Annie Gibson herself was nothing like Helen Hopkins, no matter if they shared the same concept of interior arrangement. Annie was fat, and her hair was short and curly. She wore glasses with blue plastic rims, and she breathed heavily. There was nothing stupid about Annie Gibson. She wouldn't let us sit down in her shabby house until we'd shown her our driver's licenses, and she offered us coffee in a way that let us know it was automatic courtesy and not heartfelt.

"Helen told me about your visit," Annie Gibson said. "I don't know if you're good people or not. But she spoke well of you, and that'll have to be good enough for me. I'm going to miss Helen. We had coffee together every other day, just about, and we went shopping in Little Rock together twice a year. We sent each other birthday cards." Tears began running down her plump cheeks, and Annie reached for the box of tissues on the table before her. She patted the tears and blew her nose, unself-consciously. "Our mamas were best friends, and they had us the same month."

I tried to imagine having the same person as a friend for so long. Annie Gibson was probably in her late thirties. I tried to imagine having grandchildren, but I couldn't even project how it would feel to have a child. Having a friend for as long as Annie had had Helen—that was something equally unimaginable.

I would be lucky to live that long, I thought. I watched the tail end of that thought trail out of sight and wondered where it had come from. At the moment, I had to pay attention to this woman across from me.

"I have to talk to you about something you may not like," I said. This was a direct woman, and I sensed it would be better to approach her head-on.

"You have to run it by me before I decide." Her face might be soft physically, but there was nothing soft about her will. "Some things ought to be secret."

"I agree," I said. I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "Ms. Gibson, Helen herself told us she had a bad time when she was drinking."

Annie Gibson nodded, her eyes not leaving my face. "That's so," she said.

"With Teenie being murdered, Helen was real upset when she asked us to come by to talk to her," I said, going so slowly, so carefully. "When I told her about Teenie and Sally, she said, ‘I'll have to call their fathers.' What I want to know from you is, Who was Teenie's father?"

Annie Gibson shook her head. The brown curls moved with her, as if they'd been fixed in place with spray. Maybe they had. "I promised Helen I'd never tell," she said. "She told me not to tell even if Teenie came and asked me."

"And did she?" I asked. I blessed my brother for his silence.

"Yes," Annie said without hesitation. "Yes, she did. Right before she died."

"So, it seems like that was a pretty crucial secret," I said. "You see? She asked, and she died. Helen tells me she's going to call Teenie's father, and she dies."

Annie Gibson looked startled, as though she'd finally put two and two together. "But that can't be," she said. "He'd have no reason to."

"He must have," I said. I tried to keep my voice gentle and reasonable. "I told Helen that Hollis's wife Sally was murdered, too. All three members of that family are gone now. And they all knew who Teenie's father was."

"Not Teenie," Annie Gibson said. "Teenie never knew. I didn't tell her. I promised Helen I wouldn't. And I knew she'd asked Helen, many a time, after she began to suspect it wasn't Jay."

"Jay?" Tolliver asked.

"Helen's husband. Sally's father. He's coming back for the funeral. He may have been divorced from Helen, but I guess he inherits the house now. He called me this morning."

"Where is he staying?" I wondered if he would have a few words with us.

"He's at the motel where ya'll are at. But don't expect to get much sense out of him. Helen may have quit drinking, but Jay ain't. She had to take out a restraining order on him, I guess a year or two after Sally was born. Jay used to be a nice-looking man, and he had sweet folks, but he ain't worth a tinker's damn."

"We've had experience in dealing with drunks," I said.

"Oh, like that, huh?" She looked at me, with level eyes. "I thought I seen the mark on you."

"The mark?"

"Kids raised by drunks. They all got the same mark. I can see it. Not everyone can."

I was certainly not the only person walking this earth possessed of a weird little talent.

Tolliver and I rose to our feet, and Annie wiggled forward on her chair to rise with us. I looked around the small house, and I noticed she had good locks on the doors. And it was obvious a drove of friends and family came in and out all the time. The phone had rung twice while we were there, and she'd let her answering machine take the call. Annie seemed fairly well protected.

"If I were you," I said, very carefully, "I'd go to Little Rock for a couple of days to go shopping, or something like that."

"Are you threatening me?" she said right back at me.

"No ma'am, I am not. I liked Helen, the little I knew of her. And I saw her after she died. I don't want you to be as scared as she was."

"Sounds to me like you are threatening me," Annie Gibson said. Her jaw hardened, and she looked like a very determined pug.

"I swear I am not," I said, as earnestly as I could. "I'm just worried about you." She wasn't going to listen to a word I said, so I might as well save my breath. From now on, anything Tolliver and I told her would go straight to feed her conviction that we meant her ill.

"You all need to go to the gospel singing tonight, get some good thoughts in your head," she concluded, shutting the door behind us.

"I thought Helen was a tough nut to crack," I muttered. "I just hadn't met Annie Gibson."

We ate lunch at a McDonald's, which showed we were at the bottom of our spirits. Our parents had fed us from the fast-food place so often when we were little that we could hardly bear the smell of one now. When my mother had been married to my father, and we'd had the nice home in Memphis, we had a maid I'd been fond of. Her name was Marilyn Coachman. She was a stern black woman, you didn't back talk her, and when she told you to do something, you did it. The minute she'd realized my mother was using drugs, Marilyn quit. I wondered where Marilyn was now.

I looked down at the French fries in their grease-marked cardboard sleeve and shoved them away. She was a great cook.

"We need vegetables," I said.

Tolliver said, "Potatoes are a vegetable. And ketchup is made from tomatoes. I know technically they're a fruit, but I always think of them as vegetables."

"Very funny. I mean it. You know I have to avoid this shit. We need a place where we can live. I'll learn to cook."

"You mean it?"

"I do."

"You want to buy a house."

"We've talked about it before."

"But I didn't... You were serious, huh?"

"Yes." I was deeply hurt. "I guess you weren't."

He put down his Big Mac. He wiped his fingers on the paper napkin. A very young mother went by, carrying one child on her hip. The other hand held a tray full of food and drinks. A boy, maybe five, followed close on her heels. She put the tray down on a nearby table and began getting the children into their places and sorting out the food. She looked harried. Her bra strap kept falling down her arm; both her arms were bare. She was wearing a sleeveless tank top despite the chilly day.

Tolliver was giving me all his attention, now. "You're still thinking Dallas?"

"Or thereabouts. We could find a nice small house, maybe in Longview or even closer to Dallas, to the north. That'd be more central than the Atlanta area, which was the other place we'd discussed."

His dark eyes searched mine. "Dallas is close to Mariella and Grace."

"Maybe they won't always feel the same."