Thirteen Diamonds

phone conversation, during which she murmured, “Is that a fact?” at one point, but her face didn't give anything away.
    After she hung up she started writing. I said, “Well?”
    She looked up, smugly. “Gerald dealt the hand, himself. Harriet was his partner. Ida sat to his left. Ellen sat to his right.”
    “Interesting.”
    “Does that mean that Gerald intentionally dealt himself the 13 diamonds?”
     “Not necessarily.” But I didn't have any better explanation at the moment. “Anyway, Gerald dealt the hand and barely had time to look at his cards when he started choking.”
    “Dora tried to help him and you called the clinic.”
    “And 911. But nothing could be done to save him. So much for Gerald.”
    “So much for Gerald. Is that what detectives say about the victims?” Tess made a face.
    “I guess they have strong stomachs. To move on, the three women at his table plus Dora were involved to some extent in putting together the casserole at Harriet's apartment. The recipe called for tuna, not shellfish. Nobody will admit to putting in the shellfish and nobody saw it done.”
    “Harriet had the best opportunity—although I still can't picture her as a murderer—because it was her apartment, and because she was alone when she carried the dish to the recreation room.”
    “Right, but let's say it wasn't Harriet. Then most likely the shellfish was put into the dish after it got to the recreation room.” I said this partly to ease Tess' mind about her friend.
    “Which means that any of the other three could have done it, if they had a minute, undisturbed.”
    “But when could they have gotten that minute? After the fire alarm went off!” I exclaimed. “Remember? It happened just as we were about to eat lunch. Everybody had to evacuate the building.  We were outside for maybe five minutes.”
    “So somebody could have snuck back in before the others.”
    “Right. Or just stayed in the room. I didn't count noses, so I don't know whether anybody was missing.”
    “Me either,” Tess said. “But that relieves my mind. It means that Harriet isn't the only possible suspect.”
    “In fact,” I said, “it means that anybody in the bridge club could have done it.”
    “Or anybody at Silver Acres.”
    I laughed. “Now we have too many suspects.”
    “Then we have to figure out who had a motive,” Tess said.
    “We have potential motives for Harriet and Ida—jealousy. I don't know of any motives for anybody else.” We pondered in silence for a while. Then I said, “I'm willing to bet that whoever switched the decks is the killer.”
    “Unless Gerald did it, himself, as a joke.”
    “Now we have to investigate his sense of humor. But, assuming he didn't deal himself 13 diamonds on purpose, the two who had the best opportunity to switch the decks are Ida and Ellen, because they sat on either side of him.”
    “But not Harriet,” Tess said. “Good.”
    “The switched cards looked new. Maybe we should check for fingerprints on the 13 diamonds.”
    “At a minimum, there would be Gerald's and yours—and the murderer's.”
    “And Wesley's. Darn. I took them to the art gallery to be framed, so there are several more sets on them by now.”
    “You know, Lil,” Tess said, “maybe it's time we turned this over to the police. You've had your fun playing detective, but we're at a standstill. And if there has been a murder, it's our duty to tell what we know.”
    “As usual, you're the sensible one,” I said. “But I suspect that if we don't want to get on Carol's bad side we'd better go through her, since she's in charge here. If I were younger I'd pursue this more vigorously. But as it is, I seem to get a new ache or pain every week.”
    “Growing old is not for sissies.”

CHAPTER 8
     
    “What you've told me is very interesting,” Carol said, pouring me a second cup of coffee. “But I suspect there's a reasonable explanation for all of it.”
    “That would be nice,” Tess said, munching on a peanut from a mug on Carol's desk that had UNC printed on the side.
    Didn't Carol know that peanuts also caused life-threatening reactions in some people, as I had found out from the book on allergies I had been reading. Silver Acres was not a peanut-free zone. “What do you think the explanation is?”
    “I think that whoever put the shellfish in the casserole feels so mortified about what happened that she can't bring herself to admit it. I doubt that there was anything sinister