Good enough, Jack thought. “Thank you, Mrs. Beverly, Mr. Beverly, for telling me about this.”

“You still think she’s guilty, don’t you?”

Jack looked at the beautiful woman who seemed better suited to a life in Manhattan, with doormen and limos and charity balls, than to a small town like Goddard Bay. He said, “It’s my job to find out, Mrs. Beverly. This has got to come to an end somehow. Thank you for helping me.”

Kelly said suddenly, “I remember hearing Marci yelling at her mother once, called her a boring old rug. It was something about her father not letting her go somewhere and her mother not doing anything about it.” Kelly shrugged. “All the usual teenage angst, I suppose. But the rug bit fits, doesn’t it?”

George Beverly cleared his throat. “I suppose we’ve let this dinner take a very unorthodox path. For that I apologize.”

Lou Lou smiled, raised her glass. “I would like to thank Mrs. Beverly for having us all over with almost no advance notice at all.” Lou Lou clicked her glass to Kathleen’s, and glasses were raised all around.

Kelly, bless her heart, began speaking about Monica’s run for state office. Then she eyed Mary Lisa and remarked, “Monica’s husband nearly married Mary Lisa. But that didn’t work out.”

“No,” Mary Lisa said, grinning hugely, “it didn’t. Thank you, God.”

Jack’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at Kathleen as he pulled his cell out of his jacket. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He nodded to Mrs. Beverly and walked out of the dining room.

He heard Mary Lisa say, “Kelly, what are you up to?”

He went outside. It was chilly tonight, and damp, the clouds covering the stars and the sickle moon. “Chief Wolf.”

FIFTY-FIVE

Mary Lisa yawned as she walked back toward the elevators, Lou Lou’s morning paper in her hand.

From the corner of her eye she saw a tired-looking businessman follow the bellboy out the front doors. Nearly there, she thought, and reached her hand out to press the elevator button when the old scratchy voice nailed her to the spot.

“Will you be checking out today, Mary Lisa?”

She turned to see Mrs. Willis, her old bird eyes bright with interest and cunning, standing beside the reception counter, her arms crossed over her bright-pink-wool-sweatered chest. There was a strong smell of lavender wafting off her. “Good morning, Mrs. Willis.”

“What have you got there, Mary Lisa?”

“One of my friends wanted her morning paper. I guess you don’t provide them on Saturday mornings?”

“Nope, costs too much to throw in Saturday too,” said Mrs. Willis. “You sure that’s all you’ve got there?”

“Yes, ma’am. We won’t be checking out today, perhaps tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fine, Mary Lisa. I hope you and your girlfriends will stay for a while, maybe help us find this person who poisoned our food. You know, I was thinking Mr. Rogers has sure gotten crotchety over the years-do you know he chews nearly two packs of tobacco every day even though he can’t keep his blood pressure down? I’m thinking maybe he’s our man.”

“I suppose anything’s possible, Mrs. Willis. But my problem is I don’t see a motive for him to kill anyone.”

The old woman cackled. “You’re not looking hard enough. It’s morning and here you are wide awake. Where were you and your girlfriends last night, young lady?”

She sighed. “We were all here, Mrs. Willis, happily sleeping in your comfortable beds.” And Mary Lisa smiled, gave the old woman a little wave, and stepped into the elevator.

Lou Lou walked out of one of the bedrooms when Mary Lisa came into the suite, scratching her head and yawning.

“You look all perky this morning. Oh good, you got me a paper. You’re a princess, Mary Lisa.”

“Elizabeth still asleep?”

“I heard her in the shower already. I’m going to order room service. Dry toast for you, coffee?”

Mary Lisa nodded and wandered off into the bedroom to call Jack.

When she came out of the bedroom, she saw Lou Lou taking her first sip of coffee. Her friend sat back in her chair and said, “Okay, I know you called Jack. Why did he dash out of your folks’ house last night? Who called him?”

“A Sheriff Davis called him from Pomack, that’s a small town about thirty minutes south of Goddard Bay. He nabbed a homeless Vietnam vet who’s been on a walkabout. He thinks he might be the man Jack’s been looking for. Jack drove down there last night.” She chewed on her toast. “He’s still tied up.”

Elizabeth said, “I was thinking in the shower. Here we are, a trio of slugs up here, not being helpful at all. How about we pay Marci Maynard a visit? Her mother and yours are best friends, after all. No one could object, I mean, our offering condolences for her loss.”

Mary Lisa quirked an eyebrow at her. “What about John?”

Elizabeth laughed. “That obvious, huh? Okay, I called him this morning. He was on his way over to see Jack.” She threw out her arms. “I’m free, fortunately. Lou Lou, what do you think?”

“Let me finish the sports section and I’m with you.”

Mary Lisa said, “Well, why not? Jack won’t like it, but it’s better than sitting around waiting for him or watching the sailboats.” Or visiting my mother, she thought.

Elizabeth rose and stretched. She’d put her sleep shirt back on after her shower. It said in blazing pink across the chest, Politicians Spin in Their Graves. She looked at Mary Lisa thoughtfully. “I know you had high hopes for a lovely night at Jack’s house, babe, but things don’t always work out.”

Lou Lou said, eyeing Elizabeth over the top of the newspaper, “As if you weren’t crying in your pillow because John wasn’t around.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t know about the crying part, but I’ll admit seeing him again didn’t set him back any.”

And why should it? Mary Lisa thought. “Okay, you guys, you’ve got ten minutes to get dressed, then we’re out of here.”

THE three women arrived at Marci Maynard’s house as the sun was burning away the lacy gray morning fog. Mary Lisa rang the doorbell.

They heard a dog barking, but no one appeared at the door.

After several more fruitless tries, Elizabeth said, “Any ideas, Mary Lisa?”

“Why, yes. We can go see Mick.”

He wasn’t in his shop, not a surprise since it was Saturday morning, but his assistant manager, Hop Clooney, was there, looking older than the antique Corvette hubcaps displayed on the walls. “Well, now, it seems Mick caught a tetch of something, sounded pretty putrid when he called me a couple hours ago. Meybe he’ll be back tomorrow. Better be-I need him to work on that big Caddy back there.” He shrugged. “I see you’re driving a rental from the airport. What’s the problem with it?”

“Not a thing, Hop, we’re trying to locate Mick. Thanks for the info.”

“So we can go to his house,” Mary Lisa said as they walked out of the shop. She went into Buckman’s Pharmacy, borrowed Mr. Clive’s phone book, and looked up Mick Maynard’s address.

Mick Maynard’s repair shop might have appealed to car aficionados, but his home looked like all it needed was a banged-up car set on bricks to finish off the ratty front yard. It sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, Martindale Lane, backed up against a hillock, hidden by pine and hemlock trees. The nearest neighbor was a good block away.

Elizabeth looked at the rusted machinery parts strewn around the car, unable to identify them, and said, “If I were a guy and I managed to snag a woman for some hankypanky, I’d for sure go to her house, not here. I wouldn’t think seeing this dump site would be a positive first step toward a meaningful relationship.”

Lou Lou and Mary Lisa laughed. Mary Lisa said, “It is pretty bad, isn’t it? One thing you gotta say about it, though-lots of privacy.”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said slowly, “this guy could do about anything he wanted to out here.”