She grasped my hands. "Please do, it would make such a difference." Was she really trying to be nice?
I freed myself discreetly. "That's lovely to hear."
She sashayed out of the library with her new book.
I sniffed my hands. There was a familiar smell on them, only I couldn't quite place it.
It would come to me, I thought, once I had a little break to digest all that I had learned this afternoon.
Chapter thirty-two
Itook a nice, long soak in the bathtub. I'd poured a generous amount of bath salts into the water.
"Five minutes," I told myself. "Five minutes of nothing, and then I will start the thinking process." Half an hour later, I climbed out of the tub with shriveled skin and more questions than answers.
I left Cosmo behind with instructions to think back to the time between Jake's death and my aunt's passing.
If we were right, that was the crucial period when somebody had sneaked into her private quarters and put the poisoned capsule into her pill container.
Whatever Cosmo had seen or heard during that period might be crucial.
I dressed carefully in jeans, a nice sweater, suede ankle boots, and a pale blue coat that set off my hair. The footwear alone should save me from being recruited on the spot by the Belles. Pretending to twist my ankle was an old ploy that had served me well before.
My friends would all be at the game.
Harper had promised to leave her staff in charge for a couple of hours. With the Belles playing against the big league—whatever that meant—half her regulars were sure to be at the bowling alley. It also boasted a bar and table service for pizza and burgers.
This combination guaranteed a slow night for theBlue Moon.
A small crowd had already assembled when I turned up. Ange waved at me from a table in full view of the lanes. Harper and Reina shared a bowl of cheesy fries.
Mimi and her garden club were also out in full force. On another table, Linda was sitting together with her husband, next to Jimmy and Louisa.
Only Detective Stone was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Louisa chatted with a man around my age who could easily give the policeman a run for his money in the looks department. Dark hair streaked with silver and a tan, broad shoulders, and horn-rimmed spectacles made for an unexpected mix of outdoorsy and intellectual.
Nick turned up with a couple of beers in his hand. He handed one to his wife. She waved it away. "After I've worked my magic," she said.
I hadn't noticed before, but she wore bowling shoes. Of course, she was a team member.
The big league consisted of a women's team from a town 30 miles away.
They certainly seemed fearsome, with a six-foot-tall Amazon who could easily have been a fashion model as their leader. The others were almost as impressive. There was nary a flabby body part or a gray hair in sight.
Louisa tore herself away from the conversation and pushed through to the edge of the lane.
I looked at the scoreboard. The Badger Belles were behind.
"Go, Ange," Louisa said. "You've got this. One strike and we're back in the game."
"No pressure then," my friend said. She flicked back her hair, rubbed her hands, and strolled ever so slowly to the lane, after taking her ball from a large bag with her initials.
Nick snickered.
"What's she doing?" I asked him in a low voice. "It's not like her to dawdle."
"It's as much of a mental game. She's trying to throw them off."
"Does it work?" I asked.
