“And you didn’t say anything at the Burns house last night?”

“What was I supposed to say?” I asked, bewildered. “ ‘Gee, Mrs. Burns, I saw your husband’s body. It looked as though someone had run over it with a meat tenderizer?’ Actually, she did ask me if he was dead before he hit the ground and I told her I thought he was.”

“I see. About damn time.

“However,” he continued, “we need to interview you about the incident.”

I noted the terminology. “Then you’ll have to do it this afternoon. I have to go to work after I take my friend home. And I have to get my husband off to Chicago.” I added this last out of sheer perversity, since Martin, experienced traveler that he was, always packed for himself and drove himself to the airport in a company car, not wanting his Mercedes to be the target of thieves or vandals in the long-term parking lot. The only thing I had to do with Martin’s trips was to miss him.

I’d been missing him a lot lately.

Dryden suggested four o’clock at my house, I agreed, and I returned pointedly to my book. But Dryden had his talking shoes on.

“So, your husband is the plant manager at Pan-Am Agra?”

“His job just got upgraded to vice president in charge of manufacturing.” I turned a page.

“Have you been married long?”

By golly, I was on the verge of being rude. Really.

“Two years,” I said briefly.

Then, thank goodness, Trinity called Angel’s name.

“Please come in with me, Roe,” my bodyguard said quietly.

Considerably surprised, but pleased to be escaping Dryden, I tucked my book in my purse and rose to my feet. Dr. Zelman’s new nurse took over from Trinity, leading us to a cramped examining room with rose-and-blue walls and a table that would barely hold Angel. Something about the nurse seemed familiar. As she talked to Angel about her aches and pains, efficiently taking Angel’s blood pressure and checking her temperature, I realized the woman in white was Linda Ehrhardt, whose bridesmaid I’d been in the long, long ago. She’d been Linda Pocock for years now. As she turned away from Angel, she recognized me too.