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"I'm sure you have one."
    "I have no idea." A little triumph in my voice, there.
    Lane exhaled. "Okay, that's enough for now. You can go."
    "Unless it has something to do with the way men reacted to
her," I said. Gawd. I just couldn't help myself. It was embarrassing.
"I'd find out who she was dating."
    "We'll check into it. Thanks."
    "But-"
    "Go home, Sophie Mae." Barr's tone held quiet warning.
    Fine. I didn't want to be here anyway.
    Ruth Black was waiting for me in the parking lot, alone. She fell
into step beside me as I walked toward my little Toyota pickup.
    "Ariel was strangled," she said without preamble, picking up
exactly where Detective Lane had rescued me.
    "Yes"
    "Do they know who did it?" she asked.
    "I don't think so."
    "Are you going to try and figure it out?" Beside me, her legs
scissored along nearly twice as fast as mine, her steps short and
quick like a bird's.
    I stopped cold, and she drew up a few paces ahead and turned
back.
    "Huh uh," I said. "I'm not figuring out anything. This is a police
matter, and I happen to know the police in question, and they are
quite good at their job. There's no need for me to get involved."
    She tipped her head to one side.
    "No need at all," I repeated. My hand crept up to my recently
shorn head, and I ended by rubbing my neck. The last time I'd tried to "figure it out"-and at Ruth's instigation, I might add-things
had gotten a little out of hand in the danger department. "And I'm
glad of it, too."
     
    Ruth smiled. "If you say so, dear."

     
FIVE

    As I WALKED INTO our backyard, Meghan was latching the door of
the chicken pen behind her. When she saw me, she turned and
held up one small, perfect blue-green egg.
    "It's still warm," she said.
    I took it from her, holding it gently in my palm. "Molly or
Emma?"
    Two of our hens were Easter egg chickens, and they laid that
unusual color. They hadn't been producing long enough for us to
be able to recognize who laid what.
    "Molly, I think. Erin says her eggs are a little bluer, and Emma's
are a little more greenish. Apparently she can tell already."
    Erin was Meghan's eleven-year-old daughter. She was at math
camp during the day for the next two weeks, practicing up on
being a genius, but she had become the resident expert on the individual idiosyncrasies of our laying hens.
    Brodie, Erin's old Pembroke Welsh corgi, had taken to sitting
outside the chicken pen, guarding them from harm whenever she was gone. Now his fox-like face swung my way, and he gave a low
woof in acknowledgement of my presence. But he was on the job,
and didn't leave his self-imposed post to receive his usual ear
scritchin's.
     
    "How was the funeral?" Meghan asked.
    I grimaced. "Good, I guess. If you can characterize a funeral
that way." I dreaded telling her about Ariel.
    "I think you can." Her gaze took in my casual clothes. "When
did you change?"
    "I dropped by before going over to CRAG. You were with a
client." Like me, Meghan worked at home. Her massage room
and a tiny office were tucked into a front corner on the main
floor, out of the way of our normal household traffic. She wore
her warm-weather working togs: soft cotton knit shorts and a
sleeveless T-shirt.
    "CRAG. Of course that's where you've been." She stopped herself before adding, "Again."
    "I've got some bad news," I said.
    She crossed her arms. "What?"
    "You know Ariel Skylark?"
    "I've met her. Lots of attitude, needs to eat a burger?"
    The latter statement was something, coming from Meghan who
stood at just five feet and barely tipped the scale to a hundred
pounds. Add dark glossy curls, a tiny turned-up nose and cupid
lips, and she looked more like a wood sprite than a single mother,
former lawyer, and currently much-in-demand massage therapist.
    I chewed gently on my lower lip and nodded. "That's her." I
took a breath. "She was murdered."
     
    Her gray eyes widened, filled with a combination of kindness,
concern, and bewilderment.