"And where was the boat found?" Detective Brown asked.
Across the lake, sir. Over by Canal Point," the deputy sheriff answered.
Brown looked at the bass boat, a Nitro like he would love to own, metallic blue with a two hundred horse Mercury engine. The only spoiler was the body slumped over in the bottom of the boat.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to find in Apalachicola, Florida, but Kaitlin Mosby sure wasn’t it. Whoever coined the term “chick” must have had her in mind.
“A hundred-thousand bucks is a lot of dough, boss,” Dave, the sales manager from Hollyhock Ford, said.
“Yeah, but we’ll never have to pay it. And look at the free advertising. I mean who’s going to bring in a real leprechaun?
“What architect from hell drew up these blueprints?” asked Richard Shelby.
“No architect. Mumford.” Tony Jackson said.
“And just what is a Mumford?”
I could always find a million reasons never to attend funerals, but when Chuck Temple was shot and killed, they all went to hell. He and I actually went back to Elementary School #34 in Pittsburg. My family had moved there so my dad could find a job. In a quirk of fate, Chuck started the third grade there on the same day and for the same reason. We'd been tight since then.
Jacob was sweating and his stomach felt nauseated, but his Uncle Leo always made him nervous at these meetings. He watched as his uncle did his usual slow dance over his ledger books. The old man would run his finger down each row of columns and then look up at Jacob and give him a half-smile when he got to the bottom. He seemed to have a calculator in his head.
I got my job as a batboy with the Pine City Pinkies not because my old man was somebody important, but because I didn't have one. Most batboys are hired because their old man knows someone or is an important person in the community. Mine left me and my mom when I was two years old. May 13, 1950, was the date he bailed out for "parts unknown to seek his fortune.” Mom still gets dumpy when that date rolls around every year.
"Another spoon.”
"That's the craziest thing I've ever seen," Jake Potter said.
"Well," Sheriff Police Walt Henley said, "most people who go around killing people are not what we'd call normal, now are they, Jake?”
"Now don't you worry any, dearie. I'll have you back in sprouting form in two shakes of a lamb's tail," Bertha Vincent told the sick looking begonia sitting on a bench in front of her. She took a pinch of her super, but secretive, plant food from an old coffee can and sprinkled it around the base of the plant.
Dillworth was weird. He once complained there were not enough turtle races or turtle racing enthusiasts in the world. We were both enjoying a cup of coffee at Café Newburg. Now, I know Dillworth pretty well, and I wrote this off as another one of his ideas just to get attention. "You're kidding, right?"
