The scene--a very stylish sitting room in the Mospheiran presidential mansion. Mrs. Tyers, Miss Mospheiran, and Angie sit around a low table on which sits a pot of tea and a tray of elegant finger-foods.

Angie: "Gosh, this is so cool!"

Miss Mospheiran: "It was totally nice of you to invite us, Mrs. Tyers."

Mrs. Tyers: "It was my pleasure."

Miss Mospheiran: "So when does Mrs. Crocker arrive?"

Mrs. Tyers: "I told her three o’clock. So we have a few minutes yet. Which is good, because I’m dying to know--what did you tell Shawn?"

Miss Mospheiran: (laughs) "We told him that after an exhaustive search, using all the considerable resources at our disposal, we couldn’t find any trace of it anywhere, and if that was true, then he still had it. And then I asked him to put his hand in his pocket."

Angie: "I didn’t know humans could turn that color."

All three women laugh.

Mrs. Tyers: "Oh, I wish I could have been there to see it. It was everything I could do to keep my mouth shut when I saw him put the jacket on that morning. I was wondering all day how it would turn out."

Miss Mospheiran: "It was totally priceless. He said...."

Enter Mrs. Crocker.

Mrs. Tyers: "Elizabeth! How kind of you to come."

Mrs. Crocker: "Thank you so much for inviting me. Please, call me Betty."

Mrs. Tyers: "Betty, this is Miss Mospheiran and Angie Watson."

Angie: "Pleased to meet you."

Miss Mospheiran: "Pleased to meet you."

Mrs. Crocker sits down.

Mrs. Tyers: "Missy was just telling us about that terrible business with her cousin Jack."

Mrs. Crocker: "What business do you mean?"

Miss Mospheiran: "Oh, it’s been in the paper. I’m sure you must have read about it. He died in a bizarre potato peeling accident. He’d spilled some green sauce--a lot of it, actually--and not wiped it up, and they think he slipped and....well, it was just one of those strange things that happens sometimes."

Mrs. Crocker: "Oh, yes, I did read about that. How awful! Were you very close?"

Miss Mospheiran: "No, not really."

Angie: "Nasty man."

Mrs. Tyers: "Now, now, Angie, he’s not here to defend himself."

Miss Mospheiran: "Let’s be honest here. He wasn’t exactly pure as the driven snow, you know. That business with Rachel Chang, after all..."

Mrs. Crocker: "What business is this?"

Mrs. Tyers: "That’s exactly what I wanted to gossip about. I was sure you’d be interested, Rachel Chang being who she is, and you being, of course, who you are."

Miss Mospheiran: "First place winner of last year’s Harbor Foods Bakeoff."

Angie: "Mmmm. Super Snack Cake."

Mrs. Crocker: "I’m so glad you like it."

Miss Mospheiran: "Oh, it’s totally delicious! But you know, I’ve always wondered. How did you get the idea to add onions to a dessert like that? I mean, it’s delicious, but who would have thought?"

Mrs. Crocker: "Well, back on the earth of humans, people used to put all sorts of odd flavors into cakes. Carrots--nobody here knows what they taste like, of course, but they were a vegetable you had for supper. Or chocolate. There’s no chocolate on Mospheira, but chocolate cake was everywhere on the homeworld. Chocolate used to be drunk with peppers and spices. So I thought, why not onions?"

Mrs. Tyers: "You know, Betty, that’s word for word what you said in the interview after you won your award. And it didn’t make sense then, either."

Miss Mospheiran: "Well, we can hardly blame Mrs. Crocker for that. I don’t think anyone ever really understood cousin Jack’s performance pieces. And this was a very elaborate one."

Mrs. Crocker: "I don’t know what you’re talking about!"

Mrs. Tyers: "Oh, come on now, Betty. You phoned me from Jack’s apartment the day he died, asking me to meet you there. There must have been some kind of mixup, though, because by the time I got there, you were gone."

Mrs. Crocker: "You must be mistaken."

Miss Mospheiran: "She’s not. You made the call from his phone. And you wiped the prints off the phone, very carefully, and off the potato peeler. And even off the doorknob. You very carefully wiped his computer keyboard down, when you deleted all the files that showed what he’d done, and searched for his recipes for this year. But you made your mistake when you put paper in the printer. He was such a slob, he never kept his printer loaded, and you needed to get a copy of that recipe so you could enter again this year. You loaded the tray up quite nicely. And you left lots of nice fingerprints on the bottom sheet."

Mrs. Crocker: "I really don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if I were the kind of person who would do that kind of thing, why would I be so stupid as to try to frame the President’s wife?"

Miss Mospheiran: "Well, not exactly stupid. You called Rachel Chang first, but she wasn’t home. You didn’t leave a message, of course--as you say, you’re not stupid."

Mrs. Tyers: "But you were desperate for some way to cover your tracks. It must have seemed like the perfect solution. I’m sure you didn’t plan to kill Jack. But when he told you that you’d been just a miniscule part of his performance art, I’m sure you must have been terribly upset. Why, I don’t blame you one bit."

Angie: "Me either."

Miss Mospheiran: "You figured it would come out about Rachel, and no one would ever find out about you. And it might have worked, too, if Jack hadn’t been keeping very careful records of his work. Even if you hadn’t loaded the printer, there are tapes, and all sorts of compromising photographs. There’s a particularly embarrassing one involving biscuit dough."

Mrs. Crocker turns red, and tears gather in her eyes.

Mrs. Crocker: "I never could make decent biscuits. And he made delicious ones, just like that, without even thinking about it. He tried for hours and hours to show me how, but....I never could do it."

Mrs. Tyers: (patting Mrs. Crocker’s hand) "It’s all right, Betty, we understand."

Mrs. Crocker: "Understand! You don’t understand! It’s so easy for you, isn’t it. You just signed up for the bakeoff on a whim, just something that caught your fancy one day. It’s nothing to you. But me--this was all I had. I was born to cook! I know it, I’ve always known it, I’ve never wanted anything else."

Angie: "But you weren’t very good at it."

Mrs. Tyers: "Life can be very cruel. All that burning desire, and not a trace of talent."

Miss Mospheiran: "Jack must have seemed like a godsend. He’d teach you to cook. And in the process, he’d get you to the final rounds of the Harbor Foods Bakeoff. You’d get all the recognition you craved, and once you learned his secrets you wouldn’t need him anymore. Or so you thought."

Mrs. Crocker: "Oh, he taught me. And I learned--I learned that without him watching over my every move I’d never be more than an average cook. Good enough to make a supper my family could eat without protest. But anybody can do that much. Me--it was the best that I could do, after working so hard, for so long. The best I could do, when I wanted to be an artist! And by then...."

Miss Mospheiran: "By then you didn’t want to give up the crowds of admirers, the cheering fans...I bet it’s totally addictive. And he’d found someone else to front his recipes this year, someone who wouldn’t need quite so much instruction."

Mrs. Crocker: "After all I’d done for him! Do you know how many weeks it took me to get that damn Super Snack Cake right, even with him standing over me and telling me every move?"

Angie: "No question, he was a nasty man. But why a potato peeler? I mean, wouldn’t a knife have been easier?"

Mrs. Crocker: "I never could figure out which utensil was right for the job until he told me! He laughed when I came at him with the potato peeler and said I’d never learn. I showed him!"

Mrs. Tyers: "Yes, you certainly did."

Officer 2 enters.

Officer 2: "Am I late?"

Miss Mospheiran: "No, I think you’re right on time."

Officer 2: "Oh, good. Are you ready, Mrs. Crocker?"

Mrs. Crocker: (wiping her eyes) "I suppose so."

Mrs. Tyers: "Wouldn’t you like to stay for a bit and have some tea? There’s no hurry."

Officer 2: "That would be very nice, but I’m afraid I’m on duty."

Mrs. Crocker rises.

Mrs. Crocker: "Well, thank you for the tea.   Miss, Angie, it was nice to meet you.  Goodbye."

Officer 2 escorts Mrs. Crocker out the door.

Angie: "How sad."

Mrs. Tyers: "It is sad, isn’t it."

Miss Mospheiran: "Not as sad as the rest of the prisoners will be when she gets a job in the kitchen."

Angie: "You have a point there."

Mrs. Tyers: "Do you work with Officer 2 very often?"

Miss Mospheiran: "He’s consulted us a few times. And arrested me a few, too."

Mrs. Tyers: "He’s such a nice young man."

Miss Mospheiran: "He’s okay."

Mrs. Tyers: "You know, the weather is lovely today. Why don’t we go out into the garden? We can take the tea with us."

Angie: "Cool!"