“Don’t eat much, Fred,” Mary Alice said. “Nephew’s taking us to brunch.”

He turned toward me. “Our future son-in-law?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Too old.”

“But an ENT.”

“True.” Fred balanced his sweetroll across his coffee cup, gave me a pat on the behind, and went into the living room to turn on “Sunday Morning.”

Mary Alice poured a generous amount of milk into her coffee. “I wonder if the police know that Laura’s leaving.”

“Don’t know,” I said truthfully.

“Y’all look serious.” Frances came into the kitchen, her hair wet from a shower.

“We found out last night that Eddie Stamps gave Sophie the turtle earring,” Mary Alice said.

“How did you find out?”

“Sophie told us. Patricia Anne got it out of her.”

I jumped to Eddie’s defense. “Which may simply mean that Eddie found the earring somewhere.”

“Patricia Anne has a feeling.” Sister moved so Frances could get to the refrigerator. “But the police sure need to know if he found it on his boat. For all we know, Millicent was leaving earrings as clues.”

Frances backed out of the refrigerator with a carton of orange juice. “I read a story like that one time. The woman left licorice jelly beans. They knew it was her because she was the only one who liked them. Traced them right to the murderer.” Frances poured a glass of juice and closed the carton. “Maybe the jelly beans lead to Laura. Have you thought about that?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” I said truthfully.

A knock on the door made us all jump. I opened it to see the subject of our conversation standing there looking worried. For a moment I was spooked.

“’Morning, Patricia Anne,” she said. “Is Fred here?”

“Sure. Come in.”

“I just wanted to know if he knows where Eddie is.”

“Fred,” I called. “Do you know where Eddie is?”

“He was talking to Fairchild in the parking lot when I came up,” Fred called back. “Why?”

Laura stepped into the apartment. “Because the car’s gone.”

“He probably went to get the car gassed up,” Fred said.

“I did that yesterday.”

“Or maybe to check on the new house,” I volunteered.

“I doubt it, but can I use your phone? I’ll call Jason Marley and ask him to look out his window and see if he sees the car.”

After a short conversation, Laura hung up, smiling. “He’s there. Jason says he sees him at the boathouse. I know you think I’m crazy to be so worried, but the first sign we had of anything being wrong with Eddie was that he got lost between here and Blue Bay. It took him four hours to get home.”

“We don’t think that at all,” I said. “Do you want to go over there? I’ll take you.”