It was close to an hour before we got back to the hospital. Telling Virgil goodbye took quite a while. He promised to call if there was any news of Virginia. In fact, he would just call anyway. And chances were he’d be back the next day. The sheriff was a smitten man.

“He’s too young for you,” I said to Sister who was doing a little skipping step down the sidewalk. “He’s not twenty-eight years older.”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful? I might not have to bury this one.”

“How many plots do you have left at Elmwood?”

“Just two. And one of those is for me. He might want to be buried with his first wife anyway. Though I doubt it.”

Amazing. There was Sheriff Virgil Stuckey driving up the road to Pulaski, Tennessee, with no idea in the world that my sister already had him hog-tied for eternity. A man she had met just the day before.

“Aren’t you still engaged to Cedric?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The Englishman.”

“I don’t think so.”

Luke was spooning tapioca pudding from a plastic cup when we got back.

“They’re not going to let me leave,” he said mournfully.

“Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry.” Mary Alice actually patted his foot which was sticking out from under the sheet. The woman has no conscience. “What did they say?”

“Maybe tomorrow.” He blinked back tears. “And I’m so worried about Virginia. I know she’s up there at that church, not knowing I’m hurt.”

“She’s fine, Luke,” I said. “She’s going to show up soon.”

“Of course she is,” Sister agreed. “And we’ll come back to get you tomorrow. Okay?”

“In the Jaguar?”

“Absolutely.”

The poor fellow smiled. I could have kicked Sister in the butt, especially when we were walking down the hall and she said, “Did you see Luke’s toenails? Longer than Howard Hughes’s. If he cut them he’d wear a size smaller shoe, I swear.”

It was my idea to go back over Chandler Mountain and go home the way we had come the day before. I knew we weren’t going to find Virginia at the church, and that I, for one, wouldn’t set foot in that church with that box at the front even if the police didn’t have it cordoned off, which they probably did. But I wanted to see it, knowing what I did know about all that had happened there.

So we wound up the steep curves that I had traveled down in the ambulance the day before. The view over the edge made me appreciate again how carefully the ambulance driver had taken the curves. One mistake and we’d have been in the next county or in the heavenly choir.