"Twelve-thirty?"

"Great." I clicked my cell phone closed. "Wanna join us?" I asked Dwayne.

He shook his head. "Binks and I'll keep the Border collie in line."

"I take it, that's not Mrs. Jansen's place."

"She's on the other side." He inclined his head toward the west wall.

"Who're the people with the dog?"

"Renters. Just moved in." He shrugged.

"Haven't turned your binoculars on them?"

"All they do is watch TV. And yell at their dog."

"b.u.mmer," I said and headed for the door.

Dottie's is a teeny shop with teeny chairs cl.u.s.tered around teeny tables. You mark your selection on a plastic-coated menu right down to the type of mayonnaise: plain, garlic or blue cheese. Shaking rain off my jacket and hair, I chose roast beef and Havarti cheese, opting for tomatoes and onions and romaine, eschewing the alfalfa sprouts. Can't do 'em. I have this mental image of fields of gra.s.s and cows chewing their cud. I'm from California, originally, where the alfalfa sprout is king, but I just can't make them work for me. Makes me feel like a traitor somehow.

I swept my hood from my head but kept my coat on. I paid for my sandwich and my chosen beverage, a soda, which I then grabbed from the serve-yourself gla.s.s refrigerator at the end of the counter. I snagged the last postage-stamp-sized table, beating out a kid who was running ahead of a family of five. Who were these people, anyway? They didn't deserve a place to sit if they couldn't figure out this wasn't a family restaurant. Why weren't they at fast food? Or a Denny's or Shari's? Something with revolving pies in a case next to the cash register. How did they expect to all sit together here?

The kid was about seven. He gazed at me in that scary, unabashed, wide-eyed way that says nothing and everything at the same time, dripping water from the hem of his coat to the floor. Mom was carrying a baby on her hip, its face hidden behind the brim of a yellow, plastic duckie cap. She came up beside her goggle-eyed son, laying a hand on his shoulder. Dad and another little brother were grabbing plastic menus and trying to order for everyone. Water flew off their clothes, as if it were raining inside as well as out.

I looked through the window to a sheet of rain just as Violet sailed in, snapping closed an umbrella. She took one look at the clientele and said loudly, "Jane. Let's go to Foster's. I'll buy."

"I already ordered."

"Make it to go," she said and turned back outside.

I couldn't be happier. I graciously gave up my table and watched as the family tried to squeeze around it. "Good luck with that," I told them. There were only three chairs and that was two too many for the table size. I swept up my sandwich and soda and hurried outside to catch up with Violet.

She'd parked her Mercedes illegally on one side of the wide drive that leads to Lake Chinook's only multistory (three-level) parking structure. I have serious parking issues, so I'm reluctantly impressed by those who threaten the parking G.o.ds and get away with it.

I was intrigued to see what she would do when she got to Foster's as there's never any good parking available. Violet cruised to the nearest bank's parking lot and squeezed her Mercedes into an end s.p.a.ce that looked like it was made for golf carts or Minis. I had to suck in my gut and hold my breath to climb out.

"Don't let me forget my sandwich," I said as we hurried toward Foster's street-side door. "It's dinner."

Violet didn't answer, just held her umbrella against the wind and rain like a s.h.i.+eld. I stayed close to her as it was getting really nasty out. We entered Foster's in a whoosh of rain and wind, closing the door behind us quickly as other patrons looked up in panic at the blast of wet weather.

"G.o.d, I need a drink," she said, and set about talking directly to the bartender about her signature drink. Something amethyst, I recalled, as she'd tried to foist this concoction on me once before. I'd opted for a beer instead. I did the same thing now, but this time I asked for it to come with a lemon slice, just to be fancy.

"So, tell me more about Gigi," Violet said as she joined me by the maitre d's stand down the steps toward the rear of the establishment where the tables and circular booths resided for main dining. Beyond the pane windows lay the patio, currently being blitzed by slanting, furious rain that bounced off the pavement.

The hostess showed us to a table next to another of Foster's gas fireplaces. I could feel warmth on my left shoulder but couldn't quite shake off the s.h.i.+ver that hit me from head to toe. I gave Violet a quick recap of my visit to the Hatchmere house, then drew a deep breath and said, "I've been d.i.n.king around with this thing for nearly a month. I finally got to talk to both Sean and Gigi, and I've left messages with other wedding guests and friends. But it seems like a roundabout way of gaining information when you're sitting right here."

Violet's eyes are that amazing shade of electric blue that serves a lot of the Purcell family. She was gazing at me hard and there's just something unnerving about being captured in those twin, aqua laser beams. The sensation made me uneasy. Just like I'd been throughout my dealings with her family. "What are you asking?"

"I need background," I told her. "Something more than 'I dropped by Roland's to deliver a gift, which I then hit him with'."

"I didn't kill him. I told that detective that, but he just sat there and waited, hoping I'd suddenly throw myself across the table and confess, I guess."

"Why did you hit him?"

"I told you. We had a fight." Her drink was delivered along with my beer. "Thanks, hon," she said, then twirled the stem of her gla.s.s between her fingers, the silvery, lavender liquid slos.h.i.+ng up the sides. It looked like it was going to centrifugally launch itself into a purple wave, but she managed to keep it from going airborne. She picked up the gla.s.s and gulped gratefully, eyes closing.

I liked her better with her eyes shut. Much more restful.

"What was the fight about?"

"I don't know. Yes, I do." She opened her eyes again. "Do I have to tell you this?"

"You don't have to do anything. Except possibly go directly to jail without pa.s.sing Go."

"Roland...and I...have a complicated history. We're better when we're not married."

I kind of thought that might be true of Violet and all her ex-husbands, but I kept it to myself.

"But we can't leave each other alone. This isn't the first time we connected since we've been divorced."

"What exactly do you mean by connected?"

"You know what I mean." She gave me a sidelong look.

"You were having an affair."

"It was more than that. Jesus, Jane. You make everything sound so tawdry."

"Was he married when you first met?"

"See what I mean? You have to go right there, don't you? No. He wasn't married. Except mentally, you could say. In that, he's always married to someone. He really never knows how to let go," she said with a trace of bitterness.

"Okay..." I said.

"Are you going to sit there and be all judgmental? Because honestly, I'm just so over that."

"Then, give me something to go on."

She scooted her chair closer and hunched over her drink. This near, I could see the faint cracking of her skin beneath her makeup, but she was still remarkably youthful looking.

"Roland was already divorced from Renee, Gigi and Sean's mother, when we hooked up, but it wasn't like he really was, if you know what I mean. Roland and Renee did all kinds of things together. They just didn't live together. They had a piece of paper that said they were through with each other, but they weren't."

"Meaning?"

"They'd been living apart for ages. But they were still in each other's lives."

"Like Roland and Melinda."

"Except they're not divorced." She sighed. "It's just what Roland does. You know, he and I didn't actually jump into divorce when we split up. It was only after Melinda pushed him that the deed was finally done. I should have waited as it turned out. Those clinics paid off and they were a gold mine. C'est la vie." She laughed and waved a hand.

"You met Roland in Los Angeles?" I knew some of her background.

"Yes. I was twice divorced by the time Roland and I hooked up. He'd been divorced from Renee for a while."

I nodded, recalling what I knew of Violet's history already. She'd gotten married at nineteen the first time, had done some modeling and film work, mostly as an extra, married and divorced a second time, worked as an escort and met Roland on one of those "dates."

"I don't know why Roland married me," she said suddenly, as if the idea had just struck her.

Looking at her now, I had a pretty good idea. She had to have been a knockout when she was younger. She still was. "How old were you when you got married?" She gave me a long look. "How old were Gigi and Sean?"

"Gigi was twelve, I think. So Sean would have been fifteen. Roland and I were married seven years."

"Really." I was surprised she'd made it that long with any of them.

"I almost believed I was going to get that housewife thing down with Roland. We lived in L.A. the first couple of years, but then Roland wanted to launch his own clinics, so we moved to Portland. He had a name for himself. People knew he was a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills. That was the best reference he had. The location. The land of everlasting youth and beauty.

"It was weird being near my family again," Violet admitted. "Though I didn't contact them. Except my mother, a couple of times, but you know all that."

I nodded. "Gigi and Sean moved with you?"

"They begged to come with us. I wasn't so keen on it, but they were Roland's kids. You don't know Renee. She's whacked."

"How so?"

"Totally into plastic surgery. A junkie. You know how women who do too much eye surgery start looking like Siamese cats? That's Renee. She kept after Roland for more surgery. He tried to put the kibosh on it. Finally did. Wouldn't help her. She got somebody else to do it and now she looks like a scary feline. That's really what broke up their marriage, her obsession. They stayed friendly, but it was never the same."

She tossed back the remains of her drink as the waiter came over for our order. Violet ordered a blackened salmon salad and I ordered the ten-dollar avocado cheeseburger. She'd said she was paying and I was starving. "How do you keep so slim?" she marveled.

"I jog to the Nook. I have to make quick exits from process serving on a regular basis, so I sprint, too. I have a fast metabolism. I come from good genes."

"Wait till you get to be my age. I have to diet and work out like h.e.l.l to look this good."

"I don't know your age," I said.

She smiled. "I was thirty-eight when Roland and I got married. We've been divorced two, almost three years. You do the math."

Thirty-eight, plus seven years of marriage, plus three years of divorce. Forty-eight. I said, "You're like a medical mystery."

She smiled. "Thanks." She gazed at the fire. "You know it's funny. Gigi and Sean always blamed me for Roland and Renee's divorce, but that was such a crock. I guess kids just want to blame someone. Makes more sense than their parents just couldn't stand living with each other."

"I didn't get the feeling Gigi was close to her mother."

"Oh, she's not. She just likes to play both ends against the middle." Violet shrugged. "Neither one of them could really ever abide me. I never really cared because I thought they were both spoiled and shallow. Gigi...Lord, what a piece of work. Twelve when I met her, twenty-one going on thirteen now. She's hardly matured one iota. And Sean...he's really twenty-four? Twenty-five? What did you think of him?"

"Well, I thought he was using."

"He is. At least, he's smoking dope. Maybe more. Probably more. Roland was upset with him. Cocaine took away Roland's practice and it drove him crazy that Sean didn't learn by example. What a dope, so to speak." She smiled faintly. "Although it sure turned out well in the end for Roland, didn't it? He was a great plastic surgeon, but he was even better in business. Who knew?"

Our food arrived and conversation ended, more on my side than hers. I love a good hamburger and Foster's on the Lake does it right. I wondered if Jeff Foster was on the premises but thought it might be too early for him. He keeps a watch over the dinner hour and beyond.

Violet picked at her salad, her eye on me and my hamburger. I hoped she wasn't going to ask me to share, though if she did, I wasn't sure I could refuse her.

She said, "So, are you and Dwayne an item now?"

CHAPTER SIX.

S he d.a.m.n near made me choke. I had to chew really carefully and hold in a cough while tears filled my eyes from the effort. My success rate was only so-so. I started hacking like I would toss up a lung. Other patrons turned to look at me with concerned eyes. I swear to G.o.d, if one of them came at me eager for a Heimlich maneuver, I would kick, flail and throw myself to the floor to scare them away. I might even be able to fake rolling my eyes up. But that would send them scrambling to call 911 on their cell phones and I didn't think I could take that kind of scene.

I managed to discreetly cough a few more times into my napkin and chug water like it would save my soul. Our waiter glanced over, looking scandalized by my disruptive behavior. I had a feeling he wouldn't serve me another beer if I asked.

Throughout, Violet just waited.

I said in a squeaky voice, as if I'd just sucked helium, "I'm okay."

"It didn't look serious," she said.

Easy for her to say. Perversely, now I wished I'd thrown myself around in my chair, clawing at my throat.

"I know you didn't like it when I started to get with Dwayne." She lifted one shoulder in a feminine "I just can't help myself sometimes" gesture. "You could have told me he was spoken for."

"He's not," I squeaked.

"Don't bulls.h.i.+t me, Jane. If we're going to work together...if you expect me to lay all my cards on the table..." Another shoulder lift. "Come on."

"Give me a minute." It was all I could do to get the words out. I drank some more water, nibbled off a tiny bite of the remains of my burger, sucked down the dregs of my beer and waited about thirty seconds. In a more normal voice, I said, "I'm not with Dwayne."

"But you're interested in him."

"I don't know where you're getting this."

"When it comes to male/female relations.h.i.+ps, I'm an expert. You're in my rice bowl on this. You've got something going on inside you about Dwayne. You think he's yours. Maybe not as a lover, yet. And maybe you've convinced yourself you can just be friends. But it's radiating off you. I ignored the signals at first but you're flas.h.i.+ng them in neon."

"I'm not in your rice bowl."

"Yeah, you are. What's so hard about admitting your feelings for Dwayne? We're not in junior high here."

"Dwayne's my boss."

"Partner," she corrected.