“No, I wouldn’t,” I said.

My voice didn’t carry past the third pew, but Higgins heard it plainly enough.

He pulled his head back and mopped his forehead again with the damp handkerchief.

I leaned back against the hard oak bench and let him sweat.

He had earned every drop of it, I suppose.

At two thirty, a dull buzz came through the lining of my purse.

I unsnapped the brass clasp on Evelyn’s old black leather purse sitting on the pew beside me.