Sue smiled. “Sid, Lucy and Bill need drinks,” she called, sounding as if she were addressing a hired waiter. She turned to Sara and Zoe. “Girls, there’s soda and snacks in the TV room, and I got the new Hilary Duff video for you.”

Zoe, Lucy was happy to see, made a polite display of enthusiasm but Sara looked disgruntled as she clumped into the house. “She’s at an awkward age,” she told Sue, by way of apology.

“Too old for Hilary Duff?”

“She certainly thinks she is,” said Lucy, taking a sip of the cocktail that had miraculously appeared in her hand. “She thinks R ratings are ridiculously unfair.”

“Talk about ridiculously unfair—I can’t believe you managed to get out of working at the bake sale.”

“I found Mimi’s body,” Lucy reminded her. “It wasn’t exactly a picnic.”

“Oh, right, I forgot,” said Sue, drifting into the kitchen.

Put off by Sue’s callous attitude, Lucy didn’t follow her but took a chair on the deck, next to Toby. “So what are you guys up to?” she asked, setting her drink down on a little white plastic table. It was too sweet for her taste.

“We started house hunting,” said Molly, tucking her long blond hair behind one ear. “Toby’s had a really good summer fishing and we’ve saved enough for a down payment.”

“That’s great,” said Lucy, hoping that assuming a mortgage together might be the spur the couple needed to get married. “Where are you looking?”

“Anywhere and everywhere,” said Toby. “Trouble is, prices are rising faster than we can save.”

“It’s true,” nodded Molly. “Even with what we’ve got we’re worried we won’t qualify for a mortgage. It’s the monthly payments—plus Toby’s income falls in the winter.”

“I ought to do a story on this for the paper,” said Lucy. “How rising prices are locking young people out of the housing market.”

“It isn’t just prices,” said Sid. “It’s all these regulations. Young folks can’t just buy an old fixer-upper like we did and take their time renovating it. Now you can’t even get a mortgage on a house unless its septic system is up to code—that adds a good five or ten thousand to the cost.”

Lucy thought of the years she’d struggled with a failing cesspool, carefully timing baths and flushes and pumping the washing machine water out a hose running through a window into the back yard. She’d never get away with that now, especially with a nosy neighbor like Mimi. Then she remembered that Mimi was gone, murdered, and finished off her drink.

“Let me get you another,” said Sid, hopping to his feet as Sue appeared with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

“Be sure to try the mini spanikopita,” said Sue. “They’re yummy.”