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shoulder as she passed. “Don’t get yourself in a fuss, T. Bob,” she said.
    â€œDon’t know why the police would be hangin’ round a bunch of old folks anyway,” said T. Bob to Lydia.
    â€œYou may consider yourself an old folk. I’m not,” retorted Lydia.
    Portia Lemay wanted to give Leo advice on refinancing his house since interest rates were at an all-time low, but Leo circumvented that by refusing to divulge his current rate. Forced to talk about the Potemkins, Miss Lemay agreed that Lance and his father had had a sour relationship for years. She wasn’t sure who had arranged for Dimitra to take Lydia’s place at the bridge table.
    By the time they had finished with Portia Lemay, Leo wanted to ask questions at random among the center’s population.
    â€œLydia Beeman knows who suggested that Dimitra take her place,” Elena pointed out. Mrs. Beeman rose and pushed back her chair without being asked.
    T. Bob piped up, “How come you’re goin’ in, Miz Lydia? You wasn’t even here yesterday.”
    â€œNeither were you from what I hear,” said Lydia crisply. “Maybe they want to know where I was. Maybe they’d like to know where you were when Boris Potemkin was getting himself shot, you being such an admirer of Dimitra’s.”
    As Lydia marched into the classroom, T. Bob was saying, “Ah was too here. Waz she mean by that?”
    â€œYou were?” asked Emily.
    â€œAh was. Where else would Ah be? This is where Ah always come of an afternoon.”
    Leo cleared his throat at the classroom door. “Why don’t you talk to Mrs. Beeman, Elena, and I’ll see what else I can dig up.” Elena nodded and followed Lydia in.
    â€œThe other ladies think your partner is very rude, Detective Jarvis,” said Lydia. “He kept interrupting them.”
    Elena flushed. Questioning senior citizens was the pits, and she wished Leo had stayed for this. He hadn’t seemed to mind being rude, while Elena remembered all those years of Grandmother Portillo rapping her knuckles with a weaver’s shuttle if she interrupted. If Mrs. Beeman was a blabbermouth, Elena was going to be stuck because she’d grown up in Chimayo, where everyone was scrupulously polite to their elders.
    She cleared her throat self-consciously. “I realize you weren’t here yesterday, Mrs. Beeman, but I did want to ask whose idea it was that Dimitra take your place in the bridge game.”
    â€œI said I needed a substitute. Dimitra offered.”
    â€œSo it was her idea?”
    â€œYes, but that doesn’t mean she was providing herself with an alibi.”
    Not much got by this lady, Elena thought.
    â€œDimitra couldn’t have known until day before yesterday that she’d be sitting in for me,” said Lydia. “If she wanted to have her husband killed, I imagine it would take more than overnight planning.”
    On the other hand, thought Elena, Dimitra could have seen her chance, called her son or Omar, and set the whole thing up on the spur of the moment. Or maybe Boris did something that night that triggered her to plan his death while she had the opportunity.
    â€œHow long have you been a policewoman?” asked Lydia.
    â€œThree and a half years,” Elena replied, wondering if the question was an evasive tactic indicating that Mrs. Beeman had information she didn’t want to divulge.
    â€œIt’s a great and proud responsibility,” Lydia declared. “I hope you find your work satisfying.”
    Elena shrugged. “We arrest them, but the courts don’t always send them to jail. Now about—”
    â€œThere are certainly flaws in the system,” Lydia agreed. “As it happens, I take a great interest. Many of the men in my family were judges, Texas Rangers, sheriffs, or contributed in other ways to law and order in the state. In fact, Farwell Brant, my