The Spook Lights Affair by Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller Page A

academy, carrying sketchbooks, portfolios, and examples of their artistic efforts, arranging hats and capes, talking among themselves. Sabina recognized two or three who had attended Mayor Sutro’s party on Friday night. Normally their chatter would have been animated and punctuated by laughs and giggles, but today it was subdued. The suicide and the disappearance of the remains of one of their acquaintances was doubtless the cause.
    Grace DeBrett, like Virginia St. Ives and others in the current crop of post-debs, had been featured prominently in the society pages since her debut the previous year. Petite, with upswept brown hair, she had unfortunately been gifted by nature with a short neck, buck teeth, and a flattish pug nose. The fact that she and Virginia had been friends despite the contrast between her ugly-duckling looks and the St. Ives girl’s patrician beauty, came as no surprise. Many attractive girls chose homely friends in order to set off their own prettiness, and Virginia had been just such a type.
    Grace stood apart from the others, not taking part in their good-byes to one another, looking lost and forlorn. She remained in front of the academy until the other girls were gone, then crossed the busy street and entered a tea room called The Creamery. Sabina, following, found the girl seated alone at a small, white wrought-iron table at the rear, head bent forward and propped in one hand.
    Smiling, Sabina said, “Excuse me, Miss DeBrett. Would you mind if I joined you?”
    Grace blinked up at her. “Oh … it’s you. Mrs. Carpenter. You were there last Friday night when poor Virginia…” The young bud shook her head, unable to finish the sentence, the shake so fervent that one of the white ostrich plumes on her broad-brimmed hat nearly came loose.
    “I don’t mean to intrude, but I’d like to speak with you—”
    “Couldn’t you have stopped her from doing such an awful thing? Really, couldn’t you?”
    “I very much wish I’d been able to. But there simply wasn’t enough time.”
    “Her brother, David, said you were negligent. In the newspapers. Mama said so, too, that’s why she told Inge to tell you to go away when you came to our house Saturday morning.”
    “They’re wrong. Truly.”
    A waitress appeared at the table. Sabina took the opportunity to claim the seat opposite Grace. The girl didn’t protest; her attention was on the waitress. She ordered tea with milk and honey, Sabina plain orange pekoe. The shop, with its cozy atmosphere, reminded her of the one near South Park where she’d spent an irritating few minutes with the crackbrain—John’s term, which she wasn’t completely convinced was appropriate, for the Englishman who called himself Sherlock Holmes—listening to him lecture pompously on the subjects of tea, the superiority of the British Empire, and his perceived deductive genius.
    When the waitress departed, Grace sighed, blinked at Sabina, and resumed speaking as if there had been no interruption. “Inge is our downstairs maid. She’s not really fit for the position, she’s Swedish or Norwegian, I don’t remember which, and her English isn’t very good, but she tries and Mama says she’s coming along.”
    “Miss DeBrett … or would it be all right if I called you Grace?”
    “I suppose so. It’s my name, after all. Such a pretty name, but it doesn’t fit me at all. I’m not graceful and I’m not pretty. Mama says I am, pretty that is, but I’m not. I’m just—Oh, here’s the tea. Do try the scones, they’re dreamy here.”
    Babbling, Sabina thought, to mask her discomfort and her grief. Eating too much, too, for the same reason, judging by the amount of butter, jam, and clotted cream she heaped on to a scone.
    “About Virginia. You and she were close friends?”
    “Oh, yes, very close. Virgie … she…” Abruptly the girl’s eyes filled with tears. She took a huge bite of the scone, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk’s, swallowed, and