Alex Harris 00 - Armed

know?” I leaned forward on the table, all ears.
    Mary-Beth wiped a bit of sauce from the side of her mouth and smiled, clearly delighting in drawing out the suspense. “It just so happens I did hear something recently.”
    My eyes sparkled, eager for something other than the goings-on at the factory.
    “Remember that dorky girl, Cathy Lyon?” I shook my head. “Sure you do. The one we always teased.” Mary-Beth rolled her eyes.
    “Oh, yeah. Whatever happened to her? I figured she’d probably become a nun.”
    “Well, think again.” Mary-Beth leaned across the table. “She got married. And you’ll never guess to who, or is it whom—I never can get that right.” Mary-Beth didn’t wait for me to render an answer on her grammatical dilemma. “Mike McGill.”
    “Mike McGill, Mike McGill? You mean the hunk? The best athlete in the whole class? That Mike McGill?”
    “None other.”
    “Wait a minute. I thought he married that Jane girl two years behind us.”
    “He did. Had a great big wedding out at the country club in Westport. Then they went to Hawaii and she stepped on a sand shark and had to have about thirty stitches in her foot. Stuck in the room and being sweet she insisted Mike go out and enjoy himself. You know, surf, soak up the sun, sightsee. She should have been a little more specific in what she meant by enjoying himself because he sure did.”
    “With Cathy Lyon?”
    “No! She comes later.”
    “Sorry.”
    “With the young girl that handed out towels at the pool. But she started getting a little pushy, wanting a commitment and all, and him being a married man, a newly married man, it just wasn’t possible. So he started hanging out down on the beach and met a local girl who arranged glass bottom boat excursions.
    “Seems they went out on a little tour of their own. Right out in the coral reef, with the boat’s floodlights on. Doing it right there in the bottom of the boat with all those glass panels so the fish could see. Unfortunately, some night divers saw too. Their first dive and, well,” Mary-Beth held up both hands in front of her, “let’s just say they saw a little more than the brochure advertised. When Mike and his little sea nymph brought in the boat, the owner fired her on the spot.”
    “So where does Cathy Lyon come in?”
    “Mike and Jane settle into marital bliss. He’s some hot shot corporate lawyer and Jane fills her days with the country club and various classes at the community college, one of which is a pottery class.”
    A cheesecake-bearing waitress interrupted Mary-Beth mid-story. As soon as the young woman left, Mary-Beth continued.
    “So, one day Jane leaves class early with her latest creation. No one knows why she left early, probably some sort of premonition. She drives home and sees Mike’s Lexus in the drive thrilled to have him home early for once. She walks in with a big smile on her face all the while thinking about some pretty lace number she never got to wear on her honeymoon. She walks in calling his name. It’s a very big house, from what I hear, so I guess Mike and Cathy never heard her.”
    “Poor Jane!”
    “Poor Mike. Had to get ten stitches after Jane flung her glazed fruit bowl at him. Dear, sweet Cathy grabbed a bath towel and drove home with nothing else on. A very cold day with icy roads. A ten-car pileup stopped traffic for hours.”
    I choked on a piece of cherry topping and Mary-Beth had to jump up and hit me on the back.
    “Are you okay?” she asked back in her seat.
    I laughed so hard I used my napkin to wipe the tears from my eyes, which, yes, once again looked like a raccoon.
    “How do you manage to hear all this stuff? I never hear anything good.”
    “I don’t know. People just tell me things.” Mary-Beth smiled sweetly and popped the last piece of cheesecake into her mouth.

    *****

    An hour later, back in Indian Cove, Sam and Millie joined me for an evening of joyriding.
    “Tell me again why we’re doing this,” Sam yawned from the back seat.
    “Because I just had dinner with Mary-Beth and she said something that got me thinking.” I turned left at an intersection. “She bookmarks Web pages throughout the year with stuff she might want to buy for Christmas. So maybe Mrs. Scott bookmarked stuff on her computer. It might tell us something.”
    Sam stifled another yawn while she hugged her jacket tight around her. “You need us because?”
    I looked sternly into the rearview mirror. “Because, thanks to