Catherine held up an old black-and-white photo of a young Kitty Rhyne speaking into what looked like a bank of microphones at a political function.

At her side were some of the stalwarts of the state's good-old-boy network. Two former United States senators, a former governor, even the wide-smiled man from Plains who'd made it as far as the White House. "Everyone in Georgia knows Kitty Rhyne," Catherine said.

Little Kitty bared a set of nonexistent fangs and flexed a set of exaggerated claws. "And they're afraid of me, too, if they know what's good for them."

Catherine Rhyne was chewing the end of the unsharpened pencil now. "Jackson Poole hadn't lived in Hawkinsville since his father died," she said thoughtfully. "He had absolutely no interest in the pecan business, which is why the farm hasn't been worked in so long. He inherited from Broward, of course, but the bank handled all that."

"I handled Broward's estate myself," Kitty Rhyne said. "We were totally blindsided when we discovered that Jackson was one of the investors in that brewpub that took over Wuvvy's place."

"Whoever killed him probably didn't even know Jackson was from Hawkinsville," Catherine added. "If someone other than Virginia killed him, it seems to me this would be the last place you'd find any leads for your investigation."

Everyone I'd met in Hawkinsville kept suggesting I should go back to Atlanta. It was enough to give a nice girl a complex. But I wasn't a very nice girl. And I wasn't ready to go home just yet.

"I found the body," I said. "Do you people understand that?

"When she was still hiding out from the police, Wuvvy called me and tried to hire me to help her. She swore she hadn't killed Jackson Poole," I said.

I looked from the mother to the daughter, to make sure they were taking my measure. I needn't have worried. Their eyes were riveted to me.

"I didn't believe her then, and I'm ashamed to admit it," I said. "Now, I don't believe she ever killed anybody. That's why I came down here. Having a client to pay me to find out is nice, but even if I didn't have a client, I would still need to know who killed Jackson Poole.

"Wuvvy told me she hadn't seen her stepson in years," I plunged on. "Not until Halloween night, when he walked back into her life. I was there. She didn't recognize him. Afterwards, she couldn't understand why he'd want to come back and ruin her life."

"How typical," Little Kitty Rhyne said swiftly. "Virginia Lee Mincey ruined her own life a long time ago. And then she proceeded to ruin a lot of other lives, too.

"The Minceys were trash, all of 'em. She came to this town with nothing. But when she married Broward Poole, for the first time in her life, she had a chance to be somebody. People in Hawkinsville bent over backwards to accommodate her, but it wasn't enough. Nothing made her happy. Not a husband or an adorable little boy or the biggest house in town..."

"Mother," Catherine Rhyne said uneasily, "this is all old news."

"Excuse me, but I think it's time to air it out again," Little Kitty said unrepentantly. "I am a Christian woman, but if I hear 'Poor Wuvvy' one more time, I believe I will throw up. I really will." She glared at her daughter, and then at me.

Little Kitty Rhyne stalked into the hallway, into her own office, and slammed the door behind her.

Catherine Rhyne bit her lip, then took the pencil she'd been torturing and put it firmly in the top drawer of her desk.

"Anything else?" she asked, rising from her chair.

Never say die. "The court clerk won't give me the transcripts from Wuvvy's trial without an order from the judge, and that'll take weeks," I said. "I intend to track down the old newspaper accounts. In the meantime, you could save me some time if there's anything you remember from that time."

"I'm sorry," she said sheepishly. "I was away at school during all that. My freshman year at Duke. Mother followed the trial, of course, and she sent me clippings sometimes, but it was all so long ago."

"Yet you kept in touch," I persisted. "She called you when she was in really bad trouble, and you came. You bailed her out. She must have talked to you about Broward's murder."

"No," Catherine said. "We were friends, but she never talked about that time."

She got up and walked to the door, too polite to tell me my time was up.

In the reception room, Big Kitty Rhyne was reading a dog-eared copy of Reader's Digest.

"Good-bye now," she said, looking up and smiling graciously, as though she were waving me off the front porch of some grand plantation. "Come again."

Catherine Rhyne followed me onto the sidewalk. She caught my elbow with her hand.

"Mother's a bit of a sn.o.b," she said, glancing back toward their shared office. "It was a cla.s.s thing. She'd known Broward forever, and when he remarried, she was determined to make Virginia into a proper wife for him; you know, Junior League, Episcopal Women's Guild, all that. Virginia marched to a different drummer. She didn't even own a dress, let alone a hat and gloves."

Catherine Rhyne laughed. "Virginia was like a big sister to me. She took me to my first rock concert-at the Macon Coliseum. The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Later, after she went to prison, we kept in touch. And when she needed help, I tried to help her. But this last time, I was too late. That's what I've been trying to tell you, Miss Garrity. It's too late."

23.

Too late, people kept telling me.

By the time I got back to the Regal Motel, Edna and the girls had already gotten themselves runny eggs and stale toast at the motel's coffee shop. But the dining room had stopped serving breakfast at nine A.M.

Too late, I told myself, steering the car back toward Atlanta.

It was autumn already. Mac and I had planned a trip to the north Georgia mountains, to trout-fish in his favorite stream near Clayton. But October had gotten away from us. Edna and I liked to take a weekend trip to visit her cousin down in St. Simon's in September, but it was too cold now for the beach. We were buried in work. I'd promised Baby and Sister to take them up to the mountains, too, to look at the leaves and buy apple cider at the roadside stands, but the tornado had stripped the mountains of their fall color. Grocery store cider would have to do, I told myself bleakly.

It was still green in south Georgia, but the emerald blanketing the roadside was deceptive-kudzu, which crawled and crept and strangled the life out of every living thing in its path. For once, I was happy to get off the two-lane state highway and back on I-75. On the interstate, I could make up for lost time.

At Edna's insistence, I stopped at a farm stand in Perry, and the girls all trooped inside and bought five pounds of pecans for Christmas fruitcakes. On the way home the girls talked baking; lard versus vegetable shortening for pie crust, fruitcakes they'd known and loved, and the issue that kept them arguing all the way to Atlanta: whether or not dark corn syrup made a pecan pie too rich.

I'd expected to see C.W.'s van in the driveway when I got home. It wasn't there, and I cursed my old friend for breaking his promise and letting me down. I loved my mother, but I couldn't very well carry her around in my hip pocket every time I had to leave home.

The real irritant, of course, was that home no longer felt safe.

My foul mood lifted temporarily when I spotted Mac's Blazer down the driveway, and Rufus running around in circles in the front yard. Swannelle's truck was there, too, and he and Neva Jean were stashing tools in the back, packing up to go, it looked like.

On closer inspection, Rufus was the only one who looked happy to see me.

"Where've you been?" Mac demanded as soon as I got out of the Lincoln. "C.W. got here, and when you weren't around, he called me to see if I knew where you were. I called Neva Jean, and she didn't know anything, either."

Edna and the girls got quietly out of the car. "I'll take the girls home," Edna volunteered. She herded the girls into the house, calling Neva Jean to join them for a quick cup of coffee. It was the tactful thing to do.

"We went to Hawkinsville. To Wuvvy's memorial service," I said, hating the apologetic tone in my voice. Why should I apologize to Mac for doing my work? He certainly never hesitated to do what was needed to perform his job-even if it meant breaking promises to me.

"Edna and the girls rode along for company, and we spent the night there last night. We're all fine. Safe and sound."

"n.o.body told me," Mac complained. "And n.o.body told C.W."

"I'm sorry we missed C.W.," I said, trying to hold my temper in check. "We got a late start this morning. Why'd he leave already?"

Edna had gone into the house, but now she was back on the front porch. "Power's out again," she called to me.

"It's all my fault," Swannelle hollered, throwing a pair of bolt cutters into the back of his truck. "Everbody blame Swannelle. They always do." He got in the front seat of the pickup truck and pounded the dashboard with a fist the size of a radiator. "Come on, Neva Jean, I got work to do."

Edna and Neva Jean came out to the driveway where Mac and I were glaring at each other.

"I'm real, real sorry, Callahan," she said. Her face was streaked with dirt, and her red McComb Auto Body T-shirt had a rip on the sleeve and shoulder. "Swannelle meant well, he really did. But he don't know no more about 'lectricity than a pig does about opera. You'd think he'd have learned after that time he wired our Christmas tree to light up and blink and twirl in tune to 'Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.' But he don't like to admit defeat."

"What happened with the Christmas tree?" I should have known better than to ask.

She shuddered. "He picked a song that was too up-tempo. That tree got to twirlin' and the lights to blinkin' so fast, the tree just screwed itself right off the stand and up into the air, like one of them Challenger rockets. Then all the lights shorted out, and the sparks caught the tinsel on fire. Swannelle was about half lit himself by then, so he tried to put it out with a carton of eggnog."

"Some disaster," I said. Mac just stood there with his arms folded across his chest. His p.i.s.sed-off position. Of course, I'd adopted the same stance.

"Yeah, it was something," Neva Jean agreed. "I got the videotape if you ever want to see it."

"No thanks," Edna said. "You better go, Neva Jean, he's backing down the driveway."

"d.a.m.n," she said, turning around to see her husband's red truck flash down the driveway. "He hates it when I tell that story."

Somebody had to bring the standoff to an end. It was getting cold out there in the driveway. "Has anybody called a real electrician?" I asked.

"We called Georgia Power," Mac said. "Somehow, between Swannelle and C.W., they've managed to cut the power not just to the house, but to the whole block. It was that d.a.m.ned chainsaw," he added. "Swannelle insisted that a branch of that pine tree in the back looked like it might fall on the house. C.W. tried to stop him, but you know Swannelle when he gets an idea in his head. He got the chainsaw your brother left behind, and he cut it down. It fell across the power line-knocked down the utility pole holding the transformer for the whole block."

"That's bad," I said.

"It gets worse," Mac said. "C.W. was trying to run some lines up under the house through the crawls.p.a.ce, and Wash came along and started tickling his legs, and C.W. jerked his hand and cut some of the lines already under there. We think it was the phone lines," he said. "You probably didn't bother to try to call, did you?"

"My cell phone was ruined when the tree fell on my van," I said. "I was in a hurry to get back here to help C.W."

"You two better plan to spend the night at my place tonight," Mac said. "It's supposed to get into the thirties tonight, too cold to stay here without any heat or electricity."

Somehow the arctic tone in his voice didn't convey much of a welcome.

"Edna can go," I said stiffly. "I'll stay here tonight. There's plenty of wood. I'll make a fire in the fireplace and sleep in the den."

"I'm staying, too," Edna said quickly. "Even if it's ten below, there's no bed like my own bed."

"Suit yourself," Mac said. "You know where to reach me if you need me."

Mac had been right about the weather. It had been cloudy and fifty-five degrees when we got home around noon Sat.u.r.day. The sun never did come out, and the mercury kept falling all that afternoon.

We made a fire in the fireplace, got Edna's tornado supplies back upstairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt, and ate huge bowls of homemade soup for lunch.

Cheezer knocked on the back door as we were washing up the dishes.

"Can I talk to you a minute?" he asked.

"Get in here and quit letting that cold air in my kitchen," Edna said good-naturedly.

"Hi, Edna," he said, sitting down at the kitchen table. He looked at her closely as she bustled around the room, putting away dishes.

"What happened to you?" he asked teasingly. "Did you get in a fight over the bingo jackpot?"

Edna smiled wanly. "I got mugged."

"Right in the driveway," I told him. "We're going to have a security system put in. And I want you to keep your eyes open, especially when you're riding around this neighborhood on your bike. We've all fooled ourselves into thinking we're safe here. But we're not safe. This thug put a knife to her neck. He got Edna's purse and her bingo money. Even her St. Christopher's medal."

"The little gold one you wear around your neck?" He blanched. "Oh jeez. Jeez, Edna. I'm sorry. Did you get a good look at the guy?"

"Sort of," Edna said. "It was dark."

Cheezer doesn't drink coffee, but he did let me make him a cup of tea. I told him about our adventure in Hawkinsville, and Edna, eager not to discuss her attack, bragged about the snooping she and the girls had done.

I could tell there was something on his mind, but I waited until Edna went into the den to check on the fire to try to draw him out.

"Okay, Cheezer," I said. "You don't make social calls to us on Sat.u.r.days. What's up?"

"Well-I thought it was no big deal. But now that you tell me about this guy mugging Edna, maybe it's connected or something."

"Go ahead and tell me," I suggested.

"Last night," he said, "I was playing darts at the Yacht Club. It was late, but I was winning, and nothing else much was going on.

"You know, sometimes I walk home through the alley. It's a shortcut to the church. And, oh, Jesus, it makes me sick." His face did indeed get greenish, and he hung his head limply, like he would be sick.

"What?"

"I saw one of the street guys. Everybody calls him s.p.a.ceman, 'cause he always looks so s.p.a.ced out. s.p.a.ceman was out of it. He was puking on a stack of boxes right by the Yacht Club's kitchen door. And all of a sudden, these two guys come blasting out of that door, and they grab s.p.a.ceman, and they're hitting him, and kicking him, and just beating the living s.h.i.t out of him. I thought they were gonna kill him."

"What did you do?"

"I wasn't gonna mess with them," Cheezer admitted. "I was alone, you know? I know it sounds chickens.h.i.t. It feels chickens.h.i.t, too. But there were two of them. And the one guy wasn't that much bigger than me, but the other guy was some kind of body builder. He had a gun. On a holster on his ankle. I'm pretty sure the dude's a cop."

"Which cop?" I said sharply.

"I don't know his name," Cheezer said miserably. "White guy. Dirty blonde hair, muscles, like he pumps iron. I try to avoid cops. I know some of 'em are your friends, but, man, it's kinda my own prejudice."

"What about the other guy?" I asked.

"Kind of squirrelly-looking. He was white, too, but he had his hair in a 'do,' you know."

"What kind of do?"

"That Jamaican s.h.i.t," Cheezer said. "The braids with the beads and stuff."

"Dreadlocks? Did he have dreadlocks? Was he wearing a knit cap?"

"Yeah, dreadlocks," Cheezer said, looking surprised. "How'd you know?"

"The kid who attacked Edna had dreadlocks. He was wearing a purple and white knit cap," I said. I went to the hall to see if Edna was within earshot. "Don't tell her I told you. Edna had a pistol. A thirty-eight. He took that, too."