The word is out; Sally Nimitz is very good at solving a mystery. Her third escapade begins when Sally is approached by a friend and co-worker, Emma Shultz. There are puzzling events taking place at the southern family estate of Emlee, home to the Bradshaw sisters, Emma's mother and maiden aunt. The two older ladies are being pressured to move so Emlee can be sold. When their mother died five years earlier, her will stipulated they could live out their lives at
the family home, so why does their nephew want them to move now? When the suggestion is spurned, a beloved cat disappears, a snake is found in the
kitchen, and the house is broken into. Would Sally consider going to Emlee to see what's behind all this?
Sally asks for the advice of her two comrades, Anne Carey and George Thomas, before making a decision. A visit to Emlee in February by strangers would be
looked upon with suspicion by the Bradshaw family, so they devise a plan where Anne, a retired educator, poses as an old friend from Emma's mother's past.
Sally makes her presence look unpretentious by volunteering to accompany the elderly lady.
The two of them soon find family ill-will and long kept family secrets that are starting to surface. Two days after their arrival an unsavory neighbor is shot to death. He has no connection to the well-respected Bradshawsor does he?
With a gift of observation, and a knack for asking the right questions, Sally begins to find some amazing answers, answers that go back two generations.
Was it a member of the family who had him killed? Even more ominous, after the shooting there are sudden assurances the ladies don't have to move after all and that there will be no more trouble.
Once again Sally and her two assistants fine the answers, plus an answer or two they weren't looking for.