"Are you and Mrs. Nowack okay?"

"Perfectly okay. Don't worry," Jane said in the chirpiest voice she could manage, and it wasn't easy. Shelley had already dialed 911 from her cell phone, and they could hear sirens in the distance almost immediately.

"Shouldn't we go down there and see if we can help her?" Jane had asked.

"I don't think so," Shelley said, her voice shaking. "I'm very sure from the angle of her neck that she's dead. Let's just stay by the front door. I'm sorry I pushed that light button. I might have put a fingerprint over someone else's."

Two ambulances arrived at the same moment,

and Shelley told them where to find the basement door. Mel VanDyne arrived only a moment later. And very angry to see them.

"I just finished all my work and got this call. What the hell are you two doing here?"

"Go check out the situation and we'll explain later," Jane said, understanding his frustration. They hadn't had any time together for over a week, and were both looking forward to his getting free for a while.

Shelley asked Jane, "Didn't Mel know what we were doing?"

Jane shook her head. "He's been frantically busy for the last week. Three different cases to wrap up. Mostly all we've been doing has been playing phone tag. No wonder he's mad at us. Now he's probably going to get stuck with this, just when he was expecting a bit of peace and quiet."

"But we'll be able to give him the background material and our impressions of the people working here. Won't he be the least grateful?"

Jane just rolled her eyes in disbelief that Shelley could say something that innocent with a straight face.

Mel was back shortly, thunder in his look. "I presume you know who the victim is?"

"Sandra Anderson," Jane said. "She is — or maybe was — the contractor."

"What does that mean, 'is or was'?"