In 1973, Imogene Taylor is seventy-five years old, on parole for murder, and works at a store that sells dented canned goods. Twelve years earlier, she went to prison for killing her love-of-her-life-husband, Wayne. She called it an accident. The judge and jury called it murder. Imogene's parole agent is constantly on her case, looking to send her back to prison.
During her time in prison, Imogene had to vent her angst at someone and sent the sitting Presidents (during the ten years in prison) threatening letters bringing her to the attention of the Secret Service. She does extensive research and writes a novel, Peekaboo POTUS, about the assassination of a US President. She sends the book "over the transom" to one publisher. The publisher, after being unable to contact Imogene, comes looking for her.
The Cigar, an organized crime gangster, walks into Dentco, where Imogene works, and extorts the store for protection money. Pay up or get firebombed. The entire strip center is under this threat.
At the same time, Imogene's neighbor dies of natural causes and leaves a hoarder's mess to his daughter, Suzanne. Imogene helps Suz clear out a pyramid of boxes filled with junk in the garage. At the bottom of the pile, they find a box with a dead woman who has been hidden for many years.
Imogene must dodge an overzealous parole agent while dealing with a dead woman in the neighbor's garage. She's on parole for murder, so she can't report it to the police. No one would believe her. Imogene and Suz think the woman in the box is Suz's long-estranged mother. Rather than reveal Suz's father as the probable killer, Imogene convinces Suz to bury her mom under the avocado tree in the backyard. Until Thelma, Suz's mother, appears after reading the obituary.
It's a race to uncover the real killer as Imogene dodges gangsters, family members, and a publisher on her quest to find the truth.