“Of course. We haven’t seen nearly enough of her lately. Reed’s self-destructive ex-wife, who blames him for all her problems.”

“Justifiably,” Lori pointed out.

“Then there’s Vicki, the woman scorned. Jeffrey, the cuckolded husband.” She grinned. “And the rest of the usual suspects.”

“Okay. What kind of poison?”

“Something rare,” Bess mused. “Maybe Oriental. I’ll work on it.” She scribbled a reminder on a notepad. “So they all have a motive for killing him. Even the housekeeper, because he seduced her naive, innocent daughter, then cast her aside. Sometime during the party, we see a glass of champagne. The room’s in shadows. Close-up on a small black vial. A hand pours a few drops into the glass.”

“We’ll see if it’s a man or woman.”

“The hand’s gloved,” Bess decided, then realized how ridiculous it would be to wear gloves at a cocktail party. “Okay, okay, we don’t see it at the party. Before. There’s this box, see? This ornately carved wooden box.”

“And the gloved hand opens it. Candlelight flickers off the glass vial as the hand removes it from the bed of velvet.”

“That’s the ticket. We’ll cut to that kind of thing three or four times during the week of the party. Let the audience know it’s bad business for somebody.”

“Meanwhile, Reed’s playing everyone like puppets. Handing out his personal brand of misery, building the pressure to the boiling point, until it explodes on the night of the party.”

“It’ll be great,” Bess assured her. “Throughout the evening, Reed’s enjoying himself stirring up old fires, poking at sores. Miriam has too much to drink and gets sloppy and shrill. This provides the perfect distraction for our killer to doctor Reed’s champagne. Because it’s slow-acting, the symptoms don’t begin to show right away. We have some fatigue, a little dizziness, some minor pain. Maybe a rash.”

“I like a good rash,” Lori agreed.

“By the time he kicks off, it’ll be difficult for the cops to pinpoint the time and place when the poison was administered. We just might have the perfect crime.”

“There is no perfect crime.”

Both Bess and Lori glanced toward the doorway. Alex stood there, his hands tucked in his pockets. There was a half smile on his face, a result of his enjoyment at listening to them plotting a murder. “Besides, if your TV cop didn’t figure it out, your viewers would be pretty disappointed.”

“He’ll figure it out.” Bess reached for another almond as she watched him, her bare feet propped on the chair beside her. Alex discovered that the baggy slacks she wore effectively hid her legs but didn’t stop him from thinking about them. “Did somebody call a cop?” she asked Lori.

“Not me.” Well aware that three was most definitely a crowd, Lori rose. “Listen, I’ve got to make a call, and I think I’ll run up and peek in on the taping. Nice to see you, Detective.”

“Yeah.” He shifted so that Lori could get through the door, but he didn’t step inside. Instead, he glanced around, annoyed with himself for feeling so awkward. “Some place,” he said at length.