"Is your wife one of the cooks?"

"Love beef and potatoes," he answered. "Always have."

Coming tonight had been a mistake. We wouldn't learn anything.

And tomorrow night's fish fry dinner dance might be as bad.

Edna caught my eye, mouthed an unintelligible phrase, and focused on something behind me. I turned to look. Ladies' room. When I faced her again, she was standing up. She covered her ears with her hands for a second, removed them, shook her head, and inched past Opal.

I poked a finger to my chest and mouthed, "Shall I come?"

She, Opal, and Naomi shook their heads. Edna held up one finger and pointed at herself, then at Naomi with two fingers, then at Haylee with three, me with four, and Opal with five.

Haylee translated. "We'll take turns. Edna first. Then Naomi, then me, then you, then Opal." Dramatically, she covered her ears and shook her head.

Okay, I got it. The room was too noisy with deafening music and hollering people. We would do our sleuthing, one by one, in the ladies' room.

What fun.

Edna marched off. The rest of us lined up at the dessert table. Colored lights flashed and strobed.

I centered one largish piece of vanilla fudge on my plate. I liked my sugar in one immense hit. Back at the table, I nibbled at the fudge and sternly told myself not to go back for more, no matter how yummy it was. Naomi and Haylee did their sleuthing stints in the restroom, and then it was my turn.

How was I supposed to find clues in a restroom? I pushed open the swinging door. After the dim lighting in the dining hall, I was blinded by bare fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling and hot pink paint on concrete walls and metal stalls. The door shut behind me, blocking out most of the racket from the dining hall.

No one was at the sinks, but boots showed underneath two of the stall doors. Probably the best way to stay in here long enough to eavesdrop was to take up residence in a stall.

I did, which left only one empty stall. If other women came in and had to wait, I'd give up my post. Actually, there were other reasons I wanted to leave. One was the buzz of the lights. Another was the mothbally room deodorizer.

The silence almost made me want to scream, Please, somebody, confess to killing Mike so I can get back to my friends. I dug around in my bag for pen and paper. If anyone in the ladies' room was going to confess, I would write it all down.

Finally one of the other women must have been similarly unable to stand the lack of conversation. She cleared her throat.

I held my pen at the ready.

"When's her baby due?" she asked.

"Not until August."

End of conversation. Nancy Drew would have had it easier. Someone would have written the murderer's name on the door.

Many messages had been scratched into the stall's paint, but none of the limericks, drawings, or phone numbers seemed to have a bearing on Mike's death.

The other two women washed their hands and left the ladies' room.

Ready to make my own escape, I stood up and poked my finger through the hole where the knob must have originally been. Just then, the ladies' room door opened. Music crashed into the room.

I backed up, plunked onto the toilet, and fished through my bag for the paper and pen.

The door to the ladies' room closed. Silence.

My fingers closed on the pen and paper. Was anyone in here with me? I bent forward and peeked out the hole in the latch. I saw only part of a sink. Cautiously, I exhaled my pent-up breath.

It was too soon to feel relief. Someone had entered the ladies' room. Stiletto heels banged on floor tiles. Toward my hideout.

I yanked the paper and pen out of my bag again.

"They have their nerve, coming to Mike's wake," she announced in a thin, snarling whine.

I knew that voice. Rhonda.

21.

WAS RHONDA WHINING BECAUSE Haylee, The Three Weird Mothers, and I had bought tickets for what she called "Mike's wake"?

"Yeah," another woman sobbed. "I can't believe we'll never see him again." It wasn't Aunt Betty. This woman had a younger, higher voice.

Rhonda's turn. "How could they have done this to us?"

"He was so great, so fun, so alive . . ."

"So gorgeous."

"He loved everything beautiful."

Mike? He hadn't loved Blueberry Cottage.

Rhonda sighed and went on, "Remember those jewelry boxes he made?" Her voice took on a gloating tone. "I think he only made those for his really special friends."

The other woman breathed, "Ahh, yes. Treasure chests, he called them. Mine has the cutest little-" She broke off.

Rhonda didn't say anything.

The other woman went on, "Remember all his other artwork? His woodcarvings?"

Had he made wooden buttons and given them away to all of his really special friends, too? Rhonda?

The other woman sobbed, "You just know he was about to settle down and make some woman very happy."

Rhonda paused before answering, "Yeah."

"When is Uncle Allen going to arrest his murderers?"

"It can't be too soon for me."

"I know someone whose brother's girlfriend works for the FBI or something."

The woman's voice got louder, as if she had turned away from the sinks and mirrors and was talking at the door of my stall. I wished I'd pulled my boots up where no one could see them. Now that I had something to take notes about, I didn't want to write for fear Rhonda and her friend would hear my scratchings and guess I was jotting down what they said. I should have chosen a stall with a complete latch, if one existed. Any moment, an eye would press itself against the hole in the door.

"If Uncle Allen and the state police don't arrest them soon," the woman continued, "I'll call my friend. The FBI will put them behind bars right away."

Rhonda's friend's voice became venomous. "If I could get my hands on Mike's murderer, like if she was in here, I'd make her sorry she ever laid eyes on him."

Did they hope to frighten me with their threats?

They were succeeding.

Had Rhonda or her friend been last night's intruder in Tell a Yarn?

"They're not getting away with it," Rhonda said. "Not if the respectable people in this village have anything to do with it."

The mothball fumes were going to make me sneeze. Pressing my index finger hard against my upper lip, I dropped my pen. It landed with a click that sounded like thunder, rolled under the door and into the main room, probably to Rhonda's feet.

Stiletto heels hammered into floor tiles again. The ladies' room door opened. The music reached new heights of throbbing. My head did, too. The door closed, shutting out the din from the main hall.

Listening to lights buzzing and faucets dripping, I waited for about half a minute, then fled.

When I returned to our table, Opal stood up. I shook my head at her. She firmed her lips and marched off, duty-bound to take her turn at sleuthing. I moved my chair so I could watch the ladies' room. I didn't recognize any of the women who went in and out.

I was about to fly to Opal's rescue when she emerged. Edna, Naomi, and Haylee gave her questioning looks. She shook her head, pointed toward the front door, and imitated someone shrugging into a coat. I was getting really good at understanding these women. Time to leave.

As we donned our coats, I eyed the hundreds of coats still in the coat rack. Was one of them missing one handmade wooden button? Checking all of them would be both time-consuming and extremely obvious. I followed the others outside.

Rain poured down. A cell phone pressed to his ear, Uncle Allen huddled against the wall underneath a porch light.

"You folks stay here," Opal offered. "I'll bring the car around."

"That's okay-" I started.

Edna held me back, rolling her eyes toward Uncle Allen. I nodded my understanding. While Opal fetched her car, the rest of us were to spy on him. Opal tore off into the rain. Standing very still, I tried to hear over rain pounding on the metal porch roof. Uncle Allen didn't appear to be speaking. Listening, maybe. His coat had a new button where one had been missing. The new one was plastic, not wood, and almost matched the other buttons. He beckoned to us.

Uh-oh. Rhonda's friend's brother's girlfriend had arranged for the FBI to arrest us already?

He spoke directly to me. "Ice on the river's breaking up. That cottage of yours is likely to flood." His eyes brightened. "Or get washed away. And you won't get permission to build a new one on a flood plain." He raised his forefinger toward the porch roof, and, presumably, toward the sky spewing water over everything. "Couldn't be a better tribute to Mike."

I opened my mouth to retort that no one could steal the land beneath the cottage from me.

Edna forced herself between Uncle Allen and me. "Did you get fingerprints from that button?"

He frowned. "They couldn't find even a partial. But they did discover that the button matched the buttons on Mike's coat. Two of them were missing, not just one." He eyed us suspiciously.

"Aha!" Edna said. "You find Mike's other missing button, and you'll find a killer."

Uncle Allen said what I was thinking. "Not necessarily." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You have more buttons than anyone else for miles around."

I was going to have to keep Edna out of jail, too?

Opal's car pulled up beside the porch steps. Naomi grabbed Edna's arm. "C'mon. We're late."

"For what?" Edna asked, for once not cluing in to hints from her friends.

Haylee answered, "Beauty sleep."

Edna made a rude snorting noise, but she came along.

The puddles in the parking lot had grown and deepened. Was Blueberry Cottage really in danger?

Edna hadn't missed everything. As soon as we were all in the car, she asked, "What's up?"

Naomi leaned forward on her tenuous perch between Haylee and me. "Sandbags. We all have fabrics we can spare. And more than enough sewing machines to go around. We'll make sandbags, fill them at the beach, and place them around Willow's cottage."

"Don't be silly," I said. "The river must have flooded lots of times during the past eighty years. That cottage stood its ground."

Haylee peeked around Naomi at me. "Never argue with The Three Weird Mothers. It would be like arguing with the river. If they decide to do something, they're going to do it, no matter what."

"They haven't decided," I countered. "And they're not about to. We'd be up all night, and Sundays are busy in Threadville."

"Yes, we have decided," Edna declared. "Haven't we, girls."

Opal's windshield wipers zipped back and forth, with limited success. She strained forward. "We can sew all night."

"We've done it lots of times," Naomi agreed. "We love sewing."

"Not sandbags," I scoffed. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Where's the fun in watching your darling little cottage drift down the river?" Edna asked sweetly. "I'm sure we all have fabrics in our stashes that we'd be glad to donate. These will be the prettiest sandbags ever."

"The river may not flood," I tried.

Opal slowed through a puddle covering most of the road. "That's optimistic."

My next ploy was changing the subject. I told them about my experience in the ladies' room and the threats that Rhonda and her friend had aimed at my stall door.

Haylee said, "After you went in there, Rhonda and an equally mean-looking woman talked and gestured for a long time outside the room before they followed you in."

Edna chirped, "They must have been plotting what to say for your benefit. Uttering threats is against the law. You should report them."

Haylee gurgled with laughter. "How are we going to explain to Uncle Allen about snooping on other women in the john?"

Edna got all huffy. "We wouldn't need to. It's none of his business. Or the state police's, either."