Right now, Angel and I were the only women in sight. There were three deputies, the coroner, a local doctor, the sheriff, and our husbands. There were two men in the ambulance crew waiting to take “the deceased” to-wherever they took things like that.

Lanier gave me a thorough head-to-toes evaluation, and I realized I was wearing shorts, a halter top, and dried sweat, and that my long and wayward hair was sloppily gathered into a band on top of my head. “You musta been enjoying the sun, Miss Roe,” he said genially. “A little early in the spring for it, ain’t it?”

Now my friends call me Roe, but I’d never counted Lanier among them. I realized it was Lanier’s way of handling a problem. I’d kept my own name when I’d married Martin, a decision on my part that I don’t yet understand, since my laughable name had been the bane of my life. When you introduce yourself as “Aurora Teagarden” you’re going to get a snigger, if not a guffaw.

Padgett didn’t know whether to call me Miss Teagarden, Mrs. Teagarden, or Mrs. Bartell, or Ms. Teagarden-Bartell, and “Miss Roe” was his compromise gesture.

My husband was watching the activity by the mower, standing with the relaxed attitude of a guy who comes home every day to find a man embedded in his lawn. That is to say, Martin was trying to look relaxed, but his gaze was following every move the lawmen made, and he was very busy thinking. I could tell because his mouth was an absolutely straight line, and his arms were crossed across his chest, the fingers twiddling: his Thinking Stance. The slightly taller Shelby lounged over to stand beside Martin, his hands stuck in his jeans pockets to show how relaxed he was. With the synchronicity born of long association, the two men turned and looked at each other, some silent comment about the fallen dead man passing between them.