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would make Scarlett O’Hara look positively chubby, it is a wonderment where she stores all this.
    Wynnell fixed her unibrow on the manager, which sent the poor gal scurrying back to the kitchen. “The problem is,” she said, when the coast was clear, “that we’re here as Abby’s backup team. But according to that fellow who grilled me like a well-seasoned tenderloin this morning, my petite friend here, my best buddy, my galloping gal pal—”
    “Okay, we get it,” Mama said. “Could you just get to the point, dear?”
    “Well, the point is that your daughter is the number one suspect.”
    “ What? ” I cried. In my distress I stood so abruptly that I tipped our table, causing empty, but nonetheless sticky and gooey plates to slide into C.J.’s and Wynnell’s laps.
    Wynnell ignored the egg yolk on her white cotton blouse and the syrup on the lap of her blue bias-cut skirt. “He knocked on the door at six-thirty, Abby, and made it sound like I had to speak to him. You know, down at the station. I didn’t know what else to do.”
    “What did he ask, and what did you tell him?”
    “He asked mostly stupid stuff, like how long had I known you, did I ever hear you talk about the victim, did I think you were capable of killing anyone—that kind of thing.”
    “And what did you say? About me killing someone?”
    “I said that it was theoretically possible, but extremely doubtful. I told him about the time we found a mouse in the storeroom and you insisted that we catch the little fellow in one of those humane traps and release it in the black neighborhood.”
    “ What? ”
    “Well, you did; that’s where the vacant lot was.”
    “Wynnell, dearest, I merely directed you to release the critter in the nearest vacant lot. Now the detective is going to think that I’m a racist. C.J., were you grilled as well before breakfast?”
    The galoot had crammed half a biscuit into her mouth and was having trouble swallowing it. I waited patiently while she chased the pastry down with half a tumbler of milk and a glass of ice water.
    “I have my own room now, Abby, on account of Wynnell snores like an asthmatic orangutan. Anyway, he knocked on my door at six thirty-five, only he was a she in my case. I know because I was on the phone with my ex—your brother—and I had my eye on the clock. It isn’t cheap calling the Congo.”
    “Toy is in the Congo ?”
    “My only son is in the Congo?” Mama wailed.
    “The Democratic Republic of the Congo—which is anything but. There are two countries that call themselves Congo, Abby. This is the by far the bigger one; this is the one most people think of when they hear that name.”
    “Fascinating geography lesson, C.J., but what’s my brother—your ex—and mama’s son—doing there?”
    “He’s delivering mosquito nets to remote villages. Malaria kills thousands of people over there every year.”
    “My son the saint,” Mama said.
    “How did he get to the Congo?” I asked. “Did he walk across the Atlantic?”
    “Good one,” C.J. said. “I’m sure he took a plane, Abby. But my cousin Malcolm Ledbetter up in Shelby can walk on water.”
    “That’s very interesting,” I said. “What questions did the detective ask you?”
    “You don’t believe me, do you, Abby?”
    “Well—”
    “You’ve never believed any of my Shelby stories, have you?”
    “Never say never, right? Right, Mama? Right, Wynnell?”
    “If y’all will excuse me, I need to use the little girls’ room,” Mama said.
    “I’m coming with you,” Wynnell said. “Somewhere it’s written that we ladies of a certain generation must always do this in pairs.”
    “You’re not that old, dear,” Mama said, “but come along. And do hurry. This is one conversation that I’d prefer to miss out on.”
    Apparently C.J. was not in a waiting mood. “Well what ?” she said before Mama was even safely to her feet.
    “Well,” I said, “some of your stories are a little