"Not to mention who's going to buy it now that a mummy was found inside," Helen pointed out.

Lexy's stomach felt like a heavy rock had sunk to the bottom of it. Helen had a point. Would no one want to buy Jack's house now? Would they be stuck with it? She didn't want to have to move into Jack's house and sell hers-the one she'd bought from Nans-because it had so many childhood memories. Lexy had images of Jack's house sitting empty and abandoned and her never being able to repay her parents.

As if by universal connection, her cell phone chirped and she glanced down to see it was her mother. The rock in her stomach grew even heavier, but she'd just pulled into the Witts' driveway, so talking to her mother would have to wait.

"I think I'll take the lead on this one," Nans said, and Lexy felt some of her anxiety ease. Finally, Nans was getting back to her old self.

They all jumped out of the car and Nans marched up to the door, which opened even before she knocked.

"Mona! What a surprise!" Ron glanced behind her at the rest of them. "Oh, you brought friends."

"You remember my granddaughter, Lexy." Nans gestured to Lexy, then turned to the other women. "And these are my friends, Ruth, Ida and Helen."

They exchanged greetings and then Nans explained, "We've been looking into the case of the mummy over at the McDonalds' place."

Ron shifted his weight. "Oh, right. I heard about that and I know you have a detective service now. What can I help you with?"

"Well." Nans glanced around the neighborhood uneasily. "We've asked around to all the neighbors that lived here back then about Earl and such. We're just coming to ask you now."

"Oh, well, come on in." Ron pushed the door wide and they all piled into the living room of the small house. It was light and bright inside. White walls, white slip-covered furniture, hardwood floors. Unlike most of the other houses on the street, this one had been nicely redone.

Ron's wife, Esther, bustled out from the kitchen with a tray of fresh-baked lemon squares and tea, making Lexy wonder if they'd been expecting company or if they always kept refreshments on hand.

"Oh, goodie, lemon squares." Ida peered at the tray. "Those are my favorite."

"Take one." Esther gestured to the sofa and chairs. "Everyone, have a seat."

They each took a seat, balancing the lemon squares and coffees precariously on their laps.

"Now, how can we help?" Ron asked.

"The other neighbors have all mentioned the stranger. To tell the truth, I'd forgotten about him. Do you remember that?" Nans asked.

"Oh, yes, quite vividly," Esther answered. "We saw him over by the culvert a few times. Very odd."

Esther gestured out the window and Lexy looked in that direction. The Witts' house was next to a shallow culvert lined with rocks. She remembered from her childhood that it would fill with water, creating a shallow stream when it rained. A smile tugged the corners of her lips with the memory of how she used to like to play there, despite Nan's constant warnings not to.

"And you think he could have been the killer?" Nans' question pulled Lexy's attention back to the room.

Esther and Ron nodded solemnly. "Must have been. Who else would it be?"

"Tell Ron about the witness who saw him fighting with Earl," Ida cut in.

Ron's cheek twitched. He frowned at Ida. "Witness?"

Nans waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, the guy redoing the McDonalds' basement ... what was his name?"

"Nesbaum," Ida supplied around a mouthful of lemon square.

"Yeah, that's right. He says one day he heard you fighting with Earl. Very loudly," Ruth piped in.

"Claims it was the day Earl died," Ida added.

Ron's eyes darted from Nans to Ida. "Well ... I don't ..."

"Oh, I think I remember that," Esther cut in. "I don't know if it was the day he died. I mean, that was over fifty years ago. Who can remember? Anyway, it was about the insurance."

"We heard about that." Helen looked at them over the rim of her coffee cup. "So he tried to sell you insurance, too, then?"

Ron looked down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap. "We bought it ... and then I found out it was a total scam. I called up the insurance company to check on something and they didn't have any such policy, or even know who Earl was."

"We'd paid a good amount of money for us back then ... two month's' salary," Esther added.

"So you called him out on it." Ruth said it as a statement, rather than a question.

"Yep." Ron straightened in his chair and looked directly at Ruth. "As you can imagine, it made me very angry and I was set on getting my money back."

"And what did he do?" Ida asked.

"He denied it, of course, said it was a mistake and he wasn't going to give me my money back as the policy was real."

Ruth leaned forward in her chair, the coffee sloshing dangerously close the top of her mug. "Then what happened?"

Ron shrugged. "He stormed off. I assumed he went to The Elms bar, that's where he usually hung out. I thought he'd be back, but I never saw him again."

"We went to his house to get this so-called proof a couple of times, but he never answered," Esther added eagerly.

Ron grimaced. "I guess we didn't realize he was already dead."

"Did you tell the other neighbors about the scam?" Ida asked.

Ron's face turned red. "No. I didn't know who else had bought a policy ... and ... well, I was embarrassed about getting taken."

"Why would you even buy a policy from someone like him?" Lexy asked. "It sounds like he was a jerk."

"Oh, he acted nice when he first moved in-all businesslike and proper. Then, after a month or so, we saw the real Earl," Esther said. "That's why Ron looked into the policy.

"Is that so?" Helen raised her brows at Nans.

Nans finished chewing her bite of lemon square thoughtfully. "Well, I really don't remember exactly. I didnt have much to do with the man."

"I can see how that would make you mad as a hornet," Ida said to Ron. "But were you made enough to kill him?"

"Of course not!" Ron and Esther both said forcefully.

"Ida, really!" Nans said harshly. "The killer was clearly this stranger."

Ida scrunched her face up at Nans. "But why would the stranger want to kill Earl and then how did the stranger get into McDonalds' basement?"

Nans, Esther and Ron looked at each other. Nans finally shrugged. "Maybe he had help."

"Could there have been more than one stranger?" Lexy asked, remembering how everyone had described the stranger differently.

"Possibly."

Ida turned to Esther and Ron. "What did this stranger look like?"

Esther and Ron looked at Nans.

Nans said, "I'm not sure. Shady would be how I would describe him."

"Was he tall or short?" Ida asked "Tall."

"Short."

Esther and Ron spoke at the same time, then looked at each other.

"I guess that's subjective," Nans said. "Some might think him tall while others might think him short. See, Ron here is very tall, so if the stranger were shorter than he was, he would describe him as short. Whereas Esther is very short, and she would say he was tall."

"That's right," Esther said. "I guess he was average."

"What color hair?" Ida persisted.

None of them spoke, then Esther ventured, "I think it was dirty blonde."

"That's right. And he wore it medium length," Ron added.

"And he was thin," Esther said.

Lexy and the ladies glanced at each other. The Witts' description didn't really match any of the others. Maybe there were two strangers.

"Well, I think we've taken up enough of your time." Nans stood and looked at Ida, Ruth and Helen. "We're done here. Right, girls?"

"I guess ..." Ida stood, glancing down at the Witts uncertainly. "So, you have no idea how Earl ended up dead in the McDonalds' basement?"

They shook their heads. "Sorry, but no."

"I think it's fairly obvious." Nans' voice carried an air of finality. "It was this mysterious stranger. We need to see if we can find out more about him, but I don't feel that it is likely given the time that has passed. I fear the case may never be solved."

"What?" Ida followed Nans out the door. "You're not going to just give up on finding the killer, are you?"

"Oh, no, of course not. We'll keep digging. But not today." Nans stopped and gestured downward toward the chipped red paint on her toes, sticking out from gold, cork-wedged sandal-clad feet. "Today, as you can see, I'm in dire need of a pedicure."

Chapter Twenty.

Lexy dropped Nans and the ladies off at the retirement center. As she was pulling out, her phone chirped, reminding her she had a missed call. Her mother.

Lexy hit the callback button, her stomach sinking as the phone rang.

Were her parents calling because of some RV problem?

Lexy did a mental accounting of her bank accounts to try to find some money she'd be able to send them, if need be.

"Lexy, I called you earlier!" Vera's chipper voice blared out of the phone.

"I know. I'm calling you back. I hope everything is okay.

"Yes, dear. We're having a grand old time in the desert."

"You're still in the desert of Maine? Is something wrong with the RV?"

"No ... well, yes, but that's not why we're here. We ran into the Schlumbergers-you remember them, don't you? Anyway, we're hanging around with them until Daddy fixes the RV ... which is actually why I called."

Lexy's heart pinched. "Do you need money? I have a little bit in savings, but I can sell some investments if-"

"No. No. It's nothing like that," Vera yelled, even louder than usual. "Daddy just needs a part and he says he stored it in Nans' garage. We were hoping you could dig it up and ship it out to us."

Lexy's breath rushed out in relief. "Oh, sure. Whatever you need."

"Okay, it's behind some old boxes in the far right just under the electrical panel. There's a little door there to a small storage section and the doohickey is inside the storage section."

Lexy frowned as she took a U-turn to head back to her house. "Doohickey? Could you be a little more descriptive?"

"Daddy says it's in a blue box with white lettering-Beehive Motors."

"Okay, that sounds easy to find." Lexy hoped.

"Great, then can you Fed-Ex it up to us in care of Desert of Maine Campground, ninety-five Desert Road Freeport Maine, 04032."

"Okay, will do."

"Wait a minute." Lexy heard her mother yelling something in the background, then she came back on. "Gotta go, dear. The horseshoe tournament is starting!"

Vera clicked off just as Lexy pulled into her driveway. She glanced at the time on the phone, then tossed it into the passenger seat.

Just enough time to run in, grab the part, and run to the post office to ship it out before I head off to the Dessert Contest registration, Lexy thought jumping out of her car.

She bent down in front of the detached garage and grabbed the handle for the lift-up door. She yanked and pulled, pushing the door up until it rolled into the ceiling with a squeal of protest. She stood in front of the fully packed space with her hands on her hips, wishing she'd actually made good on the promise to clean it out last spring. As it was, the garage held a variety of things from all three generations. No car, not even one as small as her VW beetle, had fit inside as long as Lexy could remember.

Picking her way through the boxes, old bicycles and paint cans, she headed toward the back corner, scanning the wall for the storage area. She found it behind a stack of boxes. The storage area was only a crawl space. The door was about three feet off the ground. Lexy pushed the boxes off to one side and crouched down in front of the door, which was a thin slab of wood, secured with a metal hook-and-eye latch. She opened it, brushing cobwebs out of the opening. The smell of old, dry wood tickled her nose as she peered into the darkness.

Lexy felt a chill run up her spine as she got a feeling of deja-vu. The scene reminded her of just a few days earlier when she had knelt in front of the hole in Jack's basement and peered into the secret room at the mummy. Hopefully, she wouldn't find a dead body in here today.