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“Well, now that you mention it I did see a car drive away last night,” said the woman. She was the same neighbor who’d looked a little startled when she’d caught sight of Scarlett. She was still eyeing Scarlett with a look of consternation on her face, as if she couldn’t believe a bird ofsuch peculiar plumage had suddenly wandered into her ken.

“A car? What car?” asked Vesta.

“Well, it was a big car,” said the woman, who was gray-haired and obviously in possession of all of her faculties. “Not a lot of traffic passes through this street at night, which is why I remember.”

“A big car? What make?” asked Vesta, urging the woman to dig deep into her memory for those salient facts that make all the difference in a murder case.

“Um, a fancy car?” the woman tried.

“American, European, Japanese? Ford, Mercedes, BMW? Sedan, hatchback, SUV?”

The woman blinked.“I’m not sure,” she said. “All I know is that I was thinking well look at that nice car driving away. And I remember telling Earl that Dino was having over some fancy visitors again. But then that’s been par for the course ever since he moved in next door. Bankers do have a very busy social life, of course, what with all of their banker friends, and most of them drive those nice and fancy cars.”

Vesta sighed. It was obvious here was one of those witnesses that were trying to be helpful but really weren’t. “What color was this car? And did you see the driver?”

“No, I don’t think I did.”

“The color?” Scarlett prompted.

“Um, dark, I guess. I didn’t really pay all that much attention. Matlock was on, and I do like myself a nice episode of Matlock. He’s so clever and so funny. He’s on every day now, and I haven’t missed an episode. It was only because Earl complained about a dog barking in the street that I got up to take a look. And that’s when I saw that car.”

“What time was this?” asked Vesta.

“Well, Matlock starts at ten, so this would have been during the first commercial break. Ten fifteen? Ten twenty? Something like that.”

“Okay, great,” said Vesta. “Did you get all that?” she asked, as she watched her friend taking all this down by typing it into her phone.

“How you can type with those long nails is beyond me,” said the woman as she stared at Scarlett’s admittedly very long nails. “Are those real?”

Scarlett glanced down at her chest, misinterpreting the woman’s look. “Oh, sure. They’re one hundred percent real.” And for good measure she jiggled her frontage for a moment, causing the woman to clasp a hand to her face and shake her head.

“If Earl saw that he’d go nuts. He likes jiggly things, you see, Earl does. Likes to squeeze them between his jaws. And let me tell you, once he catches a jiggly thing he won’t let go.”

“Strange husband you’ve got,” said Scarlett with a laugh.

“Husband?” Now it was the woman’s turn to laugh. “Oh, Earl isn’t my husband, dear. He’s my sweetheart.” And then she called out, “Earl! Come out here a minute, sweetie.”

And there he came running up to them: a smallish dog with plenty of fluffy beige fur.

“Oh, what a cutie pie!” said Scarlett as she bent down to pet the little doggie’s head.

Earl must have noticed her d?colletage, though, for instantly he stopped panting and produced a single bark, then promptly shot up into the air and would have fastened his tiny white teeth into Scarlett’s assets if Dino Wimmer’s neighbor hadn’t intervened and snapped him up before he could.

“I think you better go now,” said the woman, as she had trouble restraining the tiny doggie, and keeping him from accosting a startled-looking Scarlett.

“Well, I never,” said Scarlett. “He’s a feisty little devil, isn’t he?”

“He sure is,” said the woman, and carried her precious sweetheart back into the house.

“What are you grinning at?” asked Scarlett.

“You!” Vesta cried. “Even dogs get all horny around you.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say? It’s a blessing and a curse to be blessed with curves like mine. So what do we do now?”

“Now we talk to that woman over there,” said Vesta, and hollered, “Hey, lady! Over here!” She hurried in the direction of a homey-looking woman who’d just come walking out of the house of the late Dino Wimmer. “If I’m not mistaken,” she told Scarlett, as the latter tried to keep up,which was tough going on those high heels of hers, “this is the Wimmers’ housekeeper. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an amateur sleuth it’s that housekeepers are always the best sources of information. Can I ask you something!” she yelled as they approached the woman, who was frowning at them and looking none too friendly.

“Yes?” said the woman cautiously.

“Do you work for the Wimmers?”

“I’m their housekeeper. And who are you?”

“My name is Vesta Muffin, and this is Scarlett Canyon. Rose Wimmer asked us to look into the death of her father, Dino Wimmer? She thinks he was murdered.”

The housekeeper looked taken aback by this.“Well, isn’t that clever of her. Or dumb, depending on how you look at it, of course.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Scarlett.