page33 (2/2)

Part Three

&nbs

p; SOUTHERN FUNERAL FAVORITES

Chapter 44

COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY PEDAL a bicycle as slowly as I did going back to Eudora?

I looked all around h my little town still looked much as it had when I was a boy, noas stained and tattered alnition

Now the whole place was poisoned by torture andfroht about going to the police, but what good would it do? And besides, it would raise the question of why I had gone out to the scene of the lynchings

“You all soakin’ wet,” Maybelle said as I trudged up onto her porch “Set here with me and have a lemonade”

I put myself in a porch rocker and prepared to be disappointed, but the lemonade was cold, sweet, delicious

“Oh, I alot,” Maybelle said “You had a visitor while you were gone Senator Nottingham’s wife”

“Elizabeth? Did she leave any e?”

“No, she said she would stop by again But that re the et some today I put it in the front hall”

On the hall table was a square, crea’s delicate hand

I took the stairs two at a time Inside my room, I removed ood read

Dear Ben,