Page 72 of Murder on Charity Lane

“You should come to game night.”

That sounded like a nightmare to Lily-Ann, but CJ smiled at the offer. Well, maybe not at the offer, but at the sweetness with which it was made. CJ asked Miles what he played and he started babbling about healers and artifacts.

Lily-Ann looked to Ocean for approval about how she’d managed not to ask about Frank DeYoung’s death.

Ocean sketched a little bow of gratitude and refilled her wineglass.

Sophie joined Riley on the couch, and Lily-Ann tuned in to Mrs. B’s story about her frenemy at the YMCA, who criticized her for monopolizing the hair dryer to dry her entire body. “It’s too damp in the locker room to rely on a towel.”

“CJ’s lucky you don’t ask her to towel you dry,” Ocean said.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Mrs. B said, and eyed CJ speculatively.

Then Ocean passed around her phone to show off a photograph Riley won an award for at school, which made Riley squirm and Lily-Ann wonder if she preferred photography after all.

Finally, when CJ was halfway through her second glass of wine, Lily-Ann couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to know more about the other guests at the murder scene. “So CJ, how well do you know George and Helene Kagant?”

“Fairly well. They’re lovely.”

“They’re the windshield wiper tycoons?” Nicholas asked.

Sophie nodded. “The ones Angela calls Beard and Bird.”

“Ha!” CJ took another sip of wine. “That’s perfect. They’re great—and trustworthy enough that Frank loaned them money. Helene is the nicest person in the world, and George is dippy for her. Actually, he dated Karina back in the day.”

“Whoa,” Sophie said.

“Long before he met Helene. He was an engineer, she worked at the same place.”

“How did Frank and Karina meet?” Lily-Ann asked.

“I think through George, actually. He invited her to a party at the house, she wowed everyone with her bocce skills.”

Sophie gestured with her fork. “Was she … on the prowl?”

“For a rich husband, you mean?”

“Yeah. Like, if that’s what you’re looking for in a marriage, then you have to wait and wait and wait to buy your yacht, to start remodeling the—”

“We’re not talking about that,” Ocean said, trying to keep the conversation away from murder.

“It’s okay, Ocean,” CJ reassured her. “I don’t mind.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” Lily-Ann said. “You were telling us about George?”

“Right. Um, he’s clever, funny, a sort of off-kilter intellectual. He needs a Helene, though. A woman who’s smarter than he is but lets him talk. Of course, the difference with George and, say, Sunny, is that George actually knows things.”

“Sunny was Frank’s best friend?” Ocean asked.

“Well, his oldest friend.”

“You don’t like him?” Ocean asked CJ.

She made a face. “Sunny is a lot. But he’s so awful that it comes around to being almost endearing? I don’t know if Frank actually liked him or just loved him. They were more like brothers.”

“Where is his money from?” Lily-Ann asked, angling toward a motive.

“Investments. The story is he hustled his way into a little money young, then spent the last fifty years growing it.”