Shelley was dead on time. "So what did Bitsy say to you?"

"That she thinks 'my detective' thinks she did it."

"Your detective? How did she know about you and Mel?"

"He must have mentioned speaking to us. Apparently she got the idea he already knew us. I admitted it. She wanted me to influence him."

"Fat chance!" Shelley exclaimed.

"She didn't understand when I explained that he always got the right perp," Jane said, pouring them each a cup of hot decaf coffee and setting a plate of grocery-store cookies on the kitchen table.

"She thought I meant I thought she'd done it," Jane finished up. "I told her I thought no such thing." \

"Good for you. We don't want to make an enemy of her if she turns out to be guilty."

"She said there was a horrible blowup when she fired Sandra. Lots of yelling. She felt that all the workers heard and saw the part where Bitsy ran away in her car with Sandra screaming at her in the front yard. I suppose if that's true, she isn't the guilty party."

Shelley considered this. "Maybe not. Frankly, I can see how they both felt as if they were the injured party. Maybe Bitsy came back for one more round. Maybe she even came back to apologize. Either scenario could have led to a shoving match. It might have been an accident."

"At the top of the basement stairs with the door open?" Jane asked. "And her purse missing?"

"How do we know it's missing? Maybe it skit-

tered away when she fell, or went under the stairs."

"I'm sure the police thought of that, Shelley."

"Hmm. I guess that is unlikely. What about Bitsy's ex-husband?"

"What about him?"

"He obviously had a high level of contempt for her. When he stopped by the house to harass her, it was obvious he knew a lot about what was going on. Maybe he intended to get her into even more trouble by causing a death."