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tonight?” I asked.
    â€œJust our bowling league night,” she said.
    Richard Davis was a tough, old-time Texas businessman who favored string ties, cowboy boots, and ten-gallon hats and didn’t take guff from anyone. His favorite mode of transportation was a 1971 big-finned, fire engine–red Cadillac Eldorado that made most of the men in town drool.
    A recent widower, Richard had moved to New Chapel after his only son had settled here. Deciding it was time to retire, he’d sold his successful Texas roadhouse and land holdings; then, like Grace, he had found himself with too much time on his hands. He’d purchased an old bowling alley and miniature golf course and built a modern recreation center around them. Now he had a small sporting empire that employed more than one hundred people.
    Grace had met Richard last summer while bowling with her league, and they’d been constant companions ever since. I suspected Richard wanted to marry her, but she seemed to value her independence too much.
    â€œOne o’clock is fine with me, Grace,” I said. “I’m going to get this order finished and take it out to the Donnelly—” I heard a scratching sound and paused.
    Marco and Grace heard it, too. They turned toward the coolers to listen.
    â€œWhere’s Simon?” Marco asked.
    â€œHe must have slipped inside the cooler when I had the door open.” I pulled open the thick, insulated door, and Simon raced out and gave himself a shake. Bits of greenery were stuck to his whiskers.
    I glanced inside the cooler and saw shreds of feathery fern fronds all over the floor. “Bad boy!” I said sharply, closing the door. “You’re not supposed to chew my inventory!”
    He stopped grooming his hind leg to give me a look that said, Serves you right for locking me in an igloo.
    â€œStay out of the cooler, Simon,” I scolded.
    He spotted a glass bead on the floor and pounced on it, batting it under the worktable.
    â€œSave your voice, love. He’s simply being a cat,” Grace said. “As Stephen Baker once said, ‘Cats’ hearing apparatus is built to allow the human voice to easily go in one ear and out the other.’”
    â€œWho’s Stephen Baker?” Lottie asked, sticking her head through the curtain. “And why am I working both rooms alone?”
    â€œThere are actually three possible answers to your first question,” Grace said, following her through the curtain, “and one answer to your second. First, there was Stephen Baker, the U.S. representative in the eighteen hundreds—”
    â€œGrace is a human Wikipedia,” I said to Marco.
    He gave me another kiss. “I’ll see you after work.”
    Simon saw Marco head for the curtain and galloped after him. I caught him before he could escape. “You can’t go with Marco. How about some food?”
    After spooning canned tuna into Simon’s bowl, I finished the flower arrangement, wrapped it, and let my assistants know I was off to make the delivery.
    â€œI hope you have better luck getting the woman to chat than I did,” Lottie said, as she rang up a purchase.
    â€œNo problem,” I told her. “I’m a pro when it comes to being inquisitive.”
    â€œInquisitive,” Lottie said with a chuckle. “I thought you were going to say nosy.”
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    I don’t usually drive my Corvette to make deliveries, mostly because of its tiny trunk. But size was no deterrent today, and with the sun shining and the air smelling of spring, I put down the ragtop, turned on my CD player, and took off.
    The Donnelly house sat by itself on a long country road, wedged in between a cornfield and a big tract of cleared land that was about to become a new subdivision. The two-story gray-frame house was old and badly in need of repair. The shingles on the steep roof were curled. The paint was peeling, or in some places, worn away