"Are you okay?" I asked gently.

She shook her head, then sat down in one of the boudoir chairs, head drooping, shoulders slumped. "I think you may have been right, dear."

I sat down opposite her. "Right about what?"

"I just got an E-mail from Alice Tjarks back home. You remember the other day when you asked how Bernice lost all her money? Well, you put a bee in my bonnet, so I sent a message to Alice, tellin' her what all's been happenin' here, and I asked real casual-like if she knew why Bernice was in the financial straits she's in now." Her head drooped lower.

Unh-oh. "Did she?"

Nana nodded. "The way Alice tells it, Andy was doin' financial plannin' back in the early eighties, and one a the portfolios he managed was Bernice's. But he didn't give her real good advice. Told her to put all her eggs in one basket. Real estate. 'Buy farmland,' he tells her. 'It's worth a mint.' So she buys the land and the next thing you know, the government reduces grain subsidies and the price a land bottoms out. She lost everythin'. What was worse, at the same time Andy's tellin' her to buy, he's sellin' off the land he'd bought years earlier. So he ends up rollin' in dough while Bernice can't rub two dimes together. When she caught wind a what he done, she marched into his office and told him she didn't care what she had to do, or how long it took, but one day, she'd see he got his comeuppance."

"No!"

"Yes."

"How did Alice know all this?"

"She was the file clerk in Andy's office. She was right there when it happened. And I trust her memory, Emily. She's secretary a the Legion a Mary, and she remembers so good, she don't even have to take notes at the meetin's to write the minutes."

I leaned back in my chair, stunned. Even though I'd suspected Bernice, it didn't delight me to know my suspicions had been on target.

"You was right, dear, and I was wrong. All along I figured she wanted to visit Switzerland 'cause she was a little jealous I was goin', but thinkin' back, she didn't get real fired up to go 'til she seen the entire list. The one with Andy's name on it. She signed up 'cause of Andy, not 'cause a me."

Nana looked so miserable, I suddenly found myself defending Bernice. "But how did she get hold of dimethyl sulfate?"

She boosted herself out of her chair, crossed the room to her computer, and hit a few keys. I walked up behind her and read the text that appeared on the screen. "'Zwerg Chemical and Industrial Supply Company. Ames, Iowa.' Oh my God! Is that her son? He owns a chemical company?"

Nana nodded. "I never would a checked if I didn't get that E-mail from Alice."

"But when would Bernice have slipped Andy the poison? I can't recall her ever being around Andy, and you said she never even spoke to Shirley."