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obediently.
    “That’s better. C’mon, Hoagy.” Thwack . “Dinner’s waiting.”
    “I’m right behind you.”
    Gordie relaxed as soon as she left. I gave him Sadie back.
    “Thankth, Hoagy,” he said. “ You take baths?”
    “Frequently.”
    He shrugged, disappointed. “Well, ’night.”
    “Good night, Gordie. Who is your favorite movie star, anyway — Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
    “Naw. McQueen .”
    “That makes two of us,” I said.
    “Really?” he cried.
    I nodded approvingly. “You’re okay, Gordie. You’re definitely okay. Too bad you’re a kid.”
    The big round kitchen table was heaped with a platter of fried chicken, bowls of coleslaw, macaroni salad, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, a basket of corn bread.
    Fern was filling two chilled mugs with beer. She squinted at me blindly when I came in. “That you, Hoagy?”
    “Looks good,” I said, partly to identify myself, and partly because it did.
    “Well, sit and get at it, honey. Just save a little room. I made an apple pie this morning, and there’s vanilla ice cream. We make our own. Vanilla, strawberry … ”
    “Licorice?” I asked, daring to hope. It’s my favorite, and damned hard to find.
    “Licorice? Why would anyone want to eat that?”
    “I can’t imagine.”
    I sat and got at it. We both did. The chicken was crisp and moist, the salads homemade, the corn bread fresh baked and laced with hunks of bacon. It wasn’t a common meal. I told her so between bites.
    “Got a husband, Fern?”
    “That a proposal?” She erupted in her big jolly laugh. “Naw. Never have.”
    “Gordie. Who is he?”
    “He’s the VADD poster boy,” she replied. “Picture’s plastered up all over the state. Them public service posters for Virginians Against Drunk Driving. Poor thing’s parents were killed by one a few months ago. Local working people. Gordie had no other living family, so Mavis decided to adopt him. She feels very strongly about drunk drivers. They’ve never known for sure, but it’s generally believed her own mom, Alma, was run over by one. Mavis helped start VADD. The proceeds from the golden-anniversary celebration are going toward it.”
    “She sounds mighty into her causes.”
    “Mavis don’t know how to do things halfway. And she’s got a darned good heart, too, deep down inside. People around here thought it mighty kind of her to take Gordie in as her own. I kinda like having him around to fuss over, you want to know the truth. I’m just sorry there isn’t more for him to do around here. No other kids to play with. He gets bored. Real quiet, too. Can’t hardly get a word out of him.”
    “Could have fooled me.”
    “He talked to you?” she asked, surprised. “Wonder how come.”
    “Just my good fortune, I guess.”
    She got us a couple of fresh beers from the fridge and filled our mugs.
    “If he’s a member of the family,” I said, “how come he’s living out there in a guest cottage?”
    “No room for him in here,” Fern replied, cleaning her plate. “Mavis has got her gymnasium in the spare bedroom upstairs. She works out like a demon. I offered to give up my room down here for him. She wouldn’t hear of it. But, hey, he bothers you, let me know. I’ll move him somewheres else.” She drank deeply from her mug, then she sat back with a contented sigh. “So it’s not true what they say about you in all them articles?”
    “What do they say?”
    She narrowed her eyes at me shrewdly. “That you solve murders.”
    “Oh, that. Not true. I attract them. A flaw of some kind in my character. I wish I knew what.” I had some of my beer. “Why do you ask?”
    Fern took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Cause I think somebody was murdered here. Sterling Sloan, the star of Oh , Shenandoah . I think he got himself murdered here fifty years ago next month, and that whoever did it to him got away with it.”

CHAPTER THREE
    “S TERLING SLOAN,” I POINTED out, “died of a ruptured