“Well, if it isn’t Miss Jaine,” she said. Her Spanish accent was gone, replaced by a Southern drawl.

“Hey, Conchi,” I said, trying not to sound as terrified as I felt. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your Windex.”

Conchi laughed. “That was a nice touch, wasn’t it? Made me look ever so much more servile. And by the way, it’s Carolee, not Conchi.”

“I know.”

“Too bad you found the picture. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to kill you.”

“I think you should know,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering, “that my neighbor can hear everything that goes on in my apartment.

“Lance!” I shouted. “Call the cops! Right now!”

“Nice try, honey. I saw him leave five minutes ago. With a handsome redheaded guy.”

Damn that Jim.

I slumped back down into the tub.

“So you figured out I’m SueEllen’s sister?”

I nodded numbly.

“And I saw Aunt Melanie’s letter on your coffee table, so you probably know about her will, too.”

I nodded again.

“Miserable bitch,” she said. “Always treated me like dirt, because I wasn’t pretty like SueEllen. I’m glad she’s suffering now. If anyone deserves stomach cancer, she does.”

“Is she still alive?”

“Just barely. Any day now, she’s going to kick the bucket. And now that SueEllen isn’t around, I inherit everything. Three million dollars.” She grinned like a kid in a three-million-dollar candy store. “The old bat had to turn a hell of a lot of tricks for three million dollars.”

I blinked in surprise. Aunt Melanie, turning tricks? What was she talking about?

“I thought Melanie was a society lady.”

Conchi had a hearty chuckle over that one.

“Are you kidding? She ran the biggest whore-house south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

So SueEllen had lied about that, too.

“Aunt Melanie had the nerve to actually show me the will. She laughed when she told me she’d be leaving everything to SueEllen. Cheer up, she said. Who knows? Maybe SueEllen will die before I do. And then you’ll get everything.

“Right then and there, I knew I had to get rid of SueEllen. So I bought myself a black wig, went to Berlitz and learned Spanish, and got myself a job working for Mr. and Mrs. Hal Kingsley.

“Me llamo Conchi,” she said, in a mocking singsong Spanish.

“And that’s not the only change I made. I don’t know if you noticed,” she said, preening, “but I’ve lost a lot of weight since that picture.”

In fact, I had noticed.

“Slimfast,” she said. “You should try it. On second thought,” she added, waving the gun, “I guess you won’t have time for that. Anyhow, SueEllen was so damn self-involved, she never even realized I was her own sister.”

I could see how that could happen, how a new head of hair could totally change a person’s appearance. I remembered what my mother said about Daddy, how he looked like a different person with his toupee.

“I wondered why you were always looking down at the ground,” I said. “I thought it was because you were frightened. But that wasn’t it. You just didn’t want anyone to recognize you.”