"And then?" Jane prodded.

"I showed her the house plans," Shelley said. "I was surprised that she realized for the first time without my even saying it that there was no indication of who had done them. Then she asked who'd penciled those other numbers in for the dimensions. I told her it was I. And didn't she remember how annoyingly thorough we were when we took the exact measurements?"

Shelley couldn't have looked more pleased if she'd singlehandedly conquered a whole country.

"I presume you suggested that she fire Sandra?"

Shelley grabbed Jane's hands as if they were girls. "I didn't even get the chance. Can you believe it? She said straight out that Sandra would be gone by tomorrow."

"And how is this job to proceed?" Jane asked. "Bitsy doesn't know enough to be a contractor."

"She said she'd consulted someone else first. A man, though. Sandra heard about it at one of their empowerment meetings."

"Empowerment meetings?" Jane exclaimed.

"You don't want to know," Shelley assured her, releasing Jane's hands as she spoke. "Anyway, Sandra knew about her considering this man, someone named Joe, and said a lot of bad things about him. So Sandra drags Bitsy aside for dinner after the empowerment meeting and does her own cheerleading. Talks about all her own credentials, which may or may not have been true, according to Bitsy."

"She didn't even check them out?" Jane asked.

"She checked one thing and it was wrong because the college Sandra said she graduated from had no record of her. Bitsy even gave them her married name and they still came up blank, but she put it down to a fouled-up computer program at the college. Bitsy said she got so busy with the plans that she forgot to go back and check any more of the references."