“Like we are,” Tess said. “So there's Viagra in the medicine cabinets.”
“Peyton Place,” I said. “I'm shocked.” They say older people sometimes forget about sex. I hadn't forgotten about sex; I just didn't want to have sex with the few doddering single men at Silver Acres. But apparently not everyone agreed with me.
“One of my friends here even tells off-color jokes,” Dora said. “Here's one she told me. A doctor got mad at his wife for some reason so he chewed her out. At the end of his lecture he added for good measure, 'And you're lousy in bed, too.' The next morning he went to his office. He felt badly about the things he had said so he called his wife around noon and asked about her day. She said she was in bed. 'At this hour?' he fumed. 'What in the world are you doing in bed?' She said, 'I'm getting a second opinion.'“
After we chuckled, Dora said, “Both Harriet and Ida are on the lunch committee. Since you're talking about suspicions, it would make sense that the murderer would have had the opportunity to doctor the food.”
“Who else is on the lunch committee?” I asked. I probably should have known, but I tend to forget things.
“At the risk of incriminating myself, I am.”
“That makes you a suspect,” Tess said, smiling. “Do you want to confess now?”
Dora laughed. “Well, since we're naming suspects, there is a fourth member of the lunch committee-Ellen Tooner.”
“Do you remember where Ellen was sitting?” I asked.
“Why yes,” Dora said. “If I recall, correctly, she was the fourth person at Gerald's table.”
“Just one more question,” I said, trying to sound offhand, like Columbo. “Which one of you prepared the fatal dish?”
“We all worked on it,” Dora said. “At Harriet's apartment. We usually meet at one of our apartments before the bridge club and prepare the lunch together. The recipe we were working from didn't call for shellfish. It called for tuna, which is not a shellfish. In fact, I can remember seeing Harriet put the tuna into it. And I was very surprised when I heard about the shellfish being found in it.”