Killer Market

“I heard they opened a shop in Manhattan last year,” Pell said, as he poured coffee for me in a mug sprigged with violets. “Maybe we ought to buy stock in it.”

He and Dixie both seemed more relaxed this morning and in better spirits.

“Did you work it out with your sister-in-law about Lynnette?” I asked.

“For the moment,” Dixie said. “Thanks for speaking up last night. I’ve agreed to let her act as Chan’s executor and she’s agreed not to try to take Lynnette before the end of school. We’re both going to speak to an attorney. I just wish you could advise me.”

“I did,” I grinned. “I told you to get a lawyer.”

“So how’d it go with David?” she asked casually. Her back was to me as she wiped down the stove.

“Fine.”

“He decide your teenage fling with Chan wasn’t relevant after all?”

She rinsed out the dishcloth, hung it to dry beneath the sink, and sat down at the white table with a tall amethyst glass of water. At least her glassware had color.

I shrugged. “Who knows? Lucky for me, he’s still looking at alternatives. Did your sister-in-law tell you that someone was over at Chan’s house Thursday night? Or rather sometime before dawn yesterday morning?”

“Chan’s been known to lend his key to out-of-town friends looking for a little privacy,” said Dixie, a little too quickly. “Millie knows that.”

“But she told Detective Underwood that nothing was out of place and nothing seems to be missing.”

Pell closed the dishwasher, turned it on, then came and joined us at the table. “Maybe they changed their minds before they got to the bedroom.”

“He made a point of asking me if you two went out again after I went to bed.”

They looked at me mutely.

“I told him the truth,” I said to Pell. “That I knew you came back over here—”

“—to get a book I’d left,” he interjected. “I told him that myself.”

“—and that I woke up when you returned but that I didn’t look at the clock and I couldn’t begin to guess what time it was.”

I could see them visibly relax.

“Well,” said Dixie.

She started to rise, but I motioned for her to stay.

“I did not tell him that what woke me up was Pell’s van lights when you two drove in.”

Instant tension.

“You knew that Chan’s will named his sister as Lynnette’s guardian, so you drove over there, rifled his lockbox and took the will, right? Please tell me you didn’t destroy it?”

“Actually,” Pell began hesitantly.

“No, Pell!” said Dixie. Her tip-tilted eyes flashed brown sparks.

I held up my hand. “On second thought, forget about it. I don’t want to know. In fact, I don’t want to hear a word about anything that happened after I went to bed over at Pell’s. I’m an officer of the court. As far as I’m concerned, you drove out for orange juice and were back in ten minutes.”

Dixie started to speak, but I shook my head. “I mean it, Dixie. Don’t tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Me, too,” Pell said softly.

“Don’t thank me too soon. If I knew for a fact what time it was when you drove into the alley, I’d tell Underwood in a New York minute. And I’d still tell him if I thought either of you had anything to do with Chan’s death.”

“I didn’t,” Dixie told me solemnly. “Neither of us did. I swear it, Deborah.”

“Where were you Thursday night when Chan came downstairs?”

“After I finally got off the phone with Mr. Sherrin? It was around nine-thirty. I locked up, stuck a note on the door to tell you I’d be back at ten and then ran up the street to talk to Mary Ellen Hiatt, my opposite number at SHFA. We’re going to join forces with some other retail associations to lobby against lifting restrictions on selling furniture on military bases. I had just got back and was asking the guard if he’d seen you when you came charging out of the elevator.”

“So sometime between nine-thirty and ten, Chan came down and someone poisoned him with my penicillin tablets. Could Savannah know he was allergic to them?”

“Evelyn might have mentioned it to her, but I told you last night—he thought allergies were nerdy. Most people that knew him knew he had some, but I doubt if many people knew specifically what would set him off. Or how serious it was.”

“And Savannah might do crazy things,” said Pell, “but violence isn’t part of her makeup.”

“What is her makeup?” I asked. “Drew said you know what happens to her when she flips out.”

“Just the outlines, not the specifics,” he said. “They call it bipolar disorder these days, but it used to be manic-