As Ginger was walking up to Coreyville Coffee Cakes, her cell phone rang. It was the chief.
“She’s dead.”
“From the poison?”
“What poison? She drove straight into the back of an 18-wheeler that was parked on the side of the highway. She must have been doing at least eighty.”
She felt sad about Silvy. Ginger was probably the [...]

Ginger left Bull’s and quickly walked around the corner to Cash & Carry Donuts. She went directly to Cash’s office. He was slumped over in his chair, obviously in great pain.
“Where is she?” said Ginger.
Cash could barely speak. “Who?”
“Silvy.”
He jumped up from his chair and hurried around the desk and out into the hallway, pointing [...]

The afterglow of Elijah’s kiss to her forehead was just beginning to wear off when Ginger remembered the gun. Danny was dead, but she still had his pistol locked away downstairs in the basement.
She wondered if Danny would be alive right now if he’d had his gun for protection. What was he doing at that [...]

When Addie got back from the police station, Ginger called her into the office.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ginger.”
“Come on, Addie. How long have we been friends? You know you can tell me anything. I won’t judge you. Now what’s going on?”
“You can’t say a word about this to anyone.”
“I won’t,” said Ginger. [...]

“Looks like Navy had a lot of friends,” said Ethel.
“They’re not friends,” said Barb. “They’re just curious.”
“Like us,” said Jane, surveying the room.
Ginger was curious too. But she had a legitimate reason to attend Navy’s funeral: one of her coffee cakes had killed him.
She spotted Bull Crawley way in the back left corner, sitting [...]

It was too late to knock on Ginger’s door. He knew that. The porch was dark, but there was light coming from the living room. It was 10:45 p.m., so she was probably dressed for bed. He pulled the car over anyway. What would the neighbors think?
He got out of his car, walked to the [...]

As Ginger was leaving Ellegora Newcomb’s house, she asked when Navy’s funeral would be held, and was surprised to find out that it would be the next morning, at ten. That didn’t allow much time to get the word out. Ellegora told her she had left the planning up to their family attorney, Carl Vittleman.
Ginger [...]

Ginger’s 2002 Buick LeSabre had less than 20,000 miles on it. She’d averaged about 50 miles per week over the past six years. At that rate, she figured the car would last longer than she would.
It took ten minutes to drive out to Ellegora Newcomb’s estate, and another minute or so to make it up [...]

Almando Monet sat in his small, but plush upstairs office waiting on a client who was late for his appointment. Almando was a self-made man, and had no patience for those who didn’t understand that time is money.
Manny, as he liked to be called, looked like a thirty-year-old Antonio Banderas. He had legally changed [...]

At about 10:30 a.m., Ginger walked down to Scissy’s Beauty Shop. Sissy Gossett had earned the nickname ‘Scissy’ in beauty school, twenty-seven years ago. People were amazed at how fast she could work a pair of scissors. She zigged and zagged and hovered above your head like a hummingbird. You didn’t dare move an inch [...]