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  “I didn’t even know you were back in town,” Molly said. “The last I knew you were on a mountaintop in Tibet.”

  “That was last month. I’ve been in Brazil since then. I wanted to see the rain forest before it all vanished. I got back late yesterday afternoon. I’ve been asleep ever since.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Molly said. Just the recounting of Liza’s frequent adventures exhausted her, even as they fascinated her. In another life, devoid of parental expectations and coming-out parties, she would have enjoyed such an impetuous, daring existence. “I’m glad you’re back. I really need your advice.”

  “Not until you tell me everything that happened Tuesday night, and I do mean everything. I ran into Rhea Wilson downstairs. She said Allan Winecroft was stabbed to death and that you’re a prime witness.”

  As Liza listened, she grabbed Molly’s untouched mound of tuna salad and wolfed it down. Her expression reflected her increasing astonishment as Molly concluded, “Which makes me a possible suspect.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Liza said finally. “It’s ridiculous. Anyone who knows you knows you’re incapable of murder.”

  “Detective O’Hara doesn’t know me. Besides, he doesn’t seriously consider me a suspect even though my fingerprints are all over the weapon. At least, he says he doesn’t. I’m sure he’s just trying to keep an open mind. I guess if you’re a policeman you can’t afford to dismiss anyone too early in an investigation.”

  “He’s wasting his time on you,” Liza declared loyally. “But you do have a point. If no one else turns up, it would be just like them to take the easy way out and arrest you. I guess we’d better come up with an alternative. Tell me again exactly who was there for the bridge game?”

  “Here, I’ve made a list.” She shoved the paper across the table, grateful to have an ally. “Allan and Drucilla. They played against Roy Meeks and me. Tyler Jenkins and his wife played the Davisons. I didn’t know the two couples at the third table. I think one of the women owns a boutique in the Square, the one with all the Italian designs that can only be worn if you’re under twenty-five and weigh less than a hundred pounds. Just looking in the window depresses me.”

  “How do you know she owns it, if you’ve never been inside?”

  “I heard somebody asking her about the shop at the pool one day. You must know who I mean. You bought that denim outfit in that store.”

  “Three fourths of my clothes are denim. It travels well. Weighs a ton, though. Maybe I should switch to linen. That would be the environmentally correct thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

  Molly was undaunted by Liza’s conversational diversions. Eventually she always came back to the topic at hand. “I’m afraid I’m not up on environmentally correct attire,” Molly said. “I just know you have to iron linen.”

  Liza wrinkled her nose. “That is a problem. So, which outfit?”

  “The one with the skirt the size of a postage stamp. How do you have the nerve to wear that out in public?” Molly wondered, then decided that digression must be catching.

  “It doesn’t take nerve. It takes dieting.”

  Molly glanced pointedly at the scattered crumbs on a now empty plate.

  “There are no calories in tuna fish. Every dieter knows that.” Liza plucked up a wayward bit of celery and popped it into her mouth. “Okay, now, let’s get serious. We’ll never figure out the murderer, if we don’t concentrate.”

  “I’m supposed to stay out of it,” Molly reported dutifully.

  “Who says?”

  “The police.”

  Liza was unimpressed. “Well, you can’t just sit back and let them send you to jail, can you? Besides, we’re just having a private conversation. It’s not as if we’re out knocking on doors or something.”

  “I suppose,” Molly said, doubting that Michael would see it that way. Of course, it was a private conversation. He’d never even have to know. If she picked up any tips from Liza, she could dutifully pass them along.

  “Okay,” she said, suddenly more cheerful, “what do you know about Roy Meeks?”

  “Isn’t he the one who walks the beach every morning at precisely seven fifteen, rain or shine, no matter what the tide is? Compulsive, if you ask me. Write that down. It could be important. How did you get roped into playing with him anyway? He’s too old for you.”

  “It was hardly a date. Claire Bates came down with the flu the morning of the game. She called me at work and asked me to take her place.”

  “How did she pick you?”

  “I ran into her at the mailboxes the other night. She mentioned the bridge games. I said I’d played in college, not well, but endlessly. I guess she remembered.”

  “But there must be others who usually substitute. Did she try them first?”

  “I don’t know. What’s your point?”

  “Maybe she wanted you to be there to take the rap.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Claire Bates is a sixty-four-year-old widow who sings in the church choir. Does that sound like someone who’d stab a man in cold blood and pin the rap on someone she barely knows?”

  “You make her sound like some dowdy frump without a brain in her head. May I remind you that she’s head of some high-tech personnel search firm. She spends at least two hours every morning downstairs in the workout room and four weeks every year at an exorbitantly expensive California health spa. She’s gorgeous enough to appear on the cover of Lear’s, and she could probably run circles around the two of us.”

  “Maybe me. Not you. You climb mountains. I don’t even use the steps.”

  “You’re missing the point again. What makes you think she didn’t have the hots for Allan?”

  “Liza!”

  “Don’t look at me like that. Face it, most things do come down to sex. They don’t refer to it as the war between the sexes without good reason. When couples aren’t in bed, they’re usually battling.”

  “Let’s leave Claire Bates and your twisted philosophy about relationships out of this for the moment and concentrate on the people who were playing bridge the other night. You must know more about Roy Meeks than I do. He seemed like a pleasant enough man. He never once looked as though he wanted to throttle the Winecrofts, despite their nonstop bickering.”

  “If he’s the one I’m thinking of, he’s a retired psychiatrist.”

  “That’s what Mr. Kingsley said.”

  “I knew it,” Liza said triumphantly. “Freudian, I’ll bet. Don’t you think he looks the type?”

  “Because he has a beard?”

  “No. It’s those dingy sweaters. I can just see him in some dark, musty room listening to people’s secrets. He’s probably one of those psychiatrists who attribute all emotional problems to deep-seated hatred of the mother or to premature separation from a pacifier. Listening to the Winecrofts probably made him feel nostalgic.”

  “What about the Davisons? Do you know them?”

  Liza’s expression brightened. “Sure. He teaches political science at the University of Miami. She teaches creative writing at Miami-Dade Community College. He’s the real academician. Publish or perish and all that. She just wants to get kids excited about writing. They’ve been married for thirty years. They had a house in Coral Gables in the early seventies. When the kids went away to college, they moved here. They’re depressingly normal. No skeletons in the closet that I’ve ever heard of. Nobody even complains about their grandkids when they come to visit. Actually, for kids, they’re pretty cute.”

  “Capable of murder, either of them?”

  Liza shook her head slowly. “I can’t picture it.”

  “Do all these couples socialize outside the bridge games?”

  “Dinners occasionally. I think I saw them lined up by the pool one day. Tyler and Allan play … played … tennis together. They might have been doubles partners, in fact.”

  “Any rifts you’ve ever heard about?”

  “None. Couldn’t you tell that night if everyone got along
okay?”

  “After the initial greetings, the only people who spoke above a whisper were the Winecrofts. These people take their bridge very seriously. They can’t wait to turn the results in to The Islander for publication. Maybe the mood changes once the final hand is played, but I didn’t stick around that long. All that bickering made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to escape.”

  “Which brings us back to Drucilla. Why aren’t the police concentrating on her? Isn’t the soon-to-be-wealthy widow always the most likely suspect?”

  “I know she hates losing, but blowing a bridge game is hardly grounds for homicide. Besides, she says she went home right after I did. Allan was alive when she left.”

  “She says,” Liza mocked. “And you believed her? As for a motive, how about divorce?”

  “She wouldn’t divorce him over his lousy bridge bid either.”

  Liza scowled at her. “No, forget the bridge game,” she said impatiently. “Molly, you really need to spend more time at the pool. That’s where you really find out what’s going on around here.”

  “When would you suggest? By the time I get home from work, the only people out there are as exhausted from working all day as I am. The only thing they’re interested in is cooling off. They swim. They leave. They don’t hang around to gossip.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Liza said, scowling.

  “Like what?”

  “That judgmental tone. I’m not a gossip. I can’t help it if sound carries out there and I’m naturally curious about human nature.”

  “Fine. We won’t get into a discussion of the ethics of eavesdropping or the admissibility of hearsay evidence. If you know something relevant, just spit it out.”

  “Okay, don’t get testy.” Liza paused dramatically. “Picture this. Allan Winecroft was about to divorce his lovely wife of thirty-five years for Ingrid Nielsen, the beautiful bimbette in eight-twenty-six.”

  Molly stared at her, sure her mouth must be hanging open. “That’s just two doors down the hall.”

  “I know. Tacky, huh? Installing his mistress right under his wife’s nose takes a certain amount of nerve.”

  “Are you sure about this? Surely even Allan had better taste than that.”

  “Check the deed on the apartment. The buyer’s name was printed in the paper, when the apartment was sold two years ago. I saw it myself: Allan Winecroft. I don’t know if he bought it as an investment or for Ingrid, but she’s in there now.”

  “Maybe he was just renting to her.”

  Liza rolled her eyes. “Molly, you are so middle-class.”

  “Well, she could be renting,” Molly said defensively.

  “Right. And he was over there at midnight fixing the plumbing.”

  “How do you know he was over there at midnight?”

  “The Loefflers, the couple across the hall, told me. I saw him myself, after that. I wangled an invitation to their apartment for dinner.”

  “You spied on him?”

  Liza shot her a look of disgust. “I did not spy. I spent the evening with a perfectly lovely couple. Mr. Loeffler told me all about dry cleaning.”

  “Dry cleaning?”

  “He owned a whole chain of dry cleaners in Ohio before they sold out and moved here. He even told me how to get that raspberry stain out of my cream silk blouse. It was fascinating.”

  “I’m sure,” Molly said. “But not nearly as fascinating as the comings and goings in the hall, I’m sure.”

  Liza just grinned, refusing to be insulted.

  Molly ignored her smug demeanor. Refusing even to consider what Michael would have to say, she picked up the dishes, carried them into the kitchen, and headed for the door. When Liza didn’t follow, she said, “Don’t just sit there. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Liza said, but she was already on her feet, ready for action.

  “You don’t think I’m going to see Ingrid Nielsen by myself, do you? The police would never forgive me if I got myself murdered.”

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Molly had been around enough movie sets to understand the charisma of power. Producers and directors exuded it, though some of them had to work harder than others to accomplish it. Even so, she couldn’t quite imagine Ingrid Nielsen with Allan Winecroft. Not even in the same room, much less in the same bed.

  Talk about odd couples. She was tall. He was short. She was young. He had been heading into his golden years at a downhill clip. She was a statuesque beauty of Miss Universe caliber. He, to put it politely, probably hadn’t seen the inside of a gym since high school required him to be there. Tennis had done nothing to reduce his flabby stomach. She spent her days languishing at the pool, fascinated with the latest tabloids. He spent his engaged in high finance. The only possible ground for mutual attraction was money. She wanted it. He had it.

  Unless he had to fork it all out to an irate ex-wife.

  “Okay, assuming for a minute that you’re right about an impending divorce,” Molly said thoughtfully as she and Liza waited to take the elevator to the eighth floor. “If Drucilla was about to take her husband to the cleaners, wouldn’t she be more likely to wind up with a knife in her back? Both Allan and Ingrid would have pretty powerful motives for knocking her off.”

  “Your divorce really must have gone more smoothly than most,” Liza countered. “Drucilla couldn’t afford to take the risk of a nasty divorce. The way I figure it, she probably had some skeleton hidden in the closet. By the time Allan Winecroft finished airing the family scandals, whatever they were, Drucilla would have been publicly humiliated. Worse, she would have lost access to his—by all reports—very deep pockets. With him dead, she gets it all and keeps her pure reputation. She’ll be married again by the end of the year, probably to some enterprising businessman half her age.”

  Molly recalled Michael O’Hara’s assumption that Drucilla had been awaiting the arrival of a lover when they arrived to question her. Could that have been the skeleton Drucilla would have killed to hide? “Was she having an affair?” she asked Liza as they took the elevator up.

  “If I knew that, so would everyone else. Then there wouldn’t have been much risk involved in exposure, would there? If she is, unlike Allan, she is very discreet. There’s never been so much as a whisper of scandal that could be substantiated.”

  “Then what makes you think Allan had any ammunition to take into court, especially if he was having an affair himself? Sounds awfully messy on both sides to me. Or maybe if there was no whispering, it’s because there was no scandal. Drucilla’s alimony would have been safe enough.”

  “No. More likely the old double standard. If he could prove she’d been playing around, his own tawdry little affair would be viewed sympathetically. Male privilege or something.”

  “So, who should we see first? I thought Ingrid, but maybe we should go straight to Drucilla instead.”

  “You’ve already seen Drucilla. She’s probably surrounded by her friends now or under sedation or something. I doubt if anyone’s in there weeping with Ingrid. She could probably use a sympathetic ear.”

  As the elevator doors slid open, Detective O’Hara started to step inside. He took one look at Molly, who’d gotten out without thinking. If she’d been smart, she’d have stayed right where she was and gone to some other floor. Any other floor. He gave her one of his I-don’t-believe-this looks and let the elevator leave without him.

  “Explain,” he said succinctly as her only route of escape vanished.

  Since Molly knew he wouldn’t like the explanation, she introduced Liza instead. It was an ideal diversionary tactic. His eyes lit up with an interest Molly found herself envying. She knew better than to think it had anything to do with the murder. Liza always had that mesmerizing effect on men. She radiated the kind of energy that attracted them, though their efforts to evoke a response from her were usually wasted. Liza’s trail of broken hearts was legendary, and those were just the ones on the island. She didn’t have time for romance, or
so she claimed. Molly suspected that her own heart had taken a beating years before and she’d adopted a self-protective shell as a result. Whatever the real story, she’d never shared a word of it with Molly despite their immediate and confiding friendship that began when Molly and Brian moved in across the hall.

  The detective’s attention wandered only briefly. All too quickly, he focused on Molly again. Under other circumstances, she might have found that satisfying. “Your apartment’s on five,” he said.

  “Yes. And you don’t have one. Why are you here?”

  “Police business.” He glanced at Liza. “And your apartment?”

  “Right across the hall from Molly,” Liza informed him cheerfully. “Want to drop by and see my collection of African masks? They’re quite extraordinary.”