I eyed her steadily. “Chrissie Pichea and Vinnie Buttone have gone around the neighborhood offering people financial advice. They may have persuaded her to buy those bonds.”

“I’m sure anything Chrissie did was with the best intentions. I know you two girls haven’t seen eye-to-eye on Hattie’s dogs, but Chrissie’s a very good-hearted neighbor. If she sees me struggling with my groceries she always races over to help me get them into the house.”

I smiled, trying to keep hostility out of my face as well as my voice. “She probably thought she was doing Mrs. Frizell a good turn, getting her to trade in her CDs for something that would pay much better. Has she ever offered you a similar deal?”

Mrs. Tertz was so loath to discuss the matter that I began to worry that she and her husband had sunk their savings into Diamond Head junk as well. As we continued to talk, though, it became clear that all she wanted to do was protect Chrissie.

“I’m sure Chrissie is a wonderful person,” I said earnestly. “But she may not be very experienced with risky investments. I’ve been investigating financial fraud for almost ten years now. Someone could have—have pulled the wool over her eyes, so to speak—persuaded her they had a great product for old people. And in her desire to help her neighbors she might not have had the experience to see there was something wrong with the product.”

It sounded too thick to me, but Mrs. Tertz was relieved to think that “you girls” only wanted to help each other out. Telling me she’d just be a minute she disappeared back into the murky air of her house.

I wandered to the porch door and looked out at the yard. Either she or her husband shared the neighborhood mania for gardening: the tiny square of grass was lined with weed-less flower beds on one side and vegetables on the other. My father had liked to garden, too, but I hadn’t inherited a longing to dig around in the ground.

Mrs. Tertz returned after about ten minutes, her face flushed and her gray curls changed into tiny corkscrews by the humidity. She held out a flyer to me.

“I tried to call Chrissie to make sure she wouldn’t mind me showing it to you, but I couldn’t get hold of her. So I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

My throat constricted with tension. That’s what I needed all right—for Chrissie to pop in at this moment. Although I’d already tipped my hand to Vinnie Buttone. What difference did it make if Mrs. Tertz called Chrissie?

I took the brochure from Mrs. Tertz’s unwilling fingers and flipped through its four sides. She wouldn’t let me borrow it, even for the afternoon, so I studied it carefully while she breathed over my arm.