"In broad daylight on Broadway," I said agreeably. "It has a certain poetic ring to it, doesn't it? At the moment I'm the only one thinking about murdering you two, but I'm willing to hold off for a few more minutes. We can discuss your behavior here, or we can do it in this bar. God knows I could use a beer."

Ruby Bee glanced down the sidewalk, but her prey had vanished. "I could do with one myself, come to think of it. But I don't have all the time in the world to sit and chat. I'm supposed to be in the lobby at two o'clock sharp so Geri can fetch me to fix my cake for the contest."

I followed them into the bar, and we found a table near the window.

"This is right nice," Estelle commented, nodding at the wide mahogany bar and row of padded stools. "Of course it ain't at all as homey as yours, Ruby Bee, but I must say those ferns add a summery feeling."

"Ferns shed," Ruby Bee said. "I'm not about to have to sweep the floor any more than I already do, and-"

I unclenched my teeth long enough to say, "Stop it!" then subsided as a waitress approached our table and took our orders. "We are not going to debate the decor. You are going to tell me what the hell's been going on, and why you were following Gaylene just now."

"Following Gaylene? " Estelle chuckled at the very idea. "We wanted to see Times Square, so we figured we had enough time to walk over and look around. It's kinda odd how the famous theaters are stuck between those nasty shops, isn't it? It seems to me the police ought to-"

"We're not going to debate the zoning, either," I said coldly. "I came to find you because Jerome Appleton's body was discovered in a dumpster behind the hotel less than an hour ago."

Estelle gasped. "But that can't be! He's on an airplane going to South America."

"Not anymore," I said. "I recognized him."

"Then that's who was in the kitchen last night," Ruby Bee said. "I thought that might be who it was, but Brenda's such a dithery thing that I didn't want to worry her. I took a real fast look and almost fainted on account of the blood being as awful as it was…"

The waitress banged down two beers and a glass of sherry, regarded us with a frown until I'd paid the tab, and returned to the stool at the end of the bar to resume her conversation with the bartender. I suppose she'd overheard worse.

"Why did you go to the kitchen?" I demanded.

She looked at Estelle, who took a sip of sherry and said, "I already told Arly that you might have been in the mood for a glass of warm milk."

"And I already said I didn't believe one word of it." I realized I was strangling an innocent beer glass and forced myself to uncurl my fingers.

"I reckon you don't have much choice," Ruby Bee said with a mulish frown.

"May I point out that the police do have choices? The most obvious one is to drag you back to that cold, dirty cell and leave you to regale the rats with your silly lies. Then again, they might choose to interrogate you night and day until you come up with a better explanation."

Her lower lip may have quivered just a tad, but she shook her head, finished her beer, and put down the glass. "I need to get back to the hotel and study my recipe. Come on, Estelle, you can coach me on the order of the ingredients."

"There is no contest!" I said so loudly that the waitress and bartender stared. "There has been a murder, dammit! The police will be there to conduct an investigation, not to sample the entries and pick the winner! They may even want to ask you some questions-none of which will have anything to do with teaspoons and measuring cups and pinches of salt and Krazy KoKo-Nut!" I could hear myself getting more strident with each sentence, but I was unable to stop myself. "You found the goddamn body, Ruby Bee! Don't you remember?"

"How could I forget a thing like that? Do you really think they'll stop the contest? Jerome wasn't a contestant, you know." She shrank under my glare, then took a tissue from her handbag and dabbed at her nose. "Maybe you're right about the contest being canceled. It'd be hard on Brenda to fix her entry not ten feet from where they found her husband's body."

"She'd be fumblin' like a pup," Estelle added. "Of course he was supposed to have left her for a younger woman, so it's not like she planned on seeing him anytime soon."

I gestured at the waitress for another round. "I can see you're both too distressed by Jerome's murder to discuss last night. Let's talk about the night Durmond was mugged and tucked into bed in your room. Where were you before you came back to the room?"

"Shopping," they said in unison, although not with the melodious effect of the Methodist choir.

"At nine o'clock?" I took my sweet time raising my eyebrows. "I would have thought you'd be worn out from the trip, if not a tiny bit intimidated about prowling after dark in a big, bad city. Where did you go?"

"Just here and there," Ruby Bee mumbled. She stared at Estelle, who nodded nervously in agreement.

"What did you buy?" I persisted.

Estelle hesitated until the waitress had replaced our glasses with full ones, then cleared her throat and said, "I picked up some souvenirs at a shop at the end of the block. Nothing really interesting."

"A shop at the end of the block?" I said. "Do you mean the porn shop at the end of the block? What exactly did you buy-a leather bikini? Handcuffs? Edible underwear?"

She turned bright pink. "It's none of your business, missy. I just browsed for the most part."

"You didn't tell me it was that kind of place," Ruby Bee said, then realized her error and got real busy with her beer.

"And where did you go?" I growled at her.

"I decided to visit a few grocery stores, just to compare what they carry with what's at the SuperSaver back home. I went into one place that was run by these Asian people. You'd think one of them could speak American, but they were all gobbling in some language that I couldn't make heads or tails of. They sounded like a flock of turkeys the way they were carrying on."

She was turning pinker than Estelle, and her hand shook as she picked up her glass. Despite her years of intensive practice, she was not a particularly glib liar.

"I get it," I said slowly. "Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you get a package of coconut so you could use it in your cake instead of the soybean flakes? You've done some lowdown things before, but I'm amazed that you would stoop to cheating in a cooking contest, Ruby Bee." I tried not to grin, but I couldn't help it. "I'm disappointed in you, to say the least. What would Lottie and Elsie think if they heard about this?"

Ruby Bee hung her head in a fine display of penitence. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. It's not my fault that Krazy KoKo-Nut tastes so dadburned awful that it'll ruin the best recipes. I just couldn't bring myself to make my chocolate chip bundt cake and use that stuff. I have my reputation to think of." She gave me a look meant to be remorseful, but it reeked of slyness. "You won't tell anybody, will you? I don't know what Geri would do if she heard about it, but I'd as soon lick the sidewalk in front of the hotel as be thrown out of the contest and sent home in disgrace."

"I may, or I may not," I said archly. "Is that why you snuck down to the kitchen last night-to put the real coconut in your box?" She nodded warily. "Well, did you make the substitution or not?"

There was a pause that didn't just reek of slyness; it literally stank of it. "No," she said, "because of the shock of finding the body like I did. I was so discombobulated that it was all I could do to get myself out of there before I was murdered."

"Speaking of which," Estelle murmured, "maybe we ought to go back to the hotel? Geri's likely to be in a real tizzy this time, what with the police and all. She'll be sobbing louder than a passel of preachers outside the Pearly Gates."