"I fixed them in two days and sent the manuscript to Melody Johnson. That was three weeks ago." Melody Johnson was the editor whom Felicity Roane had suggested. Jane had met Melody at the same mystery conference and had had an interview with her about her book. Melody had been interested and had asked Jane to send the whole manuscript to her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid she wouldn't like it and I'd be back at square one."

"Have you heard back from her?"

"No, not yet. I rushed it a bit. I wanted to get it in by the middle of July. I understand publishing pretty well shuts down in August. Everybody goes to the Hamptons or Maine."

"Everybody? They turn off the lights and computers and go away?"

"Not quite. The secretaries and junior editors have to stick around, I imagine. I wanted Melody to have the manuscript before she disappeared on her vacation."

As their Mongolian beef arrived and the appetizer plates, looking as if they'd been licked clean,were taken away, Jane asked, "So what's this project you have in mind?"

"It started when Paul purchased a run-down theater, thinking he could renovate it into a place to keep food supplies for all his restaurants in the Chicago area."

"So?"

"He started getting bids for cleaning it up. And it appeared to be too expensive. He's even more obsessed by cleanliness of food storage than the government agencies are. He'd have had to tear the building down and start from scratch. He didn't want to make the investment in doing that, much less waste the time it would take. So he donated it to the community college's theater department. It was a good tax break for him."

"It's not like Paul to buy property without thoroughly investigating it, is it?" Jane asked.

Shelley grinned. "That wasn't the real reason he bought it, I have to admit. But never let him know I told you this. It used to be a movie theater and it was where he saw the first film he ever watched. A black-and-white cowboy epic. He still remembers that as one of his best childhood experiences. The building was due to be leveled to make a parking lot."