Parr crossed the street and went into the new eatery. He ordered a tall sweet tea to go but he sipped it inside, making sure that Mr. Corlear was gone before he left the shop.

Parr walked around the back and through the alley of the building. Then he took the key he’d kept from when he’d speeded up the renovations, in the name of helping Bobby Joe.

Who generally found a way to screw things up all the same. And had probably just done it again.

Parr let himself in and left the street door unlocked.

He went upstairs to the room under the skylight and satisfied himself that nothing was amiss. The bits and pieces of Mary Beth’s artwork lay around and a half-completed poster took up most of the small desk.

Then Parr called Bobby Joe.

Parr’s brother came up the stairs next, whistling. He stopped as he entered the room. “Didn’t take you long to figure out who done it.”

“You made it easy.”

“Well, here’s what I took.” Bobby Joe removed a small white box from his pocket, but he didn’t hand it over.

“How’d you even know it was here?”

“I can’t take all the credit. There was an element of luck. But I did know what I was looking for and that Mary Beth was likely to keep it with her even if she didn’t wear it.”

“How so?”

“Mercy me, Mother Alma might find it!” he said in a falsetto voice. “Or golly gosh, Bobby Joe could look in my drawers! Dresser drawers, I mean.”

“Knock it off,” Parr growled.

Bobby Joe dropped back down to his normal tone. “A friend of yours gave me a few good clues.” He smirked. “You two are no longer an item and she doesn’t care if you know.”

“Gail.”

“That’s right. She’s an interesting girl in her own icy kind of way.”

Parr thought that was an accurate description of Gail Cash.

“So why’d you have her wrap up this little box for Mary Beth’s birthday? It wasn’t nice of you to rub salt in the wound.”

Parr shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. He refused to react to his brother’s needling. “I know for a fact Gail wasn’t wounded when I ended our affair. We weren’t in love and there was another guy waiting in the wings.”

“Yeah.” Bobby Joe gave him a crooked smile. “Not me, though. I mean, not back then.”

“Spare me the details, Bobby Joe. I just don’t care.”

“Okay. Then I won’t brag. There were just a few times, anyway, before I ended up in the hospital. Well, once in the hospital. She stopped by to cheer me up.”

“I heard.”