"Oh yes," I said. "We're calling the cops, and I'm calling Bucky, too. See if he can get somebody to get some mug shots for you to look at. What did the creep look like?"

"He was a white boy," Baby said. She extended her arm over her head. "About so high. He was white, but he had them long greasy pigtails like the black kids wear."

"Dreadlocks," I said. "What about his face?"

"That boy was ugly," Sister said. "Even a blind woman could see his ugliness."

"That's right," Baby agreed. "Skinny and ugly. And he had a purple-and-white-striped crocheted cap, pulled down low on his ugly face."

"The gun, Jules," Edna said. "I didn't have a permit for that gun."

I stared at her. "You said you did have a permit."

"I lied," she said. "If you call the cops, I'll have to tell them about the gun. They could arrest me for carrying a gun without a permit. Just let it go. We'll get the Candler Commandos to handle this."

"You must have a concussion," I told her. "Brain damage. This thug had a knife to begin with; now he has a gun. He's violent, beats up women. Now let me have the phone."

She took her hand off the phone and crossed her arms over her chest. It was the old Edna Mae Garrity "I'll take my stand" posture. Not a good sign for anyone taking the opposite posture.

"You can call the FBI, and the GBI, and the CIA, if you want," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I'm not filing a report. There are no other witnesses."

She glared at Baby and Sister. "n.o.body saw a thing. It's my word against yours. Now I thought you had an errand to run. In the meantime, I'm going to eat my breakfast, and then I've got to get Baby and Sister over to Mrs. Draper's house."

"Don't you worry about your mama, Callahan," Baby said. "We gon' look after her real good. Stay right with her and watch out for that ugly white boy."

"That's right," Sister said. She pulled a nickel-plated police whistle out of the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. "And I'm gonna give a blast on this if anybody even looks at her cross-eyed."

"No cops," Edna repeated. "See? I've got my own bodyguards."

I locked my eyes on hers. "I'm calling C. W. Hunsecker this morning. First thing after my errand," I said. "Get him to come out here and put in a security system. Alarms, motion sensors, everything."

"Who's paying for that?" she demanded.

"Remember what you told me last night?" I asked her. "What I do with my money is none of your business."

16.

The Atlanta Police Department's Homicide Task Force was created back in 1982, when black children started disappearing all over the city. Eventually there were twenty-one "official" missing-and-murdered cases. Hundreds of local and federal cops worked the case, eventually causing the creation of a homicide task force and a separate office.

Unlike Atlanta City Hall, where the local politicians had built themselves an airy, elegant munic.i.p.al palace complete with an atrium with $8,500 worth of potted palms, the APD's white brick building downtown on Decatur Street was dark, cramped, and c.r.a.ppy-looking. And the homicide unit's "new" digs were just as bad: a one-story mustard-colored cinderblock affair on a quiet street off Ponce de Leon in Midtown.

The receptionist at the front desk buzzed me through, but told me that Sergeant Deavers was in a meeting. "They're all in meetings. All the time," she said, rolling her eyes.

I sat at Bucky's desk in the communal squad room, looked around to make sure n.o.body was watching. n.o.body was. There was plenty of crime to go around. I leafed through a couple of case folders on Bucky's desk. Boring stuff. Clerk shot dead during a robbery at a liquor store on Martin Luther King Drive, eighteen-year-old mother of two shot to death by her boyfriend in an argument over who got the drumsticks out of a bucket of fried chicken.

There was a stack of pink telephone message slips on the desktop. Which reminded me. I picked up Bucky's phone and dialed 9, then the number for Hunsecker & a.s.sociates Security.

C. W. Hunsecker was my old cop buddy, a captain in the homicide unit before the shooting. He'd taken disability leave from the APD two years ago, after my carelessness got him shot, almost killed, paralyzed. He runs a security business these days, and helps me out with an occasional case. We'd been in some tight places together, and I knew that once I told him about what had been going on in our neighborhood, he'd give me a decent price on a security system.

C. W. answered the phone himself. We exchanged pleasantries: I asked him about his wife, Linda Nickells, a good friend of mine, and their preschool-aged son, Wash; he asked me about Mac and the family. Then I told him about the boogeymen who'd come sniffing 'round our door.

"Man," he said softly. "I hate to hear about somebody doing your mama that way. Sounds to me like the cops need to get over there and knock some heads together."

"I hate it, too," I said. "It's funny. With all her organization of this community-action patrol, you'd think Edna would want the police involved. But she doesn't. She won't even file a report. She's humiliated. I'm gonna talk to Bucky about it, see if he'll talk to the captain over at Zone Five, but in the meantime, I think we're going to have to get a security system for the house."

"Best money you could spend," C.W. said heartily. "Haven't I been telling you that neighborhood ain't safe?"

"I hate the idea of living behind burglar alarms and camera monitors," I told him. "How much is this thing gonna cost?"

"Won't be that bad," C.W. said. I heard him tapping on the keys of a calculator. "I'll give you the equipment at my cost, install it myself. You'll want silent and audible alarms, contact switches and motion detectors on the doors and windows..." He droned on, and I could hear the numbers adding up. I doodled on the margins of Bucky's desk blotter. Dollar signs, moneybags, barred windows. All very Freudian.

"Okay," C.W. said finally. "I think we can get you wired for the basics for about a thousand dollars. But I'd suggest one more thing. A closed-circuit video cam on the front door, with a monitor inside the house, probably the kitchen, so you can see who's at the door before they see you. That's another five hundred. I got most of the stuff in stock. I could come out there tomorrow morning. That suit you?"

"On your day off?" I asked, wincing. "Linda will wring my neck. She says you're never home as it is. No, better just get me your regular installer."

"You know what my installation guys get paid?" C.W. said, hooting. "You'll wish you'd gone to trade school instead of college. Naw. I'll do it. Linda can help. She's getting really good at wiring. You and Edna can run herd on Wash."

"You drive a hard bargain," I said. "See you Sat.u.r.day."

"See who on Sat.u.r.day?" Bucky said, looming over me.

I hadn't seen him come out of his meeting. He had a stack of files tucked under his arm and was wearing gla.s.ses I'd never seen before.

I got up hastily. "C. W. Hunsecker. He's gonna come out and install a security system on the house."

Bucky took off the gla.s.ses and tucked them in his shirt pocket. He nodded his approval. "Good. Peepers are nothing to mess with."

"It's more than a Peeping Tom now," I said. "Edna was mugged in the front yard last night. At knifepoint. Guy beat her up bad and s.n.a.t.c.hed her purse. Baby and Sister scared him off or he could have killed her."

Bucky pulled up a chair from the vacant desk next to his. "You don't just need a security system, Garrity, you need a new address. Is Edna all right?"

I shrugged. "She says she's fine. But she's bruised and battered and mad as h.e.l.l. I think this whole thing has left her feeling really vulnerable for the first time in her life." I hesitated. "Her gun was in her purse. Along with her bingo winnings."

"You called it in, right?"

"She wouldn't let me. Turns out she didn't have a carry permit. When I left the house this morning, Baby and Sister were playing bodyguard, and she was trying to act like the whole thing was a joke, but we both know it's not. I got a description of the guy. Sounds like a street kid."

Bucky was writing as I talked. "I'll talk to Jeff Kaczynski over at Zone Five. They've got a nice gallery of mug shots of the locals. He can take it by the house, have a chat with your mother, try to talk her into doing the right thing. A crazy with a gun is nothing to mess with. It was a thirty-eight, right?"

"Right. Good luck to Kaczynski," I said ruefully. "You know my mother. She's no pushover, not after she makes up her mind."

"Edna will like Kaczynski," Bucky said. "He's got that Southern accent, calls people 'ma'am' and 'sir,' takes off his hat when he comes in the house. Not a barbarian, like the rest of us."

"I feel better already," I said. "Now what about that business card you promised me? For Wuvvy's lawyer friend? And you said I could look through Wuvvy's stuff."

He opened a drawer in his desk, brought out a stack of business cards, fanning them out in his hand. He plucked one from the bunch and handed it to me.

Catherine Rhyne, attorney at law, it said. Offices in the Peachtree Promenade building in Midtown Atlanta.

Catherine Rhyne's secretary said she wasn't in, did I want to be connected to her voice mail to leave a message?

No, I said. Did she know anything about one of Catherine's clients, Virginia Lee Mincey?

"Would that be the lady who died?" the secretary asked. "From Ms. Rhyne's hometown?"

"Yes," I said. "Did she go to Hawkinsville already?"

The secretary hesitated. "She went down there this morning, to see that everything was taken care of."

"This morning?" I said, alarmed. "When are the services?"

"At two o'clock today," the secretary said. "Shall I leave a message for Ms. Rhyne?"

"I'll talk to her down there," I said.

"Where's Hawkinsville?" I asked, swiveling the chair around to face Bucky.

"South Georgia. Near Macon somewhere," he said.

"Never mind, I've got a map in the car. When can I look at Wuvvy's stuff?"

Bucky patted my hand. "You can have the stuff, for all I care." He motioned toward a stack of cartons in the corner of the squad room.

"I checked them out of the evidence room. Major Mackey gave the okay. If you're that interested, help yourself."

"Help me put them in my car?" I asked, fluttering my eyelashes in my best imitation of a helpless Southern belle.

My AAA map of Georgia showed me that Hawkinsville was a straight shot south of Atlanta down I-75. Exit in Perry, get on State Road 341, Hawkinsville was due east. If I could get my loaner Lincoln's speedometer to inch past fifty miles an hour, I should be able to make it in just about two hours.

But first I had to go home and change my clothes. Blue jeans were fine for domestic engineering and even for private investigation fieldwork, but they'd never do for a sympathy call to a south Georgia funeral home. Not even for a memorial service for a die-hard hippie like Wuvvy.

My charcoal pinstripe pantsuit was the closest thing I owned to a proper dress. With a cream silk blouse, black suede flats, and my good gold earrings, I thought I looked fairly tasteful.

I gritted my teeth and got ready to call Maureen to ask her to take custody of Edna until I got back. But Edna, Baby, and Sister pulled into the driveway before I could complete the call.

"Where you goin' all gussied up?" Edna asked.

"Look like funeral clothes," Baby said, running her fingers down the wool of my blazer.

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I'm going to run down to Hawkinsville. Pay my respects to Wuvvy. The memorial service is at two. So I thought you could go over to Maureen's until I got back. I shouldn't be much later than six o'clock..."

"No ma'am," Edna said quickly. "I don't want Maureen knowing anything about what happened to me last night. She'd have my bags packed and me in a hospital room in a New York second."

She looked at Baby and Sister, who smiled at me expectantly.

It didn't take her long to make up her mind. "Wait just a minute till I get into something decent," Edna said, unb.u.t.toning her pink House Mouse smock. "A little day trip in the country's just what I been needing. How about you girls? Y'all wanna go to Hawkinsville?"

"That'd be so nice," Sister said. "Me and Baby love to drive in that big yellow car of Callahan's."

"Can we spend the night at a motel?" Baby asked.

While Edna and the girls chattered about scenery, south Georgia, and the possibility of loading up on pecans for the Christmas baking, I finally had time to consider my motives for going off on a nearly two-hundred-mile wild-goose chase. Why was I going?

To see a woman I barely knew be buried? To pay my last respects to someone who wasn't a friend, wasn't even really a client? A nice forty-dollar FTD bouquet would have been more than sufficient.

But if I sent an anonymous bouquet of flowers, I'd miss the opportunity to stick my nose in somebody else's business. Virginia Lee Mincey had admitted to killing her husband and had been implicated in the murder of her long-lost stepson. If the cops were satisfied with those conclusions, why shouldn't I be?

Because you're not, I told myself. You're never satisfied.

17.

We stopped three times in the first hour we were on the road, twice each for the girls to "powder their noses" and a third time so I could feed the Lincoln another quart of oil.

After the third stop all the girls drifted off to sleep and I had the road and my thoughts to myself. Somewhere south of Macon I sensed rather than knew that we were past the fall line, the geographer's delineation that divides north Georgia from south Georgia.

Gradually the soil in the roadside fields changed color-from the rusty red clay of the state's Piedmont to the sandy soil of the lower half of the state. The topography flattened out as though smoothed by an unseen hand, and I noticed that the trees still had leaves, while the trees around Atlanta had been denuded by the tornado that had swept through town.

Down here the golden and russet leaves of live oaks, dogwoods, and sweet gums still clung to the trees, although most of the landscape ran to spindly pines and endless fields of some low-growing green crop punctuated with scattered clumps of cattle.

The Lincoln's top speed worked out to about forty-eight miles per hour. I pushed the wobbly accelerator all the way to the floor and kept it there until I saw the exit sign for Perry and State Road 341.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon, comfortably warm. Fall could stay this way, I thought, even though the sun slanted directly into my eyes, making me squint to see where I was going.

In deference to the posted speed limits, I slowed down to thirty going through Perry. I felt guilty about rushing through such a nice little town without waking my mother. Edna loved Perry. There was a big old-timey hotel on the outskirts of town, the New Perry. We'd stopped there once, on a long-ago family vacation to Florida, and thirty years later she still talked wistfully about the New Perry's homemade cream of celery soup scattered with puffy little oyster crackers and the magical quality of their squash souffle.

No time to stop now, though. Not to gawk at the handsome white-painted Victorians, nor at the prosperous-looking downtown business district.

After Perry, huge old trees crowded close to the edge of the two-lane road, their twisted black branches reaching out jagged fingertips to touch in the middle, each of the fingertips cl.u.s.tered with dozens of open catkins. Pecan trees.

The pecan groves ran along both sides of the road, stretching as far back as I could see. The trees were enormous, some probably sixty or eighty feet tall, with long arching limbs whose canopies stretched fifty feet in diameter. Machinery was scattered about in the groves, and every once in a while I glimpsed weatherbeaten wooden outbuildings tucked away among the trees.

Wuvvy's husband, Broward Poole, had been a big pecan grower, Mac had said. One of the biggest in the state. Had these fields been his? I wondered.

The pecan groves gave way to the trappings of small-town life: a hardware store, a steakhouse, a pecan warehouse, a farm equipment dealership, even a tiny mom-and-pop motel court.

Then, abruptly, I was in downtown Hawkinsville. It was Perry's country cousin, a little shabbier, a bit more marginal. Storefronts along the main street, Lumpkin, were dust-streaked, and at least half the buildings were either long vacant or only halfheartedly still in business.