Bitsy called Jane later in the evening. "Jane, this is so awful! I'm afraid that detective thinks I killed Sandy. He said he'd spoken to you and Shelley, and I got the impression you knew him before."
"I'm dating him," Jane admitted.
"You're kidding! No, I guess you're not. Sandy
and I did have a big blowup when I told her I'd I hired the contractor I'd originally gotten a bid
from. But I had no reason to harm her. Can't you explain that to your detective?"
"He's an intelligent man, Bitsy. This is what he successfully does for a living. He doesn't jump to conclusions. And he really wouldn't welcome my input."
There was a long silence on the line. Finally, sounding tearful, Bitsy croaked, "You don't think I could have done such a thing, do you?"
"No, of course not," Jane lied. If Bitsy had shoved Sandra down the steps, she certainly didn't want to act as if she suspected her for fear that she herself might become the next victim. "I'm just telling you he's an expert at what he does and he'll find out by himself what happened to Sandra." This wasn't precisely the truth. Jane and Shelley had contributed domestic insights to Mel on a couple of other cases. He called this dangerous snooping. They regarded it as helping.
Bitsy went on, not at all reassured, "But I left the renovation before she did. The discussion was getting needlessly ugly and I thought there was nothing else productive to say, so I left the house, meaning to come back and lock up after everyone had gone. Surely someone saw me leaving, or knew I'd gone while she was still standing in the yard yelling at me as I drove off. I'm sure everybody was gawking and eavesdropping. Some of the workers really disliked her. But I was too
upset by the confrontation to remember to go back and lock up when she was gone."
"Then everything should be okay," Jane said, "if you have witnesses."
"Half a dozen, at least. Everyone was upstairs still working and Sandy was screaming so loudly, I'm sure they heard it. Your detective did ask for everyone's names and addresses."
My detective, Jane thought. It made him sound like her personal bodyguard.
Jane immediately called Shelley. "Are you finished with dinner? I just got a hysterical call from Bitsy."
"I have to supervise some homework first. It'll be about a half-hour."
Jane's own supervision consisted of looking into Todd's bedroom door, where she could see the screen of his computer. He was obviously constructing grids for his prime number project. Katie was on the other phone line, giggling.
"Time to hang up and get your homework done," Jane said.
"I don't have any, and Jenny and I are making plans for next weekend," she said.
"Be sure to clear them with me," Jane warned as she went back downstairs to load the dishwasher.
Shelley was dead on time. "So what did Bitsy say to you?"
"That she thinks 'my detective' thinks she did it."
"Your detective? How did she know about you and Mel?"
"He must have mentioned speaking to us. Apparently she got the idea he already knew us. I admitted it. She wanted me to influence him."
"Fat chance!" Shelley exclaimed.
"She didn't understand when I explained that he always got the right perp," Jane said, pouring them each a cup of hot decaf coffee and setting a plate of grocery-store cookies on the kitchen table.
"She thought I meant I thought she'd done it," Jane finished up. "I told her I thought no such thing." \
"Good for you. We don't want to make an enemy of her if she turns out to be guilty."
"She said there was a horrible blowup when she fired Sandra. Lots of yelling. She felt that all the workers heard and saw the part where Bitsy ran away in her car with Sandra screaming at her in the front yard. I suppose if that's true, she isn't the guilty party."
Shelley considered this. "Maybe not. Frankly, I can see how they both felt as if they were the injured party. Maybe Bitsy came back for one more round. Maybe she even came back to apologize. Either scenario could have led to a shoving match. It might have been an accident."
"At the top of the basement stairs with the door open?" Jane asked. "And her purse missing?"
"How do we know it's missing? Maybe it skit-
tered away when she fell, or went under the stairs."
"I'm sure the police thought of that, Shelley."
"Hmm. I guess that is unlikely. What about Bitsy's ex-husband?"
"What about him?"
"He obviously had a high level of contempt for her. When he stopped by the house to harass her, it was obvious he knew a lot about what was going on. Maybe he intended to get her into even more trouble by causing a death."
"He seemed the nasty sort who might do so, but would he take such a risk? She was already in enough trouble she'd brought on herself," Jane said, adding, "Have another cookie, please. I'll eat all of them if you don't."
Shelley took an experimental nibble. "They're not bad. So, who else might be responsible? What about Evaline? She didn't like Sandra. She complained about being called 'Ev' as if it were for Everett."
"That's a trivial thing. Not worth killing for. What about the furnace guy? He was really very angry about having to get the rotten shrimp out of the ductwork. And I don't blame him. Such a horrible smell."
"I'd guess furnace guys are used to finding nasty things in ducts," Shelley replied. "Dead possums, squirrels, and such. And it's not as if Sandra weren't going to be hit up for a bigger bill, because it was her fault."
"Sandra wasn't paying the bills. Bitsy was, remember."
"We just keep coming back to Bitsy, don't we?" Shelley asked.
"Yes, we do. I wonder what they actually said to each other. What if Sandra was threatening to sue Bitsy if she were fired? That, on top of all the other expenses, might have put Bitsy over the edge. But there's a lot we don't know."
"Like what?"
"Who else disliked Sandra?" Jane asked. "She, too, has an ex-husband. At least I think so. Wasn't that supposed to be the reason she took her mother's maiden name back?"
"I thought that was so utterly silly, I put it out of my mind. I don't know if she did have a husband. But what about the other workers? Was someone else, besides Wesley the furnace guy, furious about her not keeping the site secure? Maybe valuable tools had been stolen?"
"That, again, would eventually become Bitsy's responsibility," Jane pointed out. "It was really up to her to make sure the doors were locked. She's the owner of the property. It's her insurance company that would have to pay for the tools if they were stolen or damaged."
"Back to Bitsy again. Do you really think she didn't do it herself?"
"I've never liked Bitsy much, but I just can't imagine her killing someone. Can you?"