The half hour I sat with Arnold Otis in EATS waiting for Marjory’s friends was awkward. From the moment we walked into the restaurant, the few people there, at this late supper hour of seven o’clock, eyed him. One of the old farmers I’d met at the Feed and Seed leaned back and waggled a finger toward Arnold as we made our way to a back booth. “I sure as hell know you, don’t I? Seen you on the TV. Am I right?” he demanded.

Arnold switched into celebrity mode, agreeing that the man probably knew him: “Running for senator. Not in this district, but don’t forget to vote next month.” He shook the man’s hand, then the hand of everyone at their table. He nodded left and right and all around him, then came to where Flora Coy, the town bird lady, sat. She gave him a look that wasn’t the friendliest.

“I know you.”

“Grew up in Leetsville, Ma’am.”

She shook her head.

“You’ve been around.”

He nodded. “That I have.”

“You drive an old red Chevy?”

Arnold threw his head back and laughed. “Not that I recall.”

He glanced over to see if I was enjoying this as much as he was.

He patted Flora on the shoulder and pushed on, leaving her to straighten her large, pink-framed glasses and turn to complain in a bird-like voice that she knew him from somewhere.

By the time the restaurant had settled down from having a celebrity in their midst, and we’d ordered—Arnold going with the wedge of lettuce, French dressing, and a cup of coffee—Crystalline, Felicia, and Sonia walked in.

Arnold, ever the gracious gentleman, stood and nodded the three women to seats, then grabbed an unused chair from another table, set it at the end of the booth, and sat down. He said how happy he was to meet them and offered menus, telling them to order anything. “Anything at all. I’m paying. The least I can do for Marjory’s friends.”

Nobody seemed hungry. Crystalline and Felicia ordered coffee. Sonia ordered a diet Coke. Arnold clucked at this, telling them that lovely women such as they were didn’t need to watch their weight—surely. He threw back his large head—one hand up to hold his glasses in place—then urged them again to order. “A steak. Chicken. Whatever you want.” He accepted their rejection with bad grace, saying how he wanted to do something for his sister’s good friends.

This time Sonia muttered that it was too bad he hadn’t done more for Marjory while she was alive. Arnold chose to ignore her and turned to Crystalline.

“I was hoping to discuss Marjory’s funeral with you.” He spread his hands. “There’s nobody else to go to.”

“We were talking about that,” Crystalline said, glancing over at the other two.

“Have you come to any decision?”

Crystalline frowned and pushed her flaming red hair back from her colorful face. “We kind of thought it was up to you. As her only … well, one of her relatives.”

He nodded. “What I’d like to suggest then is that I leave it in your hands. I’ll pay for everything. But, seeing that I’m the only relative, I’d like it done quickly. I thought cremation. Maybe internment in a mausoleum, down there in Toledo …”

Felicia, who’d been looking at Arnold long and hard, snorted. “No ceremony? No memorial service? Marjory deserves better than that …” She stopped to stare at him harder. “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got a bad aura?”

He frowned at her and turned to say something to Crystalline.

“You see it?” Felicia turned to Sonia. Sonia nodded.

“Too red,” Felicia said.

Sonia nodded again.

“Could be about Marjory.”

Felicia made a face. “I don’t know. Red aura with flashes of white. You ever seen anything like it?”

Sonia slowly shook her head. Arnold, who hadn’t been fascinated up to that point, lost patience.

“I need this taken care of right away. I don’t want it hanging on. There’s an election coming up …”

“And your brother?”

“You mean Paul? I seriously doubt he’d care. I don’t know where he is …”

“He wrote to Marjory. Or someone wrote for him.”

“That was me. I had a friend write her. There were problems …”

“Really? I don’t think Marjory thought …”

“Someone trying to extort money from me.”

Crystalline shook her head slowly.

“Even if Paul is really still alive, I’m afraid the problems he had when I last saw him would have worsened.”

“Problems?” I asked, getting involved again.

“Much like my mother’s problems. Paul was mentally ill. Even hospitalized for a while. Last I heard he was hurt in an accident. At first I thought he had died. I tried to find him but by the time I got to the hospital where he’d been, he was gone. There’s no telling … mental home again. Or dead. If Paul’s alive he could easily have killed Marjory. The mental illness, you know? Another thing I wish wouldn’t get out to the newspapers.” He looked pointedly at me.

“I’m not into muckraking,” I said, bristling. It seemed this man was in the habit of directing reporters as to what they could or could not print about him. If he hadn’t yet heard of freedom of the press, I hoped to get a moment or two to instruct him.

“The world’s ending in a few days, you know,” Crystalline said. “Maybe that should come first.”

“What are you talking about?” He frowned as if exasperation with all of us was finally doing him in.

“One of the reasons Marjory said she was coming here—to settle something about this End of the World cult.”

“I saw them in town,” he said. “Why would such a thing interest Marjory? I really doubt …”

“She told me there was something she had to take care of with them.”

“What?” he demanded.

Crystalline shrugged. “No clue. That’s all she said. But I figure we’ve got to find out what it was. And your mother—there’s a question there, too. Emily, here, has more questions.”

“Could you please tell me why you can’t go back where you came from and see to Marjory’s funeral? I’ve offered …” Arnold let his disgust show. He was finished with us.

Crystalline reared back, nose going into the air. “We’re not going to be a party to hurrying what Emily and that chief of police are doing. Doesn’t seem you care as much as they do about who murdered Marjory.”

He shook his head. “They’re not involved anymore. It’s all taken care of. I’m bringing in other authorities. The FBI might need to be called …”

“You know she was strangled,” I asked, it just hitting me that he’d asked no questions about how Marjory died.

“I heard. A rope, wasn’t it? A piece of white, cotton rope? Has anyone gotten a piece of the rope those cult people use for belts?”

I nodded. “Common rope. Could’ve been bought anywhere. Lucky didn’t think …”

“Yes, that’s a problem, isn’t it? That Lucky doesn’t think? I’ll feel a great deal better when I have my own people working on poor Marjory’s death. She deserves the best minds.” He sniffed and looked over my head.

“That was one of the first things I noticed,” he went on. “Those people and their end of the world business—they’re kooks. Could have been any one of them. Perhaps because of that shamanism of hers. Religious people don’t take kindly to things like that.”

Crystalline looked as if she’d swallowed something sour. The other two mumbled and examined their thumbnails.

“I’m getting the FBI in on this right away …”

Crystalline looked over at me. “Tomorrow might settle everything, right, Emily? I mean, if you find something out there …”

“Out where?” Arnold demanded, looking from Crystalline to me.

“Deward,” she answered. “The digging.”

“Digging? Oh, my God! No.” He moaned his surprise. “What’s this about now? I thought it was settled. Lucky Barnard and that Officer Winston are out of the picture. They’d better not be messing with any evidence the FBI might want to see. What do you mean, ‘digging’? Where? What I think is happening here is you and the chief of police have gone off the deep end.” He stopped, staring hard at each of us, and stood.

He put his hands flat on the table and pushed the salad Gloria had just delivered aside. He looked menacingly toward each one of us. “I can see you people are determined to hurt my reputation. From what I’m hearing, I’d say maybe you’re nothing but a bunch of Democrats. Or somebody’s gotten to you; paying you to make my life a living hell. I’m going to say this one time. You get it? One time only. Leave me and my family alone. Take my offer to pay for Marjory’s cremation, interment—whatever you want. I want it over. Behind me. If you keep getting in the way I promise you—every one of you.” He looked hard at me. “You’re going to regret it.”

He walked off, cell phone already to his ear, angrily brushing away a proffered hand held out to shake his.

Crystalline, watching him go, called after him, “Marjory’s getting a big funeral. She’s got a lot of friends in Toledo. You’ll see it in all the papers …”

She smirked over at me.

“And keep your money, you son of a bitch!” Sonia called toward his retreating back.

A buzz ran through the restaurant. Eugenia, behind her glass counter, fly swatter in her hand, glowered after the wannabe senator as if she wanted to take a swat at him.

I paid for all of us, since the good politician had forgotten his promise.