“Meet Ted and Megan. The Ballards.”

“Hi.”

Ted and Megan wore the determined, agreeable look of those who come out of duty. They shook hands with Nina. “Wow,” Megan said to Ben. “We’re just floored. We’re sorry, Ben, we really are. No matter what Danny did, we are really sorry.” She and Ted stood so close they might have been one body. Both had the overdeveloped calves of fanatical bikers, both held diet sodas. They had identical earnest, sympathetic expressions.

“He didn’t do anything,” Ben said. “He was up there with his friend, trying to catch the firebug. The real arsonist murdered him.”

Megan nodded politely, but Nina didn’t think Ben’s words had made any impact on her. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Ted Ballard said. “Did you know him, Nina?”

“No.”

“I’m not going to say he was perfect,” Ben said.

“You don’t think it was him? I mean, don’t the police have his friend in custody? It said in the paper-” Ted said.

Sam returned, holding an icy bottle for Ben and a tumbler full of wine for Nina. She sipped. Cheap plonk. It tasted like it came out of one of those gallon boxes of wine you could buy at the supermarket, but she didn’t really mind. White wine was like chewing gum for her, a guilty pleasure, and she was glad tonight to feel it building a numbing buffer between her and her tingling nerve ends.

She felt like the target of an eyeball inquisition all around her. Was it so astounding that Ben would bring a date? With her body language, she tried to tell them all, I’m not here. Pay no attention to the woman knocking back the cheap white wine.

Debbie was back. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the Siesta Court Bunch,” she said, leading Nina from her haven at Ben’s side. “It’s a sad occasion tonight, what with Danny and all. But we try to get together whatever the weather. We’re kind of cut off here on the river by ourselves, so we try to be good neighbors. Is Ben really all right?”

“He’s managing. Uh, your house is so nice, and your flowers are sensational,” Nina said, setting her glass down for the moment. A tumbler this size ought to last the evening, if she wanted to last the evening. She noticed that Sam, talking to Darryl at the barbecue, was waving a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He poured himself a healthy dose on ice.

“Oh, I just love puttering around our place,” Debbie said. “Sam goes to his office and now that our kids are at college I have the whole day to myself.”

Hey, thought Nina, maybe Paul and I do have ESP. Debbie had just confirmed exactly the fiction they had invented for the Puglias. Somewhat encouraged by this, she allowed Debbie to shepherd her over to the couple standing at the railing.

“Ben finally brought somebody to the party,” Debbie told the couple. “This is Nina. Nina, this is David Cowan and his wife, Britta. They live on the corner.”

Nina flashed to the big concrete house with “colonnades” next to Ben’s place. The Cowans. Yellow Porsche. Hmm. Pretentious sprang to mind.

“Pleased to meet you,” Britta Cowan said. Her husband held back, smiling slightly. They hadn’t been talking to each other. Like Sam’s glass, Britta’s glass held a cascade of ice cubes, but she was already due for a refill on the whiskey. She shook her empty glass, turning full-face to Nina.

Whoa!

Nina looked back, and found herself staring straight into green eyes shining with suppressed rage. Britta was a knockout, a blond with a lush body straining against the stretch in her black minidress, curving expanses of freckled, fine skin on full display. She kept shaking the ice, swaying slightly, while the others seemed to circle around her.

Her husband was the afterthought. He adjusted his glasses. Nina got an academic impression. He wasn’t wearing a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, but he should have been.

What he wore was baggy shorts and a baggy shirt. And, if she was not mistaken, a gold Piaget Emperador watch on his wrist.

Debbie shifted her weight from one foot to another, clearly not comfortable, while Britta gave Nina the twice-over.

“I didn’t think Ben had it in him,” she said finally. “You’re not bad.”

“Excuse me?” Nina said.

“Britta, behave,” David said.

“Don’t you people recognize a compliment when you hear one?” Britta said. She sidled up so close to Nina, she could practically rub against her, and her moves suggested she intended exactly that level of invasion. “Where you from?”

“Tahoe. But I’m spending the summer down here.”

“Doing what?”

“Just hanging around for a while.”

“How nice for you. So many of us work for a living.”

“What do you do?”

“I arrange expensive, exotic trips for lazy rich people at Carmel Valley Travel in the Village.”

“Interesting?”

“No, but it gets me out of the house. Once in a while, if the boss isn’t looking and a promotion is heavily discounted, I get to do a preview. Adventure travel. Now, that’s fun.” She paused and licked lasciviously at her glass, then looked at Nina appraisingly again, and said, “You cruise?”

Nina tried to smile, but failed. “No. No,” she said. “I get seasick. And what do you do?” she said to David Cowan. Before he could speak, his wife broke in.

“Oh, he rests on his laurels. You’ll find them down there on his butt.”

Debbie let out a nervous laugh.

David Cowan’s expression didn’t change. Nina picked up her wine and took a slug. He did the same. “Actually, I’m an astronomer,” he said mildly.

“Really.”

“With the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy.”

Paul had mentioned that. Smart and detached, Nina thought. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve heard of it.”

“His head’s in the clouds,” Britta said, laughing gaily. She put her arm around Nina’s shoulder. “Tell me, how is Ben?”

“He’s all right. He’s had trouble sleeping. He misses-”

Britta frowned. “No, no. Forget Danny. I mean, how is Ben? How is he in bed, you know? Do you and he actually do it? Because he’s so good-looking and he lives like a eunuch.” She leaned over and whispered into Nina’s ear. “I wondered if maybe he was a-”

“God, Britta,” David Cowan said, no inflection in his voice except maybe fatigue.

Britta’s arm dropped from Nina. Her eyes swept the yard. “Wonder what Sam’s up to over there with Darryl? Ooh. I see he’s got the bottle.” She whirled around and left them.

The three left behind each took another sip.

“S O,” DEBBIE SAID, WIPING HER MOUTH with her hand. “Look, it’s Tory! Honey, you’re late.” She gave the other woman a hug. “Oh, goody, deviled eggs! Don’t they look scrumptious!”

“Poor Ben, I’m so glad he came,” Tory Eubanks said over Debbie’s shoulder.

Nina looked past them, eyes drawn back to Britta, who continued her campaign to raid the personal space of every man and woman at the party. She snuggled up, whispered, got a rise out of them, and moved on, abrupt and capricious. She had already nipped at Sam and was trying now to get Darryl’s glass from him.

Tory Eubanks looked in the same direction.

“Darryl’s Tory’s husband,” Debbie told Nina brightly, waving toward the young man in the chef’s apron.

“That bitch,” Tory said, watching Britta fawn, feint, and paw. “The kids were at the movies and got home late, so I sent Darryl over to get started.” She noticed Nina. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m Nina. Ben’s friend.”

“He told me you were coming. Nice to meet an old friend of Ben’s. Did you go to the funeral?”

“No, I got here too late.”

“We weren’t invited either,” Debbie said. “I would have been more than happy to have a get-together at Ben’s house for his family. But they came and went so fast.”

“Hello, David. How are you?”

“Tory,” Cowan said.

There was no heat between these two, but did David Cowan actually have any heat at all? He seemed to be one of those acutely self-conscious people who make everybody feel awkward. Maybe living with Britta had done it to him. Nina couldn’t think of anything else to say to him.