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Synopsis
There isn't much crime in Lilyvale, Arkansas, but local authorities have their hands full with Ms. Sherry Mae Stanton Cutler and her housemates — a crafty group of retirees who've dubbed themselves the Silver Six. But when Sherry Mae's niece, Nixy, arrives to keep them in line, Lilyvale also plays host to a killer.
When Leslee Stanton "Nixy" Nix gets the latest call from Lilyvale detective Eric Shoar, she knows it means trouble. There's been another kitchen explosion at her Aunt Sherry's farmhouse, and the dreamy-voiced detective has had enough. If Nixy doesn't check on her aunt in person, the Silver Six could become wards of the court. But the trouble Nixy finds in Lilyvale is not at all what she expects.
The seniors are hosting a folk art festival at the farmhouse, featuring Sherry's hand-woven baskets, when land developer Jill Elsman arrives to bully Nixy's aunt into selling the property. When Jill is later found dead in the cemetery, Sherry is suspected of weaving a murder plot, and it's up to Nixy and the Silver Six to untangle the truth.
Release date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Berkley
Print pages: 304
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Basket Case
Nancy Haddock
As I climbed the porch stairs, I spotted my five-foot-nothing Aunt Sherry standing behind two six-foot folding tables that blocked the front door. A coatrack held small baskets of woven hemp and willow, and larger baskets made of those and other materials were scattered on the porch floor. A long swath of blue gingham fabric lay in and around the fallen baskets, the edges fluttering as if agitated by the swirling emotions instead of the mild breeze . . .
Chapter One
I, LESLEE STANTON NIX, NIXY TO MY FRIENDS, HAD never been called on the carpet for anything. Up until four days ago, that is.
Now I had third-degree rug burns and the risk of being jobless.
Why? Because my boss at Houston’s Gates Fine Arts Gallery, Barbra (like Streisand) Vole, had blown her nonexistent fuse when the Lilyvale, Arkansas, police detective Eric Shoar had called me at work. His fifth call in the last month, the second in the past ten days. Shoar’s deep, dreamy Southern drawl had stirred my feminine interest, but deep and dreamy hadn’t softened his complaints.
“We had another incident at Miz Sherry Mae’s yesterday,” he’d begun. “Neighbors across the road reported booming sounds and smoke coming from the kitchen.”
“Is anyone injured?” I’d asked on a gulp, my cell phone slick in my suddenly moist hand.
“Thankfully, no.”
“Did the fire department respond?”
“They don’t respond anymore unless I call them, but do you want whatever the problem is to go that far?”
“No, how can you think that?”
“Then prove you care. You have one week to get up here and see to your aunt and her housemates.”
“A week?” I’d echoed stupidly.
“This needs to be an in-person visit, ma’am. Not a phone call.”
“I hear you, but why the rush?”
“First, because the situation—whatever it is—seems to be escalating. Second, because my chief of police is asking questions about all the complaints coming in and why I’m taking the calls instead of the patrol units. I can’t deflect him much longer.”
“You’re investigating, so you’re doing your job. What’s there to question?”
He coughed. “My reports might be on the sketchy side.”
And the light dawned. “You’re protecting Sherry.”
“Miz Sherry’s ancestors founded this town, and she’s served on the city council. Even been the mayor.”
“That’s enough to cut her some slack?”
“That and having had her for a teacher, but understand me, Ms. Nix. This is serious. I don’t want a tragedy on my hands, and I don’t want Miz Sherry and her friends to be declared wards of the court.”
“What?” I’d gasped.
“If the chief believes that Miz Sherry and her friends are a danger to themselves or others, he’ll have to act.”
“You’d tell him they’re dangerous? You’d take away their independence? Their freedom?”
“Not if I can help it.” He’d paused, then continued, “I understand that you don’t think you know Miz Sherry well enough to stick your nose in her business, but none of her housemates have people left. We need this resolved, and you’re the only relative in sight.”
“I’ll get up there as soon as I can,” I’d said as I sagged against a wall.
“Good. Come by the station when you’re in town. I’ll be happy to help you if I can.”
With the threat of legal action against my aunt, I might’ve panicked and dashed off to Arkansas then and there. My mother, Sue Anne, had been a late-in-life child, ten years younger than Sherry Mae. I was a surprise late-in-life baby, too, and we’d lived in Tyler back then. Though Sherry and her husband, Bill Cutler, made trips to visit us in Texas, I didn’t remember visiting them in Arkansas. The families exchanged cards and letters and phone calls, but I didn’t know my aunt well. Not until my mother had suffered a stroke a year and a half ago and Sherry Mae had come to say good-bye to her sister.
Sherry’s husband had died just over three years earlier, but she had housemates—a temporary arrangement that had become permanent. Because she didn’t have a deadline to be home, she’d been able to stay and support me through my mom’s death and through the myriad of funeral arrangements. Always calm and steady. Always ready to advise me without being the least bit pushy. Always ready to share stories of herself and Mom as girls and young women. I’d grown close to Sherry Mae during those weeks, and I was grateful for the chance to relate to her as an adult. It had been fun to stay in touch since then with regular e-mails and holiday cards, phone calls and photos. So many photos that I should recognize each blade of grass and every plank of the original hardwood floor when I saw it.
Surprisingly, Barbra had given me time to be with my mom those precious days before she died, and time to take care of the services. After that, I’d used my weekends to wrap up her estate. Now, however, livid as Barbra was about my “sordid involvement” with the police, she wouldn’t give me emergency leave. She had demanded that I finish out the week to complete our latest art installation—work overtime, in fact. Four days of Shoar’s deadline shot, and Barbra had given me just until the middle of next week to return.
Which is why I’d packed a small suitcase on Thursday night, finished every task Barbra dreamed up until we closed on Friday, and then finally hopped into the no-frills white Camry I’d inherited from my mom. Purse. Check. Directions to Sherry’s. Check. Sunglasses. On. I was ready to fight the weekend traffic leaving downtown Houston.
At least the April weather was on my side. Not too hot, not too cold, not storming. I had daylight saving time in my favor, too, though I saw more buildings than roadside bluebonnets on the way out of town.
Daylight melted into dusk, then dark, and my thoughts turned back to what waited in Lilyvale, southwest Arkansas.
Lilyvale. The town my mother’s family had founded, but I’d never visited.
Lilyvale. The town my stupid portable GPS unit probably couldn’t find.
Lilyvale. The place I didn’t want to be, or at least not now. Not when I was so close to earning a promotion at the gallery.
Okay, so I was only next-in-line to the assistant director’s assistant. Still, I’d made the gallery my life since owner Felina Gates had hired me. I’d busted my butt to earn double majors in fine art and art history, a minor in marketing, and a masters in art history. I excelled at my job, and I’d paid my dues. And now that Barbra was supposed to retire, I deserved the promotion.
I deserved a massage, too. The Shreveport motel bed I’d fallen into after midnight left me with more aches than I’d had after my first and final kickboxing class. Up again at the crack of dawn, I showered, went through my pre-drive checklist, and hit the highway for the last leg of the trip.
Though Sherry had mentioned that winter had lingered in Lilyvale, the day was sunny and clusters of early blooming wildflowers lined the two-lane country roads. The sight brightened my mood as I mentally made my schedule for the day. First, drop in on Detective Eric Shoar at the police station to prove I was in town as ordered, and then visit Aunt Sherry Mae.
Just after nine, I cruised north on what appeared to be the Lilyvale main drag. The British male voice on my portable GPS kept telling me to make a U-turn as soon as it was safe. I ignored it.
Not a minute later, I found the picturesque town square my mother had spoken of, and felt the oddest tug of comfort. A sign proclaimed that Hendrix County Courthouse stood before me, a two-and-a-half-story limestone structure on slightly elevated ground surrounded by magnolia trees and a riot of lilies. Lilies graced the base of a small white gazebo on the courthouse grounds, too. Businesses lined each side of the square, and yet more lilies, tulips, and even daisies bloomed in large cement planters outside the shops.
Spring had not merely sprung here. Spring had reared up and slapped the soil into giving up riots of color.
As I looked for the police station, I circled the entire square and noticed how it was laid out. An inner circle ran closer to the courthouse and served through traffic. Two outer sections opposite each other held two rows of diagonal parking spaces for shopper convenience, and parallel parking slots lined the other two streets that bordered the square. After circling the inner street twice, I hadn’t seen the police station, but did spot a shopkeeper opening her clothing store.
In a sleepy Southern town, I didn’t give a second thought to asking for directions, so I parked in a diagonal slot next to a behemoth Buick land-boat with an elderly woman hunkered behind the wheel. The pristine powder-blue paint gleamed as much as the woman’s coifed gray hair, and I gave her a friendly nod as I beeped my locks and took the two steps up to the broad sidewalk.
“Honey. Oh, honey,” I heard behind me.
I turned to see the blue-Buick lady beckoning.
“Yes, ma’am?” I put my sunglasses on top of my head as I neared her.
“Honey, would you do me a little favor? Would you go in there”—she paused and pointed—“and tell Miss Anna that Miss Ida Bollings is waitin’ for her medicine.”
I glanced up at the picture window reading simply PHARMACY in old-fashioned lettering. Mental shrug. I didn’t have an actual appointment with Shoar and had decided not to forewarn Aunt Sherry I was coming. Why not do a good deed? I’d deliver Miss Ida’s message and ask directions to the station.
“That’s Miss Anna for Miss Ida’s medicine?”
“That’s right, honey. They’ll put it on my account.”
Right, and let a perfect stranger walk off with a prescription. Possibly a controlled substance.
The inside of the store was as quaint as its sign. An antique oak glass-front cabinet dark with age sat along the left side of the space. Wood shelves filled with typical drugstore products ran down the middle and along the right wall of the store.
“Help you?” The question came from one of the two middle-aged clerks seated behind the oak cabinet.
“Um, yes. I’m a visitor in town, but Ida Bollings is outside and wants me to tell Miss Anna that she’s waiting for her medicine.”
“Sure. That’s Miss Anna in the back.”
I’d expected a clerk to take over, but what the heck. I approached Miss Anna, another woman of middle years who stood behind a raised counter, also made of oak, and also glowing with a dark patina.
“May I help you?” she asked brightly.
“I’m a visitor in town, but Miss Ida is in her car outside waiting for her medicine.”
“Good. I have it right here.” Anna produced a brown glass bottle that looked like it had been made in the 1930s. “Now tell Miss Ida to take just one tablespoon full at a time. A tablespoon from her silverware drawer will do, and no more or it’ll make her drunk.”
“One tablespoon,” I echoed, feeling like I’d landed in a time warp.
“The directions are right here,” Anna said, tapping the white label, “but we like to remind Miss Ida.”
“Do you ever remind her in person?”
Anna titled her head. “Come again?”
“I’m just wondering why Miss Ida didn’t come in herself.”
Anna chuckled. “She doesn’t like to fool with dragging her walker out of the car unless she’s shopping for a spell.”
“So she sends strangers in for her prescriptions all the time?”
“Oh no. She’s discerning about people, our Miss Ida is. You have a good visit in Lilyvale.”
She handed me the bottle and reached for the ringing phone. At the front desk, I mentioned again that I was only a visitor just to see if the ladies would take over. They didn’t. They waved me off with a cheery “Tell Miss Ida hi, now!”
Still stunned that I was walking out of a pharmacy with a concoction that could make its recipient drunk, I delivered the bottle and one-tablespoon message to Miss Ida. Her eyes twinkled when I mentioned the drunk part.
“I’ll be careful, never you fret.”
I nodded. “Miss Ida, do you know where the police station is?”
“A’course, honey. You go to the end of the block, turn right, and go two blocks. The station is on the corner and the fire station is across the street.”
I’d no more than thanked her and returned to the sidewalk when the Buick’s engine revved and Miss Ida peeled out like an Indy champion. Must be eager for a hit of her medicine.
The Ida-and-her-walker episode had me wondering, though. Were my aunt and her housemates as physically well and mobile as Sherry had told me they were? Did they still drive? I didn’t talk with Sherry daily, not even weekly, but we’d chatted at least twice a month. When she’d mentioned the cold weather, she hadn’t mentioned she or her friends had caught the flu. Not even a mild cold. She had never indicated that any of the Silver Six, as they called themselves, were ill or infirm in any way.
Of course, she’d never mentioned explosions and cooking accidents either.
Gripped by a sudden urgency to meet Detective Shoar, I drove to the cop shop, a building that turned out to be modern and bland compared to the pharmacy and the other downtown buildings. Tiled lobby floor with white walls, a reception window, and a green door to the inner sanctum of the station.
A young black man with a T. Benton name bar on his crisply pressed tan uniform took my name and request, and made a call. A moment later, Detective Shoar blew through the green door and introduced himself in a rush.
“You’re Leslee Nix?”
“Nixy,” I said automatically, stunned at his brusque manner. Not to mention he had a chiseled handsome face, and in short sleeves, well-worn jeans, and boots, he had a body artists would kill to paint. He smelled fine, too. Spicy with a mysterious undertone.
Detective Shoar narrowed his brown eyes. “You look about eighteen.”
Not the first time I’d heard that, especially when I wore cargo shorts, a T-shirt, not-so-white tennis shoes, and my blah-brown hair in a ponytail. Never mind that I’m only five foot three.
I gave him my stock reply. “I’m twenty-nine. Our family has youthful genes.”
“Hunh.” He blinked then frowned. “You know where Sherry Mae lives?”
“Uh, sort of.” I had Internet directions.
“‘Sort of’ won’t cut it. You can follow me out there,” he said as he closed a big hand around my elbow and guided me to the glass front door.
“Why the hurry?”
“Because I just got a call that there’s trouble at the house.”
Chapter Two
I SCRAMBLED TO MY CAMRY AND TOOK OFF BEHIND Detective Shoar. He didn’t use his lights or siren, so it wasn’t a challenge to keep up with the patrol car he drove. Not on the relatively level and straight streets with nearly zip traffic. It wasn’t as easy to keep calm. Though he’d said “trouble” at the house, not “emergency,” my breath clutched in my chest as I imagined a fire or worse raging at Aunt Sherry’s. True, no screaming fire trucks followed us, but I’d forever blame myself if I’d come to Lilyvale a day too late.
I’d about worked myself into a baby ulcer when Detective Shoar’s brake lights flashed and snapped me out of my head. I refocused my attention on the line of vehicles parked in the newly green grass just off the two-lane blacktop road. More cars, bearing license plates from as far away as Kansas and New Mexico, nosed along the split rail fence a few feet higher than the road. Beyond the cars, portable white tents rose in neat rows, and behind those, at the apex of a gentle upslope, sat a sprawling two-story farmhouse.
Sherry’s home. I knew it immediately from my mother’s and Sherry’s photos, and I breathed easier just seeing it perfectly intact with no smoke boiling from the windows. But was Sherry hosting a giant garage sale?
Then I spotted a banner lashed to the rustic fence rippling in the breeze: FOLK ART FESTIVAL.
I mentally smacked myself for not remembering. Aunt Sherry’s last letter had brimmed with news about the event, but I hadn’t paid attention to the dates. Not important now. The crux was that the house looked fine. No one ran screaming from the grounds. So what kind of trouble call had Shoar taken?
His patrol car hung a right at the mailbox enclosed in a skinny-mini version of Sherry’s farmhouse, and I followed him up the gravel driveway. To my left, on a chain-link fence, hung hand-lettered signs that read HANDICAPPED, POLICE, and FIRE. Talk about being prepared.
Shoar wheeled into the police-marked space, and as soon as I parked by a blooming dogwood, I shot out of my car and dogged his steps past clusters of people. Unnaturally quiet and watchful people.
Except for one man who stepped in Shoar’s path.
“What’s going on?” I heard Shoar ask the man, but I hustled past them.
As I climbed the porch stairs, I spotted my five-foot-nothing Aunt Sherry standing behind two six-foot folding tables that blocked the front door. A coatrack held small baskets of woven hemp and willow, and larger baskets made of those and other materials were scattered on the porch floor. A long swath of blue gingham fabric lay in and around the fallen baskets, the edges fluttering as if agitated by the swirling emotions instead of the mild breeze.
Sherry held one hand to her chest, the other hovering over a barrette in her hair. Her eyes held annoyance and a hint of fear. Three women and two men flanked her, looking on with concern but saying nothing. These were her housemates, I realized. The rest of the Silver Six. I remembered their faces from the Christmas card Sherry had sent.
A blonde, rawboned, big-chested woman wearing jeans and a summer sweater stood off to the side, her eyes wide with horrified fascination.
Opposite my aunt stood the snarling star of the showdown in progress. She leaned over the folding table, her bloodred fingernails scary-long and lethal-looking as she pointed at Sherry.
“You’ll come to an agreement with me, Mrs. Cutler, and you’ll do it soon or you’ll be very sorry.”
“But, Ms. Elsman,” my aunt began.
“No ‘buts,’” the Elsman woman interrupted. “I want that option on your land, and I will by God have it.”
She tucked her asymmetrically cut black hair behind an ear, lifted a stiletto-shod foot, and deliberately speared one of the medium-sized hemp baskets lying on the porch.
Blame it on being tired and stressed, but the woman stomped on my last nerve, and my temper flared in a sonic boom of fury.
“Back up and back off, lady,” I snarled, whipping off my sunglasses.
I heard heavy boot steps behind me—Detective Shoar’s, I guessed—but was too incensed to let him take the lead. I stormed to Sherry’s tables.
The woman casually turned and arched a brow. “My name is Elsman, Ms. Jill Elsman, and I suggest you stay out of this. It does not concern you.”
“Actually, it does.” The black-haired, black-eyed demon woman towered over me, but I stood straight and let her have it. “It so happens that Mrs. Cutler, the woman you just threatened, is my dearest aunt.”
“Nixy?” a voice said faintly.
I barreled on. “In addition, you happen to have flattened a fine piece of folk art.”
“That little basket?” Hellspawn snorted and gave the basket a shove with her shoe. “What do you know about real art?”
“According to my art degrees and my position at the prestigious Gates Gallery in Houston, I know quite a lot. I know something of the law, too, and I believe we’ll be filing charges of harassment, criminal mischief, and property damage. Or is it called malicious mischief in Arkansas, Detective Shoar?”
I looked over my shoulder and caught his expression of surprise.
“Criminal mischief covers it,” he drawled, but then his eyes turned all cop. “I suggest you leave now, Miss Elsman.”
“Suggest all you like, Detective,” she sneered, “but this event is open to the public.”
“However, since you’re creating a disturbance, ma’am, I think it best if you go now.”
She huffed, glared at me, and then snapped her fingers. “Trudy.”
I whirled to see sweater girl jump to attention. Aha. Hellspawn’s minion, it seemed. She scuttled after the wicked witch like a faithful, fearful dog at heel.
And Shoar? You could’ve knocked me over with one of Sherry’s minibaskets when he winked at me before he leisurely followed the routed twosome. I hoped he’d be certain they left because I needed to find out what the heck was happening here.
“Pixy Nixy?”
I had no more than turned when I was enfolded in Sherry’s gentle hug. Although I winced at the grade school nickname Sherry had resurrected, the strong wave of warmth from my aunt comforted me in a way I hadn’t known I missed. My mother had hugged me like this, and emotion swelled as I returned the embrace.
“Dear child,” she said as she released me, “I hardly recognized you with your hair up like that. Did I miss an e-mail telling me you were coming?”
“Um, no, Sherry.” She’d taken the barrette from her hair, and bangs fell over her left eye. She no longer looked frightened, but the sweep of bangs made her seem more vulnerable for some weird reason. I reached for a fast white lie. “I just thought I’d surprise you and experience the folk art festival. You’ve told me so much about it.”
“I see.” She gave me an I know you’re fibbing teacher look, and since she’d taught junior high and high school, the expression fit. Then she smiled. “Well, I’m glad to see you, but I’m afraid I’ll be rather busy today.”
“That’s okay. I’ll pitch in and help.”
“Not until the rest of us properly meet you.”
A tall, dapper man with a full head of white hair pulled up one side of his baggy khaki pants, then the other side, but they settled back on his bony hips as he moved to stand beside Sherry. He took my hand and bowed slightly. “Dwight Aloysius Baxter, at your service.”
“Dab, don’t hog the girl,” said a woman with short steel-gray hair. She wore a shirtwaist dress and an apron so blinding white, it could’ve been seen from space. Her facial structure held traces of American Indian ancestry a couple of generations removed and care lines etched her skin. “I’m Maise Holcomb, and this is my sister, Aster Parsons.”
Maise’s erect bearing gave me a flash of memory. Sherry had spoken of Maise and Aster, her first roommates, in the days after my mother’s death. Maise had been a U.S. Navy nurse during Vietnam, and Aster had been something of a flower child. Not antiwar, but pro-peace. The differing ideologies hadn’t split up the sisters, Sherry had said. They’d remained close.
Aster was more tanned than Maise, wearing her faded brown hair in a long braid, and decked out in more tie-dye than I’d seen since the gallery hosted a retro exhibition. She hugged me and I caught the essence of herbs. Rosemary? Lavender? Something both fresh and soothing, though I couldn’t place it before Aster released me and my beaming Aunt Sherry took over the introductions.
“Last but never least, Nixy, this is Eleanor Wainwright and Fred Fishner.”
I had to stop myself from gaping at the lovely and nearly wrinkle-free black woman with short salt-and-pepper hair decked out in an amber designer suit. I offered my hand to both Eleanor and her polar opposite, Fred. He was almost completely bald with a slight paunch covered by a white T-shirt and crisp light blue overalls. Screwdrivers and pliers and a dozen more tool-type gadgets poked out of every pocket. Even the two cargo pockets on both legs bulged. Then there was his walker, an overflowing tool belt strung across the front of it.
Fred banged his walker. His tools clanked, and arm muscles bunched. “Enough chitty-chat. I’m behind at my fix-it booth. See you later, missy.”
“I do believe Fred is correct,” Eleanor said in a cultured drawl as Fred clumped around the porch swing toward the driveway where I had parked.
“Right. We have tables to man, sales to make,” Maise said. “Quick time, now. Let’s get these baskets reorganized.”
I moved to help as Sherry untangled the blue gingham checked cloth from a willow basket. She draped the fabric on the table and arranged her display with Aster and Eleanor helping, Maise supervising.
I handed Sherry the last item—the basket Big Bitch Foot had stomped. “Aunt Sherry, I really need to know what’s going on here.”
“With the sale or that basket?” she asked innocently. “I can repair the basket, you know.”
“With that Hellspawn woman, Sherry. Please don’t dodge the question.”
“Elsman, dear, and, truly, it can wait.”
“No, it can’t,” I said more quietly because boot steps approached behind me. “I want to be prepared if she comes back.”
“She won’t,” Sherry said, smiling at someone over my shoulder.
“I agree,” Detective Shoar drawled. “I’m pretty sure the lady and her assistant will stay away for the duration of the festival.”
“Pretty sure?” I challenged.
“You lit into her hard. I don’t think she’ll want to go another round with you today.”
“And after that? Do you know why she was badgering Aunt Sherry?”
“I’ve seen her around town. Miz Sherry, mind if I borrow your niece for a few minutes?”
“Borrow away,” she said with a shooing wave. “Better yet, go shop.”
Shoar gestured for me to precede him, so I stomped down the porch steps, then ended up following him to his patrol car. He leaned his fine butt on the trunk and crossed his booted ankles.
“What?” I asked after seconds of silence. Yes, I knew about the cop silent-treatment trick. I watched my share of crime shows. Didn’t mean I couldn’t hurry Shoar along.
“It took you so long to get here, I sure didn’t expect you to jump to Miz Sherry’s defense.”
“I couldn’t leave my job until last night,” I said, sounding more indignant than I’d meant to.
“I’m not talking about just this time. I’ve been trying to get you to visit your aunt for a month.”
“Well, I’m here now, and I don’t do bullies. Which begs the question, why didn’t you call Hellspawn on her threat?”
“I didn’t hear her make it. I came up just as you went ballistic.” He paused and gave me a stern look. “You sure had a mouthful of legal terms handy. Why is that?”
“I’ve dated three lawyers. Now about Hellspawn. Do you know her?”
His lips twitched. “Three lawyers?”
“Different specialties. Hellspawn?”
“I don’t know her personally.”
“You want to expand on that?”
He shrugged. “She’s a land developer, from what I hear. I’ve seen her at the courthouse, and I’ve seen her having lunch with a couple of city councilmen, but I didn’t think much of it.”
“Why not? If she’s after Sherry’s land, I’ll bet she’s greasing palms.”
“That’s worth considering, but the lunches all took place at the Lilies Café.”
“Why do you make that sound unimportant?”
“Clark and Lorna Tyler own the Lilies Café and the Inn on the Square. T
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