making my favorite breakfast, French toast made from thick slices of homemade bread with lots of cinnamon and powdered sugar sprinkled on top. A pitcher of warm maple syrup sat on the table.
"Hurry up and eat," she said, "you gonna be late for school."
"I don't feel like going today." I pulled the syrup pitcher toward me. "I think I've taken a virus."
"The love bug done bit you," Rosebud said, coming in from the back porch. He sat down at the table. "When that old love bug bites, he causes a feller to do stupid things."
"Rosebud, I don't…"
Just then the telephone rang. Biggie, dressed in her turquoise jogging suit, came down the backstairs and picked it up. "Hello. Um-hum… How did you find out? Well, Julia, I don't know about that, all of us going… Oh, you're going anyway?… Well, okay. We'll pick you up at four…. You're taking baked beans? I don't know yet. I have to talk to Willie Mae about it. All right. You be ready now, you hear? Okay, bye."
"What was that all about?" Willie Mae wanted to know.
Biggie went to the stove and poured herself a cup of black Louisiana coffee, then sat down at the table. "Oh, it's Julia and them. Julia's found out the funeral is this afternoon, and she insists that we all go out and take food to the family. Says it's our duty as good Christians."
"Well, Biggie, you said the same thing…."
"Don't be a smart mouth." Biggie poured syrup on her French toast. "I intended to go by myself. They'll just be in the way. Oh well, it's done. Rosebud, can you drive us out at four?"
Rosebud nodded. "I got to get the oil changed first."
"Biggie, I don't feel like going to school today."
Biggie felt my forehead. "There's not a thing wrong with you."
"Well, don't you need me to go to the ranch with you? You always say I'm a big help…."
"J.R., we're not going until four. Just get yourself home right after the bell rings."
The trunk of the limousine was filled with casseroles and fried chicken and potato salad when we finally drove out of town. Biggie's club, the Daughters, which she's president of, had organized a food committee. Miss Julia and Mrs. Muckleroy had been appointed to go along and serve.
"Stop by the shop and pick up Butch," Mrs. Muckleroy said when we picked her up. "He wants to ride out with us."
"Why didn't we just put a notice in the paper and invite the whole town?" Biggie grumbled.
"Why, Biggie, we couldn't do that!" Miss Julia was shocked. "Half the riff-raff in the county would invite themselves along. Ooh, there's Butch. Stop here, Rosebud."
Rosebud pulled the car up to the curb in front of Hickley's House of Flowers and Butch, wearing black velvet jeans and his white ruffly shirt got in. He held a covered cake plate.
"Did you bake a cake?" Miss Julia asked.
"Not likely," Butch replied. "I got one of Populus's cherry pies. They're my favorite. Which kind do you like, Ruby?"
"Coconut," Mrs. Muckleroy said. "I just naturally gravitate toward the cream pies, myself."
Mr. Populus is Greek and owns the Owl Café, which is downtown on the square. It's called the Owl on account of a long time ago, it stayed open all night. Now, Mr. Populus closes at nine, but the people in Job's Crossing were used to the old name, so he never changed it. Mr. Populus makes the best pies in the whole world— even better than Willie Mae's, although I'd never want her to hear me saying that.
Biggie rode in front with Rosebud while the other grown-ups lined up in the back. I had taken the small jump seat.
"Ooh, I've just got chill bumps running up and down my spine." Butch wriggled around in his seat. "Girls! Has it occurred to you that we're headed right straight into danger? A killer's on the loose at that ranch."
"You do what you must," Mrs. Muckleroy said. "Myself, I just put on the armor of the Lord." She held the cross she was wearing up so everybody could see.
"That's right, we all have to make sacrifices." Butch examined his fingernails. "Darn! I've chipped my polish."
"Well, y'all can call yourself Christian soldiers all you want to," Miss Julia said. "Me, I'm just filled up with curiosity. What's going on out there, Biggie? Do they know who the killer is?"
"Not yet," Biggie said. "Red Upchurch has sent both guns off to be tested."
"Both guns? You mean there were two?