"When did you start smoking?" I asked.

Sheila looked guilty. "I only smoke every now and then," she said. She looked up at me, and for a second I saw the Sheila I knew. "I know, I know. It's bad for me. It might even kill me one day if I do it until I'm as old as you and Daddy. But I'm only smoking now and then."

I couldn't believe it. Sheila'd always been so health-conscious, A sudden memory of her rushed back. It had been only a few months back, on the porch with Jimmy. She'd been getting onto him for smoking. What had changed her?

"Why are you smoking? Do all your new friends smoke?" That's what it was. Sheila wanted to fit in more than she cared about her health.

"No, Mama." She sighed. "Don't hardly a one of them smoke." She had lapsed back into her deep, country accent.

"Well then?" I stood waiting for an answer, forgetting all about my true agenda.

Sheila just shrugged her shoulders. If none of her fancy friends smoked, then who was she hanging around with who did? The image of Jimmy tossing his cigarette out into my front yard returned. He'd laughed at Sheila's earnest attempt to make him quit.

"That's not why I came to see you," I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tiny garnet and gold ring. "Look what I found."

I watched her face, carefully. Mama used to say the truth was like a doorbell. She'd never elaborate, but I always took it to mean you shouldn't go poking at it and running away. The truth has a way of catching up with a body. I didn't want to see Sheila's face mirror a lie, but that's what happened.

She swallowed, groped for her cigarettes, let go when she remembered that she was facing her mother, and then tried to smile. It was a pathetic performance to a mother. It might've fooled a stranger, but not me.

"I wondered where I'd left that!" she said, reaching out to take it. I folded my fingers over the ring and snatched my hand back. "Hey!" she cried, trying to look puzzled and hurt.

"Not so fast," I said. "How'd you lose it?"

Sheila shrugged her shoulders again. "I don't know! God, Mama, if I knew how I lost it, it wouldn't be lost!"

"Young lady!" I started, then thought better of it. "Let's fish or cut bait here, Sheila. Is this what Keith was looking for in my house?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she insisted.

I leaned back against the cold brick of the wall and watched my daughter lie to me. How had we come to such a place? Hadn't I been tucking her in bed, her arms wrapping around my neck, her "I love you" echoing in my ears, just a little while ago? When did this adolescent demon take over her body?

"I haven't seen Keith in weeks!" she cried. "And it's all your fault!" I watched her thinking up her next lie. "I probably dropped it in your car, or in my room the last time I was over."

"When was the last time you were over?" I asked softly.

"Three weeks ago, you know that." Somewhere in the middle of that statement, Sheila saw the trap, realized there was nothing she could do to help herself, and continued on into it.

"Sheila, I found this ring next to the bathroom sink. It wasn't there before I left for work the day your Uncle Jimmy died."

"Well, I don't how it got there then," she said, her voice weakening, her eyes fixed on the traffic out on Battleground Avenue.

"There was a two-hour window of time between when I left for work and when the police say your Uncle Jimmy was killed. Now if you were in the house, I need to know about it. Honey, you might have seen or heard something that will help the police find Jimmy's killer."

Sheila's eyes widened, and her face paled. "Me? What makes you think I know anything?"

She was lying. Don't ask me how I knew, but she looked straight at my face and continued to lie. "I wasn't there. I don't know how my ring got there!" Her voice took on a distinct edge of hysteria, and her neck had flushed a bright, beet red that clashed with her hair. "I don't know anything about who killed Jimmy. I didn't hear a thing! I didn't see nothing!"

I reached out for her arm, but she jumped backward, her eyes widening and her breath coming in short little gasps.

"Honey, calm down!" But she couldn't, or wouldn't.

"What is it, Sheila?" I asked. "What's wrong? Talk to me, baby."

Sheila moaned and started to walk past me.

"No, Mama. It's nothing. I gotta go."

"Sheila!" I reached for her, and she let me stop her.

"Mama, I told you, I don't know anything about Uncle Jimmy." This time she looked me in the eye, but her look was far scarier than her lies. She was looking through me. "No matter who asks me, no matter what they try and do to me, I won't say any different, to anyone. I don't know anything! I didn't leave my ring at your place." Her voice was low and deliberate, as if she were a zombie, delivering a rehearsed line. "You can just keep it! I never want to see it again!" The edge of hysteria was creeping back into her voice.

Her eyes softened for a second. "I love you, Mama," she said, "no matter what happens, no matter what anybody says. I love you." A tear slid over her eyelid, running through her artfully applied makeup and leaving a pale liquid streak behind.

My heart was racing, breaking in half at the same time. I grabbed for her but she was gone, almost running back into the shop.

I would've gone in after her if I'd thought it would've done any good, but I knew better. Sheila was like me, stubborn. If my back was against the wall, I'd come out swinging. My gut instincts told me that my little girl was cut from the same cloth. It would be pointless to go after her.

I started back to the Bug, tears blurring my vision. If I'd had any doubts about my decision not to pursue Sheila into the shop, they were wiped away as a large panel truck rolled into the parking lot. Vernell Spivey was impossible to miss and the truck he drove made it a certainty that he'd be noticed, even on a foggy day.

Vernell drove a two-ton panel truck with a satellite dish mounted up on top. The truck was painted bright fluorescent orange with the words SATELLITE KINGDOM spelled out in huge black letters. VERNELL SPIVEY, THE SATELLITE KING was written in slightly smaller letters on the driver's side door. A painted profile of Jolene the Dish Girl, pointing to a huge dish-her largest attributes almost overshadowing Vernell's product-adorned the side of the truck.

As I watched the truck glide across the parking lot, drifting inevitably toward my little Bug, I saw Vernell's latest addition to his advertising campaign. I knew then that the Vernell Spivey who had come to the Golden Stallion dressed in a powder blue polyester leisure suit was not just a passing apparition. Nope, Vernell was having some kind of personality transformation, and from the looks of it, this was serious business.

The satellite dish mounted on the top of his truck had been painted with a tableau depicting Jesus, his arms outstretched and a tearful look on his face. At the very front of the truck, on the hood and just below the longhorn steer horns, Vernell had mounted a set of loudspeakers. I did not take that small detail in until I heard the music and Vernell's voice flooding the air around me.

"Wait right there, sister," he crowed. "I bring great tidings from the land beyond." I froze as organ music blared. Behind the windshield I could see Vernell, a microphone in his hand and a wild look in his eyes.

I stood absolutely still, hoping against hope that he hadn't been speaking to me. Anyone within a ten-shop radius of Vernell's truck also stopped, frozen like possums in the middle of a south Georgia highway. My eyes were drawn to the satellite dish. It was a darn good rendering of Jesus. The arm that extended out from the dish, curving back in toward the center, had been painted gold, probably in an attempt to look like some stick Jesus was using in his work. I couldn't figure it out and didn't want to know.