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as long as they get the story.”
    “Unless someone dies,” I said pointedly. “Grandma, if you’re right in that this has to do with your story, then I’m glad Lois didn’t tell you anything. Whoever hurt her would most likely not hesitate to hurt you, too.”
    “That’s why I got Phyllis involved,” Grandma said, cookie crumbs spraying about.
    “If I knew what Ruth knew and Ruth came to harm I would go to the police with everything and the killer would be caught,” Phyllis said.
    “Oh, for crying out loud.” I sat back, annoyed. Family—there’s just no talking to them.
    “Now I’m curious,” Brad said. “What was it Lois knew, and was it truly the motive for her murder?”
    “That’s what I’m here to find out,” Phyllis said. “Right, Ruth?”
    “What makes you think you can find out anything now that Lois is dead?” Brad asked.
    “We’ll put the clues together, right, Phyllis?” Grandma said and winked.
    “Right.”
    “What clues are you talking about?” I had to ask. I know I shouldn’t have bought into their craziness, but I couldn’t help myself.
    “Lois worked for Homer back in the day.”
    “Really? I don’t see Lois as the working-girl type.” It was hard to imagine Lois as anything but the talkative old woman with connections to the Chamber of Commerce. I’d never asked how she got into the Chamber or why she had so much influence. As a kid growing up I’d simply known her as an enemy of Grandma Ruth. Maybe it was time to look at the two of them in a different light. “That explains why she was treated as the queen of the Chamber of Commerce.”
    “Yes, Homer was one of the founding fathers of the Chamber. Wherever Homer went, there went Lois. In fact, when I was a kid I thought they were married, because you rarely saw them apart.” Phyllis picked up her coffee cup. “She was always right there taking dictation. We even pretended to be them sometimes, remember? ‘Miss Striker, take a note . . .’”
    “Exactly.” Grandma nodded. “They were always together, until the night Champ Rogers disappeared.”
    Bill sat up straight. “I remember what a hullabaloo that was.”
    I looked from Bill to Grandma to Phyllis. “Disappeared? As in vanished? Never to be seen again by anyone?”
    “Oh, he was seen again,” Phyllis said. “Just not alive.”
    “It was quite a mystery.” Grandma’s eyes lit up. “I was on the case, of course.”
    “Of course,” Brad and I said simultaneously.
    Grandma Ruth was quite the investigative journalist. Even though she spent her life working on a small-town paper, she’d been noticed by the likes of William Allen White. Now retired, Grandma wrote a blog that had over a thousand followers.
    “Long story short, Champ Rogers was a northern Oklahoma bootlegger,” Grandma said. “He got himself caught in a crackdown in 1932 and went to Leavenworth for ten years. There he bragged he made more money bootlegging in jail than out.” Grandma sat back with a twinkle in her eye. “It was a different time back then.”
    “By the time he got out of jail, we were into World War Two and Champ found himself in the army,” Bill said, continuing the story. “He was assigned into the same battalion as Homer Everett. In fact, it was Champ who officially witnessed Homer’s act of bravery and swore that Homer risked life and limb to save Champ and his squad from certain death.”
    “Really.” I could not help but let my disbelief show in my tone. I mean, who today would believe an ex-convict?
    “Oh, yes,” Grandma said. “We were losing support for the war and they were desperate for propaganda heroes. When Champ told the story of how Homer, a former football star, charged the enemy line, turning the battle, the army jumped on it.”
    “Interesting,” Brad muttered, and crossed one long leg over the other so that his ankle rested on his knee.
    “Indeed.” Bill nodded. “After that Homer and Champ toured the States for a full two