“Buenas dias,” I echoed. I hadn’t seen him quite so cheerful the whole time he’d been in the house. I wondered if the designers would be quite so honestly upbeat this morning, or if they’d all feel obliged to put on sober looks and struggle to find something nice to say about Clay.

I couldn’t help thinking of the scene in A Christmas Carol in which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Ebenezer Scrooge exactly how little his death would mean to any human soul. Instead of three spirits bent on his reformation, Clay had encountered a single vengeful one. No chance at reformation for him.

In this somewhat pensive mood, I entered the house. I found Dad, the chief, and Randall standing in the hallway.

“Meg—good!” the chief exclaimed. “I was hoping you’d get here soon. I want to hear again exactly what happened when you got here last night.”

My stomach churned, making me regret the yogurt, just for a moment. I’d been staying pretty calm by shoving last night’s events out of my mind—focusing narrowly on what we needed to get done in the show house. It had been working fine. But now the chief needed me to go back to last night.

He ushered me into Sarah’s study. I took one of the armchairs, the chief took the other, and Randall and Dad perched on metal folding chairs that had been brought in from somewhere. Clearly the chief was using the study as his on-site headquarters. I hoped to clear him—and the battered metal chairs—out before Sarah returned.

“So tell us everything that happened,” he said. “Start from when you were approaching the house.”

I took a few of the deep, calming yoga breaths Rose Noire was always ordering me to take, and then I told him everything. The snow-covered cars. Stepping into the dark hallway. Hearing the faint noise upstairs. Dodging the bullets. Seeing—well, hearing—the intruder drive away.

He didn’t interrupt me once, which was rare for him. When I finished, I felt curiously better, as if I’d gotten something nasty out of my system. He waited a few minutes before asking anything.

“Her 911 call came at twelve eighteen,” he said finally.

“That fits,” Dad said.

“Meg, how many shots did you hear again?”

“Two,” I said. “Close together.”

“You’re sure,” he said. “No chance it was more?”

“Positive.”

“And you didn’t hear any shots as you approached the house?”

I shook my head.

“That fits, too,” Dad said.

“Fits what?” I asked.

“It appears that Mr. Spottiswood was shot shortly after eleven,” the chief said.

“The wound would have been almost instantly fatal,” Dad added.

“And then the killer stayed around to vandalize the house for approximately an hour,” the chief said. “Not leaving until you interrupted him or her at around twelve fifteen.”

“Vandalize the house?” I shot upright and looked around frantically. “How bad is it?”

“Calm down,” Randall said. He was gesturing with both hands for me to sit down, so I sat. “Most of it’s in the master bedroom, which is going to need some cleanup anyway. The boys and I can knock it all out in an hour or two. I already sent Mateo for supplies.”

“So,” the chief went on. “Let’s assume Dr. Langslow’s estimates are correct—and I have no reason to think they’re not,” he added, nodding and smiling at Dad. “You did not interrupt the murder, but you did interrupt whatever the killer was doing after the murder. And it’s possible that Mr. Spottiswood wasn’t deliberately targeted—merely unfortunate enough to interrupt an armed intruder.”

“That would be ironic,” I said. “The guy everyone hates gets knocked off just after one of his worst rampages since we started working here, and it turns out to be a coincidence? Something that could have happened to any one of us if we’d been unlucky enough to come here at the wrong time?”

Something that could have happened to me if Michael’s rehearsal had ended an hour earlier and I’d shown up to do my inspection at eleven instead of midnight. I shoved that away with all the other things I didn’t really want to think about, until later, when the killer was behind bars.

“That’s one theory,” the chief said. “I’m not discounting the possibility that someone with a strong motive to kill Mr. Spottiswood lay in wait and staged the damage to make it look as if an intruder had been here.”

“Makes sense to me, because the damage was so random and illogical,” Randall said. “Drawers pulled out as if they were looking for something. Chunks of wall hacked out as if all they wanted to do was cause maximum chaos. Curtains and bed linens slashed. Stupid, mean stuff. But almost entirely in that one room.”

“Maybe that was all they had time to do before I arrived,” I said.

The others nodded.

“There’s also the question of how the intruder gained entry,” the chief said. “No sign of a break-in, and I understand it’s only the designers who have keys.”

“The designers, and a couple of the show house committee members, and anyone clever enough to pick up one of the dozen or so keys various designers have managed to lose over the last several weeks.” I could tell my irritation was showing, so I took a couple of deep breaths before going on. “Violet alone has lost at least seven keys.”

“That would be Miss Madsen, in the … frilly bedroom upstairs,” the chief said.

“And one of the reasons I came back to check on the house is that half the time, even when they’ve got keys, they don’t use them,” I went on. “I seem to be the only one who ever bothers to go around and see that all the doors and windows are locked at the end of the day.”

“This in spite of our attempts to make sure all the designers were aware that there was a history of vandalism here at the house,” Randall said. “Not surprising, given how long it’s been vacant.”

“Only surprising it took several years for the vandals to find it,” the chief said. “Getting back to the murder—do you know if any of the other decorators particularly disliked Mr. Spottiswood?”

I thought about it for about two seconds.

“Particularly disliked—no. Though I can’t think of anyone who actually liked him. At least half of them resented him because they thought they should have been given the master bedroom. And he was harassing most of the women. Probably not Mother,” I added to Dad, who was frowning thunderously. “Or he wouldn’t have survived till last night. But pretty much everybody else.”

“Did he harass you?” the chief asked, scowling.

“Until he figured out what a bad idea it was.”

Randall made a snorting noise that I suspected was suppressed laughter.

“Define harassment,” the chief said.

“Patting me on the rear,” I said. “Finding it necessary to squeeze past me when I was standing in a narrow space. Stuff like that.”

“And this was typical of his behavior toward the women in the house?”

“As far as I know, yes,” I said. “He was a pig. And it’s possible he was more offensive toward the women who weren’t as comfortable confronting him. Rose Noire thinks Vermillion had some kind of run-in with him, so she and Mother made sure never to leave her alone. And I wonder about Violet, or even Sarah.”

The chief nodded.

“You were going to give me the full contact information for all the designers,” he asked.

I pulled out my notebook and handed him the photocopy I’d made.

“While I’m here—” I began.

“Meg!” It was Mother. “Are you really all right?”

She put her hand to my forehead, as if expecting the shock of encountering a murderer to have given me a dangerous fever.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“James, you were supposed to call me once you’d seen her.” Mother turned to Dad with a look of deep disappointment on her face.

“I was caught up in the case,” Dad said. “Trying to find whoever took a shot at Meg.”

Mother looked somewhat mollified.

“And do you have any idea how soon we can get back to work?” she asked, turning to the chief.