A Quiche Before Dying

aren’t synonyms. There’s probably a boring, logical explanation for the flowers. Like the florist just delivered them to the wrong house by mistake. Now, we’re going about this backwards. We need to consider the people as suspects, one by one. Go over everything we know about them and see if we can’t at least eliminate a few.“
    “I have a lot of information about Grady that I haven’t told you yet. Missy said I could, but only if you swore it would go no farther.”
    Shelley dutifully swore, and Jane told her about Grady’s wife and her relationship to Mrs. Pryce. She also added what Mel had said about Grady’s wife being so far down the list of heirs that there was virtually no motive at all.
    “Still,“ Shelley said slowly. “It might not be about money. It probably isn’t, in fact. She didn’t have that much, and nobody had any reason to suppose she had secret fantastic wealth.“ As Shelley was talking, she got up and went to Jane’s refrigerator to pour herself some orange juice. Jane gestured, and Shelley fixed her one, too. “Jane, what if they’d had some terrible family blowup? Just imagine that she was responsible, in some peripheral way, for Grady’s wife’s accident. Might he not hate her enough for how she’s wrecked up his life to kill her?”
    It was Jane’s turn to throw cold water on a theory. “Why wait till now? The wife’s been in a coma for years, probably decades, if they married young.“
    “Maybe he just never got the chance before.”
    Jane looked at her skeptically.
    “Grady’s got to be an awfully patient man,“ Shelley said.
    “And a pretty stupid one if he couldn’t think up a way to bump her off without waiting years to be invited to dinner with a mob of other people.“
    “Maybe you’re right. All right, let’s go through everybody then. Grady Wells—“
“Motive,“ Jane said, “possible revenge for—“
    “ No, get a piece of paper. First, what we know, then the possibilities.”
    Jane fetched a notepad and pencil—and let the cats in while she was up. She headed the page SUSPECTS. “Okay, what we know Grady could have had against her is that she was accusing him of embezzling city funds.“
    “And put under that, ‘Not likely to be true,’ “Shelley instructed her. “Then on the other side of the page, the possible theories like a family row involving his wife.”
    Jane did as she was told, and they both sat and looked at the page for a while. “I’d give him a seven out of ten,“ Jane said. “For a real motive and a possible one.“ She wrote a 7 next to his name.
    “Missy,“ Shelley said. “Real motive: Pryce accused her of writing pornography.“
    “Theoretical motive: to protect Grady,“ Jane said. “Another seven?“
    “No! Missy’s so nice, I’d feel like a traitor giving her a seven.”
    Jane looked at her and spoke sternly. “This has nothing to do with liking people. We like everybody but Bob Neufield. This is a purely intellectual evaluation.“
    “All right. A seven.“
    “Maybe even an eight for both of them,“ Jane said. “Just on the grounds that they’re both so damned good at keeping a secret. Not that having an affair is really underhanded, but the way they’ve kept it quiet does show a certain cunning.“
    “Seven and a half,“ Shelley said.
    “Desiree Loftus.”
    Shelley considered. “Pryce called her a drunk. If she is an alcoholic and knows it, that might have really gotten to her. And there’s the means, too. All those herbs.“
    “Both pretty thin,“ Jane said. “I wouldn’t give her over a three.“
    “You’re forgetting the Paris connection that you were so het up about earlier.“
    “Oh, yes! Well, maybe with all three, a six? What about Bob Neufield?“
    “A ten!“
    “No, Shelley, intellectual consideration, remember?“
    “Pryce accused him—we think—of homosexuality. To a military man, that would be a motive. Especially if it wasn’t true.“
    “But she was raving. And Mel says his military discharge doesn’t bear it out.“
    “That’s what I mean. If he was discharged for some other reason entirely, he couldn’t fight the slander with the truth, because it would be embarrassing, too.“
    “But she didn’t even say it outright, like she did with Grady and the embezzling accusation. Shelley, I don’t think we can give him more than a two.“
    “A two! With an arsenal in his back room?“
    “She was poisoned, not blown up. I’ll give him a three, if it will