were also celebrating Scoobie's return to the real world, as he called it. He moved back to his room in the F Street boarding house the day before. He had wanted to return since the middle of June, but Aunt Madge kept encouraging him to stay "just a bit" longer. They finally agreed that when he stopped using the cane he would leave the Cozy Corner. I knew for a fact that he used it some, but not where Aunt Madge could see him.

"Hey," Scoobie said. "Let's go over here. Every time I see a bench my ass faints."

"I wonder how you'd capture that in a drawing?" I asked Ramona.

"I wouldn't be willing to try."

We sat on the bench, with the ocean to our backs. It was a balmy eighty degrees, a real pleasure in July, when New Jersey temperatures can easily rise to the mid-nineties. The boardwalk was packed with the usual eclectic bunch of middle-aged lovers, young teenage girls pretending to ignore the boys, or vice-versa, and kids of all ages waiting in line for boardwalk fries and talking about the evening's upcoming fireworks.

I had on shorts and a loose tee shirt and Ramona had on a paisley sundress, a real change for her. I noted half the men on the boardwalk gave her a second look, but she appeared oblivious.

Scoobie laughed and I stared in the direction he was looking. Lance Wilson was walking out of one of the knick knack shops wearing a child's pirate hat on his head. He ambled over and Ramona stood to give him her spot on the bench, which he refused.

"Glad to see you getting in the spirit," I said.

"Can't let Scoobie have all the fun." He adjusted his hat. "I actually got this for Sylvia."

"Madge is already working on my costume," Scoobie said. Lance gave us a salute and headed for Java Jolt. I've seen him there several times this summer. He's not big on coffee, but he likes Joe's raspberry tea.

"Hey Scoobie." I followed the direction of the voice and saw two men walking toward us. It took a couple seconds to realize they were the two homeless men I'd seen around town. After a summer spent largely outdoors they were tanned and had shorter hair. I felt a sense of unease. I hadn't talked to anyone about my thoughts about whether the shorter guy could be Masterson. You're not a detective. I studied the shorter man. The more I looked at him the less he looked like "Fun Boy."

"Hey, guys," Scoobie said. "Long time no see."

"Saw you a couple weeks ago," the taller of the two said, "but you were busy writing poetry outside of Java Jolt."

"And you had your cane," the shorter one said.

"Yeah, it's good to get back to my usual routine, such as it...Hey, do you know Jolie and Ramona?" When they shook their heads Scoobie continued. "Ramona works in at the Purple Cow, and Jolie does real estate appraisals." Scoobie looked at me. "Josh plays bongo drums down at Ferry Street, and Max helps oversee the operation."

I knew this meant that Josh played on the boardwalk in the hope that someone would put money in a jar or hat, and now that I took a good look at them in summer clothes I thought I'd seen them there when I did my fast-walk one evening. Why do we make the homeless invisible to our senses?

The two men had looked uncomfortable as they walked up and when Scoobie started to introduce them, but Josh, the taller of the two, relaxed as Scoobie finished.

Max stared at me. "You're the lady with the food people," he said.

"I am," I nodded. "Scoobie helps."

Max kept staring. Scoobie's tone changed slightly, and he said, "Max and Josh are helping me spread the word that it's okay for people who sleep on the beach to go to Harvest for All."

I held out my hand to Max. "Thanks. To both of you."

At that he seemed to let down his guard a bit. "Yeah, well, okay." They both told Scoobie he looked pretty good, and then walked toward the small carnival that sets up near the boardwalk every 4th of July. Josh had his bongo drums in a large knapsack. I figured they would play there, at least until the police made them move, which they would if the guys were playing on a really crowded part of the boardwalk.

"Thanks for telling them," I said to Scoobie.

"There but for the Grace of God," Scoobie said, quietly.

Ramona leaned over to pat him on the knee. "You did a lot of your own work to get sober, you know."

"I think Josh liked your dress, Ramona," Scoobie said. "He was looking pretty closely at the front, anyway."

"Shut-up," we both said.

I STILL SERVED AS Scoobie's chauffer a lot, so I took him back to F Street to rest for a couple hours before firework watching on the beach. When I got back to the Cozy Corner to change into something a bit warmer for evening beach time I was surprised to see Marcus-the-mystery-writer in the kitchen with Aunt Madge. She was just putting three loaves of bread in the oven.

"I didn't realize you were going to be here this weekend." I'd have remembered that. He's the only person who's ever mixed up the floors.

"Alas, the inn was full." He grinned. "I brought a mock-up of the book's cover to show to my two favorite Ocean Alley women."

Mental eye roll.

I sat next to Marcus at the oak table and looked at the eight by ten photo paper he pushed toward me. The cover of Cash Out for Murder was a lurid green with an antique-looking silver cash register in the middle. "That's, uh, great." I hoped the interior was better than the cover. "When do we get to read the real thing?"

"November," he said. "In time for Christmas sales."

I stayed for a couple minutes and made for the back stairs just as Marcus suggested a game of Scrabble.

AUNT MADGE TOLD Marcus he really couldn't stay for afternoon tea, as it was for paying guests only. Much as she seemed to like him, I thought Aunt Madge might want a Marcus avoidance plan, so I told her she could go to the fireworks with Scoobie and Ramona and me.

She had other plans. "Harry's son from Maryland is here. I'm going to sit with them."

"Ooh la la."

"Don't be a twit. I would appreciate a ride to the beach, but no chaperone needed after that," Aunt Madge said.

The fireworks are at the far northern end of the boardwalk and most people sit on the beach to watch them. They're lit in a large municipal lot. There's lots of space so they can cordon off a fireworks-only area, but it doesn't leave much room for parking. Normally I'd walk the twenty blocks but, despite his assertions otherwise, that would be too long a walk for Scoobie.

"So, I told him you didn't want to walk it. Back me up." I told Aunt Madge this as we left the Cozy Corner's small parking lot.

"He knows I can out walk you," she said.

I shrugged. "I suppose, but his manhood will be intact."

Aunt Madge almost snorted.

Very unladylike for someone over eighty.

I dropped Scoobie and Aunt Madge near the boardwalk and parked about five blocks away. Ramona met Scoobie and me on the beach and we traipsed over to where Aunt Madge was sitting with Harry, son Ken, and Ken's two sons, who were named James and Avery.

"So, which one of you two guys looks like Harry did when he was a kid?" Scoobie asked.

"None of us," said James, who looked to be about ten.

"Grandma Jessie always said I did," said Avery, who was maybe seven.

I figured this had to be Harry's late wife. Aunt Madge more or less settled it by saying one boy had Harry's eyes and the other his ears. That cracked them up.

We declined Harry's offer to sit with them and we went a couple hundred feet down the beach. Almost since I moved back to Ocean Alley last fall I've wondered if Aunt Madge and Harry were sweet on each other as my Grandmother Alva would say. So far I think just good friends, and I'm not crazy enough to ask.

The air was still so the mosquitoes were out in force. I had forgotten about bug spray, but Ramona had some so Scoobie and I lathered up. I don't like the smell, but I like bug bites even less.

"Jolie!"

I looked around and saw Jennifer Stenner dodging kids' Frisbees as she came toward us. She was carrying the kind of short beach chair that true sunbathers use.

"How come," Scoobie asked in a low voice, "she's known me longer and better but she calls out to you?"

"Because Jolie's better looking," Ramona said as she moved her beach towel closer to the one Scoobie and I were sitting on so Jennifer could squeeze in.

"I figured you were here. I called the B&B and nobody answered," Jennifer said.

"Glad you found us." And I mostly was. I'm not sure if Jennifer is actually less pretentious than I had thought her to be or if my attitude has improved from the doldrums I was in when I got back to Ocean Alley in October. Either way, I don't mind her as much as I once did. Other than the fact that she occasionally needles me about her third-generation family firm being a bigger appraisal business than Harry's.

"So Scoobie," Jennifer asked, "have you got any more fundraising ideas for Harvest for All? Something that doesn't involve wrecking my hair?"

Scoobie turned toward her, face alight with likely some teasing response, and was about to answer when there was a loud sizzling sound, which announced the opening of the firework display. We all turned toward the parking lot in time to see the words "4th of July" light up on the ground display.

"One for all and all for one," Scoobie said, and winked at me.

I turned to get more bug spray out of Ramona's bag just as an especially bright firework burst and boomed above us. For a second I thought I saw Mystery-Writer-Marcus a few yards behind us, but the light fizzled and I didn't see him there when the sky lit up again a few second later. Probably sizing up his competition. I almost giggled at the idea. He's probably thirty or forty years younger than Aunt Madge.

Some years the fireworks seem to be over fast, but this was not one of them. By the time the lengthy final segment ended my tailbone was ready to stand. It's been sore since I fell at the end of November, and it was reminding me I should have brought a cushion.

It always takes several long seconds to adjust to the darkness again. There are lights on the edge of the boardwalk, but all they are is guides when you're on the beach. Jennifer wanted us to go to Newhart's for milkshakes \-- "just like old times" -- but I could tell Scoobie was more than tired. He and I begged off, but Ramona said she'd go, so we split up. I could see Harry shepherding his grandsons toward the boardwalk but lost sight of Aunt Madge.

Scoobie insisted on walking to the car with me rather than being picked up. "Did you ever notice how many people there are in Ocean Alley that you don't know?" he asked.

"You might, but I hardly know anybody. Plus, aren't most of these folks tourists?"

"Probably," he said evenly. He was walking gingerly and I wished I'd thought to make him bring a cane. As if.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I UNLOCKED THE SIDE DOOR to the Cozy Corner just as a guest car drove into the lot. I realized I had no idea if Aunt Madge had given one of them a key and was glad I beat them home. I recognized the pair as a young couple from New York City who Aunt Madge said had come for 4th of July the past several years.

"You guys need anything?" I asked. Aunt Madge doesn't serve any food after her afternoon warm bread and tea, but since she wasn't there I thought I should be hospitable.

"We're all set," the man, whom I thought was named Jack, said.

"Weren't those the best fireworks ever?" his wife cooed.

"Terrific." I walked into the kitchen.

Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy greeted me at the kitchen doorway and ran toward the sliding glass doors. Aunt Madge never leaves them out during the fireworks, and they were ready to go. "Where's Jazz?" I asked as their tails disappeared into the dark garden.

A short mew came from below me and she stretched as she walked out from under the sofa.

"You never go under there." She ran toward her food dish and stood there expectantly. As she has trained me, I gave her a few pieces of dry food. "You've eaten already, you know." She ignored me.

I was in my shorty pajamas and about to get in bed when I realized I hadn't heard Aunt Madge downstairs. I put on a robe and walked down the back stairs into her great room. I had already let the dogs back in and slid the piece of wood into the sliding door frame, so they made no effort to get up from where they were curled next to each other on a rug by the door.

"Aunt Madge?" Her bedroom door was open so I peeked in. "Hmmm. Did she tell you guys she was going to party late?"

Mr. Rogers thumped his tail a few times, but did not respond, and Miss Piggy's yawn told me she didn't know either. I turned on the electric tea kettle and picked up one of Aunt Madge's carpentry magazines and plopped on the sofa while the water heated.

Half an hour later I needed to potty and still no Aunt Madge. It was almost eleven-thirty. Those little boys would have to be in bed by now. Maybe Aunt Madge and Harry snuck off together. I grinned at the idea.

At midnight I called Harry. His voice said he'd been asleep, but he perked up quickly. "What do you mean she's not home?" he asked.

"I thought maybe you guys went out to eat."

"No, that Marcus fellow talked to us for a few seconds after the fireworks, and just before I took the kids to the car she said she was going to go home with you."

"Okay, now I'm scared. I never saw her after the fireworks."

"I'm coming over," he said, and hung up.

I ran upstairs to put on jeans and got back downstairs as Harry's car lights entered the lot. I met him at the side door. "You don't think she went for coffee or something with Marcus, do you?"

"No," he said. "She doesn't especially like him." He looked as if he had dressed as hurriedly as I did, and his hair was mussed.

We walked into the kitchen and both dogs sat up straight and then came over, tails not wagging. Funny how they sense when something's not right.

I might have waited a little while longer to call the police, but not Harry. They put him through to Dana Johnson. "What do you mean you don't know where Madge is?" she asked.

"Just that," Harry said, impatience creeping into his voice. "This is just not like her. She said she was going to ride home from the fireworks with Jolie and Scoobie and they never saw her."

"Everybody knows her, and some of the guys just came in," Dana said. "Let me see if anyone saw her on the boardwalk or something and I'll call you right back."

But she didn't call for a few minutes, and then there was a knock on the door. Sgt. Morehouse let himself in before I got there and we met in the hallway. I put my fingers over my lips and pointed him toward the kitchen door, where Harry was standing.

He listened to Harry and me "walk through the night," as he put it, and didn't say anything for a few seconds when we were done.

"No one saw her?" I asked. Aunt Madge is better known in Ocean Alley than all the politicians combined, and a lot more popular. Surely someone has seen her.

His phone buzzed and he answered it. "So put more people on it." He looked at Harry and me. "Dana and a couple others checked the few places that would still be open near the boardwalk, and they're going to walk the beach."

A NIGHT NEVER SEEMED so long. Not the night Robby said he was going to be arrested for embezzlement or the night I told him I was leaving him. By two o'clock we knew something was very, very wrong. She was nowhere in town and not at the hospital. The police comings and goings had awakened half the guests, and though I had persuaded them that they could go back to their rooms and I was sure Aunt Madge was fine, I was very unsure.

At two-fifteen a very young officer arrived carrying what looked like a tool box. He opened it and began dusting the guests' breakfast area. I'll never get that cleaned up by seven o'clock.

"But it's only her guests and Aunt Madge and me who sit in there."

"Does she do background checks on her guests?" the officer asked, quietly.

I exchanged a frightened look with Harry, who asked, "When Marcus stopped by, where did he sit?"

"Kitchen table," I said, and Sgt. Morehouse nodded to the officer, who went to the kitchen next.

"Marcus?" I asked.

"She says he's engaging, but she really doesn't like him, and you found him in the hallway near the room next to yours last time he was here," Harry said.

Sgt. Morehouse made me go over the day Marcus came out of Penny's room. "But, I added, Aunt Madge said his room was in about the same location on the floor above."

"We need to check everything anybody thinks of." He sent me to look at Aunt Madge's B&B records to get Marcus' phone number.

HALF AN HOUR LATER Morehouse had not found Marcus at his home number and I had called Reverend Jamison and Lance Wilson to see if they knew if someone had asked Aunt Madge for help after the fireworks. Sgt. Morehouse told me to tell them not to call anyone else, and when Lance offered to come over I said no. He made me promise to call him as soon as she was home. I was trying to cajole Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy from under the large oak kitchen table when my phone chirped. I grabbed it.

"Jolie." Aunt Madge said.

"Thank God, where are...?" I began.

"Just listen, Jolie."

I felt cold all over and held the phone away from my ear so Sgt. Morehouse could hear and Harry could maybe hear.

"I am with a very angry man."

I pressed a finger over my lips to keep from crying. "What should I do?"

"There are people who know that Penny had that small suitcase with money in it. They want it."

I looked at Sgt. Morehouse but he shook his head and pointed at my phone. It was clear he didn't want whoever was with Aunt Madge to know he was there. "Okay, but you know it might take me more than a few minutes to get it."

"I'm told you'll have an hour to figure it out." In a very clipped tone, she added, "You are not to call the police. I will call you back." She hung up.

Morehouse took my phone, looked at it, and said, "Damn it." I sat on the floor.

Harry stooped next to me. "We will figure it out."

I looked up at Morehouse. "Why did you say that?"

"No name on caller ID, probably a throw-away phone." He glanced at it and back at me. "Make sure to keep your battery charged." He tossed me my phone.

He opened his phone and began to give orders.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER the kitchen was crowded with Lt. Tortino, Captain Larry Edwards, whom I'd never met, and Dana, Harry, and me. The captain had called the FBI, but they had not arrived. Sgt. Morehouse had left to work out getting Penny's bag out of evidence so it could be here when the kidnapper called back. I had no idea if the money would be in it or if giving it to someone would get Aunt Madge home.

"But what if whoever has her figures out you're all here?" I asked, for the third time.

"We'll deal with that," Captain Edwards said.

When I started to speak, Lt. Tortino interrupted me. "It will take awhile, not too long, to work with the various mobile phone companies to try to figure the tower the kidnapper's cell phone is using, but in all honesty it won't be too helpful." Lt. Tortino said this all very quickly.

"So what can we do?" Harry asked.

"First," Lt. Tortino said, "when she calls back tell her you have the money and you assume whoever has it will trade Madge for the money." I nodded. "As long as we are talking to Madge we know she's okay," he said.

I nodded again. I was waiting for him to say there was some kind of a plan to find Aunt Madge immediately and that she would be home to serve breakfast to her guests.

"They'll likely remind you they don't want any police involvement. You tell them you called us when you thought she was missing, but you told us you have since found out Madge is fine, and we're no longer involved."

"We are about to leave here, except for the sergeant," Captain Edwards said. "He needs to sit in an area that cannot be seen from the street. Keep the curtains closed."

"You think they're near here?" I asked.

"No idea. We don't want to give them any reasons to be angry." Lt. Tortino said.

I heard the side door to the parking lot open and there was a light tap on the kitchen door. George Winters stuck his head in. When he saw me he came in, a questioning look on his face.

"We can't have reporters in here, George," Dana said, and she walked toward him.

"And we don't want them!" I added, following Dana. "No one can know people are here."

"I'm leaving. The guys at the paper heard something on the scanner and the cop outside told me what's going on." He glanced at the other officers and back at me. "Call me if I can help." He kept staring at me.

My eyes filled with tears and I nodded, and started crying. Hard. George walked over and put his hand on my shoulder as I cried into my hands. "They'll find her. She's tough. A lot tougher than you."

I hiccupped and looked at him between my fingers. "It's not funny."

"Of course it's not," he said. "But it is true." He squeezed my shoulder, nodded at Dana and walked out.

I heard him talk to someone on the stoop and Morehouse walked back in. He was carrying Penny's suitcase.

"You have the money?" I asked, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

"And damn lucky we still had it." He glanced at the other officers. "Had to wait while the evidence clerk scanned some of the damn bills." He looked at his watch. "Five minutes. He sat the small suitcase on the table."

Dana pulled a tissue from her pocket and handed it to me. "Thanks, Dana."

"Everybody out," the captain stood as he said this. He nodded at Morehouse. "You clear on everything?"

"As much as I can be," Morehouse said. "I don't have a damn playbook."

And I thought I was the only one he talked to that way. "Thanks," I mumbled, as the other police left. Lt. Tortino gave me a thumbs-up sign and I tried to smile. I couldn't.

Harry and I looked at Morehouse.

"We're winging it here," he said. "If I told you I'd worked with a lot of kidnappers you know I'd be lying."

"I can drive the money somewhere," Harry began.

"We gotta hear what they say." Morehouse turned to me. "You let them know you have the money, and you want to keep talking to Madge."

My phone chirped.

"Okay, slowly," Morehouse said. "Remember, you didn't get the money from me. You had it hidden in the attic."

"Why can't you trace the call?" I asked.

"Get real. Just stay calm."

"Aunt Madge?" I asked as I pushed talk.

"Yes."

"The bag was still under the floor in the attic. I have it." It sounded as if she was talking to someone in a low tone. Maybe she has her hand over the phone.

"I need to tell you where to leave it. No police. I'll call back in a few minutes."

"No!" I nearly screamed. "Tell me now."

"Jolie." Her tone was sharp. "Get a grip."

"Okay, okay. Are you...?"

"I'll call again." She hung up.

BUT AN HOUR WENT BY AND she didn't. I looked at the kitchen clock. Three-forty-five in the morning. I had had two more cups of coffee and alternated between feeling alert or exhausted. Either way, my stomach was roiling with acid.

Sgt. Morehouse was sitting in the short hallway behind the kitchen area, by Aunt Madge's bedroom, where he could not be seen from the street. The small suitcase was on the hall table behind him. Harry and I were on the sofa, except that I kept getting up to walk around. Mister Rogers followed every step I took while Miss Piggy kept her head near Harry's foot. Jazz was nowhere to be found, and I'd looked.

There was a buzz and Morehouse answered his phone. "You're kidding me. Yeah. Get me all you can."

"What?" Harry and I asked together.

"Either your Marcus is Alex Masterson, the guy Penny was arrested with a few years ago, or that guy snuck into the kitchen and sat at Madge's table."

"What do you mean? Who is that?" Harry asked.

In thirty seconds I summarized the photo of the stringy-haired guy who was arrested with Penny. "But it can't be Marcus." I looked at Sgt. Morehouse. "He has short white hair, he wears glasses, and..." I stopped.

"This changes everything." Morehouse said. He started to dial his phone and I sat across from Harry.

"So," Harry said, "if it is Marcus, perhaps his earlier visit was just an attempt to find the money."

"Which is why he was outside Penny's room," I said slowly. "Even his eyebrows were white."

"Do you have the article with the photo?" Harry asked.

I went upstairs and we all studied it when I came back down.

"Well," Morehouse said, "Now we know how well the kidnapper knows this house and town. I don't like it."

Harry shook his head. "I never would have guessed. The white hair, the glasses."

"And he's a lot thinner, too," Morehouse said.

"No beard." My brain was in overdrive. Marcus Hardy. I wasn't sure whether to be more or less scared. He had always seemed to like Aunt Madge a lot. Can a kidnapper kill someone they know? Is it easier or harder?

The room around me intruded into my thoughts. "Yeah," Morehouse was hollering into his phone. "I'm sure." He paused. "Who the hell else would have been sitting at her table? Those weren't latent...Hey, Jolie."

I looked up.

"How often would you say your aunt wipes down the kitchen table?"

"At least once a day, if she's here." She's not here now. I looked toward the table. I had tried to get all the fingerprint goo off when the officer left. Dust my ass. It's like sticky jam from two days ago.

Harry kept telling me this would all work out, but I finally tuned in more to Morehouse. "I know Tortino, I know. Yeah, but it shouldn't be marked cars...Yes, ten years more than me. OK, call me back ASAP."

He walked toward Harry and me. "Shouldn't you stay out of sight?" I asked.

"We're dealing with a meatball here, not a professional kidnapper," Morehouse said. When I started to speak he said, "I'll go back there in a minute. The thinking is to put out Hardy's, Masterson's description, get all hands on deck and start checking motels and anyplace..."

"But they'll see you." Panic gripped me.

"He said..." Harry began.

Morehouse waved us quiet. "Tortino's organizing it so everyone is in plain clothes. The FBI just got to the station. They got a lot of ideas."

He kept talking, but all I could hear was a voice in my head saying no police, no police, no police.

I glanced toward the area where Morehouse had been sitting. "I'm hungry. Can I make you guys a sandwich?"

They both stared at me. "Come on, we ate hours ago. Unless you had donuts," I said to Morehouse.

Morehouse glared at me. "Don't be a damn smart ass."

"I could use one, thanks." Harry looked at me as if he wondered if I'd finally lost it.

I walked to the fridge. Aunt Madge doesn't keep many cold cuts but there was leftover meatloaf from yesterday. Quickly I got out the bread and made two sandwiches. "Milk or coffee?" My mind was in overdrive.

"Milk," they both said.

I started to carry the sandwiches to them and remembered one was supposed to be for me, so I separated one onto two plates. "Come to the table. The dogs'll be all over you if you sit over there." I set the plates on the table and poured three glasses of milk.

"Thanks," Morehouse said as they sat. His phone buzzed again and he answered it as he took a bite.

I looked at Harry. "I'm going to use Aunt Madge's bathroom."

I walked through the living room into the hallway, picked up the small case, and carried it into Aunt Madge's bedroom. I was out the window before any sane person would have had time to flush the toilet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MOREHOUSE HAD SAID THE police were about to have officers everywhere. I hoped that they weren't on the way to the Cozy Corner just yet. I couldn't take my car, the keys were in the house with my purse. I had the money and my phone, and that was all I needed. There was no way I was going to let a bunch of cops get Aunt Madge killed.

I ran down Seashore away from the boardwalk. I'd gone about half a block when a car twenty or thirty feet ahead of me flashed its lights. I slowed. "Damn it all."

A low voice called out, "Yo, Jolie."

"Scoobie!" I ran toward the car. He leaned into the back seat to open that door for me.

I slid in.

"For Pete's sake, lie down." George made a U-turn and continued in the direction I'd been running. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet," I said.

Scoobie turned to look down at me. "Can you be a little more specific?"

The car slowed and turned a corner, and then pulled into a more well-lit area. "Where are we going?" I asked, realizing I had just repeated George's question.

"Into the Ocean Alley Press parking lot. That's where anyone would expect to see my car."

"Very smart," Scoobie said, as George turned off the car.

It was so quiet I could hear a mosquito buzzing against the back window.

"Now what?" George asked. "Did they find her?"

"She called."

"Thank God." Scoobie turned to look in the back seat.

"Stay facing front," George ordered.

"It's Marcus Hardy," I said.

"What? Marcus the boring writer?" Scoobie asked.

"I met him in Java Jolt," George said. "He's a cream puff."

"Except it's not Marcus. His name is Alexander Masterson."

"Have you taken some sort of tranquilizer?" Scoobie asked.

"Shit," George said. "Fun Boy."

"What are you talking about?" Scoobie asked.

George told him that Masterson had been arrested with Penny but had only done thirty days in jail. "They probably ran a bunch of scams together. Penny had the money somehow."

Silence for ten seconds. I breathed slowly, telling myself to stay calm.

"She's dead for going on two months, and my mother is still screwing up everybody's lives." Scoobie said.

"How do you know Marcus is Masterson?" George asked. "How could he alter his appearance that much?"

"He visited earlier today. Fingerprints. And short, white hair and eyebrows. Clean shaven. He's lost weight..."

"I get it, I get it," George said. "Glasses, too."

"They wanted, he wanted the case Penny left in the room." I felt myself starting to shake.

"What case?" Scoobie asked.

"Your mother asked Aunt Madge if she could leave her luggage at the B&B for a couple days, and when she didn't come back Aunt Madge packed it up. After she died, Morehouse went through it, and one suitcase had a lot of money?"

"How come you never told me this?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"I know, I didn't want to talk about it," Scoobie said.

"Doesn't matter," George interrupted. "Focus on now."

"How do we get it to him?" Scoobie asked.

"He's supposed to call back, or have Aunt Madge call. He said no police, but when Morehouse just found out it was him they were going to put police in civvies all over the place. And Morehouse said the FBI had 'ideas.' I want to do what Marcus, Masterson, whoever says."

"We'll see what he says." George opened his car door.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Get a blanket out of the trunk, so nobody can see you easily."

I heard the trunk pop and he rummaged around.

"You sure about this," Scoobie asked, quietly.

"No. Yes." I paused. "When she calls I can always change my mind."

George got back in and tossed the blanket in the back seat.

My phone chirped.

"Aunt Madge?"

"Yes. Jolie, he said no police."

How could he know? Were they close? I was cold all over, and I heard Scoobie take in a breath.

"I know. I just went out your bedroom window. I'm sorry, I didn't have time to close it."

"Where are you?" Her tone was sharp.

"In a car with Scoobie." I almost said George's car. "I have the case. I, I called the police before I knew where you were. But they left when I said you called me."

There was muffled talking on her end of the line. I sat up halfway so George and Scoobie could hear everything.

"You know the roadside park, just north of town?" she asked.

As in where Penny was killed? "Yes. Can I come now?"

"Twenty minutes. Alone Jolie." She hung up.

George started the engine. "You can drop us off half a mile before the park."

"After." I slithered back down. "Less obvious."

WE ARGUED FOR several minutes as George sped down the highway en route to the park. George wanted to stay in the trunk, with Scoobie in the bushes. Scoobie wanted to drop me "anywhere" and let them "handle it," and I wanted to throw them both in the ocean by the time we were halfway to the park.

"I drive," I said. "That's all there is to it. Unless you want to drop me off and I'll walk."

A siren blared behind us.

"Crap," Scoobie said.

George pulled to the side of the road and an ambulance sped past on the opposite side of the road, likely going to the hospital.

I let out my breath. Not the police following us. "I hope we don't end up there."

"Better than the morgue," George said.

"That's just great, really great," I said.

"Sorry," he muttered. He pulled onto a side road and let the car idle. "Scoobie, can you walk from here?"

"No problem."

"My trunk has one of those safety buttons, so a person can get out from it when it's locked. I'm going in the trunk, Jolie."

"And pop out like a jack-in-the-box?" I asked.

"If needed," he said. "Me and my tire iron."

"I'll see you down there," Scoobie said, and got out of the car.

George and I watched for a few seconds as Scoobie tried to use the cane in the underbrush just off the road. He gave up and slung it over his shoulder like a soldier carried a bayonet, and walked with an awkward gait.

"He's hurting," I said. "He even brought the cane."

"He'll be all right. Come on, trade places." George popped the trunk as he got out.

I faced him for a second and looked directly in his eyes. "Thanks."

He gave a slight smile. "I like Madge."

He climbed awkwardly into the trunk and shut it. "I'm in." His voice was muffled.

I got in the front seat and shut the door. My hands were shaking so hard it was difficult to take the car out of park. "Calm, Jolie." I pulled down half a block until there was a driveway to turn around it, and headed back onto the highway.

I was at the small roadside area in less than a minute. I turned off the car and headlights and sat taking it in. While the mix of pine and leafy trees were not densely spaced, the undergrowth was thick. It wasn't really a park, just a place with a few parking spaces and two picnic tables. There wasn't even a trash can.

Should I stay in the car or get out? I decided to get out, so they could see the case. "Crud." I didn't even know how much cash was in the case, whether it would be what Marcus was expecting. I clicked the lock and looked in. It looked as I remembered it, lots of cash. I shut it and stood hugging myself.

My watch said it was two minutes past time, and I shivered. It was about sixty degrees, but that had little to do with my body temperature. I couldn't remember ever feeling so cold in my stomach.

What was that? There was rustling in the brush behind the trees that shaded the picnic tables. I hoped it wasn't Scoobie making noise.

"Over here, Jolie." It was Aunt Madge's voice and I turned so quickly I knocked the case off the hood of the car.

"Oh." I stooped to get it.

"Stay where I can see your hands," Marcus said.

I stood slowly and faced the two of them. Aunt Madge looked very tired, but otherwise okay. Marcus had his left hand on her elbow and a gun in his right hand. "Open the case," he said softly.

I unlatched it and opened it, tilting it so he could see what was in it.

"What's so shiny," he asked, sharply.

"Silverware. She stole it..." I began.

He chuckled. "Old Penny, she never missed a trick." He looked at me. "You two thought you'd steal my money, did you?"

I didn't like his menacing tone. "We didn't steal it, she left it. How would we know it was yours? You probably know someone killed her."

"She was supposed to meet me to give me my half. Stood me up. Tried to tell me she had to rescue her stupid son."

"Rescue?" Aunt Madge said, quickly.

"Shut up. Come over here, Jolie." He gestured with his gun.

"Let Aunt Madge go."

"Get over here!"

His fierce tone told me I didn't have a lot of wiggle room. "How about we meet halfway?" I spoke with more bravado than I felt. Heck, I felt none.

"No. You walk past me. I'll tell you where to walk to get to my car." He gestured again with the gun.

"You'll kill us at the car." My voice was unnaturally high.

"I'm going to tie you to a tree." When I didn't move he placed the gun at Aunt Madge's temple.

"Okay, okay." I know nothing about guns, but thought that on TV shows the guns with silencers had long nozzles, some sort of attachment. He didn't have that, so if he fired someone would hear him. That won't matter if we're already dead. I moved toward him, careful to stay more than an arm's length from him.

"That's good, very good. Just keep walking."

I passed the two of them and he pointed a bit to the left. "That direction, that's right."

I had gone about twenty feet when somebody yodeled. Marcus turned sharply in that direction and I heard the trunk pop behind us. Then everything was quiet.

"What the hell was that?" Marcus seethed, almost in a hiss.

"How would I know?" I asked.

"Sounded like a wolf," Aunt Madge said.

"There aren't any wolves here. Keep walking."

"Shows what you know," I said.

"Shut up!"

I walked slowly, still trying to stay far enough ahead of him so he couldn't grab me. I didn't see how we could foil Marcus' plan. He had a gun, and we were already pretty sure he was a murderer. He only needed two shots to kill Aunt Madge and me, and I suddenly remembered that no one would even look out a window. It was late for fireworks, but plenty of kids or stupid adults could still be using them.

I could see the end to the small woods and assumed his car was nearby. He's not going to tie us to a tree. He's going to kill us.

Suddenly Marcus stumbled. "What the..."

I turned quickly and Aunt Madge wrenched free and turned toward me. Marcus regained his footing, swore loudly and turned the barrel of the gun toward us.

"Duck!" came George's voice from somewhere behind us.

"Who the..." Marcus started to fall backwards.

I grabbed Aunt Madge and pulled her down. She put her arm across my head just as the gun fired. There was a thunk noise at the tree next to us. At the same time I saw George flying at Marcus, tire iron flailing toward Marcus' head.

There was the sound of scrambling and thuds. The flash of light from the gun had disoriented me for a few seconds. I couldn't see anything, but I pulled Aunt Madge's hand off my head and stood. I stumbled a few feet toward the writhing bodies on the ground, and then heard a sickening thud and a short crunching sound.

It was quiet except for very heavy breathing from two men. Please let it be our two.

"You okay?" George asked.

"I'm just down here taking a nap," Scoobie said.

Aunt Madge started to sob.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PURPLE. THAT WAS THE EXACT color of Sgt. Morehouse's face when he got out of his car and started screaming at me. Aunt Made and I were sitting on the picnic table bench and Scoobie was prone on top of it, resting his dumb-ass back, as he put it. Aunt Madge was leaning on me, for a change.

George had called the police and then found the gun. He was standing near the unconscious form I still thought of as Marcus Hardy rather than Alex Masterson. George and I had dragged him from the woods back to the little park, taking no care about what branches or brambles we dragged him over.

I said nothing, but when Morehouse stopped to take a breath -- Lt. Tortino and Dana Johnson running from another car toward us -- Scoobie said, "It's kind of loud for dawn."

WE WERE IN AUNT MADGE'S KITCHEN because she refused -- and I mean really refused, to the point that Morehouse and Tortino had backed up -- to go the hospital or police station. "For most of the night I thought I'd never see my house again. That's where I'm going, and that's all there is to it."

The kitchen was crowded. It was almost six o'clock and I was on automatic pilot. I made two pots of coffee, regular and decaf, and Dana and I moved two of the breakfast room tables and some chairs into the Cozy Corner's small guest lounge. I told Aunt Madge the guests would be okay with going out to eat, but she insisted, and said the dining area had too many police walking around in it. Lt. Tortino bought the donuts. While I was getting plates and silverware from her cupboard I realized having breakfast for her guests, even if she was not the one to serve it, was Aunt Madge's way of putting order back in our lives.

Ramona showed up about six-fifteen. "George called me. He said you needed help with juice." Her eyes were wide as she took in all of us, finally resting on Harry and Aunt Madge sitting together on the couch, holding hands. She grinned at me and then opened the fridge and started to take out jam and juice. "George told me some of it. I can't believe it."

"We can talk more later." I didn't think I could string two cogent sentences together, and I was really tired of answering questions.

I carried the plates and silverware to the guest tables and leaned against the door jamb for a minute when I came back into the kitchen. Captain Edwards was in the corner by the sliding glass door talking to the two FBI agents who had shown up with their ideas a couple hours ago, and Sgt. Morehouse was on the phone with somebody. George was sitting in a chair near the couch, listening to everyone.

I walked back to Aunt Madge's bedroom and looked in at Scoobie. He looked a lot better than he had ten minutes ago when he quietly went in to lie down. "You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. I don't think tackling was part of my physical therapy, but I'm good. Just a little sore."

I walked into Aunt Madge's bathroom and came back with a glass of water and a couple generic pain tablets. "This good enough?"

"Sure."

"That was pretty swift, tripping him with your cane." I looked at him.

"First time I've been glad to have it." He laughed and nodded toward the window. Jazz was sitting in the still-open window with a dead mouse in her mouth.

I jumped up, but she was too fast. She dove off the sill and under the bed.

I knelt to peer under the bed. I could see her green eyes. "I've been looking for you. Nuts. First chipmunks, now mice."

"At least this one's dead," Scoobie said.

George stuck his head in. "I gotta leave to write as soon as I talk to your aunt." He looked at Scoobie and me. "You sure you're okay?"

We both nodded.

"Now you really owe me a phone, Gentil." He left and I stood up.

The dogs came in and looked around, and then both heads were under the bed with their butts in the air. Jazz growled at them.

"I'm going back out."

"Damn, one of them farted. I'm coming with you." Scoobie got up slowly, avoiding the dogs.

"We're going to go through this from the top, and then let Madge get to bed," Captain Edwards said as we walked back into the great room.

Everyone stopped talking and Aunt Madge leaned against the back of the sofa. "You can guess most of it, I imagine. When we all stood after the fireworks Marcus, whoever he is, came over and stood next to me. He showed me the gun in the pocket of his windbreaker and said he would shoot one of Harry's grandsons unless I told Harry I was riding with Jolie and then came with him."

Harry winced.

"I couldn't imagine he would do that in front of everybody on the beach, but I wasn't taking any chances."

"Where did he take you, Madge?" Morehouse asked, quietly.

"That tacky Budget Inn. He already had a key to a room, facing the outside. I kept looking for anyone I knew, but it was mostly tourists." She looked at me. "I saw your friend Daphne, and a couple people from church, but they were too far away for them to notice me."

Sgt. Morehouse stepped away and opened his phone. I figured he was telling someone to hightail it to the Budget Inn.

"Why do you think he waited so long to call Jolie?" Lt. Tortino asked.

"My guess is he didn't really plan anything. He came back determined to find the money, and he obviously brought a gun, but he clearly hadn't figured out if or how he would use it. And he really had no idea what to do with me after he made me go with him." She leaned over to get her tea mug and Harry grabbed it and handed it to her.

"He was convinced Penny had the money somewhere nearby when he killed her, which he said was an 'accident.' I'm not sure how he found out Penny had stayed with us, but that's why he came in May. He left, but after Memorial Day he got it in his head that Jolie or I had found the money and we'd hidden it."

"So you were at the motel the entire time?" Sgt. Morehouse asked.

"Yes, I actually sat up against the headboard and closed my eyes a bit. A couple hours or so after we got to the motel he hit on the idea of me calling Jolie and telling her to bring the money." She drank some tea. "He's not all that bright."

"Did he really write a book?" Scoobie asked.

She shook her head.

"So you told him you had it?" George asked.

"Does this look like a press conference?" Captain Edwards asked, glaring at him. "And you watch what you write."

George nodded and when the captain looked away George gave me an eye roll. I could tell he was trying not to smirk. He was in the room because he helped catch Marcus, not because he was a reporter.

"He started waving his gun around, so I told him to put Jolie on the phone. I figured you could improvise," she said dryly, looking at me.

It didn't really register that Jazz had walked out of the bedroom, followed by the dogs. By the time I realized she still had the mouse she was at the sofa and dropped the dead mouse at Aunt Madge's feet.

"Presents," Aunt Madge said, stroking her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AUNT MADGE AND I were in her kitchen Sunday morning. Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy would not stay more than two feet from Aunt Madge, so they were under the kitchen table, each one trying to keep their head on one of her feet. Jazz, true to her nature, was on the bookcase ignoring us.

For once George didn't get under my skin when he mentioned me in an article. The headline was in over-large letters and there was a photo of Scoobie lying on the picnic table and Aunt Madge and me on the bench. It was taken from the side and grainy, so you couldn't tell how bedraggled Aunt Madge looked. I assumed George took it with his cell phone. I had been too busy hugging Aunt Madge and watching for the police to arrive to notice.

OCEAN ALLEY KIDNAPPING HAS HAPPY ENDING

The fireworks in Ocean Alley on July 4th were literal and figurative. Local B&B owner Madge Richards was kidnapped after the fireworks display and at two-forty-five a.m. her niece, Jolie Gentil, received a phone call from a lone kidnapper demanding money for her safe return. Richards was rescued by several local residents at the small roadside park just north of Ocean Alley, at approximately five-thirty a.m. yesterday morning.

Alex "Fun Boy" Masterson was in Ocean Alley in May calling himself Marcus Hardy and claiming to be a mystery writer who wanted quiet time to finish a book. At that time he stayed at Richards' Cozy Corner B&B. He came to believe that Richards and Gentil had cash that belonged to him, and the kidnapping was designed to induce them to give him the money.

In fact, the small suitcase of cash and other items that he sought had been in the possession of Penny Pittsen (also known as Penny Marks and Penny O'Brien, among other names), with whom Masterson was arrested in New York more than three years ago on charges of receiving stolen property and identity theft. Pittsen received a three-year sentence at that time, while Masterson was jailed for 30 days.

While he held Richards against her will in Ocean Alley's Budget Inn, Masterson told her he had accidentally killed Pittsen in May, when he was encouraging Pittsen to give him his share of the ill-gotten cash. Pitssen's body was found in her car at the same roadside park north of Ocean Alley.

Although Pittsen's activities between the time of her release from Taconic Correctional Facility in New York earlier in the year and her death in May are not fully known, it appears she and Masterson had again begun stealing and reselling collectibles and other items they stole from various homes in towns throughout eastern New Jersey.

After her body was discovered, local police removed her property from the Cozy Corner, where she had stayed, and discovered she had a sum of money and other items. Captain Lawrence Edwards of the Ocean Alley Police Department said Pittsen's belongings were still in police custody, which made it possible to let Masterson believe he was being given the cash he sought. "Through a prompt investigation, police were able to locate Richards and take Masterson into custody. Masterson is recovering from injuries sustained during Richards' rescue."

Pittsen was a former Ocean Alley resident who was arrested a number of times for alcohol-related charges. Her face may be familiar because she sometimes sold ride tickets at local carnivals. She is also the mother of current resident Adam O'Brien.

"Why do you suppose George doesn't say he and Scoobie rescued you?" I asked. Aunt Madge and I had read the article together. "And he called Scoobie 'Adam.' No one will know it's him.

"Undoubtedly how Scoobie wanted it, though I'm surprised George's editor let him get away with it."

I reread the article. "Literal and figurative fireworks?"

"That's not so bad. He makes it sound like I run a half-way house," Aunt Madge said.

Our eyes met.

"Jolie, what were you thinking?"

I'd been waiting for this question. Yesterday Aunt Madge and I had gone to bed about eight in the morning and slept until mid-afternoon. My sister Renée came down from Lakewood and she and her husband sat downstairs to shoo away anyone who wanted to talk to us. And they served the afternoon snack to Aunt Madge's guests. She wouldn't hear of her guests leaving.

When we finally got up, I had to spend a half-hour on the phone with my parents assuring them that Aunt Madge and I were all right and that they should stay in Florida. Ramona and a couple of Aunt Madge's friends from church brought in supper, and we were both back in bed by nine in the evening. There was no sign of Scoobie, but I knew he would have gone over what he calls his 'people quotient' and wanted to be alone, so I wasn't worried about him.

The bottom line was that Aunt Madge and I hadn't talked much about what happened. Not to each other. So, here we were on Sunday morning, with her dressed for church and me still in my bathrobe. And I had to answer Aunt Madge's question.

"You probably think I wasn't thinking," I said, slowly. "But it seemed so clear. Marcus, Masterson, said no police. But as soon as we knew who he was Morehouse started talking about having police look for you guys in town, and I knew they'd want to be all over the place if I took him the suitcase."

"And somehow you talked Adam and George into going with you?"

I shook my head. "No, they were waiting outside the house, well, just down the street. Not waiting, kind of hiding in George's car. I guess he wanted to see what would happen. Remember, I told you I climbed out your window?"

Aunt Madge pulled me into a hug, and then stepped back to look at me. "You have to promise me you won't take a risk like that again."

"No."

"Jolie," her voice was firm.

"First, it won't happen again. And second, I won't let anyone hurt you any more than you'd let anyone hurt me."

She stared at me. I could tell by her expression that an idea was forming.

"I'll make you a deal. You stop behaving so rashly and I won't let George Winters see any of the photos of you that summer you were three and ran around in just your underwear all the time."

"You wouldn't dare!" I almost shouted.

"Try me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO learn about what Penny and Masterson had been up to, and I was convinced that she and Turk had probably worked together at least in a pickpocket scheme. Why else would she have known enough about him to make her follow Turk as Turk followed Scoobie? As the police left early yesterday morning I'd asked Sgt. Morehouse about this. His reply had to do with me minding my own business and was quite rude, but he hadn't had much sleep. I decided to wait a couple days before I asked again.

Dr. Welby arranged for the food donation day to take place at Mr. Markle's store on Sunday afternoon of 4th of July weekend. He was certain some of the many tourists in town would donate. So even though Aunt Madge had only been safe for about thirty hours, I stood in the grocery store parking lot. Lance borrowed a pick-up truck on which we hung the Harvest for All Food Pantry sign.

Scoobie had taken two pieces of poster board and strung them together so he was wearing them in the same fashion people used when they stood on the street advertising their business. On the front and back Ramona had lettered "Ask me about Talk Like a Pirate Day, September 19th."

Though I was able to agree with everyone who told me that it was wonderful that Aunt Madge was safe and to sample the baked goods that Monica had organized for the sale, I felt anything but back to normal. A couple times when people called out to me I was truly startled, and my mind kept traveling back to the walk through the woods when I had been convinced Aunt Madge and I were going to be shot.

I'm smart enough to know that it's going to take awhile to feel safe and settle back into my routine, but I had not expected to feel so rattled once it was clear Aunt Madge really was going to be okay. I accepted a sack of canned goods from a woman who works in the records room at the courthouse and barely thought to thank her. As I loaded it into the pickup truck Scoobie caught my eye. "You okay?"

"Yes, just still whipped, I guess."

By one-thirty the pickup was full and the grocery clerk Mr. Markle said could drive it to the food pantry was behind the wheel. Lance was in the passenger seat so he could tell the guy where to unload the food. The rest of us stayed to solicit more donations, and we put them in grocery carts.

Sylvia had refused to wear the pirate hat Lance bought her, so it periodically moved from my head to Ramona's to Jennifer's, depending on where Scoobie chose to put it. My grocery cart was almost full when someone said, "Smile, Jolie."

I turned, without a smile, and looked directly at George Winters as he took a photo of me in the pirate hat. "Very funny. Make sure you take one of Jennifer." I tried to be overly polite.

He gave me an odd look and then went inside the store to talk to Mr. Markle.

"Miss?"

I turned to see the taller of the two homeless men, Josh I thought his name was, looking at me. He appeared ill at ease about something. When he didn't say anything else I said, "We really appreciate your help today."

And I did. Scoobie had suggested they help, and Dr. Welby had actually tracked them down, since Scoobie was still sore. Dr. Welby told me quietly that he just followed the sound of the bongo drums, but that he didn't recognize any of the music.

"I need to tell you something." He gestured that we should walk toward the soft drink machine that sits outside the store.

When we got close to the machine I saw Max was standing next to it, seemingly trying to blend in with the store's brick walls. "What is it, you guys?" I asked.

"The lady told us not to tell," Max said quickly.

"The thing is, we didn't know she was Scoobie's mother," Josh said, and he glanced to where Scoobie was pretending his cane was a pirate's sword.

"You mean Penny?" I asked. I was trying to connect dots in my brain, but I wasn't quite getting there.

"Yeah," Max said. "The lady that got killed by the guy who took your aunt."

Slowly the dots connected. "Did you guys see something by the boardwalk in mid-May?"

Josh nodded. "It was really early. A Saturday, but I don't know the date. Joe gives us day-old muffins sometimes, so we were on the bench across from Java Jolt, waiting for him to get there."

By the steps Scoobie got pushed down.

"We saw this guy coming down the street," Josh said.

"We didn't know him," Max said, quickly.

"Anyway," Josh continued, "he walked under the boardwalk. And he said 'you aren't dead yet?'"

Max said, "Josh was a soldier, a U.S. Army soldier, so he ran over there, really fast. I kind of followed."

"I got under there in time to see him bash Scoobie in the back of the head with a beer bottle," Josh said. "It wasn't in his hand when he was walking, so I guess he picked it up under there."

"And you chased him off?" I asked, quietly.

"Me and Josh, yeah, we chased him," Max said, in an excited tone.

My eyes met Josh's. I had guessed when we spoke to them briefly Friday on the boardwalk that Max might have some sort of emotional problem. Josh almost seemed to be his caregiver. "You saved Scoobie's life." I felt myself start to tear up.

"We didn't know what to do, what to do," Max said. "But the lady came up, running up. Well, sort of running. She was kind of fat."

"And you think it was Penny Pittsen?" I asked.

Josh nodded. "We recognized her from the picture in the paper this morning." He paused. "Is she really Scoobie's mother?"

"Yes, but he hadn't seen her in a long time."

"She told us she was calling an ambulance, and to go away," Josh said. "The ambulance and police came."

"But she walked away when they came," Max said. "She could have told them who did it."

I wanted to ask why they didn't step forward, but instead drew a breath. "I really need you to talk to the police, especially if you think you know who tried to hurt Scoobie."

"He didn't just try," Max said, excited again.

A half smile formed on Josh's face, but vanished quickly. "The thing is, the police don't like us too much."

"I didn't take that apple," Max said hurriedly. "I just forgot to pay."

"I've forgotten before. I know what you mean." I looked at Josh again.

"Could you maybe go with us?" Josh asked.

"Of course."

"But he's here, so it's gotta be today," Max added.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN Sgt. Morehouse truly excited before. When Josh, Max, and I got to the police station about two-thirty and she heard why we were there, Dana Johnson called him to come in.

"After all this time," Morehouse said, "we're gonna get the bastard that tried to kill Scoobie."

It was indeed Turk the two men had seen. Morehouse made them describe him, and then listened while Josh explained that yesterday, when he was playing the bongos on the boardwalk near the carnival, they had seen Turk. Max had become very upset and they left

"We looked for Scoobie," Josh said. "He's pretty good at knowing what to do. But we didn't see him until today at the grocery store."

"And it was his head. His head that got busted," Max said.

"Yes, it was." Morehouse spoke quietly, apparently thinking. He turned to Dana. "I got an idea. Why don't you find Scoobie, see if he'll help."

"Don't you think I..."

"No, Jolie. This is a police matter, a very serious police matter." He looked at me with a stern expression, so I looked away.

Dana left, and Sgt. Morehouse got up and returned with two donuts and offered to get Josh and Max coffee. Both men wanted some, so he stepped out.

"I think they like us now," Max said, in a loud whisper.

I COULD TELL THAT Scoobie did not like that I had brought Josh and Max to the station without telling him why, but he didn't say anything. After a brief conversation, Sgt. Morehouse and he walked into another office and Dana came in to sit with Josh, Max, and me. She was very good at putting them at ease.

"So," Max asked after a few minutes. "You got a boyfriend?"

Dana grinned. "Even better. A husband."

After a few minutes more Sgt. Morehouse stuck his head in and asked us to join him in the small conference room down the hall. Lt. Tortino and Scoobie were already seated.

"I'm thinking that if we wire Scoobie..."

"No!" I was afraid of where this was going.

"Relax," Scoobie said, and gave me an unreadable look.

"Broad daylight," Morehouse said, "with Dana and a couple of the other young officers nearby in street clothes." He turned to Josh and Max who were sitting opposite him. "Your help has been really terrific. Later, I may need to ask you to tell some other people what you saw."

Josh nodded quietly, but Max looked fearful.

"The thing is," Morehouse said, "it would be easier for everybody if we can get Turk to talk to Scoobie about this. May not work..."

"Very well may not," said Lt. Tortino. "But worth a try."

"Will you be able to hear what they say?" I asked.

Morehouse shook his head. "Real-time listening, that's TV show stuff. We're a small department. But we will have the tape from the conversation Scoobie has with the guy."

Lt. Tortino turned to Josh and Max. "We'd like to pay for a room for you guys for a couple nights. That way you don't have to worry about running into this guy Turk while he's in town."

"And you know where to find us," Josh said, quietly.

"Nobody's going to watch you or anything," Tortino said.

"We're free citizens," Max said, talking fast again. "We have rights.

Tortino started to say something, but Scoobie interrupted him. "You do. And if you stay there I'll know where to find you, and you and Jolie and I can go to supper or breakfast or something." He looked at me. "Jolie's buying."

MY CAR WAS PARKED ON THE street closest to the carnival entrance. It was five-thirty and I had promised Sgt. Morehouse I would go home, but since I hadn't had a police escort I was sitting there burning gas by turning the air conditioner on and off.

I could see the carnival entrance, but there were too many people going in and out for me to have much chance to see Scoobie. I simply wanted to be close. I was still having an internal debate about whether to enter the carnival, but I figured the police would spot me and I wouldn't put it past Morehouse to think of some reason they should arrest me.

I kept going over what I knew and what I thought I knew. I had thought Turk might be involved in Penny's murder somehow. I couldn't figure out how, but when Aunt Madge said that Penny sometimes sold ride tickets at the carnival it seemed logical. And then we saw Penny on the tape, following Turk. Now, however, it seemed that murdering Penny was not part of his plan. Her son, yes.

In a million years I would not have suspected Marcus of anything criminal, much less violent. It wasn't just his disguise, though he had done a pretty good job with white hair dye and glasses, among other efforts to change his appearance. He fit my image of a writer, seemingly distracted at times, maybe a couple of crabs short of a bushel. And the book cover. It was awful, but just realistic enough for me to think a publisher really had given him a mock-up of his cover. Cash Out for Murder. Lame.

And Penny. Scoobie had not seen her in the Sandpiper, but it's L-shaped and always crowded. Penny saw him. I could only think of one reason for her not calling an ambulance after she followed Scoobie and Turk from the Sandpiper in the wee hours of Saturday morning. It was dark and she was just enough behind Turk after they left the Sandpiper that she missed Scoobie climbing onto the boardwalk and Turk pushing him down the steps and apparently dragging him under the boardwalk and injecting him with drugs.

But Penny must have suspected something, to have followed Turk from the Budget Inn back to the boardwalk a few hours later. She called the ambulance when she finally did find her son. Why didn't Penny want anyone to know she was the one who called? Maybe because she used a stolen mobile phone. Maybe because she hadn't checked in with her parole officer. Or maybe she thought her presence would make the police suspect her, though she knew Josh and Max and seen her rush up after they ran Turk off. From all I had heard about her and her awful behavior at the hospital, it was possible that following Turk and calling the ambulance were her only selfless acts on behalf of Scoobie. Too bad it came so late, said a small voice in my head. Better late than never.

It was hotter than blue blazes, as Aunt Madge would say. I turned on the air conditioner again, which meant I had to start the car. Somebody beeped from the street, and I rolled down the window and motioned they should pass so they'd know I was not going to leave the parking space. I was rewarded by having a man who looked older than Aunt Madge flip the bird at me. Nice.

After another twenty minutes I was thinking about driving to the police station so I'd be there when Scoobie and the officers got back there. I hadn't been given any specific orders not to do that, though I could be pretty sure Morehouse would regard "stay at Madge's until I call you," as just that.

I sighed and turned on my blinker to show I was going to leave the parking space. As I looked up and down the street for traffic I saw a familiar figure coming toward me. Turk was walking fast down the street, but not running. He hugged the parked cars and every five or ten steps he would look over his shoulder. As he got within a few car lengths I sunk low in my seat and wished I had a pimpmobile with dark windows.

I didn't even have time to consider whether it was a good idea. I probably would have done it either way. As he got to my car's front fender I swung open the door and he rammed into it and landed on his butt on the sidewalk. He jumped up, furious, and I just had time to close and lock the door before he recognized me.

"You!" His anger turned to fear and he looked back over his shoulder. It took him a few seconds to realize that the clown running toward him pointing a gun was probably a police officer. His shoulders sagged and he put his head on the hood of my car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

PRETTY MUCH A LET DOWN, was how Scoobie characterized his short conversation with Turk. Scoobie had gotten Turk to say he hoped that there "were no hard feelings," but that was about it. Turk played dumb very well, but Scoobie was sure Turk suspected Scoobie had not just stopped by to say hello. Even so, Turk wouldn't have given the police much reason to arrest him on the spot if he hadn't left the carnival.

"Guilt by running," Morehouse said at the time.

IT WAS A COUPLE DAYS AFTER 4th of July weekend and Scoobie and I had again taken Josh and Max to dinner, this time at Burger King. It looked as if Max thought this should be a regular thing. I didn't know how long I could keep paying for their meals and Max's nervousness was wearing on me.

Scoobie and I had just made tea for Aunt Madge and helped ourselves to leftover muffins. We were discussing the 'carnival wiretapping' again, as Scoobie called it. "Turk didn't even turn off the Ferris Wheel when he left," Scoobie said. "About the fifteenth rotation some little kid threw up from almost the top..."

"More than we need to know, Adam," Aunt Madge said. She was on her sofa reading a book, something she doesn't often do. Usually if she's reading it's to skim a home repair magazine looking for projects. Apparently she was still healing from her ordeal, or she had decided life was too short to skip some good books.

Turk's stash of pot and miscellaneous pills was hidden in the same spot it had been when I had spotted it at the Asbury Park carnival. Police in several towns had been observing him. They hadn't arrested him yet because they were trying to catch him meeting with his supplier.

In addition to gathering evidence in Turk's attack on Scoobie, Ocean Alley and the state police thought there might be a link between Turk and the taller blonde carnival worker. The police seemed to think they worked together to do some pick pocketing during the carnivals, and that they might have committed home burglaries in several towns. I didn't care what they could charge Turk with as long as it was a lot so he'd be in prison a long time.

I still had not figured out how to "heal" completely from the tumult of the last few weeks. I could have lost Aunt Madge and Scoobie, two of the most precious people in my world. How is a person supposed to deal with that? There must be something I could have done to keep them from getting hurt. I kept asking Scoobie what I should have done differently, and he kept asking me why I felt guilty. It was starting to tick me off.

George was still barely talking to me. He thought I should have called him to say "what was going down at the carnival," as he put it. He also still maintained I should pay for his replacement mobile phone, and he was getting quite testy about it. He had retaliated for not being "in the loop on the carnival thing" by referring to my action with my car door as "risky behavior that should be left to law enforcement professionals or actors, neither of which is Ms. Gentil." He did this in a reflective column the editor let him write about how it felt to be part of the story instead of just writing about it. I thought it was a stretch to work me into it.

George did tell Aunt Madge and me that he had learned that Marcus/Masterson had clammed up, and maintained that he and Penny were just old friends who had reconnected. George had learned that the state police were showing their two pictures to pawnshop dealers up and down the Jersey coast, and many recognized them.

Plus, the police found Penny's purse in Masterson's trunk, so the police thought they "had him on that one," as Morehouse had said. And the room he took Aunt Madge to was not one he had registered for. It had been Penny's room during her last stay, and the key was in her purse. Apparently he was either cheap or trying not to leave a paper trail.

One way or another, Masterson was going to get what he deserved.

Ramona really wanted to go to Masterson's room at the hospital and demand to know if it was his gloved hand that had pulled her to the ground. However, as Scoobie pointed out, she had sold her drawing of a gloved hand for a pretty penny, so if he said it was his hand she might have to give him something for the inspiration. She was not amused.

Scoobie was loading a couple of Aunt Madge's extra muffins into his knapsack when the front doorbell rang. I went to answer it, assuming it was a new B&B guest, since most of them come in the side door once they check in.

"George, what are you doing here?"

"Scoobie and I are taking you somewhere," he said, and walked in.

I will always appreciate what George did for Aunt Madge, and I've come to understand some aspects of his humor. But I didn't like him just stopping by.

"Actually, we just got back..."

Scoobie stuck his head out of the kitchen. "Just be a minute, George."

"Grab your purse," George said.

"Are we talking ice cream?" I tried not to sound irritated.

"Maybe my cell phone store."

"Get a life," I said.

I told Aunt Madge I wouldn't be long and got my purse and followed Scoobie and George out of the house. We'd driven for a couple minutes when George pulled into the parking lot at St. Anthony's.

I looked at Scoobie, and he gave me a noncommittal sort of grin. There were a couple other cars in the lot, so I guessed we were going to play bingo and wished I'd insisted on not coming.

They got out of the car and I followed, slowly. I figured I could walk back to the Cozy Corner if I needed to, though St. Anthony's is on the far end of town. I should have brought my car. I hate depending on anyone. "What's up, guys?"

"We're giving you a helping hand," Scoobie held the door for me. George followed me in.

It took a second to get used to the dimmer light. A sign on a stand in front of us said "Twelve Step Meetings Downstairs."

I looked at both of them.

"Serenity prayer in action," Scoobie said.

"This," George said, "is where you start to learn to deal with what you can't control."

Ten thoughts went through my mind concurrently. Or maybe it was twelve. First, who did they think they were, bringing me to a twelve-step meeting? Not that there's anything wrong with them. Second, give me enough flexibility and I can control almost anything.

"I'm happy to be in charge of my life," I said, stiffly.

"You aren't in charge of any of the big things in your life, or other people's lives." Scoobie started down the steps.

George gestured that I should follow Scoobie and I did so, reluctantly. I only walked downstairs to be polite. Contrary to their thinking, I managed my life pretty well. Hadn't the last few weeks shown that? Wait, they didn't.

We got to the bottom of the steps and signs pointed to Al-Anon, AA, NA, GA, and All-Anon. Scoobie was intent on where he was going, so I looked back at George. "What's All-Anon?"

"For any family member or friend of anybody with any kind of problem." He grinned. "Take your pick." More seriously he added, "I'd suggest All-Anon. We'll go to that one with you, then you're on your own if you come back."

We walked into the All-Anon room and a woman took a pillow off a shelf and put it on a seat for Scoobie. He talked to her for a moment and then walked back to me.

"Anonymous, remember?"

"I'll get you for this," I murmured, but I nodded.

He shrugged. "Take what you like and leave the rest. Or leave." He grinned.

I saw a couple of people I knew only slightly and nodded to them, but I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I'd seen Alcoholics Anonymous meetings depicted on television, but they never showed anything except somebody saying "I'm John Smith and I'm an alcoholic." I didn't know what to expect from what the sign on the wall said was a "friends and family group meeting."

George was helping himself to coffee and I studied his profile for a minute. I'd heard Scoobie say several times that he went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, but I had no idea if George usually went with him, or to other meetings, or this one. Or if he just helped Scoobie corral me to this meeting.

I remembered George quietly putting something in a drawer in Scoobie's hospital room. It looked as if he and Scoobie knew each other better than I thought. Or differently, at least.

Chairs were set up in a large circle, and people began to sit down. I deliberately did not sit near Scoobie or George. The woman next to me handed me a small book called Courage to Change. I thumbed to the back and read the twelve steps of Al-Anon with the group. Apparently there was no book for All-Anon.

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Who says my sanity needs to be restored? Besides maybe Aunt Madge. Or Harry. Or Ramona.

I was angry with Scoobie and George. How could they take me here without asking me? Because they knew I wouldn't come if they asked.

A woman about my age said she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that her sister, who she said drank and used pot, ran her car into a tree a couple months ago and died. "What else could I have done?" she kept asking.

Maybe stolen her keys? I noticed that while someone handed her a tissue no one really answered her question.

"For me, it's about choices," Scoobie was saying. "I'm trying really hard to choose to look ahead, not back. I'm finding it," he paused, "a lot harder right now.

Look ahead. I intended to look ahead to get people to understand why I can't leave loose ends alone, or at least get them to stop being mad at me when I try to find out something.

There was a white board at the front of the room and I read it.

Enlightening darkness unwinds

The power of light reminds

Pain offers no clear berth

Gratitude is rebirth

Scoobie

Gratitude is rebirth. Ok, my choice was to be mad that Scoobie and George brought me here, but to be grateful they cared enough to do it. Tomorrow I'd figure how to get even. Tomorrow I'd show them I didn't need to be here.

Or maybe I'd come back.

*****************************************

If you would like to read the rest of Scoobie's poem, finished as he healed, take a look.

Breakfast Table Cordial

As she undid the laces

Of her fragile mental health

Revealing to him places

Where she'd never been herself

Breakfast table cordial

Stage direction for the scene

Both being very careful

To not say what they mean

Struggling through the mourning

Of the night before

Juggling never-heeded warnings

From those who know the score

Much too close for comfort

In this game of truth or dare

A telephone-booth apartment

May be to blame, who really caress

Might as well admit it

This has been a big mistake

Fight like hell to fit it

But they knew it was a fake

Scoobie's ghost writer is real-world poet James W. Larkin.

Keep reading to get to Any Port in a Storm, fourth book in the series.

Table of Contents
Any Port in a Storm

Return to Table of Contents

Elaine Orr

First Copyright 2012

Description

Jolie Gentil and friends are putting the finishing touches on the Talk Like a Pirate Day fundraiser for the food pantry and trying to figure out who's breaking into some of the houses Jolie appraises. When she realizes a new face in town is leading high school kids into trouble in those houses, Jolie's mad and lets him know it. But Hayden offers to help her mind her own business, and a lot of people at the fundraiser hear her give him what for. A hurricane's on the way to disrupt Talk Like a Pirate Day, and when a corpse turn up under the pirate ship the next day, Jolie's looking like a suspect. Soon she's getting less work. Who wants a murder suspect appraising their house? Scoobie's pirate limericks can't solve a crime, so Jolie and her sometimes buddy local reporter George Winters look for the murderer and try to figure out who's trying to frame Jolie. They need to stay ahead of whoever forces Jolie's car into a ditch and off the radar of the local police who tell Jolie -- for the hundredth time -- to butt out. All this and Jolie has to deal with Aunt Madge's blossoming love life. And what about her own? For a cozy mystery with a dose of humor and a touch of romance, join Jolie and friends in Ocean Alley.
ANY PORT IN A STORM
CHAPTER ONE

I AM PAST BEING amused by Ocean Alley residents who feel compelled to yell "shiver me timbers" across the grocery store or pretend to thrust a sword at me as I jog past them on the boardwalk. I can't believe Scoobie talked me into a Talk Like a Pirate Day fundraiser for the food pantry.

I have a sense of humor. It's just been a crazy year, and I'm up to my eyeballs in work and chairing the Harvest for All Food Pantry Committee at First Prez. On top of that, Scoobie just went back to college to get his associate's degree as an x-ray technician. That's great, but it cuts down on his time to help with planning Talk Like a Pirate Day. Though help would be a stretch, since he spends most of his free time writing pirate limericks.

I parked my car in front of the two-story home that I was appraising on Seashore Street. It was about ten blocks from Aunt Madge's Cozy Corner B&B, but the area was all rentals and not as well kept up. The front porch caught my eye. Fresh paint can hide a world of sins, but this house was in a galaxy of its own.

My paperwork had a note from my boss, Harry. "Jolie. This is one of Lester's. Have fun!" Lester Argrow is my friend Ramona's uncle, and the biggest pain in Ocean Alley's real estate industry.

The porch railing was loose, and as I walked up the short flight of steps leading to the porch I noted a couple of the steps were soft. Great. Wood rot. The key required a lot of jiggling before the lock cooperated, but the door eventually swung open easily. The musty odor of an older, vacant house reached me and I sneezed. I sniffed. There was another smell mixed with the usual ones, but I didn't recognize it.

I quickly measured the living room and two small bedrooms and was walking back toward the kitchen when the back door banged and I heard footsteps racing down the back porch. It sounded like a couple of people running out, but a glimpse of sneakered feet and a denim jacket rounding the detached garage was all I saw. It looked like a boy, but the figure was slight, so I wasn't sure. And didn't care.

The kitchen counter had a few napkins, a cigarette lighter, and a couple of ash trays, one of which looked as if it had recently been used to burn incense. A soft drink can sat on its side. Luckily it had been mostly empty when tipped. "Nuts." This was the second house this month that had clearly sported either vagrants or bored kids. I realized the smell I couldn't identify had been marijuana mixed with incense.

I walked back to my car and got a plastic bag from the trunk, put the ash trays and trash in it, and continued working. By the time I finished taking photos inside and out it was almost four-thirty. I stowed the trash in my trunk and drove back to Steele Appraisals to enter the information in the computer so it could spit out floor plans for me.

Harry Steele is Aunt Madge's good friend, and the old Victorian house that also serves as his office looks better every week. It should. He spends most of his time pounding and painting, and I do most of the appraisals. Which is fine. It's his business, so I have no major responsibilities and I get paid half of whatever he charges per appraisal.

As I turned on the computer Harry's voice drifted downstairs. "That you Jolie?"

"You better hope so," I called back. Harry is one of the few people who always remembers to pronounce my name correctly. My French-Canadian father chose the name Jolie and insists I retain its French pronunciation, so the J is soft and it ends in an "ee" sound. That would not be so bad, but our last name is Gentil, soft G, silent L and the "i" is also pronounced like an "ee." Zho-lee Zhan-tee translates to "pretty nice" in English. Not so nice when you are a kid, but most people don't study French these days, so I don't get teased as much.

I finished entering data into the appraisal software and heard Harry coming down the steps. Often we communicate in brief yells up and down the staircase, but today he had already changed from his painter's pants and smudged tee-shirt. "You look dapper," I said.

And he did. Harry is in his later sixties and bought this house, which belonged to his grandparents many years ago, as his retirement project. Fixing it up over the past year or so has given him a leaner physique than when I first met him.

"Madge and I are having supper at Newhart's." He gave me a self-conscious grin.

"I don't know, Harry. You and Aunt Madge are spending an awful lot of time together. Should I be chaperoning?"

"What is it she calls you?"

I gave him a blank look.

"Twit. Don't be a twit, Jolie."

"Jeez. Insults from a boss. Isn't that some sort of harassment thing?" I asked.

"I'm rusty on employment law," he said, and flicked on his own computer. "I thought I'd show you the most recent missive from our pal Lester."

Lester and Harry are often at loggerheads over the right selling price for a house. Lester and I get along fine, but I think it's mostly because I laugh at his jokes.

I bent over to read Harry's computer screen. "Jeez, Harry. The house on Fairweather is $199,000 easy. Are you sure you didn't miss a couple rooms? I might have to go back to the Jennifer dame." Though the text was minus his cigar smoke and speech patterns, it was pure Lester.

"At least this time he didn't ask if you know your ass from your elbow when it comes to the local real estate market."

"I went over your appraisal again. I think $194,000 is spot on," Harry said. "He brings a lot of work to us. If it weren't for that I'd show Jennifer he called her a dame, and then he'd have to go to Lakewood to get anyone to appraise his properties."

I hitched my purse on my shoulder. "How nice that he writes to you instead of me." I turned to go, and remembered what I meant to tell Harry. "Somebody was in the house on Seashore that I just did. That's two this month."

Harry frowned. "Could you tell how they got in?"

"Nope, but the place has been empty for awhile. The back door has a simple turn lock, and it's loose."

Several real estate agents have seen signs of entry to a few of the houses they listed, but none of them wants mention of this on the police blotter, as it would just call more attention to the fact that homes are vacant. So, as long as nothing in a house is damaged, agents just let the police know informally. I smiled to myself. As an added benefit, if agents and appraisers don't report the break-ins, it keeps a news tip from _Ocean Alley Press_ reporter George Winters.

I STOPPED AT THE library to look for my best bud, but there was no sign of Scoobie. His backpack was on the librarian's credenza behind the check-out desk, so I figured he'd gone to Newhart's Diner for supper.

It was a pleasant evening for almost mid-September, so I walked the few blocks to the diner. Like a lot of east coast beach towns, Ocean Alley has a mix of cottages, motels, bed and breakfast places, and small retail businesses. Thanks to some pretty strict zoning laws, our little New Jersey town avoided the condo craze that hit a lot of beach towns, so it still has a small town feel, even when it's packed with tourists.

It was close to dinner time, and Newhart's was crowded but I spotted Scoobie, who was writing in one of his steno pads. He was in his traditional jeans and t-shirt, but his hair and beard looked as if they'd had a fresh trim.

I looked around for Aunt Madge and Harry, but they weren't there yet, so I dodged a food server as I wove between small tables and the booths that lined the walls. Arnie Newhart gave me a brief wave as I walked by the counter that runs along the front of the diner, but Scoobie still didn't look up. He had some rough years after high school, heck, in high school, but I didn't know it at the time. I'm really glad he's gone back to school at almost age thirty, but I could tell from his concentration that he was writing a poem, not studying, and I've heard about every anatomy joke or pirate limerick I can stand.

Scoobie glanced up as I got closer and gave me a broad grin. "Ahoy mate. You'll really like this one, Jolie."

I gave him an 'I-don't-think-so' look as I took the pad and folded a foot under me as I sat and read silently.

A pirate charms, that's not new.

Me ladies he said, what to do?

Said the wench this is fun

But from spouse I must run

_Or t'will be no chance for a screw_.

"Not exactly PG-13, is it?" I asked, dryly.

"Yeah, can't use it on Talk Like a Pirate Day, but I'll get a lot of mileage out of it before then." He stuffed his pen in a pocket.

"No doubt." I handed him back the steno pad. "Let's grab some fries on the boardwalk."

We waved at Arnie, who was trying to explain to a customer that soft shell crabs did not in fact get served in a shell, and walked toward the door.

"I don't think that guy's a regular," Scoobie said, nodding toward the customer as he pushed the door open and held it as I followed him out.

"Tourist," I said absently. "So, how was the anatomy quiz?"

"Aced it. Or think I did. Did you know that some lovers try positions that they can't handle?" he asked.

I stopped. "What? Is that what you talk about in class?"

"It's a pneumonic," he said, grinning widely. "To remember the carpal bones. Some Lovers Try Positions They Can't Handle. Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate."

I stared at him, nonplussed.

"Oh, that's right. You haven't broken your wrist yet."

I kept staring.

"Would it help if I said it backwards?" He feigned innocence.

"You're beyond help." I started walking again and neatly sidestepped a couple teenagers who were intent on getting to a video arcade. "Why don't you write some poetry about the bones? Maybe that would get pirates out of your system."

"You're saying you're tired of my pirate poetry?" he asked.

I didn't bother to answer. We climbed the steps to the boardwalk, which is not as crowded at dinner time as it is during the day or early evening, especially now that it's past Labor Day. This time of day people are tending to their sunburns or getting prepared for evening trolling. But we were rewarded with Ramona, who sat on a bench facing the ocean, sketch pad in hand and long blonde hair hidden by a floppy straw hat with a wide brim.

Scoobie whistled.

She looked sideways as we approached and then returned to her sketch pad. "Hey, you guys. I'm trying to capture that great sand castle before the waves get it."

It was a monster, perhaps three feet high, with five turrets that I could see and a moat dug around it. "We'll get some fries and come back." I looked back at the waves rolling in and the small crowd that applauded each time the castle withstood another breaker. _Probably the builders._

"Is that Alicia?" Scoobie asked

I squinted. "Could be." Alicia helps some at the counter at the food pantry, largely at her mother's insistence. Though her body language says she would rather be with other fourteen-year olds than at the pantry, she's always polite, and she and her mother, Megan, worked especially hard during last year's Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

Scoobie and I both waved in the direction of the sand castle guardians, but either they didn't see us or Alicia and her friends were as good at ignoring adults as most teenagers are. We left Ramona and walked a short distance further on the boardwalk and I went to the service window at the boardwalk french fries shop. Without asking, the clerk gave us two paper plates when she handed me the cardboard cup of fries. I eat mine with catsup and Scoobie pours on the vinegar. I love small towns.

Ramona shut her sketch book as we walked back to her. "Did those kids build that?" I asked, nodding toward the sand castle.

"I don't think so," she said. "In the store today a couple women said there were about ten people working on it, and they had a lot of different sized buckets to use for molds."

I've never fully understood the desire to lug buckets of sand from one spot on the beach to another and mix it with water to shape castles -- all the while covered with gritty sand and occasionally tweaked by sand crabs. _To each her own._ We all looked at the beach as a bunch of screeches said the castle battlements had been breached.

"Anyway," Ramona continued, "I figured I'd come look."

We watched another half-minute, as a couple more young people joined the shrieking chorus, and then turned to leave the boardwalk. "You want a ride back to your place?" I asked Ramona. Neither she or Scoobie has a car, but since you can walk anywhere in town in ten to twenty minutes, you don't really need one.

She glanced at her watch. "I have a yoga class in half an hour and I need to change, so that would be great."

We'd walked the three blocks, with Scoobie trying to interest Ramona in his pirate lyrics, when I spotted my car, trunk lid in the air. "That's weird," I pointed.

"Huh," Scoobie said. "Did you leave it unlocked?"

"Haven't opened it since I left the house I was appraising..." I stopped talking as we got closer. My trunk was not just open, it was empty.

I DROVE RAMONA home with my trunk lid in the air and called Aunt Madge to say I'd be a bit later than usual getting back to the Cozy Corner. Scoobie and I stopped at the hardware store and bought some heavy twine to wrap around the trunk until I could get to a locksmith in the morning. I dropped him at his rooming house and hurried home to change before a Harvest for All committee meeting.

I thought Aunt Madge would have already left for supper with Harry, but the vacuum was running in one of the guest rooms. She has let me do a bit of that work in just the last month, but mostly I'm still relegated to yard work, dog poop patrol, folding sheets from the dryer, and dish washing. And I think Aunt Madge still checks my dishes from time to time.

Two distinct yips came from the back yard, and a glance at the sliding glass door revealed Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy, Aunt Madge's two shelter-adopted part-Retrievers. They believe that I have come into their lives to provide more dog treats and walks. They also believe that I brought my little black cat, Jazz, to keep them company. Initially I was concerned that the dogs would intimidate Jazz, but she now has them firmly under her paw.

I let the dogs in and they circled me a couple times as I walked to the cupboard to get them each a treat. The vacuum went off and I hollered up the stairs to Aunt Madge. By the time I had poured us each a glass of iced tea she was walking down the back stairs, which lead into her living area.

"I heard there was another house with a torn screen and a bunch of trash," she said, by way of a greeting. As she petted Mister Rogers I took in her strawberry blonde hair. She colors it with temporary color so she can change her look every month, and I have seen her in every color except the silver-blue some of her fellow octogenarians use.

"You mean besides the ones on Ferry and Seashore?" I asked, debating whether to tell her about my day. _It can wait until morning_.

"This one was on Conch. I ran into Lester at the market and he said to tell you not to go into vacant houses alone."

I rolled my eyes and she raised an eyebrow. "Everyone thinks it's kids."

"Kids can be very annoying," she said, with a meaningful smile.

GENERALLY THE MEETINGS of the Harvest for All Food Pantry Committee are brief and deal mostly with how much money we have and how to buy the most food for the least price. Coming as it did five days before our Talk Like a Pirate Day fundraiser, we had a lot to cover and I had an agenda. I wanted it to be a short meeting because there was a lot to do and I didn't feel like being too democratic about it.

As I walked into the small conference room near the First Presbyterian community room the first thing I noticed was the several pieces of poster board affixed to the wall with the beginning of a list on each one. The second thing was that Monica was not wearing her traditional cardigan buttoned to the neck, but did sport a bandana across her forehead and looked very proud of herself. I figured this was the first time in her approximately sixty-five years that she had come close to a bandana.

"Good evening, Jolie," boomed Dr. Welby. Though I chair the committee, having been appointed largely because no one else would take the job and Reverend Jamison is a shameless arm twister, Dr. Welby is very upfront about providing ideas and rounding up volunteers. Aunt Madge says this is because, as a retired physician, he is used to bossing people around.

In addition to Monica and Dr. Welby (who abides no teasing about his name), there was my ninety-year old friend, Lance Wilson, and Aretha Brown, who often has a more realistic take on hunger than the rest of us.

The title on each board started with the word "final list," and Lance had labeled them Volunteers, What to Charge, Food, and Games.

"I figured you wouldn't mind, Jolie," Dr. Welby said.

"Of course not. How about one more for publicity, and another for business donations?" I asked, after a glance at my agenda. We had worked on so many things, my brain needed a final run-down of all of them.

"Drat, I knew we were missing something," Lance said, and wrote these on the room's white board, since he had run out of poster board.

The door that leads to the street banged and I heard two sets of footsteps, with Scoobie's voice preceding them. "Yeah, Sylvia, but you wouldn't have to wear it the entire time. Just for the first half-hour."

Lance grinned at me. "I knew she wouldn't go for it," he said.

"I will wear a vest with pockets for money when there are no more lobsters in Maine," Sylvia said.

"I hear they're in short supply," Scoobie said, as they walked into the room.

Sylvia glared at me.

"I had nothing to do with it." I raised my hands as if surrendering. Aretha did the same thing, but instead of talking she just shrugged.

Sylvia focused on Scoobie. "You said it was Jolie's idea," she said.

"Oops." He swung into a seat, a broad grin in place. Since Sylvia sat next to him I knew she wasn't really annoyed. She always presents a very strict face to the world, and I enjoy watching her struggle with how to loosen up without losing her image. She's not quite there yet, and sometimes reverts.

"Hello, Sylvia," said Monica.

"Oh." Dead stop. "That's an interesting hairpiece, Monica," Sylvia said.

"Lance gave it to me," she said, with an air of pride.

Sensing that this could move to waters far colder than those off the coast of Maine, I welcomed everyone to the meeting. "We have so much to do in the next few days that I thought maybe we could have a quick meeting and..."

Scoobie started passing around papers from a stack he brought with him. _I hate it when he hijacks my meetings._

As Lance began reading I saw him suppress a smile. Titled "Things We Can Get People to Pay to Do," the list was single-spaced and included items sure to offend any group.

Talk like a pirate

Talk like a grouchy pirate

Pretend you are a dead pirate

Fart like a pirate

Act like a girl pirate (if you are a boy)

Act like a boy pirate (if you are a girl)

Act like an androgynous pirate (if you aren't sure what you are)

Walk like a fat pirate.

Show your junk like a pirate

Drink from your tankard like a pirate

Walk the plank like a pirate

Not walk the plank like a pirate

Stop talking like a pirate

"This is a lot more than you had on the last list," Monica said.

"Interesting that it doesn't say 'Talk like a drunk pirate,'" said Sylvia.

_Uh-oh_. Sylvia's back. Everyone in the room knew Scoobie had battled back from alcoholism and even spent some time in the county jail for selling pot.

"I was going to say inebriated, but I thought it would offend someone," Scoobie said, evenly.

Lance jumped in. "How's the plank going to work?"

"I thought we could use the soft-sided swimming pool we used for a dunk tank at the carnival," Scoobie said. "That or it has to be a really short drop into one of those little plastic kids' pools."

"Such fond memories," said Dr. Welby. I shot him a look. He would not sit above the dunk tank, but I hadn't been allowed to stay on dry land.

I turned to Scoobie. "You said we didn't have to get wet!"

"What does it mean, 'show your junk like a pirate'?" Monica asked.

"Scoobie's been collecting odds and ends from the beach," I said, before he could elaborate.

"I think you better just have a mattress or something at the bottom," Aretha said. "You have people jumping into water and we'll have a lot of kids catch cold."

"Good point." I eyeballed Scoobie and kept going. "We're going to need more volunteers."

"True," Lance said. "I asked down at the hardware store if they could lend us some of those short aprons with pockets that their people wear. We're going to have to have lots of people taking money. Can't have people have to go to one place to pay to talk like a grouchy pirate."

"That'll be Sylvia's job," Scoobie said.

There was a two second pause, and Monica said, "I have my own apron to bring."

"So I was thinking," I barged on, "about asking the other churches to follow up on their promises to get a few volunteers each. Maybe the Methodists could take the money when people want to walk the plank, and the Unitarians could..."

"Unitarians!" Sylvia and Monica said this in unison, with facial expressions that said I had invited a group of local snake handlers.

"I don't think they eat slugs or anything," Scoobie offered.

"Why does a Unitarian cross the road?" Lance asked.

I saw Scoobie's face light up, but before he could say anything, Lance continued, "To help the chicken as it seeks its spiritual path."

Dr. Welby laughed loudest, and when Sylvia and Monica still looked taken aback he added, "I have friends who are Unitarians. They're okay."

"Now that you mention it, I guess one of the librarians is Unitarian," Sylvia said, her back even straighter than usual.

Eventually we agreed that Dr. Welby would talk to the other churches, all of which send people to the food pantry, Sylvia would see if the radio stations were ready to run the public service announcements, and Monica would round up people to do a bake sale, always her specialty. I managed to end the meeting without any more verbal daggers sailing across the table.

"YOU STOOPED to her level."

"You're right," Scoobie said. "And I should have said she should take the money for people who want to stop talking like a pirate. Then they'd only have to deal with her when they were leaving."

"You're missing the point." I was driving Scoobie home and we would both qualify as grouchy pirates.

"I get your point, Jolie. I'm just tired of her snide comments. I bet she lays off me the next couple of meetings."

"Maybe you'll get lucky."

Scoobie lives in a three-story rooming house not far from the center of town. It's older, but the owner keeps it up pretty well. As I pulled up to the curb the front door banged open and three people ran out. It was past dusk and they were in dark clothes. Judging from their sizes, two maybe five feet tall and one not much taller, they were not tenants.

Scoobie jumped out of the car. "Hey!" He started to chase them and stopped and walked the few steps back to the car.

I turned off the engine and walked to the passenger side of the car. "What was that about?"

"It's the second time this week there have been kids in the hallways who shouldn't be," he said. "There are a couple vacant rooms. I think they're trying to get in one."

_Just like the houses_.
CHAPTER TWO

"LISTEN, JOLIE," Sgt. Morehouse said, the next morning, "it's not exactly the crime of the century. You should have just talked to the officer at the front desk." We were sitting in his cramped office in the Ocean Alley Police Station. He had on his usual polyester pants, this pair navy blue, but in honor of the hot weather he was in short sleeves and his tie was rolled up on his desk.

"I know the money I'll spend to replace the lock isn't a fortune, but it's a pattern," I insisted.

Sgt. Morehouse drummed his pencil on the yellow pad in front of him. "I know a couple real estate agents have found signs that kids or somebody else have been in some houses..." he began.

"They wanted the bag of stuff from the house, the garbage and ash trays I put in my trunk."

"Yeah, that is odd..." he said.

"And I called around before I came over. Jennifer said she noticed stuff out of place in a vacant house she appraised a couple days ago, over on Ferry."

Morehouse glowered at me and I realized I'd interrupted him not once, but twice. "Sorry."

"I'm not saying I'll ignore you, much as I'd like to, but the only way we're gonna deal with this is if you guys call us every time you see signs of unlawful entry." He pointed his pencil at me. "And I mean right then, not next time you think about it."

"So you'll maybe send some fingerprint people to a couple of the houses?" I asked.

"When's the last time I told you how to appraise a property?" he asked, standing up.

I took the cue and stood, giving him what I hoped was a sweet smile. "You told me once to think about not going in vacant houses alone, but so far I've ignored you."

I WALKED DOWN to the locksmith where I'd left my car while I talked to Sgt. Morehouse. She said she'd be quick, and she had been.

"Thanks, Margaret." I wrote the check.

"No problem." She stuck it in the drawer of the cash register. "You gave me an idea to send my refrigerator magnets to all the real estate agents. I'll tell them if they refer customers the people'll get ten percent off."

"That's good. I'd rather it be to change the locks after a sale than because of a break-in," I said.

"No kidding. Hey, somebody said I should talk to you about Talk Like a Pirate Day. Father Teehan, I think."

"Super. Scoobie is trying to arrange some kind of duel between Father Teehan and Reverend Jamison at First Prez, and another one with the Methodist and Unitarian ministers. Then there'd be some sort of a playoff or standoff, or something."

We agreed that she would put a couple of signs about Talk Like a Pirate Day in her storefront window. She grinned. "Leave it to Scoobie."

_Ah yes, leave it to Scoobie._ I got in my car and adjusted the seat, since Margaret is a lot taller than my five-feet-two-inches. I'd like to leave more to him, but he told me last night that he had two more quizzes this week. He assured me he'll be ready to help with Talk Like a Pirate Day set-up in the park on Friday evening, and on the day itself, which is Saturday. When I groused about his lack of time to help Ramona and me put up signs and posters, he reminded me that September 19th was the "established international day" and his professors weren't inclined to count it as a major holiday, so his homework schedule was the same as usual.

I drove to the courthouse to research some past sales, and I'd been there for about ten minutes, very intent on looking up homes to compare to the house I'd appraised yesterday, when I heard a low-level wolf whistle behind me. Since I thought I knew its source, I ignored it.

"Come on Jolie," George Winters said, as he sidled next to me at the tiled counter. "You haven't seen me in what, a week?"

"And a great week it's been." I refiled the material I'd been using and glanced sideways at George. He was wearing his usual Hawaiian-style collared shirt and a pair of what I think of as baggy men's long shorts. Only a reporter who worked in a beach town could get away with that outfit.

"I saw your name on the police blotter again," he said. "I knew it was only a matter of time."

_Nuts! I hate Sgt. Morehouse_. I faced George. "I don't know why he put my name with it. It's happening in a lot of houses." The delight on his face told me George hadn't known there were a bunch of break-ins.

He pulled his thin reporter's notebook from his breast pocket and fiddled with the pencil stuck in its spiral binding until the stubby thing came out. "So, is there a common way that they get in?"

A throat cleared behind us and we both looked at the register of deeds and mortgages. Since she's the last person in town I want to antagonize, I smiled and we moved toward the hall. "I'll talk to you if you won't quote me." We walked outside and sat on a bench in front of the courthouse.

"So, just an 'unnamed local appraiser' would be okay?" He smirked.

"You know that's not okay." I'm trying not to show as much of my irritation with George. He and Scoobie think I'm uptight or something, and they took me to an All-Anon meeting one time. I've gone a few times, and one of the things I've learned is that my mood is my choice. It is still my mood to be annoyed with George, but I try not to show it as much.

"I'm just kidding. I don't need to write most of it using quotes. And Lester'll always give me one."

"Printable?" I asked. He knew it was a rhetorical question, so George waited for me to continue. "It's only the second vacant house I've been in that showed signs of somebody having been in there, but it's the first time someone was in there when I arrived."

George looked up from his notebook. "Jeez, Jolie. The blotter just said you reported it. You should be more careful."

"You mean like ask the kids to put a sign on the door that says Trespass in Progress?"

"How do you know it was kids?" he asked.

I shrugged. "A couple people ran out, but I only saw one from the back, right before they ran behind the little garage." I described the circumstances and gave him the address so he could get more than a mental picture. "There were a couple ashtrays and some litter in the kitchen, or I wouldn't have noticed anything out of place." I decided not to mention the pot smell. George would just sensationalize it, and I didn't want more kids thinking vacant houses were a good place to smoke pot.

"You leave it there?" he asked.

I could see his mind working, figuring how to get into the house to get what he thought might still be there. "Nope. I took it to throw away. That's what someone took from the trunk of my car." Usually I try to keep what I'm doing from George, since he likes to use the _Ocean Alley Press_ to poke fun at me if there is even a remote opportunity. In this case, I figured he'd have other people to bug, so he'd lay off me, mostly. And maybe getting the word out would be the best way to scare off anyone thinking of going in another vacant house.

He was surprised. "I didn't hear that part. Where was your car?"

I told him. "So, I just got the lock fixed," I finished.

He was silent for several seconds. "Hmm. There's more than I thought to this. People would only take that stuff if they didn't want their fingerprints found."

I shrugged. After some unwanted attention since I left my gambler husband and moved to Aunt Madge's Cozy Corner B&B last fall, I have decided to mind only my business. This is a challenge, but I'm persevering. "Maybe. Or maybe they were attached to the ashtrays."

"Were they distinctive?" George asked.

I did a mental eye roll at his literal reaction. "No, just plain glass." I stood. "I hear we're going to get some rain and wind from that tropical storm." I nodded to the two large maple trees that sat outside the courthouse. They had just started whipping a bit in the wind. Tropical Storm LeAnn came ashore in Maryland this morning with weak winds but a lot of rain, and was making its way through southern Pennsylvania toward New Jersey at a slow pace.

"Yeah. My editor kinda hoped we'd get more of a blast." When I looked at him he shrugged. "Sells more papers when somebody's roof gets half blown off."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Speaking of houses, why don't you talk to Lester or some of the other real estate agents? I only go in houses when they sell, they go in all the houses on the market."

"Gee, a tip from Jolie Gentil. Who woulda thought?" He grinned at me and loped away.

AFTER THE COURT HOUSE I stopped at Stenner Appraisals. Jennifer Stenner is the main competition to Harry and me. When I asked if she would help with Talk Like a Pirate Day and assured her she wouldn't have to get her hair wet she had immediately volunteered to be in charge of games.

Even given Jennifer's boundless energy when it comes to party-like activities, I had not expected her office to boast a large piece of plywood on which was painted an excellent pirate ship. The portholes had been cut out and I assumed people would throw beanbags through them.

Jennifer walked from her office into the small lobby area. She looked elegant, as usual, in a sleeveless A-line dress that accented her perfect figure.

I sucked in my tummy, which is my usual reaction when Jennifer walks into a room. "This is cool."

"The really fun part is getting businesses to give prizes." She was actually beaming. "The library has hundreds of books people donated for the next sale, and Daphne's going to give me lots of children's books and kids can choose. And Lester is ordering a bunch of whistles and he's going to put Argrow Real Estate on them."

"Gosh. All I'd thought of was candy. This is terrific."

"Toss me a bean bag, would you Susan?" Jennifer said to the receptionist. Susan obliged, and Jennifer handed it to me.

"I'm lousy at this," I laughed. "Are you sure I won't knock it over?"

"It's got braces on the back," she explained.

I threw the bean bag and it bounced off the side of the ship and landed on the floor. The phone rang and Susan answered it. "It's for you, Jennifer. I put him on hold," Susan said. "I think it's the man from Lakewood Realty."

My ears perked up. Before my ex-husband Robby's arrest for embezzling from his bank to support his gambling compulsion, I sold commercial real estate for Lakewood Realty. I looked at Jennifer and she saw the question in my eyes.

"Thanks to you and Harry," she said, "I have less business in Ocean Alley." She smiled stiffly. "I don't want to have to let anyone go."

"Good point," I said, as she left the lobby. I handed the bean bag back to Susan and thanked her for putting up with the pirate ship for a few more days. It was only as I turned to leave that I noted the name of the ship. _HMS Stenner_. I grinned. _Harry's really going to love this._

I STOPPED BY THE PURPLE COW, the office supply store where Ramona works, so she could show me the finished poster that would get put up around town tonight and ring the park on Saturday.

Her white board caught my eye. Ramona puts a new inspirational saying on the board each day. Unknown to her, Scoobie sometimes changes the sayings. Someone else also does it, but I don't know who that is.

Today, Ramona's handwriting said, "It's always darkest before the dawn." Under it was, "so that's the best time to steal a surf board."

I laughed to myself as I walked into the store. On the wall above the cash register was a two by three foot poster about Talk Like a Pirate Day. In the middle was a female pirate, arms folded across her chest, holding the curved cutlass sword of a pirate. And the female pirate's face was mine.

I stared at the poster, mouth half open and turned toward Ramona, prepared to yell. The camera flash deterred me. I blinked a couple of times and turned to face George Winters, who was strategically backing away.

"Give me that camera!" I started after him, but George can be fast when he wants to. He raced around the shelves that had that week's sale items and was out the front door before I could even get close. I couldn't chase him further, as I had knocked off a box of envelopes and was on the floor picking them up when I saw the hem of Ramona's gauzy-type skirt getting closer.

"I thought you'd like it," she said. She didn't need help interpreting my look.

"When have you ever heard me say I wanted my picture on a poster?" I put the envelope box back on the shelf and turned to study the poster. "How did you get my face on it?"

"I did the background," she said.

I looked at her drawing of a pirate ship anchored in a bay, complete with a skull and crossbones flag. "And the photo?" I asked again.

"George rented a pirate costume and got someone he knows to pose for a bunch of pictures, and then he put your head on one. Under the pirate hat, and all."

The door to the store opened. "Avast, ye beauties!"

"Put a cork in it," I said to Scoobie.

"Is me lady offering wine?" he asked. "Hi Ramona." He grinned at her and turned to me. "I figured you were here. I haven't seen George run that fast since tenth grade."

"I'll be a laughingstock!" I shouted.

"Shh," Ramona said.

I looked around. "There aren't any customers."

A voice came from the stock room. "But the owner is here."

I rolled my eyes at Ramona and Scoobie. "Sorry, Roland." I looked back at the two of them. "How can I show my face around town after everybody sees that?"

"I think George mostly did it to fry Jennifer," Ramona said as she walked back to the cash register.

"You know what Jennifer has, don't you?" Scoobie asked.

"You mean the big HMS Stenner bean-bag board game in her office?" I asked.

"Yeah," Scoobie said. "Look closer at the poster."

The poster was above my head, so I narrowed my eyes. "I don't see what you mean."

"The ship," they both said.

It said HMS Steele. I grinned at both of them. "You're forgiven."

"What about George?" Scoobie asked.

"Depends on what he does with the picture he just took."

GEORGE'S EDITOR exercises more discretion than he does, according to Ramona, who called after George stopped back by the store to glumly tell her he couldn't use the photo of me about to yell at him.

"So, George doesn't need to stay away from you?" Scoobie asked. We were in Harvest for All unpacking several boxes of canned goods that Mr. Markle had sent over from the grocery store.

"He should if I have any sharp objects," I grumbled. "How does he even think of that stuff?"

"I don't think it takes much thought," Scoobie said, examining a can of succotash and making a face. He had his knapsack on the counter and I was going to drop him at the community college when we were done.

The bell above the door that leads to the street jingled and Megan, my favorite volunteer, walked in. She turned and shook out her umbrella on the sidewalk, closed it, and shut the door against the blowing rain.

"Hi, you two," she said. She looked pale, and she was wearing sunglasses, which I thought was odd on a rainy day.

I looked at Scoobie and back to Megan. "Are you okay? You seem...tired or something."

"I'm good. I just couldn't get to sleep last night." She busied herself with taking the can of pencils and the sign-in sheet from under the counter and didn't volunteer any other comments.

I turned back to Scoobie, and I could tell he kind of thought something was off with Megan, too. I snuck a couple of looks at her as she started looking through the sacks on the counter. Megan is probably mid-thirties. She and Alicia live in an apartment not far from the church. While it is a safe area, it's the kind of older, frame apartment that you only live in if you don't have a lot of money. There's no parking, but she doesn't have a car.

"So," I said to Scoobie, "did Mr. Markle give us a donation for Talk Like a Pirate Day?"

Scoobie nodded to the boxes we were unpacking. "This is it. Lance told me last week he thinks business isn't so good for Mr. Markle."

"Oh, dear," Megan said, and we turned to look at her. She flushed. "It's the only grocery store you can walk to if you live in town."

She had taken off her sunglasses and I could see she had been crying. "What is it, Megan?" I asked.

She turned away. "Nothing I can't handle. Alicia is just..." She put her hands over her face and started to cry.

Scoobie got to her first. "Hey, hey. We're here."

Megan pulled back and fished a tissue from her pocket. "She didn't come home right after school yesterday and stayed out until after supper."

I exchanged a look with Scoobie and took Megan's elbow to guide her to the small chair at the other end of the counter. "How is she when she gets back home?" I asked.

"How is she?" Megan looked confused.

Scoobie squatted in front of her. "Does she act as if she was drinking, maybe?"

"Oh! I don't think so. I mean, I don't smell anything," she said.

He nodded. "That's good," he said gently. "But you still want her home when you say. You aren't telling her to stay in after dinner, are you?" He said this with a smile, and got half of one from Megan in return.

"No, of course not. She's not supposed to go out on school nights, but on weekends I tell her nine o'clock if they stay on the boardwalk near home."

"Any new friends?" I asked.

"She's a freshman, you know?" she said. "Since school started back she has so many new friends. I don't know any of their parents."

"You mean because kids at Ocean Alley High come from a couple of middle schools?" Scoobie asked.

"I guess these new kids are from the other school. One boy who walked her home last night looked older, but it was dusk and he didn't walk her to the door." Her eyes grew teary again. "And even if she's with kids her own age, they hang out on the boardwalk, near the arcade, but I don't know where they go after the arcade closes."

I sat cross-legged in front of Megan. "Scoobie and I used to do that."

At this she smiled, in spite of a tear rolling down her cheek. "I know. Your Aunt Madge said she had everybody watching for you when you stayed out late."

I grimaced. Until just last year I thought she was asleep before I went out.

"Those were different times, though," Scoobie said. "Ocean Alley is pretty safe, but a fourteen-year-old shouldn't be out late. Not enough other people on the streets after dark."

Megan nodded. "I talked to Reverend Jamison. He said maybe I should invite her to bring her friends home, but our apartment is so small..."

I said nothing. I could tell she was talking to Scoobie, who had not been a model child when we were in high school. Of course his parents were horrible, and Megan isn't.

"Are you worried about her being embarrassed, or you think she doesn't want you so close?" Scoobie asked.

Megan shrugged. "Both, I guess." She hesitated. "And I really can't afford to feed them all."

She looked at me and I nodded. "I get all that. But maybe if you just had popcorn or something cheap, you'd at least be meeting her friends."

"It makes it harder for the guys to tell her to ignore you," Scoobie said.

She looked at Scoobie, almost timidly. "Could you talk to her? She likes you."

_Should I be offended?_ "Sure he can."

Scoobie gave me a look and turned to Megan. "I'll look for her and talk to her when it makes sense. Soon," he added, as Megan looked less hopeful. "It won't help if I hunt for her, or show up at your house. I see her some."

"Wasn't she on the beach, at the sand castle?" I asked Scoobie.

He nodded and explained to Megan when we had seen her. "They looked like they were just having fun," he said.

I suddenly remembered the jean-clad person who had rushed out of the house I was appraising. _It really could be high school kids in the vacant houses._ I had a sudden idea. "Tell her we need Alicia and her friends to run one of the games for Talk Like a Pirate Day."

"By themselves?" she asked. "I don't think..."

"That's the point," Scoobie said, quickly. "It'll be theirs, no adults telling them what to do."

She still looked dubious, but nodded, and stood. "Okay, I'll ask. Get to work." She made a shooing gesture to Scoobie, and he gave me a hand to pull me up from the floor.

I wiped my hands on my pants and started back to the shelves. "I was a real smart ass. But my mom was the only parent who said kids could hang out at our house anytime."

Megan looked up from where she had begun taking cans from one of the paper bags on the counter.

"We didn't always hang out there, but she did get to meet my friends," I continued.

"And did she like them?" Megan asked.

"I wouldn't go that far." 
CHAPTER THREE

WEDNESDAY MORNING the streets were rain-soaked and there were piles of branches in front of a few houses, but Tropical Storm LeAnn had lost her wallop before she got to Ocean Alley. This was one of those years when it seemed the hurricanes were standing in line in the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans, and another one was supposed to head up the coast by the end of the week. One weather forecaster said it looked as if the next one would stay more than fifty miles offshore, but the Weather Channel said it might be uncomfortably close by the end of the weekend. _Our pirate ships could get tossed around_.

As I drove by the in-town grocery store I saw Mr. Markle supervising a clerk who was sweeping up soil and the remnants of a couple of his large pots of flowers. Even as I figured they must have tumbled over in the storm I realized they were awfully heavy to have been blown over.

Almost on a whim I turned into the grocery store parking lot. Apparently too much of a whim because the car behind me honked long enough to knock a lifeguard off his perch. I gave him the universal sign of peace and love and parked not far from where the store clerk was sweeping.

"I should have known it was you," Mr. Markle said, his dour expression in place.

"And you're so glad to see me." I pointed to the smashed pots. "This is all from the storm?"

"No." His response was terse. "I drove over about midnight to make sure the power for the freezers had not gone out, and none of this was here." He gestured to the now almost clean area near his feet.

"Why would anyone do this?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Been having trouble with more than the usual number of shoplifters. I chased a couple of younger ones out of the store a couple days ago." He turned to walk back into the store. "My security cameras should show who did it."

I looked around, and seeing no signs of cameras called after him. "Where are they?"

He half turned to look at me. "And I would tell you why?" He opened the door to the store and walked in.

_Always a pleasure, Mr. Markle_. I left my car in the grocery store parking lot and headed for Java Jolt. From the boardwalk I could see that the waves were still choppier than normal. The owner of a small knick-knack shop was taking boards off of his windows, much to the amusement of the guy who owns the salt water taffy store.

"Hey, Jolie," the salt water taffy guy called.

What is his name?

"No salt water in your taffy?" I called back.

"I told Sam it wasn't goin' to amount to anything," he said, and ambled over to help the knick knack store owner take down the boards.

It was warm but there was enough of a breeze that I wasn't hot in my business attire -- not that it's formal. Capris and a shirt with a collar are about as formal as I get in the summer. I did have my light brown, shoulder length hair pulled back in a scrunchie. As breezy as it still was, I knew it would be hot and humid later.

"Morning, Jolie," said Joe Regan as I entered the coffee shop. "The usual?"

I stuck out my tongue. "You know I'm trying to avoid the chocolate chip muffins." I tossed money into the sugar bowl on the counter. "How about your house special, half that and half decaf?"

"That's gross," he said amiably, slightly shaking his head.

"I can't do strong stuff all day anymore." I gazed at the glass-covered case that has cookies and muffins, and stuck to my goal of not eating a muffin at Java Jolt if I'd had one at the Cozy Corner in the morning.

The door to the shop opened as Joe handed me my coffee and there was an ear-splitting whistle. I jumped and swore as the mug hit the floor and splintered.

There were two seconds of total silence, and I turned toward the door. I don't think I've ever seen Lester Argrow look anything but confident, cocky even. Until now. With the other customers, Joe, and me glaring at him, he looked like a kid caught soaping a window on Halloween.

"Mop's in the back closet, Lester," Joe said.

"Jeez, Joe. I'm sorry. I'll get it, all of it."

I stooped to pick up mug fragments. "Uh-uh, Jolie," Joe said. "That's for Lester." He grinned at me, though I thought I saw a glint of Irish temper in the look he then tossed over his shoulder, toward Lester.

I looked at my sandals. "Lester, you're lucky I'm not wearing good shoes."

"Lucky the glass didn't get your toes," Joe said, handing me another mug of coffee.

I went over to one of the two open-access computers Joe keeps on the counter that runs along one wall of Java Jolt. The stools are hard, but it beats the library, with four kids always in line behind me. Aunt Madge still doesn't have Internet in the Cozy Corner. She says it's so that people can "take a break from technology." I say it's so she doesn't have people complain about problems getting on line.

"You missed some pieces," Joe said.

I glanced up in time to see Lester scowl and start to reply, but then he looked at the elderly couple at a table in the middle of the room and apparently thought better of his choice of words. No email for me except ads and a note from my mother asking if the storm had been bad. I answered her and went to sit at a table near the front to wait for Lester.

"Coffee's on the house, Lester." Joe handed Lester a mug. "Just hold on tight."

"You really got the smart-ass stuff down good, Joe."

Lester is about five-foot six and he often chews on an unlit cigar. His small office is above First Bank and he meets most of his customers in the Burger King, where he says there is better parking. I think it's so he doesn't have to tidy his office, which also reeks of cigars. Although he is Ramona's uncle, he's only about ten years older than we are.

"I heard you been in a couple of the houses where kids or somebody's been hanging out," Lester said, adding six packs of sugar to his coffee.

"Yep. You know how often it happens?" I asked.

"Couple times a week now. Don't make a lot of sense. There's places kids can hang out."

"There were a couple ash trays at the house on Seashore," I said. "They're probably too young to be smoking."

"Humph. There's a good spot behind the library."

"And you know this how, Lester?" Joe asked.

Lester shrugged. "I didn't have an office in high school," he said, not looking at Joe. Lester leaned across the table. "Listen, Jolie, I think this needs investigating."

I swallowed a sip of coffee too fast and heard Joe turn his snort into a cough. "How many times do I have to tell you? I don't investigate things. I just...check out things that don't make sense."

"You and me, we work good together. Like after you found the skeleton."

"Don't remind me. Anyway, Sgt. Morehouse said if all of us report it any time we see signs of someone being in a vacant place the police will have a better chance to catch them."

Lester's look said what he thought about Morehouse's efforts. "I can get a key to any of the houses," Lester said. "We could make a list of where there's been..."

"No Lester. I'm minding my own business."

He lowered his voice. "Yeah, Ramona told me you're learning to do that. And going to those meetings, too."

This seemed to pique Joe's interest, so I lowered my voice. "Did Ramona mention those meetings are called anonymous for a reason?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "You don't have, like, a problem."

"I go to the family group meetings. And it's not about problems, it's about finding your own solutions." I was annoyed with Ramona for telling Lester that I went to All-Anon.

"Whatever." He pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from the pocket of his shirt. "Here, this is a list of all the places I've heard of."

"Lester!" It came out as a hiss. "Do I have to leave?"

"All right, all right. But I gotta tell you, I'm disappointed in you, Jolie."

I kept myself from telling him how little that mattered, and we talked about a couple houses he thought he was about to write sales contracts for.

As I stood to leave he tossed something about the size of a spool of thread, and I caught it. The whistle had a tiny pirate hat and on it was written, "Argrow Realty \- #1 in Ocean Alley."

"Are you number one?" I asked, surprised.

"Like someone who gets a free whistle will care," he said.

I HAD FINISHED THE THIRD OF THE four houses I had to appraise in three days. While that's a manageable workload in a normal week it was not going to be easy to get it all done with Talk Like a Pirate Day coming up on Saturday. On top of that it was hot, probably the last real spate of summer weather, and vacant houses don't have the air conditioning on.

The house I had just finished examining was in the popsicle district, a neighborhood with many bright-colored houses, and had been extensively remodeled. I thought it was overpriced by a lot, and noted it was Lester's sale. He advertises in some high-end magazines, so he gets Manhattanites who don't recognize they are overpaying. I didn't look forward to telling him the appraisal wouldn't support his price.

My phone chirped and I glanced at caller ID. George Winters. I pushed the speaker button.

"Shiver me timbers! Is this the Jolie Gentil lass?"

"Do you want me to hang up, George?"

"I need to talk to you," he said.

"I don't think so," I countered.

"I mean, like really. It's about the houses."

He knew he had me. "What did you find out?" I had arrived at Harry Steele's and put the car into park.

"I made a map of the locations that I know of. Where can we meet?"

I looked at the clock on my dashboard. It was two-thirty. "I need about an hour to enter some stuff in the computer at Harry's. I'll meet you at Newhart's after that. You're buying." I hung up. It never hurts to let George know I have a lot more to do than talk to him.

You just told Lester no. Why did you tell George yes? I ignored my own question.

I collected the folder that had my measurements of the house I'd just been to and walked into Harry's house.

"Ahoy, Jolie."

I dropped the folder. Aunt Madge was sitting in one of Harry's office chairs.

"Whoa. Am I in the wrong house?" I looked for Harry as I picked up the folder, but he wasn't in our joint office.

She smiled serenely. "Harry and I have a date for a milkshake." She knew this was the first time she had said the word 'date' in reference to Harry, and she was enjoying the look on my face too much.

"Did you want company on your date?" I asked.

"That's a definite no thank you." Harry had walked in.

Aunt Madge stood. "We're going to walk into Newhart's holding hands."

"That'll be a scandal." As soon as they left I called George and told him to meet me at Java Jolt instead. There's only so much I can deal with when it comes to Aunt Madge's blossoming love life.

GEORGE HAD SPREAD one of the small tourist maps on the table in front of us and I was trying not to spill my iced tea on it. Joe Regan had made a point to bring me my iced tea instead of me fetching it from him, and George had covered the map with his hand. Joe was now half-sulking behind his counter.

George jabbed a spot on the map. "A red X means a real estate agent found something left behind, like a beer can. A blue X means they think someone was there because the toilet paper is gone or a screen is torn, but nothing was left."

"How could they be getting in so many places?" I mused.

George shrugged. "If a house doesn't have an alarm it's not that hard, not for the beach cottages anyway. Most of them were built long before people thought much about security."

I looked at the map again. The locations were all within walking distance of the center of town. Some would be a longer walk than others, but none were in any of the neighborhoods just off the highway that leads into town. "Looks like they probably don't have a car."

"Likely kids. Could be some of the homeless group that sleeps on the beach on the far edge of town. I could ask Josh and Max. I think they're still in town," George said.

I nodded slowly. Josh plays bongo drums on the boardwalk and Max is his sidekick. In truth, Josh is almost Max's caregiver, and Max will tell anyone that Josh is an Army vet. I thought them more likely to talk to Scoobie than George, but held my tongue.

"All those guys usually head south about mid-October or so." George continued. "If it stops then, that'll tell us whether it's any of them."

"My guess is high school kids." I pointed to the high school on the map. "Look, the houses radiate out from the high school, almost like bicycle spokes."

"Yeah, you're right." He traced a spot from the high school almost to Aunt Madge's. "They're getting closer to the B&B," he said.

"I can't believe they'd be that methodical," I frowned. "But I still don't get how they are getting in."

He snorted. "Hell, Jolie," George looked around and lowered his voice. "I have a set of lock picks." He saw my expression. "Not that I use them for anything illegal."

"If he does he wears gloves. Good day, me beauty." Scoobie pretended to take off a pirate hat, bowed, and then slid into a chair across from George. We had been so intent about the map I hadn't seen him come in.

"Got you out of a jam once," George said.

I have finally realized that Scoobie and George know each other pretty well, but it took me awhile to get that. I never asked how well, or even what they did or do besides go to some of the twelve step meetings together. "Like when?" I asked.

"Forget it," Scoobie said, and scowled at George.

"I think I've seen someone else that Alicia's hanging out with," Scoobie said, "but I don't have a name."

George pulled his stubby pencil from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. "And we care why?"

"They were out at the college this afternoon," Scoobie said, looking at me and ignoring George's question.

"The college!" I realized I had spoken too loudly when the rest of the room got very quiet. Joe had stopped pouring hot water into a small teapot for a customer. "Sorry."

"Brainchild," George said. "You gotta learn how to keep it down."

I started to retort, but Scoobie kept going. "They were in the cafeteria. It was two girls and two boys and one of the boys looked older than high school age."

"Ooh boy," George said. "And I repeat, why do we care?"

"Did Alicia see you?" I asked Scoobie, also ignoring George's question.

"Yep. I gave her the universal sign for call me." He held his hand to his ear as if holding a telephone receiver.

"You don't have a phone in your room," George said, as if this would be news to Scoobie.

"She knows I wasn't being literal. She'll find me."

"That means she got in a car with those kids," I said slowly.

"And...?" George said.

"Megan's worried because Alicia's hanging out with new kids, and she isn't getting home on time sometimes," Scoobie told him.

"Getting in a car is different than hanging out on the boardwalk," I said. "We're going to have to tell Megan."

"Aren't you kind of overreacting?" George asked.

"I don't like being a tattletale, but if Scoobie didn't recognize the boys..."

"Jolie, I'd agree with you if I'd seen them under the boardwalk," Scoobie said.

"Your favorite place," George said.

"Don't remind me. The thing is," Scoobie turned more directly toward me, "Megan probably doesn't know she was out there, but if they were really sneaking around they wouldn't be in the cafeteria at the college." When I didn't say anything, he added. "Give me a day. If she doesn't find me I'll find her."

I nodded slowly, "Okay." I pointed to George's map, and he quietly told Scoobie what the red and blue Xs meant. I saw Joe Regan straining to hear and caught his eye and gave him a four-finger wave, something I learned from one of Aunt Madge's B&B guests last spring. Joe gave me a smirk.

"So, what are you going to do about it?" Scoobie asked George.

"Start keeping an eye on some of the houses. There's only," he looked at his map, "nine. And I don't think Morehouse knows about all of them. I talked to all the real estate agents," he said, in answer to my questioning look. "The police wait for the agents to call, and they won't all call the cops. They don't want to call attention to how easy it is to get in the houses."

"And you're, like, going to knock on the door and interview a bunch of housebreakers?" Scoobie asked.

"Yeah, right," George said. "I'm not Jolie. If it looks dangerous, I'll call the cops."

Perhaps sensing my irritation, Scoobie took a folded square of paper from his pocket and laid it on the table.

There once was a wench, Jolie.

A landlubber, not of the sea.

With her mate she was done.

Needs a new number one.

_A role for a pirate must be_.

George laughed so hard he knocked over his coffee.

"YOU PUT THE TWO OF them together and it's like the Stooges minus Moe." It was turning into a very long day. I'd been to the courthouse and had trouble finding records of sales that would support the price on Lester's sales contract, and was in the Purple Cow, taking a short break before going to the last house I was to visit that day. Roland has free coffee for customers, and the Purple Cow is closer than Java Jolt. And I'm a customer. Sometimes.

"You know they like to get on your case," Ramona said. She was carefully changing the toner in the copier, trying hard not to get any of the dry ink on her skirt. Ramona favors the styles of the late 1960s or early 1970s and makes most of her own clothes. On anyone else it would look like someone stuck in time warp, but she pulls it off. "Ignore them," she added.

"I wish."

Roland's oversized radio was playing softly, and I caught the tail end of a weather report. "...not expected to do much more than create a rougher high tide very late Saturday, with minor flooding in low-lying areas..."

"I thought it was supposed to stay offshore," I almost squeaked.

"Take it easy," Ramona said, wiping her hands on a paper towel as she finished with the toner. It's not going to be anything up here. It's only supposed to be a category 1 when it hits Virginia, and all we'll get is some wind and rain Saturday evening." Soggy would be okay for the end of Talk Like a Pirate Day on Saturday; torrential rain would not be good. I followed Ramona to the front counter. "I have to talk to Jennifer. We're adding a game for some of the high school kids to run."

Ramona gave me a raised eyebrow. "Whose idea was that?"

I ignored her question. Ramona would just tell Jennifer I was the one who added a game to Jennifer's already finished plans. "Megan's worried about the kids Alicia's hanging out with, and Scoobie and I thought it would be good for Alicia and some of her new friends to have more to do than maybe hang out in vacant houses."

"Scoobie would know," she said.

IT WAS FOUR-THIRTY and I was tired and hot. I had to finish my second house visit of the day and then go by Harvest for All with the sixty pounds of apples in my trunk that Mr. Markle had special-ordered for the food pantry.

The house I was to appraise on Ferry Street was several blocks from the center of town, in an area of primarily rental homes. Now that beach season is mostly over it's a quiet area. An older man was watering his postage stamp-size front lawn across from the house I was going to appraise. He glanced at me and went back to his begonias.

I parked one door down so I could take exterior photos from a good vantage point. I guess that's why whoever was in the house didn't hear me until I put the key in the lock.

"Out the back!" a boy said.

"Hurry!" said a girl.

I jumped down the two front porch steps and raced around back. _This is not a good idea_. As I got to the back a tall boy and very slight girl just about knocked me over as they made for the alley behind the small house. I didn't even have a second to see their faces. My eyes were on the girl still on the porch.

"Don't even think about it, Alicia." I tried to sound stern at the same time I tried to catch my breath.

She looked at me sullenly and sat on the top step of the small concrete porch. Her jeans had deliberate holes, she had more eye shadow than I'd seen her wear, and her fingernails were purple. She had also tried to put streaks of red in the back of her long black hair, but hadn't done it very evenly. Yep, Megan's going to have her hands full.

I sat on the step below and studied her for a second. It looked as if she had added a second piercing, at least in the ear I could see, and she had on a tighter fitting tank top than I'd seen her wear.

"Who are they?" I asked, sitting next to her.

She shook her head.

"I'm not calling the cops." I studied her profile. "What do you guys do in these houses, anyway?"

She shrugged. "It's just a place to go where no one tries to tell us what to do."

"Just you three?"

She gave me a sideways look. One other time I had told her I wouldn't tell Megan something, but it wasn't something that involved Alicia, just something I thought Alicia had seen. I hoped she'd remember I kept her confidence.

She sighed. "There's a bunch of us. We try different houses." She glanced at me directly. "Half of them have open windows on the first floor."

"I don't need to tell you how dangerous that is," I said. Which was dumb, because half the fun of whatever they were up to was probably knowing they could get caught.

"So, what are you gonna do?" she asked. "Turn me in or something?"

She was trying to be tough, but I could tell she was nervous. She might be fourteen and acting tough, but she was likely still afraid I'd tell her mother.

"I'm going to do you a favor. Scoobie wants to talk to you."

Another shrug.

"He knows a couple things about screwing up in high school and just after. You could talk to him about his time in the county jail, or just get thrown in there yourself."

"Scoobie was in jail?" She was wide-eyed.

"He sold some pot. Stupid."

"It should be legal," she said.

I struggled not to smile. She said it so perfunctorily I knew she was parroting someone else. "Maybe. But you have to ask yourself if you're willing to get an arrest record for that, or for breaking and entering."

She stared ahead.

"Scoobie said the food at the jail sucks." Her lips almost twitched, but she still wouldn't look at me. I took my cell phone out of my purse. "I'm calling him."

She gave me a sideways look. "He doesn't have a phone at the rooming house, and he doesn't have a cell."

_The things kids notice_. "I got him one of those pay-by-the-minute phones, just for emergencies." I didn't add that we got it when he was keeping lookout for me when I broke into a building with Lester. The phone rang and Scoobie picked up.

"I thought I told you my wife would get mad if you called me here," came Scoobie's voice, very loudly.

Alicia laughed, but quickly replaced her smile with a scowl.

"Scoobie. Alicia and I want to meet you at Burger King. I'll pick you up."

WE DIDN'T TALK MUCH on the short drive to Burger King from where I picked up Scoobie at the community college. By the time we ordered it was almost five. I had Alicia call Megan to tell her she was having supper with Scoobie and me, but I needed to be done with her and back at the B&B by six to have dinner with Aunt Madge and Lance. And if I didn't drop the apples at Harvest for All before that my car would smell like rotten garbage.

"We won't rat you out," Scoobie said. "Yet."

"You don't have to be so encouraging," I said.

"You want to wait in the car?" he asked, amiably.

Alicia stared from one of us to the other, and he shrugged at her. "She's kind of bossy," he said, taking a huge bite from his Whopper.

I could see Alicia start to relax. "Are you all better?" she asked, referring to Scoobie's pretty serious back injury last May.

"Sometimes my back hurts a little, but they gave me a lot of exercises and pretty soon it probably won't hurt at all."

"That's good," Alicia said.

"Thanks." Scoobie paused for a minute. "I don't know what all you read in the papers, but my so-called fall down those steps goes directly back to some bullshit stuff I did right after high school."

"Oh. I guess I forgot that part," Alicia said.

"I'd like to, but screw-ups kind of follow you around."

Alicia gave a half-nod, and he continued. "You want to hang out with friends, that's great. Jolie and I did that a lot in eleventh grade."

"I only went to Ocean Alley the one year," I said, in answer to the questioning look she gave me. "I lived in Lakewood except for that year."

"We did some dumb stuff, too," Scoobie said. He grinned at me. "Remember that time I was in detention?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't go there."

"Go there," Alicia said, sitting up a bit straighter.

"I guess later, when bossy isn't here." He winked at her.

"We did dumb stuff, but nothing illegal. Did we?" I asked, looking at Scoobie.

"Nope. You wouldn't even try beer," he said. He looked at Alicia. "After high school, I screwed around, flunked out of college, and got arrested for using pot. And selling."

"I don't use pot," she said quickly.

"Yeah," he said. "I never smell it on you."

She stared at him, wide-eyed again.

"But breaking into houses will get you sent to Juvie really fast," Scoobie said. When he saw her puzzled expression he added, "Live-in juvenile detention. The court'll say your mom can't handle you, and they'll send you to people they think can."

Alicia said nothing, but she had begun to look sullen again.

"So, here's what," Scoobie said. "In exchange for not telling your mom Jolie found you in that house this afternoon, you and your friends are going to run a game at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

"We are not!" she said.

"Did I mention there is no air conditioning at Juvie?" Scoobie asked.

He really gets her. I nodded to Alicia.

She slumped back in her space in our booth. "What do we have to do?"

"You know what we're doing, right?" he asked.

"Kinda. Raising money for food by making people pay to be pirates. I saw the signs."

"Yeah, and Madge made me a great pirate costume," he said.

"What are you going to do?" Alicia asked him.

"Secret," he said. "You and your friends will think of a game, and run it. People pay to play. We'll give you the prizes to give out."

"I can't think of a game by Saturday," she said.

"Alicia. You know how to break into houses, you can think of a game," Scoobie said.

We talked for another twenty minutes. I told Alicia about Jennifer's plywood pirate ship with holes for bean bags, and suggested she think about birthday party games when she was little. "Maybe you can adapt Pin the Tail on the Donkey or something."

Alicia's eyes lit up just as Scoobie said, "Are you saying we need someone to play a horse's ass?"

WE HAD PROMISED Alicia we wouldn't tell Megan about her being in the house. I wasn't really comfortable with that, but I rationalized that after a successful Talk Like a Pirate Day the four of us would sit down and talk about what a good job Alicia did and how she was going to change her behavior. Pie-in-the-sky thinking.

Aunt Madge was furious. "You absolutely cannot keep something like that from Megan!"

We were in her great room, her sitting room as she calls it, and I was going through the two-page to-do list that somehow had to get done before Saturday. "It was Scoobie's idea."

"And you stopped thinking for yourself?" she asked.

"Just last..." I stopped myself. "Alicia trusts us, and she knows we'll talk to Megan in a heartbeat if she messes up. This gives her a chance to do something constructive and talk to her mom herself." Aunt Madge started to say something, and I continued, "And she promised not to go in any more houses."

There was a bark from the back porch and I saw Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy looking in with hopeful expressions. I walked from the couch to the door and slid it open. "No more chewing my lists," I said sternly.

"I'm sure you've learned your lesson," Aunt Madge said as she went back to a page in a home repair magazine.

I love Aunt Madge with all my heart, but there are times when she tries my patience. _As if you've never tried hers_. "No eating papers on the floor beside the love seat." I scratched Mister Rogers' head.

Lance Wilson was to join us for a light supper and go over the to-do lists with me to be sure everything was either done or would be by Saturday. All the Harvest for All Committee members at least try to be helpful, even Sylvia, but Lance is the one I count on most for quiet advice.

The front doorbell rang and Miss Piggy and I went to let him in. I looked around for Jazz as we walked through the guest breakfast area to get to the door. When she stays out of sight for more than a few minutes she's either chasing a mouse in the huge cellar, because Aunt Madge hates traps with poison and the little rodents stay away from the spring traps, or trying to get into any nook or cranny she is supposed to stay out of.

"Me lady," said Lance, as I opened the door. He bowed halfway, taking off his pirate's hat as he did so.

Behind me Aunt Madge laughed, and I joined in. "OK, Lance. You're in character."

Miss Piggy backed up in the foyer and did a little whine, and Mister Rogers barked from the entry to the breakfast area. Lance held his hat at his side, and Miss Piggy walked slowly to him. "I'm not going to get down that low, girl," Lance said to her, "but you can come get a smell."

Mister Rogers loped over as Aunt Madge turned to walk back to the kitchen/great room area. The side door that leads from the breakfast area to the small parking lot opened and Harry came in.

He didn't knock! Now I know they're serious.

"Hey, Jolie, Lance," Harry said, giving Aunt Madge a light kiss on the cheek.

She smiled and looked at Lance and me. "Harry's going to join us for seafood stew and then he and I are going to the movies while you two work."

"Close your mouth, Jolie," Lance whispered in my ear as he followed us into the kitchen.

DINNER WAS LONG OVER and Lance and I had six pieces of paper on Aunt Madge's oak table. Each was nearly filled. We were doing everything too fast this year, since we decided late and a September 19th Talk Like a Pirate Day gave us no scheduling flexibility.

Business Donations

Games

Publicity

Volunteers

Money

Food

The list called Money had replaced our earlier 'What to Charge List,' as we had already decided everything would be fifty cents except the 'stop talking like a pirate' fee, which would be one dollar. The Money list now dealt with topics such as who would get change and how often we'd collect money from the volunteers and give it to staff from one of the banks, who had volunteered to take money off site several times during the afternoon.

Publicity was done, with newspaper and radio ads underway and signs on every public and business billboard in town. Arnie Newhart had corralled several other restaurant owners and they had borrowed the three huge grills Lions and Rotary use for pancake breakfasts. The restaurant owners were going to cook hot dogs all afternoon. Aunt Madge was helping Monica organize a way bigger bake sale than Monica had ever orchestrated.

The Games list had Jennifer in big letters and just a few other items. I didn't have to worry about that list, and would owe her big-time when we were all done. Lester had surprised me by, as he put it, "hitting up a bunch of businesses for dough." The city can't let anybody use the park for free, and liability insurance was more expensive than I would have dreamed possible.

I put my head on my arms for a second and then looked up at Lance. "If I say it's okay to do this again next year, do you promise to check me into a funny farm somewhere?"

"Second time's easier. I think I'll do an S-A-L when we're done with all this," Lance said, looking at the papers spread across the table.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Screw-up Avoidance List," he said. 
CHAPTER FOUR

A GUY WHO LOOKED older than a high school kid. That's who Scoobie had seen Alicia with in the college cafeteria, and the only real description Scoobie had was white, brown hair, about five feet ten, good looking but with a kind of sullen attitude. I didn't know how to find him, but if he was hanging out with Alicia and maybe encouraging her to break into vacant houses, I wanted Alicia away from that.

_She's not your kid_. But I've spent more time with her during the last six month than with my two nieces. And I really like her mom.

Unless I tripped over Alicia when she was with the sullen guy, all of this would have to wait until after Talk Like a Pirate Day. That was the plan until I walked into Harvest for All and found the file cabinet drawers open, papers all over the floor, and anything that had been under the counter scattered throughout.

CORPORAL DANA JOHNSON looked around the room. "How do you get into this stuff?" She had finished making notes and walked again through the small food pantry. Dana didn't wait for me to respond. "Nothing taken?" she asked.

I shrugged. "If they took a few cans of food I can't tell, but it doesn't look as if they were after food." Somehow I knew this wasn't about the food. This was someone trying to make trouble for me. And the only thing I might have done, lately, to irritate someone was insist that Alicia talk to Scoobie and me. _You know Alicia wouldn't do this. Yeah, but what about the sullen guy Scoobie saw her with_?

Dana pulled her ringing cell phone from a pocket. "Yes. Tell him I do, please." She hung up and looked at me. "Dispatch asking if they should send a fingerprint guy."

I studied her for a couple seconds as she stooped to look at the shelves under the counter. Dana is probably my age or a couple years younger, so about twenty-six or seven. With her reddish-blonde hair and green eyes she's very pretty, but when she is in her full police uniform and not wearing much make-up you don't spot that right away. Which is probably what she wants.

"We're supposed to open in an hour." All I needed was a news article about a break-in. As I walked away from Dana to look down a row of shelves my foot slid a few inches on a file folder and its contents. _Great. No one to sue but me if I break a leg_.

Dana walked to the door that goes to the street. "I figure the person who broke in used a crow bar to damage the door enough to open it. Wouldn't take more than a couple seconds."

"More money for the locksmith," I grumbled. We have a handle lock and chain, but no cameras. It would be a damn shame if we had to spend money for more security instead of more food.

"You can pick up the papers on the floor," Dana said. "I'm going to have the guys dust around the file cabinet and on these shelves. They were probably looking for money."

"Which we don't have," I said, irritated. "You'd think anyone would know we give food away, not collect money for it."

"No one said burglars were smart," Dana said.

I picked up the files and loose papers and placed them on the counter. I could organize them later. Right now I had to make Harvest for All look as normal as possible. And call a locksmith.

As I stooped to get more papers a ticket about the size of a movie stub fell back to the floor. The writing was so faded it would take a minute to decipher it, and I didn't have a minute. I stuck it in the manila folder I had just slid on, and added more papers to the file. _Where is Scoobie when I need him?_

IT WAS THREE THIRTY IN THE afternoon. During the two hours the pantry was open to the public I had helped Megan distribute food, then left to appraise another house, and was back at Harvest for All placing boxes of macaroni and cheese in ten separate boxes, creating the monthly food boxes Harvest for All provides to families with young children. On the counter were ten more boxes going to senior citizens, which had less high-sodium food and more bread and canned fruit.

I was inwardly cursing Scoobie, who had talked the committee into changing how often we provide the baskets -- now monthly instead of every other month. Less food each month, but better spaced for eating purposes, or so Scoobie and a couple other clients said. They taught me a lesson. _But Scoobie isn't here when this needs to be done_.

The door to the street opened and Alicia walked in with a young man who matched the description of the man Scoobie said had been with Alicia at the college. For a split second I thought it might be her father, who I've never met, then realized he was only about eighteen or twenty. His height, definitely six feet, and day-old facial hair had made him look older. _Definitely too old to be with Alicia._

Alicia, dressed in black pants and a black tank top and with one more ear piercing than I remembered, slammed her purse on the counter. "You said you wouldn't tell my mom I was in the houses!"

I jumped an inch, then blazed back at her. "You want to talk to me, fine. But you cut the crap and ask a question. I don't do tantrums."

"Looks like you do them okay," said the tall man. He spoke in almost a drawl, and his languid expression was probably what Scoobie had referred to as sullen.

"And you would be?" I asked.

"Hayden," he said.

"Hayden who?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Just Hayden unless I decide I like you."

"Get the hell out, both of you!"

"We aren't going until..." Alicia began.

The door that led from the pantry into the church community room area opened and Reverend Jamison looked at the three of us. "Usually when we talk about hell in the church I'm at the pulpit," he said, quietly. He looked at me.

"Alicia is annoyed with me."

"Imagine that," he said, and turned to Alicia. "Can I help you with something, Alicia?"

She took a breath. "No, sir. I just," she paused, "I asked Jolie to promise something, and she broke her promise."

"Actually, I didn't." I stared directly at Alicia. "If your mom found out something you're trying to keep from her, she didn't hear it from me. Maybe she read the article George wrote." There had been a very short article on the break-ins in the paper that morning. _I have another reason to be irritated with George._

Reverend Jamison held out his hand to Hayden. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Douglas Jamison. You're in my church."

Reluctantly, Hayden shook hands. "Hayden," he said.

"Hayden who?" Reverend Jamison asked, pleasantly.

"Hayden Gross," he said, apparently not willing to be as much of a smart aleck with Reverend Jamison as with me.

"I tend not to tell people to get out of the building," Reverend Jamison said, "but I do ask that while you're in it you treat one another with respect."

Hayden stared at him, nodded, and walked out. Reverend Jamison and I turned together to look at Alicia, whose bad-girl attitude seemed to leave the room with Hayden. Her eyes moved from Reverend Jamison back to my face.

"I didn't tell your mom. She probably guessed." I could feel Reverend Jamison looking at me, but I didn't glance his way.

"I'm not working at that stupid pirate thing," she said, quietly defiant.

"In that case, I will keep my word," I said, more calmly than I felt.

She gave me a stony stare and followed Hayden out the door.

"Keep your word about what?" Reverend Jamison asked.

"You probably saw in the paper's list of police activity that there have been people in a couple vacant houses. I saw her at one of them when I went there to appraise it."

When he gave me a puzzled look, I gave them the one-minute version of kids being in vacant houses, finding Alicia in one, and using that as the impetus to get her to organize a game at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

"Hmm." His arms were folded and he stared thoughtfully at a spot on a shelf just to my left. "That explains why Megan was asking me if the church had a youth group."

I moved back toward the carton of mac and cheese I'd been adding to the baskets. "Alicia probably wouldn't go." I paused as I picked up a couple packages of noodles. "Do you know Hayden's family?"

He shook his head. "I'll ask around." He nodded toward my piles of food and baskets. "Someone coming to help you?"

"Monica and Sylvia."

"I'm sure you'll enjoy their company."

I could swear that was sardonic humor in his tone.

FRIDAY WAS SHAPING up to be a bear. The _Ocean Alley Press_ article about a break-in at Harvest for All Food Pantry didn't help. I wished I hadn't given my mobile phone number to so many people. _I don't have time to talk on the phone all day_. It didn't help my mood that half the people started the conversation with "ahoy mate" or something similar.

It was only nine o'clock, but I decided that since I'd taken a brisk walk on the boardwalk before breakfast I would treat myself to an iced coffee. I parked near the boardwalk steps that are close to Java Jolt and, after I placed my order, went straight to the computers. If I didn't send my mother and sister a note they'd hear about the food pantry break-in and my mother would call Reneé, since I only pick up about half the time my when mother calls me.

I sent the email and took my coffee with me. My phone chirped as I pulled into the parking lot of the dollar store, which was donating a couple hundred little American flags to give as prizes.

"Is this me lady with the sharp cutlass?" Scoobie asked.

"Only if you're going to tell me you aren't going to do trash patrol at the park this evening."

He groaned. "I forgot. I'll get George to help."

"Perfect for George."

"Listen, I wanted you to know Alicia and her friends are going to finish making their game tonight and they'll be there tomorrow."

"Huh. I figured she'd be too mad..." I began.

"Oh, she's pissed all right. But I think now more at her mother for figuring out she was in the houses than at you for telling."

"Small favors. Hey, how'd you find that out?" I asked.

"I have my ways." Scoobie hung up.

I shoved the flags in my trunk and headed to the library to get the boxes of books from Daphne.

"Hey, girl," she greeted me with her usual big smile.

"How do you stay so cheerful all day," I lowered my voice as I got closer to the check-out desk, "when you have so many people bugging you all day?"

She looked surprised. "Jolie Gentil. If you have to write out floor plans or whatever, would that bug you?"

"No, it's my job." I looked at the computer area where Max and Josh, my favorites among the local homeless guys, were engrossed in something on a screen.

"See," she said.

I glanced at her, befuddled, and then got her point. "You don't mind your job."

"I _like_ my job. Are we feeling crabby today?" She took a box of books from the table behind the circulation desk and set them on the counter.

"Just too busy, I guess. "

"Just keep telling yourself..."

"Jolie!" Max sounded thrilled to see me.

"It's for a good cause," Daphne finished, and smiled. "After you talk to Josh and Max I'll help you carry out the books."

I walked over to where they were sitting. Josh's eyes were still on the screen, which showed a weather map. He looked up as I got closer. "Hey, Jolie. Looks like your pirate day could have rough seas."

I groaned as he pointed to the screen. "You think it'll be a bad storm?" I asked.

Josh shrugged, and Max said, "Maybe really bad." Excitement punctuated every word.

Josh gave me a small smile and turned back to the computer. "It should be just wind and a lot of rain. If you're lucky it'll hold off until late evening."

"Then it'll be here at noon." I looked at the bright spots on the map that indicated the hurricane, still far off the coast south of us.

Max decided to help carry the boxes to my car and chatted the entire way. It reminded me of how much Josh had to listen to Max all day. I didn't think I could do it.

"And Scoobie said he has good jobs for me," Max finished.

I hadn't been listening, so tried to make up for it with a bright smile. "That's great. I'll see you at the park tomorrow."

He lowered his voice. "And we're staying in a motel tonight and tomorrow. That way we don't have to watch our stuff."

I studied him for a moment. I don't really forget Josh and Max are homeless, but they are around town a lot and are more...normal than some of the other homeless guys. I hoped some of the others would stay away from the park tomorrow, and then felt guilty for thinking it.

"Let me know if I can buy you a hotdog tomorrow, okay?" I said this as I opened my car door, anxious not to prolong the conversation.

He beamed at me. "You always help me, Jolie."

_Guilt_. 
CHAPTER FIVE

A BANNER with _Harvest for All Talk Like a Pirate Day_ and me slicing a loaf of bread with a pirate's sword blew in the breeze, as did the seats on the park swing set. I stared mutely at the banner for a few seconds and walked toward one of the picnic tables. I'll get George Winters.

Oceanside Park sits at the spot where Ocean Alley's boardwalk ends and is barely more than two acres. It's an area filled with many tons of gravel and then soil, according to Aunt Madge, because it's kind of a natural cove and used to bring water too close to several small shops and houses. Big piles of stones sit at the edge of the park, and mostly the water doesn't come beyond the rocks. Mostly. There's some gritty sand near the rocks, and the rocks are piled high enough that no one can swim in the area.

I felt grouchy from lack of sleep and lectured myself on staying on an even keel for the afternoon. As if the threat of an impending storm wasn't enough, I was worried we wouldn't have enough prizes. _This is where the Serenity Prayer could come in handy_. Was I supposed to ask for courage or wisdom first? "Patience would come in handy right about now," I said aloud.

I balanced a box containing tickets for door prizes, aprons to hold donated money, my digital camera, and other odds and ends. It was eight in the morning and Talk Like a Pirate Day (or half-day) would start at one o'clock.

"Five hours and counting," said George's voice, from behind me.

"I swear George, if you take any..." I stopped as I turned and looked at him. He had on black jeans and a tee shirt, but had a ruffled white shirt and a violently purple jacket draped over his arm. "Okay, you get six points for trying."

"Is that a lot?" he asked, as he took the box from me and put his own camera in it.

"Probably." I nodded toward the sky. "What do you think?" We both looked at the clouds to the southeast, and then at the surf, which was a lot choppier than yesterday.

"I just looked at the radar map. It's not coming ashore here. We may need to go to First Prez even before dinner, but you should be okay for most of the day." George grinned at me over the top of the box. "Should make the pirate flags fly high."

"You'll get yours later." I looked around the park. Last night Jennifer and several friends had set up the plywood pirate ship with its holes for bean bags. It looked as if they had braced it pretty well. "Hey." I looked closer at it. "What's different about her ship?"

"I can tell you." Scoobie was balancing a couple boxes of balloons on top of a larger box of small triangular flags that we planned to string around the swings and jungle gym. "Look at the name of the ship."

I swore and George laughed. "She made the name of the ship bigger!" George sounded like a kid who sank a spit ball while the teacher wasn't looking. HMS Stenner was now lettered in script about six inches tall.

"That's okay," Scoobie said. "Your posters have been all over town."

_My posters._ "They made Harry happy."

There were a couple horn honks and Dr. Welby pulled into the small parking area.

"Scoobie!" Josh had called to him from the edge of the boardwalk. Max trailed Josh, carrying the kind of gray wool blanket church groups pass out to homeless people. He also had a pirate hat, one of the many cheap ones that had been for sale on the boardwalk all week.

I waved at them. "Max said something about helping?" I asked Scoobie, in a low voice.

"I asked them," Scoobie said as he waved at Josh and Max. "I knew they'd come, and it's better if Max has something to do."

I repressed a sigh. "What's he going to do?" Max's incessant talking grates on a lot of people's nerves. _Mine included_.

George grinned. "He's going to pick up the bean bags from the other side of the _HMS Stenner_ and take them back to Jennifer."

"Good call." I looked fully at Scoobie. He was in his usual jeans and a t-shirt, though this one had a pirate's hat on the front. I had expected him to be in a full pirate costume.

"At the library," he said, in answer to my look. "I figured we'd have a lot of dirty work this morning. Daphne said I can change over there."

"Hey, Scoobie." Dr. Welby's voice boomed, per usual. Scoobie left to help him unload a ladder from the SUV. I assumed it was to hang some of the little flags all over the place.

Lance had ridden over with Dr. Welby, and he sat at the picnic table where George had deposited my box before going to help Scoobie with the ladder. "You look tired," I said.

"On rare occasions I remember I'm more than ninety." He smiled. "I'm actually going to take a nap about eleven o'clock, then I'll be ready for action."

THE MORNING PASSED quickly, too quickly given all we had to do. By noon there were literally dozens of volunteers setting up a real horseshoe pitch and a plastic one for kids, a large inflated children's jumping house, refreshment stands, and, of course, the bake sale. Aunt Madge and Harry had set a couple of cinderblocks in the middle of each table, apparently in hopes of keeping the lightweight card tables anchored when the wind came up later.

Ramona had borrowed a couple of huge beach umbrellas from the lifeguard stands so she could do her caricatures without the papers scattering in the wind. Daphne and Joe Regan were helping her pound them far enough into the ground to stay there. I doubted they would. Ramona, however, was ready for anything. She had made a costume that was kind of like an elegant ball gown with artful rips, symmetrical of course, all along the bottom.

Joe had already set up a coffee stand. He was using the back of a pick-up truck, and I wished we had thought to do that for the bake sale. He had skull and crossbones flags plastered on every truck window and another flying from his antenna. He saw me looking at the truck and grinned. "Would me lady like to board my ship?"

"Only if it will take me far away from here." I moved away.

Aretha almost swaggered in, followed by two pre-teens I knew to be her nephews. The bodice of her pirate costume was low-cut and the flounced skirt had numerous tears, showing more leg than she usually displays. She gave me a big wave and yelled across the park. "Jolie! Can you guess what I am?" One of the boys put his hands over his eyes, and the other one threw back his head and laughed.

"I'm not sure I want to yell it across the park!" I hollered back. I assumed she was dressed as a 'ho,' and figured Sylvia and Monica would probably need smelling salts. There were two wolf whistles and I didn't have to guess where they came from. "Ignore them," I said to Aretha.

She knew I meant George and Scoobie and grinned as she began to walk toward the bake sale tables while her nephews went toward Scoobie and George. I walked toward the pirate ship and listened as Jennifer instructed all of her "game managers" in how to talk to people who tried to butt in line. Jennifer had forgone all effort to look like a pirate and was dressed more like she was going to a formal ball in the late 1800s.

She finished her instructions and I walked up to her. "And you are dressed as..?" I let the words hang there.

"I'm the fair maiden the pirates plan to kidnap," she said.

"Good one." I kept moving before I did a major eye roll.

Aunt Madge had made my outfit. She had seen a Talk Like a Pirate Day catalog in my bedroom, and before I could order she placed a simple dark blue dress, complete with white bodice, on my bed. It hit me mid-calf, which let me move around easily. I had dressed it up with many strands of the cheap, gaudy beads you can buy for Mardi Gras parties. _I do love that woman_.

Megan and a couple other Harvest for All volunteers were placing bricks on top of the flyers we made that talked about the food pantry and how to volunteer or donate. I looked at the sky again, noting that the clouds were still billowy-looking and gray. I had decided I wasn't going to worry until they were solid and much darker. _Maybe I am starting to get that bit about not worrying about what I can't control_. I'd have to remember to tell Scoobie I got one good thing from the All-Anon meetings.

"Hey, Jolie! Prepare to be boarded!" It was Lester, barking his usual laugh as he walked toward me.

"Dear God," I said, not even under my breath. Lester was dressed like what I thought of as a worker pirate who was ready to swab a deck. He wore a sleeveless white tee-shirt, knee-length cut-off jeans, and a bandana around his head. Even more distinctive was the large pipe that dangled from his mouth in place of his customary cigar. He had a canvas sack slung over his shoulder and a huge grin on his face.

"So, whaddya think?" he asked.

"I think you look ready to lift anchor." I hoped my face was noncommittal. I nodded at his bag. "What's that?"

"I'm a roving prize giver." He reached into the sack and pulled out one of his Argrow Realty whistles and a bunch of gold foil candy in the shape of coins that I supposed he would call doubloons. "Won't be long and this place'll sound like a jungle."

Before I could beg him not to give the whistles out until near the end of the afternoon his eyes lit up. "I gotta show Jennifer the whistles."

Good. Let Jennifer have him.

I had done my best wheedling ever to try to get Dr. Welby to open the event, but he would have none of it. I had to do it. I saw George and Scoobie talking to him a couple times, and Aretha was now over by them, shaking her finger at them. They're up to something.

At quarter to one a beat-up pick-up truck pulled up to the side of the park and six teenagers, including Alicia, hopped out of the back. She saw me and gave a wide wave and huge grin, "We did it!"

I suddenly knew what it meant when people say relief flooded through them. She had been at either the back or front of my mind for two days. Megan started toward them and Aunt Madge called to her to help with something at the bake sale table. I grinned to myself. _Aunt Madge is so smart_. I'd have to remember to tell her that.

The teens were in all stages of dress, with a couple of the girls trying for the sexy pirate look, wearing low-cut tops that looked as if their boobs would fall out if the wind came up any more. One guy had a tee-shirt with what looked like a vampire pirate on it and he had a lot of white make-up, and two of the other guys had tattoos down their arms and a lot of silver around their ears. I was too far away to be sure, but I assumed that the earrings and tattoos were not part of any costume.

Lester walked up next to me. "Jeez. The people you see when you don't have a gun."

"Lester!"

He grinned. "At least they got into the swing of things." We watched them for a few seconds, until Lester said, "I gotta get Joe to give out some whistles." He walked toward Joe Regan's coffee truck. Joe did not look pleased.

As the teens started to unload what looked like a piece of drywall, painted black, I realized who the driver was. Hayden's tall frame and swagger might strike some as intimidating. I wasn't cowed, but I wasn't about to congratulate him for helping. Instead I gave a slight nod when he met my eye, and turned to look for Scoobie.

Peals of laughter made me look again in the direction of the game that Alicia and her friends were setting up. On the black drywall was painted a smiling skeleton, but it was lying on its side, with one hand behind its head and the arm's elbow resting on the ground, as if it were posing for a photograph. An arrow pointed to the posterior bones, and the lettering said, "Pin the tail on the skeleton or walk the poop deck." Poop was in capital letters.

I was about to walk to the bake sale table to reward myself when Dr. Welby touched me on the elbow. "Park's filling up. I think we better get you in position."

"Position?" I looked at him blankly.

He nodded toward the center of the park, but all I could see were the backs of George, Roland from the Purple Cow, Harry, Aunt Madge and a couple other people I thought I'd seen at the newspaper office when I stopped by to talk to George one time. Only Aunt Madge worried me, especially when she turned to beckon me to come over.

"Dr. Welby..." I began.

"You'll love it," he said, the tail of his long, elegant pirate coat flapping as we walked.

George and Roland stepped back and I saw that they had erected a plank. They had obviously built it elsewhere and carted it to the park in the last few minutes. There were two steps leading to about a three-foot-by-four-foot platform that was about three feet off the ground. A plank extended about two feet. Beneath it was an inflated airbed of sorts that had probably come from the same place where we rented the kids' jumping game.

I groaned. "Dr. Welby..."

Scoobie spoke into the portable mic. "Folks in about ten minutes we'll be launching Ocean Alley's first annual Talk Like a Pirate Day. Gather round so you can see Harvest For All's very own Jolie Gentil be the first to walk the plank."

I stood next to Aunt Madge. "You know, I could short-sheet all the guest beds and you'd never know."

She smiled. "I'll probably have to up the security."

Harry walked up and I realized she had made them coordinating outfits. Her skirt had alternating burgundy and gold panels, and his captain's costume had a burgundy vest, with gold cuffs just below the knee of his black pants.

I grinned at him. "Nice duds."

He looked delighted and he and Aunt Madge gave each other such soppy looks I turned my head. I heard a couple car doors slam nearby and turned to see a family with several kids walking toward us. A boy of about five had on one of the cheap pirate hats that come with Halloween costumes and held a cardboard sword wrapped in aluminum foil. As I looked around I realized there were more than fifty people wandering the park.

"Ladies and gents," Dr. Welby's voice boomed.

Who would give him a microphone?

Scoobie tugged on the puffy sleeve of Dr. Welby's pirate costume, and after Scoobie said something Dr. Welby nodded and said, "I beg your pardon. Pirates and ladies," he began.

"Excuse me!" Aunt Madge called. When he looked she smoothed her hands down her costume and gave him one of the raised eyebrow looks I thought she reserved for me.

It was the first time I've seen Dr. Welby look flustered.

He recovered quickly. "As my grandchildren would say, my bad." This brought a short spate of laughter before he continued. "Lady pirates and gentleman pirates. Let me tell you how to get the most from Talk Like a Pirate Day in Ocean Alley."

I listened absently as he explained that there would be a 'suggested donation' to do such things as toss a beanbag or talk like a pirate in a variety of ways. As he pointed out that the people with the short aprons would accept money I glanced at the skeleton the teens were almost through setting up. A young man I recognized as the clerk who had swept up the broken pots at Mr. Markle's grocery story had walked over and was laughing with Alicia as they each tried to pin a dart on the skeleton's tail.

Hayden walked up to them and took Alicia by the elbow and propelled her a few feet from the boy. For a second Alicia looked surprised, but then Hayden put his arm around her shoulder and said something into her ear and she beamed. The store clerk was clearly miffed.

So if she's with him she's not to talk to anyone else?

"...and now for the moment we've been waiting for," Dr. Welby intoned.

"At least some of us," Scoobie yelled. He caught my eye and swooped off his pirate hat and did a small bow.

"Come on up here, Jolie," Dr. Welby said.

I plastered a smile on my face and as Dr. Welby stepped down I walked the few yards to the steps leading up to the plank. _I'll get Scoobie and George. And maybe Ramona._

"Thank you for coming." I got to the top of the small platform that led to the makeshift plank. The microphone made a high-pitched squawk and I almost dropped it. Lance whistled.

"We're all going to have a lot of fun today, and you should feel good because your money will help the people who come to Harvest for All Food Pantry." I nodded toward the bake sale tables that were heaped with goodies. "We live in a great town, but not everyone has enough food to eat. Every time you pay a volunteer for something, you're helping a neighbor."

As I said this, Scoobie and George ran into the small crowd jiggling the change in their aprons and then ran a circle around the plank platform.

"Over here, mates," Lester said, and he blew heartily into his whistle.

"OK, everyone knows where Lester is. Just don't sign anything he gives you, you could be listing your house." No one was paying attention to me anymore, which was good. "Thanks for coming!" I concluded.

I heard a quiet step behind me and quickly stepped to the side of the small platform just as George had been about to push me onto the huge blow-up mattress below the plank. Surprised, George kept moving forward when he didn't run into my back. He walked off the edge of the platform, missing the plank completely and landing flat-out on the mattress.

"Shiver me timbers," came Joe Regan's voice from his nearby sales stand. "You gotta do it 'til you do it right!"

I walked quickly down the steps and stood next to Aunt Madge.

"Chicken," she said, and I heard Ramona laugh. George got off the mattress, looked at me and painted an imaginary number one in the air.

I'll pay for that later.

A line was forming at the bottom of the small steps that led to the plank. As Scoobie began collecting money, he said, "No jumping on the plank, it's not as strong as a diving board."

I decided I was safer away from the plank, to say nothing of George, and walked with Aunt Madge as she made her way back to the bake sale table. Monica, who had a bandana around her head and another tied at her neck at a jaunty angle, looked flustered as she accepted money, and she dropped the coins on the ground in front of her.

"I'll get it." I squatted behind the table as I picked up about ten coins.

Flash!

I had no idea George could actually giggle. I stood slowly and stifled the first words that came to my mind. "I brought my own ammunition." I smiled. "I might have to start a blog just to post bad pictures of you."

His eyes lit up, and George grinned.

_Bad thing to say, Jolie_.

"I can't believe you said that," Ramona said, as she walked up, sketch pad in hand. "Come on. Reverend Jamison wants you to sit at the Harvest for All table for a while."

Within ten minutes there were at least two hundred people in the small park. A couple grade school age boys had cap guns and about every five minutes they would stage energetic battles with swords and guns. When it became apparent that they planned to use the plank as a staging ground for a major battle, Father Teehan walked to the plank and stood talking quietly to the Methodist minister and occasionally accepting compliments on his pirate's outfit, which included a very old cassock of some sort on which someone had stitched a pirate's chest. Instead of pirate bounty spilling out he had cans of food.

After half an hour Sylvia came to relieve me at the Harvest for All information table and I began a slow tour of the various games and food stations.

Lester's barking laugh reached me. "Yeah, yeah, it's so's you can whistle while you work." He gave a blast on his whistle, and in one fluid motion Jennifer grabbed a bean bag from a pile by her plywood ship, raised an arm, and threw it at him, knocking off Lester's hat. _Maybe Harry did tell Jennifer that Lester called her a dame._

The pin-the-tail-on-the-skeleton game was a big hit with teens and pre-teens. It seemed others were not enamored with the idea of being blindfolded and then twirled around until you were dizzy.

A fresh gust of wind made me almost stumble into Joe Regan's pick-up truck before I caught myself.

He glanced at the sky before saying, "Going to get a lot rougher in an hour or so."

I glanced at my watch. "So I heard. I don't know why it couldn't wait a couple of hours."

Joe laughed. "Even you don't have that strong a will, Jolie."

I gave him my four-fingered wave and walked over to toss a few beanbags through Jennifer's portholes.

"Jolie, Jolie." Max's excited voice greeted me as he peered through one of the holes, from behind the ship. Clearly he was doing as Scoobie asked and collecting bean bags that managed to make it through a hole. "Can you see me, Jolie?"

"I can, Max. Thank you so much for helping."

"I help. I help a lot." His head disappeared.

Jennifer tossed me a beanbag, a somewhat pained expression on her face.

"Thanks for letting him help here," I said to her, in a low tone.

"I honestly don't mind." He just," she glanced toward the hole where Max's head had been a moment before.

"--never stops talking," we said together, quietly.

I looked around. "Where's Josh? He's almost always with Max."

"He was here earlier," she said, and stood back to let me try the toss. "Three beanbags for fifty cents."

"Was she trying to sneak in a game on you, Jennifer?" George asked. He slipped coins into the apron Jennifer had over her elaborate dress and picked up three bean bags from a pile on a small table. "Three out of three, Jolie," he said.

While George was aiming I slipped my hand into my apron pocket and pushed the button to turn on my camera. Two of George's sailed through the porthole, but the third hit the plywood hard and slid to the ground.

"You missed one," came Max's voice from behind the ship.

George's grin turned to a grimace just as I raised my camera and clicked. Far from being annoyed, his expression lit up as he said, "The game's afoot!"

"Jolie's next," Max called.

Each of mine sailed through a hole and Max almost cackled.

"I'll take him over to the bake sale for a few minutes," I said, quietly, to Jennifer. "Maybe George can pick up bean bags."

He scowled at me. "Sure thing, Jennifer."

It took Max several minutes to decide what he wanted, and in the end Aunt Madge put one of nearly every kind of cookie in a plastic bag and I gave her five dollars when Max was busy inspecting his bag. I took a chocolate chip cookie and studied Max as we walked toward one of the park benches. I've never known if he has some sort of illness he was born with or if the apparent hyperactivity and nonstop talking are the result of a brain injury or drug use. I guess it doesn't matter.

We talked for a few minutes--rather, Max did--and I found out he was from Ohio originally and had met Josh at an amusement park on Lake Erie, where Josh was playing his bongo drums outside a fortune teller's booth. "And when the summer was over I just went with Josh. They were tired of me there anyway." Max seemed to decide he had said too much, as he stared at his cookie bag for several seconds.

"Shall we head back to the pirate ship?" I asked.

He turned quickly and set a fast pace as we walked toward the bean bag ship, as he called it. I'm not sure why I walked to the side of the ship as he walked behind the plywood ship, but something had caught my eye.

George had apparently tired of his bean bag duties, and Alicia and Hayden had taken over. "Alicia's kissing her boyfriend," Max said, in an excited voice.

"Hey!" I said.

They pulled apart, Alicia with a look of defiance and Hayden with his lazy "I dare you to scold me" expression.

"Alicia, he's at least twenty."

"Twenty-one," she said, proudly.

"And it's not your business," Hayden said.

Scoobie had walked up behind me. "Come on, Alicia, your turn to put on the blindfolds."

Alicia gave Scoobie and me a sullen look, but walked away with Scoobie, whose quick look in my direction was probably a warning not to butt in. Max had vanished.

A couple people had heard me talking to Alicia, but they turned away as I stared at them. I walked a couple feet behind the plywood ship. "Exactly what is it you want?" I asked.

Hayden gave a humorless laugh. "Pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"She is a freshman in high school," I said.

He shrugged.

I lowered my voice. "Do you know what statutory rape is?"

"What are you going to do, arrest me?" he asked, lazily.

"I wish I could give the police a reason," I said, in a harsh tone.

"If I did anything you're the last person I'd tell," he said, smirking, as he started to walk past me. "I could help you learn to mind your own business," he added, more quietly.

Max's head peered behind the plywood and George walked around him. "Trouble?" he asked, looking from me to Hayden.

"Not from me," Hayden said, and walked away.

Max scrambled to pick up the eight or ten bean bags that had sailed through the portholes while Hayden and I talked.

George's eyes followed Hayden for a moment and then turned to me. "He bothering you?"

"He was kissing Alicia."

George looked amused for a second, and then he asked, "How old is he?"

"Twenty-one, according to Alicia," I said. "Have you seen Megan lately?"

"I think she had to go to work. She's working at the dollar store down the street from Markle's place."

As we started to walk slowly around the perimeter a child's pirate hat sailed toward us and George caught it. Another gust brought cries from the bake sale table as what appeared to be a couple plates of lighter-weight cookies fell to the ground.

Before George could hand the hat back to the child three police cars, with lights flashing but no sirens, pulled into the fire lane. Morehouse got out of one, Lt. Tortino from another, and Dana Johnson from a third.

Tortino raised a megaphone to his mouth. "Folks, I'm afraid you'll have to leave the area immediately. Storm's coming in faster and the surge could bring the water into the park within an hour or so."

Anyone older than about twenty-five looked relieved, while the younger ones grumbled loudly. As the officers walked into the park I saw some of the bank staff begin to collect the aprons with money. I glanced in the direction of the skeleton and saw Hayden offer to take the apron Lance was wearing over to the bank staff.

_Wise up Lance_! I turned slightly so it wasn't obvious I was watching Hayden. Sure enough, after a quick look around he slid a hand into one of the pockets, withdrew a large handful of change and probably small bills, and slid the money into the pocket of his jeans. As he did so our eyes met. He gave me a malevolent grin.

I was furious, and turned to walk toward him to confront him.

"Did you see that?" Scoobie asked quietly, touching me on the elbow

I had not heard him come up behind me. "You bet your bippy..." I began.

He grabbed my elbow. "Not now."

I started to argue with him when he ran a few steps to the side of us to steady the elderly Mrs. Murphy and her walker. Her daughter was trying to grab a young son and had momentarily moved a couple feet away from her mother. Scoobie put an arm firmly around Mrs. Murphy's upper arm and she laughed and called out something to me. Whatever she said was lost in the wind.

Dr. Welby's voice came from the mic. "We're going to move up the spaghetti dinner and silent auction," he said. "Let's head over to First Prez," he paused as he caught Rev. Jamison's look. "First Presbyterian," he continued. "The doors to the community room area are already open."

A fire truck pulled up and I realized that the storm predictions must have changed a lot since morning. The firefighters began unloading a large pump from which extended a fire hose. I figured they were getting it in place to pump water back over the rocks if it accumulated too much in the park.

I walked up to Dana as she talked to George, who was writing notes about whatever Dana was telling him. "Getting worse?" I asked.

"Just going to come a little closer to shore than we thought. It's just been downgraded to a tropical storm, but it'll still have some pretty strong winds for a few more hours. Not a huge deal," Dana said, "but these people need to get home."

RARELY HAVE VOLUNTEERS served spaghetti that fast. The First Prez basement dining area was packed and the wind had picked up markedly from the time we left the park until we drove into the parking lot. It was the difference between about fifteen and thirty miles per hour, but compared to none, that's a lot.

Reverend Jamison and Father Teehan decided to forgo the silent auction until Sunday afternoon. "Assuming the church is still here," Reverend Jamison quipped.

"There's always room for your congregation at St. Anthony's," Father Teehan said, with what you might call a teasing glint in his eyes.

I dished up probably sixty plates of food before spilling half of a plate down the front of my costume. Somehow, all the First Prez women knew to wear aprons, but as I am as far from a domestic diva as you can get, I did not. I mopped the floor by my feet and made for the rest room.

"Jolie," came a singsong voice.

"I'm not looking at you, George." I pushed open the door to the rest room.

I mopped up as much of the tomato sauce as I could and was walking back to the serving area when I saw Megan come in, soaked, likely from walking to the church from the store where she works. She went toward Alicia, and as she did so Hayden got up to get more food from the buffet. I didn't think Megan realized that Hayden was the person Alicia had been with a lot, and I walked over to him.

"I saw what you put in your pocket."

"You saw what you think you saw," he said, in an even tone.

"Where did you come from?" I asked. "I haven't seen you around."

"New York City."

From the mocking tone he used I assumed this was a lie. Even if true, it was such a huge city I'd probably never be able to find his family or learn where he'd gone to school. Or, more important, why he was in Ocean Alley.

You work around here?" I asked.

He thought about that for a second. "I freelance," he said, again in his mocking tone.

"Leave her alone." I turned to walk back to the table where he and Alicia had been sitting.

I glanced that way. With an unhappy expression, Alicia was gathering used paper plates, apparently getting ready to leave with her mother.

"And stay out of the food pantry," I said, impulsively. "I don't need any more mess to clean up."

His expression darkened and he bent over a couple inches. "I go where I want." He walked away with his plate of garlic bread.

When I glanced toward Alicia, her look in my direction was anything but friendly.

I turned to finish my walk back to the serving area and jumped at the huge crack of thunder. The lights flickered for perhaps a second and the room went black.

I never understand why people scream. It wasn't as if the building was shaking. "It's okay," I yelled.

"Okay, everybody, we have candles," Reverend Jamison shouted.

Voices quieted and I heard a couple of matches striking. Scoobie was holding a tall, glass-encased candle while Sylvia lit it. They were the first to get one lit, and about fifteen more followed in short order. I realized Reverend Jamison had planned for a storm.

Father Teehan walked toward them, and winked at me as he went by. "And people say we Catholics use too many candles."

I laughed, and turned to again make my way back to the serving table to clean up.

"Damn," George was at my elbow. "I wanted to get one of you with your lap all wet."

"Such a shame," Aunt Madge murmured. "Come on, Jolie. I don't think we have time to do a full clean-up, but we can at least get the pots soaking and they'll be easier to clean tomorrow."

After about thirty seconds every kid in the place thought the storm was the height of a good time, and even the adults were good humoredly lighting more candles and collecting kids and pirate hats to head into the rain and wind.

"Listen up!" boomed Dr. Welby. "The Salvation Army has opened a shelter at the middle school if you run out of power."

"What if we need a boat?" someone asked.

"Call the Coast Guard," Ramona yelled. A lot of people laughed.

Ten minutes later Aunt Madge, Harry, and I were ready to leave. _When did we become a threesome?_

"Is everybody invited?" George asked, hopefully.

"I don't think the real story will be at the Cozy Corner," Aunt Madge said, dryly "but you can come if you like."

"I'm going straight to bed," I said, firmly. I was beat and I didn't want company.

"Too bad, George," Scoobie said, and George flushed. 
CHAPTER SIX

ALL IN ALL, the storm could have been a lot worse. There were limbs down everywhere and the radio said there were still thousands of people without power, but there was no major damage. At least not in our part of Jersey.

Scoobie, George, Ramona and I surveyed the damage from the edge of the park. Water was standing several inches deep in about half of it, and Jennifer's pirate ship bean bag toss was on its side, half of it resting in the water near the large piles of rocks that now did keep the ocean out. They obviously hadn't last night. The large pump the firefighters had brought to the park yesterday was gone, I assumed taken to someplace more important.

"You think we can repair the plank?" Scoobie asked.

I followed his gaze, looking at the now sideways wooden contraption.

"Maybe," George said, "but I figure we can do a bigger one next year."

"Would you like suggestions for where you can put the old one?" I asked, trying to sound as if I had a good disposition instead of the humongous sense of irritation that was building. I don't need this mess.

"I'm sure George's ears are full," Ramona said, simply. She was the only one who had been smart enough to bring a pair of rubber boots. I had thought my old running shoes would get muddy, but had not expected that they'd have to serve as waders.

"We're going to have to wait a couple more hours until the ground absorbs more of the water," Scoobie said.

"Yes," Ramona said, looking at her watch. "We can't see what washed up, and I don't feel like stepping on dead fish or a dirty diaper."

"Thanks for that thought," Scoobie said, and we agreed to come back at ten o'clock.

Despite my work for Harvest for All, I don't usually go to church. Scoobie goes more in the winter, in part because the library is closed Sunday mornings. I figured that before Aunt Madge got back from First Prez I'd have time to do some of the laundry that had piled up during the past week. I was getting back in my car when Alicia rounded the corner at a fast pace. I stood next to the car and waved.

"Where's Hayden?" she asked, her face contorted as she shouted. "We were supposed to see what washed up on the beach, but he didn't come!"

I stared at her, puzzled. "I wouldn't have any way of knowing, Alicia. Why do you think...?"

She got closer and pointed an accusing finger at me. "He said you were going to have him arrested!"

Startled, I dropped my keys. "What I told him was that I wished there was evidence of anything that would let the police arrest him. He has no business..."

"It's my business!" she yelled. "You don't have anything to do with it." She stalked off, but turned to face me when she got back to the corner. "And I'm not helping at the stupid food pantry!"

"Yeah," George said, from behind me as Scoobie stooped to retrieve my keys. "Having her do that game really changed her attitude."

I WON'T GO SO far as to say I was shaken by Alicia's anger, but it disturbed me. _It's not up to you to decide who she should be kissing_. I knew this was one of those things that I should turn over to my Higher Power, but I didn't think she'd be as concerned as I was, and I hated the thought of Alicia getting expelled or pregnant at fourteen. _And there's not a damn thing you can do about it._

Half of me wished I had talked to Megan about Alicia being in the houses, and maybe about Hayden, too. The other half of me figured that if I had talked to Megan, then Alicia wouldn't have gotten the group of teens involved with Talk Like a Pirate Day. Her involvement was a positive thing. Right? I guess it depends on what happens next. That wasn't the answer I was looking for, but you don't always get good answers when you talk to yourself.

When I returned to the park at ten o'clock, having transferred a load of laundry to the dryer and placed another in the washer, Scoobie and George were already in the park, trying to lift the plank from the gooey soil. "Watch your back, Scoobie," I called.

"I thought you had his back," George said, breathing hard. They pushed the plank upright and surveyed all sides of the sodden wooden structure.

"I'm not going to carry it to the pickup," Scoobie said. "Just setting it up so it can start drying out."

I didn't reply, since I was looking for dirty diapers and other debris as I walked toward them. The ground felt more like thick scrambled eggs than soil, and water oozed from it each time I took a step.

"Hey guys, let's get the ship back up." Ramona said as she walked down the steps that came down from where the boardwalk ended. She sat on the bottom step and put on her boots, then walked toward the swing set where George and Scoobie were trying to disentangle a chain that had wrapped itself around the top bar.

"How many extra holes do you think it has?" Scoobie asked, nodding at the plywood ship as we began to walk toward it.

"Too bad you can still see the name," I said, as we got closer.

"Now, now." Scoobie said.

George started to wade through the water to grab the portion of the plywood that hung across a couple large rocks and over deeper water. Ramona stopped him. "I'll wade in there," she said. "My boots will keep me drier than your shoes would."

"Ahoy, mate," Scoobie said. "Hoist the sail so we can put her out to sea."

Ramona and I ignored him.

The plan was to get hold of all sides of the plywood and get it flat and a few feet off the ground. Then we'd each take a corner and move toward the pickup George had borrowed from somebody. Idly I wondered what had happened to the pieces of wood that used to brace Jennifer's ship so it stood up.

"Jolie," George said. "Just balance the end that's already off the ground."

"Scoobie's the one with the bad back. He should balance instead of lift," I groused.

George grinned at me. "You're too short to lift it over the pilings."

I stuck out my tongue.

"George, where's your camera?" Scoobie asked.

"Quit kidding around," Ramona said. "This is my first day off all week."

I inferred she had a lot to do. With Ramona standing in the water near the pile of rocks and Scoobie and George grabbing the bottom of the length-wise portion of the plywood, they slowly began moving the plywood so that it would be wholly on the park side of the rock pilings. As the top left corner came toward me, I steadied it and walked a couple steps back.

"Yeeee!" I screamed and sat down in the mud, hands splayed at my side. It was a horrible place to sit, as I could stare straight into Hayden's dead eyes.

GEORGE, SCOOBIE, RAMONA, AND I sat next to each other on wooden pilings near the edge of the park, which was where we had been told to "park it" half an hour ago. We were inside the ring of yellow tape the police had erected. George was not quite through cursing a blue streak because Sgt. Morehouse had made George give him his camera's data card, since George had taken a lot of pictures of the body before the police got there. Words such as "first amendment" and "see if I hold a story" came out as mutters.

Since it was Sunday morning, there were not a lot of people gazing down from the end of the boardwalk, but there were enough gawkers to make me really uncomfortable. As if finding Hayden's body wasn't enough to do that. I wanted to go home.

The wind had died down, but the water was still slapping against the rocks every few seconds. Scoobie stared, unspeaking, as the coroner's staff began carefully lifting Hayden's body from the mud and loading it into a large black bag. They had taken far more pictures than George. Ramona and I had held hands for a few minutes, but hers were now in her lap and mine were trying to fend off the bugs that were suddenly as thick as the humid air.

I got up and walked to within a few feet of Sgt. Morehouse and Lt. Tortino. Morehouse saw me first. "I said back off," he snarled.

"You should call Megan. Alicia was looking for Hayden a couple hours ago."

Lt. Tortino walked toward me while Morehouse seemed to make a point not to. "How well do they know him?" Tortino asked.

"I don't know that Megan has met Hayden. I just know that Alicia's been hanging around with him some and she was mad at me this morning because Hayden didn't show up to walk along the beach with her."

Tortino looked surprised. "Why be mad at you?"

I heard Morehouse mutter, "Why not?" but I could tell I had his attention.

"Hayden's been surly to me a couple of times, and when I saw him kissing Alicia behind the beanbag pirate ship yesterday I told him I wished I had a reason to get him arrested." I watched Tortino as he digested this. I saw what I thought was a mental gear shift in his expression.

He took a small notebook from his pocket. "How did he react to that?" Tortino asked.

"Yeah, how?" George asked, from behind me.

Tortino pointed and George gave him a look of churlish impatience and walked back toward Scoobie and Ramona.

"He told me to mind my own business or he'd help me do it."

Morehouse walked up and nodded to Lt. Tortino. "I'll take her down to the station."

"What for?" I asked. "I told you everything I know."

"That's what they all say," Tortino said, with a grim smile.

"You can't possibly think..." I began.

"Come on Jolie," Morehouse put a hand on the small of my back. "I'll buy you a donut."

TWO HOURS LATER I had relayed what little I knew of Hayden three times, with growing irritation each time.

We were in the small conference room down the hall from Morehouse and Tortino's puny offices. Morehouse shoved a piece of paper across the table to me. "Jot down where you were and who you were with after you left First Prez. Then go on home."

I know my mouth was hanging open.

"Look Jolie," he said, as if carefully choosing his words, "I figure it's more likely a sea horse killed the guy than you, but I gotta cover every base."

I took the paper and looked across at Morehouse, who had been in and out of the room several times. "How did he die?" I asked.

Tortino walked in. "You going to talk to your buddies?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"He's got a hell of an indent on the back of his skull, but we have to wait for the coroner's report." He glanced at Morehouse. "Out here for a minute."

They left and I wrote down my timeline for last night, trying to remember exactly when Aunt Madge and I got back to the Cozy Corner and when I went to bed. I was so exhausted I had definitely been asleep long before the eleven o'clock news. Not that we could have watched it. The power was out.

"That is just ridiculous!" Aunt Madge's voice carried down the hall.

As Morehouse walked past the open door he glanced in.

"Now you're in for it," I called.

He snorted, and soon walked back in with Aunt Madge. She stared at me.

"What?" I had expected a comforting hug or something, but she had her what-did-you-do-now expression.

"I told you. You should have told Megan Alicia was in that house," she said.

Crud, I forgot about that!

"Whaddya mean?" Morehouse asked, his voice rising.

I put my head in my folded arms on the table for a moment and looked back up. "I honestly forgot."

Aunt Madge pulled a chair back from the table and sat. I saw Morehouse look at her and then back at me. I figured if it had been anyone besides Aunt Madge he would have told them to leave.

Morehouse reached over and took the pen I'd been writing with and opened his notebook. "Remember!"

"It was the day I told you I saw those two kids leaving the house on Ferry." I briefly told him Alicia had been there too, and that I'd made her promise not to do it again and that Scoobie and I had gotten her to agree to do a game at Talk Like a Pirate Day. For good measure, I added, "But Scoobie wasn't there when I saw her at the house, he just ate with us at Burger King."

Morehouse glared at me, as Tortino walked back into the room and nodded at Aunt Madge. "Scoobie's been doing good for years now," Morehouse said, "and you're getting him involved in lying to the police..."

"I am not!"

"Jolie," Aunt Madge said, in her best calming tone.

"Scoobie's fine," Tortino said, looking at Morehouse. "In fact, he just left. He came by to talk about him and Jolie seeing Hayden Grosso behind the plywood game with Alicia." Tortino glanced at me, and smiled slightly. "He wanted to be sure we knew no 'fisticuffs' were involved."

My brain registered the last name 'Grosso.' I thought Hayden had said his name was Gross.

"Is that everything?" Morehouse asked. "I mean it this time."

I slid the paper that listed my activities from last night, on which I had underlined sleeping four times, across the table. "Yes."

"We'll call you if we have any more questions," Lt. Tortino said, and held Aunt Madge's chair as she stood.

Morehouse shook a finger at me. "And don't go talkin' about this with anybody, or asking any questions. You keep doin' that and you'll get in trouble like you were with that Pedone thug."

"I'll behave." I thought it was pretty mean of Morehouse to bring up the sleaze who acted like he was going to kill me last year, just because I wouldn't repay some of the money Robby borrowed to fund his gambling habit. Or that was one of Pedone's reasons, anyway. He's in jail somewhere.

"First time," Aunt Madge said, softly, when we were in the hall.
CHAPTER SEVEN

AS AUNT MADGE AND I walked out of the station I heard the familiar click of a camera and turned, expecting to yell at George. Instead, a petite woman I'd seen at the front desk in the _Ocean Alley Press_ office backed away a couple steps. "George said I had to," she said, and turned to walk away quickly.

"Tell him I said he's a coward!" I yelled.

"Get a grip," Aunt Madge said.

I said nothing. Aunt Madge got a beach towel from her trunk, and my muddy butt and I sat on it for the ride back to the B&B. Too late I remembered my own car was near Oceanside Park, but I figured I'd get it later. Scoobie was sitting on the front porch. He walked around to the side door and walked in with Aunt Madge and me, saying nothing except hello.

"What we need is a good cup of tea," Aunt Madge said, and flipped the switch on her electric kettle.

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm going upstairs to get out of these muddy clothes."

"I thought I smelled something," Scoobie said, and I was halfway through flipping him the bird before I caught Aunt Madge's raised eyebrow. I turned it into my four-finger wave.

It took me about fifteen minutes to grab a fast shower and put on clean clothes. I didn't bother drying my hair. Jazz sensed that something was amiss. She wound herself around my ankles every time I stepped five feet away from her and she swatted me when I tried to put her back into my bedroom. Like that worked. She scampered down the stairs ahead of me.

I bowed as I got to the bottom of the back stairs that lead into Aunt Madge's sitting room. "Local murderer at your service."

"He was someone's son," Aunt Madge said, quietly.

"True," said Scoobie, "but I don't think he had much regard for Megan's daughter."

Aunt Madge nodded.

"What else did you hear?" I asked Scoobie.

He looked at Aunt Madge and I sensed they had been talking while I was upstairs. "After you and Morehouse left the park," Scoobie said, "Megan and Alicia walked up. Thank God the coroner had already left with Hayden's body."

I made a face. "How did she react?"

"Kind of like you might expect. She was screaming that she loved him, crying on Megan's shoulder, and then a couple of her girlfriends came up and they got her to quiet down a little."

"And...?" I could tell there was more.

"She went over to Dana and told her she was sure you killed him."

Aunt Madge shut her eyes as if she had a headache

and I reached over and took her hand. "They know I didn't."

She opened them and looked at Scoobie and me. "I expect they do. But that won't keep half the town from talking about it."

THE _OCEAN ALLEY PRESS_ DID NOT HELP my cause. "Death in Oceanside Park" the paper said the next day.

The body of Hayden Grosso was found in Oceanside Park at 10:15 AM Sunday morning. According to Lt. Tortino, due to the "nature of his injuries," which he would not describe in detail, police have indicated that the death appears to be a homicide. They are waiting for the coroner to determine the exact cause of death.

I looked at Aunt Madge. "He told me his name was Gross. Well, he told Rev. Jamison."

"Reverend Jamison told me that." She glanced at me. "I talked to him before I went to get you. Elmira Washington had called to tell me you were 'in for questioning,' and I thought he might know what was really happening."

"That bi...horrible woman!" Elmira has used me as fodder for gossip on several occasions since I moved back to Ocean Alley. "I'm going to tell everyone in town she's sleeping with...with Lester."

Aunt Madge had been about to say something, but instead she laughed. "You'll ruin his reputation."

I skimmed the rest of the article. It described how a "group of volunteers" had started to clean up the park and found his body, and continued by saying he had been a volunteer at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I glanced at the byline. The name there matched that of the photo credit, Tiffany Bowers. "I guess George couldn't write it because he was there when we found Hayden."

Aunt Madge nodded at the paper. "He's quoted."

I went back to the article.

When asked for his perspective on events of the morning, a somber George Winters explained that, "We were all pretty much in shock. I managed to stay calm enough to take a few photos of the scene, but the police confiscated my data card."

"I knew he'd get that in there," I said.

I kept reading. I was only mentioned as one of the four people who had been in the park when we found Hayden's body. Usually George's articles say something unflattering about me. I had fully expected a comment about landing on my tailbone in the mud. Thankfully, Tiffany had more tact.

Aunt Madge looked at me as I raised my eyes from the front page. "You'll want to check page two."

In the photo I looked like someone from a zombie movie. My eyes were wide and my hair looked as if it hadn't seen a comb in a month. Since the photographer had been on my right side, you could see that mud caked the back of my pants from butt to ankle. It looked as if it might not be mud.

The caption said, "Ocean Alley resident Jolie Gentil leaves the police station with her aunt, Madge Richards. Police questioned Gentil about an exchange she had with Hayden Grosso the afternoon before his death."

"That's just great. It makes it sound as if we had a knife fight."

The phone rang. "Perhaps a pirate sword," Aunt Madge said, with forced humor. "Hello." She listened for a moment. "She's here, George."

I took the phone. "The only shock you're going to get is if I get a chance to push you onto a downed wire."

George grunted half a laugh. "I had to say something."

"It's not what you said..." I began.

"I asked her for a photo. I didn't say it had to be one that made you look like a mud wrestler."

"You taught her well," I snapped.

George's tone was one of someone whose patience was tried. "She said you looked like you'd go after her, so she had to get out of there."

"With Aunt Madge right there?"

"Tiffany's not from here," he said, as if this explained everything.

"What do you want, George?"

"Mostly to see if you're okay." I was about to thank him when he added, "My editor says I can't write any of the articles, at least not initially."

"How sad for you."

"Come off it, Jolie. No funny stuff, I promise. But you know what my job is."

Aunt Madge cleared her throat. She's gotten to like George.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Thanks for calling, George."

"Wait a minute! Don't you want to have coffee, or something?"

I thought for a moment. "Are you going to write down everything I say?"

He was silent for a few seconds. "No. But if we figure something out together I'm going to use it."

I sighed. "I'll see you at...not Java Jolt or Newhart's. Everybody knows me."

I could almost hear his grin. "Burger King. Eleven o'clock. And Jolie."

"What?"

"Did you look at page eight?" He hung up.

I looked at Aunt Madge. "Page eight?"

"I was serving breakfast and answering the phone. I didn't get that far."

Scoobie grabbed the paper and walked a couple feet from me. "I think I might need to prepare you," he said. Mister Rogers nudged him in the butt. "And Mister Rogers will help."

The front doorbell rang. "Don't you dare hide the paper." I left the kitchen.

Ramona fell into my arms and held me tight for about five seconds. This is a long time when you don't usually hug a particular person.

She, in her coordinated purple skirt and gauzy lavender top, pulled back and held me at arm's length. "I thought you'd look a lot worse."

"Gee, thanks." I shut the door.

"You know what I mean. You were at the police station for a long time."

We walked into the kitchen together and Aunt Madge waved at Ramona from the counter where she was assembling ingredients to make bread for afternoon tea for the B&B guests. "You want some tea, Ramona?"

With a small amount of guilt, I reminded myself I should be the one offering, not my eighty-plus-year-old aunt. "I'll get it for her. And you," I pointed an empty mug at Ramona, "are going to tell me why you think I was at the police station for a long time."

"That's what my Uncle Lester is telling everybody."

I groaned, but before I could say anything Scoobie interrupted.

"I'm having a hard time figuring out whether it's the picture with you aiming for the bean bag hole or the one of you stuffing your face with a hot dog that I like best." He handed me the paper.

Yesterday's paper had had only a short article about Talk Like a Pirate Day, in part because storm coverage was extensive and in part because the paper lost power for awhile early Sunday morning.

George had done a passable job with the full-page story about Talk Like a Pirate Day. There were eight pictures and everybody looked like they were having fun. Except for Monica, who seemed about to cry as a couple plates of cookies were halfway on their way to the ground.

I tossed the paper on the table and got Ramona a piece of lemon from the vegetable drawer in Aunt Madge's fridge. "I'm done thinking about Talk Like a Pirate Day. I have a lot of research to do at the courthouse and if one more person pretends they're thrusting a sword at me I'm skewering them."

I saw Scoobie's eyes brighten, and he reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He gave me a grin as he started to read.

No pirate did woo her strong heart

Or maybe he just wasn't smart.

No man from the crowd

Has her up on a cloud

_She must still await cupid's dart_.

My mother always said to ignore the boys who tease you, but I'm not good at that. And it's harder to ignore when Aunt Madge is laughing louder than I've ever heard her and Miss Piggy is braying in the back yard because she's not in on the joke.

Ramona scrambled in her purse for a pen.

"I can't believe you're going to write that down."

Scoobie continued to grin.

Tears rolled down Ramona's cheeks. "When did you write that?"

The doorbell gonged, and since Aunt Madge was still trying to get flour off her cheeks from when she wiped her watering eyes, I went to the door.

Dana was there in full uniform and a distinct look of unease. With her was an older officer I sometimes see at the front desk at the police station.

I opened the door for her to come in as she said, "Jolie, this is Sgt. Sloan. He's known your Aunt Madge a long time."

Why does that sound like a warning?

I shut the door and she started to hand me a piece of legal looking paper. "I'm afraid I'm here to exercise a search warrant, and I have to ask..."

"What the hell for?" I knew I was yelling, and I didn't much care.

The swinging door that opens from the kitchen into the guest breakfast room swung open with a thud. "What is it?" Scoobie and Aunt Madge said at the same time.

Dana nodded at Aunt Madge. "I have a search warrant to look for a mallet ma'am. I'm authorized to search Ms. Gentil's room, car, and any common areas that she has access to."

Scoobie and I looked at each other and he spoke first. "Mallet. As in a potential murder weapon?"

"Why would you even begin to think I'd have a mallet in my car?" I felt myself flush with anger and had an urge to cry at the same time.

Dana nodded at Scoobie, and Sgt. Sloan looked at me. "If we may have your car keys, Ms. Gentil."

I stared at him for a second and tried for sarcasm instead of temper. "People who search my property can call me Jolie. They're going to know me a hell of a lot better when they're done."

"Jolie." Aunt Madge said, and her voice held controlled fury I'd never heard. "They're doing their jobs. We'll be polite about it."

It was a statement, not a suggestion. I figured I wasn't the one she was mad at. I walked back into the kitchen, took my car keys from my purse, walked back into the foyer, and silently handed them to Dana. Her look was impervious, but she was deep red. _Good. I hope she's really uncomfortable_.

I folded my arms across my chest and walked past Aunt Madge and Scoobie into the kitchen. Ramona was still sitting at Aunt Madge's oak table, tea bag in her hand, dripping onto the table. When my gaze fell on it, she said, "Oh," and dropped it onto the saucer.

The kitchen door swung shut again and Aunt Madge walked to me and took me by the shoulders and looked directly into my eyes. "It's bupkes and you know it."

"Also known as BS." I tried to sound calmer than I felt.

I glanced at Scoobie, but couldn't read his expression. "It'll be okay," I said to him.

"You didn't do it, but that doesn't make it okay if they think you did." He didn't walk over to me, but instead put a hand on Ramona's shoulder as she dug for a handkerchief in her purse.

Why does everybody always make sure to comfort Ramona? Because you're too prickly when you're mad.

There was a light rap on the side door and I heard the two officers let themselves back in. I remembered that Dana had been here before, but still resented the familiarity.

"Jolie?" she called.

"In the kitchen." I didn't walk to the doorway, so she and Sgt. Sloan walked in.

In Dana's hand was a heavy duty, see-through plastic bag that had been sealed shut. In the bag was a mallet with a heavy rubber head.
CHAPTER EIGHT

I LEARNED NOTHING at the police station.

"See the thing is," Morehouse said, "the mallet was exactly where the guy said it would be. In your trunk."

"The guy we don't know," I said.

"Which is why we figure he might not be a model citizen. You gotta ask yourself, why the hell is somebody maybe setting you up for this?"

A coldness entered the pit of my stomach for the first time and I worked hard to keep a shake out of my voice. "I barely knew Hayden, and it's not my habit to go whacking anyone, you know that."

"Personally, I believe you," Morehouse said. "He tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the yellow notepad. "Most people do."

_Most_?

"But," he raised his voice slightly, sensing an interruption coming. "Somebody don't just not like you, they figure they can get us to really think about you for the murder. That's...odd."

Dana walked part of the way into the room and handed Morehouse a paper. "The obit you asked for." She gave me a nod as she turned to leave.

I was surprised when Morehouse put it on the table between us. "Who d'ya know in here?"

The top of the page had the _Ocean Alley Press_ fax information, and I read slowly.

Hayden Grosso of Middletown, New Jersey died suddenly on Sunday in Ocean Alley. He was the son of Alberto and Mary Patricia (Kelly) Grosso, of Matawan. He graduated three years ago from Central High School and attended a local community college where he studied horticulture.

"Horticulture?" I said to Morehouse.

"We think he grew pot in part of his mother's solari-whatever."

"Solarium," I said. "She knew it?"

"Says no." He nodded to the paper and I went back to reading.

Hayden was an avid video gamer and regular high-scorer in the on-line game of Kill the Panther. He was a member of St. Columbkill's Catholic Parish in Matawan, where he had served as an altar boy as a young man.

_Puleeze_.

He is survived by his parents, two sisters, Veronica Bruno (Ricardo) of Middletown, New Jersey, Maria of the home, grandparents..."

I read through to the end and slid it back across the table. "I don't recognize any names."

Morehouse left the room. I tried to be logical and tell myself that there was no way anyone could prove I committed a murder that seemed to have happened during a huge storm when I was either serving food at First Prez after Talk Like a Pirate Day, or home with Aunt Madge. My mind immediately jumped to all the TV shows where the police prove someone had time to leave a party and commit a murder with no one aware of their absence.

Lt. Tortino came in. He sat across from me and held my gaze for a moment. "I don't have to tell you that this is more serious than me calling your aunt when I caught you smoking on the boardwalk in high school."

I nodded.

"Personally, I don't think you did this, but the next time you come in here for questioning, you really should bring an attorney."

_The next time_?

I LEFT THE POLICE station a few minutes later, hopeful I wouldn't be charged with anything, but not certain, and with a broken record in my head telling me not to go "poking into anything." Those words were in the voices of Lt. Tortino and Sgt. Morehouse.

I was just unlocking my car door when my phone chirped and I recognized Lance's phone number. Him I was happy to talk to. "I bet you have good news."

"I figure you need some. How are you holding up?"

"I'll be better when this all gets sorted out, but I'll be okay. So, Mr. Treasurer, what did we make?"

"So far $1,242.78. But it'll be a little more," Lance said. "I don't have all the money from the silent auction yet."

My first thought was that it was a lot of work for twelve hundred dollars, but it was our first year. _First year!? I should take a mallet to my head_.

Lance said he and Dr. Welby had been discussing when the Harvest for All committee should meet again, and I asked him to hold off for a week or two. "I figure you can pass the word about what we made, and I'm just not in the mood for a meeting."

"I'm not sure what kind of mood you have to be in for a meeting but I take your point."

If it had been anyone but Lance I would have suggested they sit on a point. Aunt Madge had said she would drop Scoobie at school, so I called and told her I wasn't in the slammer yet and that I really had to get to the courthouse to look up comps on the last two houses I appraised last week.

Not a good idea. By the time I got out of there I had been questioned by the Register of Deeds and all her staff and one of the clerks of court whose name I couldn't tell anyone even if they held a gun (or mallet) to my head.

George fell in step with me as I left the courthouse. "You don't want to have coffee with me at Burger King, you don't have to plant murder weapons in your trunk."

"If only it were that easy." I tried hard not to smile. Can't encourage George.

"So who do you think put it there?" George asked.

"I guess you know asking me with different words than the police used doesn't make me answer any differently." I no longer tried to hide my irritation.

George jabbed his stubby pencil back into the spiral of his thin notebook. "Nobody will say anything!"

"I told you what I know." He eyed me. "For once."

"We gotta get to the bottom of this before it gets worse," he said.

Tell me about it.

We were almost to my car. "You want a ride to a meeting tonight?" George asked.

I hesitated. George and Scoobie are big on their Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. I can't say that I dislike the All-Anon family meetings they introduced me to, but I don't get any warm fuzzies from them.

"You gotta work at it, you know," he said.

"First, I don't know what it is and second I don't know if I want to." George and Scoobie think I'm bunged up because of my husband's gambling. Or something. They won't really say what they think, which is really irritating.

"You're a piece of work, Gentil. I'll pick you up at six forty-five."

I didn't say anything, just turned to walk across the courthouse parking lot to my car. I was just about to call George and tell him not to bother when a thought came to me. _How else will you know what everybody else is saying about you if you don't see a bunch of people_?

GOD GRANT me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.

_Yeah, yeah_.

I was in the basement of St. Anthony's, where all the twelve-step groups have meetings at various times during the week, and I was suddenly aware that I was drumming my fingers on the table. I stopped and smiled at the woman sitting across me. Sourpuss.

My attention wandered as I listened to a woman describing how she was using the saying 'progress not perfection' to help her deal with her feelings about her husband throwing up in the car on his way home from The Sandpiper Bar.

Somebody put that mallet in the car. A deliberate act. But why me? They had to know Hayden didn't know me very well, and the likelihood of me being alone with him in the middle of a hurricane -- ok, downgraded to a tropical storm -- was remote.

And who the heck was Hayden Gross, or Grosso? He didn't grow up here. How did he meet Alicia? And where was Alicia? _You should have paid more attention to her and Megan today._

A voice broke into my consciousness. "...so I just told myself serenity is a matter of choice."

It took a moment for me to realize that the reason I heard this is that the woman was sitting next to me and we were going around the room with our thoughts. She was done. _Gulp_.

"Um, yes." I glance around, nervous. "I guess my week hasn't been serene." A couple women smiled and one of the older men nodded at me. I remembered people don't really comment on what you say. "I guess I was feeling like 'why me,' and that's kind of pointless."

It took me a couple of seconds to realize no one knew the police were questioning me about Hayden, and half the room might not even known a body had been found the morning after Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I opened my mouth and closed it again, and the woman next to me gently said, "Would you like us to move on?"

"Um, no. After Talk Like a Pirate Day, we were cleaning up and I kind of, well, found a body."

"Another one?" The woman was maybe forty and had the careworn look of someone who has too much to do.

The man on the other side of me cleared his throat, which seemed to mean she should lay off. I smiled at him.

"It is...odd, I know. He was under the bean bag game."

"Oh my." This escaped from a much older woman at the other end of the table. Several others exchanged glances.

"I feel really bad about it."

The woman who had been talking about serenity being a matter of choice pushed her chair back from the table a foot or so.

"I mean, I didn't do it." I didn't recognize my own high-pitched giggle. "It's just really bad luck..." my voices trailed off.

"For you or the body?" someone finally asked.

I flushed. "For him, of course. I just, I'm not sure how to handle all this." A couple people caught my eye. "He'd been bugging me a lot. How am I supposed to feel?"

The looks that greeted this question told me several people were aghast at my question, so I hurried on. "Of course, it's terrible someone's dead.

"You're in the right place," the careworn looking woman said, and several others nodded.

_I have got to write down their names_.

"I don't...I think I'll stop now," I said.

I tried to pay more attention to the people who spoke after me, but I just couldn't. As soon as the hour was up I got up without speaking and went out to the hall. George and Scoobie were leaving another room, laughing. _Why is it so many people seem in a good mood here? If I get serene I'm not coming here, that's for sure._

Seeing them laugh made me doubly realize how miserable all this was making me. Somebody really was out to get me.

IT SEEMED LIKE a good idea. For about ten minutes. I put it aside, and it came back. That seemed to clinch it. I was meant to go to Hayden Grosso's funeral. I picked the funeral rather than a visit to the funeral home because you can get through an entire service without actually talking to anyone. I didn't want to talk, I wanted to listen.

I figured the Grosso family would have heard at least something about me. The morning paper said that the "possible murder weapon" had been found in the car trunk of "a local business woman," but that the police were withholding her identity until they could "ascertain how the weapon had ended up there." Wink, wink.

One of Alicia's friends had made a You-Tube video of her saying she knew I killed Hayden. It was down in a few hours, or so I heard. I never saw it. Lester called to tell me he was making sure anyone with ears knew it was impossible for me to kill anyone. Ramona said he was still giving out his whistles. I figured my reputation was shot with anyone who believes in guilt by association.

The question of the day was how to make sure no one at the funeral would recognize me. I decided to take a page from Aunt Madge's book and dye my light brown hair as black as I could get it. One time when my father made fun of one of Aunt Madge's temporary hair colors she had washed her hair about thirty times in one night, so I figured I'd do the same. I couldn't do it at the Cozy Corner though. Unless Aunt Madge had a date.

The funeral was Wednesday at ten o'clock at a Catholic Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which was just across from Staten Island. It was close to forty miles. On a good day on New Jersey highways that wouldn't be too much more than an hour. On a bad day it could take four hours.

I couldn't understand why it wasn't in the town where Hayden's parents lived, but if there were relatives in a cemetery near Perth Amboy it would make sense. Or not.

"JOLIE?" It was Lt. Tortino's voice on my mobile phone. It suddenly struck me that Sgt. Morehouse usually talked to me about anything, and maybe it was not a good sign that my conversations had moved up a rank.

"Yep." I replied.

"Can you swing by? I know I told you to bring an attorney next time, but what I want to talk to you about is the break-in at Harvest for All."

"Uh, sure. I'll come by now."

I had been on my way to Harry's to pick up information on a house to appraise, so I turned around in a gas station and made my way to the police station.

It was Dana Johnson who came to the front counter to lead me into the office area. "You doing okay?" she asked.

"People who don't know me well probably think I killed a guy, so no, I'm not okay."

She didn't respond, but gestured that I should take a seat in the small conference room and left. I stared around the room, which had a large bulletin board with a huge map of Ocean Alley affixed to it with thumb tacks. I walked up to it, noting there were push-pins on several points on the map. One was right on the spot where Harvest for All is, and several were in a cluster around Ocean Alley Middle School, which was near where Megan and Alicia lived.

A throat cleared and I turned to see Lt. Tortino. "Have a seat," he said.

"It's kind of odd," he said, as he sat across from me, "but the fingerprints we found at the food pantry..."

"I thought you didn't have the results back." I had called on Friday, since I figured at least one person would ask me about it at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

"Corporal Johnson said you called, and that she explained that the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences would compare the prints to any on record. What she didn't tell you is that this can take months for a non-violent crime."

"Why so long? What if the person broke into lots of places?"

Tortino's look was almost pained. "This isn't a TV crime show, and we're too small a department to have a crime lab." He seemed to sense I was about to interrupt and held up his hand, palm facing me. "Anything associated with a murder has a much higher priority. When we sent Mr. Grosso's fingerprints to Forensics Sciences we asked them to compare his fingerprints to your break-in and a couple other recent burglaries."

When he saw my puzzled expression, he added, "The coroner takes fingerprints from murder victims. The only local crime that matched his prints was the break-in at Harvest for All."

"Yuck." He continued to stare at me, so I added, "I mean, are you saying he was behind the counter or something? The only time I saw him in there he was standing at the door talking to me and Reverend Jamison."

"So Reverend Jamison tells me. I thought maybe you'd know if he came in another time."

"I'm not always there when Harvest for All is open, but customers stay on one side of the counter and we pack food for them on the other side. There's no reason for them to be behind the counter."

He sighed. "Well, he's likely the person who broke in. We had elimination prints from you on file, and we got them from Megan and a couple other volunteers. Grosso's were the only ones that didn't appear to belong there."

"So what does it mean?" I asked.

"You may not have had it in for him, but he was certainly out to irritate you."
CHAPTER NINE

HARRY STEELE THOUGHT I needed some time off. After the last few days and my talk with Lt. Tortino, I didn't disagree with him, but I didn't want to relax. I wanted to find out who was trying to frame me for Hayden's murder.

"Surely you don't have to stay in town," he said, when I told him I wanted to hang out at home.

"I'd rather stay busy."

"Doing what?" he asked.

"A suspicious nature probably takes years off your life."

He gave me a look very similar to Aunt Madge's 'is she trying to pull one over on me?' expression. "If you don't go away, sit on the beach for a few hours. The weather's still terrific and there aren't a thousand tourists," Harry said.

Suddenly a loud bell rang in my head. "Well," I hesitated, hoping it looked as if I was really thinking about his suggestion. "Maybe I'll go shopping in Lakewood or someplace out of town on Wednesday. I haven't looked at any of the summer sales."

Harry beamed. I wish Aunt Madge were that easy.

I ONCE ADDED highlights to my hair, but I have never done a full dye job. It's like pouring chemicals into your nose with a straw. I glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty, with the funeral at ten. I was in the Dew Drop Inn Motel on Highway 34 in Colts Neck, and had told the owner I'd been driving all night and wanted the room for a day rather than a night.

I didn't just need to color my hair, I needed a place to change into the navy blue dress that is my uniform for funerals and really serious business meetings. With luck, I would be able to change back into my khakis and wash my hair thirty times this afternoon and be home before Aunt Madge was suspicious.

A low-throated growl reminded me Jazz sat on the bed. She hates her carrier. I was supposed to be taking her to the vet to get her annual shots and pills for worms. I figured no one, not even Scoobie, would suspect me of going out of town with Jazz. A vet in Perth Amboy assured me I could drop her off and pick her up in two hours.

"It's okay, Jazz." I wrapped a towel around my now very black hair and poked a kitty treat into her carrier. "Ouch!"

Jazz stared at me, seemingly asking if I'd learned my lesson.

"It's for a good cause. If I get sent to jail, no more cat treats."

Her stare was impervious, and she apparently thought it was the height of insult not to eat the treat, because she ignored it.

I PULLED INTO THE parking lot of the large drugstore across from Our Lady of Perpetual Help at five minutes before ten. My strategy was to slip in as the service started and slip out as it ended, so no one would pay any attention to me. There were still people walking up the church steps, so I walked into the store and bought a bottle of water and small pack of tissues. I had no plans to cry during this funeral, but you never know.

As I was walking out, an Ocean Alley police car pulled into the church parking lot across the street. I backed into a guy with very pink skin who was holding a can of after-sun spray. "Sorry!"

He glared at me as he walked around me and onto the sidewalk.

_Why didn't I think of the police_? In all the TV shows, police always hang out at victims' funerals. Sgt. Morehouse and Dana Johnson, in civilian clothes, walked hurriedly into the church. Having my hair in a French twist and wearing high heels and large sunglasses would not be enough of a disguise.

I walked slowly to my car, glad I had planned to park across the street. I was already here, there was no point in going home. I moved my car to the far end of the drug store parking lot and locked my purse in the trunk. The less to bother with the better.

When I crossed the street I kept looking around for more police or, worse, Megan and Alicia. I glanced at the front of the church. The Catholic Church in Ocean Alley has a choir loft, and this one was tall enough to host one. Maybe I'd get lucky.

The hearse was parked in front of the church, and I walked behind it, nodding at the wizened older man who stood sentry in the traditional funeral home black. I eased into the vestibule and gave myself a minute to adjust to the darker lighting. I opened the door a crack and peeked in.

Unlike the usual Sunday service in any church I've been to, people were clustered in the front. It was a smaller crowd than I'd expected, perhaps only fifty people. I eased into the church and saw the narrow stairs on my right. Undeterred by the velvet ribbon hanging across them, I unhooked it, refastened it, and headed up.

It is very hard to walk quietly in heels. On the second step I took them off and walked up in my stocking feet. George grinned at me as I got to the top of the steps.

I sat on the wooden chair next to him, mildly thankful that he wasn't in his usual Hawaiian style shirt and knee-length shorts. "Touché," I whispered. "And wipe that grin off your face."

"You saw Morehouse, right?" he whispered back.

I nodded and looked toward the front of the church. A very elderly priest was now on the altar, but there were none of the young altar boys I associated with a Catholic service. With a sinking feeling, I remembered how long a Catholic Mass could be. George is Catholic, and had come prepared. He passed me an Oreo.

We sat in silence throughout the first part of the service. My mind bounced through the last few days. _Why me_? With just the smallest amount of guilt I realized the more accurate question was "Why Hayden?" Even if he annoyed people as regularly as he did me he certainly didn't deserve to be killed. He either annoyed others at a much higher level or he picked the wrong person to tick off.

Other than the fact that Alicia was so grief stricken, Hayden's death would not have made many waves in my world. _Except that someone is trying to frame you for murder_. Or were they? There would be -- should be -- no way to truly link me to Hayden's death. Perhaps whoever did it simply added hurting my reputation to their list of evil deeds. Who could I have possibly ticked off that much? I had a vague thought of making a list.

George came immediately to mind. I assumed it was because I was sitting next to him, not because I really thought he was that angry with me. I shifted my eyes to him without turning my head. He was staring intently at the priest as the man made his way to the pulpit to talk about Hayden.

I guess I'm starting to like George. He even makes me laugh, when he's not putting lousy pictures of me in the paper. If he'd just grow up or something.

"Family members, friends. Today is a sad day. We can pray for Hayden's soul, and we can celebrate his life. We can talk about the fact that he is now with our Lord and is in a better place. But it does not lighten our sorrow."

The priest and mourners had my full attention now. At any funeral I've been to this would bring at least one loud sob or a bunch of stifled but still audible ones. None came.

The priest, whose name I never did get, spoke largely in platitudes. When he finally said he had "never had the pleasure of meeting Hayden Grosso," I figured it was no surprise to anyone in the church. When he asked if anyone had memories to share, a man I guessed was about Hayden's age walked to the pulpit.

He took a deep breath. "Hayden and I were best friends from kindergarten through high school. There's not one thing we didn't do together. We competed for a spot on the relay team before every swim meet, and when we got up the nerve to ask out girls, we double-dated."

I noticed that did bring a couple smiles and glanced at the mourners below me. A young woman who looked to be about twenty sat very straight. She stared at the speaker without any reaction to his words. Old girlfriend, maybe, I thought.

"I wish I'd seen more of Hayden the last few years," the man continued. "I wish I could introduce him to the son my wife and I are about to have." He paused, struggling with tears. "I'll hold onto those good memories."

That's it?

Footsteps came softly up the stairs. I looked around the choir loft with a sense of dread, and then followed George's pointing finger and almost slid into the batch of choir robes hanging on a long rack. I just had time to get behind them and make sure my feet were not showing. And then pinch my nose so I didn't sneeze.

Whoever came up the steps also sat on one of the small wooden chairs. It squeaked. I couldn't see whether George and the new person nodded at each other, but they definitely didn't speak.

It might not be Morehouse or Dana. But it almost had to be.

The robes and my pounding heart kept me from hearing most of the second person's remarks. Words such as "great promise" and "really enjoyed playing junior varsity" and something about Yosemite reached me. Sounded as if the man had been one of Hayden's teachers.

I'd been to Catholic Masses before. There would be at least another twenty minutes of praying and listening to the priest. I suddenly had to pee really badly. Or really well. Just get me to a bathroom. I suppressed a giggle.

Finally it was over. When I heard Morehouse's voice I could have kissed George for pointing me toward the robes. Kissed George?

"Always good to have a different perspective on a crowd," Morehouse said, in a low voice.

"I hear you," George said.

"Notice anything?" he asked in a casual tone.

"You know our deal. I don't pass on stuff unless somebody could get hurt if I don't," George said.

"Notice anything?" Morehouse asked again.

George must have shaken his head.

"Me either," Morehouse said. "Can't figure out why they're over here when the family is from Matawan."

"Maybe his parents were from here, or something," George replied.

"Headin' out?" Morehouse asked.

"I'll walk down with you," George said, and I heard them walk down the stairs.

_Now what_? For another minute or two there were murmurings below me, and then it got quiet. I waited another minute and ducked out from behind the robes. I took a deep breath, glad to be away from the smells of ten different kinds of perfume and aftershave.

I padded toward my seat, realizing as I walked that I'd left my shoes by the chair I'd been in. They were nearby, as if George had quickly slid them as far from him as possible. Pretty smart. I picked them up and tucked them under my right arm. Instinctively I looked for my purse, and remembered I'd left it in the car.

I got to the bottom of the steps and put on my sunglasses and was putting on my shoes when the priest and a couple came out from behind the altar. It was the young man who gave the talk and the woman who sat with her back so straight.

They seemed surprised to see someone still in the church, and I straightened up, thinking if I didn't greet them it would seem very odd. I wished I'd made it to the bathroom before I had to talk to anyone.

"Good afternoon," the priest said.

"Hello. I enjoyed your remarks. Both of you."

The woman winced.

"Well, not enjoyed..."

The young man smiled and held out his hand. "Mark Montgomery. This is my wife, Melanie Morgan."

_Hard to forget all those M's_. I shook Mark's hand. Melanie did not offer hers. "Ramona Argrow," I said.

"Father, did you order the candles?" The voice was from the front of the church, an older woman who appeared to have come in looking for him.

"Excuse me," he said, and walked away.

The outer door to the church opened and someone entered the vestibule.

There was a pause, and I added, "Sounds as if you knew Hayden well."

"Yes, we..." his tone sharpened. "You aren't a reporter, are you?"

"Goodness, no. Nosy people." I smiled at him, and the door that led from the vestibule back to the street opened and closed.

Now what? I couldn't say we worked together, he'd ask where. "Hayden volunteered at a charity event in Ocean Alley last Saturday. I didn't know him well, but he was a big help."

Mark's face brightened. "I heard that." He looked at his wife. "He was coming back around."

She nodded briefly, and Mark looked uncomfortable, perhaps thinking he had said too much.

I tried to come up with something Aunt Madge would say. "We all change courses at least a couple times in our lives. Enjoy your son." I smiled at the two of them and walked out.

_If only I wasn't in disguise!_ No, I needed to be in disguise. What I also needed was a reason to talk longer to Mark Montgomery, but today was not the day.

The hearse was gone, as were all but two of the cars in the lot. George had his at the curb and was leaning against it. He did a half-bow and walked to the driver's side.

I slid in, and he got in the driver's side and started the car and made for the exit. "If you hadn't said we were nosy I'd have opened the door for you." He grinned, eyes on the traffic as he pulled across the road, where I was directing him into the drug store lot.

"That was kind of a strange funeral," I said. "Not too many people, either, given it was such a young person."

"You heard all the touching stories of Hayden as a cub scout, maybe the one the teacher told about the teen camping trip in Yosemite?" George asked.

"I only heard a bit when the lady in the third pew wasn't honking her nose and the robes weren't smothering me," I answered. "Thanks for pointing to them, by the way."

"Sure. Did you hear any stories after he was maybe sixteen?" George had pulled into the parking space next to my car.

"Huh." I thought for a few moments. "Not one."

"So we need to find out what he was up to the last few years, not just the last few weeks," George said.

_We_.

George invited me to coffee, but I said I had to wash my hair a lot and made him promise not to tell Scoobie or anyone else that he'd seen me. I didn't mention I used Ramona's name. After he extracted a promise to talk more later and stopped laughing about how many times I'd have to wash my hair, George drove off. I was ten miles outside of Perth Amboy before I remembered to turn back and get Jazz.
CHAPTER TEN

WITH SUCH A SCANTY obituary, I knew next to nothing about Hayden. Unless Megan had learned more, Alicia was my best bet, but I had no idea if she'd talk to me or attack me. I'd seen her with her friends, but didn't really know any of them. Besides, I couldn't go talking to high school kids. Their parents would freak. The only other person I'd seen her even talk to was the grocery clerk at Mr. Markle's store. True, he was probably in high school himself, but he certainly talked to a lot of customers.

I walked through the automatic door into the cool store. It was hot for September, and I was warm after going through a vacant house that had the AC off. It's a small store, as older, in-town grocery stores tend to be, so it only took me a minute to wander across the front of the store, checking every aisle.

"Jolie?" Mr. Markle and his constant clipboard companion were in the freezer aisle. "Buying or begging?" he asked.

I smiled. "Neither. I wondered if..."

"Then I know what you want," he interrupted. "Corporal Johnson said Clark worked with that group of teens at your pirate thing, and I'm not to let you talk to Clark."

"Crud!" I slapped my hand over my mouth. "Sorry."

"Humph. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you did it." He looked in one of the open freezers, counted something, and made a note.

"Thanks. You, uh, see a lot of people. Do you hear anyone speculating about other suspects?" I grimaced as I said the words. _You aren't a real suspect. I hoped so, anyway_.

"Do you count Elmira?" he asked. Then he gave a smile, rare for him. "You wouldn't like what she said, anyway."

"I shouldn't have told her I think she's a busybody," I said, glumly.

"So that's why she talks about you a lot." He nodded and walked down the aisle toward the back of the story.

So, the clerk's name was Clark. I knew who could talk to him. I called George.

"You know," he said, "you do still owe me a cell phone."

"You shouldn't have had it in your pocket when you fell in." This is perhaps my favorite memory of a prior Harvest for All fundraiser. As he sputtered I continued. "Come on, you said we'd have coffee."

"Better make it the IHOP by the highway." He hung up.

When he walked in George was carrying a piece of paper, which turned out to be a printed email from Sgt. Morehouse. All it said was "nice shoes."

"So, now he's pissed at me because he thinks I brought you up there."

"You didn't tell him about my hair, did you?"

"Nobody gives a crap about your hair."

I ordered iced tea and he did the same. "Why are we outside of town?" I asked.

"Because Morehouse told me, in no uncertain terms, I might add, that I'm not to help you if you're being a busybody."

"What about this freedom of the press stuff?"

"You know how it is here, Jolie. It's why I let him take my data card for a day. It's not Washington, DC, or even Lakewood." He paused for a second. "If we want to report on local crime we can't be enemies with the police." He gave a grim smile. "Besides, my editor wouldn't have run a photo of the body."

"So if Morehouse says butt out, you will?" I asked.

"I think if we put our heads together we'll figure this out faster. I get a good story, you get your reputation back. Such as it is."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he pulled a very small camera from his shirt pocket. I raised my hands in surrender.

"The thing is, if he goes to my editor, I have a problem. I have to be careful."

I thought about that for a moment, then stuck my hand across the table. George solemnly shook it. I felt myself flush and withdrew my hand.

George gave me a funny look as he released my hand, and he opened his notebook. "Okay, he graduated from Central High School, but he finished high school in one of those drop-out prevention programs, where kids can take most of their classes on line."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"The second guy who talked was a high school science teacher. I called him."

"And he talked to you?" I asked.

George shrugged. "I told him the next time we wrote about the murder I wanted to be able to say something about Hayden's life. He didn't want to talk much, but he did say that Hayden had hit a 'rough patch' his senior year, and he was the one who got him to do just enough to graduate." George stopped when he saw the expression on my face. "What?"

"I'm surprised a poor student had such loyalty from a teacher..." I began.

"Very smart student," George said. "Think about it. Why would Hayden have liked science?"

I stared at George for a moment. "You learn experiments. You get to dissect frogs, play with Bunsen burners...oh. Do you learn how to turn marijuana plants into pot?"

"Probably not in the class," George said, dryly. "But if he was already into drugs, science classes might have had a special interest for him. Or not."

"But there's three years, at least, since he got out of high school. Do you know where he was?"

"I'll get to that in the next couple days. The only thing the teacher said that was useful was that Hayden was close to one of his sisters. The one whose last name is now Bruno."

"It's a start," I said.

GEORGE AND I SPLIT A TO-DO LIST, and by ten Friday morning I'd already hit the library computers looking for records. We decided that, given police instructions, I couldn't go around overtly nosying into people's business as George put it. At least not in Ocean Alley.

All I could find was a very short article about an accident on the New Jersey turnpike in which a teenage girl was injured. Hayden had been the driver. It told me he was reckless, but I already knew that. _Not everything makes the papers_.

I was by myself in Harvest for All late the in the afternoon when Alicia came in. She held the door open and stared at me. Her eyes weren't red-rimmed, but they looked almost blank. She shut the door.

"I'm sorry you're hurting, Alicia," I said.

"Why did you do it?" she whispered.

I shut my eyes for a second and looked at her, tears now welling in both our eyes. "Why don't we talk, as long as you like, about what happened that night and where I was. I promise you, I didn't kill Hayden."

In a wooden tone, she said, "I'll never believe you."

"And I can't make you. So I'll just have to prove that I did not kill Hayden." I kept looking into her eyes.

Alicia half-turned to go.

"You know you want someone punished for his murder. It's not going to be me. You can help me figure out who did it."

She paused, hand still on the newly repaired door. "My mom said the police will find out."

"Did you tell them everything you know about where Hayden was the last week? What he did? Who he hung out with?"

She flared. "It's not your business! And it's not for the police either!"

"So you just want everybody to pretend he didn't really die? That way we don't have to find out anything about how he lived?"

She glared at me, but there were tears on her cheeks now. _Good, I'm getting through_.

"I don't...I can't...," she began. "He said I couldn't tell." Alicia said this in a whisper.

I knew every word I said had to be chosen carefully. "And maybe if he were still alive that would be the right thing to do." _Wrong_. "But he's gone, and you're here, and I don't want anything to happen to you."

Footsteps were coming down the hall from the church itself. We both looked toward the door that led to the community room area, and then our gazes met again.

"I'll think about it," Alicia said, and walked out the front door onto the street.

I'd learned from the All-Anon meetings that you can't make someone do anything. I don't totally buy it, but I knew now was not the time to try to convince Alicia of anything.

The interior door to the food pantry opened, and Reverend Jamison stepped in. "I saw Alicia from my office as she was about to walk in."

I nodded. "I think she's moved from thinking I'm a murderer to considering the possibility that someone else might be."

He nodded slowly. "It might be better not to talk to her too much without her mother." He walked closer and handed me an envelope. "Apparently I'm your mailing service."

"You're right. Thanks." I took the envelope, and he nodded and left. I knew he was one-hundred percent right about talking to Alicia only with Megan present. I also knew she wouldn't open up at all if her mom was around.

I glanced at the letter as I walked back to the counter where I'd been unpacking several boxes of food that a Girl Scout troop had collected. The letter was addressed to me, courtesy of First Presbyterian, but it didn't have the Harvest for All name or a return address. I slit it open with the edge of the box cutter kept in the pencil jar under the counter.

The typed letter said, "You think you're so smart. You aren't. Leave it alone."

_AT LEAST I KNOW I'm onto something_. No one in the First Prez office knew who had dropped off the note. Not that I told them what it said. I told Reverend Jamison's uptight secretary that it was a thank-you note for food. _First lie of the day_.

I got in my car and drove toward a house a mile or so out of town. My camera batteries died yesterday, and I needed to take outdoor pictures of the house I planned to use to compare prices before writing up the appraisal for one of Lester's sold houses.

The sun was shining brightly, but we'd gotten to the stage of early fall when the heat was less intense. I turned off the air conditioner and lowered my window a few inches.

I was getting close to a roadside picnic area when a black sedan of some sort started riding my bumper. I pulled to the right a bit so it could pass and was rewarded with a strong jolt to my rear bumper. My head snapped forward and then hit the back of my seat. "What the..."

They did it again! This was no accident. I sped up, knowing I'd soon get to a small cluster of houses just beyond the little park. The final hit was a full-on ram, and it knocked my hands off the steering wheel for a second. Just enough time for me to slide off the road into the drainage ditch at the side of the road. As my car bumped down the grassy slope I heard the black car roar past me, but I was shaking so hard I couldn't get my neck to obey my command to turn around and look at the car.

Another car came to a stop on the pavement and a door slammed. I was shaking too hard to try to run, and the man's face was at the driver's side window of my car in less than five seconds.

"Are you okay?"

I gave a tiny wave and leaned forward to turn off the car engine. The automatic locks clicked open and the man opened my door.

"Stay seated," he commanded. "There's no fire or anything."

I hadn't really looked at him, so I couldn't tell much more than he was black and maybe sixty years old. He dialed 911 and I heard him tell the dispatcher he saw someone hit my car and that they should send an ambulance and tow truck.

This can't be random. A dozen thoughts came to me, the first being to say a silent prayer of thanks that I wasn't on a highway going sixty miles an hour. The second thought was that an accident like this would bring George to the scene, and I would actually be glad to see him.

I heard a siren in the distance, and the man stooped beside me and smiled. "You have some color in your face now. You'll be okay."

I turned toward him without moving my neck, and the tears coursed down my cheeks. "Thank you."

He patted my arm. "I saw him hit you. I'll tell your insurance company."

That was the least of my worries.

My savior said he was going to flag down the police car, and I gave myself half a smile. The car sticking up out of the ditch would be a clue.

The ambulance driver radioed to the hospital and the ER doctor gave them permission to put in an IV and give me a dose of morphine. That was enough to let the paramedics put a cervical collar that had to be made of boards on my neck and help me out of the car and onto a stretcher without me wailing at every movement. I could tell I wasn't seriously hurt, but every inch of me hurt.

They were getting ready to close the door to the ambulance when a set of tires screeched and a door slammed, followed by a second car and another person doing the same.

"She all right?" Sgt. Morehouse's voice carried into the ambulance.

"No obvious major injuries, but she hurts." The paramedic in the back with me was a woman about my age who had a much firmer physique and a good tan.

"Gimme a minute," Morehouse said, and he climbed into the back of the ambulance. "Where were you headed?"

"I'm doing okay, thanks," I mumbled.

The woman chuckled, then cleared her throat. "I take it you know each other."

"Smartass," he said, but in a sort of kind way. I was pretty sure he was talking to me.

"I heard you were rammed," he said. "I wanna find 'em. What color car? Did you know them?"

"Black, not so big"

"So a black guy?" Morehouse asked.

"Car." My mouth was so dry.

"Could you tell the make? Who was driving?"

I could hear someone pacing on the gravel outside the ambulance. I thought for a couple seconds. "All I know is tinted windows and the visor was down."

"Crap." He turned to leave. "No, George, you can't go in."

"I'll see you at the hospital," George called.

"It's not a time for damn interviews," Morehouse said.

"He's my good friend," I whispered, crying full-out now.

"She says he's her good friend," the paramedic said to Morehouse as she shut the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

I GUESS THE MORPHINE made me doze off, because I remember the trip to the hospital in terms of speed bumps and the transfer to a gurney in the ER in terms of jolts.

"I just can't believe this!" Aunt Madge's voice jolted me awake.

_Uh-oh_.

"Jolie," George whispered from a position somewhere near my head. "Your aunt's out there. I think she's talking to Dana Johnson."

I could hear a murmured conversation in the hall and opened my eyes to find George's face about six inches from mine. I was holding his hand. "She won't like this."

"Like you do?" he said, and stood as Aunt Madge entered my curtained area.

I let my gaze drift to her, still keeping my head and neck still. "S'all right." I let my eyes close. "I can still hear you."

"It doesn't look all right," she said. "What happened?"

I figured since my eyes were closed this was meant for George.

"Don't know much more than what Dana probably told you. Somebody rammed her car out by your favorite park."

Aunt Madge gave a more or less ladylike snort. She hates that park.

"No one had a good description of the car except black and a mid-size four-door," George continued. "Guy who helped her first thought it was a fairly new Chevy or Ford, with no front license."

Aunt Madge had walked closer to me and stroked my forehead.

"I really am okay, it's just they gave me something sleepy."

"Something that made you sleepy," she said, almost absently.

"I uh..." George paused. "I'm thinking it had to be related to that guy's death. Hayden."

I opened my eyes all the way. "I forgot about that."

"Keep forgetting," Aunt Madge said, a strident note creeping into her tone.

"Jeez." The curtain slid open and Scoobie stood there. "I go to class and you're fine. I come out and Harry's waiting to bring me down here."

Although the collar made it too hard to crane my neck, from the sappy look on Aunt Madge's face I knew Harry must be behind Scoobie.

"Ah-hem." A willowy young nurse had walked around Scoobie.

"Yes, I'm sure we're too many," Aunt Madge said.

"We're probably going to release her in an hour or so. Maybe you can catch up at home," the nurse said.

"I can drive her home," George said, quickly.

Aunt Madge looked down at me. "Okay with you?"

"It's okay," I said.

The nurse left.

"I know Madge has her afternoon tea to serve," Harry said.

"Oh! Harry." I remembered why I was on the road. "I was going to that house we talked about, to take pictures."

"Don't worry about that, Jolie. I'll get them tomorrow."

After some more clucking noises and a firm order to be careful on the way home ( _excuse me?_ ) Aunt Madge and Harry left.

George sat back down and Scoobie stood next to him. "I'm not sure how many times you've been in this ER in the last few months," he said.

"You should talk." I lifted my hand and looked at the intravenous tube in my arm. "I'll look like a drug addict when I get out of here."

George leaned closer. "Is that really all you saw?"

"It was all so fast. I just remember the car was black."

The curtain pulled aside again and Dana Johnson walked in. "Hey Jolie, you look a lot better than you did a couple hours ago."

"It was that long ago?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, crisply. "George." Her tone was a disapproving one.

"I know, I know. I'm asking as her friend, not a reporter."

"There's a new one." Sgt. Morehouse walked in. He stared at me for a couple seconds.

"Thanks," I said.

He was still wearing a tie, but it was loosened. "Since it was my night to serve at the fish fry at St. Anthony's, I been out there and back. So for once you didn't wreck my schedule."

"Did you bring us anything?" Scoobie asked.

"Dream on," Morehouse said. He turned slightly. "You can head home, Corporal Johnson."

There was a three-way chorus of "Thanks, Dana," and she left.

"I'm glad you aren't hurt worse," Morehouse said, "but you gotta listen when I tell you to leave this alone."

"It's not like I had a 'hit me' sign on my bumper...Oh. Is my car okay?" I hadn't given it any thought.

"I'm not the auto club," Morehouse said. "Remember anything else?"

"A nice man stopped." I suddenly felt very tired again.

"Stuart Cambridge. He's running for city council this fall. If I'm you, I'd expect a donation letter," Morehouse said. "So, nothing else?"

"I just saw the front of a black car.

"Mmm. But a man at the wheel, you think?" he asked.

"I guess it's more of an impression, maybe from the size."

Morehouse sighed. "I'm thinking if it was somebody really out to get you they would have picked something more permanent than putting you in a ditch. Madge ever get that security system installed?"

"Yes," Scoobie said. "But it doesn't have any cameras, just an alarm."

"Keeping them out is more important than a photo shoot," Morehouse said. "Okay, when they spring you I think you'll be okay. Call me if you think of anything else, and if we figure out anything I'll let you know."

"Thanks." I thought I was going to use that word a lot in the next couple of days.

Morehouse walked out and then stuck his head back in the curtain. "And no more choir lofts." He left.

"What does that mean?" Scoobie asked as he pulled up a chair to sit next to George.

I shut my eyes again. This morphine gig had its advantages.

"Remember I told you I went to Hayden's funeral?" George asked Scoobie.

"And..."

"Little Miss Detective was there, too. I figured I'd let her tell you."

"Yo, Jolie," Scoobie said. "Are you nuts?"

"It's not rhetorical question day," George said, and he and Scoobie did sort of a mid-range high five.

They both turned back to look at me. I gave Scoobie raised eyebrows, but when I went to shrug my shoulders I winced.

Scoobie lowered his voice. "I asked Max and Josh if they'd seen Hayden around much." He looked toward the curtain and back. "Josh said he was on the boardwalk a lot for a week or so, just before after Labor Day. Then he was gone for awhile, then he started showing up at places with Alicia and a couple of her friends."

"Know where he was staying?" George asked.

"No. Josh actually followed him the first couple times he saw Hayden with Alicia. But every time they'd walk off the boardwalk and get into his car and drive off."

"Maybe it was his car," I said.

"How much of this juice are you on?" George asked.

"I expect his family has his car," Scoobie said, in a kind of gentle tone of voice.

"Oh, right. I keep forgetting things."

"No shit," George said.

"Anyway," Scoobie said, "Josh said, and Max of course repeated five times, that he never saw Hayden with anyone except Alicia and her friends."

"So nothing else?" George asked.

"One thing. When he showed up after being gone a few days he had a lot more cash."

ONE THING I can agree with Sgt. Morehouse on is that I don't believe in coincidences. I thought about things a lot the next two days when, once again, I spent a lot of time on the couch in Aunt Madge's sitting room.

Hayden left and seemingly returned with more cash than he had before. Was it to spend money on young girls? Why? Okay, there was the obvious reason, but he was so much older than they were that they couldn't possibly hold much interest for him. He surely knew what statutory rape was. If he'd wanted to bed one of them he would probably not have been as brazen about hanging out with them.

I stared at the ceiling. I had not seen him at the vacant house with Alicia, or in any others, for that matter. He wasn't from Ocean Alley, and since Scoobie didn't recognize him he couldn't have spent much time here until around Labor Day. One thing was for sure, Hayden's presence in town seemed to have been a catalyst for changes in Alicia's behavior.

"Nuts."

"What's up with you?" Aunt Madge asked.

I had forgotten she just came in from church. I guess I had my eyes closed, because I hadn't heard her come into the sitting room from her bedroom. "Just tired of being confined, I guess." Well, I am.

"You seem to be moving a lot better today," she said.

"I am. Believe it or not, I'm trying to do what the ER doctor said."

"You're right," she said.

"About what?"

"That I won't believe you," Aunt Madge said.

"Very funny. He said the head is very heavy for the neck, and I should stay almost flat for a couple days. Haven't I been doing that?"

"Hmm. Headstrong." There was a glint in Aunt Madge's eyes. "I do see what you mean."

The doorbell rang and she left to answer it, returning moments later with Scoobie and George. "You sure you won't have tea? I have iced as well as hot."

"Thanks, but no," George said.

Scoobie gave Aunt Madge a light kiss on the cheek. "We came over to see if she's giving you too hard a time."

"Nothing I can't handle," she said. "Jolie, since your public is here I'm heading out for a bit."

"Going to see about getting your house appraised?" I asked.

"Good one," George said, then caught Aunt Madge's eye. "If you need it done, I mean."

"You three deserve each other."

George sat on the couch and Scoobie plopped on the floor near me and let Mister Rogers try to climb in his lap.

"Tell Harry I said hello." I gave her my four-finger wave.

The door to the breakfast room had barely swung shut when George said, "I think I know where he was for a couple years after high school."

"You'll love this," Scoobie said.

George flipped open the narrow notebook he always carries. "January after high school he went to, get this, Threshers' Faith College in Kansas and..."

"Isn't that a Christian college?" I interrupted him.

"Which I was about to tell you."

"He was Catholic, right? Wouldn't that be more like Notre Dame or something?" I looked from Scoobie to George and saw the exasperation in George's expression. "Ok, I'll shut up."

Scoobie snorted and George continued. "Aside from the fact that he seems to have been a lousy student and wouldn't have gotten into Notre Dame, I would guess he was sent to Threshers' Faith to try to get him in a different environment."

"What...?" I stopped. "Go on."

"And his crooked path was kind of like mine, "Scoobie said, "except that he didn't just have one drug of choice." Miss Piggy was trying to place her head in Scoobie's lap as well, so he lay down on the floor and they each put a paw on him and thumped their tails.

"I don't know what all he did the entire six months after high school, before he went to Threshers' Faith, but he had two arrests." George glanced at his notes. "One was for buying precursors to making meth -- like the medicine in those red cold pills -- and the other for trying to sell a couple little baggies of meth."

"That one got him some free room and board with Monmouth County," Scoobie said.

"But he didn't learn as fast as Scoobie," George continued. "Old Hayden's home from Threshers' Faith College in Kansas for maybe three weeks and he gets picked up for pot."

"He must have been confused," Scoobie said. "You're supposed to start with pot."

"Shut up, Scoob," George said, in a conversational tone. "So he gets assigned to community service and does it that summer, helping the Parks Department in Matawan and then he goes to community college in the fall."

"Guess they figured why spend money on the Christian college if it didn't take?" I mused.

George shrugged. "I think he was a lost cause long before then. Then he seems to stay out of trouble, or not get caught at it, until about June of the next year."

"So, what is that, two years out of high school?" I asked.

"Ramona said you used to help her in geometry class," Scoobie said.

I made a face at him and both dogs thumped their tails.

"Two years, he's about to turn twenty." George looked back at his notes. "Then he gets arrested for fleeing the scene after he totals daddy's car on the New Jersey Turnpike. Just runs off."

"I saw an article about the accident on line, but it didn't give a lot of details," I said.

"I saw that too. Anyway, they must have been near a turnpike exit, because he leaves this girl, who was hurt, and stays out of sight long enough that he doesn't test for alcohol." George looked up, "A real charmer. No one from the party he'd been at will say he drank too much, but he would have been the only sober one there if he didn't."

"Jeez. Private college and a wrecked car. That's one expensive kid."

"What happened to the girl?" Scoobie asked.

"Not sure," George said. "So then he goes to live with his sister and her husband, the one named Bruno, and he seems to have been there until he showed up here." He looked up.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Did I hear a thank you in there?"

"Dream on," Scoobie said.

I flushed. "I'm sorry. It just seemed kind of anti-climactic. Where did you find all this?"

"The Press pays for a bunch of on-line databases, including some that have information on a lot of arrests and trials and stuff."

Scoobie placed his hand flat against each dog's head and gently pushed them aside. "I gotta go study. You need anything?"

"No, I'm good," I replied, and he gave me a grin and left.

Our eyes followed Scoobie as he walked out of the kitchen, and then George and I looked at each other. It occurred to me that for all the time I'd spent comparing notes with George last summer and now that we hadn't really been alone together, not in private, anyway. I could feel myself getting hot.

George looked away, then cleared his throat. "So we gotta figure where we go next." He studied me. "You want some ice water or something?"

"That'd be great. Some of the pain meds give me hot flashes."

His eyes lit up, and then he seemed to think better of what he was going to say, and he walked to the sink and poured water into a tumbler that was in the dish drainer and grabbed a couple cubes of ice from Aunt Madge's ice maker.

"Thanks." I took it from him and took a big gulp. "Much better." I gave him a bright smile.

George sat back down. "Thing is, I can't spend a lot more time on this. Not during the work day, anyway. My editor thinks the answer to the murder is in Ocean Alley, not back where he came from."

"And we don't?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Can't tell. I just figure it has to relate as much to why he was here as what he did here."

"Okay." I thought for a few seconds. "Maybe I could talk to his sister."

"Not by yourself," George said, almost sternly.

"I can't believe they'd want to talk to a reporter," I said.

"I'll drive you," he said.

A low growl came from under the sofa I'd been lying on. I twisted, still in pain but not as much as Friday or Saturday, and looked over the side. Miss Piggy had one paw under the couch. She saw me and, tail thumping, gave a small bark.

"You know you can't bark in here. Leave Jazz alo..."

There was a squeal and Miss Piggy stood fast and whined.

Mister Rogers was on a rug by the door and gave a half bark, half snort.

"I told you, she doesn't play nice." I pointed toward the door. "Go sit with Mister Rogers."

She gave me a forlorn look and plopped down next to Mister Rogers.

"Jeez," George said. "It's like you're babysitting toddlers."

"I'm used to it. And I'm going to visit Hayden's sister." 
CHAPTER TWELVE

I WAS TIRED OF being indoors and had begun taking fewer pain meds, so on Monday I decided to go out. First I had to call the car repair place to see about my car. I was relieved to find out it was very much out of alignment and one tire had been ripped by something sharp in the ditch. It could have been a lot worse. I told the repair shop I'd pay them an extra twenty-five dollars if they dropped the car in the Cozy Corner parking lot and put the key under the mat. _I love small towns_.

"I'm not going to work," I told Aunt Madge. "I'm just going to Java Jolt and maybe to the library."

"Such an exciting life," she said. "I'll drive you."

I shook my head and winced. "If I needed you, I'd ask. I just need to be in charge of where I'm going."

We were in the kitchen. She had only had one guest, and he had eaten his muffins early and left to drive into New York City for work. "All right. But if you get somewhere and don't want to drive back, Harry and I will come and get you."

"You forget how to drive?" I asked.

"Don't be a twit, Jolie."

I carried Jazz back upstairs so she would be in my room while I was out. You can't exactly keep a cat in one place unless you have a shut door. Last week Aunt Madge walked into a guest room to put in fresh towels and Jazz was curled up on the bedspread. She has been outlawed from any room except mine, unless I'm with her.

"I told you if you would stay in our room and the sitting room you'd be golden. But you had to look for new territory." She placed a paw on my cheek.

"Aw, that's nice." I nuzzled her neck. She swatted me.

MY LIST WAS A LONG one. After all, I'd had a couple days to do nothing but take meds and think. My thinking is definitely better when I'm not on pain meds. Even so, I had started another list, this one of people to talk to.

People Hayden Knew

His parents. Not.

Sister named Bruno and husband. Yes.

Sister still at home. Not.

Double M couple from church. Maybe

Teacher from funeral. Maybe.

Girl from car accident on NJ Turnpike. Find her?

Alicia. Wishful thinking.

Alicia's friends. Maybe.

Markle store clerk. Yes. How?

Megan. ??

I thought for a moment and added Josh, since Scoobie said Josh had watched Hayden a couple of times when he was with Alicia on the boardwalk.

It was a start. Since coffee is always a good way to begin my day, I parked a block from the boardwalk steps that lead to Java Jolt and walked the short distance. The wind was brisk and I smelled the water as soon as I parked. I sniffed almost hungrily. The ocean is such a common part of life in Ocean Alley that I don't usually think about it. Give me a few days without seeing it and I need a fix. Kind of like coffee.

The walk felt good after being inside the better part of three days. I'd sat on the swing on Aunt Madge's meandering front porch yesterday, but that's hardly a way to stretch your legs.

I climbed the boardwalk steps slowly, hand lightly on the railing. I was much less sore than I'd been and I didn't see any side effects of my low dose of pain meds, but I told myself, in a pious tone, that safe is better than sorry.

"Hey, Jolie!" Joe Regan sounded really glad to see me.

"Hi, Joe. Missed your coffee. Can I have it to go?"

"Jeez, as weak as you drink it." He began mixing regular and decaf for me. "Watch out for Lester."

"Great." I took a sip and tried not to make a face as I scalded my tongue. "Thanks. Good I'm already getting it to go."

I talked for a minute to an elderly couple who are almost always in Java Jolt. _Names_?

"We figured you were okay or there would have been more in the paper," the man said. He was dressed in blue and white seersucker pants that looked as if they were straight from the 1960s. The bald spot on the top of his head glistened. That and the iced tea in front of both of them made me think they had just come in from a walk.

"Of course, we could have called Madge," the woman said. In contrast to her partner (husband?) she had on neat capris and a coordinating top, which shouted 'expensive.'

_Of course._ I said a couple more polite things -- really polite, since I now knew they know Aunt Madge -- and left.

I had planned to use the Java Jolt computers to learn more about Hayden's family, but the library permitted better Lester-avoidance. Daphne appeared to be off this morning, which was good. She might rat me out if she knew what I was looking for.

I chose a computer in the area farthest away from the front desk, since my coffee cup was hidden in the canvas sack I had slung over my shoulder in lieu of a heavy purse. I placed both on the floor near my feet and logged in for my half-hour of computer searching.

I figured George had found anything there was to find about Hayden's criminal activities or court appearances, so I planned to search for information on his parents and maybe his sisters. My logic was that if he was such a bad apple the tree might have shed more of them.

Hayden's mother's name came up in an early search, as did his father's, but both times the link took me to their local paper, the _Lakeview Ledger_ , and you needed to be a subscriber to read anything more than the front page. I pulled out my debit card -- the only electronic purchasing power I have since my ex ruined not only his but my credit rating -- and bought a three-month subscription, the shortest available.

All I learned was that Alberto and Mary Patricia Grosso had celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with friends at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Matawan. "Joining in the celebration were the priest who married them, Father Patrick O'Brien, their matron of honor, Mary Jo Patterson, and best man, Norman Benton. Mrs. Patterson and Mr. Benton are godparents to the Brunos' two oldest children."

I stared at the screen for a moment, then searched for Father O'Brien. If I could find where he was twenty-five years ago I could learn where Hayden's parents lived then, or at least what church they went to. I wasn't sure why I wanted to know, but any new information was better than nothing.

Sure enough, another article in the same paper announced Father Patrick O'Brien's retirement from Saint Rita's Parish in Newark, and gave a short summary of his career. At least I learned two things with the newspaper subscription. Twenty-five years ago, Father O'Brien had been at St. Columbkill's Parish in Matawan New Jersey.

I went back to the article about the Grosso's twenty-fifth anniversary, which I had printed. St. Columbkill's was in the same town as the Knights of Columbus hall that hosted the anniversary party. I frowned. If the Grosso family had been in the same community all that time, why not have Hayden's funeral there? I was sure it was not something as simple as another dearly departed needing the altar at the same time.

Since I was already at the newspaper's website, I searched by Hayden's name and was greeted by a slew of articles. Three dealt with things George had found -- the two drug arrests, one for having meth precursors and a baggie and another for pot. The third run-in with the law was the car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. This one named the girl he deserted, Agnes Flaherty. I printed all three articles.

Other mentions of Hayden were usually as part of a group, including half of a duo that won first place in his middle school science fair. I scanned the other names and looked at the fuzzy picture of the science fair. Mark Montgomery and Hayden had their arms around each other's shoulders and the broad smiles spoke of two young men with unlimited possibilities and a lifelong friendship. Not.

I jotted the date of the article, not inclined to spend money to print a copy. I skimmed over articles about Hayden's role in a tenth-grade school play ( _Brigadoon_ ) and his time flipping pancakes with his father at a Knights of Columbus breakfast.

No more in the _Lakeview Ledger_. I started to go back to the search engine when I remembered that I now knew the name of the girl in the car accident. Agnes Flaherty's name brought up seventeen articles. My eyes filled with tears as I read about firefighters needing the jaws of life to get her out of the car after the accident and her long struggle to recover from two not just broken but crushed legs and a severe concussion.

More articles talked about her friends holding car washes to help her family build a ramp into their house and the school board voting to leave her on the cheerleading squad even though she would never be able to jump in the air or climb on another cheerleader's shoulders. That last part I inferred. Apparently the paper would only describe her progress, not her continuing disability.

The most recent article showed a smiling Agnes Flaherty, a parent on each side of her, graduating from massage school. Agnes stood with the aid of one of those metal crutches that looks like a cross between a cane and a crutch. She was quoted. "There were so many times that I was in pain and the wonderful masseuse in the hospital's physical therapy unit spent extra time helping me loosen tight and knotted muscles. I wanted to give that kind of help to others." The article went on to say that while she would work in a physical therapy clinic Agnes would be not be in a clinical position.

The town must hate him. No wonder the funeral was in Perth Amboy.

A throat cleared behind me and I jumped about four inches off the chair and turned, painfully, to find George behind me. I also kicked over my coffee, which was mostly absorbed by my canvas bag. "You startled the stuffing out of me!"

He pulled up a chair. "Sorry. I waited until you were finished reading."

"And read over my shoulder, of course."

"Of course." He pulled the article from the printer and read it more slowly, nodding a couple of times.

I tried to look at George without staring, which is kind of hard when you are sitting next to someone. Though he still wore a Hawaiian-style collared shirt, he had on a pair of lightweight tan pants and his hair was shorter than usual. New girlfriend? What do you care?

"So, we know why hardly anyone went to the funeral," George said. He was silent for a moment. "He must have felt a lot of guilt."

"Guilt!" I actually hissed. "He acted like he didn't have a thing on his mind besides getting into Alicia's pants."

George shrugged. "Key word could be acted, but it doesn't really matter. You done here?"

"I want to search for his sisters, see if they got in trouble, too."

"I'm gonna harass Daphne for a minute. She just got in." He walked toward the front of the library.

I keyed in 'Veronica Bruno,' but nothing popped up. Maria Grosso was another story. The kid probably never slept. Still only sixteen, she was on the high school swim team, headed the Math Club, and was in charge of the junior prom decorations. She and her friends did such a good job that "the high school gym was transformed into a fairytale world of pale greens and yellows."

I sat back in my chair, thinking about how different she and Hayden were. But nothing on Veronica. I was about to close my session when I remembered her name would have been Veronica Grosso most of her life.

There was a stunning photo of a happy and relaxed bride, a formal portrait in the weekly paid announcements of weddings and anniversaries and such. Another photo showed the full bridal party of bride and groom, six other women and six men, a flower girl, ring bearer, and her sister, a junior bridesmaid. _That was one expensive wedding_.

Idly I read the accompanying article, stopping when I saw the name of the maid of honor. Mary Jo Pedone was from Matawan, New Jersey. Out loud, I said, "Joe Pedone's sister?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"YOU CAN'T HONESTLY think there is this incredible coincidence that she is related to that creep, Joe Pedone, and that Hayden just happened to run into you in Ocean Alley and decide to torment you by dating Alicia?"

George and I were sitting on a bench outside the library, each with a copy of the wedding article. "Nope."

"Glad to hear you're turning sane..." he began.

"I don't think it's a coincidence. I think Mary Jo or Joe or somebody in that family has been looking for a way to get back at me and found one. They sent Hayden."

George let out a breath, kind of like a horse with floppy lips. "Bologna."

"Mary Jo Pedone Patterson is Hayden's godmother. She can't come after me personally, and she knows Hayden's a loose cannon. Maybe she sends him here to flatten my tires or break into my house." I warmed to my theory. "He sees me with Alicia and Megan, and he mentions them and the food pantry to Mary Jo. What better way to get back at me than getting back at someone I'm close to? For Megan and Alicia, that would mean getting Alicia pregnant or arrested or something."

George stared at me. "Do you have any idea how self-centered that is?"

I wasn't going to back down. "Scoobie said Josh said Hayden was here, gone for a bit, and came back with more money to spend. Maybe Mary Jo gave it to him to spend on Alicia."

George just stared at me.

"Whatever. It's a start." I turned my body to face him directly, since my neck was really killing me after half an hour in front of the computer. "A few minutes ago we had nothing, now we..."

"Have nothing," George said. "Pedone may not be a common name if you live in Alaska, but in Jersey you probably have a few in every town."

"It's a start. Pedone said I cost him his job. His sister might be mad about that." I paused. "Among other things. You can find out if they're related."

"Yeah, and I will. It'll be kind of fun to prove you wrong." George stood. "Damn, I forgot. I ran into Harry at Java Jolt. He's looking for you. Madge told him to try there."

"Nuts. That means I'll have to account for my time."

"What are you, a five-year-old?"

"No, but Aunt Madge is convinced I'll mind somebody else's business. Specifically, Hayden's."

"Smart lady. I gotta go cover an economic development meeting. They're supposed to announce a new company that's going into that old beach umbrella factory on the north end of town."

"That'll be good," I said, still thinking about Mary Jo Pedone. George already had his back to me and was heading for his car, which was parked on the street. "Catch you later," I called to him.

He gave me a back-handed wave without turning around.

I shuffled through the articles on my lap one more time and was about to stand up when I heard my name.

"Jolie. Jolie! You look okay, Jolie!" Max's voice carried from the edge of the large library lawn. Josh followed him, but did not look especially glad to see me. Or look especially glad about anything.

I gave a small wave and spoke as they got closer. "Haven't seen you guys for a few days."

Both men wore heavily laden backpacks, and Josh had what looked like two bedrolls on the top of his. Max sat next to me and began talking in his usual excited tone. "We saw you in the library. In the newspaper in the library," he amended. "You had a car accident."

Josh slid off his back pack and sat on the grass in front of us.

"I did, but I'm getting better." Before Max could continue, I added, "I really appreciate everything you guys did at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

"Glad to help, glad to help," Max said in his rapid-fire pattern.

"Hey, Max. You want me to watch your pack while you go to the restroom?" Josh asked.

"Good idea, good idea. See you in a minute, Jolie," he said, and slid off his pack and made for the short flight of steps that leads into the library.

I looked at Josh. "You have your hands full."

"Huh. Mostly I don't mind." Josh reached into a zippered pocket of his pack and pulled out two small apples. "Want one? They come from your place." He smiled.

I started to say no, and then reached for one, wanting to be companionable. "Max said you guys met at one of the amusement areas along Lake Erie." I studied Josh as he took a few seconds to think about his response. He's at least six feet tall and usually is clean-shaven, though today he had a beard that was a couple shades lighter than his light brown hair.

"We did. The water's a lot colder there, so I brought him back here."

"Back here...?"

Josh glanced at me and away.

As soon as I asked I regretted it. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to invade your space."

He threw back his head and laughed, something I'd never seen him do. "What are you, New Age? No wonder Scoobie says you're funny."

I smiled. "I think he has other reasons."

"Probably." He took a large bite from the small apple.

"The thing is, I mean it's none of my business, but do you ever get a break?"

Josh was quiet for a moment. "He actually has some medicine to help him sleep. Gets it at the VA. Once he's out for the night, I walk the beach a lot by myself."

"I'm glad to hear he goes to the VA."

"He was in a light armored vehicle that ran into a roadside bomb in Afghanistan."

I drew a sharp breath.

"It was before there was decent armor on most our vehicles. Now there are more of what they call mine-resistant armored vehicles." He gave me a fleeting smile. "In my unit we made some hillbilly armor so we had more protection."

"You mean," I gestured behind me, "he wasn't like this before?"

"That's what his VA records say. He signed something so I can talk to the docs about him. That's how I got them to give him the sleeping pills. He used to not sleep until he dropped in his tracks."

"Wow." I found it hard to picture Max behaving differently than he does now.

"There's all kinds of brain injuries, and he's luckier than a lot of guys."

"So, before his injury...?" I asked.

"As normal as you and me." He smiled. "At least, me. He was a physics major in college. Too bad he dropped out and joined the Army."

I stared. "He always says you were in the Army. I never heard him say he was in the military."

"He doesn't like to be reminded," Josh said, in a very flat tone.

"That's awful." I just could not imagine Max as a fully functioning person.

"He's not unhappy," Josh said, quietly.

"Because he has you."

"He is lucky there." Josh pulled a library book out of his pack, and gestured with it. "Nothing like a good murder mystery."

"Unless it's about you," I replied.

His expression showed concern. "I can't believe anyone thinks you did that."

"Except Elmira," we said together, and then grinned at each other.

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

Josh regarded me warily. "Okay."

"Scoobie said you paid attention to Hayden, and noticed him with Alicia."

"Yeah. Her mom helps all of us. Alicia's friendly when she sees us. Most kids aren't."

I assumed he meant homeless people in Ocean Alley, but didn't ask.

Josh continued. "Didn't do a lot of good. The couple of times I tried to see where they were going they walked off the boardwalk and got into his car." He frowned. "He was way too old for her."

I nodded. "Scoobie said he saw them with a couple other kids out at the community college cafeteria." Josh nodded. "He told me. I was thinking of talking to Megan next time I was in the food pantry."

"Me, too."

Josh looked away and just shook his head. "I better get in there. They're really good to him, but Max wears them out." Josh stood and picked up both packs. "You take care."

"You, too."

I stood and began to walk back toward my car. _Max has no idea how lucky he is_.

I KNOW I SHOULD leave well enough alone sometimes, it's just that I think I can make some things better. In this case, I wanted to repair my reputation. I knew Sgt. Morehouse and the others didn't really think I killed Hayden, and I couldn't see that my former classmate -- Annie Milner, the assistant prosecuting attorney -- would think she had enough evidence to file charges against me. But there could be enough hassle for me to have to get a lawyer, and that would mean spending the small amount of money I'd saved since leaving Robby.

Really, how much trouble could I get into just by talking to Victoria Bruno and her husband?

This train of thought was what propelled me to drive from Ocean Alley to Middletown on Tuesday morning. I had a small potted plant on the floor -- philodendron, much cheaper than lilies -- and was going to tell Veronica Grosso Bruno that her brother had been a big help at Talk Like a Pirate Day, and that his death was a shame. Then I would, somehow, make sure we talked about how I didn't kill him.

Then, I might ask her if she had a black sedan that happened to have rear-ended me...no. That would be rude.

It was about a forty-five minute drive from Ocean Alley to Middletown, and I had simply left saying I likely wouldn't be back until about five o'clock, and grumbled about needing to be at Harvest for All and do an appraisal at the exact same time. _Aunt Madge is getting too gullible_.

The Internet directions to the Bruno home were very precise, which gave me a chance to rehearse my first comments to Veronica Bruno. "I wanted to be sure you knew that Hayden was a big help at Talk Like a Pirate Day. He even transported the skeleton game board..." No, best not to mention skeletons when she had just buried her brother.

I tried a couple other options and decided just to wing it. _How badly can I screw up_?

The Bruno home was an older Cape Cod, and it had a large sunroom addition on the eastern side and the lawn was immaculate. The brick front steps had a ceramic flower pot on each step, each with a mix of annuals and perennials. I dodged a bee as I rang the front bell.

I assumed that the bleary-eyed woman who opened the door was Veronica, and for a second I thought she might have already started drinking for the day. As soon as she spoke I realized she was simply exhausted.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Uh. Good morning, Veronica. You don't know me." I nodded toward the small flower pot in my hands. "I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about Hayden."

She gave the tiniest hint of a smile and stood back to let me in. She was taller than me, and her tiny waist was highlighted by dark red pants and a wide, navy blue belt. "Come in." She gestured toward the living room, and I preceded her.

"What did you say your name was?" she asked.

I sat on one of the two loveseats that was perpendicular to the fireplace, and swallowed. "I'm from Ocean Alley, my name is Jolie Gentil."

I wasn't sure if her look was surprise or anger. I decided to figure surprise, and plowed on. "I was in charge of Talk Like a Pirate Day, a fundraiser for our food pantry. Hayden was a big help." I sat the flower pot on the coffee table between us.

"I have heard your name," she said, slowly.

"Hayden may have told you I was the one who suggested that the kids run one of the games." I said this is a cheery sort of tone.

"No." She said up straighter, and her tone hardened. "I heard that the young lady he was dating thinks you killed my brother."

I had thought about feigning surprise, but she had to know I knew about Alicia's online video. In a gentle tone, I said, "Alicia was upset. And she knew very well that I thought Hayden was too old for her. Her mom came to talk to me about Alicia having new friends, and was concerned because she didn't know them well."

At this, Veronica leaned back in the loveseat, expression almost apprehensive. "Is she really only fourteen? We never met her."

I nodded. "Yes, though she does look a bit older." _Not really_.

She stood. "My husband is upstairs getting ready for work. He's working this afternoon and evening at his car dealership. I'd like him to meet you."

_Uh-oh_. "Sure."

She climbed the stairs, and I stood, rubbing my hand over the back of my neck. My eyes were immediately drawn to the large picture window at the back of the living room. The back yard had several distinct flower gardens with an array of colors and greenery. At the back of the yard was a very tidy garden shed, the kind that looks like a large version of a children's play house.

Footsteps behind me made me turn. The stony-faced man would have to be Ricardo Bruno. He had the olive skin and black hair I associate with Italian men, but was almost six feet tall. He had on a business shirt and tie, but no suit jacket.

"Your garden is beautiful." I tried not to show how nervous I was.

"Thank you." His tone was curt, and he positioned himself next to his wife as she sat on the loveseat. I sat opposite to them.

"I'm sorry about your brother-in-law." I paused. "I thought you would want to know how much help he was for our charity event."

"And maybe if he hadn't helped there he would still be alive," Ricardo Bruno said.

Veronica pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes.

"Maybe, though the event was long over. In fact, he'd been to the spaghetti dinner after the outdoor activities." From the quick look they gave each other, I could tell this was news to them.

"Do the police know that?" Ricardo asked, his tone still sharp, but his face showing confusion.

"I can't imagine they don't. In fact," I thought for a moment, "I'm sure they know. After Alicia, his, uh, girlfriend, told people that she thought I had hurt him, they asked me where I was all night, and I mentioned seeing him there."

Veronica and Ricardo exchanged a quick look, and he continued. "You'll understand our surprise at your visit. We were told the murder weapon was found in your car."

"I can see why you'd say that. After the event, my car was in the lot at my Aunt's B&B, and I don't lock it. I was with people all evening." When they didn't respond, I added, "You probably remember the horrible weather." Something was nagging the back of my mind, but I couldn't bring it to the front.

"What do you want?" Veronica asked, in a sharp tone.

"Nothing." _Lie, lie_. "I thought it might help you to hear from me that he was helpful and that I didn't hurt him. And that the police agree with me."

"The police have not told us that last part," Ricardo said, stiffly.

I looked at Veronica. "I didn't think I should drop in on your parents..."

"Defintely not," Ricardo said.

"Really, I was just trying to help. It seemed...rude or callous or something not to come by."

Veronica sat back, her eyes filling with tears.

"I'm sorry," I stammered. What was I thinking, coming here?

Ricardo put his arm around her shoulders and faced me. "I understand why you came. It was...unexpected."

I stood. "I'm really sorry I upset you. I should go." I stood halfway.

"No!" Veronica's tone was harsh. "First, you put Joe Pedone in jail. Then, even if you didn't kill Hayden, you had something to do with him before he died. How am I supposed to take that?"

This I had hoped for. I sat back down. "Joe Pedone! How on earth do you know him?"

"His sister was my..our maid of honor. Mary Jo."

I used my are-you-kidding-me look and shifted my gaze between the two of them. "That's a, um, an unfortunate coincidence."

Ricardo's look was a cold one. "Joe was often in our home."

I looked away, for a moment taking in a small shelf of books, many of them for children. "I know my ex-husband owed money to Joe's boss or someone. Our disagreement was him wanting me to pay it."

"You?" Veronica asked, wiping her tears.

"Yes. I didn't even know Robby, that was my husband, gambled, and I had no idea he borrowed money to do it." I gave a genuinely bitter smile. "I'm told he usually stole it."

Ricardo stood. "Thank you for coming, but I think you should go."

I picked up my purse from the loveseat next to me. "I think so, too. I'm sorry for your loss." I let myself out, feeling stupid for using the line from all of the TV shows.

I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe for one of them to say they'd had an anonymous call saying someone knew who the real murderer was. And she wasn't me. I spent a couple minutes driving and feeling I'd wasted my time, and then gave myself a head slap. _Mary Jo Pedone was Joe Pedone's sister_. I still didn't know if it meant anything, but I could tell George to stop checking whatever he checks to figure out who's who when he does a story.

It wasn't until I was halfway back to Ocean Alley that I realized that the person who put the mallet in my car probably didn't do it the night of the murder, when it was still parked near the park where we'd held Talk Like a Pirate Day. I was pretty sure it had been locked. I had assumed it was put in Sunday night when my car was back at the Cozy Corner, when it was unlocked. I didn't know that.

This line of thinking raised several questions. If it had been put in the night of the murder, then maybe it was just put in my car because it was near the park. Maybe I had left it unlocked, and no one was actually targeting me. Or, someone kept the mallet for a day and put it in my trunk Sunday night, which would mean they definitely were trying to make me look like the person who killed Hayden.

The result was the same, but the motive for involving me was very different. I've ticked off some people in my life, but no one would want to see me in jail for murder. _Or would they_?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AUNT MADGE AND HARRY were sitting at her oak kitchen table when I walked in, and neither said hello. Uh oh.

"You two okay?" I asked.

"Sergeant Morehouse wants you to call him," Aunt Madge said, and stood to take their two teacups to the sink.

I looked at Harry, but he just gave me a small shrug. I sensed this might be a phone call to make in private, so I walked upstairs. Jazz tumbled out of my room when I opened the door, and ran so fast down the hallway that she skidded when she got to the top of the steps leading downstairs. "Great. Stay with Aunt Madge," I called after her.

I sat on my bed and stared at my cell phone for a moment before dialing. _I should probably be concerned that I know the number to the police station by heart_.

When I was connected to Morehouse he didn't let me get halfway through saying hello. "You went to Middletown. I tell you to stay out of this shit, and you drive to the dead guy's family and start quizzing them."

"I didn't..." I began.

"I don't really give a crap what you did or didn't do. This is an ongoing police investigation, and you are interfering. Do it again and I'll lock you up." He hung up.

_Maybe I do need that lawyer_.

IT WAS A LONG AFTERNOON, and I knew it would be a longer, and quieter, evening at the Cozy Corner. It's not so bad when Aunt Madge will talk to me about what I've done to annoy her. It's miserable when she barely acknowledges me.

I was feeling so sorry for myself that I even called George, but he was out on a story, according to the woman I talked to. That left Scoobie or Ramona. He was probably in class for awhile yet, and Ramona would not be sympathetic. Still, I wanted some company, so after I stopped by Harry's and found no new house to appraise I went to the Purple Cow.

"Hey, Jolie." Ramona's boss, Roland, gave me a look of sympathy. "How's the neck healing?"

"It's getting a lot better. As long as I take a muscle relaxer when I go to bed I'm okay when I wake up."

"Awake maybe, but functioning?" he asked, with a puzzled expression.

"More or less. Ramona here?"

"She's in the back doing the artwork for a new display." He grinned. "That's how I keep my best sales person happy." He called for her, and Ramona walked out of the storage area, wiping her hands on a large apron that had dozens of paint splotches on it.

"Jolie. You look better than you did." She took off the apron and folded it and put it on the shelf under the cash register.

"Well enough to annoy Sgt. Morehouse." I told her about my drive to Middletown.

Ramona had met Joe Pedone when he was in the Purple Cow one day, but she had not known his sister had been Veronica Grosso's maid of honor. She stared at me. "You know, I was just telling Daphne that you don't go looking for trouble anymore, but I've changed my mind. What on earth did you hope to accomplish?"

I sighed. "I'm not even sure I know. Part of me did want them to know I didn't kill her brother, but I was really hoping to find out if the name of Victoria Bruno's maid of honor was a coincidence or if she was related to Joe."

"And now that you know this...?" She left the question hanging.

"It either means nothing and I wasted half a day, or it means Mary Jo, who was Hayden's godmother, sent him here to annoy me. Or maybe he liked Joe, and he came on his own."

"Oh, right," Ramona said, her tone disbelieving. "He started to date Alicia, that's what would annoy you?"

"It does sound flaky, doesn't it?" I thought for a moment. "It just can't be a coincidence that Pedone's sister is close to Hayden and his mother."

"What difference does it make? Hayden annoyed you, but it didn't have anything to do with him getting killed."

I sighed. "I guess I need to let go of that idea."

She regarded me almost stonily. "Does this mean you're going to stop looking into it?"

"I guess I have to. Unless George comes up with something.

My saying I would stop seemed to relax Ramona. "Just think, only a couple weeks ago you were willing to skewer him for making that poster."

"Yeah, that's the least of my problems now."

After a brief pep talk from Ramona ("Hardly anybody really thinks you did it") I left. It was ridiculous. People were mad at me for trying to help the police clear my name. I was tired of feeling like a scolded child.

I was driving toward the _Ocean Alley Press_ , when I said aloud, "I need ice cream." I pulled into the parking lot of Mr. Markle's store.

The woman at the cash register closest to the door was not someone I knew, so I didn't have to be polite. I walked toward the freezer section, and when I turned onto that aisle the store clerk who knows Alicia was walking toward me, pushing a mop.

"Hey, Clark," I said.

"Oh." He looked around.

"Is Mr. Markle here?"

"He's in the back, but he said the police said I'm not supposed to talk to you." He was slim, all arms and legs, with a shock of brown curly hair.

"I know. Just tell me, was anybody especially mad at Hayden?"

He glanced toward the back of the store and gave me a nervous look. "Are you going to tell on us?"

"No way." _I hope he didn't commit any felonies._ "First, I wouldn't. Second, I don't even know anything you did."

"Oh." He thought for a second and shrugged. "I thought you saw me when I ran out of that house."

My mind took a couple of seconds to connect what he said with my reality. "You mean the one on Seashore? With the ashtrays?"

He walked a couple feet more with his large mop, and I stayed with him. "Yeah. Alicia said you're pretty good about not telling."

Crud. "Only if I think you're not putting yourself in danger."

He thought about that for a second, but his only comment was, "Huh."

"So, could you please tell me if anyone was especially mad at Hayden?" I asked.

"Not mad, we just didn't like him."

"Because he was spending so much time with Alicia?"

"I'm not her boyfriend," he said, quickly.

I hesitated. I assumed he wanted to be, or he wouldn't have brought it up. "She's a good kid. Even if she is mad at me right now."

He nodded, slowly. "She's kind of mad at everybody."

"Why?" I asked.

"She figures somebody told on Hayden," he said and started to push by me with the mop.

"Told on him for what?"

At that, Clark looked scared and walked on. "I guess I don't know."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IT WAS EARLY Wednesday afternoon when I opened my mail. It usually sits on the oak kitchen table, but Aunt Madge had set it on my bed.

One of the two envelopes was from a company I did not recognize. Gold, Wofford, and King were located in Camden. I thought they were lawyers, because I remembered a television ad about accident victims being compensated for 'pain and suffering.'

_What did Robby do now_?

The letter began, Dear Ms. Gentil:

_I represent the interests of the family of Hayden Grosso. On behalf of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alberto Grosso and sisters Mrs. Victoria Bruno and Miss Marie Grosso_...

I broke out in a cold sweat as I read words such as "emotional loss," "deprived of his affection." Finally "wrongful death" jumped out at me. I was being sued by Hayden Grosso's family!

I'm not sure how long I sat on the edge of my bed, but it wasn't until Jazz jumped on my shoulder that I realized she had been pawing at my shoes for probably a full minute.

There was a light knock on the open door and Aunt Madge stood there. "Is it what I think it is?" she asked.

"If you think his family is filing a civil lawsuit against me, then you're very much right." I handed her the letter.

"Half a million dollars!" she gasped.

"Yep. All because their derelict son had the nerve to die after a Harvest for All fundraiser." We stared at each other. "What am I supposed to do?" I asked, searching her face as if I expected to find an answer there.

"We need to find out who really did this." Her tone was very firm.

We?

AUNT MADGE'S WORDS really did help. I didn't see the "we" as meaning she would personally do something to find Hayden's killer, but I still felt a bit better. She was on my side.

However, Aunt Madge is not a lawyer and neither of us has a magic wand. At four o'clock I was sitting in Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Annie Milner's office. She won her primary election and is on the November ballot for the county prosecuting attorney position. I figured that as a former classmate I might get some free advice. Maybe even a comforting pat on the shoulder telling me not to worry.

"How can they sue me for his wrongful death? I wasn't anywhere near the place!"

"The thing is, Jolie, I can't really even comment on the case." I started to say something, but she held up her hand and read more of the letter.

"The parents and sisters filed this in their county, but since the local police are investigating the murder, they can come to the county attorney for advice." She looked up. "I can tell you, in general, why people bring these suits."

"Please." I felt cold all over.

"You probably know that a wrongful death suit is a civil action, it's not related to a criminal prosecution," Annie said.

"But I haven't been charged with a crime!"

"I know," she said, gently. "And I certainly hope you won't be. There are some variations by state, but in New Jersey, a wrongful death is one caused by another person's careless, reckless or deliberate actions."

"But I wasn't anywhere near him."

She held up a hand and I silenced myself. "The reason they also mention the city of Ocean Alley is because they allege that Hayden's death could have been prevented if the city had been what's called 'reasonably careful.' For example," she paused, "maybe they will say that if the city had lighting in the park or more lighting on the street around it that an attacker would have been deterred from hitting him."

"That's absurd." And my eyes started to fill with tears.

"And it's also all I can talk to you about it," she said. "Your Aunt Madge will surely have a friend who's a lawyer and will talk to you about this for a low fee."

I cleared my throat and she pushed a small box of tissues toward me. "I'm sorry I bothered you."

"It's not a bother. If I were in private practice I wouldn't mind guiding you to a good lawyer."

"Too hot for you to handle?" I asked, trying not to sound bitter.

"This isn't my field at all. If the case moves ahead, you would want representation from someone who has defended against these lawsuits many times."

I felt guilty for whatever it was I'd been implying with my tone. "I do appreciate you talking to me, Annie." I tried to smile. "I'm supporting you in the November election, but I promise not to tell anyone."

I STOPPED AT STEELE APPRAISALS to see if there was any new work, and was rewarded with one file in the wooden box where Harry places folders for me. He walked into the room as I picked it up and opened it. I grinned at him. "I was beginning to think real estate agents had the September doldrums."

Harry nodded and pointed to the chair I usually sit in when I enter data into the computer. "Have a seat, Jolie."

Alarm bells clanged in my head. "What's up?"

He leaned against his desk and looked at me with a somber expression. "It looks as if I'm going to have to do some of the appraisals for the time being."

"You know, Harry, it is your company." I said this in a lighthearted tone I did not feel.

His smile was grim. "I would rather you do them, but a couple of banks have specifically asked that you not do the work."

I knew banks usually went with the agent's suggestion for a company to do an appraisal, and I was dismayed. "But, I know all the real estate agents. They can't think I really killed Hayden."

He nodded. "I think it was the homeowners."

I leaned back in the chair while that sunk in. "You almost always know the homeowners. Do, uh, you think any of them know me?"

He shrugged and picked up two folders from his desk. "One is Bill Oliver, a dentist up in Newark. He and his wife split up, and..."

I almost sputtered. "But we were in the same class at Ocean Alley High!"

"When the bank called, I had the impression it was his wife saying she did not want you."

I thought about this for a moment. At our ten-year reunion last year I remember hearing that Bill and whatever-her-name-is agreed to stay in different parts of the large hotel ballroom during the reunion. I was almost jealous of their civility.

"Ramona and I sat with Bill to eat at the reunion. Maybe she thinks one of us was dating him or something."

"Hard to tell." He fiddled with the edge of one of the folders. "This will all be cleared up soon, and if anyone has a preference after that I'll tell them to go to 'the Jennifer dame.'" He smiled, then grew serious again. "Right now, I can understand why, if they don't know you..."His voice trailed off.

I shook my head. "Don't turn away work, Harry."

"That's the advantage of owning your own business. I can make any decision I damn well please. If it makes you feel any better, Madge is ready to turn the dogs on anybody who doesn't want you to do the work." He paused. "Of course, I'm not sure dog slobber ever did anyone real harm."

My tense shoulders loosened. "Did she tell you about the lawsuit?"

He nodded. "She called earlier, pretty upset. Or mad, or something. Said she knew you'd tell me and she needed to talk to someone."

"Her life really changed when I moved into the Cozy Corner." I was feeling sorry for myself.

"Mostly for the better." He paused. "Look at it this way. Now you don't have to sneak around when you want to be nosy."

I stood and almost clutched the sole folder of work to me. "Thanks Harry." I slung my purse over my shoulder and kissed him on the cheek as I moved past him.

"Sexual harassment at work." His eyes smiled at me.

"Remind me not to sue."

I TOLD SCOOBIE, George, and Ramona about the lawsuit and Lance Wilson found me a lawyer to go to for an hour's worth of advice. Word gets around. For a 'reduced fee' of $150 Samuel Forthright told me almost exactly what Annie told me, and gave me some advice on next steps. He also suggested I "wait a bit" before I decided what to do.

In a kind tone he said, "If what was in the papers was true, and that was the extent of your involvement, I don't see the case going anywhere." Mr. Forthright goes to First Prez with Aunt Madge, Lance, and Harry, and told me he would "squeeze me into his schedule" any time.

I wasn't any more frustrated after talking to him, but I wasn't especially reassured, either. No one would care if I lost my reputation and savings having a case 'not go anywhere,' so I didn't see any reason to stop trying to figure out who killed Hayden.

I still thought that Alicia had information that would help me. I needed to figure out a way to talk to her. If I didn't take Reverend Jamison's advice and talk to Megan first, I was going to be in the doghouse with my favorite food pantry volunteer. I'd only seen her once since Talk Like a Pirate Day, but there were other people in Harvest for All, and Megan left soon after I got there. She did send me a card after she read about me being forced off the road.

_You should have called her. Why didn't you call her_? I could answer that question. I was afraid she would chew me out for not telling her Alicia had been in the houses. In hindsight, I would deserve it. I had been so certain that keeping Alicia's confidence would let me help her better. _Wrong._ Or maybe not wrong, but I sure hadn't been thinking like a parent.

The food pantry wouldn't open for another hour, but I needed to ask Reverend Jamison's secretary if the church would consider paying for the repairs to the lock the day Hayden broke in. Margaret's bill for installing a new lock was reasonable, and I figured the church could afford seventy-five dollars better than Harvest for All.

I had just pulled the folder with invoices from the top drawer of the file cabinet when someone turned the lock on the door to the street. Megan saw me and stopped. "Hello, Jolie."

"Hi, Megan. I should have thanked you for the card."

"No need." She shut the door and walked to the counter and placed her purse on it.

I took out the folder and walked over to lean against the counter. "I'm really sorry. I should have told you I saw Alicia at the house. Scoobie and I...no, I thought that if we got her involved in something constructive we could all talk about it later." I said all this really fast.

She nodded as she pulled an apron from under the counter. "Alicia told me you two were very clear she should not have gone in there." She gave a brief smile. "She said she listened because Scoobie is cool."

"He'll be so pleased," I said, dryly.

She leaned against one of the tall shelves so she could face me. "I guess what I'd like to get agreement on is if there is ever that situation again."

"I can't imagine there would be," I butted in.

"I want you to tell her you won't tell, if you think that's absolutely necessary, but then come to me. I would rather," she paused, "be part of the lie than cleaning up after it."

I winced. "What a good way to put it. You're a good mom."

"You're the only one who's going to call me that for a couple of years." She looked close to tears, but stopped herself. "Alicia is so angry that I wouldn't let her go to the funeral that she will only talk to me if she needs to ask for something she needs."

"I was probably twenty before I realized some of my mother's edicts were actually right."

We were both silent for a few seconds.

"Do you, uh, know anything that might help people understand I didn't kill Hayden?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. And I'm really sorry Alicia made that video," she said. "I had no idea what she and her friends were doing up in her room that day."

I waved a hand. "A shrink would probably say it was therapeutic."

Her smile was grim. "Sergeant Morehouse's words were that you could 'sue the stuffing out of her' for making it."

"He said stuffing?"

"I could tell it wasn't his first word choice." She gestured to some boxes on the counter. "I'm going to unpack these."

"I would never consider suing you or her or anybody else." A week ago I might not have been so emphatic in making that statement. Now that I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, I can't imagine suing anyone. _Maybe whoever put that mallet in my car_.

I gave her a brief smile and opened the folder. It had several installation and repair bills, the biggest from putting in the new circuit breakers so we could operate the refrigerated cases that were donated earlier this year. No locksmith invoice. I frowned, and then remembered I probably stuck it in the front of the file drawer. The day we discovered the break-in was pretty hectic.

When I looked in the drawer again, the first file folder caught my eye. It said it was for food orders for more than five years ago. I remembered the pile of recycled folders we use, and then remembered I had picked this folder off the floor the day of the break-in and just stuffed a bunch of loose papers in it. When I opened it, the locksmith invoice was there and a small ticket fell out, the kind used for carnival rides and drawings.

I picked it up, remembering that I had picked it off the floor when I was gathering up papers. There was no name on it, and I started to toss it.

"You have a ticket from Louie's?" Megan asked, surprise in her tone.

"It was on the floor the day of the break-in. What's Louie's?"

"He calls it a loan business, but it's really a pawn shop. On the south edge of town," Megan said.

"Oh, right. Near that deli that makes those crab cakes that are mostly bread."

She walked over and took the ticket. "His tickets are so old they hardly look orange. If you look closely," she pointed to a small spot on the side with the numbers, "he puts his initials, JL, in tiny print on each ticket. He thinks he's being really smart."

My first reaction was almost sorrow that Megan knew the pawn shop so well, but I covered it quickly. "Wonder how it got here?"

She gave me a sad smile. "You'd be surprised at the number of people who pawn things."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NO ONE COULD CALL Louie a proud business owner. The awning over the sidewalk in front of his store had two large slits in it, and the dust balls on the floor on one side of the shop looked as if they could be great grandparents of the ones on the other side.

He was also a very suspicious person, not the least inclined to think 'a friend' had asked me to pick up whatever had been pawned. And forgotten to tell me what it was. Figuring I had nothing left to lose, I told him it had been on the floor in Harvest for All and I thought it might have belonged to Hayden, and knowing what he had pawned might help me.

"It seems to me," Louie said, "that if you was helping the police clear your name it'd be Sgt. Morehouse or that really cute lady cop showing me this ticket."

"If you'll help me out, I won't tell Corporal Johnson you called her a 'really cute lady cop.'"

All he said was "Heh, heh." He didn't have to say more, I knew he wanted me to give him money to talk to me.

I nodded toward his sign. "It says if I have a ticket, I can get the pawned item." Actually, it said I could get the "paw" because the sign was torn.

"It works that way as long as you didn't snuff the guy had the ticket." His expression suddenly had a conspiratorial air.

"I didn't snuff him!"

"That's what you say," he said, with what novelists would call a sneer.

I gave my best indifferent shrug. "Okay, I'll just mail it to his parents. They can let their lawyers sort it out. If the fee comes due, I wouldn't sell it."

My hand was on the door before Louie spoke again. "Jesus Christ! I'm just tryin' to make a dollar here."

I turned. "And I'm trying not to get arrested for something I didn't do. I'd like to at least see what he pawned."

"Listen, I show it to you, you're redeeming it."

"Can you give me an idea how much it is?" I asked.

He opened a dirty notebook and flipped a page. "Sixty bucks."

"Done."

He made a big show of going into a back room and coming out with a large cardboard box that rattled as if it had pieces of heavy plastic or light wood in it. "Show me the money."

I don't always have sixty dollars in my wallet but today, thankfully, I did. I figured if I had to leave to get cash, when I came back he'd try to charge me for additional storage time. I put the three twenties on the counter next to where he sat the box. "Do I need to sign anything?"

He hesitated. "Yeah, I guess you better."

I thought about using Ramona's name, but he had already figured out who I was.

THE JUMBLE OF plastic tubing and cups with the tubing sticking out of them meant nothing to me. There were bits of gravel and a small pump, the kind I associate with aerating water in backyard fish ponds.

I called George.

"Listen, Jolie, Tiffany's on vacation so I'm the only one covering most stuff," George said. I could hear his fingers on the keyboard as he talked.

"Are you avoiding me?" I asked, suddenly remembering he'd said we "should talk" after I called yesterday to tell him about the lawsuit.

"Not exactly," he said.

"So exactly what?" I asked.

He lowered his voice. "I'm kind of in the doghouse because I told my editor I couldn't write the story about you getting that wrongful death lawsuit letter."

"Why'd you do that? Wait, how do you know that?"

"Everybody knows it," he said, simply. "The suit was filed in Monmouth County Courthouse."

"I hate this town," I snapped.

"No, you don't," he countered. "You might need a meeting."

I didn't say anything for a couple seconds, and tried really hard not to tell him where he could put All-Anon meetings. "Okay, I hate what's happening to me. So, why'd you tell him you couldn't write the story?"

"Because you'd probably never talk to me again," George said.

Hmm. Would I miss George?

"Thanks. But you have to stop to eat, right? Why don't we go to the IHop? Unless it's not safe to be seen with me there."

No more typing. "Are you asking me to have dinner with you?" George asked.

"Um, well, why not?" My face was burning. What difference does it make where we talk about the box of stuff?

"All right, but...make it seven. I should have all my stories done by then." George hung up.

I stuck my phone back in my pocket. What do I think about George? A few weeks ago my response would have been more than unflattering, but then he did help me out when Aunt Madge had what the Brits would call a spot of bother. With a start I realized I was looking forward to seeing him, and not just because he could help me figure out who really killed Hayden.

My phone chirped. "Yo, Jolie," came Scoobie's voice.

"Hey. Where've you been hiding?" I asked.

"College library. Too noisy to study for anatomy in the regular library. You free for dinner?"

"You know, I just this second made plans with George. You want to join us at IHop? I could pick you up."

"Nope. George would kill me."

"Why would...?" I began.

"Gotta run." Scoobie hung up.

IT WAS SEVEN FIFTEEN and I was tapping my feet in time to the seventies music playing throughout the restaurant when George finally showed up. I was in a small booth, and en route to me George grabbed a glass of ice water from the counter and downed it.

"Parched are we?" I asked, as he slid into the booth across from me.

He grinned. "Didn't even have time for coffee all afternoon." He grabbed a menu. "What's the special?"

"Fried shrimp, cole slaw, and chocolate ice cream." I took in his neatly combed hair, which was damp around the collar. I started to ask if he'd gone home to shower and then the waitress came up.

We both ordered the shrimp and I added a tossed salad, in the hope of not eating the large roll that comes with the meal.

"So, what's so important?" George asked. I gave him a stony stare. "Besides that," he said. "That lawsuit'll never go anywhere."

"I wish I could be so certain." I took my digital camera from my purse and turned it on. I hadn't wanted to bring the box into IHop, so I'd taken a couple of photos of the contents. I passed the camera to George. "Do you know what this is?"

He moved the camera a bit to get the light right. "If I'm right, I'd say it's part of a hydroponic growing system. Where'd you take this picture?"

"In a box I got from Louie's Pawn Shop."

"Jeez, Jolie. I wouldn't trust him with the care of a feral cat. What the hell did you go in there for?"

I explained about the ticket I'd found the day of the food pantry break-in, and that I'd forgotten about it until today. "So if Megan hadn't been in Harvest for All, I would have chucked it, probably."

"Louie's probably drowning in his beer right now. Even used he probably could have sold that for two or three hundred dollars."

"So this is all you need to grow stuff in water?" I asked.

"Gee, except for the water and a container to sit the pots in, and a bunch of gravel or some other non-soil substance to put the plants in, and..."

"Okay, okay. But this is a start. Why would he have...? Oh, wait."

"The obit," George and I said together.

"It said he was studying hydroponics," George said.

"And Morehouse said he thought Hayden really learned about it to grow pot," I added.

"Is he talking to you again?"

"Not likely. And for a couple days Aunt Madge wasn't because I went to talk to the Brunos."

"You what?!"

Everyone within hearing distance stopped talking.

"Sorry, folks," George called.

"All rabble rousing outside, George," the manager said as he walked by. But he didn't sound serious.

"When did you do that?" George said, in a loud whisper.

"Two days ago. I was going to tell you." And I had planned on it. I just hadn't seen him.

He stared at me. "Maybe they thought you looked guilty so they'd try to get half a million dollars from you. Or that you were gullible. That's it? You went up there..."

"I went up there to tell them I was sorry about Hayden, and that I didn't kill him." George continued to stare, so I added, "I even took a plant."

"No wonder Morehouse sounded more ticked off at you than usual," he said.

"He talked to you about it?"

"No, he specifically said not to call him with any more questions about Hayden or you unless I wanted to be out of the loop on everything."

"Jeez."

"How'd he know you went?" George asked.

"The Brunos called him. Or I think they did."

George shook his head. "Serves you right."

"I learned something really important."

George motioned that I should keep talking.

"Veronica Bruno's maid of honor was Joe Pedone's sister."

"Here we go again," he said.

"She was Hayden's godmother. I think she encouraged him to come to Ocean Alley to get back at me, and he knew dating Alicia would do that."

"You're really reaching," George said.

"No reach, no grasp."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I WAS STILL ARGUING with myself about whether my visit to the Brunos had prompted the lawsuit, but I had about decided it would not have happened so soon after my visit. Had to have been planned for a week or so. Whatever.

Ever since the murder I'd been thinking about how to find the person who really killed Hayden. This morning, as soon as my eyes were open, I realized I didn't need to find the killer, I had to figure out who was trying to frame me. This could be the same person, but it didn't have to be.

"Where does that leave me?" I asked this of no one in particular, since I was coming out of a house I was appraising. The only one that was in "my" box as opposed to Harry's. It was so unfair. I hadn't done anything to Hayden, and a lot of people assumed I did.

I had been mindlessly driving toward the boardwalk. I parked and walked up the steps and chose a bench that faced the ocean. I was about two blocks away from Java Jolt. I wasn't in the mood for company.

It was about seventy-five degrees, and there was little wind. You didn't have to look too far beyond the breakers before the ocean looked placid.

Why did Hayden go back to the park? It made no sense. The wind was howling until well after two a.m. I read in the paper the next day that the police had moved everyone off the boardwalk about ten p.m., so if he had been walking on the boardwalk he would likely have been seen. On the other hand, he was wearing a rain slicker when they --I-- found him, so he could have been seen, but not identified.

Somebody had to know more about Hayden's intentions that night. I thought about going back to talk to the grocery clerk, but I had probably gotten everything out of Clark that he was going to tell me. I went back over the day when my trunk lid was popped to steal the ashtrays. I'd gone to the house with the wood-rot porch, found Scoobie writing a dumb pirate limerick, gone to the boardwalk, seen Alicia and the sand castle...

"Ah." I smiled. She'd been on the beach, but she was the only one of the sand castle guardians I recognized. Clark said he had been in the house, maybe Hayden was. I didn't think Clark would have a clue about how to force open a trunk lid, but he might feel guilty if he knew who did steal the ashtrays and trash.

I had distracted myself. The only way I'd even get a clue about why Hayden was on the boardwalk, or at least in the park, that night would be to talk to Alicia. Maybe he told her he was going to walk during the storm, if only because the police and every newscaster advised against it.

At the spaghetti dinner, someone had said Megan was working at the dollar store not too far from Mr. Markle's grocery. It was only two blocks north of where I was sitting, though it faced the street, not the boardwalk.

I walked into the store and started browsing.

Megan was helping someone who was insisting that the clothes they were trying to buy were from the clearance rack. "I'm not saying they were not on the clearance rack, just that they should not have been there. See." She pointed to a tag on the long-sleeved jersey shirt. "The name of the brand is Fall Fashions. Summer clothes are on sale, and these aren't summer clothes."

The woman cursed and threw the shirt at Megan before she stormed out. I had moved to within a couple feet of Megan and stared after the rude customer.

"Oh!" Megan was startled to see me.

"I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I walked over here in case that woman tried to hit you or something."

Megan sighed. "That kind of thing happens two or three times a day. Sometimes it's someone trying to see if they can get away with it. Mostly it's desperate people. Parents looking for clothes for their kids." She moved toward the cash register.

"Um. Megan?" I asked.

She turned to face me. "I'm not sure it's a good idea for you to talk to her."

My face reddened. "How did you know that's what I wanted?"

She shrugged. "I've never seen you in here."

I could tell she didn't really want to talk to me, but I plowed on. "Did she ever tell you why she thought Hayden was in the park that night? It seems odd that he went out in the storm."

"If she knows, she won't say," Megan said. "I think she wonders if he was meeting another girl."

I smiled slightly. "I guess that's the kind of thing a teenager would think about." I paused. "The thing is, I don't know anything about him, so it's kind of hard to think about where he'd been recently, or who he was hanging with besides Alicia."

Megan stared at me for a couple of seconds. "She says she didn't even know where he lived."

"That's right. The papers still showed him living at his sister's." How stupid can you be? He had to live somewhere, had to have money to rent a room.

"Jolie! Jolie!" Max and Josh had just come into the store, and Max made the proverbial beeline to me.

"It's great to see you, Max." And I didn't mind. As long as it was a short visit.

"We saw you in the paper again," Max said. "It wasn't very nice."

I smiled. The editor himself had written the short piece about the Grosso family's lawyer filing the wrongful death suit. The article spent more time stressing that I had not been charged with anything than it did elaborating on the details of the suit, but I still felt as if anyone who saw me wondered if I really did kill Hayden. A couple pages later there was a short editorial about "frivolous lawsuits." The focus was on the fact that the Grossos had included the city in the lawsuit and the fact that no one could expect a park by the ocean "to be a safe place in the middle of a tropical storm."

"I know, Max. Did you see that the paper said I haven't been charged with anything?" I asked.

"Innocent until proven guilty. That's what Josh said."

I looked at Josh, who wore a pained expression.

He turned to Max. "Were you going to see if there was any more of that soda you like on sale?"

"I was, I was." And Max was off to the back of the store.

There was an uncomfortable two or three second silence and Josh looked at Megan and me. "You both had a heck of a couple of weeks."

Megan and I looked at each other, and I could tell she didn't want to talk about it. "You could say that. I need to get back to the register. Can you find what you need?"

"Sure thing, Megan." He nodded to me. "I better follow Max. He tries to carry three or four six-packs at a time."

He'd gone about ten feet when something occurred to me. "Hey, Josh. Didn't you say you take walks at night?" I lowered my voice. "After Max goes to sleep?"

He nodded, looking puzzled. "Most nights."

"But probably not the night the hurricane brought all that wind and rain."

"Max is afraid of storms. We were at the Budget Inn that night. It's better if I stick around when we're in a motel," Josh said.

"Oh, right. I don't suppose you saw Hayden other times, did you? Besides when he was with Alicia."

Josh hesitated. "It's funny the police haven't asked us. They know we're around a lot."

My heart rate went up. "What did you see?"

"Well, I can't say for sure, but I think he was selling small amounts of drugs," Josh said.

I thought for a second. "That could have made Hayden some enemies, couldn't it?"

He shrugged. "If you cheat somebody, or promise something and then don't have it."

"You know anyone he sold to?"

"He was smart," Josh said. "Hayden always sold to people who looked like tourists."

"Why is that smart?"

"Because he wouldn't be seen with the same people over and over," Josh said.

"Very smart," I said. "Hey, do you happen to know where he lived?"

Josh shook his head. "I saw him come out of the Budget Inn once."

Max's voice came from a couple aisles away. "Josh, can you help me carry?" There was the sound of metal hitting the floor and a fizzing noise.

"NOTHING WE DIDN'T already know, or at least suspect," Scoobie said, after I finished talking about what Josh said.

He, George, Ramona and I were sitting on the boardwalk, facing the ocean, eating candied apples. Once it's apple season, they're only seventy-five cents at the salt water taffy place.

"Yeah," George said, "but now we can be sure he sold drugs. Might help us learn more about him."

"Funny I didn't hear about it," Scoobie said.

"You've been in school," I reminded him.

We stared in silence at the ocean a couple more minutes.

"You know, that hydroponics equipment wasn't cheap. He didn't buy that himself," I said.

"Why not?" Ramona asked.

"It just seems like more money than he had," Scoobie said.

"And it was used," George said. "I bet he stole it from his brother-in-law."

"That could give Ricardo a reason to kill him," I said, almost hopefully.

"Yeah," Scoobie said, "because anytime somebody in your family takes something from you it's a good idea to track them down during a tropical storm and bash their head in."

George grunted a laugh and I scowled.

"Jolie," Ramona said, "did you see what someone put on my white board today?"

"Don't think so."

"They erased all of my quote and replaced it with, 'If a person farts in the forest and nobody hears, does it still smell?'" Ramona said this in a conversational tone, but I could tell she wanted to see if one of the guys reacted.

"I was at the library on campus all day," Scoobie said.

"Who said it was you?" she asked.

"You've been hinting for two weeks that you think I do it."

"Didn't somebody do it when Scoobie was laid up in the spring?" George asked.

"Yes, they did." Ramona went back to staring at the ocean.

I didn't look at Scoobie. I was afraid I'd laugh. I know he usually does it, and have no idea who did it while he was out of commission earlier in the summer.

"Doesn't Roland have security cameras?" George asked. "Get him to point one at the board."

"That's not a bad idea," Ramona said. "He wouldn't put one on outside, but he might be able to position one of the indoor cameras to look at the door. The board is just outside it."

"You just earned your pay," I said to George.

"I wish. I'm officially off the entire story -- Hayden's death, you as either a suspect or patsy, the whole nine yards."

"Why?" I asked.

"What the hell for?" Scoobie asked.

"Wait," I continued. "You said you didn't want to write about the lawsuit."

"I didn't," he said, and Scoobie dug an elbow into George's ribs. He ignored it. "But I didn't want to be off the murder case."

"So why are you?" Scoobie asked.

"Too involved with people of interest," George said, and grinned at me.

I felt myself blush. "You could say bad things about me in the office, and then he won't think we're friends."

Scoobie stood. "Talk about full circle. Come on Ramona, you said you'd teach me some yoga positions."

Either Ramona is really quick on the uptake or she really had promised. She and Scoobie tossed their apple cores in the trash can next to the bench and left.

After almost a minute I said "So..." at the same time George said, "So how involved are we?"

We both gave a nervous laugh.

"We are sitting on a bench at dusk," I said.

"I noticed," George said.

What are we, fourteen?

George moved a couple inches closer and put his arm across my shoulders. I started to put my head on his shoulder when a woman's voice called, "Jolie."

We turned at the same time and watched as Megan and Alicia strode toward us.

"Scoobie said we'd find you here," Megan said.

Alicia added, "We saw him and Ramona when we walked up the boardwalk steps."

"Want to share a bench?" George asked.

"You can buy me a lemonade, George. Alicia and Jolie need to talk." Megan moved away and George followed, not looking at me.

Alicia walked to my side of the bench and we both sat down.

"You doing any better?" I asked.

She shrugged. "A little. I miss him."

I wasn't sure what to say. He was probably her first crush, or more, and right now she couldn't see there would be more boys to fall in love with. "Must be hard."

"Did you ever lose someone you loved a lot?" she asked.

"Not through death," I said, grimly remembering Robby. "There was Uncle Gordon, Aunt Madge's husband, but I was too little to really get it."

Alicia stared at me and then turned back to the ocean. I noted that she was wearing less eye shadow and she was in shorts rather than tough-gal jeans.

"My mom said you didn't do it." Alicia still didn't look at me.

"Your mom is right."

"How did that mallet thing get in your car?" she asked. This time she did look toward me, so I met her gaze.

"I wish I knew. The night before they found it, my car was in the B&B lot. I usually don't lock it. Anyone could have put it there."

"But why you?" she persisted.

"I don't know. I guess it had to be someone who knows me or knew Hayden. They had to think that it made sense to put it there."

"What do you mean?" Alicia asked.

"I was ticked at Hayden for spending time with you."

Alicia stiffened.

"And Hayden and I more or less argued when I saw you two behind the pirate ship at..."

Alicia sniffed, and I saw tears coursing down her cheeks. God, how insensitive am I?

"I'm so sorry, Alicia. I shouldn't have mentioned the ship."

"Mom says I should get used to hearing about it." She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

"I suppose she means she wants you to be able to handle it if you hear people talking about it."

She shrugged and blew her nose on a tissue I'd handed her.

"Can I ask you a question?" I watched her profile as she considered my request. She seemed to have a short struggle with herself.

She sighed. "I guess so."

"The day you came into Harvest for All, you said something about Hayden not wanting you to talk about something."

"Oh, that." She frowned. "It was kind of stupid. Are you going to tell my mom?"

"I hate it when you ask me that."

Alicia gave a brief smile. "It's not horrible, awful bad. I did try to smoke a joint."

Relief flooded through me. I'd imagined she was going to tell me she and Hayden had slept together. "You said try?"

She looked at me solemnly. "It smells really bad, worse than cigarettes. I only took one swallow."

Thank goodness she had looked away, because I was trying very hard not to smile. "Swallow?"

"Yeah. I know I was just supposed to hold the smoke in my mouth, but when I got the smoke in there I wasn't sure what to do with it."

"Just the once?" I asked.

She nodded. "I told him I didn't like it and I didn't want to do it again. He said I was a goody two-shoes. I mean, he wasn't mad. He thought it was funny."

"I won't tell your mom, but I think you and she should talk about it. I imagine she'll be thrilled."

Alicia gave me the kind of look only a teenager can give an adult, and I laughed.

"Just think about it. Okay, one more question." When she didn't say anything, I plowed ahead. "Scoobie saw you at the college cafeteria, Josh said he saw you guys on the boardwalk, and I think you were both on the beach that day there was the huge sand castle."

She smiled. "I saw him after. That was really fun."

Aha. If he wasn't with her, he probably was the one who broke into my trunk. "Were there other places you went? People who knew Hayden and who might talk to me?"

"Besides his brother?" she asked.

"His brother? I thought he only had sisters."

"His sister's husband. I don't know his name, but his sister is Veronica. Her husband was down here a couple days before Hayden...before he died."

"I met him," I said, slowly.

She turned quickly. "Did you go to the funeral?"

"No, I drove to their house."

"You what?" she said this very loudly.

I kept my voice even. "I drove up there to say I was sorry he died, and to make sure they knew I didn't do it. I took a plant." Why do I always talk about the plant?

She relaxed a bit. "Were they nice?"

"I won't pretend they were glad to see me, but they were polite."

"Would you take me to see them?" she had a hopeful expression.

"You know what skewered means?" I asked.

"You mean, like, meat?"

"Yep. Your mom would skewer me if I took you up there without her."

"She won't go," Alicia said. "Even if we had a car." Her tone was bitter.

I know it's hard. And it doesn't help if I say she has your best interest at heart." I thought for a moment. "You might not see them now, but if it's still important in a couple years, maybe then."

My mind was still churning. How was it that Ricardo Bruno hadn't mentioned that he had been to Ocean Alley to see Hayden not long before he died? Ricardo certainly didn't have to tell me that, but my instinct was that he was keeping this point from his wife as much as from me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

GEORGE INSISTED that we walk Megan and Alicia home, and he kidded with Alicia until she almost acted like her pre-Hayden self. I could tell how pleased Megan was, but she said nothing. When George and Alicia got a few feet ahead of us, I said, "Looks like you're dialing back a notch with her."

She nodded. "For a woman who has no children, your aunt is very smart."

"Ah. Well, she had me to practice on." I remembered how Aunt Madge had kept Megan from going over to the teens' pin-the-tail-on-the-skeleton game.

"She said that most of the year you lived with her she told you the opposite of what she wanted, and then you did what she really wanted."

"Damn. I hate it when she's so smart." I scowled, and Megan laughed.

We caught up to George and Alicia, and he and I watched as Megan and Alicia walked into their apartment building.

"Afraid to be alone with me?" I teased.

"Probably," George said easily. "But I also know there's a peeping Tom making the rounds in this neighborhood."

"Ugh!" I looked behind me.

"For a couple more days, the police are going to be quiet about it. Then if they don't catch him we'll do a story."

"Why do you wait?" We were walking back toward the boardwalk.

"I keep telling you, it's a small town. If the police have a decent reason for something, we try to go along with it."

"And their reason is...?"

"They don't think he knows they've heard about him. They've got people all over a few blocks, and a couple homeowners have been told so they can keep their lights out and look out the window," George said.

"I'd still rather know." I glanced right and left.

"Yeah, most people would. So far he hasn't hurt anyone, and they figure if he knows they're on to him he'll just move to another neighborhood."

George took my hand and swung it gently. "So, Ms. Gentil, what do you do for fun?"

"Besides annoy Aunt Madge and walk the dogs?" I asked.

"A truly exciting life," he said.

"Pretty quiet compared to when I lived in Lakewood."

"Lots of friends?"

"Mostly couple friends," I said.

He looked puzzled for a moment, then he got it. "People you and your husband did stuff with. Keep in touch with many of them?"

"Nope. A few of them sent Christmas cards, but it's probably as awkward for them as it is for me."

"Not hardly," George said. "Did he steal their savings?"

I flushed a deep red.

"Jeez, I'm sorry, Jolie. I guess I'm kind of fumbling here."

I smiled at that. "You're supposed to be good with words."

"That's what they say around the newsroom. But..."

A car horn blared about ten feet from us, and we both jumped. The man at the wheel of the Ford sedan rolled down the window. "I knew it!" He sped away.

"You know him?" I asked.

"My editor," George said, with a glum expression.

"Whoops."

"Yeah, whoops. Oh, well. It's not like he didn't suspect."

"Suspect? We just did this," I raised our joined hands a few inches, "tonight."

"Yeah, but he caught on pretty quick that I wrote some of the things I did just to get your attention."

This feels good.

"You want some more attention?" George pulled me to him and we kissed for what seemed like half an hour.

I felt warm all over, and I liked the feel of his arms at my back. And maybe anywhere else.

NOW WHAT? The question had been going through my mind all Saturday morning. I felt like an eighth grader with her first crush. Do I tell Ramona? What would Aunt Madge think if George spent the night? And am I being just a teeny bit presumptuous?

I was sitting at Aunt Madge's oak kitchen table with the newspaper spread in front of me. I didn't usually work on Saturday, but I was still depressed because I had less work. I tried to get Aunt Madge to let me change the sheets in the one guest's room, but she shooed me out.

The classifieds didn't have a part-time job I was interested in. I don't mind cleaning, but I figured the hospital wouldn't hire me to be a custodian and I'd be more likely to drop tubs of dishes than make it to the kitchen, so the family restaurant on the highway wouldn't hire me to be a dishwasher.

I was about to close the newspaper when I noticed Mister Rogers had walked to the area in front of the kitchen sink and was poking around on the floor. "What do you want?" I asked. When he shoved his paw under the space under the bottom kitchen cabinet I got up and walked to him.

"What do you have?" Miss Piggy got up from her spot by the sliding glass door and made toward him. I stooped and reached for whatever he was pawing and he shoved my hand away with his snout.

"You know you don't eat off the floor." I shoved his snout out of the way and picked up a half-eaten muffin. "Wow, are you in trouble."

Aunt Madge walked into the room as I was putting the chewed muffin in the sink. "Drat. I knew there was one more prune muffin left." She scowled at him. "Bad dog."

Mister Rogers wagged his tail and I laughed. "I guess you won't just have to hide the prunes. Now it's the prune muffins."

"Out!" She guided both dogs to the door and let them out. She walked back to the sink where I was wiping the floor with a damp paper towel. "I stopped making the prune danishes because there was a glop of prune paste in the middle, and they went after those. This is the first time for the muffins."

"Maybe you could try a prune bread," I said, with as innocent an expression as I could muster.

"That's a suggestion I can do without." She took a fresh teabag from its paper wrapper and put it in a mug. I automatically turned up her electric kettle.

"Sit down, Jolie. I have an idea."

"Good. What can I do?" I asked, assuming she was going to let me do more than load the dishwasher.

"Not you, me. Harry and me."

"Does it involve wedding cake?"

"Don't be a twit, Jolie. I think we need to know more about Hayden's relationship with his parents."

"What good will that do?"

"From what little we know, he didn't seem close to them." She warmed to her topic. "Exactly what kind of 'emotional loss' are they really suffering? It's got to be horrible to lose a son, but if they barely saw him, or kept having to bail him out of trouble, what kind of relationship did they have? Why is it worth half a million dollars of your or the city's money?"

I stared at her for a few seconds. A couple nights ago I had told her what George and I had learned about Hayden's post-high school life, but she hadn't seemed especially interested. "How are you going to get a handle on that?"

She sat across from me and reached for her kettle. "I'm going to find a way to meet them."

"They probably wouldn't talk to you. Remember, the Brunos called Morehouse to complain about me going to their house."

"Did I say I was going to announce myself as your aunt? They've lived in the same area all their adult lives, and they've gone to the same church. Harry and I are going to Sunday Mass in Matawan tomorrow."

I stared at her. "You're going to a Catholic Mass to learn more about them?"

"We won't sit in the choir loft by ourselves, we'll mingle."

Great. Morehouse told her I sat in the choir loft with George during the funeral.

When I said nothing, she added, "We know how to genuflect, even if the Presbyterians don't do it."

My mind was still trying to absorb the idea of Aunt Madge trying to mind someone else's business. "Why do you think they'll open up to you?"

She waved her hand. "It's not so much them as some of the other people at their church. Catholics have coffee and donuts after Mass. We'll say we're new in the area and we're parish shopping." She looked very pleased with herself.

"Aren't they kind of pre-assigned a parish based on where they live?" I asked.

"I hear they don't always do that anymore." She looked at me with suspicion. "It's a good idea. Why don't you like it?"

"I heard...I heard that Hayden sold drugs to tourists here, and he had..." How do I tell her about the hydroponics equipment without saying I went into Louie's pawn shop?

"Spit it out, Jolie."

"He had pawned some hydroponics equipment. George thinks he used it to grow marijuana or something." Good, blame George! "It didn't seem like equipment he would have had the money to buy. Maybe other people in his family did it with him," I finished, lamely.

"I didn't say I was going to walk up to someone and ask for his criminal history," Aunt Madge said. "Or offer to buy pot."

I had to smile. "Would you know what to pay?"

"You're avoiding my question."

She squeezed excess water from her teabag and looked at me over the rim as she raised the mug to her mouth. The steam split at her chin and some went on each side of her head. I had an image of her in a Halloween movie, and tried to maintain my composure. Really, none of this is funny.

"Jolie." She said this quite sharply. "I don't think we can sit around and let them think they can sue you. Before you know it they'll get some hearing or something scheduled and you'll have big attorney fees."

"What if they heard you asked questions and figured out who you are? At the very least they'd tattle on you to Morehouse. Maybe they'd...I don't know, hurt you somehow?"

"Rubbish," she said.

"I'd worry about you."

"Don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot, do you?"
CHAPTER NINETEEN

NOT EVEN MY threat to follow Aunt Madge to Matawan and out her and Harry would deter her, so on Sunday morning she and Harry left for St. Columbkill's and, unknown to them, I was right behind them. It seemed like a good day to talk to Agnes Flaherty, the young girl Hayden had injured so badly. And if I did it while Aunt Madge and Harry were busy, I wouldn't have to account for my time to anyone. At least not to them.

I thought about inviting George to go with me and decided against it. First, he'd go to Mass at St. Anthony's and it meant I'd have to wait until at least ten-thirty. Second, he'd tell me not to go, and I wasn't in a mood to hear that.

I had a plant on the floor of the passenger seat. I have decided that Michael Keaton was largely right in the film The Paper when he said if you have a clipboard you can get in anywhere. I would add that if you want to talk to people about an emotional topic, a plant is better.

The Flaherty's address had been easy to find, and it looked as if she and her parents were on the front porch drinking iced tea when I got there at almost eleven o'clock. My plant and I went up their walk and introduced ourselves.

"So," her father said, "you're the one I should thank."

"Daddy," Agnes said, in a low voice. She was as pretty as she had been in a high school yearbook photo that was often used in news articles, but her eyes had a tired look. I figured it took a lot of effort for her to get around, and it was wearing on her.

"I honestly didn't kill him, Mr. Flaherty. I'm trying to prove that."

"Don't see why," he said. "Anybody up here would give you a medal." He almost glared at me, which I assumed was for denying that I killed Hayden.

Mrs. Flaherty excused herself and went into the house.

"I know you have many painful memories," I nodded at Agnes, "and I'm sorry to ask, but I really need to fully clear my name. More now, because his family just filed a wrongful death suit against me and..."

"Those bastards!" he said, very loudly.

Agnes started to cry.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry." And I was.

Mr. Flaherty's self-righteous attitude deflated and he put a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "I'm sorry, honey. You know how I get when all this comes up."

She hiccupped and drew a hand over her eyes to wipe tears. "And you know it doesn't help."

Mr. Flaherty looked chagrined. He kept his hand on his daughter's shoulder, but turned to look at me. "I'm sorry you had to get hurt, too."

I set the plant, a coleus this time, on the top porch step. "I should really go."

"You don't have to," Agnes said. "What was it you wanted?"

Her father gestured that I should sit in his wife's chair, and I did. "I'm trying to understand why Hayden was in Ocean Alley in the first place. He doesn't seem to have had any ties there. I thought maybe if I knew more about him it would help me figure out either who killed him or who is trying to make it look as if I did."

Agnes looked at me, and I sensed a very determined young woman was behind those tired eyes. "Hayden and I didn't keep in touch, but I heard some things from a couple of the girls I used to cheerlead with." She took a deep breath. "Do you know his sister Veronica and her husband, Ricardo Bruno?"

"We spoke briefly." I did not mention they had asked me to leave.

"He lived with them mostly the last year," Agnes said. "I heard that his sister's husband asked him to do him some favors, and that's why he went to your town."

"What kind of favors?" Her father's tone was sharp.

"She didn't really know. All she knew was that Hayden told Mark Montgomery that he was going to help Ricardo develop new markets, whatever that means."

"Humph," said Mr. Flaherty.

"What about humph?" I asked.

"Everybody in town knows that Ricardo Bruno sells street drugs, mostly pot, but some pills, too."

"If 'everybody knows,' why doesn't someone do something?" I asked.

"I can only guess it's because his car dealership employs about thirty people, and there aren't any new jobs coming in," Mr. Flaherty said. "And people say he doesn't sell dope around here, so no other local kids' lives get ruined."

Mrs. Flaherty came to the door. "Lunch," she said, and quickly moved away from the door.

"I guess that's my cue to shut up," Mr. Flaherty said.

I looked at Agnes. "Anything else you can tell me?"

She shook her head.

"Thanks for talking to me." I walked slowly to my car. On the one hand, it seemed like a wasted trip, but the conversation had made it clear that Hayden was doing something with Ricardo Bruno. Maybe selling dope for him. Maybe Hayden didn't sell enough or something, and it made his brother-in-law mad enough to kill him.

"That's ridiculous," I said, aloud. "Everyone knows where they were the night of the hurricane. Ricardo was probably with his wife."

I WAS JUST GETTING back into Ocean Alley when my phone chirped.

"Are you avoiding me?" George asked.

"Nope. Did I tell you Aunt Madge and Harry are going to crash the Grossos' church today?"

"You know you didn't," he said. "Where are you?"

"Just leaving the B&B. Do you want to meet...?"

"Jolie," he said, in an exasperated tone, "I'm not a naïve kid. I'm sitting in the parking lot at the Cozy Corner."

Crud. "Okay, I'll tell you. Meet me at Java Jolt in about ten minutes."

George swore and I hung up.

I MASSAGED THE back of my neck as I walked into Java Jolt. Driving that much just made my neck stiffer. I looked around and didn't see George, so I ordered and sat at a table in the back of the small shop. It was crowded, and I realized that some of the other coffee shops were probably already closed for the season. Good for Joe, I thought.

My coffee had cooled by the time George walked in, scowled at me and ordered from Joe.

I don't need someone else who wants to approve what I do.

George sat across from me. "Why wouldn't you tell me where you'd been?" he asked.

"Because I figured I'd tell you when I saw you. I went to Matawan to talk to Agnes Flaherty and her parents. Or her father, anyway."

"Who is...oh, the girl from the car accident?" he asked.

"Yep, wasn't there long, but I learned one thing."

He just stared at me.

"Her father said 'everyone knows' that Ricardo Bruno, Hayden's brother-in-law, sells pot."

"And we care why?" George asked.

"Josh was pretty sure he saw Hayden selling something like that. He would have needed a source. What if he was selling for Ricardo?"

George thought about that for a moment. "What difference does it make?"

"Maybe nothing, but maybe it's why he wanted to get chummy with people much younger than he is." I was trying to remember something else Agnes said. "Oh. Agnes said she heard that Hayden told Mark Montgomery, the guy who spoke at the funeral, that Hayden was going to help Ricardo develop some new markets."

"He could do that anywhere," George said, frowning. "Why come all the way down to Ocean Alley?"

"I still think that's where Hayden's godmother comes in, Joe Pedone's sister."

George gave a dismissive wave. "Are we still being a little self-centered?"

No swearing in Java Jolt. "It's the only link between Hayden's family and me."

"Did I mention you seem a little self-centered?" George asked.

I ignored the question. "Okay, so Ricardo Bruno recruits Hayden because selling pot is not exactly the image a car dealership owner wants to gives off, and Hayden's a screw-up and he might know other screw-ups to sell to. It might mean Hayden, or Ricardo, spent time with a rougher crowd than we thought. Maybe one of them killed Hayden."

"In the middle of a hurricane?" George asked.

"Tropical storm," I said, and he ignored this.

He shrugged. "I guess it's something to add to the mix. That's all?"

"Yeah, except I feel sorry for Agnes." I described her father's bellicose reaction to Hayden's name and how Agnes cried. "I think she's stuck living at home, and she probably doesn't like it."

"What I'm more interested in is where they get the marijuana to sell."

"I don't see how we could figure that out. Would it help if we could?"

"Maybe not, but if we make the Brunos look bad it might help with the lawsuit. Maybe someone would say that their loss is less 'emotional' and more of a business loss." He grinned. "Ricardo Bruno will have to hire another mule."

AUNT MADGE AND HARRY had done their homework. They made certain Hayden's parents were not having rolls and coffee with the other members of St. Columbkill's parish that morning, and then they'd mixed with other parishioners.

"So," she said, "we just told people we wanted to move to a smaller community now that we're retired, and we wanted to visit the churches as we explored the towns."

"And they fell for it," George said. George and I had been sitting in the kitchen arguing over whether Hayden had come to Ocean Alley mostly to bug me (which George continued to maintain was pretty self-centered) when Aunt Madge and Harry came back.

"They had no reason not to believe us," Harry said.

"I implied we knew the Grossos and felt so bad about the death of their son," Aunt Madge said. "A couple people at the table where we sat just said things like 'it was a heavy cross to bear' or some other bland thing, but pretty soon there was just one other couple, and they had a lot to say."

"Does the name Brady mean anything to you?" Harry asked me.

I shook my head. "Should it?"

"Not really," he said. "They just seemed to know a lot about the Grossos."

"Like what?" George took a pen out of his pocket and pulled a napkin toward him. Aunt Madge raised an eyebrow and passed him the notebook she uses to take messages when the phone rings.

"That Hayden was nothing but trouble to his parents after he was about fifteen, and the reason he was with his sister Veronica and her husband was that his parents said he couldn't come back home."

"Except for Thanksgiving and Christmas," Harry threw in.

Aunt Madge nodded, and continued. "What surprised us was that this couple thought having Hayden live with his sister was a bad idea, because her husband had gotten in some trouble when he was in high school."

"They said that Veronica maintained the Bruno guy had cleaned up his act," Harry said. "Didn't sound as if the Brady couple agreed."

"But that's about when they seemed to think we were a little too interested," Aunt Madge said. "They changed the subject to the weather."

"So, how did we do?" Aunt Madge asked.

"You want to be a reporter?" George asked.

"Goodness no. Jolie'd never get any rest."

I FELT AS IF I was pushing a rock up a hill with my nose. I kept talking to people and learning little. I needed to make someone do something, something that would tell me who was trying to blame me for Hayden's murder. I was at Harry's on Monday morning, hoping to find a folder with a house to appraise when my cell phone chirped.

"You need to get over here," Sgt. Morehouse said.

"For a tea party?" I asked.

"Don't be a smartass. I need to talk to you." He hung up.

I looked at Harry. "Seems as if he'd be a little more formal if he wanted to question me about something."

Harry frowned. "I'll stop by in half an hour. If they won't let me see you I'll send a lawyer."

"Isn't that a little dramatic?" I asked.

"All of this is. I don't like it," he said.

Me either.

I WENT TO THE counter at the small police station and the officer on duty let me in. I walked to Morehouse's tiny office and peered in. "Do I need a lawyer?"

"Did you do anything?"

"That doesn't seem to matter," I said.

"Very funny. Believe it or not, I'm going to tell you a couple of things."

I said nothing while he searched for a piece of paper on his desk.

"Got the tox test back on Mr. Grosso. Seemed he was fond of a certain green plant."

I nodded.

"You hear that anywhere?" he asked.

I hesitated. "I don't want anyone to get in trouble."

"I don't have time to arrest people for smoking a joint."

"One of the homeless guys said he thought he'd seen him selling some, maybe. He was surprised you never talked to him."

"Well I'll be damned. Which one?"

I shook my head.

"You ain't a priest, Jolie."

"I know, but it won't be hard for you to figure out. I really don't want to repeat what I think was a confidence."

He glowered at me. "If I talk to those two guys who were at your fundraiser thing would that be a good place to start?"

I nodded.

"You think that little Alicia was helping him sell?" Morehouse asked.

"Definitely not."

He looked amused. "Why not?"

"Because she told Scoobie she never smoked any. She talks to him pretty easily."

"Humph. Doesn't mean she didn't find kids to buy. The thing is, I can't figure out why he came here, why he stayed. It don't make sense, him wanting to hang out with kids that young."

"What about his uncle?" I asked.

"What about him?"

I shrugged, and thought fast. "When I went to their house..."

"Another smart move," Morehouse said.

"...I thought Hayden's sister looked like someone who was very sad, but her husband struck me as, I don't know, somebody who didn't give a damn."

"Why would you say that?"

"I can't put my finger on it. I would have expected him to show more grief. I think I heard Hayden had lived with them recently."

Morehouse's expression was shrewd. "What have you been up to?"

"Nothing! You asked me to come down here, you know."

"Yeah, but why do you pinpoint the uncle?" he asked.

"Well, if Hayden really did sell pot, he had to get it from somewhere. I made a guess."

He stared at me for a couple of seconds. "Okay, I'll take your word for it. You should know," he paused, "that we are pretty convinced that you didn't kill him."

I felt my stomach unknot. "I'm glad. Why?"

"Among other reasons, because the mallet was wiped clean of prints. A lot of people would have used it to pound in the stakes for the pirate ship game. Only an idiot would wipe it clean and put it in their own car trunk."

"Thanks for that ringing endorsement," I said, dryly.

He ignored me. "The other reason is that it seems that he had to have been hit by someone a lot taller than you."

"That seems like something you might have been able to tell earlier." I was careful not to sound accusatory.

"He had a couple head injuries, in the same area of the skull. It seems, and we can't be sure, that he was hit with the mallet and fell onto one of the stakes that anchored the plywood ship to the ground."

"So, it could have been an accident? I mean, someone meant to hit him but not kill him?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, it's hard to be sure that's how it happened, but that's what it looks like. You woulda had to stand on a step stool to get the angle where he was probably hit."

I thought about this for a few seconds and mused aloud. "Who hates me enough to put that mallet in my car?"

"Yeah, well, the key word is enough."

"Very funny."

"Sergeant." Dana stood in the doorway. "Harry Steele is out there. He wants to know if Jolie is free to leave."

"What, you thought I was gonna arrest you or something?" Morehouse looked almost amused.

"I didn't, Harry's worried about me." I looked at him without smiling. "Not everybody hates me enough to put a murder weapon in my trunk."

I DID FEEL a lot better, but I couldn't stop thinking about why someone picked the trunk of my car to hide the mallet. And I still thought Hayden and his uncle picked Ocean Alley for him to 'find new markets' because Joe Pedone's sister, whom I'd never even seen, hated me for tangling with her brother. What difference does it make?

This was the question Scoobie and George asked when we three and Ramona met at Newhart's for supper.

"Even I can answer that," Ramona said.

We all looked at her.

"If Hayden did come here looking to annoy Jolie, who's to say someone else won't come? And there's still the mallet. Somebody here put it in her trunk."

"And somebody tried to run me off the road," I added.

"Yeah, I don't like that," Scoobie said.

"Me either," George and I said together.

Scoobie looked amused.

"What am I missing?" Ramona asked.

"Ask them," Scoobie said.

Ramona looked at me and I blushed.

"What? You weren't going to tell me?" she almost screeched.

"Gee, Ramona," George said, "all we did was hold hands."

"So why aren't you now?" she asked.

"I don't want to ruin George's reputation."

"It's the other way around," Scoobie said.

She took in the three of us. "I don't think it's very nice that you all knew and I didn't."

"Honest, Ramona, that's why we're all here," I said.

She looked less hurt and George looked surprised, but fortunately Ramona didn't notice.

"So, now what?" she asked.

"Change the subject," George said.

"I didn't mean that, I meant what about the mallet person? What should we do?" she asked.

"I think there's been plenty of time for whoever it is to pull another stunt, and they haven't," I said. "I still want to know who it is, but I'm going to try to stop thinking about it."

"Right," Scoobie said.

"You are locking your car door at night?" Ramona asked.

"Yes, Mother," I said.

"One good thing," George said, "is that Morehouse or somebody called the paper. We're running a short piece tomorrow saying there is not much more about who killed Hayden, but it'll talk about how the person must have been a lot taller, and stronger, than Jolie."

"They never actually named me, did they?" I asked.

"No, but there was a lot of talk, because people saw you looked mad at him at Talk Like a Pirate Day and at the dinner."

"And there's Elmira," Ramona said.

I DID LIKE the article in Tuesday's Ocean Alley Press. As in the earlier article, it did not name me, but said that the police firmly believed that the mallet had been placed in the trunk of "a local business woman's car" to throw them off. It also mentioned Hayden's earlier arrests, something that had not been detailed in earlier articles. To me the implication was clear -- the murderer could have been a thug who knew him.

I was in the courthouse looking up comparable sales for some of the houses Harry had visited. He came up with this idea so I could make some money while people weren't sure if I should be in their houses. I hoped today's article got rid of that attitude. And the wrongful death lawsuit.

The register of deeds stopped me on the way out. "They really should have said you definitely didn't do it." She patted me on the arm. "I know you didn't," she said, "but not everyone agrees with me."

Back to the doldrums. I left the courthouse making every effort to hold my head high, though it did strain my neck a bit. I drove over to the popsicle district to take exterior photos of the homes I thought were good comparables, and who should be putting up a for sale sign at one of the homes but Lester.

"Hey, Jolie. Good article today."

"Finally." I shut my car door. "Can you wait a second to put the sign up? I want to take a picture."

"Using it as a comp?" he asked, as he put the sign on the sidewalk.

"Yep." I took several shots and stowed my camera in my purse. "Thanks." I started to turn to go back to my car.

"Gimme a second," Lester said.

I had hoped to make a quick getaway. He pounded the sign into the ground, wiped his hands on his pants, and then walked toward me. Lester waved the mallet. "Look familiar?" He barked his usual laugh.

"Not funny," I said.

"I hear Morehouse is questioning some of the homeless guys," Lester said.

The last thing I wanted was for Lester to think I knew something about this. "Seems odd they'd do that now."

"Yeah, it does. I could be wrong. The fast-talking one..."

"Max," I said.

"Yeah. He was outside Java Jolt this morning, all upset. He said..."

"You mean Josh wasn't with him?" I was already opening my car door.

"That's what I was getting at," Lester said. "Where you going?"

I rolled down my window. "To find Max."

I figured I'd start at Java Jolt, and kept one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator as I drove toward the boardwalk. Don't these slow pokes know I'm in a hurry?

I parked and walked quickly up the steps to the boardwalk. Max was on a bench just outside Java Jolt, looking forlorn. It struck me how much older his body was than his mind, or at least his mind as it seems to work now. He had on a pair of cutoff jeans and a loose-fitting tee shirt, and was hunched over, his hands folded in front of him, staring at the boardwalk.

He looked up when he saw my feet getting closer. "You can fix it, right, Jolie?"

He didn't stand, and I realized he had probably been crying. "I don't think you have to worry about Josh."

"I thought the police liked us now," he said.

"I think they do. They probably want Josh to help."

"They shouldn't have made him get in their car," he said.

"Did he, uh, have handcuffs?" I asked.

Max shook his head. "They said I could go too, but I don't like police cars. They're too much like..." He stopped.

I thought maybe he was thinking of a military vehicle, but wasn't about to ask. "Is Josh going to meet you here?"

"Maybe." He frowned. "I forget what he said."

I looked up and saw Joe Regan looking out the window of Java Jolt. He gave me a thumbs-up.

Max followed my gaze. "Joe told me to wait here. Wait here for Josh, and he'd keep an eye on me."

I could have kissed Joe.

"I'll sit with you for a bit. You want some coffee, Max?"

He brightened. "Hot chocolate. Josh says I don't need a lot of caffeine."

He's right there.

I brought him the hot chocolate, which Joe would not let me pay for, and sat next to Max. "Pretty soon it'll be colder."

He nodded as he blew over his steaming cup. "Josh said maybe we can stay here this winter. Stay here and keep warm."

"Really? That would be great." I wondered where they'd get the money.

"Josh took me to the VA Outreach Center. They're going to give me some money every month. Every month. And maybe Josh too, for being my..." He frowned slightly.

"Um, caregiver?" I asked.

"Yeah, but Josh told them he was my friend, not my caregiver. My friend. They said he can call himself whatever he likes."

I laughed. "He is a good friend."

"Max!"

He and I looked up. Josh was walking quickly down the boardwalk.

"Hey, Josh," I said.

He ignored me. "Max, next time you need to stick with me."

"I don't like it. And Jolie bought me chocolate." He held up his cup.

"Thanks," Josh said, finally looking at me.

"Max said Joe Regan said he should sit here 'til you came back."

"I'll have to thank him." He glanced toward the coffee shop, but Joe was not at the window. He looked back at Max and then at me, and sat next to Max on the bench. "People are good to us here."

"And we might be indoors for the winter," Max said.

"He told me you were helping him get some benefits," I said to Josh.

He nodded. "It's ridiculous he hasn't had them. Now that I know more about the VA I've been pushing them."

"I liked the Budget Inn," Max said. "You did, too, right?" he said to Josh.

"Sure," Josh said.

"Except when you left," Max added.

"We both left," Josh said, in a gentle tone.

"Later we did. You want some of my hot chocolate?" he asked me.

"No thanks. I have to get back to work. It was good to see you, Max." I stood and touched Josh on the arm as I walked past him.

FOR ONCE I WASN'T the one with the reckless idea.

"It just seems to me we should be able to figure out if this Ricardo Bruno guy is supplying pot to people," George said.

"And we care why?" I asked, adopting his phrase.

"Because it would be a great story to write," he said.

We were in one of the back tables at Java Jolt enjoying what George termed "the sober person's cocktail," and holding hands loosely under the table.

"I just don't see how to find out," I said. "And if he does sell it, I don't think I want him madder at me than he is now."

"Just think, Jolie, you saw his house. Was there a cellar, maybe a place he could use the hydroponic growing stuff? Hayden had to have that with him for a reason."

"I think there was a basement, but they have kids, and Victoria strikes me as pretty straight-laced." I thought about the house. I thought an attic would be way too hot in summer and cold in winter. Unless it was insulated well. "Anyway, we couldn't get in the house to look. He would have a lot to lose if he got arrested for selling drugs."

"You're wimping out on me," George said.

My fingers were falling asleep. Is it bad form to be the one to let go? "You know, you read about police making these big drug seizures worth all kinds of money. If he sells it, he could be getting a quantity from somebody bigger than he is."

"Yeah, I suppose. But you know, he wouldn't have to sell a lot to make a few hundred bucks a month.

"Like how much?" I asked.

He shrugged. "You keep twenty or thirty plants in cultivation, I bet you could do that, easy. Hell, he could have a back room in his dealership for all I know."

"You want to go look at cars?" I asked, smiling.

"I expect they know your face," he said. "Besides, too many people around. Maybe he has a storage unit somewhere. Wouldn't take much, maybe an eight by ten-inch space."

Suddenly I remembered the small shed that looked like a tiny cottage, at the back of the Bruno's garden. "I know a place we could look without getting noticed. After dark, anyway."
CHAPTER TWENTY

NATURALLY, I WOULDN'T be telling Aunt Madge what George and I were up to. The only person we told was Scoobie, and he was not in our corner. He had joined us at Java Jolt and sat with us, arms crossed, at the small table in the back of the shop.

"Come on, Scoob," George said. "If you ride up with us you can watch for anyone coming toward the garden shed."

"At two in the morning?" Scoobie asked.

"Maybe he'll be out there checking the plants," I threw in.

"All the more reason not to go," Scoobie said.

AT ONE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING George and I parked three blocks from the Bruno home, on a street that already had a lot of cars parked along the sides of the road. It was unlike the more upscale street the Brunos lived on. All the cars there were in garages or the oversized driveways.

We both had ball caps on, and my hair was tucked into mine. We weren't dressed in black from head to toe, but had decided to wear darker clothes. I was nervous. This wasn't like sitting in the choir loft at church. We could get chased out of their yard, or maybe even arrested.

"Gimme your hand," George said, after we'd walked a block.

"Why?" I asked.

"I thought you liked me."

He couldn't see my eye roll.

"Seriously," he said, "it'll look like we're just a couple of people who couldn't sleep and went for a walk."

I put my hand in his and was glad he couldn't see the pleased expression I wore. "I wish I had paid more attention to whether there was a fence along the back of the yard. All I remember are a bunch of evergreen bushes about my height."

"Won't really matter," George said. "I can climb a chain-link fence."

We had gone over this several times. I knew there was no tall wood privacy fence, and I didn't think I remembered any other barriers. George was so intent on seeing if there were marijuana plants or some other drug contraband in the shed that it wouldn't matter if there was a six-foot masonry wall.

We slowed as we drew close to the Bruno's large Cape Cod and stared at the house and yard as we walked. No fences of any kind, at least none visible from the street, and even though it was dark I thought I could see all the way to the back of the yard. We kept walking. Our plan was to go around the block and come in from the yard behind the Bruno house.

We were almost to the house behind the Bruno's, and George swung my hand gently, and said,

Roses may be red

Violets could be green

We watch where we tread

And remain sight unseen

I shook my head and smiled. "Did you work on that all day?"

"It came to me in a vision."

Without talking about it we dropped hands and quickly walked single file toward the back of the yard. As I remembered, there were evergreen shrubs at the property line. We ducked behind them. I looked around from my crouched position and nodded in front of me. "That's the back of the little shed."

"Gee, Jolie, even I could have figured that," George said.

I started to giggle and put both hands over my mouth.

"What?" George said, in a loud whisper. "You think this is funny?"

I took one hand away from my mouth. "It's his potting shed. Get it? His potting..."

"Jesus! What the hell's wrong with you?" George hissed. "Somebody'll hear us."

I concentrated on controlling myself. Neither of us spoke for almost a minute as we looked at the shed and the area around it. I listened for any sound that wasn't part of nature, but all I could hear was a tree frog that had begun croaking as soon as we stooped to the ground.

"It looks bigger close up," I finally said.

"At least ten by ten. You could get a lot in there," George said. He nodded to his right. "And there's the water source."

"It seems odd to have it all the way back here." I looked at the thin pole with a spigot on the top.

George turned fully to look at me.

"What?" I whispered, irritated at his look of half amusement, half irritation.

"Hydroponics?" He said. "Water."

"Oh, right." Duh, Jolie. I suddenly realized a slight humming noise had started nearby. "You hear that?"

"Yeah," George said. The noise stopped. "I bet it's the pump that keeps the water around the plants aerated."

"Makes sense. Now what?" I asked. "Me, I'd just try the door."

"Sure, Sherlock. Why don't you call out to see if anyone's home?"

I ignored him, and watched as he pulled something from his pocket. It glinted in the moonlight.

George dangled a couple of thin pieces of silver, which hung from a chain. "My lock picks." He looked very pleased with himself.

"In for the proverbial penny. Where'd you get those, anyway?"

"Louie's," he said. "There's some stuff he doesn't keep on the counter."

"Why am I not surprised?"

We half-stood and walked, bent over, until we got to the side of the shed.

"Stand here for a sec, and watch the back of the house, okay?" he asked.

I didn't say anything and he stepped onto the tiny piece of concrete that was flush with the door into the shed. Every now and then George would move an inch or two, but mostly he was as still as I was. There was about a quarter of a moon, and without street lights it was hard to see much more than the outlines of houses and trees. I couldn't even tell the color of the house next to the Bruno's.

After about two minutes, George said, "Crap. I can't get it."

I walked next to him and peered in the tiny window. It had black construction paper over each pane. I nodded toward it. "You can tell they don't want anybody to see what's in there."

Suddenly the entire yard was bathed in light and the sliding glass door on the main house slid open. "Stay right there!" a man yelled.

George ran one way around the little house and I ran the other. We almost ran into each other behind it and sprinted through the neighbor's yard, onto the street. As we raced down the street in the direction of his car there was a screech of tires and a porch light came on as we ran by one house.

"Up here!" I ran behind a large honeysuckle bush at the next house.

George crouched beside me. We were just in time. A small silver car careened around the corner and pulled up to the house whose yard we'd crept through. Ricardo Bruno almost threw himself out of the car and ran into the back yard.

"Come on," George whispered.

We stayed on the lawns as we passed a couple more houses. A police siren was getting closer. If we crossed the street, which we needed to do to get to George's car, we'd be seen for sure.

I was beginning to feel shades of panic wash over me. What were we thinking?

"Slow down," George said. He was breathing hard.

We were almost at a corner and were going to have to cross one street or the other. The police siren was getting really close.

"Up here," I panted. There were two large, black garbage cans at the edge of a garage, and we sank behind them.

The police siren stopped. I thought they were about at the Brunos', which made sense. A man's voice called something, and the police car started up again, moving slowly now.

I stared from side to side. "The door." I pointed to the back of the garage.

"Stay here," George said, and crouched as he ran. "Damn!" He pulled something from his pocket, dropped it, and picked it up again. I assumed the lock pick.

Headlights turned the corner at the far end of the street, from the direction we'd just come.

"Jolie," George said, in a loud whisper. He was opening the side door. I ran to him and he almost shoved me inside. The headlights of the police car were only a house away when George shut the door.

We sat on the floor, breathing hard. I was afraid I'd throw up, and took deep breaths, willing myself not to vomit. The police siren had awakened other households and I could hear voices, none of them distinct.

After a minute, a man's voice called, "What is it?" It sounded as if he was on the street very near us. Someone answered, but I couldn't hear the words.

My eyes were getting accustomed to the deep darkness in the garage, and saw that in addition to the two cars there were several bicycles, a refrigerator or freezer, and a lawnmower. No wonder the smell of gasoline was so strong.

I was suddenly very aware of how close I was to George, and turned my head. He did the same. I couldn't see him well, but then he smiled, and his teeth were visible for a second. "First time those lock picks have worked that fast."

I hit him on the shoulder.

George put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me to him. It was a soft kiss and I turned into him more. We leaned against the side of the garage and then slid slowly until we were lying prone, facing each other. Our lips stayed together and I put my tongue just into his mouth. It was suddenly a lot hotter in the garage.

When George pulled me closer, I couldn't help it. I started to giggle.

"What?" he asked, his voice husky.

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"You look up there! They have to be there, I didn't hear any car start." It was Ricardo Bruno.

George scrambled to a crawl and turned the handle lock on the door. I ran between the two cars, and he followed me.

"Check the garage," a man's voice said.

I sensed rather than saw a flashlight beam, and George yanked me toward him just as it shone in the window pane and a hand jiggled the door knob. "Locked," a man's voice said, quietly. He moved the light around the garage walls, and then left, brushing against the side of the garage as he walked away.

"Why did you grab me?" I asked, as I flexed my shoulder.

"To get you behind the tire," George said.

I was impressed. "You do this a lot?"

"Not since Scoobie and I...never mind."

I didn't say anything. I still haven't figured out exactly how well they knew each other through the years, but every now and then one of them says something that lets me know they didn't spend every Friday night playing Pinochle.

After about ten minutes any sounds of voices and cars died away. I waited another five minutes and said, "You think we can go now?"

"This Ricardo guy's pretty smart. We better sit here for awhile longer," George said.

I moved from a half squat to sitting cross-legged, and George leaned against the car and put his legs in front of him. Half of me wished he'd lean over and kiss me, the other half asked why I didn't just kiss him.

I was about to do just that when the deep silence was broken by footsteps on the concrete driveway. I glanced at George, fearful. He put a finger to his lips and I edged closer to him, so we were both again behind a car tire.

Again a flashlight beamed through the panes of glass in the door. This time the light moved slowly around the entire garage. My sense was that this was Ricardo Bruno, not whichever neighbor or police officer had done the previous check. He rattled the door knob. After almost a full minute, the light moved away.

We didn't say anything for a couple of minutes, during which time I realized how badly I had to pee. I tightened my pelvic muscles and closed my eyes.

"Tired?" George whispered.

I shook my head. "Trying not to pee my pants."

He gave a quiet grunt. "If you have to, do it before we get in my car."

I suppressed another giggle, and we were quiet and still for almost ten minutes. I kept going over the last two weeks. Why did Hayden come to Ocean Alley? Where did he first meet Alicia? I didn't know that, and it could tell me a lot. Maybe it really was all a coincidence. Maybe Mary Jo Pedone whatever-her-name-is-now doesn't even know I knew her brother. Maybe I'll go broke before Harry has a lot of work for me again.

I thought maybe George had gone to sleep until he said, "You think now?"

"I'll look out the window." I stood to a crouch and moved to the door.

It was darker outside than before, and I figured the moon was behind a cloud. I guessed it to be about two-thirty or three, and it didn't look as if anyone was out and about. "It looks okay," I whispered.

George joined me at the door. "We probably gotta go now. People who work the early shift at the regional hospital will be getting up about now."

I looked at him and murmured, "The things you know." I reached for the door knob.

"Wait a second." George took a used napkin from his pocket and placed it over the knob, rubbing it a bit as he opened it. He did the same on the outside of the knob.

"Good thinking." We walked quickly down the driveway and continued around a corner toward his car.

We were about twenty feet from it when a voice behind us said, "Hey!"

I heard George's locks pop open and we darted into the car, each slamming a door. He had it started and was pulling away in less than two seconds. I could hear someone running and a wobbling beam of light bounced in and out of the rear view mirror. We turned a corner and George sped up.

I looked behind us. We had traveled almost a block and a man had just run up to the corner behind us. He stopped and raised his flashlight as if shaking a fist. "Wow."

"No kidding," George said. "He wouldn't have been able to get the license. Put your belt on."

I was already reaching for it, and I took his from his hand after I did mine and slid it into the plastic receptor on the side of his seat. Our fingers touched, and I had the warm sensation I felt when he kissed me.

After a long minute, I said, "I'm not sure I'd do that again."

He half laughed, half grunted. "So what did we learn except that Ricardo Bruno runs fast?"

"That whatever is in that shed is so important they have a silent alarm on it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I HELD MY EYELIDS OPEN, literally, for part of the first half-hour of the drive back to Ocean Alley, telling myself George should have some stimulation to stay awake to drive. Didn't work. It was almost five in the morning when I jerked awake. George had just stopped his car a couple houses down from the Cozy Corner.

"Sorry," I said, through a yawn.

"S'okay. You were really out. I kept putting the window up and down to stay awake, and you never moved. You know you snore, right?"

"I do not!"

"My camera can make videos, you know." He smirked.

"You didn't..." I turned to face him and was ready to search his pockets for the camera.

"Only because I was too tired." He yawned.

There was the sound of a door banging shut, and in the silence of dawn someone said, "Damn."

George and I both looked toward the side door of the Cozy Corner as Harry crept out, shoes in hand.

HALF OF ME wanted to find a way to tell Aunt Madge I thought it was great she and Harry were getting to be way more than friends, and the other half couldn't figure out why they were trying to keep their...what?...relationship a secret. Maybe they're just sleeping around and they don't want to look loose. I laughed aloud at how ludicrous that thought was. It got me a shushing sound from someone nearby.

I was in the library later in the day Wednesday trying to keep my eyes open and looking up articles on Ricardo Bruno. George was at work looking in some of the arrest and judicial databases he could get to at the Ocean Alley Press. There wasn't much. If he'd been what Aunt Madge would call a hooligan in his younger years it hadn't made it into the papers.

What did show up was his car business was almost put out of business when General Motors disenfranchised a bunch of less-profitable dealerships. There were petitions saying GM should keep it open, and the local congressman wrote to GM and sent a letter to the editor. Bruno kept his dealership, but my sense was it wasn't a big money maker. Maybe making some extra money selling pot was his way of groping for solvency.

I logged out of the computer and picked up my purse and notebook. None of this told me who put the mallet in my trunk, and as far as I knew, the wrongful death suit had not been withdrawn.

As I walked toward my car, a squirrel holding two acorns chattered at me, apparently thinking I was out to rob him rather than just walking to the library parking lot. "You can keep your nuts."

I was giggling to myself when my phone chirped.

"Mrs. Gentil?" a girl's voice asked.

"Agnes?"

"Oh you recognized me. That's good." She drew a breath. "I'm at work."

I sat on a bench. "I heard you were a massage therapist."

"Yes. I can sit down. I mean, some therapists stand, but I..." Her voice trailed off.

"Is there something I can help you with, Agnes?"

"I just wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you Hayden's not all bad." She said this almost defiantly.

"That's good to know." I didn't want to say anything that would make her stop talking.

"And I know why he was in Ocean Alley."

Okay, come on, spit it out.

"Ma'am? Are you there?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm listening."

"His sister, Veronica, she's not so bad, but I don't think her husband was very good for Hayden."

"You were talking to him, weren't you?" I tried to keep a gentle tone.

"Yes, almost every week. He felt really, really bad. He knows what...knew what kind of candy I like, and he'd give some to one of my girlfriends to give to me. I really miss him." She started to cry.

I hadn't expected this. Agnes had been reserved when I visited her family, but it had not occurred to me that she was still in touch with Hayden. "Take your time, Agnes."

She sniffed a few times, and blew her nose. "Okay. What I wanted to tell you was that Ricardo really didn't like Hayden being around. He said Hayden ate more food than all three of his kids combined, and he was lazy."

At first I said nothing. When she didn't speak for about ten seconds, I asked, "And he told Hayden to leave?"

"Not really. He said Hayden had to make some money, and nobody would hire a jailbird. He called him that all the time." Her voice held a lot of bitterness. "Hayden hated being called that. He got so mad one time that he stole some of Ricardo's gardening stuff, because he said all Ricardo cared about was his yard."

I realized that she probably didn't know Ricardo grew his own pot. She certainly didn't sound as if she knew the "gardening stuff" was hydroponic growing equipment.

"So Hayden told you about 'developing new markets,' not his friend Mark?" I asked.

"Mark wouldn't even talk to him anymore. His wife is pregnant. She didn't want Hayden in their lives at all." She drew a breath. "Ricardo gets pot from someplace, and pain pills. Supposedly he sells to 'a select few' people. But he thought Hayden should help him sell more."

It seemed terribly risky to me. A local businessman should have better sense than to sell drugs in his own town. Or nearby. And to involve someone like Hayden? That was asking for trouble. "I appreciate that you told me this."

"There's one more thing," she said. "Ricardo wanted Hayden to find people to buy who were not so far from Matawan, but Hayden picked Ocean Alley. He laughed when he told me. He said Mary Jo, that's his godmother, said there was something she wanted him to do there."

"Did she say what?"

"I don't know," Agnes said. "But he said she was going to give him $200."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

GEORGE SAID I WAS as phony as an oyster in fresh water, but eventually he believed I'd talked to Agnes again. "Where does it get us?" he asked. "I don't think it would be too bright to track down this Mary Jo woman."

Not if she's anything like her brother. "I don't either. It shows I was right. Hayden was here because of Joe Pedone's sister."

"Okay, you were right. Are you happy now?"

"Not really."

THE ARTICLE IN the Ocean Alley Press said police were frustrated at "the lack of leads in the murder of Hayden Grosso." I knew I should care about this. Surely his mother loved him, and I didn't like the idea of any killer walking the beach. Or trying something else to frame me for the murder.

What I cared more about was that my life was getting back to normal, and George and I had a date to go to the movies on the weekend. I had seen Megan at Harvest for All the day before, and we spent half an hour unpacking eight boxes from a food drive at the Unitarian Church.

Megan said that Alicia was doing better, and that Clark from Mr. Markle's store walked her home from school every day "to be sure she was all right." She smiled when she quoted Clark.

I drove into Mr. Markle's parking lot and pulled a note from my purse. Since he'll buy food for us almost at cost, I had a list of refrigerated items I wanted him to order, starting with twenty dozen eggs.

I shivered as the store's air-conditioning hit me, and waved to Mr. Markle, who seemed less grouchy than usual. "Why do you look so jolly?" I immediately realized that the term 'jolly' was hardly called for.

"Good morning, Jolie." He gave me something that looked almost like a smile as he took the list and attached it to his clipboard. "Things are finally getting back to normal."

"What do you mean?"

"Kids aren't shoplifting, and nobody's knocked over any of my outdoor pots for more than two weeks."

I walked beside him as he moved to the back of the store. "Summer kids, you think?"

He half glanced at me. "I think it was locals. Part of some sort of game or other, looked like."

"You mean you recognized the kids?" I asked.

"A couple." He kept walking.

"Mr. Markle." I had stopped walking, so he did, too and faced me. "Do you mean kids I would know?"

He looked away. "I was going to get them on camera and call their parents in. Didn't want to get them arrested the first time out."

Mr. Markle has a heart. "Like who?" I asked.

He stared at me. "Your little friend who helps at the food pantry. Plus a couple of her friends."

I was honestly stunned. I couldn't imagine Alicia stealing. "That's just so hard to be..."

"I know what I saw," he said sharply, and started to continue walking.

"I didn't mean that. I was just surprised."

He didn't acknowledge me, so I walked down to the customer service counter and left the money for the food he would order.

Why would they do that? What did he mean, some sort of game? I had a vague memory of an article about gangs in Camden and how older gang members would groom young kids by giving them gifts. Then they'd ask kids to do something illegal, and the kids were grateful for the gifts and they'd pick up drug money or something.

Maybe Hayden encouraged the shoplifting. Maybe he was trying to groom Alicia and her friends to buy or sell pot by getting them used to committing petty crimes. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I was almost to the automatic door to head back outside when I saw Max coming in. I rightly assumed Josh would not be far behind.

"Jolie, Jolie. I'm so glad to see you." He walked up to me and gave me a big hug and then stood back.

I'm sure surprise was all over my face. "I'm glad to see you, too," Max. Am I really? No more hugs!

"I'll get the fudgesicles," he called over his shoulder. He walked toward the freezer section.

"Sorry about that, Jolie." Josh's gaze followed Max before he turned to me. "He says you are always nice to him. I'll talk to him when there's a good opportunity."

"A good opportunity...?" I asked.

"If I just say, 'Don't hug people you don't know really well,' it won't sink in. I'll think of a way to tell him so he'll remember."

I shook my head slightly. "What would he do without you?"

"It's not all a one-way street. Nobody'll make you laugh like Max." Josh flashed me a quick smile.

"Fudgsicles? Won't they melt?"

"It's a pack of four. I eat one and he eats three," Josh said.

"How does he stay so thin?" I asked, wishing I could eat a bag of bake sale cookies and three ice cream bars and still look lean.

"You're kidding, right?" Josh asked.

I gave him a puzzled look, and then got it. "Mr. Non-Stop?"

"Burns more calories in an hour than you or I burn in a day."

I laughed. "Where are your bongo drums and pack?" I asked, looking around.

"I rented us a tiny cottage in the popsicle district. Lester found it for us," Josh said, his eyes scouting for Max.

"So you'll be here all the time? That's great."

He nodded slowly, and gave a small wave to Max, who was heading toward the cash register. "People are good to him here, and there's that sheltered workshop that the Methodist Church helps run."

I'd heard the term, but wasn't sure I understood it fully. My confusion must have shown, because he continued. "A place where people with mental disabilities, or maybe physical I don't know, can do kind of menial jobs, with a lot of supervision. It's not so much about making the money as having a place to go, some structure."

"Max would do that?" I asked.

"I talked to them one day when Max was at the library computers. We'll go together for awhile, and if it works out Max can be there by himself some," he said.

Max walked up, hands in the paper freezer bag trying to open the ice cream bars. "Too cold to eat in here." He looked up.

I smiled at him. "I heard about your new place."

He nodded vigorously. "Yep. A room for Josh and a room for me." He laughed. "Our pirate ship has a port."

Josh gave me a short raised-eyebrow look. "You have no idea how I wish I'd used a different term."

Max giggled, then grew serious. "We need beds."

"I think George knows someone with a pickup truck. Maybe they'll have some beds at Goodwill."

"Josh can sleep all night. He won't have to go walking," Max said.

Josh shook his head. "I only do that when I think you're asleep."

Max gave me a delighted grin and they walked out.

I gave them a minute to get ahead of me and walked out, thinking again how little time Josh had to himself. Josh walks the beach at night. Did Josh see anything the night Hayden was killed? Would he tell the police if he had?

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL fall day, but my mood didn't match it. I was frustrated. Harry only had one house for me to appraise, and I couldn't do it for a few days. It's not like I was broke, but another month or two like this and I'd be scraping the bottom of my bank account.

When I opened another letter from the Grossos' lawyer, I felt even worse. They weren't dropping the suit. They expanded it to include "members of the board of directors of the organization known as The Harvest for All Food Pantry."

"That does it!" I yelled.

"Jolie. One of the guests is upstairs," Aunt Madge said as she came into the kitchen. "What's bothering you?"

She reached into a cabinet to get flour and yeast to make the afternoon bread for her guest or I couldn't have gotten away with the lie. "I just looked at my bank statement. I really don't want to go a few more weeks with so little work."

She turned. "Do you need some money?"

"No, I'm okay. I'm just mad at people for saying they don't want me to do the work." I held the envelope at my side so she couldn't see who sent it. "I guess I just needed to distract myself." I blew her an air kiss. "I'm heading back out in a bit. Meeting Scoobie."

"Good. He's so busy at school we hardly ever see him."

I thought about that as I climbed the steps to get a sweater before going back outside. Scoobie did seem to be doing a lot more studying than he had a few weeks ago. Of course, classes would get harder as the semester progressed.

I sat on my bed and reread the letter. It noted that the Grossos were "willing to discuss a modest settlement" if I would meet them at the office of their lawyer, and it gave an address in Matawan. "Great, I'll spend five hundred dollars to take a lawyer with me to talk to his parents, and then they'll name some ridiculous figure that's twenty times more money than I'll make in ten years."

Jazz meowed and stretched, and I stroked her gently. "I don't have any treats here." She sat on my foot.

I called the phone number on the letter and asked what times would be available for my attorney and me to meet with the Grossos.

The woman who answered was very accommodating. "I'm really not supposed to tell you this, but I think Mr. and Mrs. Grosso just want to talk to you. They wish they hadn't been talked into filing that suit."

"Talked into?" I asked.

"Oh well, no matter," she said. "I just brought it up because, well, maybe you don't want to pay your lawyer to drive up here with you. You could always come without your lawyer, and if you need him, or her, come back. Mr. and Mrs. Grosso can come almost any time."

"And it's just with Hayden's parents?" I was relieved not to have to deal with Victoria and Ricardo Bruno. I didn't think I was on their Christmas card list, and that was before George and I tried to get into their shed.

"Just them," she said.

"You know, I think I'll come without my attorney." I tried to sound very formal. "As you say, we can reschedule if necessary."

We set up a time for Friday afternoon, and I hung up feeling a lot less worried about my bank account.

"NO, I'M GOING ALONE." I said this to Ramona, and since it was the third time I had said it I was quite annoyed.

She started to say something, but a customer's voice came from the copy machine area. "I'm not sure what buttons to push for back-to-back copies."

"Don't leave," she commanded, and walked toward the customer.

I wasn't in a particular hurry. It's not as if I had any work. But I wasn't going to debate my plans with her. I deliberately hadn't told Aunt Madge or George I was heading up to Matawan alone, but I didn't figure Ramona would be so hostile about the idea. That's what you get for confiding in anyone.

I glanced at the digital clock on my phone. I needed to leave in about fifteen minutes. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get to the Grossos' lawyer's office without feeling rushed.

"Okay," she said, walking up beside me again. "I can't talk you out of it. Why don't you take George or Scoobie?"

I gave her a look.

"Okay, I'll go with you," she started to take off the apron she always wears when she fools with the copier. It protects her brightly colored skirts.

"Sure. Just walk out of work."

"I get off at four anyway. Roland won't care. I never leave early." She walked back to Roland's small office, which is really a corner in the storage area.

At first I was annoyed, then I figured Ramona and I would have fun. Maybe we could even stop at Asbury Park on the way back and eat at Buckey's, my favorite place for crab soup.

We were on the road in ten minutes. I could tell Roland didn't like having to work on the floor of the store, but as Ramona said, she didn't leave early very often.

"This is a day I'd like a convertible," I said. And it was a perfect fall day. The leaves had just barely started to turn, and it was maybe sixty-five degrees and there was a light breeze from the ocean. Couldn't smell it on the highway, but I'd enjoyed it all morning as I ran errands and walked the dogs.

Ramona and I aren't by ourselves too often, so we had plenty to talk about, especially since she wanted to talk about George and me.

"I knew he really liked you," she said. "He's always asking me what you're up to."

"Why didn't he ask me? It's not like seventh grade."

"You probably forget," she said, dryly, "that you were usually mad at him for putting your picture in the paper. Like the time he dug up that old wedding photo of you and Robby and put it in an article after you found..."

"George did that? I asked him and he said his editor found it."

"Maybe I heard him wrong," she said, apparently trying to be diplomatic.

"Yeah, right."

"Are you guys serious?" she asked.

"You're joking, right? We have our first actual date Saturday night." I didn't mention that we'd spent much of Wednesday night together. Running from Ricardo Bruno was not a date.

"But you know each other pretty well," she said. "That makes it more like, I don't know, the tenth date."

I laughed. "For sure we aren't serious. Anyway," I felt my stomach start to knot, "it was only a year ago that I was sitting with Robby in court when he pled guilty to embezzlement. The ink on my divorce is not too dry."

"That's true," she said in a sympathetic tone. "I guess I'm just happy for you."

WE PULLED INTO Matawan's small commercial area ten minutes early, and I parked near the law office, which was at the edge of the small downtown. Ramona was going to walk through the antique and gift shops, and I figured I'd join her in less than half an hour. Then on to crab soup, hopefully able to celebrate the end of the legal drama associated with Hayden's death.

I stood in the hallway outside Suite 202, which bore the law office name in bold gold lettering. I assumed people were supposed to feel intimidated, or maybe impressed. I reminded myself that Mr. and Mrs. Grosso had lost a son, and even if he was a total jerk who wanted to get in Alicia's pants, they would be very sad and I would be very polite.

The receptionist was a woman about my age with beautiful black hair that looked as if it could be in a hair color commercial. Except I figured it was her real color.

"Good afternoon, Miss Gentil." She reached across the desk and shook my hand. "The Grossos should be here any minute. Can I bring you coffee, tea, a soft drink?"

"Water would be great." The reception area was quite small, and I sat in one of the three upholstered chairs and picked up a travel magazine on the end table. Probably they tell their clients they'll win them a lot of money and they can take a big trip.

"I'm so rude. I didn't tell you my name. It's Ruth. I've been with Mr. Hardin for almost ten years." She handed me a glass with ice and what looked like pinkish water. "I put some of that new flavoring in it." She gave me a big smile and returned to her desk.

I had really wanted plain water, but it was a pleasant taste, strawberry, I thought. I glanced at my phone again. The Grossos were ten minutes late. They lived very close to the office, so I was mildly irritated. And very sleepy.

It was another two or three minutes before I realized that I was more than tired. My eyes were out of focus. "I think, I think I better..." I stood and then quickly sat back down.

Ruth got up and walked toward me. Her friendly smile was replaced by a very menacing look. Or maybe two looks. It was hard to tell.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" she said, in a strident tone.

It took a great deal of effort to say, "No."

"Thanks to you, I don't have any idea where my brother Joe is."

Crud. Joe Pedone's sister. "Are you, are you Mary Something?" I asked.

"Oh yes. Mary Jo. Joe Pedone's twin sister. And you and I are going to have a long talk." She walked back to her desk and fiddled with the phone for a moment.

It was very hard to think. I couldn't imagine that she would hurt me. Unless she was as screwy as her brother, who was not a nice man at all. I thought about Ramona. She knew what building I was in, but she had no idea of the suite. Not that it was a big building, but I wish someone knew where I was.

"Up you go." Mary Jo put her hand under my arm and helped me stand. "We're going into Mr. Hardin's office." She guided me to a chair that had a soft seat and upholstered arms, and picked up a roll of duct tape from the nearby desk and started to wrap it around my wrists, securing them to the arms of the chair.

This is not good. I just could not get my brain and limbs to cooperate. What did she give me?

"You're going to hear me out, and then you're going to tell the police that you were very, very wrong about my brother." She pulled a chair toward me and sat facing me.

Mary Jo's face was contorted in anger. "My Joe is a good man. He sent my mother a check every month. A good check. Now she has to live on Social Security and whatever I can give her, and it's not much. And I'm stuck working in this stupid office, watching the lawyers win tons of money for their clients. Do I get any kind of bonus when they win a big case? Not hardly."

She went on and on. My eyes had closed and then there was a loud whack and my head jerked back. She slapped me!

"You stay awake and listen to me!"

Her face was inches from mine, and I could see the spittle at the corners of her mouth. "What do you...what do you want?" The slap had made my neck hurt again.

"You are going to listen to me!" She was practically screeching now.

I realized she had probably picked five-thirty because the lawyers would have left, and maybe everyone else on this floor. My head wobbled, but I tried to look at her. I didn't want another slap.

"...and you're going to tell my mother you were wrong about Joe. Broke her heart, you did." She kept going. "I said listen to me!"

I was vaguely aware that her arm was raised, and I steeled myself for another slap.

"Ow! Let go of me!" Mary Jo yelled.

Someone had come into the room and shoved Mary Jo hard enough that she fell to her knees. And then Ramona was on Mary Jo's back and shoved her face into the carpet. And someone was screaming. I was pretty sure it wasn't me.

I heard a police siren, and then it stopped abruptly. Someone much bigger than Ramona and I ran into the office and he started shouting, too. If only these people would shut up.

Ramona was trying to unwrap the duct tape. "Jolie, Jolie! What did she give you?"

Really, I didn't feel that bad. It would be a lot better if I could lie down for a bit.

I WOKE UP WONDERING if I was lying on the beach. The sun was directly overhead. I looked around. No beach. What I thought was the sun was a fluorescent light above me.

"Jolie!" Some of Ramona's always perfectly styled hair was hanging loose on one side, and she had tears on her cheeks.

"I'm okay. Really." But I was thirsty. "Are we in a hospital?"

A man in scrubs came in, followed by a female police officer. Thank God it's not Morehouse.

"How do you feel?" the man asked.

"Not too bad. What happened...oh, Mary Jo." I looked around quickly, and winced at the pain in my neck. "Ramona. You tackled her."

She smiled. "I do yoga, you know. I'm tough."

The man, I hoped a doctor, bent over and gently probed the back of my head and my neck. "Did you fall?"

"No, car accident a few weeks ago." I thought for a couple seconds. "That woman slapped me, hard."

"Aha," the doctor said. He shone a pen light in my eyes and I felt the stupid blood pressure cuff start to blow up.

"We don't have the toxicology report yet, but I suspect you were given a few Valium or something like that." He looked at Ramona. "Her pulse and blood pressure are a little low, but her pulse is strong." He patted me on the shoulder. "I expect you'll be fine."

He left and I had my eyes shut, but I knew it was Ramona who had moved closer to me. I opened my eyes. She was smiling at me. "Do you know how many times you've been in an emergency room in the last year?"

"I'm not counting."

"Ms., um Gentle."

"Zhan-tee," Ramona and I said together.

"You don't pronounce the L," Ramona added, "and the i is more like an ee sound."

"Can you talk to me for a couple minutes?" the officer asked. "We aren't exactly sure why you were there with her."

"I told you..." Ramona began.

"I need to talk to her," the officer said. She was firm, but not overbearing.

Ramona moved away a few feet

The officer pulled up a chair and sat, apparently so she could look me in the eye. "Why were you there?"

"I thought I had a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Grosso. She, Mary Jo, set it up."

"There are two lawyers in that practice. Neither of them had arranged any meeting for you. With anyone."

I thought about this for a second. "I don't think that woman likes me."

"You think?" Ramona said.

The officer almost smiled. "Your friend said that..." she looked at a piece of paper, "Mrs. Patterson, Mary Jo, was the sister of a Mr. Joe Pedone, and that you were responsible for his arrest."

"He was responsible. I was just the person he was mad at. Well, one of them." I swallowed. "Could I have some water?"

Ramona went out and came back with a cup. "They say ice chips until they figure out exactly what she gave you." She put some on a spoon, and most of them made it to my mouth.

"She said her mother was very upset, and, um, she didn't have enough money. Because her son used to send her...some." I didn't think I was making a lot of sense, and couldn't imagine the officer was following me.

"I called the Ocean Alley Police," the officer began.

"Oh, crud," I said.

"Uh-oh," said Ramona.

The officer stiffened. "Why do you say that?"

"Oh we're not in trouble. Not that kind of trouble, I mean," Ramona said.

"Sergeant Morehouse gets kind of...irritated sometimes," I added.

As if on cue, the door to my little corner of the emergency room opened, and Sgt. Morehouse glared at me. "With good damn reason."

"I didn't do anything. I was coming to a stupid meeting."

"Meetings, stupid or not, do not put you in the hospital." He said this in his usual rough voice, but when I opened one eye he didn't really look too mad.

"Jolie got a letter from the lawyers," Ramona said.

"I thought it was from them," I added.

It took about ten minutes, but Ramona and I finally explained the letter I'd received and Mary Jo's advice about how I could save some legal fees by coming alone, because Mr. and Mrs. Grosso just wanted to talk to me, and planned to drop the wrongful death lawsuit.

"And when I realized it had been more than half an hour, I thought I'd walk up there. It was cool, and I didn't have a sweater," Ramona explained. "I figured I could sit in their office."

"And you found Ms. Gentil tied to a chair?" the female officer asked.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Stevens, Officer Rosemary Stevens. I guess you were still out of it when I told you."

"Okay." I looked at Morehouse. "The drink made me like a zombie, and she walked me into the lawyer's office, I guess that's what it was, and put duct tape on my arms."

"Did she have a weapon?" Morehouse asked.

I saw Officer Stevens stiffen a bit, but she didn't say anything. I figured she saw Morehouse's question as stepping on her toes.

"I didn't see one. She said she just wanted me to listen."

Morehouse looked at Officer Stevens. "There's times I thought about tying her to a chair to get her to listen."

ODDLY, AUNT MADGE WAS way less angry than George. "I'm sure you thought you were doing a smart thing," was the gist of what she said. The fact that Ramona went with me had convinced her I thought I was going to a simple meeting. If I'd been with George or Scoobie she probably wouldn't have looked at it that way.

They kept me overnight at the hospital, since Mary Jo had given me four times the normal dose of Valium. That and the fact that I couldn't even sit up in the bed. They had me hooked up to an IV that flowed really fast, to 'flush my system.' I had to pee every twenty minutes, which was not fun on a bedpan. That's the only thing that got George and Scoobie and Ramona to go to a nearby motel for the night.

They hadn't left until about eleven-thirty, so I figured they'd get something to eat and not be back at the hospital until at least eight or nine o'clock. Aunt Madge and Harry barely stayed at all. I knew she didn't have guests, so I figured they were looking forward to having the Cozy Corner all to themselves. Not that I was supposed to know that.

I had just finished breakfast and a nurse had taken out my IV when the door to the room slid open. It took me a minute to realize the couple standing in the door way was Hayden's parents. "Come on in."

"Thank you. We haven't met," the woman said. "This is my husband, Alberto Grosso, and I'm Mary Patricia."

I nodded. I decided not to tell them I'd hidden in the choir loft during Hayden's funeral. "I'm sorry you lost your son."

"We lost him a long time ago," said Mr. Grosso.

"Please, sit," I said.

They pulled a couple of plastic chairs close to the bed. We were all silent for several seconds.

"We feel very badly about the lawsuit," Mrs. Grosso said.

"Thank you..." I began.

"Please," Mr. Grosso said, and I nodded. "We were so upset, and when Veronica and Mary Jo suggested it, and Mary Jo had already asked the lawyers to draw up some papers, we just did what they suggested."

"It was very foolish," Mrs. Grosso said.

"You were hurting." It felt very odd to be comforting people who had tried to sue the daylights out of me.

"We've learned a lot the past twenty hours or so," Mr. Grosso said.

"Things I'd like to know, I bet," and I tried to look encouraging without appearing giddy.

"Yes," Mrs. Grosso said. "We learned that our son-in-law," she pursed her lips, "was a very bad influence on Hayden. It appears that he actually sent Hayden to find people to sell his horrible drugs to."

"Veronica and the children are with us at the moment," Mr. Grosso said. "I hope to God she leaves the bastard this time."

I noted the words "this time" and just nodded.

"Just a couple days ago," he continued, "she went to the garden shed in their yard. He, Ricardo, kept it locked, said there were lawn chemicals and such, and he didn't want the family near it."

"And Veronica would never do anything that would break a nail." Mrs. Grosso gave a small smile and touched her husband on the hand. He squeezed her hand.

"Anyway, someone tried to break into the shed, and he was very upset about it. So, when he went to work, she couldn't find a key, so she just broke a window. And..." Alberto Grosso looked as if he might cry.

"They found marijuana," I said, softly.

They were dumbfounded, so I continued. "We had heard Hayden seemed to be selling something in small plastic bags to local kids. I never saw this," I said, quickly. "A couple friends thought that's what they saw on the boardwalk one evening."

They kept looking at me.

"And I talked to Agnes Flaherty. She is not very fond of Ricardo Bruno."

"You talked to Agnes?" Mrs. Grosso almost gasped.

"I was trying to figure out what the heck was happening. I looked up a bunch of newspaper articles on line, and saw about the accident..." I couldn't finish the sentence. How do you say, "Where your son almost killed a girl and then left her in the car?"

"Ah," Mr. Grosso said. "And Veronica said you stopped by."

"Yes. I mentioned to her I wasn't sure about going to see you, but to be honest, half the reason I went was just to see if I could piece together why Hayden seemed to have walked into my life. Via my friend's daughter, Alicia."

Both the Grossos had a pained expression. "We think that had something to do with Mary Jo," Mr. Grosso said.

"Is she really just fourteen?" Mrs. Grosso almost whispered.

I nodded. "I don't think there was any harm done." In other words, I think she's still a virgin.

"Mary Jo has been very close to Hayden. She's his godmother. We think, we aren't sure, that she wanted him to go to your town, specifically, to look for Ricardo's buyers," Mr. Grosso had a distinctly ugly look, "so that he could somehow annoy you. Something to do with her brother."

I nodded. "Alicia and her mom volunteer with me at the food pantry. Hayden probably figured that would really make her mom and me angry, and maybe a little afraid. Him being so much older."

Mrs. Grosso took a tissue from her purse. "I just don't know what we did," she said. Mr. Grosso put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.

"You didn't do anything, or not do. Things just...happen." I thought about telling them about Robby and decided not to. "If anything, Ricardo probably was a bad influence."

They both nodded. "But it's really no excuse," she said.

I shrugged. "He was what, five years older or so? I bet Hayden looked up to him."

They nodded again, and looked at each other. "We should probably go. We do want to be sure you don't have any legal fees," Mr. Grosso said.

"The lawyer I talked to was a friend of my aunt's. He only charged me one hundred and fifty dollars."

"We want that bill right away," Mrs. Grosso said, as she stood.

Mr. Grosso nodded. "My checkbook's in the car..."

I shook my head. "Give it to..." I thought for a minute. "Some kind of drug rehab place." I'm such a sucker.

Mrs. Grosso started to sob quietly into her hands and Mr. Grosso put his arms around her and drew her to him. They stood like that for maybe fifteen seconds, with him patting her on the back.

I wished I knew what to say to make them feel better. They were almost at the door when I thought of something. "You know, Agnes Flaherty told me something. She said her parents didn't want her to talk to Hayden, but they did keep in touch a bit. He sent her chocolates often. One of her friends brought them to her."

Tears spilled down Mrs. Grosso's cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered, and they were gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I'D BEEN LYING very still, thinking about my conversation with the Grossos, when there was a light knock and Scoobie stuck his head in.

"I didn't hear any tinkling," he said, and grinned at me.

"You're so subtle. Come on in."

When it was clear he was alone I gave him a questioning look.

"Those two are still getting ready. We didn't want to pay for two rooms, so they brought in a cot. George and I had a fight over it, and Ramona ended up sleeping on it."

"I'm sorry I missed all that," I said.

"You look like yourself," Scoobie said. "I'm really glad."

"Me, too. So, where have you been lately?"

"Giving George space," he said, simply.

"He's such a turd."

"Gee, a new word for boyfriend?"

"Very funny. Don't stay away, Scoobie. I miss you."

"Yeah, I told him he'd have to figure it out." He smiled. "He said if I was there you always talked to me, and he just wanted a chance."

I shook my head. "That's so strange."

"What?" Scoobie asked.

"George at a loss for words."

He nodded. "Kind of as if you had a hard time talking." He walked over and gave me a hug, and I kissed him on the neck.

"Ooh la la," he said, and sat down.

"You're a dork. How's school?"

"Really good, actually. We're taking turns learning how to position people on the table for x-rays." He pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. "You can imagine all the comments about prone positions."

"I imagine you contribute to them."

He opened the paper. "You're going to love this one."

There once was a man who wrote,

Though not every word would you quote.

He set his sights quite high.

For Jolie she was nigh

Now on the clouds he does float.

My eyes were moist, but I managed to say, "That's really awful."

He laughed. "Yeah, I've been too busy to focus on it. Later."

"You know, I like him, but George and I don't really know each other..." I made a shrugging gesture.

"He thinks you were made for each other," Scoobie said. "So, no pressure."

IT WAS SATURDAY evening, but instead of sitting in the movie theater George had rented a movie called The Notebook, and he was trying to get Aunt Madge's DVD player to recognize the disc.

George had to move a vase of flowers Lester sent so that he didn't knock it over when he tried to convince the DVD to actually show the movie. From the look on his face, he didn't like the note on the card, "Next time call me. Hugs, Lester."

I was feeling pretty good, but I got really tired after I'd been up for awhile, so we were staying in for our first date. That and the fact that Aunt Madge said she'd sic the dogs on us if we went out.

The doorbell rang. George stopped cursing at the DVD player. "Want me to get it?"

"I guess if it were Harry he'd just walk in."

George came back a minute later with Megan and Alicia.

"Great to see you guys." I got up to accept the single rose Alicia was carrying. She started sobbing before I even got to her.

I walked to her and pulled her into a hug. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay."

I looked at Megan, and she was actually smiling. She mouthed, "She'll be all right."

"Come on Alicia, sit next to me on the loveseat."

"I'm sorry," she gulped, as we sat.

"You're fine."

"Better than fine," George said, looking supremely uncomfortable.

Megan drew a finger across her throat in the universal sign for shut-up. He sat on a kitchen chair and buried his head in his hands.

He better not have any teenage girls. Why am I thinking about that?

"Come on, Alicia, here's a tissue."

Aunt Madge walked out of her bedroom, took in the situation, and said, "This calls for ice cream." She walked to the fridge, and Megan sat in a chair near the loveseat.

"I was so rude to you, Jolie." Alicia blew her nose.

"The only time I was worried was when you said you wouldn't help at Harvest for All." I smiled at her.

"I called it the stupid food pantry," she whispered.

"I think I've heard Jolie use that term," Aunt Madge said. She set a bowl of chocolate and strawberry ice cream in front of Alicia, and a plain chocolate in front of me.

"You thought I was being mean to someone you liked." I picked up my bowl. "Come on, this'll make anything feel better."

Megan got up and went over to serve a bowl for herself, and George continued to look helpless.

Alicia took a spoon of ice cream, and then caught sight of Mister Rogers. He was sitting on his haunches, very straight and still, and if a dog can have a worried look on its face, he had one. Miss Piggy was just a couple feet from him. She did a tight circle several times, sat, got up and did it again.

"I scared the dogs," Alicia said, smiling a bit.

"Yep, they're a couple of wimps," I said.

We ate in silence for a couple of bites, and Alicia looked at me. "I really am sorry."

"You and I are cool." And we were.

MEGAN AND ALICIA didn't stay long. I knew Aunt Madge was going out with Harry, and I figured George was going to start the movie after she left, which would be soon. I had read the summary of the movie on the back of the DVD. One of the reviewers called it "a love story for the ages." Who would have pegged George for a romantic?

Aunt Madge had finished getting ready and came back into the sitting room. Her hair this week was a kind of light auburn, and she had on a soft green dress with a tan sweater. "Well aren't you ready for fall."

She started to say something, but we heard the side door open. George grinned at me. "It'll be nice to see Harry," I said.

She gave both of us a 'put a cork in it' look and went out to greet Harry. They came back into Aunt Madge's living area and Harry gave me a jaunty wave. "You're looking better all the time."

Aunt Madge picked up her purse from the table. "I know you'll be in good hands, Jolie."

"You know, there aren't any guests. If you guys were to stay at Harry's we can hold the fort down here," I said.

I have absolutely never seen Aunt Madge turn brick red. Or Harry, for that matter.

THE MOVIE HAD BEEN over for about ten minutes, and George and I were lying on the floor, using every pillow from the living area and a couple from my bedroom. There was a kind of "now what?" atmosphere in the room.

"So, what next?" George asked.

"Mmm. I'm not sure. I don't exactly want to rush things."

"I'm pretty sure we aren't doing that." He propped himself on an elbow to look at me.

I smiled at him. "Remember how mad I used to get at you?"

"That's not the conversation starter I was looking for," he said, but he grinned back at me.

"Who wants to talk?" I asked, and leaned over to kiss him. Kissed him for a really long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

IT WAS MONDAY morning, and I was on a mission. There was one really big question left, and I'd begun to think I knew the answer.

I went to the library first, and then thought of Java Jolt. Josh and Max were sitting on a bench in front of the coffee house, facing the ocean. Max was jabbering away, and Josh was staring at the water. I looked at them for a few moments and then walked over.

"Hi guys." I sat on the bench next to them.

"Jolie's here!" Max said. "I read in the paper. That lady really didn't like you, did she? She really didn't."

"Nope, and she was pretty grouchy about it." I said this in a conversational tone, and Max just stared at me.

"Max, would you do me a favor? I haven't had any coffee yet. Would you tell Joe I want my usual coffee, and then order something for you and something for Josh, and bring it out here?"

Max glanced at Josh, who kept staring at the ocean, then back at me.

"Tell Joe to put it on my tab, he'll love that," I said.

"Will do, will do," Max said, and ran into the coffee shop.

After a few moments, I said. "I'll go first."

Josh nodded.

"I think I figured it out. You want Max settled. He'll have a small income from the VA, a roof over his head, maybe people to spend time with at the sheltered workshop." I glanced at Josh, but he kept looking ahead. "You know that in Ocean Alley, we'll watch out for him, make sure he gets the help he needs."

"That's right," Josh said. After a couple moments, he said, "You did figure it out."

"After everything that's happened the last few days, it's the only thing that makes sense."

Josh nodded. "I just wanted him to stop tearing the braces off the back of that stupid pirate game. Everybody worked so hard to make it all nice."

"That was good of you," I said, softly.

"It was still windy, but it was a time when the rain had stopped. You know, when the eye moves over. Not that it was much of a storm." He gave a tight smile. "You want to see a hurricane, you go to Florida."

We were both silent for a few seconds, and he continued. "I had walked to the end of the boardwalk, right up to the park. Usually I walk on the beach, but the surf was all the way up to the boardwalk. Street lights were out, but a movement caught my eye." He paused for a moment, as if wanting to get the story just right.

"At first I thought it might be a dog or something, and I walked down the steps to be sure it wasn't caught in the water. Then I saw him. Water was about eight inches deep then, really stupid to be standing in it. And there he was, trying to tear apart the damn pirate ship."

"I'd found him kissing Alicia behind it." I shrugged. "That might be why, or it could just be that we were all having fun that day, and he was so damned unhappy he couldn't stand it."

Josh nodded. "You never know with a guy like that. Has two parents, plenty of money, never had to go, to go to war..." His voice trailed off.

"In All-Anon, they say you can't compare your insides to someone else's outsides."

He looked at me for the first time. "I like that." He was somber again. "I just went down to get him to stop. He was so pissed. I don't know why I got that close to him. I'm taller, guess I thought I'd scare him away. But he had that stupid mallet, and he swung it at me."

Almost a minute went by. "A lot of thoughts went through my head. People I'd seen hurt. Max. That Hayden, he had it all. Anyway, he swung it at me and I grabbed it from him. Easy enough to do. I turned to walk away, and I guess he picked up a piece of driftwood or something. Swung it down, hit me on the shoulder. I had the mallet...Didn't think I hit him that hard, but he went down and didn't move."

"I expect you tried to help him."

"Pulled him out of the water," Josh said, in a matter of fact tone. "His head hadn't gone under, and I didn't want him to drown. It was a minute before I realized he was gone. And I mean, gone. Eyes staring."

"Morehouse said that he probably hit his head on one of the stakes in the ground."

"Really? So I didn't...well, I did," Josh said.

"He attacked you. It was self-defense," I insisted.

He snorted. "Like the police will believe that."

"After everything that people have learned about Hayden and his stupid brother-in-law, they'll believe you."

"They'll still send me away," he said, softly.

"You know," I said slowly, "I'm the only one who had this thought. No one would ever know."

He turned to look at me fully. "I would."

I nodded. "I'll go with you to talk to the police."

"Thanks." He turned to face me. "I'm really sorry about putting the mallet in your trunk. I figured it would be found anywhere I put it, and I thought if the police found it in your trunk they'd know someone just hid it there. I never imagined that anyone would think you did it, not in a million years."

"I sometimes do not endear myself to the police."

After a moment, he added, "I'd like to wait until Max gets comfortable at that sheltered workshop, until he learns how to take the bus."

"Max isn't going to have to take the bus."

Josh's shoulders shook slightly as he began to cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I FELT AS IF I knew about everything there was to know.

In exchange for "consideration" at her sentencing, Mary Jo had admitted that she was the one who rammed my car. She was convinced that I had something to do with Hayden's death and was "crazy with grief." That's what Annie Milner told me, anyway. Sgt. Morehouse still isn't talking to me. I think he's being kind of petty.

I sort of snuck into Harvest for All. I heard Reverend Jamison was looking for me, and that usually involves me volunteering for something. I thought I did enough.

After about ten minutes there were footsteps in the hallway.

Nuts. I'd spent too much time going over the schedule of volunteers, making sure we had enough people working at the counter over the next month.

"Jolie?" Reverend Jamison was accompanied by Father Teehan.

"Boy, I must be in for it."

They both smiled, and Reverend Jamison hopped up to sit on the counter. "We want to run an idea by you," Father Teehan said.

I regarded them with skepticism. "Okay..."

"Megan planted the thought," Reverend Jamison said. "You remember what she asked me?"

I thought for a moment. "About whether First Prez had a youth group?"

He nodded, and Father Teehan said, "We don't really think there are enough teens in any of the churches in town to start a youth group, so we were thinking of doing something together."

I nodded. "Would it just be to do church stuff?"

"No," Reverend Jamison said, dryly. "I don't know that there would be a big turnout for 'church stuff.' We were thinking of a few fun activities, and a chance to do some volunteering."

"That group who did pin-the-tail-on-the-skeleton seemed to have a good time." Father Teehan said.

"I don't know too much about teenagers." I dropped what I hoped was a huge hint that I didn't want to help with such a group.

"Madge said you have a teenage niece," Reverend Jamison said.

"And George said you and Scoobie had a heck of a good time as teenagers," Father Teehan said.

I scowled. "I'll settle with George." When they didn't say anything, I continued. "If you needed help with a specific activity, I wouldn't mind, but I don't really want to take the lead."

"Actually," Father Teehan said, "we were thinking about Scoobie."

"He makes the rounds of every church dinner, any meal," Reverend Jamison said. "A lot of the young people know him."

"He came for donuts more often before we built the new church on the edge of town," Father Teehan said.

I smiled. "He does know a lot of people."

"The thing is," Reverend Jamison said, "he might need some persuading."

"And you honestly think I could convince Scoobie to do something? Besides, you know he went back to school."

Reverend Jamison nodded. "But it's only three semesters."

"It's a two-year program, to be an x-ray tech," I said.

"But he had some credits from when he was younger," Father Teehan said.

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"We listen," Reverend Jamison said.

I held my tongue. I don't know where people get the impression that I don't listen.

"So, will you?" Father Teehan asked.

I shook my head. "You need to talk to Scoobie yourselves. I can almost guarantee he wouldn't like the thought of you going through me."

I had heard the phrase 'triangle communication' used in All-Anon. If I remembered right, this referred to telling one person something and figuring they would tell the person you really wanted to get the message. Scoobie could probably write a book on it.

They looked disappointed, so I added, "I don't mind encouraging him, but he's a big boy. You need to ask him."

After a couple polite questions about the food pantry, they left.

GEORGE AND I were going to take another stab at a real date, and I had just finished ironing a new blouse when Aunt Madge came into the kitchen area. She had a funny look on her face. "You okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine. Really." She said this more as if trying to convince herself.

"So what's up?"

"I was thinking of inviting some people over for dinner tonight," she said.

"That's great." Why is she telling me this? "I won't be in your hair."

"We have a specific topic," she said.

"We?" I asked, in a teasing tone.

"Yes." She said this very firmly. "And I need to ask you something."

She was starting to scare me. Maybe she's sick.

"Would you mind running the B & B for a couple weeks, while Harry and I go on our honeymoon?"

In my rush to hug her I knocked the iron off the ironing board, and we both lunged at it. It hurts to butt heads. We both reeled back and sat on the floor.

Aunt Madge set the iron upright on the floor and flicked it off. We sat there looking at each other and grinning.

Miss Piggy trotted over, Mister Rogers right behind her. Jazz was riding on his back, curled up, but with her head held high, very alert. Both dogs tried to sit on Aunt Madge's lap, and Jazz jumped off Mister Rogers onto my shoulder.

"I want pet sitter rates," I said, and we leaned over the dogs and hugged.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elaine L. Orr is the Amazon bestselling author of the nine-book Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series, set at the Jersey shore. Behind the Walls was a finalist for the 2014 Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem Awards. The first book in Elaine's River's Edge cozy mystery series, From Newsprint to Footprints, debuted in late fall 2015, with Demise of a Devious Neighbor in late 2016. Elaine also writes plays and novellas, including the one-act, Common Ground, published in 2015. Her novella, Biding Time, was one of five finalists in the National Press Club's first fiction contest, in 1993. Elaine conducts presentations on electronic publishing and other writing-related topics. Nonfiction includes Words to Write By: Getting Your Thoughts on Paper and Writing in Retirement: Putting New Year's Resolutions to Work. She also conducts online courses on writing and publishing for Teachable. A member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine grew up in Maryland and moved to the Midwest in 1994.

Back to the Table of Contents

www.elaineorr.com

www.elaineorr.blogspot.com

Click  here for links to all books at all sites.

All the Jolie Gentil Books

Appraisal for Murder is the first book of the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series.

Other books in the series are:

Rekindling Motives

When the Carny Comes to Town

Any Port in a Storm

Trouble on the Doorstep

Behind the Walls

Vague Images

Ground to a Halt

Holidays in Ocean Alley

Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (prequel)

Jolie books 5 – 7 are in a box set on BN, Kobo, itunes and other sites.

River's Edge Mystery Series

From Newsprint to Footprints

Demise of a Devious Neighbor

Logland Mystery Series

Tip a Hat to Murder
