Death and the Walking Stick

When Althea Boatright dies alone in her locked room, it looks like a sickly old woman's natural death - until a friend notices a walking stick missing and mentions it to Lulu Huckabee. Lula's son is the Ogeechee, Georgia, chief of police, and he assigns his cousin Trudy Roundtree to investigate. Trudy finds plenty of people with grudges against the deceased. There are even threads that lead her back into Althea's youth . . .