“She’s set the chairs up right and made the coffee,” Sally said after looking around. “But I don’t see her purse. Maybe she ran home for something.”

“How’d she get past us?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sally was beginning to sound irritated with me, too. “She’ll show up. She always does!”

And we both laughed a little, trying to lose our displeasure with each other in our amusement at Mamie Wright’s determination to go to everything her husband attended, be in every club he joined, share his life to the fullest.

Bankston Waites and his light of love, Melanie Clark, came in as I put my notebook on the podium and slid my purse underneath it. Melanie was a clerk at Mamie’s husband’s insurance office, and Bankston was a loan officer at Associated Second Bank. They’d been dating about a year, having become interested in each other at Real Murders meetings, though they’d gone through Lawrenceton High School together a few years ahead of me without striking any sparks.

Bankston’s mother had told me last week in the grocery store that she was expecting an interesting announcement from the couple any day. She made a particular point of telling me that, since I’d gone out with Bankston a few times over a year ago, and she wanted me to know he was going to be out of circulation. If she was waiting in suspense for that interesting announcement, she was the only one. There wasn’t anyone in Lawrenceton Bankston and Melanie’s age left for them to marry, except each other. Bankston was thirty-two, Melanie a year or two older. Bankston had scanty blond hair, a pleasant round face, and mild blue eyes; he was Mr. Average. Or at least he had been; I noticed for the first time that his shoulder and arm muscles were bulging underneath his shirt sleeves.