“Sister’s being too nice,” I complained to Fred as I crawled into bed a half hour later. “She’s acting like somebody’s hit her over the head with a two-by-four. Last time she acted like this was when she fell for that ancient guy that nearly croaked in her hot tub.”

“How’s he doing?” Fred asked. “I haven’t heard about him in a while.”

“His daughter gave him a big birthday party at the Birmingham Country Club a couple of weeks ago. The pictures were in the paper, and he looked pretty good for ninety-something. Plaid jacket.”

“So the skin grafts must have worked.”

“Dummy.” I leaned over and gave Fred a very satisfactory kiss in spite of the fact that he now tasted like Scope and Crest masking recent garlic butter that had been added to the earlier onions from Porky Pete’s.

“I think she’s really falling for Berry West,” I added. “I think he’s real nice. You were short with him, though.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. He just looked like he was taking over.”

“A macho thing.”

“Hush,” Fred said, “or I’ll throw you to the screech owls.”

So I hushed.

The small town of De Funiak Springs is about forty miles from Destin. It’s a beautiful old Chatauqua town built around a large lake, supposedly one of only two perfectly circular lakes in the world. Victorian and ranch houses exist harmoniously side by side beneath live oaks older by far than the oldest of the homes. A few palm trees, planted by the city or a garden club, struggle to survive in the city park.

It’s a good town with good people and sidewalks and a library with large windows on the lake. It’s where Fred and I were when we heard Kennedy had been shot. We were sitting at the soda fountain at the drugstore eating grilled cheese sandwiches. We sat there until Walter Cronkite wiped his eyes and said Kennedy had been pronounced dead. The pharmacist said, “God rest his soul.”

We have not been back to the drugstore since, but it’s still there. We passed it on the way to Millicent’s funeral.

The thunderstorm of the night before had proved to be the forerunner of a low pressure system that had moved in over the coast. Rain had fallen most of the night, and now a fine mist was enveloping us in fog. We were driving on a dark, dismal day to the funeral of a friend who had been murdered; we were both lost in our own thoughts.

I closed my eyes and saw once more the photographs of Millicent and Emily at the picnic. They had looked so happy. What on God’s earth had happened to bring them to such violent deaths? Greed? Was Blue Bay Ranch and its potential millions the motive? Or something as simple as an insurance policy? Or jealousy?