Patrice shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Ben doesn’t discuss the kids in his school with anybody but me. He got burned years ago when he did that and somebody in the group was the kid’s uncle. It got ugly.” She stopped. Gave Rena a smile.

This was going nowhere fast. She should probably just admit defeat and go back to Baywood. “Thank you for your—”

“We might have talked about the foundation,” Patrice said.

“Foundation?” Rena repeated.

“The Corrine Antler Foundation. I guess when Corrine went missing, donations poured in. The family set up a foundation with the money. On the fifth year of Corrine’s disappearance, they paid for a new playground at the local park. Just recently, when it was the tenth anniversary, they donated money so that ten high school kids, kids who were in Corrine’s kindergarten class, could go on a field trip to Washington, DC.”

Rena could almost feel her blood pressure go up. “And you think this was discussed at Melissa Wayne’s cookout.”

“I think so. I can’t remember the specifics but it was a pretty impressive thing for the Antler family to do.”

“Can you recall anything specifically that Alice Quest might have said?”

“Somebody said that it was a cool thing for the family to do in that nobody would have known if they’d taken the money for a nice long family vacation. That might have been Alice.” She shrugged apologetically. “We had some wine. Things can get a little fuzzy.”

It was enough to know that Alice Quest had been in Dover in July and that there had been some conversation about Corrine Antler. Rena had her hand on the door when she turned.

“Does your husband like teaching?” she asked.

“Uh...yeah. I think so. I mean, it’s all he’s ever done.”

“My husband is going back to school to become a teacher,” Rena said, feeling as if she owed the woman an explanation. “After fifteen years in another career. That he didn’t hate,” she added.

“Then he must really want to do it.” She paused. “But you’re not as enthusiastic about the change.”