“At first I was panicked. But then, after I thought about it, I calmed down. The kid was eighteen; they couldn’t put me in jail. And so what if I lost her mother as a customer? I had plenty more. And it occurred to me that having everyone know I’d been sleeping with a hot young teenager might lend me a certain air of rakish charm.

“So you see,” he said, smiling smugly, “I had no reason to kill SueEllen.”

“Do you mind my asking where you were the day of the murder?”

“Yeah, I mind. But I’ll tell you anyway, just like I told the police. The day SueEllen was killed I was in Santa Barbara, having lunch with a gallery owner. I’ll give you his card if you want to call him.”

He sounded awfully sure of himself.

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

“I hope that answers all your questions,” he said, opening the front door with a flourish.

“Yes, thanks.”

I walked out of the bungalow with the uneasy feeling that Eduardo was watching me, and headed back to Main Street where I’d parked the Corolla.

When I reached into my purse for my car keys, I discovered something round and warm and wrapped in tin foil. What a pleasant surprise. It was the bagel and cream cheese I’d bought for Mr. Lactose-Intolerant. I could do with a snack. After all, it had been a whole forty-five minutes since I’d last eaten.

So there I sat behind the steering wheel, munching on my bagel and thinking about my meeting with Eduardo. Those paintings of his were truly disturbing. I had no trouble picturing him as the killer. But according to him, he’d been in Santa Barbara at the time of the murder, and had no real motive to kill SueEllen.

Everything he said made perfect sense. But this is the same guy who said his tofu-carob-lecithin shake was delicious. Which puts a bit of a damper on his believability, don’t you think?

I had some time to kill before my appointment with Larkspur, so I stopped off at the bank to deposit Hal’s check. And not a moment too soon. My bank balance was so low, the flowers on my designer checks were beginning to wilt. Until I landed another writing assignment, I’d have to be very careful about how I spent my money. I swore to myself I’d make no frivolous purchases, just the bare necessities.

On my way home, I decided to stop off at Bloomingdale’s—not to buy anything, of course. No, I only went there because I was hoping to run into Ginny. I wanted to see her reaction when I told her that I knew she’d once been engaged to Hal Kingsley. When I got to the hosiery department, though, she was nowhere in sight. And neither was anybody else. I guess you were out of luck if you wanted to buy socks.

I asked a regal redhead in costume jewelry if Ginny was working that day.