Any one of them could have done it. And yet, I couldn’t let go of my Teenage Prank theory. And that’s when I remembered Brad’s girlfriend Amber, or—as I preferred to think of her—Bathtub Barbie.

Was she the one who strolled up my path last night? Had she been acting on Brad’s orders? Was Brad sitting out in the Ferrari waiting for her while she dropped the dryer in my tub?

Nah, I didn’t think so. Amber wasn’t the kind of girl to take chances for somebody else. The only person Amber would risk her neck for was Amber.

Then I remembered what Eduardo said about having an affair with a teenager. What if he was telling the truth, and that young girl was Amber? Hadn’t I seen her flirting with him at Heidi’s birthday party?

And what if it hadn’t been Brad she’d been waiting for that night in the bathtub—but Eduardo? What if they were having an affair and SueEllen found out about it? Then, when SueEllen threatened to tell Amber’s mom, maybe Amber killed her to shut her up.

An interesting theory, all right. Now all I had to do was prove it.

I was feeling quite proud of my Sherlock Holmesian powers of deduction when I abruptly found myself ankle-deep in water. I’d been so busy playing detective, I hadn’t noticed a wave breaking high on the shore. My feet were soaked. I bet this kind of stuff never happened to Sherlock.

Luckily I was wearing a pair of ratty old tennis shoes. I plucked the seaweed from my sweatpants and straggled back up to the Corolla. Then I turned on the heater and headed south to Ocean Park. As long as I was at the beach, I might as well swing by Eduardo’s to see if I could find out if Amber was, indeed, his teenage lover.

I found a parking spot on Main Street, and made my way to Eduardo’s bungalow, my sneakers squishing with every step. I showed up just in time to see a woman in sexy capris and a tight spandex T-shirt walking inside. Her back was toward me, so I couldn’t see her face.

I could see her hair, though. It was sleek and shiny.

And blonde.

I watched the blonde disappear inside the bungalow, my heart racing. Something told me I had just stumbled onto SueEllen’s killer.

Much to my disappointment, it didn’t look like Amber. From what I’d seen of Amber in the bathtub, she wore a size 2, max. This gal had a bit more meat on her bones. Could it be Larkspur? Ginny? Denise? Could one of them have been partners with Eduardo in a plot to kill SueEllen?

Maybe it was some other blonde I didn’t even know about. The world seemed to be teeming with blondes who wanted SueEllen out of the way. Or maybe my heart was racing in vain. Maybe it was just one of Eduardo’s many lovers, come for a mid-morning tryst.