“He’s trying to get a flight out now, but he may end up driving if he can’t get out soon. He’s all excited about the President calling him.”

“Our family is blessed.”

“We are. Imagine the President taking such a personal interest in Richard.”

“Imagine.”

“I’ll call you if I hear anything else. Henry’s fixed pot roast for supper.”

“Enjoy.”

I was in a good humor when Fred came in. So good, in fact, that we uncorked the Viagra before we ate the corned beef and cabbage. Totally missed Wheel of Fortune.

“A spell?” He asked as we were eating our egg custard pie. “Virginia called you to say the guy was dead and he had had some kind of a spell?”

“All I know is what Sister said. They took him to Vanderbilt Hospital.”

“Does this have something to do with the snake-handling preacher?”

“I doubt it. I don’t know what’s going on. Sister thinks Monk Crawford took Virginia to Nashville to meet this man. I guess it’s possible.”

“Mary Alice say any more about Virgil? I thinks she’s got her a good one this time. He was telling me the best places at Smith Lake to catch bass. He’s got a cabin up there.”

“Well, let him break the news to her.”

“True.”

I’m sure both of us had the same mental picture of Sister in a lake cabin cleaning bass.

We were in bed asleep by nine o’clock. Sometime later the phone rang and woke me up.

“Migraine,” Sister said.

“What?”

“The Gordon guy is going to be okay. He had a migraine attack, took some new medicine he had, and was sleeping it off.”

“On the floor? He must have taken a hell of a dose.”

“Well, Virginia said she didn’t have her glasses on and must have guessed wrong when she gave it to him. Do you suppose Aunt Gracie had migraines? Remember how funny her eyes looked?”

“I think Aunt Gracie took paregoric, Sister. I’m going back to sleep now.”

“Well, I never did tell you what I found about Eugene Mahall.”

“What about him?”

“He can walk as good as you and I can.”

This woke me up.

“Who says?”

“I was talking to Virgil on the car phone telling him where we’d been and he told me. Said he’d seen him himself. Said he went out to his house to question him about Louellen’s disappearance. You know, the country singer he married who kept jumping into the legustrum trying to commit suicide? And you know those glass panels on either side of the door? Virgil saw him walking down the hall big as life. But when he opened the door, he was in the wheelchair.”

“Insurance fraud?”

“That’s what I said. But Virgil says probably not, that when he collected the insurance he really was crippled up.”

“What would be the purpose then?”