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or
not.”
    Art advised his wife, “I think you should
keep her abreast of any information on the case. You never know
when a piece of the puzzle is important.”
    â€œI suppose you’re right, Art. I’ll call her.
She’ll probably be polite, but she’ll most likely think I’m just a
rattled old lady in her dotage when I tell her that our evidence is
a used tissue and a blue denim sneaker!”
    Â 
    * * *
    Â 
Wednesday Morning, 8:30 A.M.

    After showering and dressing for Coffee Hour,
Annie opened a cupboard and took out two coffee mugs to take with
them. She poured some milk into a tiny Tupperware container and
snapped the lid on tight. They preferred real milk to the powdered
stuff that was provided at the clubhouse. She put the mugs and milk
into the two cup tote that she had made at Hobby Club. Using green
and white yarn, BradLee’s colors, she needlepointed the plastic
canvas, working their names into the design.
    Carrying the little tote, she climbed into
the golf cart beside her husband for the drive back to Old Main,
Art yawned and commented, “Annie, you got me up so early; I’m
really hungry now. I could eat two—maybe three—doughnuts this
morning.”
    â€œYou deserve it, Honey, and as thin as you
are, you just go ahead and enjoy. I wish I could too, but I don’t
dare.” Annie wasn’t really overweight, but she was constantly
telling herself, “No,” to sweets. “You know that old adage: A
moment on the lips; forever on the hips!”
    Art grimaced. Annie was always spouting old
sayings, but he really didn’t mind as much as he pretended he did.
They left their comfortably cluttered doublewide home just before
8:30 a.m., but the clubhouse was nearly full by the time they
arrived for the morning social. Coffee Hour didn’t begin until nine
o’clock, but Annie had quickly learned, after moving to Florida,
that seniors liked to arrive early; then they leave the minute a
program is over—no lingering, no visiting afterwards. Here, the
seniors laughed it off, calling it “BradLee Time.” Actually, if you
arrived right on time, you were already late!
    As they were walking to the front door of Old
Main, Annie introduced herself to a couple. After the man and woman
moved on, Art asked his wife, “How did you know they were new in
BradLee?”
    Annie laughed, “Oh, that was easy. First, of
course, was that I’d never seen them before, and the second thing
was that she was carrying a purse, a big purse.”
    â€œWhat did her carrying a purse have to do
with her being new to BradLee?”
    â€œLook around. Do you see any of us women
carrying a pocketbook?”
    Her husband scanned the hall, “Well, most of
the women are sitting down. I can’t tell if they have a pocketbook
or not.”
    â€œWell, I can tell you,” Annie smiled. “they
don’t. We don’t bother with a purse in the park. We only carry them
when we’re going shopping outside the park.”
    â€œOh,” was all Art could think to say as he
digested this bit of female logic.
    Â 
    * * *
    Â 
    The gang had saved seats for Art and Annie at
the end of the table in the row that ran along the far right wall
in front of the Bingo closet. Barb cornered Annie before she even
sat down, “You’ve got to tell me everything that happened this
morning. Doc tells me I missed all the excitement!”
    â€œAnd I missed out too,” lamented Brad. He
loved Barb’s friends and was happy that when he married Barb, he
also became a part of her ‘gang’. He didn’t want to be left out of
anything they did.
    â€œWe want to know more, too,” Von said. “Verna
and I weren’t there either.”
    Annie quieted them, saying, “Maybe we
shouldn’t talk about all this here. Others might hear, and I’d just
as soon keep it among us for awhile until I feel a lot