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newcomer on the scene.
    Satisfied that I’d been as directly vague as I could be, I pressed Send, then reached for my beer. I was on my second handful of cookies when Ida Belle and Gertie arrived. I served them up requested sweet tea, put the plate of cookies on the table, and waited for the ideas to start rolling off their tongues. Instead, they both ate their cookies in absolute silence.
    “Really?” I said, finally breaking the stagnant air. “If you guys don’t have any ideas, I’m not sure who does.”
    Ida Belle put down the partially eaten cookie and sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and Gertie and I talked on the way over to your house, but the bottom line is that we have never heard of a meth problem here.”
    “Carter already said that,” I said.
    “Yes,” Gertie said, “but Carter wouldn’t be privy to things people intended on keeping secret. Nosy old ladies, however, have ways of hearing about things that law enforcement doesn’t.”
    “I see.” I considered this for a moment and frowned. Gertie was right. Unless they got careless, it was unlikely for the sheriff’s department to be unaware of the dangerous and illegal habits of residents, but it was a whole other thing completely for people like Ida Belle and Gertie to have no one on radar that might be involved.  
    “Maybe we’re losing our touch,” Ida Belle said. “Look at all the things that have happened the last month, and all of them going on right below our noses.”
    “I don’t think so,” Gertie said. “I think criminals are getting smarter and worse is all.”
    “They’re not that smart,” Ida Belle said. “After all, we’ve caught all of them eventually.”
    “Yeah, but they’re getting smarter than the average Sinful mental acumen,” Gertie said, “or they wouldn’t have gotten away with things as long as they did. I think it’s more of an issue of lack of exposure on our account.”
    “Gertie makes sense,” I said. “I mean, I’m new here, but based on what you’ve told me, the town never had big issues before now, at least, not that you were aware of. If it was a normal rash of poaching or theft or drunken idiocy, you guys would be all over it because that’s what you’re trained to clue in on, but this stuff…”
    Ida Belle nodded. “You’re probably right. Gunrunning, murder, and now meth. I know plenty of people who smoke weed, but aside from the random few who’ve gone to New Orleans and gotten screwed up on the harder stuff, I don’t know of anyone from Sinful who has a problem, and certainly no one who lives here now.”
    “Who do you know that smokes weed?” Gertie asked.
    “I’m not telling you,” Ida Belle said. “You’d be silly enough to try it.”
    Gertie shrugged. “I heard it was good for the eyes.”
    “For glaucoma,” Ida Belle said. “It doesn’t cure nearsightedness.”
    Gertie cross her arms across her chest. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not nearsighted. I just need reading glasses.”
    Ida Belle rolled her eyes. It was an argument that the two of them would probably take to the grave, even though Gertie didn’t have a leg to stand on.
    “If I had to guess,” I said, “drug problems would start here with the younger generation—probably in high school. You two aren’t exactly dialed into the youth of Sinful.”
    “That’s true enough,” Gertie said. “Once I stopped teaching, I pretty much wanted the rest of my life to be child free.”
    “Maybe we should ask Ally,” I said. “She’s young and may have picked up on something at the café.”
    “True,” Ida Belle said, “but that means telling her about Carter’s suspicions, which means getting her involved in something that can’t possibly end well.”
    I sighed. “There is that. Maybe I can figure out a way to broach the subject without asking her outright.”
    Gertie laughed. “You want to try to coax the information out of her through general