“Tolerable, Mr. Charlie, tolerable.” She offered a brisk nod as she approached the refrigerator. “I’ll have breakfast ready before long.”

“Thank you.” I had a sip of the coffee Azalea had waiting for me.

“There was company here last night. Cream just about gone.” Azalea turned to frown at me. “And here I was gonna make one of them quiches you like so much.”

“Sorry about that.” I offered her an apologetic smile. “It was a bit last-minute. I made tea for my guests, and I suppose we used most of the cream.”

“Ain’t no never mind.” Azalea shook her head. “I got to go to the grocery store anyway.”

Still feeling obscurely guilty, I said, “I hadn’t planned on it, but I hosted a meeting of the Friends of the Library board. We were supposed to meet at Cathy Williams’s house last night, but she got called in to the hospital at the last minute. Some kind of an emergency with her nursing staff, I think.”

Azalea turned to glare at me. “Then you had Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce here, didn’t you?” She didn’t wait for a response. “And I didn’t get around to dusting the living room yesterday. I was saving it for today.” She shook her head. “What on earth they gonna think of my housekeeping now?”

The living room, as I recalled it, was as spotless as it always was. “I’m sure they didn’t think anything bad, Azalea. In fact, Miss An’gel complimented me on how beautifully you keep the house.”

That appeared to mollify Azalea. She turned back to the refrigerator and extracted the ingredients she wanted.

“In fact, Vera Cassity said the very same thing.” I picked up the front section of the paper and started to open it.

Azalea whirled around and glared at me again, an egg in her right hand. “How come you let that trash in this house?”

The venom in Azalea’s voice startled me. I had never heard her speak in such a tone. “What do you mean?”

Azalea crushed the egg in her hand, and I watched in fascination as the contents oozed through her fingers and dripped on the floor. She appeared oblivious to the mess.

“That woman ain’t never done a good thing for nobody, ’cepting herself. She don’t deserve to be around decent folks.”

Azalea furiously angry would make anyone want to beat a strategic retreat. I tried not to squirm in my chair or get up and scuttle out of the room.

What on earth had Vera Cassity done to earn this kind of hatred?

Before I could voice the question, Azalea seemed to recover herself and gazed in dismay at the remains of the egg on the floor. She muttered to herself as she stepped over to the sink to rinse her hand. I watched in silence as she then took paper towels and wiped the floor.

I decided I’d ask anyway, though I might get my head handed back to me on a platter. “Why do you dislike Vera Cassity so much?”