"Halleigh, since you're marrying a policeman, maybe you'll be able to tell me... just how big is a cop's nightstick?" Elmer Claire Vaudry asked.

I was sitting beside the bride-to-be, Halleigh Robinson, since I'd been given the all-important task of recording each gift and its giver as Halleigh opened all the white-and-silver wrapped boxes and flowered gift bags.

No one else seemed the least surprised that Mrs. Vaudry, a fortyish grade school teacher, was asking a bawdy question at this firmly middle-class, church lady event.

"Why, I wouldn't know, Elmer Claire," Halleigh said demurely, and there was a positive chorus of disbelieving sniggers.

"Well, now, what about the handcuffs?" Elmer Claire asked. "You ever use those handcuffs?"

A fluttering of southern lady voices rose in the living room of Marcia Albanese, the hostess who'd agreed to let her house be the sacrificial lamb: the actual shower site. The other hostesses had had the lesser problems of bringing the food and the punch.

"You are just something, Elmer Claire," Marcia said from her spot by the refreshments table. But she was smiling. Elmer Claire had her role as the Daring One, and the others were glad to let her enjoy it.

Elmer Claire would never have been so vulgar if old Caroline Bellefleur had been present at the shower. Caroline was the social ruler of Bon Temps. Miss Caroline was about a million years old and had a back stiffer than any soldier. Only something extreme would keep Miss Caroline home from a social event of this importance to her family, and something extreme had happened. Caroline Bellefleur had suffered a heart attack, to the amazement of everyone in Bon Temps. To her family, the event had not been a tremendous surprise.