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will I ever be able to walk into church again? How will I ever be able to bring food to another potluck? Everyone will be afraid of me. I knew I shouldn’t have cooked anything. I’m going to be known as Typhoid Jackie!”
    She jerked the glasses off and threw them into the back seat with force.
    “Nonsense. There is not a person in the church who wouldn’t eat what you cook, me included. You’re making too big a deal over this.”
    “B-but the church gossips—”
    “—are having a great time speculating on who really killed Alice. At the funeral home I heard it blamed on a neighbor who was upset about a tree Mrs. Farmer cut down. I also heard speculation about the manager of the grocery store because she complained about the high prices of his produce. And someone mentioned her niece in California needing money to support her drug habit. My favorite was the prankster teenagers who thought the mushrooms were hallucinogenic and wanted to watch Mrs. Farmer ‘tripping.’ But no one—not one person—said anything about you.”
    Jackie sat up and sniffed. “Really?”
    “Really. But you can bet they’re going to start talking about you soon.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Margaret leaned toward the younger woman. “If you suddenly stop coming to church, they’re going to wonder what you have to hide.”
    Margaret reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue, which Jackie took. “I guess you’re right.”
    “Of course I am. Now the best thing you can do is come to church on Sunday, just like always. Hold your head up high and tell anyone who asks that you hope they catch the creep who had the nerve to use your casserole to commit such a terrible crime.”
    Jackie gave her a weak smile, eyes reddened but dry. “Thank you, Margaret. I feel a lot better.”
    “I’m glad. Now take me home and we’ll have a nice, hot cup of tea. This rain has me shivering like a wet dog.”

     
    Rain pelted against Jackie’s bedroom window. No fair! Saturdays should be sunny. Why couldn’t rain come during the week, when everybody was at work?
    She pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and Linus, curled against her side, gave an irritable grumble at being suddenly buried. She shoved him gently.
    “Go sleep in the windowsill like a normal cat.”
    Displaying his typical disregard for her requests, he crept out from between the sheets and curled into a comfortable ball on the far corner of the mattress to resume his slumber.
    Jackie stared at the window, watching tiny waterfalls slide down the glass against the backdrop of a gloomy gray sky. She should have gone to the funeral yesterday. Margaret was right in saying everyone would be talking about her absence and wondering why Jackie Hoffner was too embarrassed to show up. She’d just given them something else to talk about, another reason to link her name to Mrs. Farmer’s death. As usual, she had done the wrong thing.
    Who cares what they think, anyway?
    She rolled over, turning her back to the window. Did it matter if people like Beverly Sanders whispered about her behind her back? Not in the least. She’d waltz into that church tomorrow with her head high and ignore them all. She’d done that plenty of times.
    Like back in school, when she came into the lunchroom and the girls at the table by the door fell quiet. Or worse, giggled as they looked at her discount-store jeans and T-shirt. Aunt Betty couldn’t afford to spend good money on fancy clothes like the other girls wore. And Jackie wouldn’t have wanted her to, anyway. Clothes didn’t matter.
    Of course, clothes weren’t the only thing the other girls in high school had talked about behind her back. No matter how hard she tried to fit in, Jackie always managed to say something stupid. Once she’d joined a cluster of classmates standing in the hallway outside Mrs. Kavanaugh’s room her sophomore year, talking about some hot guy named Justin Timberlake. Jackie had asked innocently, “Who’s that, a new