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he can’t get time off to turkey hunt this year. I really miss him.
    I named my kids for the horses I never had, but always dreamed of having. Blaze, Star, and Heather. The girls like their names, but Blaze has a little residual resentment over his. Heather lives in Milwaukee and Star lives just down our road behind me. She’s my youngest and has twin boys, Red and Ed, who own Herb’s Bar, the only watering hole in Stonely.
    I’d promised Kitty a reprieve from her daycare duties, and I knew just what to do to accomplish my mission without compromising my sleuthing schedule. I walked into the tavern, noting that the four o’clock crowd had arrived ahead of me. The bar went dead silent when I stepped in, but conversations resumed as soon as they saw it was only me.
    Star was behind the bar with Red, who was named for his brilliant shock of red hair.
    “I need help,” I said to Star after she plunked a diet pop down in front of me. “Mary’s gone for a few days and I can’t handle my new business and take care of Grandma and Blaze at the same time.”
“I get off in thirty minutes, I’ll come over.”
I sighed with relief.
“I’m off tomorrow,” she continued, “I’ll do it then, too.”
“You’re the best.”
    “I know,” Star said, with a twinkle in her eye, which left me pondering what she meant by that remark. Star’s husband ran off several years ago and she’s been playing the field ever since. My baby is cute and cuddly and I miss spending time with her. Between helping the boys keep Herb’s running and her active social life, I don’t see much of my daughter.
    I drank my pop, then headed home to wait for Star to get off work.
    __________

    “What do you mean, you lost him?” Cora Mae said from her kitchen table as the sun set in orange stripes outside the window.
    “It’s harder than it sounds,” I said, digging into the platter of pan-fried chicken Kitty had made on Cora Mae’s little-used stovetop. “It might help if you could drive. Kitty and I are doing all the surveillance work.”
    “You can practice behind the wheel with me,” Kitty offered, licking her fingers. “You had your license at one time, so you must know how. You’re just rusty.”
    “I better start right now,” Cora Mae said. “Because you and Gertie are doing an awful job of tailing him.”
    That was the truth, but I hated to admit it. “That’s not true,” I said.
    Cora Mae used her fingers to pop one measly piece of lettuce into her mouth from the salad in front of her. “I’ve been doing research while you two have been busy losing Tony.”
“You found out who he’s seeing on the side?” Kitty asked.
“No. I found out about the orange sneakers on the bank robber.”
“We should look into that case, too,” I said. “Since I was one of the hostages, I’m interested.”
“Nothing could keep you away from a case like this,” Kitty said. “Even if you hadn’t been in the credit union when it happened.”
    Cora Mae ate another bit of lettuce. “Kent Miller came from the Soo, that’s his legal address, but he was trying to break into a gang.”
“Imagine applying for a gang position. Is that how it’s done?” I said. “And what are they called? The orange shoe gang?”
“That’s their logo, or whatever a gang calls its individual mark.”
Kitty rolled a mouthful of chicken into one cheek. “He was a gangbanger? Wow. A gangbanger right in our backyard.”
“An amateur one,” I reminded her. “A real one would have shot all of us.”
Kitty tackled another piece of chicken. “Why would he announce himself that way?”
    “He never expected to get caught. Gang members aren’t very smart,” I guessed with some confidence. Not that Stonely ever had a gang. The closest we came was two years ago when Jesse Olson and his gang took baseball bats and beat up all the local mailboxes in broad daylight. That gang wasn’t too bright, either.
    “It’s an inside job,” I said. “His accomplice has