Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

But here I was praising it. And even that wasn’t good enough for Keil.
    He mumbled, “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Hit him, will you, Libby?”
    “I can’t. He’s too wet.”
    “Oh, Keil, you must be freezing.”
    “I’m fine.” His teeth were chattering. I found the heater, turned it on, and drove silently, contemplating the unimaginable—that a much-loved kid like Esperanza could have problems so large she wanted to die.
    Marty’s door was opened by a scared-looking Ava. “Esperanza fell in,” I said, racing past her, and no one contradicted me. Libby and I took her in the bathroom and put her under a warm shower, clothes and all, while Keil showered in his mother’s bathroom. Libby found some sweats for Esperanza, and her mother’s terry cloth robe for Julio to wear, while Ava dried their clothes in the Maytag.
    While Julio showered, I went down and made Esperanza some bouillon with a chicken-flavored cube, telling myself it wasn’t really chicken soup and I wasn’t being silly, you were supposed to drink hot liquids for hypothermia, and feeling like my own mother. By this time, Ava had changed Libby’s sheets and made Esperanza get in bed.
    Before I took the cup up, I had a little conference with Keil. It was agreed that for a mere $7.50, Trap Door would find a way to get Ava out of the house and keep her out for the next hour, while we all recovered.
    As I mounted the stairs, I heard his panicked-sounding voice: “Grandma, could you take me to the drugstore? We haven’t got a thermometer, and we have to make real sure Esperanza’s temperature doesn’t go down.”
    I couldn’t hear what Ava answered, but the next thing he said was, “Rebecca dropped it.” The boy was resourceful, no question about it.
    Esperanza was sitting up on a pile of pillows, hair still wet, but otherwise looking almost normal.
    “A little soup?”
    She frowned, involuntarily, I was sure—she hadn’t Libby’s bent for candor.
    “You don’t like soup?”
    “It’s okay.”
    “Hot chocolate?”
    “Yeah!” She smiled. Really smiled.
    Libby smiled, too, wistfully. “Me, too?”
    “Sure.”
    I practically fell all over myself—and did dribble soup—getting back downstairs, only to find a problem at the bottom—in the form of unexpected guests at the door. It was Warren Nowell and a woman, bearing a fat-humped platter covered in aluminum foil. Still holding the cup, I let them in.
    Warren was dressed in a polo shirt and white pants. The woman wore a wrap-around skirt and simple pink blouse. She looked a few years older than he, but her hair was gray and I thought perhaps it had turned prematurely. “Hello, Ms. Schwartz.” His voice was smooth. “This is my wife, Mary Ellen.”
    “Please come in.”
    “We brought you a ham. We thought with the kids and all, you might not have time to cook.”
    I was trying to make appropriate noises and figure out how to take the ham while holding the cup of bouillon and also how to get rid of them without being rude when Julio bellowed, “Hey, Rebecca, do we have any hair conditioner?” It’s possible I blushed. I smiled sheepishly at the Nowells while Libby hollered, “There’s a new batch in the cabinet.” I led them into the kitchen. “That’s Julio Soto. I’m afraid we’re having a little crisis around here at the moment. He took us sailing and his daughter fell overboard. Both he and Keil went in after her, and everyone’s still trying to get warm and calm down.
    “I was just going to make Esperanza some hot chocolate and pour myself a glass of wine. Will you join me?”
    “We’d love to,” said Mary Ellen, but I thought Warren looked unhappy. She kept talking as I poured their wine and then took milk out of the fridge and poured it into a pan.
    “You know, the board met this afternoon and voted Warren acting director.”
    “That’s wonderful,” I said absently. “Congratulations.”
    “Thank you.” She handed me a box of chocolate—I hadn’t even heard her looking for it—and I wondered where she’d found it. I was so befuddled it took me a moment to realize she, not Warren, had accepted my thanks.
    “We’re really going to miss Sadie. You can’t know what a wonderful person she was.”
    Julio padded in, barefoot, the robe knotted around him. He held his arms open in a model’s gesture. “You think pink is my color? Oh—Warren. Mary Ellen.”
    Mary Ellen said, “It’s all right. Rebecca explained about Esperanza.”
    He