She took several and popped them into her mouth. “There are a lot of people here,” she said, looking around. “I didn’t think there’d be this many.”

“You’ll do fine,” I assured her.

“I’m just worried about Major Bissell,” she said. “He’s been in the bathroom ever since he got here.”

Haley stopped unwrapping a pimento cheese sandwich. “Are you serious? Do you think I ought to go check on him?”

“Several people already have. That woman deputy, what’s her name? You know, the one who looks like a blue tube?”

“Lisa Andrews?” I asked.

“The one without a waist who’s investigating Emily’s death. She’s in there with him now.”

“Maybe they’re discussing police business,” Frances said. She ignored Sister’s look and calmly bit into a cream cheese sandwich.

There was a squawk over the speaker, which made everybody jump. “Sorry!” a voice said. In a moment, the sounds of James Galway’s flute wafted through the small amphitheater. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, to look up at the darkening sky where Jupiter was now visible. When we resumed our picnicking and conversations, we were subdued, caught in the spell of the music.

“I’ve got to go,” Mary Alice said. “There’s going to be about fifteen minutes of music to settle everybody down. Then I’m reading first. Good thing.”

Haley said, “Maybe Lisa brought him some Immodium.”

I said, “Don’t sweat. Remember, you have to wear that dress to the funeral tomorrow.”

Frances said, “Break a leg.”

We ate our picnic while James Galway serenaded us and a slight breeze from the Gulf began to stir the halos that humidity had formed around the lights.

“I could get used to this,” Haley said as she stretched out on a beach towel with a bunch of grapes in her hand.

“Except for all the dead bodies, it’s just about perfect,” Frances agreed.

And then the music ended and a tall, thin young woman came out onstage and introduced herself as Peggy Wright, the director of the Sunnyside Writers’ Conference. This conference, so she told us, had been absolutely the best, with absolutely the best writers, absolutely the best weather, absolutely the best instructors, the best facilities, the best—

“No wonder Major Bissell’s hiding in the bathroom,” Frances murmured.

“Don’t you call that something?” Haley asked. “What she’s doing?”

“You call it a poor introduction,” Frances said.

“No, I mean isn’t there a literary term for listing things like that?”

“Are you talking about ‘cataloging’?” I asked, as the woman got to the “very best stories.”

“Sounds right.”