“Bernice didn’t know his name. just that he was bald or losing his hair. Millicent asked her about Rogaine.”

“Well, that narrows it down to about three-fourths of the men in Destin. Ten thousand men, give or take a few.” Sister sat down beside me. “I wish I’d bought some of that Rogaine stock.”

“Baldheaded men have more testosterone,” Haley stated. She was at the dresser brushing blush along her jawline.

“Oh, I already knew that. Remember, Mouse, how Will Alec hardly had any hair? He was by far the sexiest of my husbands.”

“He was the youngest,” I said. I got back to my story. “Bernice says she has a ‘feeling’ that the baldheaded man is the murderer.”

“She wouldn’t make a very good juror, would she? Haley, don’t wear those white sandals with that dark dress.”

“I don’t have anything else except tennis shoes and flip-flops.”

“Well, as long as you know better.” Sister got up. “I’ve got to get ready for Berry.”

“Be careful. He’s losing his hair,” Haley cautioned.

“So are the two men in the living room.” Both of them giggled.

“Fools!” I said and stomped out.

Frances had gone out on the balcony and I soon discovered why.

“Deaf as a post in my left ear,” Fred was saying to Dr. Nachman. “Couldn’t hear it thunder. So I got some of that wax removal stuff at the Big B, but every time I put it in my ear, it gave me a coughing fit. I mean I coughed like I had the whooping cough. The kind that makes you gag stuff up.”

I went back to Haley’s room. “Better hurry. Your future’s at stake.” Then I joined Frances on the balcony.

“What time did Philip show up?” I asked.

“About five. Seems like this has been the longest day.”

I agreed. A lot had happened: the rainy funeral, the disastrous party at Jason’s, my hair debacle and the rescue at the Curl Up and Dye, as well as the appearance of Philip Nachman just to name a few.

“I wonder how Jason’s doing in that big pink house all by himself,” Frances said wistfully.

Which reminded me of Bernice’s feeling about the baldheaded man. I discovered in the retelling that it was becoming more and more farfetched.

But Frances disagreed, saying intuition should not be dispatched lightly. “My grandmother never would go to Kansas,” she said. “She always had a feeling that she would die in Kansas. Really believed it.”

“Why Kansas?”

“God knows. The farthest the woman ever got from Ramer, Alabama, was Montgomery.”

“Maybe she saw The Wizard of Oz.”

“Could be.” Frances was silent for a moment. “The thing about it, Patricia Anne, is that if she’d ever gone to Kansas, she really would have died. And not from fear, either. There are some things we just know are true.”