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mystery novels,” Marian said. “That’s why it’s so exciting to be involved with a real murder. It might be material for a book.”
    Marian was short, with brown hair and brown eyes, and a determined chin. She was the only one there wearing jeans. She looked like a normal person, but Rhodes knew better. He was pretty sure no normal person would look at someone’s death as material for a book.
    “In the first place, we don’t know that there’s been a murder,” Rhodes said. “It might have been just an accident.”
    “Maybe,” Belinda Marshall said. She was a tall woman with an elongated face and very long hair that hung down her back in a heavy braid. “But maybe not. A writer has to be alert to all kinds of things. Maybe we can even help you find out who did it.”
    All Rhodes needed was a dormitory full of people trying to help him solve a murder.
    “I’ll have plenty of professional help,” he said. “Were both of you in the main building when the problem developed?”
    “Is that what you call it?” Marian asked. “A problem?”
    Rhodes almost expected her to start taking notes.
    “It’s not a technical term,” he said.
    Marian considered his question. “I was in the other building so I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “I don’t know about Belinda.”
    Belinda looked surprised. She said, “Yes you do. I’d just been talking to you when someone ran over to tell us that there’d been a murder.”
    Marian shrugged. “If you say so.”
    Belinda looked as if she’d like to take Marian aside and shake her. Rhodes thought she might have done it, but they were interrupted just then by the arrival of the ambulance and Ruth Grady, who had hardly stepped inside the dormitory when someone else showed up, someone about whom Rhodes had nearly forgotten.
    Terry Don Coslin followed Ruth into the sitting room and looked around. He was wearing a T-shirt that hugged his iron-hard pecs and stomach, and his jeans were so tight Rhodes wondered how he could breathe.
    Terry Don yawned and looked around the room as if he had no clue that anything out of the ordinary had happened and said, “What’s all the excitement about?”
     
     
    According to Terry Don, he’d left the main building after dinner, gone back to his room in the president’s house, and read a few chapters from a book he’d brought with him, and gone to sleep.
    Rhodes could tell by the looks on the writers’ faces that each one of them hoped it had been her book he was reading, which was no doubt why Terry Don had carefully avoided mentioning a title. Ruth Grady didn’t look as if she cared whether he’d been reading or not; she was just starstruck.
    Rhodes told her to wait outside for the justice of the peace and then take him in to have a look at Henrietta.
    “Her room’s at the end of the hall,” Rhodes said. “As soon as the JP pronounces her dead, you do the crime scene.”
    “All right. Any chance that Terry Don Coslin needs a body search? I volunteer.”
    “I’ll let you know,” Rhodes said.
    There were still a few things that worried him about the stories that he’d heard, and he also had a few questions for Terry Don, but all that could wait. He wasn’t having much luck with the whole group around, so he wanted to talk to people individually. Besides, he had another stop to make. He told everyone that they could go to their rooms.
    “Except for you, Lorene,” he said. “You’ll have to find somewhere else.”
    “There’s another room in the president’s house,” Chatterton said. “She can stay there.”
    There were several envious looks in Lorene’s direction until Rhodes told her that she couldn’t get anything from the room where Henrietta was.
    “It’s a crime scene now,” he explained.
    “What if it was just an accident?” Marian Willoughby asked sarcastically.
    “Then it won’t be a crime scene anymore. But until we find out for sure, no one can go in there. You’ll just have to do the best you