There was very little for any of the helpers to do. EMTs rushed to Mimi’s aid, but there was no help to be given. She was obviously dead and they were not allowed to move the body of a crime victim. All the firefighters could do was turn off the oven and set up fans to clear the smoke.

There was no question Mimi had been murdered. As one EMT said, “She sure didn’t do that to herself.”

The rescuers all knew Mimi, who had been a colleague, after all, and a few were obviously struggling with their emotions. One female firefighter, dwarfed by her helmet, coat and boots, was in tears and several cops were stone-faced, staring straight ahead at nothing. Everybody kept a respectful distance, almost as if keeping vigil over her body. Outside, a couple of officers were stringing yellow crime scene tape from the bushes, but there was no crowd to keep back. Nobody was home on Prudence Path this Saturday morning.

Lucy, who had been instructed to wait for the arrival of the state police investigative team, had moved out of the way and was sitting on the deacon’s bench that Mimi had placed on the farmer’s porch just a few weeks earlier. Still feeling somewhat shaky, she was wondering who had done this terrible thing to Mimi. The first person who came to mind was Mimi’s husband. After all, everybody said Fred Stanton had a terrible temper. She remembered the conversation at the Hat and Mitten Fund meeting, when the Prudence Path neighbors had spoken about the way he used to abuse Mimi. Lucy had received some of his abuse herself when he called up and yelled at her to mind her own business that evening when she’d given Tommy that bottle of Gatorade.

“You’re looking very thoughtful. Have you decided who did it?”

Lucy looked up and saw the familiar face of State Police Detective Lieutenant Horowitz. Summer was almost over, but Horowitz wasn’t sporting a tan. He was pale as ever, dressed in rumpled shirt-sleeves and wrinkled gray pants. His thin brown hair was receding and he was wearing wire-rimmed bifocals.

“When did you start wearing glasses?” asked Lucy.

“When they said I’d have to have one contact lens for distance and one for reading. I couldn’t get the hang of switching from one eye to the other.” He sat beside her. “So tell me what happened.”

Lucy told him about Mimi’s absence from the bake sale and how she’d been sent to get her, only to find her with a knife in her back. “It must have been the husband, don’t you think?”

“I think it could have been anybody, including you,” said Horowitz.

“You’re joking, right?”