All too soon, they arrived at the front of the line. "We, um, we're here to see Edward Crosby," Cooper informed the young woman seated at the desk, repeating the name Lali had given her over the phone.

Without looking up from her computer, the sheriff's office receptionist stated, "Your identification, please." She typed so quickly that it seemed as though she were playing a challenging piece on a concert piano instead of inputting data regarding inmate visitation schedules.

Nathan handed her their driver's licenses and leaned over the tall desk in order to see exactly what she was typing. After shooting him an irritated look, the woman returned their IDs and called, "Next, please."

"Um." Cooper edged closer to the desk instead of backing away. "What do we do now?"

Hesitating, as though she was surprised to be asked such a question, the woman replied, "Wait until the deputy calls Edward Crosby," and then turned her attention to the next person in line.

"But what if, um, Mr. Crosby's not expecting us?" Cooper blurted.

"They never know who their visitors are," the woman explained as the other visitors grumbled with impatience. "They're just told they have a visitor and are brought to the visiting area."

"So he might not talk to us," Cooper said to herself, her fingers twisting in agitation. "After all, he doesn't know us from Adam." Too fl.u.s.tered to sit down, she and Nathan stood to the side of the check-in desk, listening as the next woman in line shouted in outrage after being informed that the inmate she wished to see had lost his visitation rights.

"What you mean? He been tossed into isolation again? He told me all y'all got it out for him! He shouldn't be here in the first place. The man's innocent!" The woman placed one hand on her hip and pounded on the receptionist's desk with the other. Within seconds, a sheriff's deputy appeared from nowhere and, gently taking hold of the woman's elbow, steered her away from the line. No matter how much she ranted at him, the deputy remained quietly courteous. Without breaking eye contact, he described the infraction that had caused her boyfriend to be placed in isolation, but the woman was incapable of listening. After interrupting his explanation with a guttural, animalistic snarl, she threw up her arms in disgust and stormed out the front door, leaving a trail of expletives in her wake.

"I couldn't have handled that woman half as well he did," Nathan murmured to Cooper. "But I guess these deputies have seen and heard it all."

From the far left corner, a ba.s.s voice suddenly boomed out, "Edward Crosby!"

Nathan raised his arm and grabbed Cooper's sleeve.

A short, bulky deputy holding onto a clipboard gestured for them to follow him into the visiting room. As they entered the long, narrow room filled with twenty cubicles, the deputy gestured at the fourth chair facing the room-length wall of gla.s.s. "Thirty minutes," he reminded them and then turned to collect more visitors.

Cooper took a moment to get her bearings. Finding that she wasn't quite ready to come to terms with the significance of the large gla.s.s wall, the mounted black telephone handset, or the plastic chair facing an identical chair on the other side of the wall, she focused her attention elsewhere. She looked at the wooden bench along the entire right wall, the cameras jutting out from the ceiling corners, and the baby stroller parked behind the cubicle at the very end of the row. Behind her, a toddler began to push two Matchbox cars across the carpet while his mother hissed into the phone at a young man wearing dark blue scrubs.

A buzz resounded in the room and a diminutive Hispanic man wearing white scrubs entered the room from a hallway obscured from view. His face immediately broke into a jubilant smile as his wife held a sleeping infant up to the gla.s.s. The father held up an index finger toward his son's face as though he longed to stroke the soft skin, but could only mimic a tender touch. As he gazed at the baby, his smile dissipated, to be replaced by an expression of sorrow and regret. His wife s.h.i.+fted their son to her right arm and, after picking up the handset with her left, began to release a torrent of angry Spanish into the phone as she tapped her wedding ring against the gla.s.s. Her husband wouldn't meet her eyes. He rubbed the script tattoo on his forearm, stretching and smoothing the black ink reading "Rosa," which was enclosed by a circle of red, th.o.r.n.y flowers. Beneath the largest bloom was the name Alfonso. Multi-hued sunrays and a soaring eagle surrounded the name of his infant son.

As Cooper continued to absorb her surroundings, an elderly African-American woman entered the visitor's room and was seated in the neighboring cubicle.

"You sure I can't give Dwayne his gla.s.ses?" she asked the deputy directing her to the correct chair. "My boy likes to read right much, but he can't see nothin' without his gla.s.ses."

"I'll send them to medical, ma'am. If they think he needs them, they'll get them to him," the deputy a.s.sured her.

"Please tell 'em to hurry. He can't even read his Bible right now and nothin' settles him down like a dose of the Word." She fiddled with her purse, her eyes growing moist. "If only he'd listen to our Savior more, he wouldn't be here in the first place!"

Cooper stared at the concerned mother until the buzzing noise reoccurred and a Caucasian man in his mid-thirties wearing beige scrubs entered the inmate's side of the room. He looked around, perplexed, and pa.s.sed his palm over his buzzcut until the deputy on duty directed him to the cubicle where Cooper was supposed to be sitting.

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Nathan whispered from behind Cooper's shoulder. "There's only room for one person in that cubby hole. You don't have to do this, you know."

Seeing that Nathan was paler than usual, Cooper was sure that he felt just as unnerved as she. She waved off his suggestion with a grateful smile and then forced herself to sit in the rose-colored chair. Removing the black phone from its cradle, she met Edward Crosby's confused stare. Slowly, he eased into his chair and picked up the handset on his side of the gla.s.s.

"Who are you?" he demanded tersely, studying her face as though he wanted to capture it forever in his memory.

The intensity of his gaze nearly made Cooper flinch, but she squeezed the handset instead and the firmness of the cold metal calmed her enough to be able to reply. "I'm a volunteer with Door-2-Door Dinners. Your daddy got his meals from them. I . . . I saw him just a few days before he died."

A flicker of sadness crossed the man's gunmetal gray eyes, but was quickly replaced by a blank look that betrayed no emotion whatsoever. "So? What do you want from me?" he asked flatly.

"First, I want to offer my condolences. I only met your daddy once but . . ." Cooper drew a blank in searching for complimentary phrases in which to describe Frank Crosby.

"He didn't impress ya much, now did he? When you showed up, he was probably still sittin' around in his skivvies, watching football on that piece-of-s.h.i.+t TV, and goin' off about yellow this and yellow that. The world's sure gonna miss him."

Cooper had cautioned herself that Frank's son might not be overwrought by his father's death, but Edward's callousness moved her to anger. "Whatever he did or didn't do, Frank Crosby was still your father, Edward."

"Don't you EVER call me that name!" A hostile palm slapped against the gla.s.s in front of her face and Cooper let loose a startled whimper. "My name is The Colonel. You got that? The Colonel! Now say it!"

"The Colonel," Cooper hastily whispered, her heart in her throat.

The belligerence seeped from The Colonel's face and he relaxed in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Frank's dead. They told me. Even asked if I wanted an escort for his viewing. I don't." He bowed his head and began to rub it and Cooper noticed that the flag of Dixie had been tattooed across the width of his scalp. "Me and the old man weren't exactly tight, you got it? And you didn't know him for s.h.i.+t, so what are you doin' sittin' in that chair? He was an old man and he died. End of story."

"Your daddy's death was suspicious. Did anyone tell you that?"

The Colonel looked bored. "Probably overdosed on some meds. Lots of old farts do that. Can't read the label or they do it on purpose 'cause they wanna check out."

"Not Frank. And he wasn't on any medication," Cooper insisted. "But someone has been stealing and poisoning Door-2-Door clients. This person is probably a volunteer. I'm here to ask you what valuables could have been stolen from your daddy's house. He was very upset about a 'secret' being stolen." Cooper leaned toward the gla.s.s. "It truly caused him heartache when he discovered that this thing was taken. He was actually grieving over it." She placed her hand over her heart for emphasis. "Do you know what it was?"

The Colonel waited until the inmate two chairs over murmured a cryptic good-bye to the woman with the toddler. The child turned away from his toy cars and began to wail, giant tears rolling down his cheeks as the man disappeared into the unseen depths of the jail.

"Some whack job is rubbin' out old folks?" The Colonel asked into the phone, his gray eyes narrowing. "That ain't right. Me? I sell drugs. But I don't sell to no kids or to no pregnant women. There are still rules. I sell to sorry-a.s.s punks who can't stay off the stuff. It's easy cash money and I was never no good at school." His eyes turned cold. "The old man knew what I did. Told me I brought shame on our house, but he was big into shame."

Cooper s.h.i.+fted her grip on the phone, as its weight seemed to have increased over the course of their conversation. "What do you mean?"

"Some family member from the Civil War acted like a pansy and Frank never got over it. Read everythin' he could about the guy and the battles he fought. Waste of fu-" He cut himself off, pa.s.sing his palm over his head while his mouth turned down in a grimace. "Look. We ain't seen each other for years, but the old man had this soldier's sword and some kinda book. A diary or some-thin'. He kept the sword in his closet. He liked to take it out now and again. Polish it up and stuff."

Glancing at her watch, Cooper noted that her time with The Colonel was quickly running out. "I guess a sword from the Civil War could be valuable."

"d.a.m.n straight it was!" The Colonel spat indignantly. "I coulda used that money. Coulda started my own business! I had this kick-a.s.s idea but I needed start-up cash. Would the old man give it to me? No. So I found my own way to make money. He didn't even post my bail when I landed in juvie the first time." He pounded the counter in front of him. "Screw this trip down memory lane!" The deputy monitoring the inmates rose to his feet, casting a fierce glance at The Colonel.

"Sorry, Sergeant." The Colonel held up his arms in submission and the deputy issued a curt nod and then resumed his seat, his gaze still fixed on their cubicle.

Cooper heard a whisper from the bench behind her back. "You still okay?" Nathan's voice instilled her with a needed measure of calm. She nodded, never breaking eye contact with The Colonel. "I'm sorry to bring up unhappy memories," she told him sincerely. "But I hope you understand that I can't sit by while someone harms the innocent elderly."

The Colonel indicated that he understood her motivation by jerking his left thumb in the air. "There are rules," he muttered a few moments later.

Grateful for his cooperation, Cooper eagerly asked, "Do you know where he kept the diary?"

The Colonel shook his head at first and then he closed his eyes and absently rubbed his head, back and forth in a hypnotizing rhythm. Cooper felt that he was once again walking through his father's house as a boy, not as the incarcerated drug trafficker he had become.

"I bet it's in my mama's rocker," The Colonel said, suddenly raising his head and gesturing animatedly. "Nasty old cus.h.i.+oned thing that I could never sit on. Even our d.a.m.n cat couldn't go on there and it never made no sense, seein' as how it was full of rips and stains anyhow. I never saw the book. I only heard about it when I got one of Frank's lectures about honor." He shrugged. "If it ain't there, then it's gone. Feel free to poke around the place. The lock on the back door's been broke since I was a kid. I doubt the old man bothered to fix it."

Retrieving a small pad of paper from her purse, Cooper wrote "check rocking chair for diary" on the first line and then held her pen aloft.

"Was he always . . . freaked out by the color yellow?"

"Wasn't allowed in the house. Ever." The Colonel scowled. "How'd you like to grow up with a nut case like that?"

Ignoring the question, Cooper pointed at the bench behind her. "My friend Nathan told me it could take eight weeks to get lab results on which drug poisoned your daddy. If I told you the symptoms, do you think you might be able to identify the drug?"

The Colonel laughed. "I'm a dealer, lady, not a freakin' pharmacist. I know how to make people feel good. I know how to make them forget their pain. But I don't sample my own products." He leaned back in his chair in a posture of superiority. "That's bad for business."

"Frank was experiencing short-term memory loss. He seemed really anxious and confused," Cooper plowed on. "He lost a whole day just sitting in his chair and he thinks he saw someone go into his bedroom."

"Time's up, Crosby!" The deputy stood up from behind the desk again.

Cooper placed her hand against the gla.s.s. "Please!" she pleaded into the phone. "If you could just give me an educated guess!"

"Could be ecstasy," The Colonel replied and stood. "You find out, let me know. Maybe I could expand my product line." He winked at her.

Ignoring the barb, Cooper removed her hand from the gla.s.s. "I'll write you if we discover anything. I promise."

For the first time, a glimmer of something resembling hope entered The Colonel's eyes. "That'd be the first promise someone hasn't broken, then," he replied, hung up the phone, and strutted from the room.

Cooper watched the doorway through which he departed, relieved that the interview was over. As she and Nathan left the visitor's room and crossed through the boisterous lobby and out into the October air, Cooper was overcome with the sorrowful realization that Frank Crosby's son seemed every bit as friendless and alone as his father had been.

In the parking lot, Cooper reached for Nathan. She buried her head against his neck and listened to his melodious baritone as he prayed for Edward Crosby. Outside of Bible study, she had never heard him pray aloud before. The intimacy of this act, of him sharing his concerns for a complete stranger while she bore witness was immeasurably moving.

You have placed such a good man in my path, Cooper spoke a silent praise and held onto Nathan until finally, time forced her to let go.

12.

Hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

Exodus 9:24 (NIV) Following her visit with The Colonel, Cooper called an emergency meeting of the Sunrise Bible study. Savannah led a couples group on Wednesday, so they were unable to congregate right away, and since both Quinton and Bryant had professional commitments on Thursday, they couldn't gather until Friday evening. Nathan had suggested they a.s.semble at Cracker Barrel, as their unusual conversation was likely to go unheard in the eatery's customary din.

Quinton and Trish were contentedly established in two of the rockers on Cracker Barrel's veranda when Cooper arrived. Having come straight from work, she was still in her Make It Work! uniform and felt underdressed in comparison to her friends. Trish looked like a coiffed cardinal in a bright red suit, white blouse, and black heels while Quinton was elegantly attired in a checked blazer, a royal blue b.u.t.ton-down, and dark brown pants. His loafers were polished to a high s.h.i.+ne and an ironed handkerchief poked out from his front jacket pocket, displaying four, perfectly folded points.

"Aren't you dapper?" Cooper smiled at him. Trish wiggled her fingers in greeting but then returned her attention to her mobile phone.

"I told you, dear." Trish turned her body away from Cooper and Quinton. "I'll reschedule when I have time. It's probably just a calcium deposit or a cyst. Anyway, I've got two open houses this weekend and am closing on the Bowers house and the Markus estate tomorrow." She frowned. "Just get the girls to their piano lessons before they're late and let me worry about my own doctor's appointments," she snapped and then said good-bye.

Cooper and Quinton exchanged uncomfortable glances and were relieved to see Bryant and Nathan arrive at the end of the row of rockers.

Bryant bowed gallantly and helped Trish from her chair. "You should take his advice, milady," he said. "If you're talking about a lump then there's no time to waste."

Trish opened her mouth to issue a curt reply, but before she had the chance, a car pulled into the handicapped s.p.a.ce right in front of them. Savannah emerged from the pa.s.senger seat, her cane clicking on the asphalt as she stood up, still holding onto the open car door.

Out of nowhere, Jake appeared by her side, prepared to guide her onto the porch. "Oh, Pearl, I smell Jake's aftershave! I'll see you Monday, my dear!" Savannah waved at her housekeeper and held out her arm for Jake to tuck under his own.

The pair joined the others and walked inside the restaurant, wading their way through spinner racks of candy, Halloween decorations, and old-fas.h.i.+oned toys toward the hostess station. By miraculous circ.u.mstance, they only had to wait a mere fifteen minutes for a table to come free.

"I'm gonna get the Country Boy Breakfast," Jake declared, rubbing his work-worn hands together. "Three eggs, pork chops, some grits, Sawmill gravy, fried apples, hash-brown ca.s.serole, and b.u.t.termilk biscuits. That should keep me 'til mornin'."

"There's always the chocolate pudding pie if you've room left over," Quinton informed his friend.

Once their hostess seated them at a large wooden table in the center of the dining room, Cooper flipped right to the menu's breakfast page. "Jake, you've got me craving pecan pancakes and some bacon."

"Ever since I knew we were coming here I planned to order the meatloaf, but now I've just got to have Eggs-in-the Basket instead. See how I crumble in the face of peer pressure," Nathan said with a chuckle. "Let's get a big carafe of decaf and start our day all over again!"

"No, thank you." Bryant looked horrified by the idea. "That grad student I was dating a few months ago has turned into a psychotic stalker. She weaseled her way into the studio today by introducing herself to everyone as my fiancee. If it weren't for Paige, my deranged ex would have jumped right in front of the blue screen with me!"

"Paige is a single mom, remember? I bet some young, unworldly grad student is no match for her!" Trish remarked after the waitress had taken their breakfast orders.

Bryant's eyes glimmered as he described how Paige had handled the determined ex-girlfriend. "She was firm, but really sweet at the same time. She gave the girl a hug, told her to find someone who was available and that lots of guys would kill to date someone as lovely and intelligent as her, and then walked her to the door. By the time she kicked her out, my ex was hugging her like Paige was her best friend." He shrugged in befuddlement. "Women."

"I told you Paige sounded like someone you needed to get serious with. And fast!" Trish chided. "And she's a woman, not a girl. Maybe that's what you need, Bryant."

"Yeah. Mother, career woman, and bouncer. What more could you want?" Quinton teased as he poured three sugar packets into his coffee cup.

"I'll make you a deal," Bryant said to Trish. "I'll ask Paige to join me on a weekend getaway with the kids once you've rescheduled your doctor's appointment." He reached over and took her hand. "A lump could be serious. a.s.suming that it's nothing could be a big mistake and I'm only being a nag because I care what happens to you."

Moved by Bryant's concern, Trish smoothed her copper hair and s.h.i.+fted in her chair. Stacking several unopened creamers on her b.u.t.ter plate, she blinked innocently and said, "I could have already been to the imaging center for all you know."

Bryant eyed her keenly. "I heard the tail end of your phone call and I've been married enough times to sense that you were being nagged by your husband. He means well, Trish. And he's right. You need to schedule an appointment right away. Now, shake on our deal." He held out his hand and Trish reluctantly accepted it.

"Okay, Cooper." Jake gestured at her with his coffee cup. "What's goin' on?"

After taking a quick survey of the nearby tables, Cooper determined that none of the other diners were the slightest bit interested in eavesdropping on their conversation, so she told her friends about her visit with The Colonel. They listened carefully, their coffees growing cold as she described The Colonel's appearance and att.i.tude. Cooper had just finished describing the Civil War items Frank Crosby had owned when their food arrived.

Jake sprinkled salt over every inch of his plate and then zealously carved into his pork chop. Simultaneously, Quinton drowned his French toast in a puddle of warm maple syrup while Savannah covered a piece of toast with a thick layer of apple b.u.t.ter. Bryant cut his smoked sausage patties into equivalent chunks and then looked up at Cooper. "Go on and take a bite before you finish. Cold pancakes aren't very savory."

"I'll finish up for her," Nathan volunteered as Cooper spread a pat of b.u.t.ter over the surface of the pecan pancake on the top of her pile. In between bites of egg sandwich, Nathan told his friends about The Colonel's theory that ecstasy was the drug behind Frank's overdose.

"I just can't imagine any of the Door-2-Door volunteers walking around with a Ziploc full of ecstasy," Trish shook her head in disbelief. "I thought-not that I know much about illegal drugs-that ecstasy was a party drug. You know, for the rich, hip, club-going crowds." She patted Bryant's arm playfully. "And I'm not taking a potshot at you for hanging out at those places with your twenty-something girlfriends, either."

"Thanks." Bryant smiled ruefully. "But I think you're on the money about the drug's reputation. I remember when a few of our investigative reporters went undercover to learn more about ecstasy. It didn't take them long to see that popping these pills has become the thing to do for the young crowds at concerts, dance clubs, or those rave parties they're so into. That's why it's called a designer drug, because it's supposed to give you a high that can go on for days."

Cooper nodded. "I read about it online. Ecstasy or E or X can give folks hallucinations and create short-term memory loss." She paused to accept Nathan's offer of a piece of bacon. "Ecstasy is also available in powder form, so it'd be easy to mix with food or dissolve into a liquid, like Mr. Crosby's hot tea."

Savannah put down her triangle of toast and sighed. "We need to have a more intimate gathering with our volunteer friends. I pray the police discover the ident.i.ty of the killer soon, but if they aren't successful, we'll have to keep digging."

"That's where we arrive at the emergency part of this meeting." Cooper hesitated and then confessed, "I want to go into Frank's house and check around for the sword and the diary. If our bad guy tries to sell those things, there won't be too many sources available to him. Or her. They'll have to consign them with a local auction or antique store or sell them outright using an online auction site. If the diary contains the name of the soldier, than searching for the items will be much easier."

"Why don't you just tell the police about the diary?" Trish demanded. "They've got more manpower than we do to monitor eBay and interview Richmond area antique dealers. I, for one, am totally swamped this week, so why don't we do our jobs and let them do theirs?"

Cooper hesitated. Trish had raised a solid point, so why did she suddenly feel the desire to defend her plan, to argue that in some way, it was her responsibility to search Frank's house for clues? "Look. If the diary's there, I'll read it and hand it over to the police. I guess I'd just like the chance to see what caused Mr. Crosby such anguish over the loss of the sword, if that's what was stolen, and I want to know the secret about this relative of his. It seemed to have ruined his relations.h.i.+p with his son and created this irrational hatred of the color yellow."

"You know what they say about curiosity," Quinton warned. "Sorry, Cooper, but I'm with Trish on this one. You may have found out about an important clue, and that's great, but let the people experienced in these things figure out what to do with it. Like Savannah said, we've got to concentrate on the volunteers."

Jake nodded. "Yeah, 'cause if this slime ball is h.o.a.rding all the stolen loot at home or knows other sc.u.mbags to hawk it to, we're not going to find 'em that way. We gotta get a look at these people's souls somehow. That's what we need to puzzle out right now."

Chastised, Cooper ate the rest of her meal in silence. She knew that her friends were right and that she should turn matters over to the police, but after talking to The Colonel she felt that she owed it to him to personally find some answers.