“No harm done.” She smiled again. “I’m Tammy Berliner. I live down the hall.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Tammy. I’m Patricia Anne Hollowell, Mary Alice Crane’s sister.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Mrs. Hollowell. I’ve heard her talk of you.”

“Don’t believe a word. And call me Patricia Anne, please.” I motioned to the pizza. “You on your way next door?”

She nodded. “I can’t believe this has happened. Can you?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t. We’ve known Millicent for twenty years, the nicest person you’d ever meet. Fairchild, too.”

“I know. Can you knock on the door for me?”

I did, and Laura Stamps answered. My first thought, as usual when I see Laura, and which I had the decency to feel guilty about, was that it was a shame they hadn’t invented sunscreen years ago. Laura’s tanned, leathery skin looked like a mask this morning. With cracks in it.

“Come in,” she said, taking the dish from Tammy and nodding toward the living room. “Fairchild’s in there.”

“How is he?” I asked.

“More hungover from what that fool doctor gave him last night than anything else.” Laura disappeared into the kitchen.

“That’s breakfast pizza, Laura,” Tammy called. “It’s for eating right now if anybody wants some.”

It sounded good to me. I hadn’t had anything but a cup of coffee but didn’t feel comfortable diving into his food without speaking to Fairchild first. So I stepped into his living room where women were perched everywhere, on the arms of the sofa, on the footstool; those young and thin enough were sitting on the floor. Fairchild sat in his recliner, looking dazed. Or panicked.

“Hey, Fairchild,” I said, stepping over several women to kiss him on the cheek. Mary Alice’s cryptic message had suddenly become clear. “I came to get you. There’s a policeman next door who wants to talk to you.”

He looked up in surprise. “Now?”

“He can wait if you can’t come now.” I looked straight at him and saw him catch on.

“I’ll come.” He came up out of the recliner with an agility that was amazing in a man his age. “Right now.”

“Good,” I said. Nobody seemed to think it strange that a policeman would be next door to question Fairchild, and no one saw me grab the breakfast pizza on our way out.

“Thanks, Patricia Anne,” he said as I opened Sister’s door.

“You’re welcome. You want anything to eat?”

“I just want to go to the bathroom and rest a while.”

“Well, we can arrange that. There’s the bathroom and you can take a nap on Mary Alice’s bed.” He seemed to brighten a little at that idea.