(no subject)

19.
“Scared Smart”

“I hope you understand that this is too much even for you,” His wife told him.

They sat in the back seat of Henrietta Kithcart’s Studabaker on their way home. The Nash was not going to be going anywhere for a while. The State Troopers had all but taken the thing apart looking for bullets, none of which they found.

They also combed the road for a mile in either direction from the hospital. Not a single shell casing, or anything that might have been confused with a shell casing, was found.

If not for the bullet holes in the windshields, there was no evidence that a shooting had happened at all. It was like one of those old chamber mysteries, where the body keeps disappearing and no one believes anyone has been murdered.

“There is no one else to find this . . .” Hannibal began, and then remembered the possibly sensitive ears of Mrs. Kithcart.

“Bastard?” Henrietta tossed over her shoulder like a sack of peanuts at the ballgame to the pair in her back seat.

Pappy looked at his wife, and then the two of them laughed.

“Remember, I had 5 brothers,” Henrietta said as she turned off the highway and down the road to the Agamemnon’s house, “There ain’t anything you can say that I haven’t heard.” The 300+ pound woman took up the entire seat of the small Studebaker, but her engratiating personality almost made one forget how she looked. Her strawberry blonde hair matched the freckles and constantly blushed cheeks that sat around her ever present smile and laughing eyes. It was as if the mythic figure of the Earth-mother wore a bright flowered dress and could take just about anybody at arm wrestling.

“You can’t go on with this, Han,” Bell told him, “I cannot lose you.”

“The doctor said I just got a little shocky,” He reached out and took her hand. “I didn’t have a heart attack, I didn’t have a wound that amounted to more than a scratch. I've been hurt worse at poker games.”

“I watched you fall to the ground like a stone. Your hands were cold as death.”

“I was scared,” He admitted.

“Who wouldn’t be,” Henrietta shot back, “Not that many of us have been shot at!”

“You ever been shot at Mrs. Kithcart?” Han asked.

“I’ve had about anything you can name thrown at me short of bullets,” She laughed, “I have been married six times.”

They pulled up to the house, and the husband and wife got out of the car, and invited the driver in for coffee. When that was turned down, they added blackberry cobbler to the offer, and almost got a positive response. But it was getting late and she wanted to see if her third ex had sent a check. So the pair walked in and waved as the large woman drove away.

“It’s good to have friends,” Bel mused.

“This town is full of our friends,” Pappy told her, “And they are the ones who need me to follow this to the end.”

She looked up at him resignedly, and then they embraced and went inside.

Tonight, at least, she wasn’t sharing him with anyone.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

20.
“A New Day”

Hannibal Agamemnon started the day the way any good detective would begin investigating anything in a small town.

At 10 AM he walked into Verna Travis’ Salon to get his hair done, and find out just what was going on in Setonville.

If there had been a functioning newspaper, that would have been the place to start, but, failing that this would be where anything that was news was available for the listening ear.

He brought away more information than any human being would want to know about medical conditions and the state of matrimonial felicity in the town, but that he expected, and only half trusted.

The top things that were new were:

1. The Mayor was still trying to unload his property out by the pond, with almost no one interested in the least.This plot had drifted between owners for the last 60 years, usually, it is said, as a pot in a poker game. The Mayor found this out only after paying cash for it, and then finding that nothing over 100 pounds could be built there and not slowly sink out of sight within weeks. It had been often referred to as "The Iowa Atlantis," but never by anyone who owned it.

2. Jeff Barsimmons was back in town for the month. He was taking a vacation from working as the personal assistant for Congressman Templeton down in the state capitol. Everyone knew this was just his way of making political connections for his own future campaigns. His family certainly had the money to fund his aspirations. There was also talk that he was so pretty that he was undoubtedly "that way." They also said that he was easy to get along with so long as you didn’t make him vary his routines. He was easily upset by those who made him alter his schedule.

3. Wiley Earl, who had run the youth camp in Emerson, was let go because the camp was closing. He had taken a job as a janitor over at the school till something else came up. By all accounts, Wiley was just a crust short of a cobbler.

4. Melanie Custer had seen somebody roaming around down by the highway a couple of days ago, just about the time of the shooting, but it wasn’t anyone she knew.

That was about it, unless you wanted to know that . . . but then, you wouldn’t want to know any of that. Han knew it and wished he didn’t.

But now he had some honest to God leads to follow up, and that was a great thing.

He was going to go by the State Trooper’s offices and get whatever they had from both the past and current cases. Then he’d go over and check on Tooley, who was, by all reports, doing really well, but would have to stay at least another day before they’d feel good about letting him out.

Then he thought he’d go by and question the heck out of Melanie Custer, and Wiley Earl.

At last, some living,breathing people to talk to about this case.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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