“A fight with another male, probably over a mate. And if you think Ollie looks bad, you should have seen the other guy.’’

The line usually gets a laugh, but the teacher didn’t crack a smile.

“Uhm … I wonder if I could speak to you about another matter?’’

With the kind of day I’d had, with her hesitation and demeanor, this couldn’t be good.

“Sure.’’ I patted the bench next to me, inviting her to sit down. “What’s on your mind?’’

“I knew your mother real well. I mean, I know her.’’ She corrected the past tense. Mama wasn’t dead; she was just accused of killing someone else. “I was in her Sunday school class.’’

You and half of Himmarshee, I thought. But I was silent, preparing for the punch line.

“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about her being in jail.’’ She sat, looking down to straighten the already perfect lines of her knee-length skirt. “I don’t think she belongs there.”

“We don’t either.’’

“No, I mean it’s impossible she did what the police say.’’

I sat up straight, fatigue forgotten.

She continued, “My mother plays bingo at the Seminole reservation, just like your mom. They were together at the casino yesterday, all afternoon. They had dinner there, and then played into the evening. At one point, before dinner, my mother got to feeling awfully cold. They keep the place air-conditioned like an ice house.’’

I drummed my fingers on the bench.

“Anyway, Ms. Deveraux told my mom she had a jacket in the trunk of her car. The two of them left the casino and walked way out into the parking lot to your mother’s turquoise convertible. Ms. Deveraux opened up the trunk. My mother said she moved aside some fishing tackle and a cooler before she found that jacket. And there sure was no body inside her trunk.’’

I felt like I was Samson, the Bible strongman, and the Lord had just lifted the heavy pillars of the temple off of my hands. I wanted to hug her, but settled for grinning like an idiot.

“That’s fantastic!’’ I jumped off the bench. “Your mother needs to tell that to the police.’’

The teacher stood up, too. “She already did. My mother called and told me a detective questioned her this afternoon. Spanish accent. Kind of rude, my mother said. He didn’t seem all that interested in her story about bingo, until she got to the part about Ms. Deveraux and her jacket.’’

I grabbed her by the arm. “What’d he say?’’

“Well, he wanted to know all about it. When, where, and how. My mother told him she saw clear into the back of Ms. Deveraux’s trunk. He argued with her, saying your mother might have collected the body from somewhere else before she wound up at the Dairy Queen.’’

I sat down again, thinking about why Martinez was trying so hard to indict Mama. Did he have something against bingo-playing grandmas?

“Did your mother tell the detective anything else that could be helpful?’’ I asked.

The teacher rolled her eyes toward her forehead, like she was replaying her conversation with her mother in her head. She touched the hem of her skirt. “She did tell him there was no way Ms. Deveraux could have snuck away. Your mother was on a hot streak all night. All the other ladies gathered round to congratulate her when bingo was over. She wound up going home with the two-hundred-dollar pot.’’

And that platinum-haired imp had never said one word about winning $200.

“Listen, would your mother be willing to go to the police department with me and tell her story over again? If we can’t get Detective Martinez to listen, we’ll just go over his head to Chief Johnson.’’

She didn’t hesitate a moment. “Absolutely. We’ll do anything we can do to help Ms. Deveraux.’’

Soon, the kids and the red-haired teacher were gone.

I fed the animals and closed up the park. It was late. I’d catch up my sisters by cell phone on my ride home. I couldn’t wait for a hot shower. All I wanted was that, and the fried chicken stuck in my fridge since last night, when Mama’s call had interrupted my supper.

My hand was on the doorknob to leave when the office phone started to ring. I wanted so bad to head on out and let the answering machine pick it up, but I was scared it could be someone trying to reach me at work with news about Mama.

I picked up the phone, and would come to wish I hadn’t.

“Mace? It’s your mother’s friend, Sal.’’

I looked with longing at the exit sign over the door in the park’s office. I’d been so close.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Provenza?’’ He’d asked us a hundred times to call him Sal, but my sisters and I addressed him more formally because we knew it irked him. At least Maddie and I did. Marty had barely said six words to the man in the year Mama had been dating him.

“It’s about Rosalee.’’

My heart skipped a beat. “Is she okay?’’

“She’s fine, so far as I know.’’

I let out my breath.

“But me and her aren’t,’’ Sal said. “I tried to see her today at the jail, and she refused my visit. That’s why you and me need to talk.’’ Tawk. “I don’t think she loves me anymore.’’

I felt like Robert De Niro’s shrink in the movie Analyze This.

“Then maybe you should have been truthful with her upfront,’’ I said. “Why didn’t you tell us last night at the police department you had ties to Jim Albert? Or, should I say, Jimmy the Weasel?’’

Pause. “How do you know about that?’’

“Detective Martinez told me. And I’m betting he told Mama, too. That’s probably the reason she won’t see you. She can’t abide a liar. Martinez is very interested in how you’re involved with a New York gangster, who then turns up dead in the roomy trunk of your girlfriend’s car. And, frankly Mr. Provenza, I’m interested in that question, too.’’

There was silence on his end of the phone. I could hear him taking raspy breaths. Sal really should give up smoking.

“I’m sorry, Mace,’’ he finally said. “I can’t go into all of that. Especially not on the phone. I’m out at the golf course, just finishing up eighteen holes. I played like crap. All I could think about is your mother.’’ Mudder. “Would you consider swinging by here on your way home?’’

The golf course, the centerpiece of a posh new development along a canal off Lake Okeechobee, wasn’t on my way home. I live north; the new course is south. But Sal seemed to be a key to Martinez’s case against Mama. I wanted to find out why.