Simmer Down

with individual sections twirled and then rolled into flattened circles and with the rest of her hair pulled tightly back into a mess of curls that stood in a perky mound on the top of her head. The style, perfect for a prom, was by no means suitable for a middle-aged widow, and the new light color seemed to mirror and even to mock the yellowish hue of the woman’s skin.
    “Okay, just how you like it,” Adrianna announced after jabbing one final bobby pin into Dora’s hair disaster. I couldn’t understand how Ade could stoop so low until I saw how much cash Dora handed her. And me.
    After getting directions to Sarka and Barry’s house, we left Dora alone in her cavernous mansion and packed up the trunk with Adrianna’s bags. As I walked to the passenger door, I noticed a tremendous trash pile by the driveway. Next to a mountain of garbage bags was an oversized aquarium tank complete with a screened lid and a fluorescent light fixture.
    “Hold on!” I stopped Adrianna before she got into the car. “Look what Dora is throwing out! A perfectly good tank. This would be perfect for the hermit crab Walker gave me. Help me move it into the car.”
    “You are not trash-picking from one of my clients, Chloe! That is disgusting. What if she’s looking out the window and sees us rooting through her trash? No way. Get in the car.”
    “Fine. But there’s no reason that I shouldn’t take it if she’s getting rid of it.” I buckled my seat belt and sighed. “Dora’s husband just died, and apparently her pet something just died, too. She’s not having a good week at all.”
    “I can’t believe it’s already eleven fifteen.” Ade sighed as she started up the engine. “So what did you think of Dora?” she asked.
    “If she did kill her husband, it obviously wasn’t for the money. But that is certainly a lot of trash outside today. I wonder if she’s throwing out some of Oliver’s stuff. Seems pretty quick to be cleaning out his closets, don’t you think?”
    I avoided telling Adrianna that Oliver had been after Hannah. To pass on Sean’s account would have been to raise the specter of Naomi as an avenging angel. Out of loyalty to Naomi, I didn’t want anyone, even my best friend, to know of my fear that my supervisor had radically violated the principles of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers by murdering a harasser. Still, I might be able to glean a little information about Dora and Oliver without betraying Naomi. I wondered whether Oliver had made a habit of pushing himself on other women and whether he regularly had affairs. Could Dora, like Sean, have caught Oliver and Hannah together in the gallery office? But we could hardly have probed by asking Dora whether she’d enjoyed Food for Thought: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
    “Do you think they were happy together?” I settled for asking. “I mean, you’ve been in their house a bunch of times, so you must have a feel for their relationship, right?”
    Adrianna nodded. “Well, Dora is stuffy and snobby and not my most favorite person, but she’s always spoken highly of Oliver. She seemed very off today. I almost feel bad leaving her by herself in that mansion. She and Oliver had been together for years, and she must be totally lost. Like I said, I think she’s in a state of shock and has no idea what to do with herself.”
    Throughout the short drive to Sarka’s, I continued to press Adrianna about Dora and Oliver’s marriage, but nothing I heard suggested a motive for Dora to have murdered her husband. Oliver had clearly been an ass of some sort, but whether or not Dora knew it was questionable.
    “Why are you so interested in her?”
    “No reason. Just wondering about the lifestyles of the rich and widowed,” I said innocently. “And we’ll see about Sarka.”
    “So now you think Sarka killed Oliver?”
    “No, but maybe we’ll get some juicy information from her,” I said.

THIRTEEN

    AS Dora had said, Barry and Sarka Fields lived nearby. After a four-minute drive, we arrived at what turned out to be my dream house: a traditional two-story colonial painted gleaming white, it had black shutters, an attached garage, and a white fence topped with latticework. Christmas lights and garlands were strung around the bright red front door, and on the door itself was a big fresh wreath. There was even smoke billowing out of the chimney! I was ready to move in.
    Not knowing what