Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

sighed. “Coming up, Anna,” I said.
    Miss Lana came to the kitchen door moments later. “Friends,” she said. “Mo and I are hosting a memorial service for Jesse Tatum here at the café, Sunday afternoon. You’re all invited. Please help spread the word.”
    Attila looked up from her soda. “A funeral?
Here?
”
    Reverend Thompson tugged his napkin from his collar. “Lana, a service for Jesse is a wonderful idea. This is a great venue, but I wish you’d consider having it at Creekside Church. We have a large sanctuary, and I’m sure Rose would play for the service.” Miss Rose is Creekside’s pianist. Sometimes Dale solos while she plays. “It would mean a lot to me,” Reverend Thompson added.
    I looked around the café, into a sea of baffled faces. Mr. Jesse had never set foot in Creekside Church, as far as I knew. But Miss Lana’s Go with the Flow kicked into overdrive. “Wonderful,” she said. “Shall we say Sunday at two p.m.?”
    “Perfect,” Reverend Thompson said, and Miss Lana returned to her griddle.
    To my surprise, the breakfast crowd headed out early. To my horror, Attila stuck me with her check. On the back, she’d scribbled a message:
Thanks for breakfast, Mo-ron. Say hi to Dale for me.
    As Dale and I finally sat down to eat, around 9:30, Thes darted back in. “I didn’t want to mention it with Daddy here, but Spitz is missing. The case is yours.”
    “Your cat? Again?” Dale said. “Spitz runs away every time the wind changes. He’s a repeat offender, Thes. We ain’t looking for him.”
    “You advertised,” he said, pointing to our sign. “That’s like giving your word.”
    I sighed and opened my order pad. “We’ll need an official description.”
    “Cat,” Thes said. “Orange hair, green eyes, chunky body.”
    Spitz,
I wrote.
Looks like Thes
.
    “Last known whereabouts?”
    “The churchyard,” he said. “Yesterday. About the same time Mr. Jesse turned up dead.” He swallowed hard. “You don’t think …”
    “Nobody’s thinking serial killer,” Dale said, his blue eyes serious. “Not yet.”
    Reverend Thompson honked his horn, and Thes bolted. “We need to hurry too,” I told Dale. “We gotta get to the crime scene.”
    “Us?” he said. “The crime scene?”
    “Of course,” I said, ignoring the syrup on his chin. “We’re professionals.”
    “Okay, but I better check in with Mama first,” he said. He folded his last pancake into his mouth.
    One thing about Miss Rose: She likes to keep track of her baby.

Chapter
10
At the Tobacco Barn
    Twenty minutes later, we pounded up Miss Rose’s steps. “Mama,” Dale called as the screen door slapped shut behind us. “I’m home.” Silence. “Must be out in the garden,” he muttered. “Come on. She’ll want to say hello.”
    We were halfway down the hall when a door opened behind us. “Hold it right there, young man,” Miss Rose said, sticking her head out of her bedroom. “Where do you think you’re going?” I knew from the panic on Dale’s face that he’d forgotten he’d snuck out last night to come to my house.
    How he forgets these things remains a mystery to me.
    “Morning, Miss Rose,” I said. “Nice morning to sleep in, ain’t it?”
    “I imagine it would be, if I had the wherewithal to live that way,” she said, the frost in her voice nipping my ears.
    Her green eyes settled on Dale. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
    “Morning, Mama,” Dale said, offering a weak smile.“Did you find my note? I left one so you wouldn’t worry.”
    “A note,” she said, fishing through her skirt pocket. “A note. Let me see if I can lay my hand on a note. Oh! That’s right. I found something on your bed when I went in to wake you for breakfast. Here it is. What a happy circumstance.”
    Somehow I doubted the circumstance was going to be happy much longer.
    She held out a crumpled scrap of paper and adjusted her reading glasses. “‘Mama,’” she read. “‘I am a murder