Jack grunted. Eileen said, "There were people who were opposed to Jack getting out when he did." When I looked at her blankly, Eileen added, "Jack's first wife had a lot of money. Her son is the one who filled her full of wine before she skied off Bighorn Overlook that day. Afterward, he went on and on about how Jack and Fiona weren't getting along. All crap: Arthur wanted my Jack to be liable for Fiona's death. Now the money's all tied up in court. But Jack isn't going to court, because he doesn't want Fiona's money and never did. Only crybaby Arthur doesn't want the million-dollar trust fund Mama set up for him. He wants the nineteen million she left to charity."

"Sheesh!" I said impulsively, then struggled to sort out what Eileen had just told me. Arthur? "You say: Fiona's son filled her full of booze before she went out? Do the cops know this?"

There was a silence. Finally Jack said, "Fiona was drinking wines offered in a sampling by her son. He lives in Killdeer and is a wine expert. You're working with him in the show. Arthur Wakefield. You probably saw how he gave us the cold shoulder yesterday morning.

"Arthur Wakefield? You were his stepdad?" I was stunned. What if I had to work in close proximity with a relative of The Jerk's? Say that relative hated me? How would I cook, much less be a chef?

Jack shook his head. "Forget stepdad. We weren't even friends. Arthur showed up at my parole hearing, I claimed he hadn't been able to sleep since his mother died, that he brooded about her death all the time, and so on, which wasn't true, if you judged by the fact that he never even came to our wedding, or called Fiona more than three times in the year before she died - "

"Oh, Goldy, I hate to bother you with our problems," Eileen interrupted in a rush. "It's just that we've been so upset. . . Look at this." She handed me a photocopied clipping from a Denver newspaper. "It's long. You can skip to the end if you want."

But I never skip to the end. I'd signed too many contracts to know the perils of that particular shortcut. I took a fortifying sip of coffee and began reading a letter to the editor that was headlined:

Kangaroo Court or Porkers' Parole?