I nodded with my lips pressed together so I wouldn’t grin at him.

“And you know where it is?”

“Yes,” I breathed, thankful the elevator had come at last and the doors were opening.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Miss Teagarden,” the lawyer said, setting his black glasses back on his nose and turning away as the doors closed with me inside.

I thought a scream of joy would echo up the elevator shaft, so I quietly but ecstatically said, “Heeheeheeheehee, ” all the way down and did a little jig before the doors opened on the marble lobby.

I managed to get home to the town house on Parson Road without hitting another car, and pulled into my parking place planning how I could celebrate. The young married couple who’d taken Robin’s town house, to the left of mine, waved back hesitantly in answer to my beaming hello. The Crandalls’ parking space to the right was empty; they were visiting a married son in another town. The woman who’d finally rented Bankston Waite’s town house was at work, as always. There was a strange car parked in the second space allotted to my apartment, but since I didn’t see anyone I assumed it was a guest of one of the other tenants who didn’t know how to read.

I opened my patio gate singing to myself and hopping around happily (I am not much of a dancer) and surprised a strange man in black sticking a note to my back door.

It was a toss-up as to which of us was the more startled.

It took me a moment of staring to figure out who the man was. I finally recognized him as the Episcopal priest who’d performed Mother’s wedding and Jane Engle’s funeral. I’d talked to him at the wedding reception, but not at this morning’s funeral. He was a couple of inches over six feet, probably in his late thirties, with dark hair beginning to gray to the color of his eyes, a neat mustache, and a clerical collar.

“Miss Teagarden, I was just leaving you a note,” he said, recovering neatly from his surprise at my singing, dancing entrance.