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“To do what? Pay a house call? I didn’t even know notary clerks made house calls. But even they do, they damn well don’t make them in the middle of the night.”

“Look, I’ll admit that I don’t know what the guy was doing there. But I’m sure he had a good reason, and I’m sure in due course he’ll tell Odelia, who’ll tell us, and then I’ll prove to you that what we’re doing is right and just and—holy crap will you look at that?”

She was referring to the pileup that involved no less than two police cars and three regular cars. The police cars still had their lights a-flashing, but clearly that hadn’t done them any good.

“Probably on their way to Joshua Curtis’s house,” said Scarlett.

“Then we better make sure we get there first,” said Vesta, and stomped the accelerator practically through the floor of the aged car.

Moments later they arrived in a cul-de-sac and parked in front of a nice little house with a neat little front yard. It even had a select smattering of garden gnomes livening things up, something which would have pleased Vesta’s son-in-law to no end.

“Let’s do this,” she announced as she got out of the car.

“How are we going to get in?” asked Scarlett as she tiptoed up to the house, as if afraid someone might hear her. As usual, she was dressed in a tight miniskirt and crop top, her high heels making it a little hard for her to remain inconspicuous, as did her choice of clothes. Vesta, on the other hand, was dressed for the job: a gray tracksuit with yellow trim, and sneakers.

“I got a set of master keys,” said Vesta, as she held up the set proudly.

When Scarlett looked a little closer, she frowned and said,“That’s not a master key set. That’s a set of lock picks.”

“It was called a master key set on eBay, so that’s what it is.” She picked a small sharp instrument from the collection and inserted it into the keyhole. It looked like something a surgeon would use to poke a hole in a person. “There was an instruction manual included,” she explained as she inserted a second sharp instrument and started jiggling.

“Who was the seller? Burglars, Inc?”

“Probably,” said Vesta as she stuck her tongue out and jiggled away to her heart’s content. “The trick is in the jiggling,” she explained. “If you jiggle long enough, something has to give.”

Unfortunately nobody had relayed this information to the lock, which remained unwilling to play ball.

“Maybe we’ll have a look around the back,” she said after a while. “Before the neighbors file a report.”

So they moved around the house and found themselves in an equally neat backyard with a small porch and Vesta repeated the trick with the instruments. Finally, when she didn’t have more luck than at the front door, Scarlett said, annoyed, “Just let me try. Jiggling comes naturally to me.” But instead of taking advantage of Vesta’s master key set, she put her shoulder against the door, her hand on the handle, and gave it a hard push. Something budged, and suddenly the door swung open.

“How the hell did you do that?!” asked Vesta.

“You just need the right approach,” said Scarlett.

“That door is probably male,” said Vesta as both women pushed inside.

The house itself was as clean and neat as the outside had promised, and as Vesta took the ground floor, Scarlett moved up the stairs to check around.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” she asked as she walked off.

“Anything incriminating!” Vesta yelled after her.

“And then what?”

“Then we remove it and give it to Odelia. She’ll know what to do.”

“This is such a bad idea,” Scarlett muttered, but did as she was told and hurried up the stairs.

Vesta checked the kitchen, which was so neat it could have served as a model kitchen at a kitchen trade fair, and opened a couple of cupboards. For the occasion she’d put on plastic gloves, and for a few moments she admired the kitchen, then decided to snap a couple of pictures. She’d been trying to convince her daughter to remodel the kitchen for a while now, and this was just the kind of kitchen Vesta thought would be perfect.

She then moved into the garage, flicked on the light and looked around. Near the door, she saw four yellow metal jerrycans standing neatly in a row.

“Huh,” she said, and picked them up. “Empty,” she murmured, then shrugged, and carried them to the door to take out to the car. When you’re accused of arson it probably doesn’t look good to have four empty jerrycans in your garage, she figured.

“Vesta!” Scarlett suddenly yelled. “You gotta see this!”

Vesta stomped up the stairs, afraid there would be more dead bodies. Even she couldn’t explain away more dead bodies—or drag them to her car. But when she arrived upstairs, and followed Scarlett’s voice into what looked like the master bedroom, she saw to her elation that there was no dead body on the bed—or anywhere else, for that matter.

“What?” she said, panting from the exertion of running up those stairs.

“Will you look at that?”