I transferred a raw cookie-dough star from the table to the cookie sheet. "I don't know about the haunted part, but the place is supposed to be a toy store. The guy who owns it has failed to appear for a court date, and I haven't been able to find him. Supposedly he makes some of his own toys, and he has a workshop somewhere, but I haven't been able to get an address for the workshop."

When the bail bonds office opened tomorrow morning I'd have Connie, the office manager, run a cyber search on Claws. I could also check to see if Claws was on the books for electric and water at a location other than his house and his store.

"You're gonna have to pick the pace up here," Grandma said. "We still got to put the frosting on these cookies. And we got the filled cookies to make yet. And the cream cheese snowballs. I can't be doing this all day because I gotta go to a viewing tonight. Lenny Jelinek is laid out. He was a member of the Moose lodge, and you know what that means."

My mother and I looked at Grandma. We were clueless.

"I give up," my mother said. "What does that mean?"

"There's always a crowd when there's a Moose laid out. Lots of men. Easy pickings, if you're in the market for a studmuffin."

My mother was mixing cookie dough in a big bowl. She looked up, spoon in hand, and a glob of dough slid off the spoon and plopped onto the floor. "Studmuffin?"

"Of course, I've already got my studmuffin all picked out," Grandma said. "I met him at Harry Farfel's viewing, week before last. It was a real romantic meeting. My studmuffin just moved into the area. He was driving around, trying to find a business associate, and he got lost. So he went into Stiva's Funeral Parlor to ask for directions, and he bumped right into me. He said he bumped into me on account of he has vision problems, but I knew it was fate. All the little hairs on my arm stood up the second he knocked me down. Can you imagine? And now we're practically going steady. He's a real honey. He's a good kisser, too. Makes my lips tingle!"

"You never said anything," my mother said.

"I didn't want to make a fuss, what with Christmas on top of us."

I thought it was sort of cool that Grandma had a studmuffin, but I didn't really want a mental image of Grandma and the good kisser. Last time Grandma brought a man home to dinner he took his glass eye out at the table and set it alongside his spoon while he ate.