The towel had slipped from my head. He looked at me, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. “Good God, Mary Alice. What have you done to Patricia Anne?”

“She did it to herself, you old fool.”

Somewhere in the ensuing scene, Major Bissell let himself out and I went into the bathroom to assess the damage. Actually, I decided, my hair wasn’t too bad. No color known to man, but as it dried, it was slipping back into its natural curls. I scrunched it up and a new me, as promised, looked back from the mirror.

“I’ll go to the drugstore for you, honey,” Fred said, looking in the door. “Just tell me what to get.”

“Get me a dark brown eyebrow pencil.”

“What?”

“Mauve eyebrows won’t do with this red hair.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re not going to keep that hair color.”

“Just through twenty-four shampoos.”

Mary Alice looked over Fred’s shoulder. “Maybe, Mouse, you ought to let Fred get you some drabber. That’ll tone the color down some.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I looked in the mirror and grinned. “And don’t call me Mouse.” There was power in that hair.

“Yo! Mama!” Haley said when they came in. “Come out here, Frances. You’ve got to see this.”

“What?” Frances stuck her head out the balcony door. “Wow, Patricia Anne! Is that a wig?”

“It’s Summer Marigold.” I turned so they could get the whole effect.

Haley came over and looked at my hair closely. “What did Papa say?”

“He offered to go to the drugstore for me.”

Frances leaned over for a closer look. “It’ll tone down when the dye wears off your scalp. Especially around your hairline. That’s kind of red.”

“I sort of like it,” I said.

“It gives you a rakish look.” Haley grinned. “Papa blamed Aunt Sister for it, didn’t he?”

“Like I never had a thought of my own.”

“Where are they? Papa and Aunt Sister?”

“Your Papa is walking down the beach trying to get over the shock, and Aunt Sister is over at Fairchild’s.”

“Is he okay?” Frances asked.

“Far as I know. Major Bissell was here asking some more questions.”

“What about?”

I told them about the earrings, how Lolita had found one and been afraid to get involved, and that Sophie had had the other one, claiming Millicent had given it to her.

“I remember those earrings,” Haley said. “I remember wondering if they were real gold and how heavy they were.”

“He wanted to know if Millicent had them on the morning she stopped by here. The morning she was killed. I told him she didn’t.”

“She could have pulled them off because they were bothering her and put them in her purse,” Frances suggested.

“Or her pocket.” Haley leaned forward in her chair. “They could have fallen out of her pocket easily if someone attacked her.”