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She upgraded herself to lioness and reminded herself that she was the one with claws.
    â€œYou say you have questions?” Sherri asked.
    The woman had burrowed into a briefcase-sized black leather purse and come up with a plain white business card. She handed it over and waited while Sherri read the lettering. It didn’t tell her much. In the center were the words THE NEDLINGER REPORT and a Web site address. In the lower left-hand corner was a name—J. Nedlinger—with a P.O. box, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers.
    â€œSo, Ms. Nedlinger... what kind of questions are we talking about?”
    J. Nedlinger’s carefully shaped eyebrows shot up. “You’ve never heard of me?”
    â€œSorry, but no.”
    â€œOh, well. They say fame is fleeting.”
    Sherri didn’t like the way the other woman was looking at her. That intense stare seemed to her to contain a strong undercurrent of mockery. It was as if this Nedlinger woman knew something Sherri didn’t and relished hugging that secret knowledge to herself. Sherri tried to tell herself she was being fanciful, as she had with that lioness and elephant image, but the impression remained.
    â€œI’m a journalist,” J. Nedlinger said. “I collect information, in this case statistics. I’d like to know about the crimes your little town has suffered over the course of the last two years. Is that going to be a problem?”
    Sherri tried to put her finger on why the woman made her uneasy. Ms. Nedlinger was quite stout, but there was nothing soft about her. She was physically fit. There were muscles beneath the sleeves of the plain gray suit, and she wore sturdy walking shoes. She was not someone Sherri would fancy meeting in an alley on a dark night. But, curiously, it was the image of a bulldozer that replaced that of an elephant. No predatory beast—just one of those pushy people determined to get her own way.
    Sherri had no reason to deny the woman’s request. When it came right down to it, she didn’t suppose she had any choice but to comply. What Ms. Nedlinger had asked for was public information, data that Sherri had, literally, at her fingertips. She tapped a few commands into the keyboard in front of her and heard the printer whirr into action.
    One of the routine jobs Chief of Police Jeff Thibodeau had assigned to Sherri when he’d first hired her had been compiling the monthly statistics and feeding them into a computer program specifically designed to keep track of such things and report them to the state of Maine. The task didn’t take much of her time. Moosetookalook had been known to go for weeks at a time without a single complaint that ended up creating paperwork. Arrests were not an everyday occurrence.
    Two sheets of paper spilled out of the printer. Sherri glanced at them, then handed them over. “Here you go. This runs from May two years ago up to this week.”
    The stout woman seized the pages with an eagerness that had Sherri tensing up all over again. She knew there was one statistic that was out of proportion with the rest for a village as tiny as Moosetookalook. Sure enough, Ms. Nedlinger zeroed right in on it.
    â€œThree murders in two years? Isn’t that a bit excessive?”
    Hidden by the desk, Sherri’s hands clenched into fists. When she felt her fingernails bite into her palms, she forced herself to relax. She made an effort to keep her voice level. “These things happen even in small towns, Ms. Nedlinger. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”
    â€œWere you personally involved in any of the murder investigations, Officer Campbell?”
    Sherri glanced at the card in front of her on the blotter. J. Nedlinger’s P.O. box was in Boston, Massachusetts. Sherri wondered why an out-of-stater would care what crimes were committed in rural Maine.
    â€œCriminal investigations, Ms. Nedlinger, for the more serious crimes, especially