The answer I had expected. I hung up and turned back to Lolita. “How’d you get KP duty?”

She shrugged. “I don’t feel much like partying. Might as well make myself useful.”

“I’ll help you,” I offered. “What can I do?”

“You could take these glasses out.”

I took a tray of clean glasses out to the bar. Fred was talking to a couple of men I didn’t know, and Sister and Haley were standing at the bay window with Jack and Tammy Berliner. “Lot of guzzling going on out there,” I said when I came back to the kitchen with dirty glasses.

Lolita startled me by suddenly burying her face in the pink-and-white-checked dishcloth and sobbing.

“Here,” I said, taking her arm and leading her to a chair. “Are you sick? Can I get you something? Some water? Aspirin?”

“Oh, God,” she said. She leaned her green head on the table and cried. “They were both such wonderful women.”

I assumed she was talking about Millicent and Emily. I pulled out a chair and sat down.

“More ice,” Jason Marley said, coming into the kitchen with an empty ice bucket. He scooped ice from the ice maker, wiped the bucket with a paper towel, and left, oblivious of the fact that one of the women at his kitchen table was sobbing with her face buried in a dishtowel. I looked at Lolita’s hair. Definitely green. A Chia pet head.

“Tylenol?” I offered.

Lolita shook her head no.

“Did you know you can’t give Tylenol to cats?”

“I don’t have a cat,” Lolita mumbled.

“I don’t either, but my sister does. She has a huge, lazy cat named Bubba that sleeps on a heating pad on her kitchen counter. Terrible fire hazard.”

Lolita lifted her head, but the dishtowel was still pressed against her eyes.

“Probably shouldn’t give them aspirin, either.” I was rambling.

Lolita blew her nose loudly into the dishtowel, which I would personally see went straight to the washing machine, and looked up. Eye makeup was coming off in rivulets, not a pretty sight.

“Blue Bay is the best job I’ve ever had,” she said. “The lots are selling like hotcakes; all we have to do is show them.” She quit talking but I could tell she wasn’t through.

“But?” I encouraged.

“But I think I may have been responsible for Millicent’s death.” Back to the dishtowel. “And she was so good to me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How were you responsible for her death?”

“I was late getting to work.” The words were muffled, but understandable. “Millicent and Emily gave me a birthday party the night before at The Redneck and I overslept. I didn’t get to the office until 9:30, an hour after I was supposed to open up.”

“I still don’t understand.”