Thirteen Diamonds

want to tell you what I know about you and Gerald.” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I know about your husband's relationship with Gerald, of course, because you told me yourself. I believe that constitutes a motive for murder. Even more so now because of the recent revival of interest in his book.”
    I used the word murder on purpose, hoping to get a rise out of her, because she was too contained, too cool. And her very coolness threatened to upset my plan, destroy my confidence. I would prefer that she be raving mad, perhaps even threaten to attack me, to her being this composed.
    Her eyes blinked when I mentioned murder, but she made no other sign that I had upset her. I had to go on. “I know that you switched card decks before Gerald dealt, taking the shuffled deck and replacing it with one that you had fixed.” I had confirmed with Wesley that the deck April found under the couch was one of the “official” club decks of cards. I hadn't told him where I had gotten it.
    “I know the reason you did it; when you and Gerald lived in San Diego he was once dealt 13 diamonds in a bridge hand. But he regarded it as bad luck because his partner was killed soon afterward. So you were telling Gerald that he was about to have bad luck. You hoped that this psychological ploy would hasten his death. And because you were the only one who knew about this episode in his history, you were telling him that you were his murderer.”
    “That's an interesting theory,” Ellen said, with her irritating coolness. “What else do you have?”
    “Of course you knew about Gerald's allergy to shellfish. It was common knowledge among the people in the Economics Department at UCSD because you all socialized together, played bridge together.
    “I know that you ordered lobster from the Sea Chantey Restaurant on the day Gerald died. I know who delivered it to you and he is prepared to testify in court that he did so.” Didn't all interrogators stretch the truth a bit?
    “If you know so much about me you know that I have a fondness for Maine lobster,” Ellen said, “because I grew up in New England. It just so happens it was my birthday and I wanted to treat myself. I had eaten at the Sea Chantey and so I knew they served it. End of story.”
    Ellen's arrogance grew as my confidence waned. I felt as if we were on opposite sides of a tug-of-war and I was on the side that was slowly being pulled into the mud puddle. Wasn't the suspect supposed to confess at this point?  That's what always happened on the television series, Murder She Wrote.
    But I wasn't through yet. I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as Ellen's, “I know when you put the lobster into the casserole. You took the meat out of the shell, of course, and pureed it so it would easily blend in. Then, during the fire alarm scare, when everybody else was outside, you went back into the recreation room. You had time to mix the lobster into the bowl so that nobody would know the difference.”
    Ellen looked at me with an expression that said I still hadn't broken her. She reached for a cordless phone, which sat on the table beside her, and punched in a number. Her eyes burned into mine while the phone rang, making me wish I were in Lapland, watching the reindeer.
    She said, “Hello, Wesley? This is Ellen. Do you remember back to the day of the fire alarm? Lillian is with me and she has a question about where I was after the alarm went off? Would you tell her, please?”
    She handed the phone to me. I hate it when a person shoves a phone in my face because they want me to talk to somebody I am completely unprepared to talk with, but if I refused to take it she would win, so I said, “Hello.”
    “Hello, Lillian? This is Wesley.”
    “Hello, Wesley. This is Lillian.”
    “Do you want to know where Ellen was after the fire alarm went off?”
    “Why, do you know?” I hoped that answering a question with a question would give me the upper hand, somehow.
    “Yes, she was with me.”
    “The whole time?”
    “Yes. We walked out together and we walked back in together. I remember because we talked about calligraphy the whole time. Calligraphy is a hobby of mine. Sometimes I wish I had lived back in the days when the monks made beautiful copies of the Bible by hand. Ellen is interested in it too. We had a fascinating conversation. She's seen some of those Bibles on her travels to Europe.”
    So had I, but somehow I hadn't known that either Wesley or Ellen