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jolly plant commercials had aired, he kicked in. Bent contributed the minimum, and we understood. His income was consistent but rock-bottom, and he was doing his best. But Gretchen never bought for anybody. I think it just never occurred to her. Everybody else always paid for her. I guess that’s what it’s like when you are a slim blonde with points in all the right places.
    I pulled into the winding driveway in front of Gretchen’s house, which she could easily have rented to film production companies as a set for horror movies—a looming hulk in major disrepair, scrawny tree branches flapping in the wind against the dirty windows. It was hard to tell if the white patterns inside the windows were curtains or cobwebs. Couldn’t this woman buy a Swiffer? The house was separated from its more manicured neighbours by large, neatly trimmed hedges. Something told me Gretchen wasn’t doing the trimming, even though she had the equipment. I suspected that the neighbours saw her as a beautiful witch, to be placated but never contacted.
    I couldn’t figure out how Gretchen could live there. One peep from a bird in the middle of the night, and I would be running down the driveway screaming.
    Gretchen sat for a moment. She almost looked as if she were thinking.
    â€œSomebody killed Stan,” she said finally, running her ragged little nail along the edge of the car seat.
    Yeah. Duh.
    â€œDo you really think it was one of us?” she sighed.
    â€œI was hypothesizing. I was presenting possibilities. Possibilities that any of us could be suspected of having done it, not that we had.”
    â€œI knew that,” she said quickly. “And I would never say anything against Geoff—or any of you.”
    I stared at her. What sort of loyalty, faith and support is that from a person who has been downing Stingers, Sidecars and Manhattans on our tab for the past ten years?
    â€œGretchen,” I said, in dismay. “Spell this. Loyalty. L-O-Y-A-L-T-Y.” The spelling part kept me from cuffing her on the head, the only part of her that wasn’t pointed. “Just because you and Geoff had an unfortunate disconnect, you shouldn’t think he is fair game to be set up as a killer.”
    Gretchen glanced at her darkened house, as if I had never spoken. Gee whiz, is she so cheap she can’t leave on a few lights? The trees surrounding her decaying ancestral home swayed wildly in the wind. One good smack from an overenthusiastic branch, and that house would be a pile of firewood.
    I persisted. “We’re loyal to you. You owe us the same. Friendship is like business. You have to pony up what is owed. And you owe us, even Geoff, the same loyalty we give you.”
    This was a very high-minded speech, which disappeared into the space where all well-intended, but ineffective, pontifications go.
    She seemed nervous. My inspiring pep talk had failed, so now I wanted her to get out of the car and stop depressing me. I was depressed enough, what with dead bodies and demented fans.
    I was relieved that she didn’t ask me in for tea. She always served weird herbal teas purportedly from the Amazon or South Africa, but which I was convinced the local health food store ground up out of the compost heap, dried, then packaged for megabucks.
    â€œWhat a night. I am sooo beat.” I revved the engine (such as it was) delicately to remind her that I was using up precious gas while she was accusing people of murder.
    She looked at me reproachfully, and I felt a split second of guilt. She opened her door, slid elegantly out of the car and floated swiftly to her door. I waited until she had turned the key, stepped in, turned on the dim hallway light and closed the door before I drove away.
    Lu, you are a louse. Maybe poor Gretchen wanted a little company. I reproached myself for not offering to visit for a while.
    Well no, I answered. I have a life, too. I have a bottle of Chardonnay in the