Maybe Denny’s fruit plate would be better. Like many lightning-strike survivors, I have trouble with terrible headaches, and my right leg is much weaker than my left. I can lessen those symptoms by avoiding fried food and starches. Our lunch at McDonald’s the day before had been a serious fall from grace, and my leg had twitched all night. Luckily, Hollis hadn’t noticed. But I’d been too uncertain on my feet to run this morning.

“Oh, we’ve been invited to lunch,” I told Tolliver as we buckled our seat belts. The day was cloudy and chilly. Soon there’d be a rainstorm with high winds, and it would whip all the beautiful leaves off the trees—oak and maple and gum. Sarne would roll up the few sidewalks it had left out for the leafers. Its people would put away their hillbilly costumes and close their fruit and crystal stands, and Sarne would be alone for the winter.

“Where?” Tolliver asked, drawing me back into the present.

“At Sybil Teague’s.” I told him about running into Sybil and Paul the night before.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “Before we go in the restaurant, let me tell you what I learned from Janine last night. Paul Edwards was the lawyer Helen hired to get her restraining order and then her divorce from Jay Hopkins. And he’d represented Jay and Helen before, in a lawsuit they brought against Terry Vale.”

“What’d they sue the mayor for?”

“Maybe he wasn’t the mayor then. He owns the local furniture and carpet sales company. Jay Hopkins said the carpet Terry sold them wasn’t stain resistant, and Terry wouldn’t make good on the warranty.”

“Hmm,” I said. “I’m not sure what that all means.” And I needed a cup of coffee before I even began to figure it out.

“It means,” Tolliver said, “that Paul Edwards is in a position to know all the secrets of both families.”

“Like?”

“Who Teenie’s father really was, for one.”

“Oh.”

“And maybe he knows why Teenie and Dell were out in the woods that day. What could have made them go out to that place, on land that neither family owned, to be killed?”

“Who does own that land?”

“I guess we don’t know.”

“Could we find that out this morning?”

“Sure. We can go to the county clerk’s office. But why should we go to the effort?”

“I’d rather have something to do than go back to the motel room and work crossword puzzles.”

“Yeah, me, too.” We worked out a plan for the day.