Mary Alice was unusually quiet on the way home. I don’t know what she was thinking about, probably Virgil, but I was thinking about Betsy Mahall and what she had said about being scared. I had tried to make myself believe she was scared about losing the cameo, but what if she were frightened of her father-in-law? Of bringing her sister’s two tiny children into that house to live with a man who was at the least disagreeable (I had witnessed that myself) and who, according to the Packards, was a thief, blackmailer, and possibly a murderer.

And what were she and Terry doing living there anyway? Was she running that large house and taking care of a grouchy, disabled father-in-law as well as holding down a job at the telephone company?

“What are you thinking about?” Sister asked.

“Betsy Mahall. I think she’s got her hands full. What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking that Virginia’s no more dead than a Betsy bug. You know what I think happened?”

I didn’t ask, but she told me anyway.

“I think Holden Crawford took her to Nashville to that Homestead Inn place and left her. She had arranged to meet someone there.”

“Then what was he doing with her car in Pulaski? And somebody saw her with him in Pulaski, remember? Getting gas.”

“That could have been on their way up there. On the way back, after he’d left Virginia, somebody killed him.”

I thought about this for a minute. It was possible, but certainly a circuitous route for Virginia to get to Nashville. Why would she have come to Chandler Mountain when she could have driven straight up there from Mississippi?

“Or maybe,” Sister continued, “he put her on a plane in Nashville.”

“Planes fly out of a lot closer places. Birmingham, Chattanooga.”

“There was some special reason he needed to go to Nashville.”

My head was beginning to ache. I still wasn’t over my jet lag totally.

“You want to go with me to Debbie’s to see Brother and the twins?”

“Tell her I’ll be over tomorrow.”

“Maybe Henry’s cooked something good for supper.”

Lord. It had only been an hour since we had had soup, cornbread, and pecan pie. The woman amazes me. What would it be like to have such an appetite, not just for food, but for life? Not to worry about details like I did? Who made me the worrywart in this family?

“You were born worrying. It’s your burden to bear. I remember when Mama told us we should appreciate our food because the starving children in India didn’t have any, you worried to death about them. Wouldn’t eat.”

I hadn’t even realized I had asked the question aloud until Sister answered.

“I still worry about them,” I admitted. “What’s your burden?”