I’d forgotten to set the alarm and didn’t wake up till nearly eight. That was so surprising, I reached over and picked up the telephone just to reassure myself I still had a dial tone. I had half expected a call from April or Andrew or Minnie or Dwight. Instead, the phone stayed silent while I showered and then struggled with panty hose. I always forget to check for runs and the first two pairs I tried had them. In the second leg, of course.

The dress I put on was a sleeveless navy with a matching long-sleeved jacket that was cropped at the waist. Instead of my usual pumps, I found a pair of Cuban-heeled navy shoes more suitable for walking around a sandy-soil graveyard. For sentiment, I wore my silver charm bracelet again.

Lipstick, a dash of mascara, a touch of blusher, and I was ready to roll by eight forty-five.

Still no phone calls. I wondered if Dwight had chickened out of telling Miss Emily.

I’d left my car parked by the back door, and when I slid in behind the steering wheel and started to fasten my seat belt, I saw an unfamiliar manila envelope that had slipped down between the two seats. Puzzled, I opened it and found a thick stack of color photographs. They all seemed to be of the same woman in different clinging outfits. When I looked closer, they appeared to be nightgowns in colors that ranged from sexy black satin that shimmered in the camera’s flash to demure white lace and pink ribbons, with all the rainbow in between. But they were such crazy poses that it took me a minute to realize she must have taken the pictures herself, holding the camera out at arm’s length. Nothing could be seen of her face, though, except a chin line here, a brow there, or, in overhead shots, her dark curly hair and dangling earrings above more lace and silk.

I recognized that these must have come from the self-storage locker of negligees that Braz had bought, but how—?

Then I remembered Dwight struggling with my seat belt. The envelope must have slipped out of his jacket pocket. With a mental note to hand it back to him at the funeral, I stuck it up between the sun visor and the roof.

When I got over to the homeplace, most of my sisters-in-law were already there, aprons tied over their Sunday dresses, working as a team as they directed the kids to set up lawn chairs out under the shade trees and on the porch that wrapped around three sides of the house. It was a school day, yet all the children seemed to be here. A long table had been set up on the porch nearest the kitchen door and I found Minnie and Jessica covering it with several snowy white bedsheets that were kept for just that purpose.