Bitty piped up. “As my cousin Princess Diana used to say, ‘In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.’ ”
Rosario glanced up from the cards in her hand, confusion drawing her slim eyebrows together. “Wasn’t that Sir Francis Bacon?”
“It was,” Carmen confirmed with a regal nod.
Bitty’s voice took on an acerbic tone. “He was probably quoting dear Diana.”
“Bacon died in the seventeenth century,” Carmen pointed out, her words positively caustic. “Are you suggesting he was a time-traveling quote thief?”
“What exactly do you mean?” I jumped in, directing the question at Rosario in hopes of stopping the brewing argument in its tracks. I really didn’t feel like sitting there listening to the women bicker all day, especially now that Rosario had dangled that potentially tasty tidbit of information in front of me.
Fortunately, Bitty simply huffed before studying her cards. Carmen flicked her eyes heavenward and then did the same with her own cards.
“Oh,” Rosario began as she and the other ladies each passedthree cards to the player on their right. “She bottles up her feelings until they explode out of her.”
“Like the time she smashed her former neighbor’s sunglasses after he left the dryer full of lint for the seventh time in a row,” Bitty said.
Rosario nodded as she rearranged the cards in her hand. “Exactly. I tried to give her a healthier way to release her emotions, particularly as they related to Freddie.”
“Okay, but what sort of feelings did she have about Freddie and why?” I asked.
“You know Minnie’s an artist,” Carmen said before asking, “Who’s got the two of clubs?”
“That’s me,” Leona announced, placing the card face up in the middle of the table.
“Right. I’ve seen some of her work,” I said.
“We were all at Shanahan’s Suds one evening last week,” Carmen continued, referring to a pub located a couple of blocks away. “Freddie had a few drinks in him.”
Bitty played a card. “When didn’t he?”
“He started ridiculing Minnie’s work,” Rosario said. “Loudly. Everyone in the pub heard him.”
Leona gave a dramatic shudder. “It was ghastly!”
“Was Minnie there?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Carmen replied.
Rosario clicked her tongue. “Poor thing. She sort of shrank into herself, and her face turned red. I got her out of there, but she was already so humiliated and angry by that point.”
I felt a pang of sympathy for Minnie, until I reminded myself that she might have killed Freddie. “So how did you help her release her emotions?”And did it involve a croquet mallet?I added silently.
“We played a game of darts.” Rosario selected a card from her hand and added it to the small pile in the middle of the table. “With Freddie’s face as the board.”
Bitty sighed and drew the trick—which contained the queen of spades—toward her.
Rosario made a note on the scoresheet. “Minnie drew a great likeness of Freddie, and we pinned it to the dartboard. You should have seen her hurtling the darts. She got him right in the eyes.”
That explained the hole-riddled portrait. But had Rosario enjoyed the game as much as Minnie? Had she found that she still had some simmering anger that the darts hadn’t cooled?
Checking on Rosario’s alibi really needed to be my next task.
Now I had to add Minnie’s name to my suspect list. Maybe throwing darts at Freddie’s portrait didn’t give her enough of a release. Maybe her anger had bubbled over later or had been reawakened by further comments from Freddie.
In my mind’s eye, I saw a furious Minnie grab Mr. Nagy’s confiscated croquet mallet from Freddie’s office and swing it at the super’s head.
I winced.
