seymoure | (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.