After the first round of greetings had died down, Shelley introduced Jane. "This is my neighbor, Jane Jeffry, who is helping Edgar and me. Jane, this is Mimi Soong."

Jane shook hands with the elegant Chinese woman. "It's very nice of you to get involved in this," Mimi said. "She must really have something on you," she added with a lovely smile.

"And this is Debbie Poole, but you might as well know her as Pooky," Shelley added. There was a note of warning in her voice that was nearly frantic.

Jane could see why. Shelley and Crispy had both mentioned how astoundingly beautiful Pooky was, but Pooky in the flesh was a mess. Her skin was leathery and so wrinkled that it looked like a bizarre medical condition. Here and there it pulled as if she'd had plastic surgery in somebody's basement as an experiment. Her hair was bleached to the point of fragility. It looked as if it would shatter if touched. She was excruciatingly thin and almost painfully well-dressed. Jane suspected most of her clothes still had their sale tags lurking nearby.

"How do you do, Pooky," Jane said heartily. Even though Jane had never seen the woman before, she found her appearance very nearly shocking. The others were frankly dumbfounded and were now standing in a rough semicircle studying Pooky with silent horror and a good deal of genuine sadness.

Poor woman, Jane thought. "Crispy has brought enough luggage to stay a year and a half. Or maybe she's opening a dress shop," she said firmly to the group. "I'm afraid we're all going to have to pitch in and help carry it."

As she'd hoped, that broke the spell. There was a babble of embarrassed conversation as Jane opened

the back door of her station wagon and started handing out bag after matched bag. Jane and Mimi Soong ended up with the last pieces. Hector had appeared and was daintily exploring the interior of Jane's station wagon.