Through the glass doors walked a tall man in a gray overcoat, followed by two uniformed deputies and a woman holding a thick folder. Cordelia’s knuckles whitened on her cart. “Richard,” she breathed. The man was Richard Hale, owner of the supermarket chain and, as everyone suddenly learned, her older brother. He walked slowly down the aisle, stopped before the mountain of turkeys, and turned to the elderly grandmother. “Ma’am, what is your name?” he asked gently. “Edith,” she whispered.

Richard took the last turkey from the cart and placed it in Edith’s basket. Then he faced his sister. “Fourteen turkeys, Cordelia. You do not eat fourteen turkeys. Yesterday, my manager told me you have been buying every clearance item in this store for weeks and reselling them to a discount market.” Cordelia’s lips trembled. The woman with the folder opened it, and Richard added quietly, “And that is not the worst of what I found.”