“We couldn’t tell,” said Candy. “Polly never made the bed except when she put fresh sheets on. But she didn’t make coffee, either. Usually the first person up starts it. The pot was still sitting on the drain board when I got up.

“I didn’t see her on the lot today,” Tally said.

“What about last night, then?” said Richards.

“She was here.” Tally gestured to a nearby lawn chair. “Sam had gone to pick up some plush and—”

“Plush?”

“Stuffed toys for prizes. We drew a bigger crowd this weekend than we expected so Sam drove down to Florida to bring back enough to keep us going through Kinston next week.”

“I see.”

“After we closed up last night, we sat out here and talked awhile.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me, the girls, Polly, my son Val, only he went to bed around twelve-thirty. My husband was already in by then, too. Windy Raines, Skee Matusik, and a couple of the independents came by for a beer. Windy and Skee left right before I went in around one. Polly was still here then, right, Eve?”

“We all turned in about then, but Polly said she wasn’t sleepy yet. She was going to read awhile at the table.”

“Yeah,” said Tasha. “That’s right. I remember waking up around four to go to the donniker and the light was still on out here and her magazine was turned down on the table. She’d left the door unlocked, too. Her door was closed, so I turned off the light and locked the door before I crawled back in my bunk.”

“You were gone a long time,” said Candy. “I needed to go, too, and I thought you were never going to come back.”

“Sorry,” Tasha said tightly. “You should’ve come and knocked. I took Polly’s magazine in with me and I guess I lost track of the time.”

“Who didn’t like her?” Richards asked.

“Nobody,” Eve said flatly, and the others murmured prompt agreement, closing ranks against the law.

“She was like a mother to us,” said Kay, beginning to sniffle again.

“What about you, Mrs. Ames?”

“This was the first season she’d worked with us,” Tally said. “Far as I know, she got along with everybody.”

I took a swallow of my beer and kept my face completely blank. Tally was family now, wasn’t she?

“How did she die?” Tally asked, going on the offensive.

“We’re not sure yet if it was suicide or murder,” the deputy said frankly.

“Suicide?” gasped Kay.

Richards nodded. “Does that seem unlikely to you?”

“Well...,” said Eve. “She had been a little quieter than usual, didn’t you think?”

Candy nodded. “Like she had more on her mind than making her nut.”

“I didn’t notice,” Kay said tearfully.

Tasha was skeptical. “Even if she was worried about something, she wouldn’t off herself. She’d either stomp whoever was messing her over or get somebody else to do it.”

Stomp was probably not her best choice of words given the work shoes that sturdy woman had worn, and I about strangled on my beer.