Free Death Takes a Honeymoon by DEBORAH DONNELLY Page A

wore a jacket and tie; B.J., a low-necked dress of black velvet. The necklace was a twisted skein of silver, from which dangled a large silver charm in the shape of a four-petaled blossom.
    “That’s the flower on your nursery logo,” I said. “Mock orange?”
    “Yeah, the Idaho state flower and all that. Carnegie, I wear that necklace almost every day. If anybody local saw it, they’d recognize it and they’d figure out...what happened.”
    “So you think it hasn’t been found yet? Or maybe it was found, but they sent it off to his family with his personal effects?”
    “I don’t know!” She sat beside me on the bed, angrily scraping tears from her face. “It’s driving me crazy, trying to find out.”
    “That’s what the Tyke meant about your asking questions.”
    She nodded miserably. “I can’t come right out and mention the necklace, can I? So I’ve been asking about the accident in general, hoping someone would tell me what was in his PG bag—”
    “His what?”
    “Personal gear bag. It’s sort of a knapsack that they jump with, with some standard gear and then anything personal they want to bring. Cookies or chewing tobacco or a camera or whatever. I know that Brian’s PG bag was brought back, but I don’t know if anyone’s gone through it. I have to find out before Matt comes back. He thinks I’m going to wear the necklace to Tracy’s wedding. I even tried it on with the dress I’m wearing and showed it to him. He’ll be back Friday night and it’s already Tuesday!” Her voice wobbled like a child’s. “What am I going to
do
?”
    “Calm down, Muffy.” I handed her the tissue box. “Calm down and let’s think. You could always tell Matt you lost the necklace.”
    “But I never lose anything, and I certainly wouldn’t lose that. Besides, what if I told him it was lost and then it turned up later and he found out Brian had it? Matt was really jealous of Brian that summer and didn’t like it that he was back in town now. He’d know that I lied to him and he’d know why!”
    “Not necessarily. The necklace could have slipped off somehow, and Brian found it and kept it...” That sounded pretty lame, even to me. “OK, the first thing is to find out for sure if anyone at the jump base has seen it. If not, then you’re going to have to say you lost it and go from there. Agreed?”
    She nodded again, her eyes woeful over the wad of tissues.
    “But there’s got to be a better way to go about this than interrogating people.”
    “There is!” The warm purple eyes lit up in a way that used to mean trouble. Usually for someone else. “It came to me last night when you said you’d work on Tracy’s wedding.”
    “I said
what
?”
    “Well, didn’t you? She fussed over you about Brian, and then she launched into wedding stuff. She kept talking about it and you kept nodding.”
    “Oh, hell.”
I should never drink beer. I hate beer.
    “Anyway,” B.J. continued, “you’re Brian’s cousin, so
you
could ask about his personal effects. Help me out here, Muffy. Please?”
    What could I say? B.J. was way past being rational about this necklace business. But if a few harmless questions on my part could protect her marriage, I didn’t have the heart to refuse. Besides, I had the sense that she needed the necklace back for a deeper reason than placating Matt. She needed to erase, if only symbolically, a deed that she fervently wished undone. I’d made enough mistakes in own my life to appreciate how she felt.
    “OK, I’ll call his folks and—”
    “No! God, Carnegie, don’t do that. Their son is dead. I don’t want them bothered about his trashy little one-night stand.”
    “But they wouldn’t know that, they’d think he had a girl-friend...” I trailed off as I saw her point. If Brian’s parents did find the necklace, without knowing how it came into his possession, they’d assume there had been a woman in his life. Then they might try to communicate with her, and that