"What time?" I asked.

"Quarter to twelve. I'll pick you up."

I spent the morning straightening the house, changing the sheets, and doing a couple of loads of wash. I skipped my usual peanut butter and toast mid-morning snack so I could splurge on an elegant lunch, and got out the beige spring suit I had bought last year. The weather was holding, and Vulcan was mooning Shades Valley when Woofer and I had our walk.

Sister blew the horn right on time, and when I got in the car, I saw that she and Meg had dressed up, too. Sister was in a navy suit with a navy polka-dot blouse. Meg Bryan looked frail and lost in a bluish-gray linen jacket over a pale flowered dress. Skin, hair, and material all seemed to blend together. It made me wonder if I had imagined the pit bull.

But, no. She had come prepared with two briefcases, one of which contained her computer. The other contained documents that the CIA would have had trouble getting their hands on. At lunch, these briefcases occupied the fourth chair at our table. Occasionally, Meg would reach over and pat them. Shades of Jimmy Stewart and Harvey.

All in all, it was a pleasant lunch, though. We had just ordered a piece of strawberry cheesecake to be cut in thirds when a deep voice behind me made me jump.

"Meg!"

Meg jumped, too. Then, "Hello, Bobby," she said.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to my cousin's wedding. I'm going to do some research while I'm here."

"Where's Trinity?"

"At home."

The man had moved up behind the chair on which the briefcases rested. I half expected Meg to grab them. Instead, she introduced us.

"Mrs. Hollowell, Mrs. Crane, I'd like you to meet Judge Robert Haskins."

The judge acknowledged the introductions, though he clearly wasn't interested. "What are you researching?" he asked Meg.

"Don't you wish you knew." A smile flitted across Meg's face. Or was it just a curl of the lips?

"It's the Fitzpatrick thing, isn't it?" The judge was a small man with a pinched face. His small glasses kept sliding down his nose and he kept pushing them up.

"Nothing important," Meg said. "Just a Mobile family."

"Did you finish the Whitleys?"

"Yes."

"Ah hah!" The judge pounded the back of the chair. "I was hoping you'd say that."

"Why?"

"You just think you have." He was actually chortling now. "You just think you have, Meggie, my girl."

"What do you mean?" Meg's face was as pink as it could ever be. More pale purple.

"I've got something in my office you need to see, Meg."

"What?"

"It'll cost you."

"Cost me what?"

"A look at Vincent Fitzpatrick."

Meg thought for a moment.

"Excuse me," the waiter reached around the judge to put our cheesecake down. "More coffee?"

"Please," Mary Alice and I said.