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murder?”
    â€œGood to see you, too,” I said, and tried not to roll my eyes.
    â€œPepper, this is serious.”
    â€œI know it’s serious.” I paced the hallway. “I’m the one who found her.” A shiver ran down my back. “She was still warm when I touched her.” I glanced at DetectiveMurphy. “That means she hadn’t been dead very long. Right?”
    â€œHer core temperature was ninety-seven degrees,” Detective Murphy said. “The med tech said she’d been dead less than an hour before we arrived on scene.”
    â€œOh, goodness.” I sat down hard on one of the fainting couches in the main room. “We could have been here when the killer stabbed her.”
    â€œTry to remember everything you saw.”
    I shook my head at the thought that my mother or my sister could have been in the path of a murderer. “We were late.” I studied his calm, brown hound-dog eyes. “We were supposed to be here at four. We had an appointment, but Felicity was growing distraught at not finding the perfect wedding dress.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” I asked.
    â€œAh, as in wedding dress shopping. My sister was ready to stab a fork in her eye before her daughter finally found the perfect wedding dress. They must have looked at hundreds of dresses.”
    â€œWell, Felicity is only at seventy-five dresses so far.” I hugged myself and rubbed my forearms. “My mom wants to decide for her already.”
    He sent me a small fleeting smile. “Wait until you go over the guest list.”
    â€œI can only imagine,” I muttered.
    â€œSo, you were late because . . .”
    â€œI talked my sister and my mom into stopping in thepark and having a coffee. It was only fifteen minutes. It should not have been a problem.”
    â€œOkay, you were late, so you opened the door . . .”
    â€œWe opened the door and the front room here was empty.”
    â€œDid you hear anything? See anyone?”
    â€œNo. Wait. Yes, the door slammed closed behind us. I think I said something about there being a door open somewhere. It’s the only way you can get that kind of crazy suction.”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œMom and Felicity sat down here and there.” I pointed to the couches. “I walked over to the desk to see if there was a note or something.”
    â€œWas there?”
    â€œNo, I saw the bell so I rang it. We were pretty noisy. If someone had been in the building, they should not have been surprised by the ringing of the bell.”
    â€œOkay.” He nodded and wrote something in his book.
    â€œWhen no one answered the bell, I told Mom and Felicity to stay put while I went to check out the place.”
    â€œBut you said they were with you when you found the body.”
    â€œYes, they were. It seems that not listening runs in the family.” I sent him a weak smile. “Anyway, I went down the hall and opened all the doors to the dressing rooms, but there wasn’t anyone in them.”
    â€œDo you think that’s unusual?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I shrugged. “We were the last appointment of the day, so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
    â€œHow did you know you were the last appointment?”
    â€œThe appointment calendar was open on the desk.” I got up and went over to the desk. “See, right here it says ‘Pomeroy party, four P.M. ’ Then nothing until tomorrow.”
    â€œThe rooms were all empty,” Detective Murphy prompted as he nodded at a crime-scene tech to let him know he needed to check out the appointment book.
    â€œWhen we didn’t find anyone, we went to the back room. It looks like a break room and there are bathrooms back there. But the bathroom doors were open.”
    â€œWhat made you think to check out the alley?”
    â€œWell, with the way the front door