At fifty, his hands were still steady. Tolly believed his afternoons and evenings in the company of Jack Daniels were one reason his mornings in surgery were such a success. A man needed and deserved a sip or two to relax as the day wore on. Surgery was a demanding and high-pressure discipline.

As Violet prepared for her meeting, he marched the corridors at St. Vincent’s like he was in a parade, waving at nurses and nodding benevolently at visitors. His post-op patients were in various stages of recovery and monitored by staff he trusted well. Tolly decided to have a drink or two with a smoke on the hospital’s roof.

Stewart Mattison began to show signs of internal bleeding as Tolly lit his first Kool. Mr. Mattison had surrendered his gallbladder in a simple procedure. He wasn’t being watched too closely. No one noticed, not even the two nurses trading gossip over coffee at the station down the hall. No one saw Stewart try to blink his eyes open and tell his wife something was wrong. No one saw Stewart Mattison dying until he was dead.

By the time Tolly wandered down to the third floor for his final round of the day, Marie Mattison was sobbing outside her husband’s room. A nurse stood in the doorway, shaking her head solemnly at him.

Tolly dug fingernails deep into his palm inside his lab coat pocket. He assumed the concerned face with detached demeanor he’d perfected over the years, and hoped the spearmint gum he was chewing would do its job.

Violet checked her lipstick in the powder room and smoothed her ruby red shift. She’d placed the record player’s needle at the beginning of Mozart’s piano sonatas twice already. She closed her eyes and inhaled the music, just as she had as a little girl in her parents’ living room. The doorbell blasted her out of her reverie. Genevieve had arrived to help her set up, though there was nothing left to do.

Genevieve Carroll was a Mississippi beauty queen married to Birmingham’s premier jeweler. She wore a simple black shirtwaist accented, Violet thought, by everything DeBeers had dug up in the past six months. Violet watched Genny smooth her auburn hair over and over, flashing the five carat anniversary gift on her right hand.

Tolly didn’t believe in buying jewelry. Violet glanced at her modest wedding ring set, summoned her inner gracious hostess and said, “Oh, Genny, is that ring new? It’s so beautiful!”

Genny held her right arm straight and waggled her fingers. “Edward is great with the diamonds. If I could get him to add European vacations to his repertoire, he’d be damn near perfect.” She surveyed the dining room table. “Looks like we’re all set. Let’s have a glass of something.”

“Isn’t it kind of early to start?” Violet eyed the wine chilling in a silver bucket.