She could, and so could I. In fact, I thought I had myself pretty much under control until Fred called to say he was home, at which time I took the phone into the bedroom, closed the door and bawled. I told him about finding Millicent’s body and how her throat was torn; I told him about finding Emily’s body and how her eyes had stared toward the water. “Oh, Fred,” I ended, sobbing.

“What?” he was saying, “What? Tell me again, honey.”

So I told him again, this time a little slower and a fraction more sensibly. When I finished, there was a long silence. Then Fred said, “I’m coming down there.”

It took me several minutes to convince him to wait until the next day, that I would worry too much about him driving down two-lane Highway 31 in the dead of night.

“Where is Haley?” he asked.

“At The Flamingo.”

“And Mary Alice?”

“She’s in the living room.”

“Y’all stay put. I’ll be down there tomorrow. You and I’ll stay at the Holiday Inn.”

Sister looked up from something she was writing when I came back in. “When’s the knight in shining armor arriving?”

“Tomorrow,” I admitted.

“I figured.” She closed her notebook. “What did he say?”

“He said to stay put until he gets here. He said we’d stay at the Holiday Inn.”

“Don’t be silly, there’s plenty of room here. But, Mouse, that man treats you like a child.”

“I know it,” I agreed. I wasn’t about to say how much better I felt just knowing he was coming. I nodded at the notebook. “What are you writing?”

“I’ve started a new short story. Gets my mind off things. They keep telling us we should write about what we know, so this is going to be about a manic-depressive man who marries two lesbian sisters. At different times, of course.”

“Of course. This is something you know?”

Sister grinned. “You bet. They live in Birmingham.”

I hoped she wasn’t serious.

She got up and announced that she was going to check on Fairchild and did I want to go? I didn’t. To my chagrin, she took the notebook with her. In a few minutes she was back with the news that the doctor had sedated Fairchild, that his blood pressure was soaring, and that Eddie was there and was comparatively calm. He had told her that the note from Emily said simply “Fairchild, forgive me.”

“For what?” I asked. “Killing Millicent?”

“That’s what it sounds like, doesn’t it?”

“Or does she want forgiveness for killing herself?”