briefly, dismissed them, and returned to his stew.
"I'm not that hungry," Auntie Lil decided. "Besides, I had it twice last week."
T.S. would have expected this statement to have been received with extreme skepticism, but the woman simply nodded in slow approval. "You more in the mood for a snack, granny?"
"Yes. That's quite right. A snack." Auntie Lil eyed some meat pies with garishly orange crusts that were baking beneath a heat light. She gave no sign of objecting to being called "granny." Not that there was a need to object, the title had been uttered in quite respectful tones.
"No, granny. You don't want those pies," the woman told Auntie Lil. She hopped down from her perch and the beaded braids tinkled as they swayed with her every move. "Those are frozen. Cheap for people who don't know any better. You want one of my homemade pies. A dollar more, but worth it." She slid a tray out of a small warming oven against one wall and placed it on the countertop. A spicy aroma filled the tiny shop and, against his will, T.S.'s stomach grumbled. "Maybe your son there like one, too," the woman suggested, her eyes twinkling.
"He's my nephew. But he'll take one." Auntie Lil sniffed deeply. "You made the crust yourself?"
"Of course. That's why it's not that Halloweeny orange."
"In that case, I'll take two."
"Very spicy, granny. Maybe try one, then another."
"Oh, no. I like spicy. Give me two." Auntie Lil accepted the pies wrapped in white paper as if she ate them from a roadside stand every day of her life. She bit into hers with characteristic gusto and groaned in approval.
"Delicious," she said, sputtering a fine spray of crumbs over the front of T.S.'s sweater. "Don't you agree, Theodore?"
He did not. He had discovered a raisin in his pie filling. T.S. loathed, hated, positively despised raisins in any form whatsoever.
"There're raisins in here," he said faintly, holding the offending pie out to his aunt.
"For heaven's sake, Theodore. Aren't you ever going to outgrow that fetish?" Auntie Lil and the woman giggled together. T.S. was just grateful that the small black man didn't join in at laughing at him, the amusing white middle-class male.
"I'll eat it if you don't want it," Auntie Lil finally offered. She placed his pie beside her second one and munched happily on her first. "This is heaven. I've never had better meat pies. Not in Kingston. Or even in Spanish Town."
"You been to Spanish Town?" the woman asked. "My mama came from there."
"I spent several months there one year," Auntie Lil admitted. "We were experimenting with a new kind of batik."
The woman absorbed this information respectfully, but had no curiosity to ask for details. She watched impassively as Auntie Lil polished off her two meat pies and started in on the third. With one hand holding the pie, Auntie Lil pulled the photos from her pocketbook with the other.
"Do you know this lady?" she asked, her mouth full of food as she slid the images of the dead woman across the counter top.
The woman peered down at it. Her face grew very calm and T.S. could almost feel the cooling in the room. Finally, she looked up and shrugged. "All old ladies look alike to me. One granny just like another." Her voice had changed dramatically, its former warmth replaced by suspicion and, perhaps, fear. She crossed her arms and backed away from them, settling on the small table behind the counter again. She stared back out the picture windows, as if they weren't even there.
T.S. knew she was lying. He'd worked with people too long not to know.
"You've never even seen her walking by on the block?" Auntie Lil insisted. She finished off the pie and scrubbed her fingers clean with the edge of her napkin. Small crumbs still clung to her mouth, but she'd soon talk those off.
The woman shook her head firmly, the braids clacking together in terse rhythm. "No, granny. I have not even seen her walking by." Her mouth shut firmly. She was saying no more.
Auntie Lil sighed just as the little black man finished his meal. When he rose to depart, his chair scraped against the tile floor with an angry screech. He stretched leisurely and patted his stomach in approval. "You are a good cook, Nellie," he told the black woman. "You are not such a good liar." He pulled the photos toward him and looked at Auntie Lil from under his bushy eyebrows. His face