"I want you to put me in jail." Archie Donovan, Junior, sported a wide smile as he made the request.

I stared at him in disbelief. "What?"

The two of us sat in the back booth of the Cardinal Café where Archie had urgently summoned me for a mid-morning cup of coffee. He'd walked from his insurance office and I'd strolled the few blocks from our funeral home, wondering with each step, what harebrained scheme he would propose. It looked like I wasn't going to be disappointed.

"Yes, Barry. You're a deputy sheriff."

"Part-time."

"Well, it's still official when you're on-duty."

"I'm not now."

Archie shook his head. "I don't want you to arrest me now. It will be at the parade."

I slid farther back in the booth, glancing around to see if anyone was overhearing our ridiculous conversation.

"Archie, you want to give me more background before I say no?"

Archie and I had known each other since grade school and in those years we'd been as compatible as oil and water. In junior high, Archie had dubbed me "Buryin' Barry" because my family lived in Gainesboro's one and only funeral home. The name had stuck through high school, and even today a former classmate might rib me in public. In short, Archie could push all my buttons without even trying. Now that we were both in our mid-thirties, I'd come to realize he wasn't mean, he was just tone deaf to the impact of what he said. That never stopped him from talking.

He leaned across the table. "Now, you support the Boys Club and Girls Club of Gainesboro, right?"

"Yes." I recognized his strategy of getting me to start saying yes before the poisoned-pill question was sprung.

"And you agree that they help mold young lives so the kids don't wind up in your jail?"

"Of course. Just get to the point."

"I want to raise money to help them. Through the Jaycees float in the Apple Festival Parade."

"By being arrested?"

Archie's eyes gleamed. "By being bailed out. Everyone thinks it's a great idea."

I restrained myself from asking who everyone might be.

Archie took a sip of coffee and then pushed the cup aside. "All right. Let me start over. I'm chairman of the Jaycees charity committee that's responsible for raising money. You know, like the annual haunted house."

"Bad example," I said. One year, at Archie's insistence, I'd lent the Jaycees a casket for the Halloween fundraiser, only to have a man murdered in it.

He shrugged. "Well, then not like it. Everything will be out in the open. The float will feature kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs and I'll be on it, standing in a mock jail, wearing one of those old-timey striped prison suits. The lettering on the float will say 'Free Archie and help our kids.'" He spread his hands as if the beauty of his proposal was now self-evident.

"I get it. People raise your bail for charity. How much?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

I whistled softly. "I don't know, Archie. That's a lot of money. How long can you stay on the float?"

"Just for the parade. Then I'll go to your jail. I'll post pictures on Facebook. I bet Melissa Bigham and the Vista will want to follow my progress. Every morning the paper could run an update." His eyes brightened even more. "Maybe list donors and corporate sponsors. How much will the funeral home kick in? It's great publicity."

I signaled time-out. "None of this is my call. You can do what you want with your float, but the jail's another matter. Tommy Lee has say over that, not me."

"But the sheriff listens to you. And he's always doing outreach programs. It's a win-win, a no-brainer."

Both expressions grated on my ears. "Win-win" reduced everything to a game, and "no-brainer" meant some decision was being made by someone without a brain. I took the easiest exit I could find.

"All right. I'll ask Tommy Lee, but no promises." I made a show of looking at my watch. "Sorry. I've got to go. Appointment at eleven."

Archie's smile vanished. "Someone die?"

"No."

The smile returned. "Good. I was afraid it was one of my policyholders. When they die, they stop paying their premiums."

I wondered how much money could be raised to keep Archie in jail.

* * *

As I neared the funeral home, I spotted a silver Mercedes parked in one of the handicapped spaces near the ramp to the front door. My eleven o'clock appointment had arrived early. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem because my partner, Fletcher Shaw, would have covered for me. But young Fletcher had taken the week after July Fourth for a vacation in the Bahamas with his girlfriend. He'd confided that he hoped to bring her back as his fiancée.

I quickened my stride and looped around the lot to come in through the back porch of the old antebellum home. Mom stood at a counter in the kitchen, wearing an apron over one of her Sunday dresses, arranging an assortment of cookies on a china plate. A tray with service for coffee was on the kitchen table.

"There you are," Mom said breathlessly. "Mrs. Sinclair showed up thirty minutes early. I was still in my housecoat."

My mother lived upstairs, where she and my father had raised me, their only child. After Dad died, I tried to convince Mom to move to a retirement community but she would hear nothing of it.

She set the cookies on the table with the coffee. "Fortunately, Wayne was still here and took her into the parlor."

Her brother, my Uncle Wayne, had moved upstairs a few months ago after selling his home in the county. If anything offered the possibility of encouraging Mom to join a retirement community, it was being under the same roof as Uncle Wayne. Although they loved each other dearly, they clashed over everything from politics to which blossoms made the best funeral arrangements. Mom was short, round, and cheery. Wayne was tall, slim, and skeptical. He was mid-seventies; she mid-sixties and forever the little sister. The only thing they shared in common was a headful of curly, cotton-white hair. And the belief that I was the smartest son/nephew in the world.

"Is he still with her?"

Mom rolled her eyes. "If he hasn't run her off." She lifted the coffee tray. "Bring the cookies and we'll see."

I followed her out of the kitchen and down the hall to the parlor. Before we were halfway there, I could hear Uncle Wayne speaking at the decibel level common to those who are hard of hearing.

"It's a crime, I tell you. I just don't want you shocked when you hear how much."

I tensed. Uncle Wayne must have jumped to providing cost information, something that was supposed to be left to Fletcher or me. My uncle quoted prices from memory — from 1975. And he apologized for them. I wondered how much damage I'd have to undo and whether Mom's homemade cookies would make our guest more amenable to whatever adjustments would be necessary.

"Barry's here," Mom called, as she crossed the threshold. "And I brought coffee." She set the tray on the table in front of our guest who sat on the sofa. Uncle Wayne was in a wingback chair angled across from her.

Mrs. Sinclair looked grateful for the interruption. She wore a gray skirt and a white blouse with a small rounded collar. The top two buttons were unfastened to reveal a pearl pendant hanging from a delicate gold chain. She started to rise, but I shifted the cookies to my left hand and offered my right.

"Please don't get...