“I know, Mace. I felt like crying, too.’’ She pulled a paper towel from the kitchen roll and handed it to me. “Those are tears of relief, is what those are. This has all been just too much, hasn’t it? Drink your coffee now. I’ll do up this mess of dishes you left in the sink. My kitchen is always spotless before I go to bed.’’

Not even my tears could deflect criticism from Maddie, who’s a toothbrush-on-your-knees-type house cleaner. I’m more from the one-swipe-of-the-mop-every-six-months school.

She made a face as she picked up a bowl with hardened salsa in the bottom. “Henry says they’re going to release her after lunch sometime.’’ She shot a squirt of dishwashing liquid at the salsa and started scrubbing. “He says he’ll give a call when we can go to the jail to pick her up.’’

Maddie mentioning jail reminded me of what I’d found on the computer about Detective Martinez. I decided to tell both my sisters at once. They’d surely have questions. And, seeing how Maddie was right in the middle of washing up for me, I didn’t want to distract her.

She lifted an empty beer bottle off the counter and held it up. “Just how much of this stuff do you drink, Mace? Do you think it’s smart to overdo it with liquor when you’ve just suffered a brain injury?’’

“Beer’s not liquor, Maddie. It’s beer. And the doctor said my head is fine. One bottle is hardly overdoing it.’’

“I’m just telling you to watch yourself. You know Daddy’s family had more than its share of drunks.’’

I had a vague memory of a family picnic that ended in a fistfight after Daddy’s brother Teddy got tossed into a jumbo-sized vat of potato salad.

“Thanks for the warning,’’ I said. “Now, I’ve got to call into work and explain why I’m so late.’’

“I already took care of that for you. Everything at the park is squared away. I talked to your boss. I caught her up about your accident, and told her how much you needed some time off. Rhonda said to go ahead and take what you need. She did mention something about a New Jersey woman with a panther, but I didn’t catch all that.’’

I counted slowly to five. It didn’t work. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Maddie.’’

“Do what?’’

“Step into my life and take over.’’

Maddie looked wounded. “I was just trying to help.”

“Well, it’s embarrassing. I’ve already got one mother. And I can manage things fine on my own.’’

Maddie took a long look around my little house, with the dust on the kitchen countertops, my clothes in a heap where I’d left them on the living room floor, and Paw-Paw’s old shotgun leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“Hmmm.’’ There was more meaning packed into that little sound and her cocked eyebrow than into a whole half-hour lecture.

I got defensive. “Things aren’t normal right now, Maddie. Mama’s been unjustly accused of murder. Someone may have tried to kill me last night. And we still don’t know who murdered Jim Albert, and why they planned to let Mama take the blame for it.’’

Maddie dried off my beer glass. She examined it as she held it up to the light. “You’re right, Mace.’’

I couldn’t wait to tell Marty how quickly our older sister had given in. The hunt for water spots or a beer-foam mark on my glassware must have diverted her.

“Anyway, let’s not fuss at one another. This should be a happy day. Kenny wants to take all of us out to dinner to celebrate Mama’s release.’’

Kenny is Maddie’s husband of nineteen years, who loves her beyond all reason.

“That sounds great, Maddie. If Mama’s up to it, of course.’’

“When hasn’t Mama been up to anything involving food?’’

Just then, Maddie’s cell phone rang. She walked directly to her purse, found the phone in a special pocket she’d sewn inside, and answered without fumbling on the second ring. I hated my organized sister.

Maddie listened for a few moments and turned to me. “It’s Henry, Mace. He says they’ve let Mama out early. He’s at the jail, helping her to sign some papers. But he has a court hearing in a few minutes. He can’t give her a ride.’’ She spoke into the phone again. “We’re way out at Mace’s, Henry. You know she lives out in the hardwood hammock with the wild creatures. I’ll call Marty at work and ask her to go meet Mama. The library’s only a block from the jail.’’

We decided Marty would pick up Mama and we’d all meet for lunch at Maddie’s.

“You can borrow Pam’s car until the police finish up with yours, Mace. Your Jeep will probably need work after you get it dried out,’’ Maddie said.

Maddie’s daughter, Pam, was a college freshman in California, studying film-making.

I finished my coffee, showered and dressed, and was ready to go before Maddie had put away the last of my dishes.

We were mostly quiet on the twenty-minute ride to Maddie’s. I was thinking about my close call in the canal, and about everything that had happened since Mama discovered Jim Albert’s body in her trunk two nights before.

“Hey, Maddie,’’ I finally said. We were just coming up on the brick entryway to her neighborhood, with my sister driving fifteen mph under the speed limit, as usual. “Is Pam still looking for a plot for her first movie?’’

“Um-hmm,’’ Maddie murmured, careful to focus her concentration on the right-hand turn she’d made onto Whispering Pine Drive five hundred times before.

“Tell her I have a good one. It starts with a college girl’s grandma who murders a man and stuffs his body in the trunk of her vintage convertible.’’

“Not funny, Mace.’’

“Lighten up, Maddie. The worst is behind us.’’

As we proceeded at a snail’s pace onto my sister’s street, I realized I may have spoken too soon. Halfway up the block, we saw Sal Provenza parked in his yellow Cadillac, taking up two spaces in Maddie’s driveway.

Maddie couldn’t get out of her Volvo fast enough. She was beside the driver’s side door of Sal’s Cadillac before I’d even unhinged my aching body from her passenger seat.

Our mother’s boyfriend looked up, cigar in hand and a guilty look on his face. Maddie was so mad, she didn’t know which of Sal’s sins to seek vengeance for first.

“I can’t believe you have the nerve to come here, stinking up my driveway with that cigar, after you framed Mama for murder and nearly killed my sister, Mace.’’

That just about covered everything, I thought.

Sal stubbed out the cigar in his ashtray and gave Maddie a long, hard look. My sister held his stare without so much as a flinch. He patted at his perfect hair. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Maddie. But I don’t like the way it sounds. Harder people than you have tried over the years to accuse me of things. None of them has hurt me as much as hearing you say I could harm your mother.’’ Mudder. “I love Rosie.’’