That’s when Kate decided Elsie Hawkins was okay. Elsie called it as she saw it, right up front. She’d pay her rent on time. She’d keep her room clean. And she wouldn’t have a lot of parties. Anyone that honest couldn’t have many friends.

“So what really happened here,” Elsie said. “How’d you get that hole in your ceiling?”

Kate slid her feet into slippers and wrapped a furry pink bathrobe around herself. “I told you. It was part of a helicopter.”

“Get out.”

“Really.”

Elsie took a doughnut from the bag. “So why did it fall on your roof?”

Kate belted the robe and went downstairs. “Guess I was just lucky.”

“You sure it wasn’t dropped on your house on purpose?”

“That’s crazy.” Her voice reflected more conviction than she actually felt. She couldn’t think of a single person who would want to do such a thing, but she had to admit, it was a bizarre accident.

“Well, it seems kind of strange to me that a big old chunk of helicopter would all of a sudden drop off and fall through your roof. They check those things. They get out there and they kick those wheels before they take off. No sir, I bet this was no accident.”

“The FAA is investigating,” Kate said.

“Hah, a lot they’ll find out. They’ll come back and tell you they don’t know whose plane it was. You wait and see. Remember last year when that little plane went down in northern Virginia? They said they couldn’t identify the pilot. That’s because he was a spy. Washington’s crawling with spies.”

Elsie sat on a kitchen chair. She sat ramrod straight, her shiny black purse perched on the lap of the royal blue coat, her hands folded on top of the purse. “You aren’t a spy, are you?” she asked Kate.

“Nope. I’m a cellist.” She put a pot of water on the stove to boil and set a jar of instant coffee on the table. “Hope you don’t mind instant. Anatole took the coffeemaker.”

Dave didn’t mind instant as long as he could watch Kate move around the kitchen in her fuzzy pink robe. Most of the women he knew would have rushed off to the bathroom to comb their hair and put on lipstick, but Kate obviously felt comfortable being rumpled. He liked that. She’d be the kind of woman who’d cuddle with you long into the night, not caring about wrinkled sheets or the tangles in her hair.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this cup of coffee,” Elsie said. “I’m not one of them kaffeeklatsch women. Don’t expect me to be sociable like this all the time. I haven’t got all day to sit around drinking coffee. I’ve got a job.”