She’d glide across the room, Fran thought, remembering seeing her once in an elegant gown. She looked even taller than five eight because she had such gorgeous carriage.

“How friendly were you two?” Gus queried.

“Oh, I wasn’t really in her orbit. Molly was part of the moneyed country club set. I was a good athlete and concentrated on sports more than on social activities. I can assure you my phone was never ringing off the hook on Friday night.”

“As my mother would have put it, you grew up nice,” Gus said dryly.

I was never at ease at the academy, Fran thought. There are plenty of middle-class families in Greenwich, but middle class wasn’t good enough for Dad. He was always trying to ingratiate himself with wealthy people. He wanted me to be friends with the girls who came from money or who had family connections.

“Apart from her appearance, what was Molly like?”

“She was very sweet,” Fran said. “When my father died and the news came out about what he had done-the embezzling and the suicide and everything-I was avoiding everyone. Molly knew I jogged every day, and early one morning she was waiting for me. She said she just wanted to keep me company for a while. Since her father had been one of the biggest donors to the library fund, you can imagine what her show of friendship meant to me.”

“You had no reason to be ashamed because of what your father did,” Gus snapped.

Fran’s tone became crisp. “I wasn’t ashamed of him. I was just so sorry for him-and angry too, I guess. Why did he think that my mother and I needed things? After he died, we realized how frantic he must have been in the days just before, because they were about to audit the library fund’s books, and he knew he’d be found out.” She paused, then added softly, “He was wrong to have done all that, of course. Wrong to have taken the money and wrong to think we needed it. He was weak also. I realize now he was terribly insecure. But at the same time, he was an awfully nice guy.”