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arm, and he stopped politely, still smiling professionally.
    Her voice was almost flirtatious. “Don’t you approve of my home? Now that it’s built? Isn’t it better than an auditorium?”
    “It is truly beautiful, Ms. Ripley.”
    She laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Then she walked on.
    Herrera moved on, too, but he muttered as he walked. He spoke in Spanish, but all Texas kids learn a few Spanish swear words in junior high. I was pretty sure I understood him. “Bitch,” he said. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”
    Herrera showed me to the built-in bar, which was about eight feet long. It was under the balcony and was located between the kitchen and this big black-and-white whatever-it-was room—you couldn’t call it a living room, certainly. A lifeless room, maybe?
    Herrera introduced me to Jason, who was the head bartender. Around fifty, Jason had dark, dramatic eyes, but his hair was his most striking feature. He had a high forehead and a long tail of salt-andpepper hair, which he wore just like I usually wore mine—in a clump at the back of his neck. The combination of bare forehead in front and long hair behind made him look as if his scalp had slipped backward. He smelled of some spicy cologne or aftershave. Jason asked me a few questions about my bartending experience, and while he talked, his hands kept busy arranging glasses. I went around the bar, knelt, and started handing him glasses from racks on the floor.
    Herrera left us, and Jason leaned closer. “I saw the Ripper talking to Mike,” he said. “What did she have to say?”
    “Something about how she hoped he liked the house better than an auditorium. What did she mean by that?”
    Jason rolled his eyes. “I’d better not say.”
    “Look,” I said. “Is there something going on here that I need to know about?”
    “I’d better shut up.”
    “Whatever you think,” I said. Then I kept my mouth shut—a method I’ve found works like a charm when somebody says they don’t want to tell you something. If you act as if you don’t want to know—they’ll tell you.
    It took Jason thirty seconds to start talking again. “You know that Mike is mayor of Warner Pier?”
    “No, Aunt Nettie had never mentioned it.”
    “Warner Pier is too small a town to have a village idiot, you know. We all have to take turns.”
    I laughed. “So it’s Mr. Herrera’s turn to be mayor?”
    “Yeah,” Jason said. Or I think that’s what he said. To a Texan, the Michigan “yeah” sounds a lot like the Dutch “ya.” But they think I’m the one with an accent.
    Jason was still talking. “Mike’s been mayor for five years. Warner Point was one of the last bits of undeveloped land inside the city limits, and Mike had this great plan for it. He wanted to build a conference center that would attract business in the winter, as well as the summer.”
    “Get rid of the off-season slump?”
    “It might have helped. A lot of us have to go on unemployment.”
    “But Clementine Ripley got the land instead?”
    Jason nodded. “Oh, she’d owned the land for several years. She’d acted interested in selling it—Mike was about to propose a bond issue. Then all of a sudden she built this huge place. And she employs a grounds service, a housekeeping service, and a maintenance service—all out of Grand Rapids.”
    “Tough on Mr. Herrera’s plan to increase year-round employment.”
    “If she just wouldn’t keep rubbing it in.”
    Jason and I finished the glasses. Then he handed me a box knife, one of those gadgets that holds a razor blade, and told me to start opening cases of soft drinks and mixers. “This’ll be a wine crowd,” he said. “Maybe some beer. I don’t think we’ll have many requests for mixed drinks, but we’d better have several mixers out. Then you can slice the lemons and limes. Not too many. I’m going into the kitchen to chill wine.”
    I was kneeling on the floor, ripping open the first soft drink box, when I heard Marion McCoy’s