” ‘Lo, Chenille,” he said. His eyes moved on to LuEllen, paused, and then to me. He started slowly past, but Dessusdelit stopped him. “You’ll be there, Lucius? We’re votin’ on the pool improvements.”

“Of course.”

“It’s important. You may be the tiebreaker.”

“I realize that, ma’am, and I shall be there, as always.”

Dessusdelit remembered her manners. “Lucius, this is Miz Case and Mr. Kidd. Mr. Kidd is a painter, and they are going through to New Orleans, on the river. Mr. Kidd plans to stop and work here for a few days

and this is a member of our city council, Lucius Bell.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Bell said. He had been politely trying to stare down LuEllen’s sundress until Dessusdelit mentioned our names, and then his eyes fixed on me. “Are you the fellow represented by the Cale Gallery in New Orleans?”

“Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact.” I was startled by the question.

“I believe I have one of your paintings hanging on my dining room wall,” Bell said.

My mouth was hanging open. I’d never before blindly bumped into someone who owned one of my paintings.

“Are you serious?” I said.

“Sunrise, Josie Harry Bar Light 719.5,” he said.

“Jeez, that’s a good one,” I said. “How’s it holding up? I mean, to look at?”

“I still like it,” he said with a thin grin. “You’re welcome to come over and have a look

“

“I’d like to do that,” I said. I turned to LuEllen. “It’s a good one.”

“They’re like children,” she explained to Dessusdelit, whose head had been swiveling between Bell and me. “He hates to let them go.”

“Give me a call when you want to come. I’m home most weekday evenings, except council nights,” Bell said. He borrowed Dessusdelit’s pen and wrote his phone number on the paper next to the map. “And you’d be most welcome, too, Ms. Case. Anytime.”

LuEllen clapped her hands, and I thought she looked a little like Alice in Wonderland. “What a good town,” she said. “And we’ve been here only a couple of hours.”

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

Ballem had a good eye. The Trent place was a white clapboard Victorian castle with turrets and stunning bay windows. Brick-colored pots of scarlet geraniums were spotted along the railing of a wide front porch. A natural-wood swing hung from chains at the closed end of the porch, and a healthy old bridal wreath hedge grew up from the foundation below. Peonies were spotted around the yard, among the carefully placed oaks, and in back, a grape trellis was already loaded with wide, shiny leaves. The whole thing was surrounded by an antique wrought-iron fence. From the boulevard you could look diagonally across the street and take in the house, the yard, and the sweep of the river below.