The two patrolmen were looking at each other again. The one holding on to Charly’s arm was kind of scratching at the back of his head. The other one hitched at his belt and shifted his feet, cleared his throat and said, “Well now, ma‘am, there’s just one problem with that I’ve lived in this town for most of my life, and far as I know, Judge Phelps hasn’t even got a daughter. Kenny, you know anything about Judge Phelps havin’ a daughter?”

“First I’ve heard of it,” said Kenny.

Sizing up the two officers, Charly decided she wasn’t all that surprised. She figured they’d both had to have been barely out of diapers when she’d left town. This town. Why, oh, why, had she ever come back? This town had tried once before to eat her alive; maybe that was meant to be her destiny.

She tried again, but with a growing sense of futility; her story sounded far-fetched even to her. “Look, I’ve been away. For a long time, actually. I live in California now. If you’ll just let me get my purse-”

“We’ll take care of that, ma’am.” Patrolman Kenny already had his head and shoulders inside the Taurus and was shining his flashlight around, looking in the glove box, in the back, under the seats. He paused to give Charly a look over his shoulder. “Sure don’t see a purse in here anywhere. You sure you had one with you?”

“Of course I had one with me,” Charly said, pleased that she’d had the presence of mind not to actually add the words you nitwit, even if her tone clearly implied them. “Look, it has to be there. It was right there on the seat. Maybe it-” She stopped.

But had it been? She’d been pretty upset. Too upset to notice? She was sure she’d had it when she’d left Kelly’s. Could she have taken it into the house with her? She didn’t remember. But she might have-reaching for her purse when getting out of a car was something she usually did automatically.

Okay, she must have. The purse wasn’t here. Therefore, she must have taken it someplace with her and left it. And after Kelly’s she’d only been to one place.

“Wait,” she said, breathing through her nose and trying not to panic. “Okay. I know where it must be. I must have left it at the judge’s-I was just there. If you could just…I don’t know, take me back there, or let me call, or something…”

The two patrolmen were flanking her now, half facing her with arms folded ominously on their chests, grave, official looks on their peach-fuzz faces. Charly’s heart began to pound; she thought she knew how a cornered rabbit feels.

“Well now, ma’am,” said the one not named Kenny, “we’ve got a little situation here.”

“What…situation?” asked Charly. She suddenly felt air starved. You in a heap a’ trouble, girl.

“Have you had anything to drink this evening, ma’am?” Kenny was the speaker again; it was getting to be almost like a comedy routine, Charly thought, the way these two passed the conversational ball back and forth.

“D-drink?” She shifted uncomfortably, remembering that she needed to go to the bathroom and wondering how he knew. Then the full meaning of the question hit her and she gasped, “Not Of course not!”

“You sure about that?” Kenny sort of hefted the Jack Daniel’s bottle.

“No, I swear. Look, I can explain-”

Not-Kenny leaned over until his face was close to Charly’s and said in his nice, soft, polite Southern voice, “Ma’am, I’m sure you can, and we’re gonna give you a chance to do that. There’s just a couple problems we need to get cleared up first, okay?”

“P-problems?” Charly resisted an urge to cringe; she’d been in worse situations, she supposed, but none quite so embarrassing. She was a lawyer, for God’s sake-she knew how bad this looked.

“Yes, ma‘am. Now, first off there’s the little matter of this bottle. I found the neck underneath the seat, and see here, the seal’s broken? Which means it looks to me like you had an open bottle of whiskey in your car, ma’am. And along with the way you were drivin’-”

“You were tailgating me! Your lights were in my eyes!”

Kenny held up a warning hand. “Ma‘am, we followed you quite a ways at well under the speed limit, and you were weavin’ back and forth across the road. Then you lose control of your car for no good reason that I could see, and we find an open whiskey bottle in your car-now, you tell me, what are we supposed to think? And then you give us this story about bein’ Judge Phelps’s daughter, when everybody knows the judge don’t even have a daughter, and you got no driver’s license, no identification, no registration on this car you’re drivin’-and that’s another little problem. Well, a big one, actually.” He nodded at his partner, offering him the punch line.

Which his partner-whom she was unable to identify, since by this time Charly had lost track again of who was Kenny and who wasn‘t-was delighted to deliver. “You see, ma’am, the reason we were following you in the first place is because this-here vehicle was reported stolen-”

“What?”

“Yes, ma‘am. Brown Ford Taurus. Georgia plates…” He took a notebook out of his shirt pocket, read the number off, then tucked the notebook away again and jerked his head toward the car now resting lopsidedly with its front end mashed up against a tree. “Look’s to me like that’s this car right here, ma’am.”

“This is a mistake,” Charly muttered. A terrible mistake.

“Yes, ma‘am. But right now what I’m gon’ do is, I’m placin’ you under arrest, and then we’re gonna take you on over to the hospital and make sure you’re okay, and while we’re at it, we’ll get this alcohol question settled, okay? And then you’re gonna have all the time you need to get things straightened out. Now, you have the right to remain silent…”

Charly just closed her eyes.

Chapter 3

July 1, 1977


Dear Diary,


Guess what! I think Richie Wilcox likes me. He told Bobby Hanratty he did, and Bobby told Kelly Grace, and Kelly Grace told me. I don’t know if I should tell Kelly Grace to tell Bobby to tell Richie that I like him back or not. I don’t want to be too forward. On the other hand, the Fourth of July picnic is coming up. Maybe Richie will ask me and Bobby will ask Kelly Grace, and then we can double-date! Yowza!


Thought for the Day: I think Richie does look just a little like J.T.

Troy was in the nursery putting the last screw in a four-switch plate when he heard the phone ring. Since he was pretty sure he knew who it was, he finished up what he was doing before he went across the hall to the master bedroom to answer it. He got there just before the machine picked up.

“Hey,” he said, without bothering with formalities, “‘bout time you guys checked in. You must be havin’ fun.”

All he got in response to that were some breathing sounds, which gave him a hint that it probably wasn’t his brother or Mirabella on the line after all. But before he could apologize and start all over again, a woman’s voice inquired in an ominous tone, “Is this the Starr residence?”

“Sure is,” said Troy cheerfully. “Sorry about that-thought you were somebody else. What can I do for you?”

“May I speak to Mirabella, please?”

“Ah, shoot-I’m sorry, she’s not here right now. Can I-?”

“Is this…Jimmy Joe?”

“Naw, this is his brother Troy. Neither one of ‘em’s here, ma’am. Gone to Atlanta for the weekend.” The silence on the other end of the line had a hollow sound to it, Troy thought, as if the person there had just run out of options. “Hey,” he said, trying to be helpful, “I’d be glad to give ’em a message for you, if you want.”

He heard more breath sounds, a quick in and out, the kind of breath people take to bolster their courage when they’re looking at the end of their rope. “Do you have a number where they can be reached?”

“Uh, sure don’t. I’m expectin’ to hear from ’em any minute, though. Thought that was who it was when you called, matter of fact. Tell you what, why don’t you give me a number where you can be reached, and I’ll have Mirabella give you a call? How’s that sound, ma’am?”

This time he got a high, muffled sound, about halfway between a snort of irony and a squeak of frustration, which made him more than ever suspicious that the person on the other end of the line might be just a little too tightly wound. His “Beg pardon?” was cautious.

A chuckle reassured him somewhat, and so did the dry humor in the voice when it replied, “Nothing-I’ve just about been ma’amed to death lately, is all.”

At least, he thought, whatever her problem was, the lady appeared to have some fight left in her. He ventured, “Well, ma’am, if you want to give me a name, I’d be glad to call you that instead.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, as if it was classified information he’d asked her for. Then she replied with an almost inaudible sigh, “It’s Charly. Charly Phelps. Mirabella’s friend-from California?”

The light dawned. “Oh, yeah-the maid of honor, right? You’re comin’ in next week?” Then another light dawned, and he thought maybe he had the whole thing figured out “Oh, Lord, it is next week, isn’t it? Don’t tell me. We haven’t got that wrong, have we? Where in the hell are you?” If she was sitting in Atlanta at the airport waiting for somebody to pick her up, it would explain a lot.

There was a pause before the answer came, in a curiously hollow tone. “I’m in Mourning Spring, Alabama.”

“Alabama! Well, what in the hell are you doin’ in Alabama?” And why did she say it like some sort of doomsday curse? “You lost?”

This time there wasn’t anything equivocal about the sound she made. It was definitely a snort. “You could say that. Listen, when you hear from Mirabella, just give her a message for me, okay? Tell her-”

“Wait, let me get something to write this down on.”