“By both, do you mean you and me?” I called out. “Or you and Dog? I mean, the bird?”

John Graves shot me a look. “Me and the bird. You got two feet, don’t ya? You can get out of the way.”

Huh, so it was like that.

“Now look at what you’ve done,” John said to Dog, not to me, just to be clear. “This row’s a mess.” John had jerked the wheel when the crow startled him, putting a jagged curve in his otherwise perfectly straight line. “Don’t you be asking for any of my lunch scraps today.”

I peered up at Dog. How many people did he have feeding him?

“So, you know that crow?” I asked.

“Infernal bird has been pestering me like crazy the past few days. Always bringing me other people’s mail. I spend half my day delivering it back to the rightful owners.” Suddenly John smiled. “He’s not terrible company though.” The smile dropped when he looked back at me. “So, you going to move, or am I going to run you over?”

“Hopefully neither. Mr. Graves, my name is Brynn Warren.”

“I know who you are. I know who everybody is in this town. And I’ve heard all the stories about you Warren women.”

Okay, then. This was going swimmingly. “In that case I’ll skip the introductions. I wanted to come by and offer my condolences over the passing of your sister.”

“Save it. I don’t need to hear any of your kind words, or sorry sentiments. I’ve got work to do.”

“You know, you don’t have to be so rude,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “And it’s not normal to threaten people with lawn mowers.”

John Graves narrowed his eyes into a nasty squint.

I matched the look with my own scowl.

We glared at each other for a good long moment before he broke out in a laugh and slapped his knee. “You’re a live one, aren’t you? Connie must have liked you.”

I straightened up, taken aback. “I’m not sure if she did or not, but I’d like to think so.”

He nodded, a somewhat sad expression coming to his face. “She could be a tough one, all right.”

I took a steadying breath. I really needed to get ahold of this conversation. “Mr. Graves, again, the reason I’m here is because I wanted to talk to you about your sister.”

“Okay, but drop the condolences bit, girl. I’d like to believe we’ve started this relationship out honestly, so don’t go lying to me now. I can guess why you’re here.”

I blinked. This was the fastest relationship I had ever managed to get myself into. Hopefully we were just friends.

“We both know your aunt is on the list of suspects for the death of my sister,” he went on, not waiting for me to answer, “and you’re here to find out if I’d make a nice replacement for her on that list.”

“Well, that’s true,” I said uncertainly. This really wasn’t how I planned for this conversation to go. “But I’m also open to hearing about any other suspects you might have in mind?”