"As for Cherri Lucinda," I continued, "I had seen her before this morning, but it took the connection with Jim Bob to make me remember. They've been… carrying on for quite some time. I never met Stormy."

"Did you ever go to the club where they worked?"

"I couldn't tell you where Cherri Lucinda worked if you waved a winning lottery ticket at me."

Japonica's stare relaxed. "Yeah, you look kinda old to be going to nightclubs."

I was trying to think of a suitable comeback, when the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and then held it out to me. "Sounds like you got a heap of trouble," she said.

My stomach constricted as if it had been pierced with an icicle. "My mother?"

"Your friend at the hotel. I'm beginning to wish all of you folks had gone to a different casino, like in the south of France."

I forced myself to exhale, then took the receiver. "Estelle?" I said. "What's wrong?"

"Miss Hanks," said a male voice, "this is Mackenzie Cutting, chief of security at The Luck of the Draw. Miss Oppers is here in my office, doing her best to convince me not to press charges for burglary and criminal mischief. I'm calling you at her request. Would you be so kind as to join us at your earliest convenience?"

Kevin drove as fast as he dared, squirming with frustration whenever he got stuck behind a chicken truck or a car with out-of-state plates. Dahlia couldn't be more than five minutes ahead of him-unless she'd gone toward the Missouri line, which was possible, since he didn't have a clue where she was going. That didn't seem likely, however, since there wasn't nothing but fields and woods all the way to Branson. Just getting there and back would take close to four hours.

Of course she could have taken County 102 to Hasty, or turned at the Pot O' Gold trailer park and gone up the road that wound across Cotter's Ridge. Or gone bouncing down any of the dirt roads that led past rickety farmhouses and ponds covered with slime. Or parked in front of one of the units at the Flamingo Motel behind Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill, although he figured his ears would have been burnin' if that was where she'd been all these afternoons. Ruby Bee'd never been one to keep a secret any longer than it took her to whip up a batch of biscuits.

The four-wheel was a mite cumbersome to drive, but he was getting the hang of it. After some fumbling, he managed to turn on the heater, and after a good deal more fumbling, did the same with the radio. The music that blared out wasn't at all to his liking, what with the lack of a tune and the jumble of cusswords. He was trying to find a country station when he shot past the state police car lurking behind a billboard.

Brother Verber brought in his mail, tossed aside the bills and announcements of storewide sales, and took out the magazine that had arrived in a plain brown wrapper. In order to prepare himself for the shock and disgust he'd experience when he encountered the graphic depravity between the covers, he filled a glass with sacramental wine and set the bottle on the coffee table where it'd be handy if he started feeling woozy.

The afternoon stretched before him like a hot bubble bath. His sermon, "The Alphabet Sins," was written, rewritten, and fine-tuned for the following morning's service. Some of the letters had been downright challenging. He'd been on a roll for the first hour, racing from "atheism" all the way to "wickedness" without having to even gnaw on his pencil (except for a small problem with K, which he'd resolved in a somewhat fanciful manner).

But then he'd arrived at X and, shortly thereafter, at Y Even Z had been presented a quandary, although he'd finally chanced on a word that worked. What's more, he'd made it into a little ditty so that the congregation could memorize it and sing it under their breath when they were confronted with the choice between the paths of evil and righteousness. He'd originally set it to the tune of "Amazing Grace," but then he'd realized that the theme song to Gilligan's Island worked just as well and was a sight more spirited.

He was testing it once more to make sure the words tripped over his tongue when the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

"Thank the Lord I found you!" said Mrs. Jim Bob. "The most terrible thing has happened! I didn't know where to turn. Brother Verber, this is indeed my time of trial and tribulation. I can't think when I've been so upset!"

"Tell me what's wrong, Sister Barbara," he said in a deep voice meant to comfort her, one of the techniques he'd learned from his seminary study booklets. "I'm here for you. If you'd like to take a moment to get a grip on yourself, that might be helpful."

"It's Jim Bob. He's gone and got hisself arrested for murder."

Brother Verber's face froze in horror. "Who did he murder?"

"Nobody," she said waspishly, sounding more like her regular self. "All I said is that he was arrested. He's accused of killing some hussy in Mississippi."

"I thought you said he was in Hot Springs."

"That's where he told me he was going. Don't you remember how I said that something fishy was going on? At least I'm not paranoid, Brother Verber. He said he was going to Hot Springs and now he's in Mississippi in jail for murder. If that's not fishy, I don't know what is?"

"That's mighty fishy," agreed Brother Verber. "Have you spoken to him?"

"He hasn't bothered to call. How busy can he be if all he's doing is sitting in a jail cell?" Her question being rhetorical, she went on. "I heard about it from LaBelle at the sheriff's office. She called to say how sorry she was and ask if she should mail him a tin of cookies. I had no idea what she was talking about, naturally, but she finally admitted that Arly had called her and-"

"Arly knows about this?"

"I don't think she'd call the sheriff's office if all she did was have a bad dream, do you? As soon as Arly hung up, LaBelle got on the phone and called the state medical lab in Mississippi. They admitted to knowing about this homicide in some little town, and before too long LaBelle had the details. Jim Bob's in jail, Brother Verber. He could end up in prison for the rest of his life, leaving me to fend for myself. The last job I had was working part-time in the church office when I was seventeen. What am I gonna do?"

"There's only one thing you can do, Sister Barbara."

"What's that?"

"Ask the Lord for guidance. Let's both just get down on our knees and-"

"Pack your bag. I'll be there in ten minutes."

She hung up before he could protest, not that it had ever done any good in the past. Brother Verber put the magazine away for another day, drained the glass of wine, drank another for good measure, and went down the narrow hallway to pull a suitcase out of his closet.

Idalupino stared at the space next to the Dumpster. There was a splotch of oil on the gravel and a scattering of rotten produce (orange peels and what looked to be a brown grapefruit) in the weeds, but there was definitely a big, fat nothing there.

She squeezed her eyes closed, whispered a little prayer in which she vowed never again to skip church or so much as sip a beer if the Lord would intervene, and then slowly opened her eyes. The space reserved for the manager remained most distressingly empty.

Canon was gonna kill her-no ifs or buts about it. She'd been nagging him for months to fix the exhaust pipe on her car; he'd finally agreed and even allowed her to borrow his precious sport utility van for the day. Now some thievin' sumbitch had stolen it right from under her nose, or at least from behind her behind while she was working the cash register.

She went into the lounge and found the telephone directory to look up the body shop where Canon worked. Then, trying not to imagine what she'd look like with two black eyes and a split lip, she put coins in the pay phone and dialed the number.