She looked sick. Her hands were shaking, which frightened me. I got up and looked through the sliding doors at Emily Peacock; sightless eyes stared back at me. A few strands of gray-blonde hair had stuck to her cheek as blood had welled from her temple. Not as much blood as one would have imagined, but God only knew what was on the other side of her head, the side that we couldn’t see. One thing was certain, the essence that had been Emily Peacock was gone. All that was on that sofa was a hull.

I did the decent thing; I went inside, holding my breath as long as I could, and called 911. Then I scooted back to the balcony and Mary Alice.

“The rescue squad is coming.” And, sure enough, just as we had two days before, we heard the sirens again in the distance as the crew left the fire station and headed down Highway 98. “At least this time the body’s not wet. We won’t have to wait on the Marine Patrol.”

Mary Alice shivered but didn’t say anything.

“I think she committed suicide,” I said. “There’s a pistol by her on the sofa.”

Mary Alice looked up. “You saw a pistol?”

“Right by her side.”

“Why would she do that?”

“How should I know? I hardly knew her.” I thought for a moment. “Upset about her best friend Millicent’s death?”

Mary Alice shrugged.

“You feeling any better?” I asked in a moment.

“I guess so. Are you?”

“I wasn’t sick.”

“Just doing your wandering off into never-never land like you always do when there’s an emergency. I swear, Patricia Anne, I don’t know how you raised three children.”

“Hey,” I said. “There’s a big difference in stumped toes and dead bodies. Besides, I don’t drift off into never-never land.”

“Of course you do. It’s like you change channels. Click, here’s the Travel Channel. Doesn’t Alaska look like a fun place! Click, and look how beautiful Greece is.”

“Shut up!”

Mary Alice started rummaging through her purse, which is huge. She confided to me once that a big purse can make you look like you’ve lost twenty pounds. Which is fine. The only problem is that she can never find anything, such as a package of mints.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“A Kleenex. Oh, look what I found.” She held up her tiny cellular phone. “I forgot about this. We could have called 911 from out here. I’m sorry.”

I sighed. The sirens were getting closer. “Maybe you should call Haley and Frances and tell them we’re going to be tied up here a while. Don’t tell them why. Just tell them to go on out to dinner and not wait on us.”

“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing we can do here. As soon as the policemen come, we’ll leave.”