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recently it had been owned by a family named Morrison, whom Bess now spoke of only as "those traitors," lumping them in with every other neighbor who'd taken Brandon Lyle's money and skedaddled. Leigh suspected that the Morrisons, like herself, probably preferred to live someplace where the only access road was neither riddled with manatee-sized potholes nor, at times, completely underwater. But there was no point in arguing such trivialities with her Aunt Bess, whose only response to the road's gradually deteriorating condition had been to purchase a Jeep with bigger wheels.
    As the road turned and crooked through the particularly thick woods obscuring the home of Bess's longtime neighbor Clem, Leigh's brow furrowed. The man had never caused her aunt any trouble, but his threats to Geralyn had been unsettling, to say the least. His house, which was set well off the road and back in the trees, was a rambling, ramshackle affair that had not seen a coat of paint since Leigh had been a size six. She caught only a glimpse of wheel-less vehicles, rusted oil drums, one brand-new pup tent, two wandering goats, and a hand-lettered sign reading "no trezpassing hear" before her attention was drawn back to the road, lest she wreck the van's suspension.
    She would have to talk to her Aunt Bess about him.
    One more bend in the road and she at last reached her Aunt's place, a well kept, white frame, one and a half story farmhouse. Though nowhere near as showy as the ex-Morrison's, the house's wide, inviting front porch, prominent chimney, and large windows made it by far the coziest dwelling in the neighborhood. Leigh parked, hopped out, and strode quickly to the front door, behind which she could already hear the yapping of Bess's primarily Pekingese, Chester.
    "Come in, come in," Bess called gaily, swinging the door open wide as the geriatric pooch spilled out and hastened to sniff at Leigh's ankles, spinning like a top as he did so. "Calm down, Chester!" Bess corrected gently. "You know perfectly well it's only Miss Leigh." She turned to her niece. "He may not see too well anymore, but he certainly isn't deaf, is he? Still lets me know every time a car passes. Which is practically never, since the neighbors all did their deals with the devil. So, where are the kids?"
    Leigh hesitated. Her Aunt Bess looked the same as she always looked, which was to say, ageless. The woman was in her late sixties, but you couldn't tell it by her choice in fashions. She had worn her hair in a modified beehive well into the twenty-first century, changing it only when—after a long-awaited vacation to London—she decided that she really must do a little neon pink highlighting. Since then, her hairstyle had changed almost weekly. Today, Leigh was being treated to an off-the-shoulder flip that could be right out of the sixties, if it weren't for the fact that Bess's dyed-brown hair was also sporting feather extensions. Never one to confine herself to the fashion of a single decade, Bess's outfit of the day consisted of a staunchly conservative-looking cotton wool cardigan matched with modern capris (both filled to capacity by their wearer's bounteous curves), and bare feet adorned with dark blue nail polish.
    "They're still at the shelter," Leigh said hesitantly, entering. Why exactly had she thought it was a good idea to see Bess now, before she could say anything about the murder? She couldn't ask about Clem yet, either—she would have to stay off the topic of the development altogether. "I was waiting for them anyway, so I thought I'd just pop over," she explained truthfully. "What's this about a new toy?"
    Bess gave a little hop on her feet and whirled back toward the big-screen television that graced the center of her living room. She grabbed a remote and moved to sit on the couch, an action which caused a mad scurrying of the three cats currently occupying that space. Bess had, at any given time, at least seven felines in residence. Ever since she had