We watched Millicent and Emily check turtle nests, picnic with Laura, go sailing. On New Year’s Eve, they partied, Millicent slimmer, blonde, radiant, being dipped by her partner; Laura, Eddie, and Emily raising champagne glasses.

“This is tacky,” Sister whispered into my ear. “I think I’ll go outside.”

In a few minutes I followed her, shutting the door as quietly as possible. The rain had stopped completely, and she had walked out on the Stampses’ pier and was leaning against the railing looking over the bay just as Sophie had done earlier.

“Give me a Kleenex,” she said when I came up.

I reached in my pocket, found one, and tore it in two. “Here.” I handed her half.

“That was awful,” she said, blowing her nose. “I’ve got movies of all my husbands and I wouldn’t dream of showing them like that. The children get them out and look at them sometimes.”

“Your old eight millimeter projector still works?”

“Sort of jerky, but okay.” Sister had missed the dig. Just as well. “Anyway, there’s no way I’d invite people to a party and sit them down to watch my dead husbands, particularly if they hadn’t been dead long. Would you, Mouse? Don’t you think that’s an invasion of the dead person’s privacy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. And I really didn’t. Jason and Fairchild, and maybe others, had obviously found it comforting.

“Well, I think it’s tacky.”

“It’s certainly disconcerting,” I agreed.

“Hello, ladies.” Neither of us had heard Eddie Stamps come up behind us, and we both jumped. “Have you seen the key to my boat?”

“No,” we said together. Then Mary Alice added, “Maybe Fairchild has it, Eddie.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Watching a video.”

Eddie looked puzzled.

“In the pink house,” I added.

We watched him walk down the pier.

“Damn,” Sister said.

“Damn,” I echoed. We stood looking at the water, neither of us mentioning what was foremost in our thoughts, that the man on the video dipping a glowing Millicent had been Jack Berliner.

Finally Sister said, “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Mouse.”

There’s no telling what I would have been accused of if I had said anything.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The sun came out during the afternoon and the trek over the stile began for the beach lovers. Fred had gone down for a long summer’s nap when we got back to the condo, and was still asleep. Haley and Frances were at the outlet mall, and Sister was coloring her hair Summer Marigold (“A New You In Twenty Minutes!”).