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Finally, after a very tense twenty minutes, Odelia’s phone dinged. She picked up and put it on speaker.

“Hey there, Janice,” she said. “Did you get a chance to listen to the recordings?”

“I did, yeah,” said the young woman.

“And?” asked Gran. “Who was it?”

“Well, I listened twice, as I didn’t want to make a mistake, and I think it’s audio file number fourteen.”

“Audio file number fourteen,” said Odelia, checking her list. And as her finger slid down the page, it finally landed on… Suzy.

“See?!” said Gran triumphantly. “I told you it was her!”

“Are you quite sure, Janice?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah, pretty sure. Of course, I didn’t really pay attention yesterday, and a lot of these voices sound the same, but one thing really struck me.”

“What’s that?”

“The person on the phone sounded nice. I mean, not all voices sound nice, you know, but this one did. I remember thinking, this person is so nice and professional. And only recording fourteen had that quality. That upbeat quality, if you know what I mean.”

Gran shook her head, indicating she had no idea what the girl was talking about, but Odelia said,“I know exactly what you mean, Janice. Thank you so much. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

“Glad I could help. Will Opal be all right? We all feel terrible about what happened.”

“She’s fine.”

And she was. That morning, Opal’s lips and face had been back to their natural proportions, and the swelling in her throat had completely disappeared, too.

Odelia rang off and shared a grim look with her grandmother.“So now what?”

“Now we tell Opal and she’ll have to take care of the tricky part.”

“Call the police, you mean, and have Suzy arrested.”

“Exactly. Our work here is done, honey.” And she raised her hand for a high five, which Odelia half-heartedly slapped.

“What? You don’t look happy.”

“It’s just that… the evidence is a little thin, don’t you think? All we have to go on are the words of Janice, and she wasn’t even a hundred percent sure.”

“Good enough for me! You heard Suzy. She’s one ambitious young lady, and can’t wait to rise up in the world of showbiz. The only person standing in her way is Opal, so she decided to move things along by bumping her off. Easy peasy. Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’m sick and tired of this Opal business.”

“And here I thought you were her biggest fan.”

“Was her biggest fan.”

They walked out of the conference room and into Opal’s office. Contrary to her custom, Opal had come in to work on a Sunday, as eager as Odelia and Vesta to find out who the culprit was.

“And? How did it go?” asked Opal as she rose from behind her desk. On top of her desk Prunella was softly snoring. Odelia’s own cats were in the studio canteen, enjoying a meal. Odelia hadn’t wanted to bring them in today, not seeing the point of dragging them out there again while they could simply stay at the house and enjoy its surrounding gardens and Helga’s cooking, but the foursome had insisted they join her. They hadn’t sat in on the interviews, as that would have been a little hard to explain.

“We got her,” said Gran triumphantly.

“Who was it?” asked Opal anxiously.

“Suzy Parker,” said Odelia. “Janice formally recognized her voice.”

“Suzy!” said Opal, and dropped back down in her ergonomic chair. “Oh, sweet Jesus. She’s the best one I’ve got.”

“Well, she did it,” said Gran. “Do you want me to get her in here? You can interrogate her yourself. I’m sure she’ll confess immediately.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that might not be such a bad idea. Anything to keep this out of the press.” She shook her head as Gran hurried out. “I don’t believe this. Suzy. I trained her myself. I thought one day she’d take over from me. She’s got it, you know, whatever it is. Bright, charismatic, beautiful, and she genuinely likes the job.”

“You were grooming her to take over?”

“Yeah, well, not officially, but she’s best suited for the job.”

The door opened and Gran walked in with Suzy, who sported a smile from ear to ear.

Opal cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter.“Suzy. Take a seat, please.”

“Did I get the job?” asked the girl, who was, indeed, very vivacious, Odelia thought.

“Well… see the thing is…”

“You’ve been caught red-handed, my dear,” said Gran, who didn’t believe in beating about the bush.

“Red-handed?” asked Suzy, turning to Gran. “What do you mean?”

“Let me handle this, Vesta,” said Opal. “Look, Suzy. There’s no easy way to say this, but—”

“You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?” said Gran. “Couldn’t wait for Opal to retire so you decided to speed things up a little. Bump her off. Well, you were careless, young lady.”

“Vesta,” said Opal. “I’ll handle this, all right? Suzy, I’d hate to call the police and have you arrested, so if you come clean now, maybe there’s a way we can deal with this without involving the law. But you have to tell me everything.”

“I don’t understand,” said Suzy, her eyes playing ping-pong between Odelia, Gran and Opal. “What’s all this about bumping you off?”