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brought me the cordless phone.
    “It’s for you, punkin. I think it’s Rayna.”
    “Oh good.” I grabbed hold of the folding step stool that I was using just in case it decided to scoot out from under me, and descended down the two metal steps with all the grace of a water buffalo. As I took the phone from Daddy I felt a sneeze building up and paused. It tickled my nose, the weeks of dust that coated the stained-glass transom panes happily moving from wood and glass to the vicinity of my sinuses. After a few seconds and no sneeze, I said into the receiver, “Hey, Rayna— achoo! ”
    “Are you sick, Trinket?”
    I sniffed a couple times. “No, just dusting. Sorry about sneezing in your ear.”
    “That’s okay. It’s probably the nicest thing that’s happened to me all day.”
    She sounded really dejected, and I sniffed back another threatening sneeze to say, “Welcome to my world. Nice things happen to other people, not to me. So what’s going on in your world?”
    “Skip-tracing. Rob and I have done all the searching we can by computer, but still don’t have a clue who else might be involved with Larry Whittier. He always paid his own bond, and listed only two casual friends as contacts. Right now, the only person with any hint of a motive for shooting him is Rob.”
    “Well, that’s ridiculous, since Rob wouldn’t shoot him just for jumping bail. Or for any other reason,” I added when I realized it sounded as if I thought Rob prone to murder.
    Fortunately, Rayna laughed. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said wryly. “Rob was pretty mad about having to hunt him down again.”
    “Again? So what was he arrested for in the first place?”
    “Vandalism.”
    “What? That’s all? No armed robbery or murder charge? And he ran out on how big of a bail bond?”
    Rayna sounded as dumbfounded as me when she said, “I know. Only a hundred dollars, isn’t that crazy? He’d already been FTA twice on the same charge, and—”
    “Been what?”
    “FTA. Failure To Appear. In court, you know.”
    “Oh. That sounds so strange, though, to run from a minor charge that would only cost him a small fine at the most. What did he vandalize?”
    “The charge was for vandalism of a storage locker on Highway 7. Holly Springs’ police caught him, Rob bailed him out, and then he just took off. Rob has had to look for him twice before, bring him back; he got a continuance, and then was FTA again. It’s crazy.”
    “Who is his lawyer?”
    “Some guy from Olive Branch. An old friend, he told Rob.”
    “Did this Whittier guy ever say why he didn’t just show up in court, pay his fine and be done with it?”
    “Now this is where it gets really strange. He told Rob that if he showed up at a court date like he was supposed to, he’d end up dead. And he meant that literally, Rob said. Something about getting on someone’s bad side. Of course, Rob told him that he’d already gotten on his bad side, and if he didn’t show up for court the next time his bond was going to be revoked and he’d go to jail.”
    “Apparently, that didn’t make much difference,” I mused aloud. “He still missed his court date.”
    “And Rob tracked him down to Clarksdale and the Shack Up Inn cabin where the poor guy did end up murdered, like he said. Only not by Rob. This is all so crazy. We’ve been on our phones and computers for over forty-eight hours and still can’t find any trace of Larry Whittier being mixed up in something that would get him killed. He was an accountant, for heaven’s sake! Accountants don’t exactly live a dangerous life.”
    “An accountant accused of vandalizing a storage room,” I said slowly. “Did he ever tell Rob why he did that? Or say he didn’t do it?”
    “Oh no, he admitted he did it. Only he said there was something in there he really needed and he didn’t have a key so tried to force his way in. That’s when the cops came up and found him with a bolt cutter and cordless drill and