"From Mount Ida," she said.

"Oh, sure," LuEllen said knowledgeably. "They're famous. Did you collect it yourself, or-"

"Yes, yes, I bothered Ralph, that's my late husband, I said to Ralph, 'Ralph, I swear, if you don't take me, I just don't know what I'll do.' One day he said, 'Let's go, girl. Then maybe you'll leave me alone.' I looked at crystals until I thought my eyes would fall out. This one just sort of spoke to me, you know?"

"I know exactly, I know," LuEllen gushed. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night just having to hold it. I can actually feel the spheres intersecting through my diamond. Have you ever tried using a ball?"

"Well, once, when this lady was coming through town, but I didn't see much. I mean, for a minute-"

Ballem was looking bored and impatient, but LuEllen ignored him. "Did you have a chance to warm it with your touch, or did you just look into it?"

"Well, I touched it, but mostly I just looked."

The conversation was getting serious now.

"You should try a ball again. You'll find it's different from the crystal, but sometimes it's. a lot better. Next time roll it in your hands for a while. You have to establish a resonance with the ball. and it has to be real. The more a ball's used, the more open it gets."

"I don't know if I could find, just offhand. they're expensive, the good ones."

"Well." LuEllen looked at me, as though for permission, "I have an antique ball down in our river yacht. You'd be welcome to come down and try. I mean, if you're really an enthusiast."

Dessusdelit looked from LuEllen to me, and her voice took on just an edge of wariness. We were moving too fast for the Old South. "Are you. staying in town?"

"We're down at the marina. You can see the big white river yacht down there. My name is LuEllen Case. Mr. Kidd's a painter, and he's here scouting landscapes. I'm just along. for the ride."

"So you're not from around here?" But her voice had warmed a notch. We had a large boat.

"No, no. Mr. Kidd has homes in St. Paul and New Orleans. We travel back and forth so he can work on his painting."

"Well, that sounds very nice." Dessusdelit had definitely warmed back up, though the wariness lingered. We were Yankees, after all, and apparently living in sin. Of course, I did have two houses and a yacht. "I'm Chenille Dessusdelit, and this is Archibald Ballem. I'm the mayor here, and Archie is the city attorney."

Ballem made a little scrape and bow. From a distance you might think he was sixty. Up close you realized he was probably ten years younger than that, but his face had a dissolute crepe-paper texture, and his nose had the swollen, big-pored quality of a heavy drinker. His eyes, small, sharp, and mean, dispelled any illusion that he was a dumb hick lawyer.

It was time I got into the discussion.

"If it's all right to change the subject for a minute, maybe you can help me," I said. "I'm looking for views. you know, overlooks of the town, where I can see some of those beautiful Victorian mansions and still have some sweep of the land."

Dessusdelit looked toward Ballem, and Ballem's eyes narrowed even further. "Up by the Trent place, you know where that big old oak tree is right on the edge of the hill."

"That would be wonderful," Dessusdelit said, turning to me. "There are several places up there. Excuse me, could I sit for just a moment?"

LuEllen moved over, and Dessusdelit perched on the end of the bench seat and took a silver pen and small pad of paper from her purse. "Now this is Front Street," she said. "If you walk south on Front to Longstreet Boulevard and then turn left."

She gave us directions out to the Trent place, which was perhaps ten blocks from the center of town. I asked about the possibility of renting a car for a couple of weeks.

"Well, Mary Wells's brother – she's our city clerk – has the Chevrolet dealership here. I believe he rents used cars off the lot-"

"He does," said Ballem.

They gave us directions to the Chevrolet dealer, and Dessusdelit and LuEllen agreed the mayor would visit the next morning to look at the crystal ball. Dessusdelit was just getting up to leave when we had one of those odd encounters that happen from time to time. The door opened, and a man stepped in. Dark-haired, dark-complected, he was wearing a white straw hat, a light cotton sports jacket over a T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and loafers. He started down the aisle headed toward the back, said, "Hello, Archibald," to Ballem, and then saw Dessusdelit sitting next to us.

" 'Lo, Chenille," he said. His eyes moved on to LuEllen, paused, and then to me. He started slowly past, but Dessusdelit stopped him. "You'll be there, Lucius? We're votin' on the pool improvements."

"Of course."

"It's important. You may be the tiebreaker."

"I realize that, ma'am, and I shall be there, as always."

Dessusdelit remembered her manners. "Lucius, this is Miz Case and Mr. Kidd. Mr. Kidd is a painter, and they are going through to New Orleans, on the river. Mr. Kidd plans to stop and work here for a few days. and this is a member of our city council, Lucius Bell."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Bell said. He had been politely trying to stare down LuEllen's sundress until Dessusdelit mentioned our names, and then his eyes fixed on me. "Are you the fellow represented by the Cale Gallery in New Orleans?"

"Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact." I was startled by the question.

"I believe I have one of your paintings hanging on my dining room wall," Bell said.

My mouth was hanging open. I'd never before blindly bumped into someone who owned one of my paintings.

"Are you serious?" I said.

"Sunrise, Josie Harry Bar Light 719.5," he said.

"Jeez, that's a good one," I said. "How's it holding up? I mean, to look at?"

"I still like it," he said with a thin grin. "You're welcome to come over and have a look."

"I'd like to do that," I said. I turned to LuEllen. "It's a good one."

"They're like children," she explained to Dessusdelit, whose head had been swiveling between Bell and me. "He hates to let them go."

"Give me a call when you want to come. I'm home most weekday evenings, except council nights," Bell said. He borrowed Dessusdelit's pen and wrote his phone number on the paper next to the map. "And you'd be most welcome, too, Ms. Case. Anytime."

LuEllen clapped her hands, and I thought she looked a little like Alice in Wonderland. "What a good town," she said. "And we've been here only a couple of hours."

CHAPTER 7

Ballem had a good eye. The Trent place was a white clapboard Victorian castle with turrets and stunning bay windows. Brick-colored pots of scarlet geraniums were spotted along the railing of a wide front porch. A natural-wood swing hung from chains at the closed end of the porch, and a healthy old bridal wreath hedge grew up from the foundation below. Peonies were spotted around the yard, among the carefully placed oaks, and in back, a grape trellis was already loaded with wide, shiny leaves. The whole thing was surrounded by an antique wrought-iron fence. From the boulevard you could look diagonally across the street and take in the house, the yard, and the sweep of the river below.

I'd rented a three-year-old station wagon from the Chevy dealer and hauled my painting gear up the hill to start working on my reputation. I hadn't expected much; I'd figured on a mildly picturesque view of the city. What I got was more subtle and more difficult, reminiscent of several Winslow Homer paintings of the Caribbean, with the splashes of red geraniums against the white clapboard and the green river valley below.

When I found the right spot, I unloaded a French easel, set it up on the boulevard, and put out my water buckets. Then I sat down in the grass with a sketch pad and began blocking out possibilities. I'd been working for a half hour when an elderly lady in a sweatsuit and Nike running shoes strode out through the porch door, through the gate in the wrought-iron fence, and across the street.