“Every time I bring Delilah in, I think she can’t get any more beautiful than she already is.’’ He beamed a whitening-strip smile to the mirror. “But then I come back to pick her up, and darned if I’m not wrong.’’

He leaned toward Delilah, who offered up her plump cheek for a kiss. “I’ll be back for you in a couple of hours, Mother.’’

“I’ll be right here, Father. Betty’s going to make me into a new woman, so I do hope you recognize me.’’

He put his hand on her face and gazed into her eyes. “Mother, I’d know you in a crowd of thousands. That’s how it is with soul mates, isn’t that right, ladies?’’

He glanced at us for approval. Mama smiled reflexively, but I was busy choking back vomit. I hate when married couples call each other “Mother’’ and “Father.’’ It’s creepy.

Through the front window, I saw D’Vora hurrying along the sidewalk, breasts jiggling in her tight smock. Pastor Bob saw her, too. He dropped his hand from his wife’s cheek like it was a burning coal, and rushed to open the shop’s door. He stepped aside just enough so D’Vora would have to rub up against him as she brushed past. His eyes got a familiar gleam.

“It’s D’Vora, isn’t it?’’

She raised the bank deposit bag in her hand to cover her chest, and gave him a “My, what big teeth you have’’ look.

“I don’t believe you’ve taken us up on our invitation to come worship at Abundant Hope and Charity Chapel. Mother, have you seen this pretty young lady at church?” His eyes never left D’Vora’s cleavage.

I glanced at Delilah. Her own eyes were full of hurt and resignation.

“No, Father, I haven’t.’’ Her lips barely moved as she studied her hands, folded on top of the drape. If she hadn’t been so mean to Mama at church, I might have felt sorry for her.

“Thank you anyway, sir. Ma’am.’’ D’vora nodded at Delilah as she sidestepped around the minister. “But I’m happy at my own church. I’ve been going ever since I was baptized. Thanks for thinking of me, though.’’

Everyone in the shop knew exactly what the minister had been thinking about D’Vora.

“Well, maybe you’d like one of my DVDs, then. Half-price, for you.’’

Delilah didn’t give her time to answer. “Hadn’t you better get to your errands, Father?’’

Pastor Bob put a hand to his chin, thoughtful like. He was probably just wiping off drool. “You betcha,’’ he finally said, as D’Vora disappeared into the back room. “I’ve got a long list to tackle. See you soon, Mother.’’

Delilah followed her husband with her eyes until he was out the door, down the sidewalk, and out of sight of the window. She continued staring until, finally, she let out a little sigh and a tiny shake of her head. What would run through your mind if you had a husband who would come on to another woman like that, right in front of you? Delilah looked like she was trying to convince herself of something. I wondered what it was.

“Okay, let the girl talk begin.’’ Betty shook her magenta comb like a conductor’s baton. It broke the shameful feeling we’d shared at seeing Delilah humiliated. “Who’s got news about Emma Jean Valentine?’’

We spent the next fifteen minutes dissecting Emma Jean’s disappearance. I filled them in on finding the abandoned car and visiting her house. Mama revealed the fact that she might have been cheating on Jim Albert. Delilah perked up at that gossipy morsel.

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell tales,’’ she said, waiting for the go-ahead to do just that.

“Mace and her mama are trying to find out who really killed Emma Jean’s boyfriend. Whoever did it may have kidnapped her, too.’’ Betty’s eyes bored into Delilah’s in the mirror. “You’d only be helping Emma Jean to tell what you know.’’

Delilah paused just long enough to take a deep breath before beginning. “Well, I will say I couldn’t believe that scene she pulled the other night at Abundant Hope. All of that about how the wicked woman who’d been cheating with her boyfriend attends our little church? And the way she tried to stare down the evildoer? Talk about a sinner casting stones!’’

Mama wrinkled her brow. “What are you saying?’’

“I’m saying I know for a fact Emma Jean had a secret lover. And I’m saying the man’s a member of our church.’’

“Are you sure?’’ Betty asked, whipping some of Delilah’s wet hair around a pink roller.

“Absolutely. Every couple of months, I collect all the hymnals and give them a good dusting.’’

I wasn’t at all surprised Delilah was a fastidious housekeeper.

“The last time I did it, I found a love note tucked into one of the books. It wasn’t addressed by name; Emma Jean had written My Dearest Darling Man at the top. She talked about how she could barely stand to see him in church with his wife, knowing she couldn’t have him.’’ She angled her head toward Betty, who was wedging the last roller into an even row. “And then she said things were heating up. You know who was going to ask her to marry him, she wrote.’’

She looked at each of us to make sure we were listening. We were.

“What should I do about it? That’s what she asked her ‘darling man.’ ’’

“How do you know Emma Jean wrote it? I can’t believe anyone would sign their name to a note like that,’’ I said.

“She didn’t sign her full name. The whole thing was printed, on a typewriter or a computer. There were just the initials at the end, EJ. Beside them, there was a red stick-on heart, like the ones little girls put on their notebooks. Get it? The initials stand for Emma Jean, and the heart for Valentine.’’

We were all quiet for a few moments, digesting Delilah’s theory. Betty combed and rolled; rolled and combed.

“Who do you think it was, y’all?’’ D’Vora peeked from the back room, where she’d fled to escape Pastor Bob. “Who was doin’ the dirty thang with Emma Jean?’’

“That’s what we need to find out, honey,’’ Mama said. “Maybe whoever it was loved the ‘dirty thang’ so much he killed poor Jim Albert so he could keep doing it with Emma Jean.’’

With a mountain of meat loaf and mashed potatoes in front of him, my cousin Henry was holding court from a corner table at Gladys’ Restaurant. Making a point, he waved his fork in the air like he was a judge and the fork was his gavel.

I stopped for a minute just inside the front door, feeling the sweat on my neck drying in a blast of cold air. The air conditioner felt so good, I lifted the hair from my collar and let the chill wind blow away the heat that had accumulated from outside.