Willard lumbered to his feet and put a paw on Jane's knee. She absentmindedly fished an ice cube out of her tea and gave it to him. He settled back down, chewing noisily. "Do you mean you think this story of mine really could be a book?" Jane asked.
Missy nodded. "It's remarkably good writing for a beginner. Of course, good writing isn't everything—there's structuring and marketing and a lot more. But good writing is the first essential.”
They heard the gate squeak, and a moment later Shelley appeared. "Good. You're still here. Mel VanDyne just called me. He said you didn't answer your phone, and asked if I knew what had become of you. I told him I could see you and Missy out here, and he asked everybody to stay put."
“Pitcher of iced tea on the counter," Jane said, feeling this was adequate hostessing for Shelley. She was still trying to cope with what Missy had said.
“Maybe later," Shelley said.
“Not more questions from VanDyne," Missy said. "I'm getting real bored with the few facts I know. It's only a matter of time before I start embroidering them with fictional fillips. Fiction writers are born liars.”
Shelley reached toward Jane's glass, which Jane snatched away. "Get your own," she said.
Before Shelley got back, Jane could hear a car door slamming in the driveway. "Around back!" she shouted inelegantly. She was glad that, tired as she was, she'd washed her hair this morning and put on decent clothes. Mel was back in his detective mode, but he might notice her as a woman instead of a peripheral object in an investigation.
He came out onto the patio, holding a glass of tea Shelley had forced on him. She was right behind with the pitcher and a bucket of ice on a tray. Jane wondered how Shelley'd gotten the ice maker to give up its cubes. It tended to create one large, lumpy mass instead of individual pieces. But there wasn't a household appliance in the world that could best Shelley.
Mel sat down with a sigh. The rest of them had at least gotten a few fleeting hours of sleep; Mel must have been up all night. He was wearing the same clothes, but except for the weary sigh, he looked fresh and bright. He repeated what he'd told Jane earlier about Maria Espinoza and the tests. They still didn't have definitive results. "So, ladies, I'd like to go over the food and seating arrangements and so forth with you.”
Willard had finished his ice cube and finally noticed there were newcomers. He shambled over to put his head on Mel's thigh. Mel patted his big, square head and waved his hand at the cloud of gnats that went everywhere the dog went.
“We've all been questioned about that already," Missy said. "Can't we go on to something else? It's like revising the same chapter over and over."
“Not until we've got this sorted out. Now, who could have put something in the quiche or the tea?”
Jane sat up straight. "Why the quiche and tea especially?""Because that's all the maid had in her stomach.
Mrs. Pryce had apparently eaten all kinds of stuff." "But I made the quiche," Jane objected. "Exactly," he said coolly, staring back at her. "You don't think I poisoned her?"
“As a matter of fact, I don't, but somebody apparently did, and it's my sad job to find out who and how. I have to assume that the quiche itself wasn't poisoned, or other people would have become ill, too. So it must have been put in her food or her drink after she got her plate and cup. Now, where was she sitting? Who could have exchanged her plate or added something to her food?"
“Anybody," Shelley and Missy said together.
Shelley took up the explanation. "The dining room is a very crowded little space, and everybody was crammed together. We were all reaching over and past each other and banging our elbows together. Mrs. Pryce sat at the head of the table with her back to the hallway and kitchen, where the dishes were set out. We had to squeeze past her and each other to get around at all."
“Did she fill her own plate?”
The three women exchanged glances. "I don't think so," Jane finally said. "At least she wasn't in with the lost lemmings."
“I beg your pardon?"
“I mean she wasn't stuffed into the hallway with the rest of us when we were getting our food. At least, I don't think she was."
“Was she at the table when you got there?" Mel asked.
“Yes, and she had a plate full of food. The first time."
“The first time? What?"
“The first time I sat down. But I'd forgotten a drink and—”
Mel held up his hand. "Hold it. Step by step. Where had she gotten the plate if she hadn't filled it herself?"
“I don't know. It was already there when Shelley and I sat down. What about you, Missy?”
Missy had her eyes closed hard. "I'm trying to picture it. I just can't recall. I seem to think I saw someone set it in front of her, but I can't see who. And I'm not sure but what I'm making that up. I don't mean to invent details, it's just that it's my job to do that, and I can't always turn it off."
“I appreciate your honesty," Mel said, looking as if he'd like to shake her teeth loose. "Can you tell me the order that people came to the table?"
“I have no idea," Missy said. "People came, then went and came back again. When I extricated myself from the crowd in the hall—let me see—I think Grady was there already. Yes, he was, because he accidentally bashed a chair leg into me while I was sitting down. And somebody else. I think Ruth Rogers. Or maybe her sister. I wasn't really paying any attention. I was puzzling over some stuff I didn't remember putting on my plate."
“With coconut?" Jane asked. "Somebody gave me a lump of that, too. Maybe—maybe the tea was poisoned and there was an antidote in the coconut stuff, and that's why someone made sure we all had some. But then, that can't be, because I didn't eat mine, so I should be dead." She glanced at Mel and realized she was making an ass of herself.
He cleared his throat. "Now that you've reasoned that out, could we continue? You said you left the table—"
“Yes, Mrs. Pryce got snooty about not having a drink, and that made me realize I didn't either. So we all went back—I mean Shelley and I did—"
“And you got Mrs. Pryce's tea?"
“No, I did not," Jane exclaimed. "She went ahead of us and had already gone when Shelley and I got to the kitchen. I think she went around the other way, because when we got back, she stepped on Grady's contact lens. She was coming in the dining room from the other doorway."
“Did she have a cup of tea then?" Mel persisted.
Jane grabbed Willard's collar and dragged him away from Mel, on whose trouser leg he was slobbering. "Sorry about that. I don't know if she had her tea. She probably did. That's what she went to the kitchen for, but I was looking down at Grady and half the others crawling around on the floor. In fact, that would have been a great time to put something on her food. Everybody was looking at Grady. Surely you've questioned everybody else about this."
“Endlessly," Mel said with disgust. "And it sounds like a fire drill in a lunatic asylum. Half this crowd doesn't know where they were, much less where anybody else was at any given moment. Look, I'd like for each of you to write down for me exactly what you did, in what order, and what you can recall of where other people were. In the meantime, I want to talk to you about possible motives.”
All three women smiled.
“What? What's funny about motives?”
Shelley broke the news to him. "You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who had more enemies internationally. There are probably clubs all over the world that meet just to discuss what they'd like to do to her.”
Mel slumped in his chair, his gaze shifting slowly from Shelley to Jane. "Someday," he said with great deliberation, "someday when we have lots of time, I'm going to tell you what I think of the people you hang around with, Jane.”
9
“I'm sorry we scared him off before we could talk about motives," Shelley said as the red MG in the driveway roared to life.
“And I'm sorry he left without rescheduling our date," Jane muttered into her iced tea.
“Oh, Jane. I'm sorry," Shelley said. "But you are getting a one-track mind."
“Shelley, it's a track my mind's been on for some time. I'm just hoping my body gets a chance to catch up. I've been a widow for some time, you know. I don't mean to be indelicate, but I didn't bury my hormones with Steve, you know."
“You weren't planning to sleep with him at the ice cream store, were you?" Shelley asked bluntly.