back. I may have to go over to the house."
He understood I meant Jane's house, and nodded, turning to the old lady behind me in line with a happy "Hi, Laura! How's the arthritis?" Leaving the church parking lot, I felt a distinct letdown. I guess I had hoped Aubrey would ask me to Sunday lunch, a big social event in Lawrenceton. My mother always had me over to lunch when she was home, and I wondered, not for the first time, if she'd still want me to come over when she and John Queensland got back from their honeymoon. John belonged to the country club. He might want to take Mother out there.
I was so dismal by the time I unlocked my back door that I was actually glad to see the message light blinking on the answering machine. "Hi, Roe. It's Sally Allison. Long time no see, kiddo! Listen, what's this I heard about you inheriting a fortune? Come have lunch with me today if this catches you in time, or give me a call when you can, we'll set up a time." I opened the book to them's, looked up Sally's number, and punched the right buttons.
"Hello!"
"Sally, I just got your message."
"Great! You free for lunch since your mom is still out of town?"
Sally knew everything.
"Well, yes, I am. What do you have in mind?"
"Oh, come on over here. Out of sheer boredom, I have cooked a roast and baked potatoes and made a salad. I want to share it with someone." Sally was a woman on her own, like me. But she was divorced, and a good fifteen years older.
"Be there in twenty minutes, I need to change. My feet are killing me." "Well, wear whatever you see when you open your closet. I have on my oldest shorts."
"Okay, bye."
I shucked off the blue and white dress and those painful sandals. I pulled on olive drab shorts and a jungle print blouse and my huaraches and pounded back down the stairs. I made it to Sally's in the twenty minutes.
Sally is a newspaper reporter, the veteran of an early runaway marriage that left her with a son to raise and a reputation to make. She was a good reporter, and she'd hoped (a little over a year ago) that reporting the multiple murders in Lawrenceton would net her a better job offer from Atlanta; but it hadn't happened. Sally was insatiably curious and knew everyone in town, and everyone knew that, to get the straight story on anything, Sally was the person to see. We'd had our ups and downs as friends, the ups having been when we were both members of Real Murders, the downs having mostly been at the same time Sally was trying to make a national, or at least regional, name for herself. She'd sacrificed a lot in that bid for a life in the bigger picture, and, when the bid hadn't been taken up, she'd had a hard time. But now Sally was mending her fences locally, and was as plugged in to the Lawrenceton power system as she ever had been. If her stories being picked up by the wire services hadn't gotten her out of the town, it had certainly added to her power in it. I had always seen Sally very well dressed, in expensive suits and shoes that lasted her a very long time. When I reached her house, I saw Sally was a woman who put her money on her back, as the saying goes. She had a little place not quite as nice as Jane's, in a neighborhood where the lawns weren't kept as well. Her car, which hadn't been washed in weeks, sat in dusty splendor uncovered by carport or garage. Getting in it would be like climbing in an oven. But the house itself was cool enough, no central air but several window air conditioners sending out an icy stream that almost froze the sweat on my forehead. Sally's hair was as perfect as ever. It looked like it could be taken off and put on without one bronze curl being dislodged. But instead of her usual classic suits, Sally was wearing a pair of cutoffs and an old work shirt. "Girl, it's hot!" she exclaimed as she let me in. "I'm glad I don't have to work today."
"It's a good day to stay inside," I agreed, looking around me curiously. I'd never been in Sally's house before. It was obvious she didn't