I nodded. “We’re going to have a drink together tonight at eight, so we’ll have to cut short our romantic rendezvous with Mary Nell. I’m sure you don’t want to be unchaperoned.”

“If there’s anywhere here it would take two hours to eat, I’d be very astonished,” Tolliver said, at his driest.

I agreed, and re-opened my book. But for a few minutes, I read the same page over and over.

When we stopped by the motel office to ask for directions to the Ozark Valley Inn, we noticed that the older man who ran the place was not too happy about helping us. We’d learned his name was Vernon, and he wore overalls and had the worn and wrinkled face of a basset. Vernon had been pleasant enough up to now, though we hadn’t seen much of him. But tonight he was distant, his gaze disapproving. “You planning on moving your bags over there?” he asked, almost hopefully.

“No,” I said, surprised. “We’re just meeting someone for dinner in the restaurant at the inn.”

“ ’Cause I been meaning to tell you, I’m going to need those rooms pretty soon. Hope you two wasn’t planning on staying very long.”

“I’m sure you have tons of business coming in,” I agreed, maybe a little coldly. “And we won’t stay a minute longer than we have to.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I guess no one’s going to ask us to judge the floats in the homecoming parade,” I said to Tolliver when we were in the car.

He smiled, but it was a small smile. “The sooner we can get out of Sarne, the better,” he said.

Mary Nell came in seven minutes after we were seated at a table in the inn, which was on the southern side of the town. Her face was flushed and her cell phone was in her hand. I was willing to bet she’d lied to her mother about where she was going and whom she was going to be with. I almost hated the girl at that moment, for the trouble she might get us into.

“Sorry I’m late,” Mary Nell said, as she took a chair. “I had some things I had to do at home. My mom is so paranoid.”

“She lost your brother,” I said. “I’m sure that’s made her more protective.” I wouldn’t have thought even a self-absorbed teenager could have missed that point.

The girl flushed deep red. “Of course,” she said stiffly. “I just mean, she doesn’t seem to know how old I am.” She’d dressed with care, in new low riders with a tight green T-shirt. She wore a soft fuzzy cardigan sweater and boots.