Dead Weight

Divorced at fifty-two, broke by October, and then she opened the freezer.

Marnie Kowalczyk sorts everything into four piles: keep, sell, donate, trash. She's never needed a fifth. Until now.

At fifty-two, Marnie has a fresh divorce, $11.42 in checking, a used box truck called the Beast whose horn randomly plays a fanfare all by itself, and custody of her ex-husband's mother. Dodie is seventy-eight, four foot eleven, and carries wasp spray "for emergencies."

Clean Sweep's first big job is a hoarder house in Pruett Falls, Ohio. Thirty years of National Geographics. Two weeks to clear it. And in the basement, under the Christmas decorations, a chest freezer with a brand-new padlock.

Nobody puts a new lock on an old freezer for no reason.

Now Marnie's fingerprints are on the lid, the deputy coroner, Abe Lindqvist, can't decide what to make of her, and the whole town still thinks of her as Greg's wife.

Somebody in Pruett Falls knows exactly how that freezer got locked. Marnie has to find them before they notice she's looking.

A funny mystery with a closed-door slow burn. Mild language, no gore, and no animals harmed.