“I may have met him,” Sister said. “But, to tell you the truth, I haven’t paid that much attention to Blue Bay Ranch. It’s like kudzu. It wasn’t there and then it was.”

“I hadn’t met him,” I said.

“How well did you know Emily Peacock?”

“Just as a friend of a friend. We weren’t close, but I knew her and liked her.” Sister ran her hand through her hair.

“And Mr. Weatherby asked you to go check on her and that’s when you found her body?”

Mary Alice said testily, “My sister’s right. We’ve already answered these questions.”

The lieutenant held up his pen. “I’m almost through. What about the Berliners? How long have you known them?”

“We just met them,” I said. “We went to watch turtles with them last night.”

“Did you know that Sophie had Mrs. Weatherby’s other earring?”

“Sophie? Where did she get it?” I asked.

“She says Mrs. Weatherby gave it to her the morning she was killed.”

Something in his tone made me say, “But you don’t believe her.”

“No. I think she found it somewhere. Her father recognized it as Mrs. Weatherby’s earring and gave it back to Fairchild.”

That explained why Sophie was so mad at her father. Millicent’s turtle would have been precious to her.

“She’s sticking to her story, though,” the lieutenant said.

“She’s fourteen. You’re not so old you’ve forgotten fourteen.”

“I guess not.”

“So,” Sister said, “you have a pair of earrings.”

“And a pair of unsolved murders,” I added, slightly angry at Major Bissell for his indictment of Sophie.

“We’ll find out what happened,” he said, closing his notebook and getting up. “Thanks, ladies, for your time. Tell Haley I’ll pick her up around seven. And, by the way, Mrs. Crane, the phone call that you and Mrs. Stamps believed was a threatening one?”

“Believed? It was.”

“Well, a trace showed it was made from the pay phone in front of Delchamps Super Market.” He started out, paused, and turned around as if something had just occured to him. “And, by the way, Mrs. Stamps didn’t receive the same call.”

“Sure she did,” I exclaimed. “She came running in here scared to death.”

“There’s no record of her getting a call at that time or from that phone.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She came in here white as a sheet.” I realized “white as a sheet” would never describe Laura. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“So scared she said she was leaving town and I should, too,” Sister added. “Maybe she got the call somewhere else, like in her car.”

Major Bissell shrugged. “We’re checking it out.”

The bedroom door opened and Fred came out looking like the wrath of God. “Hey,” he said.