The six of us were sitting in a circle. Virgil hadn’t minded at all when I showed up. In fact, he had said that maybe Mary Alice and I could remind him of some things that he might forget.

So far, between snacking and wondering if the repairs on the interstate to Nashville would ever be finished, this could be an ordinary tea party. Even Bubba Cat got down from his heating pad on the kitchen counter and came to lie in the sun right at Luke’s feet. A dangerous place, considering that Luke was a strange green color.

Virgil finally put his coffee cup down, though, got out his notebook, and got down to business.

Yes, Virginia said, she had met Spencer Gordon on the Internet, had frequently gone into a chat room with him. Luke got up, stepped over Bubba and disappeared down the hall. We heard the bathroom door slam.

Virginia ignored the interruption. Spencer was a nice man. They had ballroom dancing in common.

“I didn’t know you danced, Mama,” Richard said.

Virginia pursed her new lips and looked at her son. “Your father doesn’t. I do. When I tango, Richard, I can lift my leg over my partner’s shoulder.”

The congressman looked startled.

Virginia turned to us. “That impressed Spencer. His wife doesn’t tango. Or do much else, apparently.”

Virgil wrote something in his notebook, just one word, probably “tango,” and told Virginia to go ahead with her story which turned out to be fairly logical.

There was going to be a Seniors’ Swing Convention in Nashville. Spencer had invited her to meet him there and she had agreed since it was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Columbus, you know.

Virginia reached over, got an olive from the coffee table, and chewed it thoughtfully while we waited. We heard the toilet flush down the hall.

“But then,” Virginia said, wiping her fingers on a napkin, “I got to thinking what did I know about this man? He could be an ax murderer for all I knew. And I was about to back out when Holden Crawford showed up to paint the house.”

“What did he have to do with it?” Richard wanted to know.

“I invited him in for lunch one day and just happened to tell him about the convention and how I’d love to go. And he said, ‘I’ll take you and check the guy out for you. You can tell him I’m your brother.’ So that’s what we did.”

“You did what, Mama?” Richard’s voice was so loud that Bubba got up and stalked back into the kitchen. “You didn’t know him any more than you did the guy in Nashville.”

“Of course I did, Richard. He was a nice man.”

“He was a snake handler, Mama.”