Vera. She fooled us so skillfully that, when she was murdered, we almost didn’t know it. She’d had me genuinely believing she was running off to see Dave Wooster in San Diego. And she knew full well that if I was the one who had to explain this to Jack, I’d do such a well-intended but inept job that he would realize the supposed truth, consider me to be a loyal friend, and not expect to see Vera until Seattle. Meanwhile, Vera had bribed her way into my hotel room once again and was lying in wait for me, certain that this time I’d have to succumb and spend the night with her. After all, it would have been very difficult for me to call Jack and explain that, although I’d told him an immense lie about Vera going to southern California, and although she was now in my bed, I was blameless in the entire affair.

She’d heard me enter my hotel room, but when she turned on the bedside lamp, she didn’t see me. Instead she saw Russ Hewett, to whom she’d just been introduced in the ballroom, who was planting an incriminating photograph in my dresser drawer. She knew who he was, and he knew she knew. He had to silence her. They struggled, sending furniture flying in every direction, until he finally suffocated poor Vera, lowered her over my windowsill, walked her corpse as if she were drunk around the far side of the hotel up to the parking lot, and stashed her in his car.

No wonder the letter Gail had written to her father was still in Russ’s cigar case when he was found dead. He’d never had the chance to plant it.

And no wonder he had looked so pale and sober and was in need of a stiff bourbon when he came back to the ballroom that evening. He’d just committed an unpremeditated murder.

At least he’d taken away Vera’s pocketbook and her passport within it. Martha had instantly realized how that could serve her.

“Where’d you dispose of Vera’s body?” I asked Martha.

“Mount Diablo,” she replied, without a hint of surprise at my deduction. “Russ and I ditched her in a ravine before we picked up Marie Prasquier. You’ll find Vera there one of these days.”

She looked around, trying to find a way out. She was a professional and as Culpepper took her pocketbook from her, immediately identified her one avenue of escape.