"Well, we most certainly can't have a horse in the mansion, " Mrs. Crimm protested.

"I want one, " the governor decided. "Today. " "I'm not sure how I feel about Regina going to the morgue, " Mrs. Crimm worried as Andy and Regina drove out of sight.

"Maybe it would be good for her, " the governor considered. "Might make her count her blessings and stop complaining so much. "

"I agree, " Faith said. "She should be happy she's alive. " The governor walked away and bumped into a life-size portrait of Lady Astor. "Excuse me, " he muttered.

Barbie Fogg was bumping into things as well this morning. Bleary from too many lemonades, she collided with a sharp corner of the bed, cracked her funny bone on the toaster, and just seconds ago, almost bumped into the car in front of her as her attention wandered all over the interstate. Usually, when she drove her minivan to the Baptist Campus Ministry, where she was a volunteer counselor, nobody paid much attention to her. But other motorists were certainly staring at her this morning, and in her stuporous state, she was finding their scrutiny very distracting.

She had always been an attractive woman who dressed smartly but tastefully, and certainly she believed deeply in skin care. Skin was God's gift to women, she often told the female students who sought her advice and guidance. Clothes and accessories make no difference if your skin is bad, and everyone should visit the skin doctor regularly and use good cleansers and moisturizers and stay out of the sun.

Now, it was true that her skin looked especially nice this morning after the glycolic masque she vaguely remembered applying last night after too much to drink. But why were all these motorists staring at her? Some of them were even honking their horns, and a moment ago a man with an earring zipped past in his Porsche and gave her a thumbs up. She slowed down at Hooter's toll-booth and was pleased to see the rainbow bumper sticker proudly mounted on the sliding glass window.

"Why, you must work twenty-four hours a day, " Barbie greeted Hooter, who looked a bit under the weather. "We both have rainbows. Isn't it fun?"

"I tell you, I had the strangest thing happen last night, " Hooter said as cars lined up behind the minivan.

She told Barbie all about the wild man in the alleyway who was sitting on a bag of guns out by the Dumpster and trying to shoot off his privates.

"Then, you know that big trooper I dated last night…? Well, " Hooter interrupted her own story. "I guess you got no reason to know him. But I had to drive him back home to his mama, and he wanted a little loving but I wouldn't give him none 'cause his mama right there in the next room, pro'bly with a glass up against the wall, listening to see what we was doin'.

"So I say to him, 'Why you still living with your mama and if I did what you wanted, what if she walked in?' Can you imagine?" Hooter said to Barbie. "Can you imagine riding that big trooper's horsie and right in the middle of it, there's mama in her nightie standing next to the couch. I think that's sick. I'm telling you, that man's a strange one. "

"What horsie?" Barbie was horrified and confused.

"Just his little pet name for what I'm telling you is the biggest… " Hooter's comment was obliterated by honking horns. "… ever saw, girlfriend! Only, I ain't 'zactly seen it in person yet. But based on the commotion it was making as it tried to bust out of its stall, you get what I'm saying? Uh huh? That's one big… " More horns blared.

"Well, you would think I'm causing a lot of commotion myself, " Barbie confided. "All these people are just staring at me and honking and nearly running me off the road, " she added as a huge pickup truck with mud flaps swerved to another line and Bubba Loving flipped a bird and yelled something at Barbie's minivan. "How does he know my name?" she exclaimed to Hooter. "I've never seen that man before in my life and he just yelled my name. I'm good at reading lips. "

"You don't say, " Hooter remarked, staring after the pickup truck. "I sure do hate it when they got them 'Federate flags on their windshield and Bubba on the vanity plate. Good thing he went over to the Smart Tag line 'cause I don't like 'Federate money whether I got gloves on or not! I won't touch it if I got a choice, uh uh! I don't think he say your name, though. " Hooter was reluctant to tell her. "Fact is, I doubt he know your name. "

"I'm pretty sure he said Fogg. "

"Nuh uh. He say something else that wasn't the least bit nice, girlfriend. I think that Bubba redneck call you a fag."

"Well now, if that doesn't take the cake. " Barbie was mystified. "You positive he didn't say Fogg?"

"I ain't gonna go ask him. He a mean redneck and probably got a hood in his closet, you know what I'm saying?"

Barbie didn't know what she meant.

"You know, a white sheet, " Hooter explained. "He probably some cross-burning gran dragon for the Ku Klack Klan!"

"Anyone who burns a cross will go straight to hell, " Barbie said with pious indignation.

"I don't care where people like him go after they's dead. I just don't want them stopping at my tollbooth and maybe trying to find out where I live so they can shoot out my windows and burn a cross in my yard. Except I don't have a yard. I guess they could burn a cross in the parking lot, though. "

"So many crazy people. " Barbie was getting discouraged. "The world just gets worse every day. "

"Ever since the new milminimum, everything's worse. Don't see how they could get worsen" Hooter could not have agreed with Barbie Fogg more.

Andy didn't see how things could get much worse, either, as he turned off 9th Street, bound for the morgue with Regina sitting in the passenger's seat smacking gum and playing with the scanner.

"How do you turn on the lights and siren in this thing?" she asked.

"We're not turning on the lights and siren, " he told her.

"Why not? You're responding to a murder, aren't you? Seems to me you could turn them on if you wanted to. "

"No, I couldn't. We're not pursuing anyone or in a hurry. " He worked hard to keep his irritation to himself.

"Well, aren't we in a pissy mood today?" Regina commented as she stared out the window at people aimlessly searching for parking places and waiting in the cold to cross the street.

She did not have to subject herself to common inconveniences, and for the first time in years, she was happy. She could not believe she had escaped the EPU at last and was inside a brand-new state police car, on her way to the morgue with Andy.

"I will make a very good partner for you, " she went on. "I know a lot of things you don't and probably more things than that medical examiner woman does, for that matter. I bet you don't know what to do if you get stuck in quicksand, now do you?"

"I don't intend to ever get stuck in quicksand, " Andy replied. "I would avoid it. "

"Huh. That's easy to say. If it was a simple thing to avoid quicksand, then people wouldn't get stuck in it and sink to death. So what you do is spread your arms and legs and try to float. " She showed him. "Then you put your walking stick under your back to keep your hips from sinking, and you pull your legs out and escape. And if you want to break down a door, you kick the lock, and you can pick a car lock with an Allen wrench and a bobby pin. I also know how to survive python, alligator, and killer-bee attacks, " she bragged. "And I could deliver a baby in a taxi-cab or save myself if my parachute doesn't open. "

"Only because you've obviously read The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, " Andy replied, to her annoyance and surprise. "And just because you read about a dire situation while you're safely sitting in the mansion doesn't mean you could really save yourself if the worst really happened. "