Chapter 16: The Front Row

The place card at Row 1, Seat 1 said RENA KIMBALL (MOTHER).

The brackets were in the same careful handwriting as the notebook.

I held it up under the church hall lights and read the word in them twice.

It was Saturday, five minutes before noon, and the hall smelled like coffee urns and warm sugar.

There were round tables with paper cloths and a stage with a lectern.

A banner over the stage said GRANDMOTHER OF THE YEAR in glitter letters, and a long table of casseroles ran along the back wall.

Gil walked in behind me holding a nine-by-thirteen pan covered in foil.

"Dish to pass," he said to the table of ladies guarding the potluck. "Scalloped potatoes."

Under the potatoes, sealed in a freezer bag, was the black notebook.

The lady with the cameo brooch was standing at the end of the potluck table.

She looked at the pan, and at him, and at the foil.

She said nothing.

She lifted the pan out of his hands, carried it to the head of the table by the stage steps, and set it down where she could see it.

Then she went back to her station and folded her arms.

"I think we have a friend," Gil whispered.

"I think we have a notary," I whispered back.

He looked around for his own place card.

It was on Table 14, in the far corner, beside the kitchen door and the fire exit.

It said GIL KIMBALL (FATHER).

He turned it over, and on the back, in smaller print, someone had written: Needs to leave early?

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