“Not right now. I got my feelers out all over the area. Something’ll turn up soon, you tell her that.”

“Sure, Mike. Thanks.”

Jill left to go on patrol. She’d done what she told Betsy she’d do, bring Betsy’s notions to Mike’s attention. Betsy had offered to come in herself if Jill failed to put them across. But if Mike failed to listen to a fellow cop, he’d be even less likely to listen to Betsy, who tended to get excited.

Besides, Mike was awfully sure about the burglar, and he’d busted a small dope ring running right under everyone’s noses just last winter. So maybe Betsy was wrong.

“He’s the one who’s wrong,” said Betsy.

“Who died and made you Sherlock Holmes?” asked Jill.

“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see something’s wrong,” Betsy argued. “Did you do the other thing I asked you to do?”

“Yes, I did,” replied Jill, with an air of confessing to a crime, which it probably was. “The preliminary autopsy report says she was struck one time from behind, near the base of her skull, with an instrument that was round or rounded and had a nail or spike on it.”

Betsy stared at her. “Round with a spike on it? That sounds like one of those weird medieval weapons you see in museums. Or something Hairless Joe would carry.”

“Hairless Joe?”

“A character in an old comic strip called Li‘l Abner.”

Jill shrugged. “Never heard of it. But that’s what the report said. I didn’t write down the exact words, I was in a hurry in case Mike came back and caught me. But it was clear enough: she was hit once, with something that gave her a roughly circular depressed fracture with a hole in the middle of it. Killed her instantly.” What the report really had said was that Margot had probably lost consciousness immediately and died soon after, but Jill didn’t want to distress Betsy with that information.

Betsy sat silent awhile. They were in the shop, which Jill was glad to see was open for business, seated at the table. Betsy had begun knitting something in red yarn, probably a scarf, and while her hands seemed competent, she had the beginner’s slow and careful movements. Unless she sped up, that scarf would be ready in time for the Fourth of July.

“They didn’t find the murder weapon, did they?” Betsy said, purling twice.

“No. And I can’t think of anything in the store that would have made that shape of a wound. Can you?”

“No.” Betsy thought awhile, then shook her head in confirmation. “No,” she repeated. And after doing that inventory, she knew every item in the store. She looked at her knitting, and knitted the next stitch.

“So he must have brought it with him, and taken it away again,” said Jill.