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with his monster truck career.”
    I held my pen over the tablet. “You mentioned a competition this weekend. Was he really that good?”
    “The best. You should have seen him jump those cars and whip around the track. He would have been famous. And I would have been right there with him, like those Nascar wives you see on TV.”
    I put one hand over the other so I wouldn’t slap my forehead in disbelief. Or slap my sister. “Did you forget the part where he cheated on you?”
    Ashlee waved her hand in dismissal. “We would have worked through that. Our love ran deep. I bet we would have gotten married if he hadn’t been killed like that.”
    Oh no, here we went. Last night, Bobby Joe was a tool. Today he was a marriage-worthy monster truck master, cut down in his prime. Tomorrow, he’d be in line for sainthood.
    “What can you tell me about this girl he was cheating with?”
    Ashlee played with a pom-pom on the fringe of the afghan. “She must have been some hussy who got him drunk and took advantage of him, that’s all I can come up with.”
    “Does this hussy have a name?”
    “Melissa, Martha, Maria. Yeah, Maria sounds right. Bobby Joe said he met her at the Breaking Bread Diner. She waitresses there.”
    I jotted down the name, not hiding my smirk. “The diner doesn’t serve alcohol.”
    Ashlee stopped fiddling with the pom-pom. “What?”
    “You said she must have gotten Bobby Joe drunk for him to cheat on you. The diner doesn’t serve alcohol, remember?” I really shouldn’t tease my sister at a time like this, but sometimes these opportunities jumped out, and I couldn’t stop myself.
    Ashlee tried to stamp her foot on the floor, but it got caught in the afghan, and she almost fell off the couch. “Maybe she got him all hopped up on too much caffeine. Bobby Joe wouldn’t cheat on me without a good reason.”
    She looked genuinely hurt, and I felt a pang of guilt for picking on her. “You must be right. In fact, I was thinking this girl might have killed Bobby Joe in a rage if he refused to see her again because he cared so much about you.”
    Ashlee nodded eagerly. “I bet that’s it. Anyone who would cheat with a taken man is the kind who would kill him.”
    I didn’t really think this other woman killed Bobby Joe, but she might be able to provide a few more details about someone who would. All Ashlee would give me were wonderful memories and a glorious, unrealized future. She seemed to have forgotten all of Bobby Joe’s shortcomings now that he was dead. His other friends might remember him differently.
    Tomorrow, before I headed to work to finish all the Fourth of July preparations, I’d wake up early and stop for a breakfast of fluffy pancakes with golden syrup and fatty butter.
    At the Breaking Bread Diner, of course.
     
     
    The diner was packed at six-thirty the next morning. The people who lined the counter acted like they’d been up for hours, all cheerful and alert. I waited at the wooden hostess stand while the waitress led the couple in front of me to a table.
    The inside of the diner sported a tractor theme, with photographs of John Deeres and wheat fields filling the walls. Criss-crossed sheaves of dried wheat hung on the wall over the pie display. Toy tractors lined the shelves positioned high on the walls, and a giant tractor wheel sat on a wooden platform in the back corner.
    The waitress returned and grabbed a plastic menu from the holder on the side of the stand. “Just you?”
    Wasn’t I enough? I wanted to ask. Man, I needed coffee.
    I nodded.
    “Booth or counter?”
    “Actually, I was hoping to sit in Maria’s section.” I crossed my fingers and silently prayed that Ashlee had remembered the correct name.
    The waitress scanned the dining area.
    “Looks like we have one table free. Follow me.” She wound her way past several diners slurping up their eggs, buttering their toast, and salting their hash browns.
    I suppressed the urge to skip as I trailed after her,