“Shhhhit,” she whispered, with the t breaking off like one of the sharp icicles hanging from their house. She’d just inadvertently created an opportunity for Marilyn.

Once Betty’s father had been elected mayor, everyone seemed to need a favor from her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t secretly enjoy the added influence she had over certain people, but when she wasn’t in the mood for it, it was an annoyance. Marilyn Dean had been pestering and pressuring Betty to talk her father into appointing her husband, Farley, as Wooster’s director of finance. Betty tapped a manicured index finger, Revlon’s Fire & Ice red, on the side table and stared at the telephone. Should she call Marilyn back and cancel? No. No, of course she shouldn’t cancel. What was she thinking? Goodness, that was selfish. It was Christmastime! And Marilyn had sounded more overwrought than usual. She most likely just needed to unwind after the Christmas Day chaos familiar to anyone with a houseful of overstimulated, sugar-soaked children. Little Bitty and Charles Junior had been so carried away with their new Mr. Potato Head kit, they’d poked holes in half the potatoes Dolly had meant for the au gratin dish. She’d had to run next door and borrow some from the Talbots. Betty had no doubt that Marilyn had had a similarly harried and chaotic day, but, just in case . . .

Betty had prepared herself to ambush Marilyn with the Vivian Dalton gossip as soon as she came through the door. But, to her surprise, Marilyn had burst through the door with her own crisis, desperate to talk, and it didn’t have anything to do with the director of finance position. Betty hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise, as Marilyn went on and on about how Farley had spent the morning with her and the children, and then claimed to have something important to do at the office.

“And so he just left,” she said. “Left the house on Christmas Day, to go into the office?”

Betty shook her head slowly and swirled her Manhattan around in the glass.

“He’s an accountant. What accounting emergency could be happening on Christmas Day, that couldn’t be handled on any other day? Hmm?”

Betty picked up the bottle of whiskey and topped off Marilyn’s glass.

“Another cherry, dear?”

Marilyn nodded.

“It’s not as if he’s the sheriff, or even a local policeman. He’s also not a doctor.”

“No,” Betty agreed with her.

She thought that if Marilyn was going to mention the director of finance position, that would have been her cue. He’s also not the mayor, and speaking of your father . . . But Marilyn missed the obvious segue, and continued to propel the conversation forward, harping on her personal suspicions about Farley. Betty settled back into the floral-print davenport, and continued to half listen. The liquor cart was within arm’s reach.

“But what really worries me”—Marilyn took a large slug of her drink—“is that I found his checkbook, sitting open on the desk in his study. Do you know how much he gave his secretary this year for a Christmas bonus?”