The three of us were silent for a moment. Fairchild took a puff of his cigar and coughed. Smoke drifted up slowly toward the light and joined the humidity in forming a halo.

“She was a wonderful lady, Fairchild,” Fred said. “She’ll be missed.”

Fairchild nodded and puffed on his cigar. “The police think I killed her,” he said matter-of-factly. “Her and Emily Peacock, too. Tried to make it look like Emily did it and committed suicide.” He puffed. “But that would have been stupid. What reason would Emily have had to kill Millicent?”

Fred squeezed my hand. “They can’t believe that, Fairchild.”

“Sure they do. They always suspect the husband first, you know that. And I’m a rich man now. The insurance and property. Even the condo here.” He gestured back over his head.

“But Fairchild, you’re not the only one who gained financially by Millicent’s death. Everybody in the Blue Bay Ranch Corporation came out way ahead. What about the Stampses and Jason Marley? Not only did they come out ahead on Millicent’s death, but on Emily’s, too.”

He rubbed his eyes under his glasses and then straightened the glasses back on his nose. “The police have questioned them, but not like they have me. I spent the whole damn afternoon at the sheriff’s department trying to explain about a stupid argument Millicent and I had at Albert’s Fish Market the other day. And I do mean stupid. I wanted to order a fried seafood platter, you know one of those for two people? And Millicent said absolutely not, that my cholesterol was off the charts already. Anyway, I got ticked off and said something like, ‘By God, I’ll eat what I want to.’ You know how that goes. And she said something like, ‘Okay, Fairchild, kill yourself if you want to, but you’re not going to kill me.’ She wasn’t angry, didn’t even raise her voice. Just ordered a salad. Anyway, the sheriff claims I was heard threatening to kill Millicent.” Fairchild rubbed his eyes again. “Can you believe that? It’s almost funny.”

“They’re grabbing at straws, Fairchild,” I said.

“What about these other people?” Fred asked. “Eddie and Laura Stamps and—”

“Jason Marley,” I supplied.

“Jason’s a wreck. Not only is he torn up about both women’s deaths, but he’s blaming himself for not following up on where Emily was when he didn’t hear from her. He just assumed everything was okay.”

“What about Eddie?” I questioned. I wondered if Laura had told Fairchild about the threatening phone call. Probably, I decided. And I didn’t think now was the time for Fred to hear about it.