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only a quarter to twelve, and my House & Home editor seldom took extra time for lunch. In fact, she often stayed at her desk, working while she ate from apaper bag that held the same items—a hard-boiled egg, cottage cheese, celery, and sometimes carrot sticks. It was her diet menu, despite the fact that I could never tell if Vida had gained or lost weight. Her tall, broad frame disguised any added or lost pounds.
    My own lunch involved a brisk trek to Pie-in-the-Sky Sandwich Shop at the mall. I had to wait at the stoplight on Alpine Way, where I felt a chill wind blowing down from Tonga Ridge.
More snow coming
, I thought, gazing up at the heavy gray clouds lurking overhead. Both Tonga and Mount Baldy were partially hidden from view. Next to the mall at Old Mill Park, I could swear that the statue of town founder Carl Clemans was shivering. The stoplight changed just as I felt a nudge at my back.
    “Got some good shots,” Mitch Laskey said. “You getting a sandwich, by any chance?”
    “How’d you guess?”
    “Same here,” he said as we crossed the street. “It’s the only decent food at the mall. Maybe we can find a table. Or do you want to go back to the office?”
    “Your call,” I replied, “though I still need to conjure up an editorial and a lead story.”
    “Why don’t we take our sandwiches with us and brainstorm out of earshot,” Mitch suggested as we entered the sandwich shop. “There’s already a line and it’s not quite noon.”
    “Sure,” I agreed. The shop was small, with only a dozen tables, mostly for two. I recognized several of the customers, but merely smiled and nodded. My Monday-morning mood wasn’t conducive to chitchat. Sticking to business was my antidote to self-pity.
    Fifteen minutes later, Mitch and I were in my cubbyhole, he with his ham and cheese on rye, and me with chicken salad on white bread.
    “You don’t keep kosher?” I said, gesturing at Mitch’s sandwich.
    Mitch grinned. “That’s ‘kashrut,’ you know. ‘Kosher’ is the Anglicized version.”
    “I didn’t know,” I admitted.
    “That’s okay,” Mitch said. “I hadn’t a clue about the Triduum until last Easter, when I had to write a feature about a family in Detroit that had triplets born on Good Friday.”
    “Uh … I assume they were Catholics.”
    Mitch nodded. “That was the hook. Mom said she was glad it didn’t take all the way from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday to deliver them. A feel-good piece. We needed all of those we could get in Detroit.”
    “I was thinking of doing one like that for this week’s edition,” I said after we’d both eaten some of our sandwiches. “But that’s not a lead. I’m stumped.”
    “Tell me about this Petersen thing. Or should I look it up in the back issues?”
    “Let’s hope you don’t have to,” I said. “It was a huge story involving the Bank of Alpine. There was a rumor that a Seattle bank wanted to buy out the Petersen family, who had started up the bank with some other locals in the early thirties. As is typical of this town, nobody wanted big-city interlopers handling their money. The Seattle-based bunch dropped out, but not before the daughter of the local bank president, Marvin Petersen, was murdered. Marv had taken over from his father after the elder Petersen retired. Thus, the dynasty was established. But the next male heir apparent, Larry, found out his father was going to bypass him in favor of his sister, Linda. He reacted by killing her in a fit of sibling rage. Meanwhile, the Seattle folks discovered someone here was cooking the books and making off with chunks of money. The two cases weren’t really connected, but that was enough to queer the buyout offer.”
    “Wow. That’s a big story for a small town.” Mitch paused to pop a couple of potato chips into his mouth. “Who did the cooking?”
    I had to smile. “A bank employee who promptly fled to Michigan.”
    Mitch laughed. “Good thinking. Cops back home have enough