“I don’t know. I know she has one, she called it her nag and said she’d be lost without it. But I bet when you find it, all it will have on it for that day is that trip to the art museum, and the city-council meeting that night.”

Betsy nodded; she didn’t remember an appointment book in Margot’s purse, but she hadn’t been looking for one; she’d check again as soon as she got home. Meanwhile: “Who did Margot have a fight with lately?”

“How lately?”

“Jill ...” Betsy made two tired syllables of the name. “Forever, okay? Who had she ever been really mad at?”

Jill sighed. “Godwin, for making fun of her. That was years ago, when he thought she was just messing around with her committees. Shelly for gossiping. And Hud, of course.”

“Why ‘Hud of course’?”

“It’s a long story. He never was a big fan of hers, you know. Maybe because she was on the board of directors of his precious museum, and she disagreed with him at board meetings once in a while. She took her position on the board very seriously, you know. And she was very bright. Hud likes women who flirt with him and let him have all the ideas. Especially if they’re rich.”

“Like me, I suppose?” Betsy heard the edge in her voice but couldn’t help it. She was tired, too. It was late and she’d had a busy day.

“Well, maybe it’s more that he gets along better with women who don’t have any power over him,” Jill conceded. “Because I think he likes you, so he must like some women with brains.”

“But he really didn’t like Margot,” Betsy persisted, “just because she was on the art-museum board and therefore his boss?”

Jill took a deep drink of her coffee; she was working a double shift because a colleague was ill. “That’s not all of it. Hud’s second wife used to be Margot’s best friend, and when he dumped her for the woman who became the third Mrs. Earlie, Margot was furious. Eleanor—that’s the second wife—moved away, and Margot was depressed about that. And when the third marriage broke up after only six months, she was even madder at Hud. Every so often he’d try to be friends with Margot, and she’d get mad all over again at him.”

“I suppose she thought it might have been better if Hud had just had an affair,” Betsy heard herself say, and was surprised at the defensive tone. Did she like Hud that much? She rubbed the underside of her nose with a forefinger and caught Jill’s sardonic look. Or was she amused? Betsy still had trouble reading that enigmatic face.

Jill said, “I think this time she was mad because he and you seemed to have hit it off.”