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telling Toots it probably wasn’t politically correct to chain-smoke in the presence of the first lady, knowing she and her husband were health nuts.
    â€œI don’t know about you, but if I don’t have a cigarette soon, I’m going to croak,” Sophie said as she hustled toward the beach house.
    â€œOh dear, and here I thought you both were happy chewing your nicotine gum. Why don’t you try that for a while? It can’t be as bad for your lungs as those nasty old cigarettes you smoke,” Mavis said sweetly.
    Toots placed an arm around Mavis’s shoulder as the two of them walked up the steps to the beach house. “Our cigarette habit is as bad as your junk-food habit was. I know it isn’t healthy, and so does Sophie. At this point in my life, I don’t feel like I’m quite ready to give up the habit, but I promise I will continue to chew that nasty rubbery nicotine gum just for you, Mavis. How’s that?”
    â€œI suppose it will have to do,” Mavis said. “I do wish you two would stop.”
    Ida, who lagged behind, spoke up. “Sophie and Toots don’t have the power to overcome their addiction.”
    Toots turned around and looked at Ida. “I don’t want to overcome any of my addictions, Ida. I like sugar, I like cigarettes, and I like an occasional drink. So there. Why don’t you consider giving up men?”
    â€œYou can be such an ass.” Ida’s words weren’t said maliciously, as it was just the type of relationship they shared. Two old women bitching at each other for anything and everything. Toots was quite fond of Ida and vice versa.
    Toots flipped her the single-digit salute.
    Once everyone was back inside the beach house, they went to their respective rooms. They had established a routine since their temporary relocation to Los Angeles. Mavis was the official chef since she’d lost all that weight, and had become very adept at serving them healthful and delicious meals. Toots, of course, had to have her sugar-laced bowl of Froot Loops at least once a week, but she managed to do so without letting Mavis know about it. Ida, no longer obsessed with germs, had focused her energy on her old passion, photography. Toots admitted that Ida was quite good at it and encouraged her to pursue her interest. Beyond that, Mavis and Ida had become quite successful with funeral parlors throughout the country.
    Mavis had designed a line of clothing called Good Mourning. They were clothes mourners could wear not only during the rituals intended to ease the journey of the dearly departed into the netherworld, a world in which Sophie seemed so comfortable, but even after the mourners’ loved ones had crossed over.
    Ida, a stunning woman extremely skilled at applying makeup, took an interest in Mavis’s project when Mavis went to a conference in San Francisco, where she learned how to lay out the dead. In the course of their activities, Ida developed her own line of cosmetics, Drop-Dead Gorgeous .
    Mavis, in her desire to help the dearly departed look their best, had also designed a line of clothing for the dead. Her success was so great, she had had to hire a team of seamstresses, then rent a warehouse from which to operate the company. While most of her orders came from the Internet, she had become quite well-known among morticians and funeral directors.
    They had all come quite a long way since Toots had sent them that e-mail two years ago inviting them to Charleston right after her eighth husband, Leland, a wealthy cheapskate, had kicked the bucket. She’d felt herself at loose ends, something in her wanting to make a dramatic change in her life. Abby’s phone call telling her that The Informer was going up for sale had catapulted her into the life she now shared with her three childhood friends. She was truly a happy camper.
    While she and the girls were in California, Bernice, her dear friend and housekeeper for more