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grotesque grin and we’ll go together…. But remember, I have no room in my happy world for a Grinch right now.”
    “Come along with me, Mother, and afterward, we’ll watch our Miracle on 34th Street DVD and eat microwave popcorn till we pop.”
    Now she was the one with the maniacal grin. “Deal!”
    And we trooped out to the car.
    Mr. Yeager lived in a trailer court located in a section of town the locals called South End. If Serenity could be said to have a seedier side, this would be it, distinguished by factories belching smoke, a noisy railroad switching yard, a smelly slough, and (as a result) surrounding lower-income housing. In the past few years, however, a concerted effort had been made by the city and its denizens to improve conditions in this part of town, since it was the first impression travelers arriving from the south got of our little burg. Even so, the bleakness of winter—the newly fallen white snow having already turned to black slush—did not help the overall effect.
    I drove past a small strip mall, then turned at a convenience store to enter the Happy Trails Trailer Park. Mother predicably began to bray, “Happy trails to you, until we meet again,” sounding more like Roy Rogers than Dale Evans, which, in spite of my inner mood, made me laugh. As we headed down the trailer court’s main street (paved and plowed), I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw: attractive mobile homes sitting on spacious lots. Christmas lights and decorated trees twinkled in windows and occasional Santa displays and Nativity scenes enlivened the modest yards.
    Mr. Yeager lived on Lot Number Twenty-one, and we pulled up in front of his un-Christmas-decorated mobile home, a white, single trailer with a stylish bay-front window. Parked in the drive beneath a white aluminum carport was a tan Ford Taurus that indicated the old gent was home.
    Mother and I had just gotten out of our car when I spotted Chaz down the street a ways, walking briskly toward us. She was dressed in black again—leather jacket, jeans, motorcycle boots—and when the girl saw us, she waved the stolen zipper bag and yelled for all the world to hear, “ Bran’! Got the money for ya what me boyfriend nicked!”
    Mother, next to me, murmured, “So that’s what this is all about. I do hope you know what you’re doing, my dear, aiding and abetting that urchin….”
    I walked toward Chaz.
    “Wha’?” Chaz frowned as we met in the street, “You’re not ’appy?”
    “Yes, I’m happy. But I’ll be even happier when this money gets back to its rightful owner.”
    I held out a hand, and she relinquished the bag.
    “’Ow will you do it?” Chaz asked, her heavily darkened eyebrows knitted. “Don’t want me boyfriend to get into trouble, yeah?”
    I granted her a smile. “I’ll just say I found the bag in the snow when I left the flea market that night.”
    “Brilliant!” Chaz looked past me. “Where’d your mum go?”
    I turned around. Mother had indeed disappeared. I said, “She’s probably inside already.”
    Mother never stood on ceremony; if a door was unlocked, she took it as an open invitation to walk right in.
    I put the bank bag in the large tote I was carrying, then followed Chaz up the front steps of the mobile home. The girl was reaching for knob when the door flew open and Mother rushed out, shoving Chaz back into me, and pushing us both down the steps. We didn’t fall into the sludgy snow, but it was close.
    “Oy!” Chaz blurted.
    “ Moth -er,” I said crossly. “What’s the big idea?”
    She raised a palm like an Indian chief in an old movie about to say, “How.” “Children…you dear children…”
    Chaz and I exchanged “huh” glances.
    “I must prepare you,” Mother announced. She touched a breast with a hand and gazed skyward in search of just the right words. “Mr. Yaeger is dead as a mackerel.”
    Chaz shouted, “No way! ” and, shoving Mother aside, hurried back up the steps and into the