Soon the church doors opened and the men and women in their somber clothes came down the steps, past the flower garden. The group of news people mobilized, jostling and craning their microphones. Sally emerged in a trim olive and cream suit. She looked flushed, younger. She accepted the hands of her friends, nodded, leaned in for air kisses.

The reporters flocked around her. She patted her hair and turned to the cameras, a mournful and brave expression mounted on her face. She wore the same glinty eyes I had seen in the framed photographs at her office, of her with George Bush, with the mayor and the Rockets coach.

Detective Ash stood off to the side of the reporters. He wore a gray suit. Mourners filed past him to their cars. He saw me walking over and nodded, continued scanning the crowd.

“Hi,” I said.

“Charlotte,” he said. “Nice dress.”

“Thank you,” I said, not sure if he was making fun of me.

“Listen,” he said. “About the other night. I don’t want to get a call like that again. You need to take better care of yourself.”

I didn’t know how to respond. His attention fastened to someone near the throng by the side entrance. All the energy in the air surged into his body.

“Excuse me,” he said over his shoulder, already weaving between cars and people. He stopped near a group of guys and singled one out, a curly-haired man, slightly built. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The guy looked tense and twitchy. He kept glancing towards his friends.

I walked next door to the West Alabama Ice House. Regulars, bikers and neighborhood people, crowded the picnic benches, along with other funeral goers. The bartender reached into the deep cooler in front of him and pulled bottles from the slushy ice. I ordered a beer.

“You get a lot of overflow from the church?” I asked him.

“Weddings and funerals. We have to bring in an extra fridge. The wiring’s a nightmare.”

He pointed to an orange extension cord that ran from the refrigerator across the pavement and up the trunk of a Mexican birch, where it connected with another extension cord. I lit a cigarette and drank half my beer in one long sip. Dust covered the afternoon. I perched on the end of a picnic table, checking first for splinters that could snag my new dress.

I spotted Audrey and waved. She came over with her beer and hugged me.

“Is that guns on your dress?” she said to me. “Don’t you think that’s in poor taste?”

“I thought it was subtle,” I said, worried.

“Oh well, she wasn’t shot.”

People packed the yard as the afternoon wore on. Sally’s entourage and the members of the press dispersed, their cars clearing the lot. Everyone else seemed to be drinking. The curly-haired man who’d been talking to Ash sat down with us.

“Hey,” Audrey said to him. “Charlotte, meet Brandon Young.”

“Hi,” I said.