Melba sighed and nodded. “You’re going to be nosing around again, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer as she reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s your letter.”

The envelope was made of thick, quality paper, and Vera’s name and address were embossed in silver on it. My name and address were handwritten in block capitals.

I debated whether to open it in front of Melba, but I could always claim the contents were private. She might badger me, but I could handle that. Curiosity was eating at me, and I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Can I borrow your letter opener?”

Melba handed it across to me, and I slit the envelope. There was a single sheet inside, and I pulled it out.

I unfolded it to reveal the scanned image of a photograph. An old photograph, judging by the clothing of the woman in the picture. The words “Essie Mae Hobson” were printed underneath the photo. I had no idea who she was.

I showed it to Melba, and her eyes widened as she spoke. “Why would Vera send you a picture of her mother?”

TWENTY

I stared at the face of the woman in the picture. The photograph was cracked and faded, probably taken in the mid-1920s, to judge by the subject’s clothing. Essie Mae Hobson looked young here, perhaps no more than twenty. She sat in profile, her head bent shyly, so it was difficult to get a full impression of her.

I couldn’t see much of Vera in her, except perhaps the shape of her nose. Vera must have taken more after her father—unless the plastic surgery Melba told me about had altered her features significantly.

There was something elusively familiar, however, about Essie Mae’s face. Maybe Vera looked more like her mother than I realized.

“What do you know about Vera’s mother?” Melba knew most every family in Athena and the surrounding county, so she ought to be able to tell me something.

“Not much,” Melba said in a grudging tone. “She was married to Jedediah Hobson, who was a drunk and a fool, according to my grandma on my daddy’s side. She knew the family. About as redneck as they came, she said, and mean and stupid with it. Jedediah ran shine until he was killed in a car wreck when Vera was probably about twelve or thirteen, I think. Amory, Vera’s brother, would have been eight or nine. They didn’t have any money to speak of, until Essie Mae got her inheritance.”

Sounded like Vera had grown up in an unpleasant, if not sordid, environment, with a father like that. I looked at Essie Mae again, and my heart went out to her. Such a gentle, sweet-looking girl to end up with an ignorant moonshiner.

“Why on earth did Vera send me this picture?”

“Maybe she wanted you to help her do some research on her family,” Melba said. She frowned. “You know, come to think of it, I never heard anybody say where Essie Mae came from or even who her people were. That’s odd.” She cooed at Diesel, and he chirped for her.