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"Sixty dollars?" I gulped. "That's for a year's worth, right?"

   Dr. Novak laughed. "He's little. He doesn't eat much. A bag that size should last you a month or so. And if your friend isn't coming back anytime soon, I'd check to see what shots he's had and what he still needs. You don't want to take any chances. Not with a dog like this."

   We promised we wouldn't, swore we'd get the right kind of food, and waited long enough for Eve to write down her phone number. (Was I good at predicting these things, or what?) It wasn't until Doc was bundled in his sweater and back in his carrier and we were all back in the car that Eve and I found our voices.

   "Thousands!" Eve's eyes were wide. Even though we'd just put him in the car, she looked in the backseat to doublecheck that Doc was right where he was supposed to be. "Annie, I had no idea. I'm so nervous now. What if something happens to him?"

   I did not point out that something had already happened to him, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in the parking lot of the emergency vet clinic. "Nothing's going to happen to him," I said instead. "You're taking great care of him."

   Eve's bottom lip trembled. "But I made him sick. I need to do better." She started the car and pulled out of the lot. "I wonder if there's a store around that's open this late where we can find that food."

   "Food that pricey?" Yes, I believed in following rules. I made sure to chew my food thirty times before I swallowed, and I flossed every time I brushed. I looked both ways before I crossed the street, drank eight glasses of water every day, and checked
Consumer Reports
before I bought so much as a toaster.

   I did not doubt that Dr. Novak was competent. I did not question the information he'd given us. I knew it was accurate, and I knew he was asking us to do what he thought was best for the dog.

   But even I knew there were places where the line had to be drawn.

   "There is no way I'm going to let you spend more than you can afford for a bag of dog food," I told Eve. "You don't have that kind of money, and besides, he's only a dog. How important can it be for him to eat only that certain kind of food?"

   "You heard what Terry said." How Eve and Dr. Novak had ended up on a first-name basis after so little time together was a mystery I would ponder another time. "Doc needs this food."

   "You need to eat, too. If you spend that kind of money on the dog—"

   "He's worth it. Besides, Sarah loved him with all her heart. It's what she would want me to do."

   Something about the comment sparked a thought deep in my brain, but at that point, my neurons weren't connecting. I was too tired, and besides, I knew if I didn't come up with a plan, Eve would spend the next who-knew-how-many hours searching for the magical dog food at a pet store that stayed open late. With me along for the ride.

   "There must be the right kind of dog food back at Sarah's apartment," I said. "She had to feed him something. And she knew how expensive and rare he is."

   "That's a good idea." Eve took a left at the next street and headed in the direction of Arlington.

   There was one flaw in my plan, of course.

   "Wait . . . there's no way we're going to talk Foster into letting us back into that apartment." I checked the clock on the dashboard. "It's late. There's no way he's even still in the building. It's a great idea, but it's not going to work."

   "You mean it wouldn't work." Eve gave me a sidelong look and a big smile. "If I didn't have the key."

   Eve laughed at my flabbergasted expression. "I didn't have a chance to tell you back at the restaurant. Sarah's cousin stopped to see me. Bill. Remember him? He's the one from Baltimore. The guy I called to get Charlene's number."

   "And he gave you the key to Sarah's apartment?"

   Did I sound skeptical? I didn't think so, but I must have. Otherwise, Eve wouldn't have made a sour face.

   "It's not like I held him at gunpoint," she said. "Seems Bill had the key in case of an emergency. Charlene knew it, and she called him and asked him to stop at the apartment and get something for Sarah to wear. You know." Eve's voice faded. "For the viewing."

   This was not something either one of us wanted to think about. Eve got rid of the thought with a shake of her head.

   "Bill was creeped out by the whole thing. Not to mention the fact that the guy's a dock worker. What does he know about women's clothes? He stopped to see me at the restaurant early today, gave us a check for the deposit for the funeral luncheon, and dropped off the key. He asked me to pick out an outfit for Sarah and take it to the funeral home."

   "So we're going to kill two birds with one stone."

   "Oh, don't say that!" Eve shivered. "I can't stand thinking about Sarah and the word
kill
at the same time."

   I knew what she meant. I couldn't, either.

   Little did I know that in another hour or two, it was all I was going to be thinking about.

       place was teeming with police, and Doc was barking up a storm in the guest room. Now it was as dark and as quiet as a—

   Never mind!

   Let's just settle for it was really quiet.

   While Eve set the dog in his carrier in the living room, I skimmed my hand over the wall just inside the front door, searching for a switch. I found one, flicked on the light in the hallway, and breathed a little easier. I hurried into the living room and turned on a couple lamps there, too.

   "What do you think?" I asked Eve. "I'd say the dog food is in the kitchen."

"Yeah." She nodded, but she didn't move an inch.

"And you're not going to get it because . . ."

   "It just feels weird. You know, being here and knowing that just a couple days ago . . ." Her gaze drifted toward the hallway and the bathroom we both knew was at the end of it. I wondered if the police cleaned up after themselves before remembering that I'd read somewhere that they didn't. I vowed to avoid a trip to the bathroom.

   "I just can't get the picture out of my head, that's all," Eve said. "You know, Sarah in the water. And all the blood."

   I knew what she was talking about. Just like I knew it wouldn't do either of us any good to dwell on it.

   I looped my arm through Eve's. "Let's pick out an outfit for Sarah first thing," I said, and my suggestion worked like a charm. Eve smiled and headed for the bedroom. There's nothing like the thought of fashion to get a girl's mind off death.

   Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom was orderly and nicely decorated. There was a walk-in closet on one wall, which Eve opened. A whoosh of surprise escaped her, along with an admiring, "Oh, my gosh!"

   Sarah's closet would have done an obsessive/compulsive proud. Her clothes were arranged by season, fabric, and color. Skirts were organized on a bottom rack; jackets and blouses hung above them. Dresses over to the side (casual, work, formal) and next to them, pants and knockabout clothing. It was so pristine, so beautifully color-coordinated, my heart skipped a beat.

   Until I realized that something was wrong.

   I squinted at the jackets and blouses. "Check this out," I said, pointing. "The blues are with the blues. The grays are with the grays. The reds—"

   "Are with the reds," Eve said. "Except . . ." She saw what I saw and pushed apart a cranberry-red silk kimono-style jacket and wool Christmas-red blazer. Between them hung a green linen suit jacket.

   "Well, that's odd," I mumbled.

   "It sure is. Red and green together is all well and good when it comes to kitschy Christmas decorations, but let's face it, it's against every rule of fashion there is."

   "Not what I mean." I pointed. "Blues with blues. Grays with grays. And the greens . . ." I looked toward the far end of the closet. "The greens are all down there. What's this jacket doing out of place?"

   Eve shook her head. "It just proves how upset Sarah must have been, poor darling. She wasn't thinking straight."

   Maybe, but I wasn't so sure.

   I tucked the thought away. While Eve took out outfit after outfit, held them at arm's length, and made a pile of possibilities on the bed, I looked around the room. There was a shopping bag from a pricey Georgetown boutique sitting on the floor near the dresser, and I peeked inside. "Cocktail dress," I told Eve, who was so busy trying to decide between navy linen and black silk, she wasn't paying a whole lot of attention.

   "Now that would be tacky," she said. "A cocktail dress for a burial. I don't think so, Annie."

   "Not for Sarah to wear. Here. This cocktail dress." I pulled it out of the bag. The dress was fire-engine red, a gorgeous combination of chiffon and sequins. Even before the receipt fluttered out of the bag, I knew it must have cost a fortune.

   I checked the price and whistled low under my breath, before I carefully refolded the dress and got ready to set the receipt on top of it.

   That's when the date of the transaction caught my eye.

   "Eve! Take a look at this."

   Holding the black silk dress, Eve came to my side.

   I pointed. "Sarah bought this dress last Tuesday."

   "Don't be silly." Eve rolled her eyes. "Nobody buys a dress that gorgeous and then comes home and kills herself. That's just crazy."

   It was. That was exactly my point.

   I didn't need to explain. After a minute of thinking about it, Eve's eyes got wide, and her mouth fell open.

   "Annie!" She clutched my arm so tight, I expected I'd have a bruise by morning. "Annie, are you saying—"

   "I'm not saying anything." I hadn't even realized how much the thought scared me until Eve was so ready to buy into it. Better minds than ours had already concluded that there was nothing sinister about Sarah's death. Who was I to contradict them? Besides, I'd had my fill of murder. Death was death, and suicide was bad enough. The thought that someone had taken Sarah's life . . .

   My brain froze, and panic bubbled inside me like lava in a Hawaiian volcano. Cocktail dress or no cocktail dress, I refused to believe Sarah could have been murdered. To prove it, I dropped the receipt back in the bag and hightailed it out of Sarah's bedroom.

   "But, Annie . . ." Eve was right behind me, black silk sheath clutched to her heart. "Annie Capshaw, you listen to me. Do you think this means that Sarah—"

   "Kitchen," I said, though Eve could see exactly where I was going. "Let's get the dog food and get out of here."

   Sarah's kitchen looked exactly as it had the last time I was in it except that the red message light on the phone wasn't blinking. I guessed that was because Tyler had picked up the message Eve left, the one reminding Sarah that we were coming over. The two washed wineglasses were still in the dish drainer. The countertops still gleamed in the glow of the lights we turned on. It was familiar and nonthreatening, and I stopped just inside the door, drew in a calming breath, and gave myself a good talking to.

   I was letting my imagination run away with me, I told myself. Like Eve had been doing all summer. Just because I couldn't fathom what would make a woman as beautiful and as smart and as successful as Sarah take her own life, I was seeing mysteries where there were none. It was absurd. It was an insult to Sarah's memory. It had to stop.

   Now.

   I pulled in another breath, clearing my head. My heartbeat settled, and my blood stopped rushing in my ears. I had been so lost in thought, I didn't even realize Eve wasn't with me until she came into the kitchen a minute later. She didn't have the black silk dress with her, and I guessed she'd put it in the living room so we could take it with us.

   She didn't say a word. She didn't have to—I knew she was thinking about what I'd said in the bedroom. But as I've mentioned before, Eve and I have been friends for a lot of years. I knew her well; she knew me just as well in return. In an uncharacteristic show of restraint, she knew pressing her case would get her nowhere.

   And nowhere was exactly where I wanted to go with the idea that Sarah hadn't been responsible for her own death.

   Eve followed my lead, and one by one, we went through the cupboards, searching for the dog's food. After what we'd seen in the bedroom, I wasn't surprised by what we found. Like her closet, Sarah's cupboards were arranged in painstaking detail.

   "Even I'm not this meticulous," I grumbled, checking out the food that had been removed from its packaging and placed in Tupperware containers. "I guess it just goes to prove that you really can never tell what's going on inside a person."

   I wasn't doing any more than thinking out loud, but Eve took it as a signal that the matter (and manner) of Sarah's death was now open for discussion.

   "You'd think anybody who kills themselves must be pretty desperate," she said. "I don't know about you, but I don't think desperation looks like this."

   I knew where she was going and attempted to head her off. Without a word, I looked in another cupboard and found the dog food. It, too, had been repackaged, but fortunately, Sarah had cut off the nutrition label and attached it to the container. Otherwise, I might have mistaken it for potpourri. Yeah, there was that much dried fruit in it.

   Eve came up behind me. She pointed toward the price tag that was still attached to the dog food label. "Dr. Novak was right. This food is pricey. Why do you suppose someone would buy a really expensive dog . . . a dog she really, really loved . . . and pay that kind of money for dog food, and then . . . I don't know . . . kill herself?"

   "Eve!" I sighed. Not like I was surrendering. More like I really didn't want to hear what she had to say.

   But Eve had shown enough restraint for one evening. She pounced. "Oh, come on, Annie! You're trying to deny it, but you can't. Not with this kind of evidence staring us in the face. Remember what Terry said. He said Doc is a rare and expensive dog, right?"