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have already bonded.” That was definitely Doug.
    â€œWill you get that kid out of the house, Libby? It’s a school night. Where’s Edwina?”
    â€œShe’s over at Maggie’s. She didn’t want to be here when you called. In case you’re in jail, I suppose. Have they arrested you?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œI wish I’d taken Tuxedo’s picture before and after. Now he’s silky and fluffy and jumps around and his little pink mouth smiles.” Libby had found the creature in the MacDonald’s parking lot on the way to a friend’s house and rushed him home to be nursed by a doting grandmother. “He was so bedraggled and forlorn. He’s done nothing but eat since I brought him home.”
    Charlie hadn’t known her daughter knew words like forlorn. She made an effort to be reasonable. “He could belong to somebody, honey. Cats do wander.”
    â€œThis is a kitten, Mother, not a cat big enough to wander. He’s obviously abandoned. But we’ve put ‘found’ signs around the neighborhood and notified the animal shelter.”
    â€œThat’s not you I hear talking. Somebody’s feeding you lines. Is it Doug or Edwina? Is it Maggie? If she’s there I want to talk to her.”
    Libby Greene delivered a quick, sharp exit line and broke the connection. Her mother sat staring at the receiver as if it could talk on its own.
    The mammoth hand of the law lifted it from hers and replaced it. The hand’s owner sounded genuinely concerned. “You choking on a cherry pit, Charlie? You look awful.”
    â€œMy daughter just told me to fuck off.”
    â€œIt’s just a word, not a bullet. You’ll live. Can’t be the first time you heard her use it.”
    â€œNever on me, not that way. It sounds so different coming from your own daughter.” Charlie decided to give up swearing. “I don’t want her to be like me.”
    â€œYou’re not so bad. No great detective, but quite a woman, and it sounds to me like a great mother.”
    â€œI don’t want my daughter to be a mother at sixteen.” And Charlie lost it right there. No one was more surprised than she was. She pushed away from the consoling arms of the law and made another dash for the bathroom, this time for a tissue.
    â€œI don’t figure you,” the sheriff of Moot County said when she returned. “You see a dead woman pulled from under your car, face suspicion of murder, and then break up over a smart-mouth teenager on the telephone.” He had a curious way of grinning, the sheriff. The humor was all in his eyes and his mouth stayed closed with one corner turning down in a wryly self-deprecating manner that would have passed for a smirk on anyone else.
    His smile suggested that his size was no big deal, that he was in reality no threat, just a good-natured guy. It tempted you to join in. Charlie was wiping dumb tears off her face and could feel the corners of her mouth tilting upward when his beeper went off, startling them both.
    â€œMind if I use your phone?”
    â€œMight as well, made yourself at home every other way.”
    But he was already talking, “This is Bennett. Yeah? Where? On my way.” He headed for the door. “They’ve found the gun. See you in the morning and you stay put, hear?”
    â€œSheriff, you can’t leave me. The tide’s up, I haven’t got a car, and I haven’t had dinner.”
    â€œBought you all kinds of food today in Chinook.”
    â€œAnd you just ate it.”
    He came back down the hall and stared from her to the table, opened the refrigerator door, slammed it, and stood indecisively as if searching for a retort that just wasn’t there. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a pain in the brisket?”

Chapter 8
    Charlie sat in the Moot County Bronco and watched Wes Bennett lumber about in front of the headlights. She’d been ordered