“And Justine knew about this?”

“Oh, no. No, no. Charisse knew better. After all, she was living at Justine’s. She wasn’t about to get herself thrown out on the street.”

“You’re telling me Cornell was in the same jeopardy you were.”

“Big time. Even more so. He was everybody’s hero— scholastics, sports, student government, you name it. We all looked up to him.”

“Who else knew about this, aside from you?”

“Adrianne, I guess. She walked in on ’em once over at the Tuley-Belle. That’s how she found out.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me.”

“Why? Were you a close friend of hers?”

“No, not really. We were in the same church youth group. We went on a weekend retreat and I could see she was upset. I asked and she told me what was going on. She thought she should talk to our pastor, but I disagreed. I said it wasn’t her job to save Cornell’s soul. He was a big boy and he could work it out for himself.”

I arrived at Felicia’s house in Creosote at precisely 7:00 that Wednesday night. Cars were lined up at intervals along the darkened street. I didn’t think I could manage to parallel park in Dolan’s tank so I was forced to leave his car around the corner and walk back. Cornell’s white pickup truck was parked in front of the house, behind Justine’s dark Ford sedan. The moon had been reduced to the size of a fingernail paring. The air was dry and cold. The usual wind whiffled through the trees, making the shaggy palms sway, fronds rustling like rats running through an ivy patch. Lights shone from every room of Felicia’s small house. Despite her admonition, I’d brought a dense chocolate cake in a pink bakery box.

A neighbor answered the door, introducing herself while relieving me of the box, which she carried to the kitchen. I stood for a moment and surveyed the room. I counted eight flower arrangements, about half of them containing leftover Easter lilies. Felicia had dimmed the lights, using votives and candles to illuminate the rooms. The effect was nice, but the air had been warmed to a feverish temperature. I suppose the gathering could have been called a wake, though there was certainly no corpse present. Perhaps “visitation” was the better term. That’s how Felicia had referred to it.

On a purely self-centered note, I hadn’t thought I’d need to pack my illustrious all-purpose dress. That long-sleeve black garment is tailor-made for such occasions, but how could I have known? Cheap shit that I am, earlier in the day I’d ducked into a Goodwill thrift store, where I’d found a pair of serviceable black wool slacks and a short black jacket of another fabric altogether. I’d also bought preowned black flats and a pair of (new) black panty hose. My shoulder bag was brown, probably a fashion faux pas given the rest of my ensemble, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d looked better in my day, but I’d also looked a lot worse.

I had no way of guessing how many people had come and gone in the hours before my arrival, but the number of mourners I saw was embarrassingly small. I wouldn’t have referred to them as “mourners,” either. They came closer to being talkers, Nosy Parkers, and consumers of free food. Clearly some of those assembled were Pudgie’s relatives. I could tell because they all looked faintly surprised he hadn’t been shot to death in the process of an armed robbery. I caught sight of Cornell talking to his sister, but both avoided eye contact, and I got the impression neither was eager to talk to me. I didn’t see Justine, and the rest of those gathered were total strangers, except for Felicia, who was standing in the kitchen talking to a fellow I’d never seen before. I’d hoped to see George Baum, to whom I’d given the address before I’d left the car lot. Maybe he didn’t want to risk running into Cornell, having tattled on him.

Since I didn’t recognize anyone except people who didn’t seem to want to talk to me, I crossed to the buffet table on the far side of the room. Felicia hadn’t fibbed about the copious amounts of food folks had brought. There was every kind of casserole known to man, platters of cold cuts, crackers and cheeses, chips and dips, plus an assortment of cakes, pies, and cookies. A big pressed-glass punch bowl had been filled with coral liquid that looked suspiciously like Hawaiian Punch. There was one lone bottle of white zinfandel. I unscrewed the top and filled a clear plastic cup to the brim, then drank it down an inch so it wouldn’t look like I was hogging more than my share.

I moved through the smattering of people, hoping to corner Adrianne so the two of us could have a chat. I saw Cornell go out to the front yard to grab a cigarette, so at least I didn’t have to worry about him. I drifted through the living room and into the kitchen. Felicia passed me with a plate of cookies in hand. I touched her arm and said, “How’re you doing?”