Most everything inside the M &S Market was the same as Kate recalled from her childhood. The antlers of the twelve-point buck her grandfather had blown away in '79 were still on display above the old battered cash register. Around the commercial coffeemaker, conversation ranged from the mysterious owner of Sutter Sports, to Iona Osborn's hip replacement surgery.

"You can't weigh that much and not have hip problems," Ada Dover said as Kate punched the keys of the cash register, then hit Add with the side of her hand.

"Uh-huh," she responded as she set a can of cling peaches in a plastic grocery bag. Even the sounds inside the store were the same. From the back room, she could hear the whine of the meat slicer, and from the speakers overhead, Tom Jones sang about touching the green grass of home. Melba's presence was still everywhere in the M &S, from the horrible music to the velvet Tom painting hung in the back office. About the only thing that had really changed inside Melba Caldwell's store since her death was the stream of widows trolling for her husband, Stanley.

"Iona should have gone on Weight Watchers years ago. Have you ever tried Weight Watchers?"

Kate shook her head, and the end of her pony-tail brushed the shoulders of her black shirt. Last week she'd substituted Tom Jones with Matchbox Twenty. But halfway into the second verse of "Disease," her grandfather had ejected her CD and plugged Tom back in. As Ada rambled and Tom crooned, Kate felt a slight brain bleed coming on.

"It really keeps my figure trim. And Fergie's too. Being that I'm Iona's good friend, I tried to get her to at least check out a few meetings over at the grange." Ada shook her head and her eyes narrowed. "She said she would, but she never did. If she'd listened to me, she'd have lost that weight huckity-buck and there would've been no need to have that hip replaced."

What the heck was a huckity-buck? Fearing the answer, Kate pointed out instead, "It could be that Iona has a low metabolism." According to her grandfather, Ada Dover arrived every day around noon, coifed, decked, and doused in Emeraude. No doubt about it, she was looking to make Stanley Caldwell husband number three.

"She should buy one of those mountain bikes from over there at the sports store."

Now that Kate was here, her grandfather always found something to do in the back room to avoid Ada and the widow posse who had him in their sights. He also made her do the home deliveries the widows called in on a regular basis. Kate didn't appreciate it either. She didn't like getting pumped for information about her grandfather, and she had better things to do than listen to Myrtle Lake rattle on about the horrors of heel spurs. Better things-like giving herself a lobotomy. "Maybe Iona should just start out walking," Kate suggested as she rang up a box of Wheat Thins and placed it in the sack.

"Of course, even if Iona wanted to buy one of those bikes, she can't. The owner of that store is probably in the Carribean, sunning himself like a lizard. His mama is the nurse over there at the clinic. She's not from around here. Minnesota, I think. Tight-lipped as Tupperwear." Ada dug into her huge purse and pulled out her wallet. "I don't know why he opened his store in Gospel in the first place. He'd probably sell more bikes and what-nots in Sun Valley. He doesn't sell guns over there. Don't know why, but that's a Minnesotan for ya. Liberal and contrary."

Kate wondered what being a Minnesotan had to do with not selling guns or being contrary, but she was too busy fighting the shudder passing through her to ask. Sun Valley. The scene of the greatest humiliation of her life. The place where she'd gotten drunk and propositioned a man. The one time in her life when she'd managed to suppress her inhibitions and go for it, she'd been shot down by a man who'd practically run from the room to get away from her.

"He's handsome as sin but doesn't park his boots under anyone's bed. Everybody knows Dixie Howe's been trying her best to hook him, but he isn't interested. 'Course I don't blame him for avoiding Dixie. Dixie's got a gift for hair dye, but she's been rode hard and put away wet more often than Aunt Sally's mule."

"Maybe he doesn't like women," Kate said and hit Total. The guy in Sun Valley hadn't liked women. He'd been a misogynist. At least, that's what Kate liked to tell herself.

Ada sucked in a breath. "Homosexual?"

No. As much as Kate would have liked to believe the jerk had been gay, and that's why he hadn't taken her up on her proposition, she really didn't think so. She was too good at reading people to miss those signs. No, he was just one of those men who liked to degrade women and make them feel really bad about themselves. That, or he had erectile dysfunction. Kate smiled, maybe both.

Ada was silent a moment, then said, "Rock Hudson was gay, and that Rupert Everett fella too. Regina's son Tiffer is gay, but he isn't good-looking.He was in one of those gay pageants down in Boise. He sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," but of course he didn't win. Even drag queens have their standards." She pulled out a pen and began writing out a check. "Regina showed me the pictures. I swear, Tiffer in a wig and rouge looks just like his mama. And Regina looks more like Charles Nelson Riley than Barbra Streisand. Seems a waste and a shame if that Sutter fella is gay, though. But it would explain why he isn't married and never dates." Ada ripped out the check and handed it to Kate. "And Myrtle Lake's granddaughter, Rose, is after him, too. Rose is young and cute as they come, but he's never parked his boots under her bed neither."

Kate wondered how Ada knew so much about the owner of the sporting goods store. Kate could have found out the same information easily enough, but she was a licenced private investigator. Ada was the manager of The Sandman Motel and obviously a very busy body.

After Ada left the store, Kate locked the cash register and walked to the back. The room smelled of fresh meat and the bleach her grandfather always used to sanitize his equipment and cutting boards. At the far end of the room was the store's small bakery, where her grandmother had made cakes and cookies and homemade bread. The equipment was covered, and no one had used it in over two years.

Stanley sat at a long white table, having finished packaging T-bone steaks in six blue Styrofoam trays and plastic wrap. On the wall above him hung the same meat-cutting charts that Kate remembered from her childhood. Other than the deserted bakery, it appeared as if nothing had changed in a few decades, but it had. Her grandfather was older and tired easily. Her grandmother was gone, and Kate didn't know why he didn't sell the store or hire someone to run it for him.

"Ada's gone," Kate said. "You can come out now."

Stanley Caldwell looked up, his brown eyes reflecting the dull sadness of his heart. "I wasn't hiding, Katie."

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and leaned a shoulder into boxes of paper products that needed to be carried into the storage room. He was the only person in the world who called her Katie, as if she were still a little girl. She continued to simply look at him until a slight smile lifted his white handlebar mustache.

"Well, maybe I was," he confessed as he stood; his potbelly pushed at the front of his bloody apron. "But that woman talks so much, she makes my head hurt." He untied his apron and tossed it on the worktable. "I just can't take a woman who talks too much. That's one thing I liked about your grandmother. She didn't talk just to hear her own voice."

Which wasn't entirely true. Melba had loved to gossip as much as anyone else in town. And it had taken Kate less than two weeks to discover that Gospel included gossip in their daily diet like it was a fifth member of the food groups. Meat. Vegetable. Bread. Dairy. All served alongside a healthy portion of "Vonda's youngest was caught smokin' behind the school."

"What about the woman who works for the sheriff? She seems nice and doesn't talk as much as Ada."

"That's Hazel." Stanley picked up the packages of T-bones, and Kate followed as he carried them through the store to the display case. The worn wood floor still creaked in the places Kate remembered as a child. The same Thanks for Shopping Here sign still hung above the door, and candy and gum were still sold on the first aisle. These days, though, the penny candy was ten cents and the owner's steps were slower, his shoulders more hunched, and his hands were gnarled.

"Hazel's an okay gal," her grandfather said as they stopped at the open refrigerated case. "But she isn't your grandmother."

The meat case had three decks and was split into four sections: chicken, beef, pork, and prepackaged, which her grandfather always called the "hanging meat." In Kate's sick mind, "hanging meat" had an entirely different connotation. She was from Vegas, where you could find Mr. Hanging Meat "dancing" at the Olympic Gardens five nights a week.

"Have you thought about retiring, Grandpa?" Kate asked as she straightened packages of Ballpark Franks. The subject had been on her mind, and she'd been waiting for the right moment to bring it up. "You should be having fun and taking it easy instead of cutting meat until your hands swell."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Your grandma and me used to talk about retiring. We were going to buy one of those motor homes and travel the country. Your mother's been nagging me about it, too, but I can't do it just yet."

"You could sleep as late as you wanted and not have to worry about getting Mrs. Hansen's lamb chops exactly an inch thick or running out of lettuce."

"I like providing the perfect cuts for people. I'm still good at it, and if I didn't have someplace to go every morning, I might never leave my bed."