Milo pointed at the pink drink. “I know it’s a shock, feel free.”

“Oh … no, thanks.” But she grabbed the glass with both hands, took a long, noisy sip.

“Frozen strawberry margarita?” said Milo.

“Frozen straw-tini … Des is really dead? Omigod, that’s so … I can’t believe it!”

“Tina, anything you can tell us about Des would be really helpful. You and Sheryl both worked with him, right?”

“Uh-huh. At GHC—that’s a architectural firm. Sheryl got me the job.”

“You and Sheryl are old friends.”

“From junior high. We tried out for the army but we changed our mind because of Eye-rack. Instead, we enrolled in JC but we didn’t like it, so we went to ITT to learn computers but we didn’t like that so we switched to business technology at Briar Secretarial. Sheryl got a job right away, she can type fast, but I’m slower so I switched to computer graphics. My dream is to design furniture and draperies but there’s nothing right now so when Sheryl got the job at GHC, she told me they needed a intern, maybe I could get to do design.”

“Did you?”

“Uh-uh, I mostly ran errands, answered the phone when Sheryl was tied up. Which didn’t happen too much. There really wasn’t nothing to do.”

“Was Des working at GHC when you and Sheryl got hired?”

“No, he came later. Like a week later. We said, ‘Finally, a guy.’” Blushing.

“Mr. Cohen’s a guy.”

“He’s old.”

“How old?”

“Like sixty. He’s like a grandpa.”

A voice to our left said, “He is a grandpa, used to bring his rug-rat grandkids in and would go off all day with them.”

Sheryl Passant looked down on us, oracle on the mount.

I got up to let her in. No more ponytail; her blond hair was long and loose and streaming and her glasses were gone.

She slid in. “Why were you talking about Mr. Cohen?”

Bettina Sanfelice said, “We’re talking about Des, Sher. To find out who killed him.”

“Us? What can we tell them?”

Milo said, “For starts, what kind of guy Des was, Sheryl. Did he have enemies, who’d want to hurt him?”

Passant shifted closer. Her thigh pressed against mine. I scooted an inch away. She frowned. Flipped her hair. “Des had no enemies.”

“None at all?”

“Des was really mellow, I can’t see anyone hating him. Not even Helga the Nazi.”

“Helga the Gestapo Girl,” said Sanfelice, giggling, then turning grave. “Sorry, we just… she didn’t treat us good. Just getting our paychecks was a hassle. Sheryl, I mean. I was just an intern so I didn’t get paid at all.”

“Which totally sucked,” said Passant. “You did the same job as me, Teen. You should’ve gotten paid the same as me. Helga sucks.”

Milo said, “Wasn’t the firm a partnership?”