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it doesn’t matter either way. I can’t have pets at Ferndale anyway. They don’t allow pets of any kind.”
    “Ferndale?” Joanna asked.
    “Yes. It’s one of those assisted-living places. On Fry Boulevard. Used to be a motel back in the old days, but they changed it a couple of years ago. Remodeled it. Now it’s where I live. Number 261. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s plenty good enough for me. The food’s nothing to write home about, but the price is right.”
    Joanna removed a notebook from her pocket. “I’m sure my detectives will need to speak to you eventually, Mrs. Mossman. If you could give me the address and phone number—”
    “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Call me Edith. I can’t stand all this Mrs. Mossman stuff. And whatever happened to the water that dog-catcher lady was trying to give me? I didn’t want it then, but I do now. I’m parched.”
    Joanna retrieved the bottle of water from where Jeannine Phillips had left it on the front floorboard. She handed the bottle over to Edith Mossman, who took a long, grateful drink. When she had finished, she sighed and stared long and hard at the partially empty bottle as though hoping to find answers there.
    “Tell me about your granddaughter,” Joanna said quietly.
    “Carol?” Edith Mossman asked, taking another drink. “What do you want to know?”
    “Was she ever married? Does she have children?”
    “No children,” Edith said. “Only dogs.”
    “Boyfriend?”
    “Not that I know of. If she had one, she never mentioned him to me.”
    “Did she work?”
    “Oh, she worked all right. It took a while, but she finally got a job clerking at that new Shell station out on Highway 92. Didn’t make enough money to make ends meet. Barely enough to pay for gas and dog food most of the time. If she’d had to pay rent on this place, I’m sure she would have starved to death and her dogs right along with her.”
    “She evidently didn’t pay the electric bill,” Joanna observed.
    “That’s why the house was so hot. No electricity, so no cooler.”
    “I’m not surprised,” Edith said. “She’s not the kind of person to ask for help unless things are really tough. If I’d known things were that bad, I would have helped her.”
    “I’m sure you would have,” Joanna agreed. “But you’re saying she lived here rent-free?”
    “That’s right.” Edith was indignant. “You don’t think I’d charge rent to my own flesh and blood, do you? What kind of a person do you think I am, Sheriff Brady? I wouldn’t do any such thing!”
    “This is your place then?”
    “Yes. It’s mine until I die. Then it goes to the Nature Conservancy. When Grady and I—Grady was my husband, you see. We first bought acreage and the trailer back in the mid-seventies. When we lived in it, that trailer was neat as a pin. Clean, too. Carol’s not big on cleaning. I think she worries way more about the dog runs and crates than she does the house itself. The last I saw of the inside, the place was a pigsty. That’s when I decided I wasn’t coming back. At least I stopped going inside. Couldn’t stand to see it that way. Made me want to haul out a mop and a dust rag and go to work.”
    “But you did come by today,” Joanna said.
    “Well, of course. Carol asked me to because she needed help.”
    “What with?”
    “With her dogs, what else?” Edith asked with a resigned shrug. “She never said a word about her electricity bill, but she wasn’t too proud to ask for help with the dogs. She said she needed to get them all vaccinated and licensed. The problem is, I wanted to wait until after the first of the month—until after my Social Security check was in the bank. If I had known she was really desperate, I could have done something sooner, but it would have meant cashing in one of the CDs. I didn’t want to do that if I didn’t have to. Grady wouldn’t have approved, you see. He was always warning me about that. ‘Now, Edie,’ he’d say, ‘you watch your