“Normal? Helen was an alcoholic, and she divorced her husband because he drank and beat her. Sybil Teague is one of the coldest women I ever met, and if she didn’t marry that poor guy to get his money . . . well, it seems to me that what she loves is one, her son Dell, two, herself, and running a long third, Mary Nell.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” Sometimes Tolliver astonished me, and this was one of those times.

We drove around town, taking in the limited sights and sounds of Sarne. With the weekend over, the town had returned to its own preoccupation with battening down for the winter. The banners were being taken down from the ornamental streetlights. No one was wearing a cute costume. Aunt Sally’s had a “Closed for the Winter” sign in the window. The horses and carriages were gone from the square.

Our cell phone rang as we made our way once again to the little house on Freedom Street. I answered it since Tolliver was driving.

“Hello,” I said, and a remote voice asked, “Harper?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Iona. Tolliver’s aunt.”

“Iona,” I whispered to Tolliver. I put my mouth back to the receiver. “Yes, what do you want?”

“Your sister’s run off.”

“Which one?”

“Mariella.”

Mariella had just turned eleven. Tolliver and I had sent a card, enclosing money. Of course, we hadn’t gotten a thank-you of any kind, and when we’d called—okay, I’d called—on the actual day, Iona had told me Mariella was out. I’d been sure I heard her in the background, though.

This seemed horribly like Cameron’s history. I made myself say, “Did she run off with someone, or did she just disappear?”

“She ran off with a little boy who’s thirteen. Some delinquent named Craig.”

“And?”

“We want you to come back and look for her.”

I held the phone away to give it the look of incredulous amazement her statement deserved.

“You told her for years how awful Tolliver and I were,” I said to my aunt Iona. “She wouldn’t come back with me if I found her. She’d run the other way. Besides, I only find dead people. You look for her. Call the police, of course. I bet you haven’t.” I pressed the button to end the conversation, if you could call it that.

“What?” Tolliver asked. I recounted Iona’s words.

“Don’t you think you were a little hasty?” His words were mild, but they stung me.

“We’re due in Memphis and Millington, and we’ve been delayed here already. There’s no telling where Mariella is, or this Craig either. How far could they be? They can’t drive. They’re right down the road from Iona, I bet. She hasn’t gone to the police because she’s too proud to let them know Mariella’s run away.”