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start, too.
    Since the camera only operated when it sensed motion, we didn’t have to sit through any long, empty, boring dead time.
    The first thing we saw was Cora Mae streaming at us.
    And she didn’t have any clothes on. Not a stitch.
    “Not bad for her age,” Kitty pointed out as though she was an expert on fit, taut bodies. No way did either of us look like that. Of course, Cora Mae hadn’t had any children to mess up her figure. I vowed to start exercising more and eating less.
    Then here came Chet across the screen, butt naked too.
    “Would you look at that!” Kitty couldn’t contain herself. She probably hasn’t seen a nude male body for years. If ever. She often boasts that she has her fun, but I haven’t seen signs of it.
    Me? I was totally disgusted, which is turning out to be a regular condition of mine. Nothing was going right in this case. All I had for my troubles was a close encounter with the business end of a rifle, courtesy of Frank Hanson, and a porno flick starring Cora Mae.
    All thanks to ineffective business partners who weren’t taking their jobs serious and should be fired for negligence.
    Live and on camera, Chet caught up with Cora Mae. I shut it off.
    “Don’t stop it now,” Kitty said, trying to grab the camera from me. “Give that thing to me.”
    “We can’t invade our friend’s privacy like that.”
    “Maybe you can’t. But I don’t have a problem with it.”
    “No.”
    “Give me that thingamabob,” Spelling Bee Kitty said.
    “This doohickey,” I said, holding the camera out of reach and one upping her with my vocabulary words, “is off limits.”
    We wrestled a little until Fred growled in frustration.
    All I knew for sure was that I wanted to wax Cora Mae’s backend.
     
    *
     
    I decided on some tough love.
    “We happen to be working a case,” I said to Cora Mae when we all met up at my kitchen table. “You don’t get time off to lollygag, or I’ll find new partners.”
    “Hey,” Kitty said, when she saw my gaze shift to her. “Are you talking about me, too?”
    “You fell asleep on the job!”
    “I was working,” Cora Mae said.
    Kitty snorted. We hadn’t told Cora Mae about the camera yet.
    Grandma Johnson piped up and said, “Delivery truck just pulled in. Maybe it’s my new pistol.”
    My mother-in-law used to have a handgun, but I confiscated it when she lost most of her eyesight along with a big chunk of her marbles. I sleep better knowing it isn’t in her hot, trigger-happy hands. Besides, the delivery turned out to be for me.
    I pocketed the new deputy sheriff badge and went to work unwrapping my new beanbag gun and ammo. As with everything, it had to be assembled, so I called George. While we waited for him to arrive we polished off a pot of coffee and the rest of Kitty’s doughnuts. Grandma took her share in spite of her crabbing about the amount of grease in them.
    “Are you and Chet going together?” Kitty asked Cora Mae around bites of doughnut.
    “We haven’t had time to discuss it,” Cora Mae said.
    “I bet.” Kitty snorted again.
    George showed up. The first question he had came after he looked at the picture on the box, “It this a riot gun?” he asked me.
    I assured him it wasn’t, although I was pretty sure it was.
    Once he had the thing assembled, we all went out in back of the house so I could test it, including Grandma Johnson who had never seen anything like it “in all her born days.”
    “We need someone to volunteer to take a hit,” I said.
    George hooted. “Who’d offer to do that?” he said.
    “Cora Mae might,” I said.
    “No, she really wouldn’t,” Cora Mae said.
    “Kitty?” I thought if anyone could withstand the test, she’d be the one, considering her size.
    “I think I’ll pass,” she said.
    “Hit the dog,” Grandma suggested.
    George had an idea that made more sense than anything. “Let’s just practice with a can on top of the fence,” he said. “What you want to do, Gertie, is