Just as Dolly had feared, the rain had blown in through the broken bay window in the Mickelsons’ dining room, left a puddle on the hardwood floor, and soaked through the large rug under the table besides.

Last night, after six tears had fallen on Byron’s au gratined shirt while Dolly removed the cheese stain, she had gone upstairs to towel dry the windowsills. Even though she and Byron had closed the windows as quickly as they could, some of the sills had still gotten wet, and she was wiping off the sill behind Byron’s chair, where he sat reading the newspaper, when it occurred to her what shape the Mickelson house must be in. The breeze that had been so pleasant the night she had been in the house would translate into awful damage with such a rain.

Though her potato indiscretion had slightly derailed her plan to persuade Byron to look into buying the house, Dolly was confident she could get things back on track. So it was that, after she had finished wiping down the windowsills, she went into the bathroom to freshen up. As always, the sight of the wallpaper made her furious, but she perfumed and fluffed her hair, reapplied her Mum deodorant and her lipstick, put on her best Hollywood starlet nightgown, and then went out to say to Byron, “Are you coming to bed?”

And so it was that, just after noon today—having rushed through the meal planning and food shopping this morning, cheating by stealing the coming week’s menu wholesale off last year’s calendar, the first week in June—she had slung a book bag full of rags and supplies over her shoulder and set out for the Pine Rapids Carnegie Library. At the front desk, she stopped to inquire where the back issues of the Ladies’ Home Journal were, and requested that the stoop-shouldered librarian help her carry a tall stack to a desk in the back corner. “I’ll probably be here all day,” she told the woman. “I’ve got so much catching up to do!” It was a needlessly elaborate ruse, perhaps, but Dolly had read enough Nancy Drew to know that establishing an alibi was never a bad idea.

After the librarian had been gone a few minutes, Dolly left the magazines where they were, picked up her bag, headed down the hall past the restrooms, and slipped outside through the custodian’s door. She knew that Mrs. Fryt always had lunch with the Homemakers’ Club on Wednesdays, but she was still nervous about being spotted. Not wanting to appear suspicious, she made her strides even and purposeful as she walked the few blocks from the library. Then she hurried up the hill and straight in the back door of the Mickelson house.