"Me, too," said Estelle, nodding, "but I can't quite put my finger on it. When we were driving to Memphis, I noticed Ruby Bee giving her a funny look, like she was thinking the same thing. I wish I'd gotten around to asking her, but with one thing and another, it plum slipped my mind. I guess it's too late now."

"She's going to be fine." I parked between a Lincoln Continental and a Volkswagen Beetle, cut off the ignition, and grabbed my purse. "If you want to sit there and work on your eulogy, it's your business. I'm going inside to have some breakfast." Scowling like Genghis Khan on a bad hair day, I climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and hurried toward the entrance.

"Keep your tail in the water," Estelle said as she caught up with me. "Of course she's gonna be fine, Arly. She sounded like her old self this morning, complaining about how she'd wasted all the money for the tour and would miss seeing the Elvis impersonators tonight. I'll ask Baggins if you can use her ticket to the show."

"No, thanks," I said curtly.

"Well, if you feel that way about it, forget I ever mentioned it-even though you might be missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see El Vez hisself."

I slowed down as I noticed two police cars parked at the end of the building. "I guess they haven't finished the investigation," I said to Estelle. "We'd better go up to the room. It's possible they'll want to question you."

"Me?" she said. "How should I know anything? Once I got back from the hospital, I called you and then got some pretzels and a ginger ale from the vending machines at the end of the hall. I was too worried about Ruby Bee to so much as stick my nose out the door after that until we left this morning."

"So that's what you'll tell them," I said.

The lobby was a good deal busier than it had been at three in the morning. Lines had formed for the optimists who wanted to check in and the disillusioned who needed to check out. Bellmen wheeled luggage carts in the appropriate directions. A mountain of suitcases indicated the arrival of a group on a much larger scale than that of C'Mon Tours.

"It was right crazy when we got here yesterday," Estelle said as we went down the corridor to the elevators. "I kept trying to spot Ruby Bee, but there were so many folks and all these loud announcements and…"

"And what?" I prompted her.

She sucked on her lower lip. "Maybe I was seeing things," she said at last. "Remember when Tiphini Buchanon kept telling everybody about how she'd seen glowing purple aliens at the foot of her bed? She could describe them from the antennas on their heads right down to the peculiarities of their privates. She never quit believing it, even when her pa had her carted off to one of those sanitariums."

"I must have missed that," I said as I nudged her into the elevator and pushed the button for the eighth floor.

"Lottie Estes had a time with her in home ec, let me tell you. It got to be where every kitchen utensil reminded Tiphini of something else about her aliens. Now I could see how a turkey baster or an oven thermometer might lead to certain ideas, but a spatula? If you ask me, the girl just wanted attention."

Instead of engaging in a conversation fraught with Freudian overtones (and having a hard time making the leap to spatulas, myself), I said, "What are the visiting hours at the hospital this afternoon?"

"Two to four. Remind me to take Ruby Bee her bag so she'll have her toothbrush and nightie. Those hospital gowns might as well be made of wax paper."

"Is it in the room?" I asked. "I didn't see it."

"It's in the closet. When the ambulance fellows were loading her onto a gurney, Stormy offered to take Ruby Bee's and mine to our room as soon as Baggins got us registered. It's a good thing she did. I was so upset I would have left both of them setting in the hall."

When the elevator doors slid open on the eighth floor, we found ourselves facing a pear-shaped police officer. "You staying on this floor?" he said.

Estelle snorted. "Do you think we just came up to admire the view?"

I elbowed her aside and told him our names and the room number, then said, "Miss Oppers and my mother were both part of the same tour as the woman who fell."

"Yeah, then go to your room and stay there. The chief'll get around to talking to you before too long."

"He'd better not be all day," Estelle said. "I'm real sorry about poor Stormy, but we're not going to spend the day inside the room just because she committed suicide."

"That ain't what the chief thinks," said the cop.

8

Cherri Lucinda was no longer in our hotel room, which was the good news. The bad news was about to materialize with all the subtlety of an eruption of swamp gas. Estelle mumbled something about her slapdash makeup job and went into the bathroom to transform herself into a redheaded version of the redneck queen of mascara, Tammy Faye Bakker. I continued onto the balcony and looked out at the bleached flatness that stretched as far as I could see. Ruby Bee had lived all her life in the mountains; she would be disconcerted when she was confined to a bed in a room without a view.

I wished I knew if I could rely on Dr. Deweese's judgment. I certainly wasn't going to call in someone whose practice consisted of patients named Spot and Fluff. Tests at a Memphis hospital would run into thousands of dollars. Ruby Bee's income was apt to be only marginally healthier than my own-and I'd qualify for food stamps if I bothered with the paperwork at some bureaucratic quagmire in Farberville.

I was trying to think of someone I turn to for advice when I noticed a man on the next balcony. He was sprawled in one of the chairs, puffing on an unfiltered cigarette, sipping coffee out of a Styrofoam cup-and watching me as if I were a jewel thief who had rappelled from the roof.

"Yes?" I said frigidly.

"That your room?"

"That any of your business?"

He flicked his cigarette over the rail. "Might be, considering I'm investigating a crime. It's a little early for me to leap over there like a comic-book superhero, so I'll take the more routine approach and come around to your door."

I arrived at the door just as he knocked. Rather than usher him in, however, I said, "May I see some identification?"

"I left my badge at home on account of not being used to phone calls at the crack of dawn. My wife damn near whacked me to death when I told her to start some coffee, and I wasn't about to go back in the bedroom and grab my wallet. My name's Floyd Sanderson, and I'm the chief of police. If you want, call down to the desk and ask for Loretta. She's my niece. She don't know the particulars about my freckles and warts, but she can give you a general description."

He was unappealing enough without delving into the specific whereabouts of his freckles and warts. His belly was nearly the size of a beer keg, and his gray hair was cut so short it resembled the stubble on his jowls. His smile may have been good-natured, but his eyes were small and so deeply imbedded in his fleshy face that it was hard to imagine how light found its way to them. His shirt was stained. Much of what he'd had to eat for the last several days was memorialized on his tie.

"I suppose you can come in," I said.

"I thank you kindly," he said, brushing past me. "I don't recollect you telling me your name, missy. Would it be Estelle Oppers or Ruby Bee Hanks?"

"Arly Hanks." I followed him out to the balcony, not pleased with the need to address his broad backside. "Ruby Bee's my mother. She's in the local hospital, so I'm staying here for the moment."

"In the hospital? You be sure and give her my wishes for a fast recovery, you hear? We all feel real bad when someone comes to visit our little of town and fails to have a chance to partake of our hospitality. If our budget wasn't so skimpy, I'd send her a real nice bouquet of flowers."