“That was quite a sacrifice on your part.” I tried to conceal my contempt, since I wanted information from her, but she wasn’t stupid, and she bristled at my words.

I continued hastily. “She’d never stolen anything before she took that necklace, is that right? Did you ever get any sense of what drove her to do that?”

“She was poor and we were rich. What other reason would there be?” She was watching the pool again, but a stiffness in her posture made me think she knew more than that.

“I’m trying to find out who was in her background. If some man who badly needed money was controlling her, or if she had started to use drugs …” I let my words trail away suggestively.

“Yes, that’s it, Eleanor,” the third woman put in eagerly. “She must have known a lot of guys who could have attacked her. Didn’t one of them come out here one weekend?”

“Attack her?” I asked. “Who said anything about that?”

The woman looked toward Eleanor Baladine, or at least moved her dark glasses toward her, and mouthed, “Boo–boo,” then jumped to her feet, squeaking, “Jason and Parnell are getting much too rambunctious. It’s time I got them out of the pool and home. You’re a saint, Eleanor, to let them come over here when you’re trying to coach.”

“What was a boo–boo, ma’am?” I asked. “Letting me know you’d already heard about the attack on Ms. Aguinaldo, even though it hasn’t been made public?”

She laughed. “Oh, me and my big mouth. My husband says he can’t ask me the time of day because I’ll give him a dinner menu instead. I have no idea why that came floating out.”

“And what do you say?” I asked Eleanor Baladine. “Did she tell you about the attack on Ms. Aguinaldo? Or did you tell her?”

“Listen here, Officer Whoosis, I’ve had about all the snooping into my private affairs I’m going to tolerate. Nicola turned out to be the worst kind of immigrant, lying, stealing, filling my son’s head with superstitions. I was frankly glad to see her go to jail. If she escaped and got hurt, well, I hate to say it, but she probably had it coming.”

“I don’t think anyone had these injuries coming. She was murdered. In an extremely foul way. Someone kicked or punched her hard enough to perforate her small intestine, then left her in the road. She died when fecal matter filled her abdomen. It was an unbelievably painful death. If you knew about this before I got here, well, it makes me want to know a lot more about relations between you and your husband and Ms. Aguinaldo.”