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can tell me, Ronda?”
    “She was a nice woman. I’m sorry she’s dead. Now I know why she missed her last appointment.”
    We went back upstairs—it was almost time for Ronda’s next appointment—and Ronda took the full-length sketch from me. At her station, she pulled over a bottle of bright pink polish, opened it, removed the excess liquid from the brush, and dabbed it over the fingertips on the sketch. They were hardly more than little circles, but they brightened up the otherwise black-and-white picture. She handed it to me carefully, screwed the cap back in the bottle, and pushed it to its accustomed space.
    On my way out, I stopped at the desk and asked for the date of Mrs. Parker’s last appointment and for her phone number. The phone number was on file in their computer; it was the same number as the phone in the apartment. That, at least, established the dead woman, whatever her name might have been, had lived in that apartment. The last time she’d seen Ronda was the day before I got the phone call. I headed home.
    “Good work,” Jack said.
    “What kind of work did you do, Mommy?” Eddie asked. The two of them were preparing vegetables for our dinner. Jack takes over the cooking on weekends, mostly because he enjoys it but also, I’m sure, because the quality of what he cooks is so far superior to what I cook.
    “It wasn’t really work, honey. I was looking for someone and I found her. Can I have a carrot stick?”
    He handed me one and I crunched it. “Mm. This is sweet.”
    “Daddy is going to play baseball with me after lunch.”
    “I guess it’s that season. Don’t break any windows, you guys.”
    Eddie laughed. I wasn’t sure what was so funny.
    Jack called Joe Fox after lunch, and when he was sure Joe didn’t mind being bothered on a Saturday, he gave me the phone.
    “I found the manicurist,” I said.
    “Well, you’re one giant step ahead of my cops. They reported that they’ve covered all the ones in Oakwood and have branched out to neighboring towns.”
    I told him I had started with neighboring towns and why.
    “Good thinking. What do you have?”
    I gave it to him quickly, ending with the phone number.
    “So the victim lived there. And she must have had a husband or significant other because the building manager had his name and probably his signature on the lease. But who knows what name they kept their money under. And where’s the husband?”
    “I had to leave a few things for you, Joe,” I said.
    “Right. If you show us up, there’ll be hell to pay. Well, the ME was able to lift fingerprints from the body. We’ll be able to compare them with those we found in the apartment. I guess we’d better look for an account for Rosette Parker in the local banks, not that we have any reason to believe she stopped with two names. Anyway, it’s too late today. We’ll have to wait for Monday. But you’ve made a good start, Mrs. Brooks. If you’re looking for a job, I’ll be glad to recommend you to the county.”
    I admit to feeling flattered. I filled in what I had left out initially, that Ronda thought Rosette might have worked in White Plains, that she said nothing about her family but wore a diamond ring that could have been a wedding band.
    “Sounds like Holly/Rosette was a careful person. When we have the prints, we’ll see if she has a record.”
    “And a name she was born with.”
    “That, too. I’d especially like to know if there’s a family, either on her side or her husband’s. And it would be nice to know where he disappeared to.”
    “A lot of things we don’t know,” I said. “I’ll follow my intuition, Joe, and try to keep from getting underfoot.”
    “So far that’s not a problem. I have to say, though, I didn’t expect you to lose that dollar quite so fast.”
    “Nor did I.” It still rankled a bit. “Any labels in her clothes, Joe?”
    “Brand names but no store labels. I’m told the labels are in the more-than-moderate range. Someone in