"I reckon I do," Adele said serenely. She did, too.

"Well, this is a sight worse, if you ask me. Now nobody knows much of anything about this Lamont Petrel fellow what's come to town, and that means nobody knows if he's been bothering the girls hisself. With a name like Lamont Petrel, anything's possible, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that he was the one that did it. But Jim Bob Buchanon's the mayor, so he ought to act respectable. I shiver to think what Mrs. Jim Bob'll say if she ever catches wind of this."

"She passes more wind than she catches. She used to come out here and read Bible verses at me like I didn't attend the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall twice on Sundays and every Wednesday night for prayer meeting right up to the day Mr. Wockermann passed away, may he rest in peace. I finally told her that her face reminded me of tadpoles on a mud fence, and after that she stopped a-comin'."

Millicent figured she'd evinced enough Christian duty for the week. "I'm going to run along now, Adele, she said real nicely. "I got to fix my hair and decide what to wear to the grand opening of the supermarket. Maybe I can get a good look at that Lamont Petrel from Farberville. I'll tell you all about him next week, and I'll bring you a box of my chocolate-chip cookies."

"No pecans. You know I can't pass pecans anymore."

Millicent patted Adele's shoulder, then nodded at the nurse's aide who was hovering near the doorway and sailed away, content in the knowledge that she'd kept poor Adele Wockermann apprised of local goings-on. It was real important for the old soul to have outside interests.

Ruby Bee had called a secret meeting of the Flamingos, which gave me a breather. Hammet wanted to do nothing else except discuss the first practice, held the previous afternoon in the redolent cow pasture out behind the motel. I wanted to forget it. I wanted to go back to the hotel patio and search for the bedimpled count, but I hadn't had fifteen seconds of peace since my houseguest had been thrust upon me.

I sent him down the road with an admonishment to avoid debating Georgie McMay's prejudices, then went across the street to the PD and shuffled through the mail for an errant one-way ticket to the South of France.

Before I could toss the envelopes in the wastebasket, the telephone rang. I conducted a mental debate, lost, and picked up the receiver.

It was Harvey Dorfer, the county sheriff, who's a pretty nice guy in his rednecked fashion and a true gentleman in election years. Luckily, he is smarter than he looks.

"How ya doing, Arly?" he began affably.

"Fine, Harve."

"I called to see if you wanted a deputy to help you this afternoon. We're real short, but I can scrounge up somebody for an hour. Or two."

"To do what-answer the telephone?"

Harve exhaled what I knew was a foul stream of cigar smoke. "Traffic control."

"Our regular Saturday-night drunks won't start crashing their trucks until dark, Harve. Till then I think I can handle the traffic by myself."

"Probably so, but I had a request from a county judge to send a deputy over to help you out. It seems he plays golf with that Petrel fellow, and it's what ya might call a small political favor. It's too damn hot to have a county judge breathing down my collar or peerin' too hard at the budget."

It made about as much sense as Ruby Bee's ravings. I rubbed my face, twisted my mouth around for a minute, and finally said, "What's this about, Harve? What do a county judge and someone named Petrel have to do with me busting speeders on a hot Saturday afternoon? Traffic's usually up on the weekends, but mostly it's tourists gawking at cows, and people like Raz Buchanon doing twenty miles an hour toward Starley City to buy chicken feed and the latest tabloid."

"Go take a look out the window."

"It's your nickel." I put down the receiver and did as ordered. When I came back, I was almost afraid to pick it up again. "Good Lord, Harve, there's a damn parade of cars and pickups out there, and people walking along the side of the road. Is there an execution scheduled?"

"Where the hell you been all week, Arly?"

I wanted to say France, but settled for a meaningless mumble involving Ruby Bee, houseguests, and baseball practice. "So when did you boys put up the guillotine? Who's the lucky guy?"

"It's the grand opening of that supermarket Jim Bob built hisself with Petrel. According to them, there's going to be all kinds of activities and ceremonies and everybody within thirty miles is coming. Marching bands, ribbon cutting, all that shit. I'll send Les over before the highway gets so constipated that the traffic backs up to my office. I plan to go fishing later, and I don't want to be delayed."

"Send him along," I said with a sigh. "I'll head on down there and see what all Jim Bob's doing to disrupt my afternoon. I was planning to go to the Riviera, myself."

"That the new tavern over in Hasty?"

"Yeah, Harve." I wished him luck with the bass and the wrasse, hung up, buffed my badge, and tucked in my shirt. I didn't figure I'd need my bullets to handle the mob, but I strapped on my.38 anyway, just in case the bargains addled some brains and we had violence in the dairy section of the illustrious Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.

Edna Louise Skimmer put down the bedpan and stared at the nurse's aide. "I can't believe it," she said.

Marsha Harrier nodded as slowly as she did everything else, which meant she wasn't setting any world records. Her words came out one at a time, like molasses dripping off the edge of the table. "I heard every word of it. I was standing by the door for a breath of fresh air, minding my own business and thinking about this cute little black and yellow bathing suit that's on sale over at the K-Mart in Starley City."

"What did Miz Wockermann say?" Marsha tried to remember if the loony old woman had said anything worth repeating. About the time Edna Louise looked like she was going to explode, Marsha said, "She was too stunned and sickened by the story to say much. So was I. To think of that fellow taking advantage of all those local girls…If something like that happened to me, I would have died on the spot."

Edna Louise sat down next to the bedpan and decided to give Marsha the benefit of her four years of experience as an aide. "You're liable to lose your job if you go blabbing all over town. However, we have a responsibility to our patients to know the reason if they get all upset. Why don't you begin at the beginning and try to finish before the shift is over?"

Traffic was snarly and getting worse. A large area in front of the door was roped off, and those who attempted to step over it were berated by militant high school boys in starchy white uniforms. Ruby Bee's parking lot was filled, as was the motel lot behind it. I could imagine how pleased she was.

I barked at a particularly dim soul who tried to abandon his truck in the middle of the road, and started pointing and waving and making everybody get in gear, so to speak. Those obliged to park a long way down the road weren't real pleased with me, but as we say on the Riviera, c'est la guerre.

Forty hellacious minutes later, Deputy Les Vernon burped his siren to force a path to the edge of the SuperSaver lot and came over to join me. He didn't loom over me, but he had a pit-bull aura about him that promised to be more effective than my winsome demeanor. I left him to it and wandered through the crowd to the front of the store.