“I noticed you were gone a long time after dark and just got back,” said Larry. “I just wanted to check on you, see if everything is all right.”

“I’ve been out.” Then she added, although it wasn’t exactly the truth, “Dancing.”

“Dancing! Well, Esther called me and said she saw the lights on down at the antique mall long after closing time, and rode by there and said she thought she saw you and Clarence in there eating in her kitchen booth. Said she thought she saw somebody else in there eating with y’all, she didn’t recognize him.”

Right then Esther drove up, and then Big Jim came over, and they all came up on Charlene’s porch and stood there as if their feet had put down roots.

“What is Clarence thinking, having total strangers down there eating and drinking?” said Esther.

“Don’t blame Clarence,” said Charlene. “That was me. The poor man was hungry, and Mamie’s was closed, so I took him a little something to eat.”

“You sat down and ate with somebody you don’t even know? A total stranger?” said Larry. “You cooked for him?”

“Well, he was hungry,” said Charlene. “And sleepy, so Clarence let him take a nap in that little four-poster bed.” She didn’t mention the broken cup or “The Long Black Veil” or the dancing. She didn’t tell them that he had fallen asleep in her arms and called her an angel.

“What?” said Esther. “Clarence has got people eating and sleeping down at the antique mall! Might as well just shack up down there!”

Larry put his arm around Charlene’s shoulder the way you would do a child and talked slowly and carefully to her as if she couldn’t understand English. “Honey, you’re so sweet, but you just can’t do that. Why, he could have been a wanted criminal!”

“He could have been on drugs,” said Big Jim. “Did you get a look at his pupils? Was they pinpoint or dilated?”

Shot a man in Reno, thought Charlene, just to watch him die. It was the second time that day a man had put an arm around her and called her honey, but how different it felt this time. Charlene twitched out from under Larry’s arm. “He wasn’t on drugs,” she said. “He was just sleepy.”

“I am going down there first thing in the morning and look at my dishes, and if there is a single chip—” said Esther.

“Wait!” said Larry. “What are we thinking?” He bumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “He could be a terrorist! He could be gon’ hijack one of those jets from Eglin Air Force Base and fly it up to New York City! Did he look foreign?”