“An ID was found on the path near her bike. Elisa Vandersteel, twenty-three years old from the UK. Of course that’s if it’s the dead lady’s. I’m guessing it probably is,” Marino says, and my mood sinks lower. “I’m told the picture looks sort of like her, for what it’s worth. And I just pulled up in front of the Faculty Club. You coming out?”

“Where in the UK?” I almost don’t want to ask.

“London, I think.”

“Do you know what kind of shoes she had on?” I envision the cyclist’s off-white Converse sneakers, and I’m pretty sure I caught a peek of bike socks, the kind that are below the ankle.

“Her shoes?” Marino asks as if he didn’t hear me right.

“Yes.”

“Got no idea,” he says. “Why?”

“I’ll see you in a minute,” I reply.

CHAPTER 10

I STEP AWAY FROM THE front door, pausing by the antique entryway table with its big flower arrangement.

Inside the drawing room Benton is discreetly tucked to one side of a window near the baby grand piano. He’s on the phone, his face hard and somber. There’s nobody else inside with him, and I wish I could tell him about the woman on the bicycle. He saw her too, and now the worst may have happened.

But I don’t get any closer. I know when not to disturb him, and I notice that Mrs. P is back at her station, her round old-fashioned glasses staring at me. As I glance at her she quickly looks down and begins to open menus, checking the printed pages inside. I can tell she senses something is wrong.

I can’t hear what Benton is saying to whoever he’s on the phone with, but I get the impression based on his tone that he’s not talking to the same person he was a moment earlier. I catch his eye and indicate I have to go, and he nods. Then he turns away. He doesn’t place his hand over his phone to ask what’s happening or offer what might be going on with him. And that makes me wonder if we really are being contacted about the same case.

But I don’t see how that would be feasible. At this stage there’s no reason I can think of for the FBI to be interested in a local death, possibly of a young woman from London named Elisa Vandersteel. But it’s disturbing that Marino mentioned the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol. I don’t know why he did or if I might have misheard. But I can’t stop thinking of the cyclist with the blue helmet and Converse sneakers who called me the peanut-butter-pie lady.