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credibility with his customer was ruined. Shouted that he’d get even. He actually said he’d”—Claire stopped for just a second, swallowed, and continued—“he said he’d kill me for this.”
    â€œMy god, what did you say?”
    â€œNot if I kill you first.” Claire shook her head. “I was being flippant, of course. I’m regretting the bravado now.
    â€œI returned a few cases to my booth at the antique mall that night like I always do so they could be locked in the safe I keep there, just jewelry and a few smalls. The back door was locked. I let myself in and there was a light on near my booth. Horace was there. Dead on the Kilim rug, right in front of the Pembroke table.
    â€œHow did you know he was dead?”
    â€œThe lack of breathing, the pool of blood, the seven-inch blade with the carved bone handle sticking out of his chest,” Claire said, shrugging. “The dagger was a tip-off of sorts.”
    Oh again laid his hand on his wife’s.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve had a very bad day.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” said Jane, thinking she had been right about tall people. They were supercilious and got away with it because they could see farther than the average joe—or jane.
    â€œBut what about the timing of all this? How long had he been dead? Did you call the police right away?”
    â€œThe police walked in right after me. The alarm had been tripped. I turned it off before I came in, but it had rung at the police station because of a front window being tampered with,” Claire said. “It was a scene from a television program. I was kneeling over the body of a man that at least thirty well-dressed, reliable witnesses had heard me say I’d kill.”
    â€œNetwork,” Jane said, looking past Claire, locking eyes with Bruce Oh.
    Oh looked at her blankly.
    â€œLast scene before the first commercial break,” Jane said. “Network television program.” She shook her head. “Not even HBO.”
    Â 
    Jane placed four large boxes on the dining room floor. Belinda St. Germain had told her at the end of chapter one that sorting was a top priority. The categories that St. Germain had defined—trash, charity, deep storage, and finally, the well-placed essentials—had to be slightly amended for Jane’s work and home space. “Trash,” after all, was such a relative word. Everyone knew the hackneyed mantra of the garage sale crowd—one person’s trash is another person’s treasure—but it got more complicated for a picker. Jane labeled her boxes with the following—“Might be for Miriam,” “Maybe I should ask Tim first,” “Not Yet,” and “Almost Trash.”
    Sorting out what was going through her mind also benefited from a kind of labeling. Actually, Jane realized, her thoughts were working more in her old ad exec mode of pro and con listing before going forward with a pitch.
    Reasons to take the case:
    â€¢ Makes me a real detective.
    â€¢ I like Bruce Oh.
    â€¢ I’ll learn more about antique furniture, which will help me be a better picker just in case this whole detective gig doesn’t work out, which it probably won’t.
    â€¢ My role as a mother is up for grabs.
    Reasons not to take the case:
    â€¢ My role as a mother is up for grabs.
    The pro list clearly outweighed the con list, however that one con was a lulu. If she ran off to play detective, wasn’t she in even more danger of losing permission slips and packing defective lunches? Perhaps Belinda St. Germain had a point when she stated that sorting through one’s stuff—learning the difference between the right stuff and the wrong stuff—was a lot easier than figuring out the rest of one’s life.
    Maybe Jane needed to start with the stuff. She stood knee-deep in a pile of used wool sweaters that she thought someone might want