Page 61 of Without a Clue

I think I’m still blushing off that one.

At any rate, I’m going to have to do without my friendly shadow for a couple of hours.

It took some convincing, but Nash finally agreed to leave me for his own morning workshop session. He had to, really. It was one thing to announce everyone needed to stay in pairs, but the reality is, we also have our sessions and the public’s expectations.

So, after making me promise to stay in public view among loungers, waders, and, least relieving, Neena, who is now fully immersed in water aerobics, he left me to interview Jackie.

The sky looks a buttery gold this late morning, with clear skies overhead and an abundance of golden inner tubes glittering in the pool ahead. The deck is unusually packed today, most likely because Neena tends to draw a crowd wherever she goes. People, as it turns out, love Nerve-Pill Neena. She’s a regular fun bus.

Jackie, on the other hand . . .

When she does finally sit, she’s stiff as a board.

You know, there was a leaflet I referred to when booking this place. On the cover of the ad was a big picture of a model sitting in this exact place, pool behind her. A woman in a flirty yellow polka-dot swimsuit leaning back slightly, laughing with her huge, bright smile toward the sky, like it’d just told her the best joke and all the world was happy and gay.

Meanwhile, Jackie’s back is rail straight, her hands grip each knee firmly, her feet are planted on the ground, and the toes of her brown loafers face directly north.

Jackie, let’s just say, is not the kind of person you can use to market a vacation. She’s more of a Zoloft-before-it-starts-working ad gal. The person you bring in to film the real doom and gloom before the antidepressant kicks in.

She glares at my barely slumped shoulders.

I know she’s glaring to make a point about my barely slumped shoulders, because her exact words to me once were, “And how could you expect to find a husband, Penelope, when you are flying down life’s highway toward hunchback land?”

I straighten.

And part of me automatically moves to look back to Nash, so used to having him, when I stop myself.

“How was breakfast, Jackie?” I say politely, holding my phone at my side.

“Don’t waste my time with twaddle. Get to it.”

“Please don’t take this personally. This is just protocol,” I say, turning back to Jackie. “I’m going to interview everyone to see what we can get figured out here.”

“And your little cowboy boyfriend? What about him?”

My head jolts up from my phone. “What?”

“Or perhaps you prefer to believe the frailest of our group are the likeliest to commit the most gruesome of crimes,” she continues, squinching up her little nose. “Seems you are picking favorites to me.”

“Play nice, Jackie,” Neena trills from the center of the pool, holding two bright pink fans overhead with the others while partaking in some kind of flamingo walk. “Just because your tea wasn’t a perfect 180 degrees this morning—”

“People were murdered,” Jackie snaps back loudly. “This is no time to sit around drinking mojitos.”

Several ladies turn to Neena, who puts a flamingo fan to her mouth and says in a hushed tone, “Her only daughter turned thirty and told her she doesn’t want children.”

Several sympathetic heads nod.

Neena begins what looks like a conga line now, and the ladies follow in line, pink fans raised high.

Amazing.

Celebrity-ish folk can get away with just about anything.

“I’ll just jump to it then,” I say hastily, lifting up my phone. “We’ll zip right through this and then you can be on your way. Where were you the night of the murder?”

“You know that.”

“Pretend I don’t.”