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Mysterywriter's Final Spring

By: MysteryWriter



Note from the author

 I hope you enjoy this piece but I don't much care if you like my grammar or my spelling. So don't bother sending me email about it please. If you want more of the same there is a free web site with nothing for sale, no adv, and no popups, just about two dozen novels and short stories galore. Email me for the address. If you hate it, let me know that too as I always love to hear from people who can write better. C Gurkin

Mysterywriter's Final Spring.

When I saw the lights ahead, I was almost as happy as I had been the first time I got laid. Since I had been nodding off for the last hour, I really needed the coffee that the truck stop sign promised. The number of eighteen wheelers at the truck stop alongside the two lane road surprised me. I had left the four lane at least twenty miles back. The map didn't show any other major highways before I reached the coast.

As I pulled the Mini Van into the parking lot it all became obvious, the trucks all had the same logo. There had to be a freight company nearby, I thought. It must have been breakfast time for them before they began their day. I parked the mini van in a spot far away from the real trucks. I didn't want to block one of them in. It sure as hell wasn't to save the van. That van had been worn out when I bought it. Buying junk was one of the benefits of having a best friend who ran a salvage yard. It might have been the only benefit.

John could put together about anything I wanted at a dirt cheap price. The van had been his idea actually. I told him that I wanted to sell my novels at festivals during the spring so he suggested that I buy a mini van. It would be good to carry all the junk from town to town and would be comfortable enough to sleep in as well. The deal was struck. I gave him all winter to do it. In exchange he sold me a van with the best of his junked out engines and transmissions for a song. Perfect bodies seldom go to salvage so the body was mess. The fenders on one side looked as though they had been straightened with a claw hammer. The paint was most likely house paint from home depot. The front seats didn't match at all, and there were no rear seats.

As was my habit, I took my antique cane with me. I did it so that my staggering would look as though it were physical, rather than the moves of a drunk. The fact is that it was physical, I just didn't need the cane. It was window dressing, as were most of the things I did that spring.

I found the restaurant to be warm on that chilly spring night. The barstools were all taken so I found a small booth where I seated myself. When I looked at the menu, I found that it made me hungry. I knew I shouldn't have the waffles but what the hell difference did a few pounds make at that point. I resisted the urge anyway.

"Hey there," I said to the waitress before she could greet me.

"You want coffee?" She might have been more asleep than me.

"Coffee would be fine," I replied.

"You know what you want to eat?"

"Nothing thanks, just the coffee and some information."

"Coffee's a buck for all you want, the information is free. We guarantee the coffee is good, the information might or might not be any good." She smiled showing me crooked and yellow stained teeth.

"That sounds perfectly reasonable to me," I said smiling back.

"I'll be back with the coffee then you can try the information bit," she said it while turning away. She returned in less than a minute with a coffee cup, it was about half the size of the one I traveled with.

"Now let's try that question thing." 

"Okay, I am headed for a small town called Rosehill, do you know it?"

"Know it hell, I live there. You headed to the festival?"

"Yep, I'm a first time vender there. So could you tell me where the fairgrounds are."

"Ain't no fairgrounds honey, they are having it downtown. Gonna block off the streets."

"I know but they said we could camp on the fairgrounds." I was a little worried at that point.

"Never heard of a fairground let me check with someone." The waitress with the bad teeth left me to ponder my next move. That night was pretty much shot anyway. I could ask at the show the next day I supposed. The very best I could do would be two hours sleep that night anyway. The setup downtown began at 5am.

The waitress came back a few minutes later with the coffee pot in her hand. "Okay Mister, I found out I think. I never been there mind you, but when they have the youth carnival they have it at the stadium complex. We are pretty sure that is where you want to be. It makes sense since it has bathrooms.

I thanked her while I sipped the scalding coffee. When I left the circle of warmth, it was almost 3am, I figured I had just enough time to find the high school stadium from her skimpy directions, then just go straight to the set up coordinator. The coordinator who was supposed to be downtown at 5am handing out assignments.

Finding the stadium proved to be easy since someone had thoughtfully placed temporary signs for the vendors. I didn't bother making room in the van for me to stretch out, I was afraid that I would over sleep. What I did was to set the traveling alarm clock, then push the seat back. I slept in ten minutes increments until the first of the pickups pulled from the grass covered parking area for the small town stadium.

I found the bathroom, where I deposited the dregs of the coffee both from the styrofoam cup and my body. When I returned to the van, I waited for someone else to leave for the downtown. When they did, I followed behind. The coordinator set my site on one of the side streets. If I had been selling jewelry or some such, I would have been angry. I wasn't expecting big crowds anyway so I just smiled. Since the rent was the same on them all, it was my guess that the prime spots were saved for the locals.

I had never set the booth up for real before so I had planned a little extra time for it. I started at 5am, which was way too early. Unlike some of the more elaborate ones mine could be set up in just a few minutes. That is once I had the bugs worked out. That morning I planned on an hour.

The coordinator was a gray haired lady whose age I wouldn't even try to guess. She gave me detailed directions and a map. She also told me that my space had a chalk number on it. The instruction, to have my beat up old van in the parking area by six, was delivered as she stared at my wreck of a vehicle. That ragged out old van might prove a liability but I really didn't care. It was all part of the image.

The very first thing I unloaded was the folding chair. I expected to spend a lot of time in it, then came the blob of concrete in the shape of a milk container. The reason for the shape was simple I had used an empty gallon plastic milk bottle as a form. A steel pipe was buried inside the blob of concrete. The beach umbrella came next. It had come from a discount stores close out sale in November of the year before. That should tell you how long I had been planning the spring and summer tour.



When I turned my hand to setting up the tables, it was dawn or a little after. The sun was still below the horizon but it was still pretty much lighting the downtown. That was probably because there were only few tall buildings to block the bent rays.

The two folding tables had come from the local goodwill store. I had kept them stored with the umbrella in my studio all winter. I had erected them at home just to make sure that they weren't going to come crashing down like the walls of Jericho. I had also purchased a coverings for my tables. It had been suggested to me by my ex wife that I use fake fur. That material would not wrinkle while being folded, she explained. It worked just exactly as she had predicted. 

With the tables assembled, I moved on to the product. The product was two and a half dozen mystery novels. They were on CDs, since I not only wrote them I also recorded them. The PC along with a program from a cell phone company allowed me to record, then edit them digitally. The CDs were just the easiest thing to produce. I had all the equipment to produce mass quantities of cassettes as well, but they were just a pain in the ass. 

I had intended to bring a small number of CDs with me, but again my ex wife convinced me to bring more than I ever expected to sell that summer. "Make it look like a bookstore," she advised me. Hell, they were easy and not very expensive to produce so why not, I thought.

That being the case, I removed a small plastic box of CDs for each title. Thirty one titles meant thirty one six by six by twenty-four inch boxes of novels and two more boxes of assorted short stories divided by tabs. Each CD was in it's own plastic box. The only label was on the CD itself. 

With the boxes set up, I was almost finished. Not much more a writer can do you would think? Since I was a photographer most of my life, I had also produced a set of posters for the booth. There were a dozen twenty inch by thirty inch posters in round tubes from the post office. From them I selected six for the stands I carried with me. I would have loved fancy stands that broke down but I just couldn't justify it so I build half dozen. 

Each stand was fitted with a cork board after it was erected. The posters were then thumbtacked to the board which had been wired to the stand. I had figured to keep the posters to a minimum during outside shows, to prevent wind damage. I put them up just to attract the crowds. Most were scantily clad women but a couple were male friends of mine holding their pistols. Thank god for redneck friends who own their own guns. Since the digital revolution, I was able to make posters with titles on them. I expected that the posters would help. Then again, I hadn't been on the road before so I couldn't be sure.

Last, but certainly not least, I removed a CD player. The player had been extensively reworked. I am a bit of a tinkerer you see. The four C cell batteries had been replaced by a wet cell lead acid battery that could be charged from the cigarette lighter of the van. The snap on connector had been added because I had two more charged batteries. The tiny plug in speakers had been replaced by larger speakers with their own amplifiers. I figured I could pretty much make myself or my stories heard all over that part of the festival. The player ended my equipment setup, thank God. I finally took a few minutes to look around the area.

The side street had come alive while I concentrated on setting up my show. I noted with some satisfaction that one of the vendors, on my tributary of the main street, was a food vender. Not only that he was a vender of some kind of French bakery items. At least I wouldn't starve, I thought. The very best thing about the booth was that it had coffee. I wasn't their first customer of the day, but I was damn close.

It was almost six thirty when the both next to be started to be assembled. I watched as the man and women worked diligently on it. It was obvious that they had done the assembly before and probably often. Instead of a beach umbrella they had a tent like contraption. It looked more like the tent over a grave site, since it had no sides.

"Hi there neighbor," I said to the man when he had finished the canopy."

"Hi, " He replied as he proceeded to pointedly ignore me. Screw you, I thought as I returned to my chair. 

I drank coffee from my travel cup while I waited for the people to come or the space on my right to be filled. The woman, who drove up at the ten till seven, quickly unloaded a folding table, two large plastic boxes, and a chair.

"Sir, would you watch my stuff while I park my car?" the woman who asked was the owner of the afore mentioned articles.

"Sure, I would be glad to." It wasn't exactly a big deal since I couldn't go anywhere anyway. When she returned, we introduced ourselves with a handshake. I left her alone to finish her setup while I walked up the small backwater spot we occupied. When I got to the main street I realized the full extent of the show. 

There must have been fifty booths on the main street with several more side streets filling up. The show looked much bigger than I had expected. There were crafts ranging from stained glass to painted saw blades. I didn't see anyone else selling books probably because no one will want them, I thought. 

Sell or not it didn't make any difference to me. I was out just for the experience of being on the show circuit. I am not going to lie, I hoped that the books would do well. Truth is what the hell was I going to do with the money even if they did sell?

"So you're a writer," My neighbor on the right asked upon my return.

"I'm afraid I have to duck that by asking what your definition of a writer is?"

"Okay have you sold a book?" She was grinning as she asked.

I smiled sadly at her when I asked, "Sold to who? I have sold copies on Ebay, but none to a mainstream publisher."

"Selling anything at all counts with me. I always wanted to write." I gave her a close look while she spoke. She was probably twenty years younger than my fifty eight. She was probably just as many pounds underweight. She was thin as death but still had a kind of figure.

"I am going to find out today if they do well or not." I said it as I moved to my chair. I noticed that the man and woman next to me listened to our exchange but they said nothing.

The people began to drift in before the show officially started. It was probably a good idea to have the cars out of the streets before seven, since there were people walking in the middle of the streets by that time. I began the loop CD at exactly 8am. I turned the volume up enough to be heard by anyone walking by. It was eight minutes of book blurbs, plus a carnival barker calling people over in between them. The voice of the blurbs and the barker was mine of course.

"You aren't going to play that thing all day are you?" The man on the left asked.

I had finally had enough of him. "Well you know friend, I asked them about the CD Player before I took the space. I expect it is why I am off on this side street one step from hell. So yes sir, I am going to play it. I am damned sorry if it bothers you, but it is going to play it as long as I am here." Of course the exchange wasn't real good for my heart but then what the hell nothing else I did was either.

"Seems to me you would give a little thought to your neighbors," He suggested.

"Gee whiz Beaver, it seems as though we are neighbors now. We weren't twenty minutes ago when I tried to have a conversation with you." I turned my attention to the girl on my right.

"So have you done many of these shows?"

"Just the local ones. This is kind of a hobby with me, one that makes me a few dollars but still just a hobby." I noticed that she sold hand made jewelry. I expected that there was a festival market for it but not much of a market anywhere else.

"So where you gonna be next?"

"Next month I will be in Clinton for the fertility festival." She almost looked embarrassed at having to repeat the name. I nodded since I had no idea where or what it might be. I turned back to my display when the woman stopped talking.

I was a little surprised that the people responded to my voice wafting down the street but they did. Several drifted over to listen a moment. Some engaged me in conversation, others drifted to my neighbors. I sold my first novel on four CDs shortly after 8am. The short stories became more popular as the morning wore on. I sold them until they were all gone. I sold a few novels before the show ended for the day. 

I spoke to the jewelry maker beside me several times before the show ended. It was only natural that I ask her for a restaurant recommendation. I understood that even small towns had several diners and at least one class restaurant. I was looking for the best of the diners.

"The best place in town is LucyLou's it has really good food and it is clean. Now if you want a fancy steak you can try Rolling's Steak house."

"Lucy Lou sounds more to my pocketbook's liking."

"Yeah, that is were I go when I go out."

I had the feeling she wanted to be invited along. Probably so she could say no. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try. "So Wendy would you like to join me for dinner. You are safe, since I am twice your age at least." I felt like the appendage was needed even though I really was harmless.

"I thought you would never ask, and you just think you are harmless. You my friend may well be the devil." She broke into laughter which made me smile broadly even as I shook my head.

The couple on the left side did not look happy anytime when we laughed and talked. It looked as though it was a case of paranoia to me. I didn't count my take until I had finished taking the display apart. Some of it I packed away for fear of weather damage and some for fear of theft. The cops couldn't hope to protect it all even though they planned to keep a large presence downtown that night.

We were in the restaurant waiting for our food when she asked, "So you gonna come to Clinton?"

"I don't think so. I have already made my schedule for the summer and Clinton doesn't sound familiar."

The food that came quickly was excellent. While we ate, Wendy told me about her marriage, her divorcee and her child. "You know I am probably the only woman in America who has a better ex than he was a husband. Willie, my husband, loves Mark and looks for any excuse to goose up his visitation time. He took Mark for the whole weekend since I am going to be home late and leave early." I wasn't sure but it sounded a lot like an invitation to me.

Since I had to sit beside her the whole next day, I was moving carefully. I smiled a lot and made a lot of statements that were pretty noncommittal. Dinner was almost over when I asked, "So if you don't have to rush off home, would you care to show an old man the ocean?"

"No," She waited just long enough for me to think I had been a fool to ask before she continued, "I would gladly show you the ocean." She grinned at me. I smiled at her with what I hoped was a rakish smile. It had been a long time since I tried to use that smile.

"You know both of our cars are full of product. Unless you really do want to see the ocean why don't you just come to my house for coffee?" 

"I can see the ocean on Monday," I replied. I looked to see if she understood and she did.

"So just follow me," she said it when we were in the parking lot. Following her proved to be only slightly difficult. She drove like a crazy person for a few miles then settled down to a reasonable pace. She probably realized that I wasn't going to get lost after all, so she slowed

The house where she lived tuned out to be a nice clean mobile home. I figured it was at least a step up from the back of the mini van, but then I might still be misreading her. I used the cane to steady myself as I climbed the free standing concrete steps with no handrail. Once inside the tin can I found furniture much better than that which came with the firetraps. 

"Why don't you take a seat while I fix the coffee." It was an invitation not a question and I knew it. Instead of answering I dropped to the comfortable sofa. Wendy slipped off into the kitchen first. I presume she started the coffee pot before she walked past me with a smile.

"Make yourself at home, I need to get into something more comfortable," She replied to my unasked question. Now when a woman says that, it could anything from a sweat shirt to a spider web. I sat waiting to see what her idea of comfortable might be.

I was almost asleep when she returned from whatever women do while the coffee brews. I had in fact nodded off since I hadn't really had a full nights sleep in several days. It was due some to the drive and some to the need to make last minute preparations and all to the excitement of the journey.


Mysterywriter's Final Spring



I felt her weight on the sofa beside me, it was the only thing that woke me I am afraid. If she hadn't decided to seat herself there, I probably would have slept sitting up until Monday.

"You look as though you need sleep more than that coffee." The remark hit home but I tried to fake it.

"I'm fine, the coffee will wake me up." I was groggy and my speech was slurred.

"Honey, that coffee is not gonna do you a bit of good. Why don't you just stay here, get a good night's sleep, and we will continue this in the morning."



"Well one thing is for sure, I am harmless as hell on most occasions. Right now I am totally useless." I grinned to show her that it was all it fun.

For no reason I could think of she turned to me pressed her body which was wrapped in a lightweight tee shirt to me. She kissed me sweetly at first then slipped her tongue into my mouth. The kiss passed the time that a gentle kiss would have broken and continued on into a heated passionate kiss. Somewhere along the way she dropped a hand from my shoulder to my crotch. As you would expect things came alive down there. The embrace lasted only a few more seconds then she sat back with a smile on her face.

"You said safe and useless twice tonight, I just wanted to find out for myself." She giggled like a school girl as punctuation for the statement. Of course I was wide awake and embarrassed for a few minutes. "Do you really want that coffee?" She asked it as she replaced her hand on my shoulder.

"Do you have a microwave?"

"Sure why?"

"The coffee will be fine tomorrow put it in the fridge."

"What coffee?" she giggled again. She had obviously not bothered to make the coffee. Unlike me, she knew what would happen. It struck me then, how much a man is at the mercy of a woman when it comes to sex Weaker sex my ass, I thought.

The kissing continued in her queen sized bed. How I managed to stay awake long enough to make love to her is a mystery even to me. I don't even remember much of it. I do remember she was absolutely the thinnest woman I had ever slept with. She was enthusiastic with a touch of down right wanton in her. It was a very short but intense lovemaking session. I passed out cold after what seemed like hours but could have been no more than a few minutes.

I woke up in the middle of the night to a dark room. My plan was to slip out of bed and go to the bathroom then return to the bed unnoticed. Of course it didn't work that way. First I fell into a wall, then I just sat down on the floor at the foot of her bed. On the way down I grabbed onto the bed as a reflex motion. Her foot was in the spot that I tried to use as a handrail.

"What the Hell," she said sleepily. Deke?"

"Yeah, I should have warned you, I cant walk in the dark."

Within seconds the bedside light came on. "You should have told me honey." I could tell she wanted to ask questions but was holding back.

With the light on I was able to leaver myself up and shakily move to the bathroom. "I'm fine now hon, I could be in the circus with all the experience I have at falling." I did what I had to do then returned to the bedroom.

"Should I leave the light on?" She asked.

"No, I wont be doing that again." She slipped onto my arm. She weighed nothing so it was comfortable enough.

"Are you really okay?" What she was really asking was what the hell is with you.

"Sure, just peachy keen." The anger was easy to detect in my voice. I pulled her even closer then kissed her. The few hours sleep had more or less restored my energy. She was just sleepy enough to be compliant. It was a very different kind of sex from that the night before. It was almost sweet and gentle before her libido kicked in. Once it did there was pain and scratches on my back. She was a demanding lover and something every man should have at least once.

When that ended in a gut wrenching orgasm, I again drifted off to sleep. That time I slept until Wendy woke me with two cups of coffee in her hand. I sat up with my back to the wall, while she sat cross legged facing me. I also noticed a small glass of orange juice on the night stand.

"My god you are the perfect hostess," I suggested.

"Or the perfect whore," she laughed. I made no comment. "Now Deke, where are your pills?"

"What pills are you talking about?" I tried to play innocent.

"The ones you are taking for that midnight episode." She didn't even try to soften the blow to my ego.

"Out in the van, I will have to find them." I made no gesture that would indicate a planned to move toward them.

"Finish your coffee, get decent then go get them. I want you to take them then I want to read the labels." 

"You're a nurse?" I asked it knowing that she was something of the sort.

"ER Room for the last five years."

"Just my luck." I grinned at her.

"Well hell Deke, you aren't staying anyway." 

Since it was Sunday, the festival didn't start till noon. Wendy and I had time for a leisurely breakfast, complete with a handful of pills. She looked at the bottles while I worked on a second cup of coffee before we headed to a Waffle House for breakfast.

"Damn Deke what a mixed bag of drugs. Everything from aspirin, to a heavy duty anti seizure drug. You want to explain or let me guess the worst?"

"Neither, you should have enough information to settle your questions from last night. I am not a junkie and the cane is not for effect." 

"Those aren't my only questions, but yeah I had those concerns."

"Didn't say I blamed you at all. I would have the same ones."

"So what is it Deke? There are too many mixed signals for me to figure."

"Lets just have breakfast and let this go. No sense letting it spoil our meal."

"That bad?" she had been looking into my eyes when I suggested we not discuss it.

"Couldn't be any worse," I replied. "Now that is enough." She could tell it wasn't a demand but a request for privacy. Unfortunately that kind of conversation takes the fun out of an encounter. Even in the waffle house, on a Sunday morning, we looked out of place. The restaurant was filled with couples with at least one partner dressed in clothes from the night before. They were for the most part easy to spot. A woman dressed for a club at 9am was a dead give away. The men were less obvious unless he was in a suit with no tie escorting a lady who wore jeans and a sweat shirt like the couple at a window booth. I found it all rather amusing since Wendy and I were both dressed for a day at the festival. .

We arrived at the festival over an hour early which was mostly my doing. Wendy would have arrived five minutes before show time. As I unloaded the boxes then I assessed my stock. It appeared that I had sold the most audio novels for the ones with posters. It was an interesting thought, so I switched the posters for different novels to check it out. 

Of course as my ex said, "All your posters are alike, they all have half naked women on them." It was indeed a fact of life. Those posters were almost exactly like the book covers on pulp books of the fifties. Which was what I mostly wrote anyway.

During that day I actually sold a few novels. Since I figured that one festival would be pretty much like another, I gave thought to how I could improve my sales. I noticed one thing right away. The sales were directly related to; how many people passed by, how many stopped to talk, and what sex they were. The books were loaded with testosterone but women were overwhelmingly the largest buyers. Most seemed to be buying for husband or boyfriends but some admitted to buying for themselves. Price seemed to be the major factor. That and a chance to ask me about the story line.

What all that meant was that I sold a few books at the festival. Actually a hell of a lot more than I had anywhere else. It meant that I would have to spend a couple of nights in a campground with electric hookup. I had the small tower computer, used as a CD maker, packed away in a trunk. A laptop would have been nice but I couldn't really justify one just to use a few months.

Lunch came before Wendy spoke to me. I had a feeling she was having a case of buyer's remorse about the night before but I didn't really know what to say to her. I definitely wasn't going to hang around the small town for the next few months. She surely must have known that before she hopped into bed with me. 

"Deke I am going for a sandwich can I bring you one?" She asked it pretty much as though she had not spent the night before in my arms.

"Sure, but I insist on buying if you are making the trip."

"I never turn down free food. So what would you like, since you are buying?"

"You pick, I am easy to please."

"I noticed," she said with a grin. I smiled back but didn't answer. When she brought the food back it was some kind of steak sub thing with more cheese than steak. We sat in the space between our booths and talked. It was fun since both of us seemed to have walled off the night before in a different corner of our minds.

Even during lunch I got interrupted a time or two by customers who were interested in the CDs, but not as often as Wendy for jewelry. The show just kind of ended a few hours later. It wasn't so much the time expired as the customer pool dried up.

At six I pulled the van around and began loading it. Wendy had her car full long before me. I had hoped she would say goodbye and leave, but she kind of hung on waiting for god only knew what. The loading should have taken about half as long but I kept dragging it out. Yes, I was doing the man thing trying to avoid the goodbye. Hoping that Wendy would be gone before I finished. She wasn't so I had to face her.

Before I could find something lame to say, she came into my arms crying. "Will you ever be back this way?"

"Honestly Wendy, I won't. I would like to say when the season is over I will come back to you, but we both know it isn't going to happen. You probably think it is because I don't care enough, but that isn't it at all."

"Actually, I have a pretty good Idea. I have been watching you all day. If what you say is true?" She noticed my look. "That it couldn't be any worse, then I don't expect you will be back."

For some reason known only to god, if there is one, I teared up. I nodded, kissed her, then turned to the van. It would have been a grand exit if the damn van had started. Instead it seemed to take forever for the thing to start. It hadn't started on the first try, then like an idiot I flooded the damn thing. The best I could do was to grin foolishly in her direction as I tried in vain to force started the van.

I finally had to get out to open the fuel pump. It was simply a matter of rocking the car for five minutes. I promised myself yet again that I would get the tank drained and cleaned. It must have gotten trash in the tank while sitting in the salvage lot.. Eddie had also warned me that the radiator hose clamps wouldn't hold that gas lines. I had refused to wait for him to find the correct lines, so I was paying the price.

With the lines bled, the van finally started. I drove off into the sunset looking like a complete idiot. I made it to the state campground in a larger town fifty miles away with the sun still lighting the sky, so it hadn't really a drive into the sunset after all. I had time to pitch the tent, then unpack everything before nightfall.

Since it was my first time camping, I had to make some basic decisions. It was either sleep in the 8x10 cabin tent and leave the junk for my shows in the van, or move all the junk into the tent and sleep in the van. Since I could lock the van, I went with sleeping in the tent that first night.

The decision had been made even before I checked in with the park ranger. I opted that night for a site with water and electricity. The plan was to spend the next day replacing my CDs. I would need about all day, since I had done a lot better than expected. Hell, I did even better than I had hoped. Since making CDs is a truly boring job, I didn't look forward to it at all.

Once the tent was erected, I put the two halves of the egg crate foam mattress pad together. The two halves, one on top of the other, mad a six inch thick foam pad with air spaces on each side. I sleep cold so I had a light weight flannel sleeping bag and a down comforter for the top. With the tent pitched, I quickly found the heavy duty outdoor rated extension cord. I ran it from the outlet to the tent so that I could play my radio. I had opted to sell all the TVs I owned at a garage sale before I left home. I was about to settle in when I realized I had no Cokes or cookies. Part of the appeal of the last road trip had been to throw my diet out the window before I left home. Hey, I literally threw it out the window. I suppose one of my neighbors might have found the, no cholesterol, no real food scrape of paper. He or she would have laughed before tossing it into the trash.

It was a short trip to the over priced convenience store within site of the park gates. It seemed as though I wasn't the only one who forgot things. I took a look at the price of canned coke, then almost walked out. I made it to the door when I actually chuckled at my foolishness. I went back and bought two six packs of coke, and a box of chocolate covered Oreos. I gave the clerk my visa card. The visa had never had an outstanding balance until the month before.

I drove the van back to the park. I had my butt parked on the folding chair, the one I had used for the show, while I drank my coke and ate the cookies, . The clock radio from my other life blared country music. It blared because the hearing had gone in my right ear. I had placed the radio on my right side for some reason. Probably because I wasn't used to thinking of my hearing as being less than perfect. 

The songs were sad, which fit my mood perfectly. After an hour of sad country songs ending with 'I Remember the Year that Clayton Delany Died' I was considering skipping the rest of the shows and just ending it at that moment. I shook my head to clear it, then laughed at myself. I had just had what I considered a good show, I had even slept with a woman young enough to be my kid, and I felt sorry for myself. "This just wont do," I said aloud. 

I bent to switch to an oldies station. I wasn't familiar with the area so it took some searching but there is one of those in every listening area. With 1960s rock music blaring I settled back with my second coke and my second handful of cookies. It was as good a supper as any, I decided. I waited a full two hours before I had a drink and a cigar before bedtime.

The next morning I realized that I had slept with a boulder under my six inch mattress. Since the damn tent was right over it, I decided to make the tent a storage area at least by dark. I didn't much care for the idea of doing it at that moment, so I went to breakfast. Miracle of miracles the van started on the first try.

The convenience store where I had bought the cokes and the ice had a small food counter. I found the menu small but I had no desire for eggs Benedict anyway. The sausage and egg biscuit was just fine with me. They let me use my own oversized Delta coffee cup, so I was content to sit at their Formica booth for almost a half hour. I had promised myself a day at the ocean. I decided that the best time to make the trip before I unloaded any of the really expensive equipment. The drive was less than half and hour anyway so I left from the convenience store for the ocean..

Not long after I found myself on the long straight stretch of highway running parallel to the ocean. It didn't matter which beach they all had a road like it. On that morning in early May the beach wasn't crowded especially since it was a Monday morning. Not to many tourists about and all the residents were doing residential things. 

Finding a fishing pier was easy. I simply had to follow the signs since there were two competing piers. I had no desire to fish, and I figured the coffee would be about as good at one as another so I stopped at the first one I encountered. I am sure a lot of other people did the same. That morning must have been the exception because the pier had only three fishermen. 

"What can I get you?" The nymph asked with a bored expression. I expect a younger man might have gotten a little more enthusiasm.

"Would you fill this with coffee?" I asked it placing the delta cup on the green Formica counter. The whole place appeared to be from the fifties, that counter was for sure I decided.

"How you want it?" She was all business. Like I said, not much enthusiasm for grandpa. The heavy brown stained cup was surely also a turn off for her.

"Black like my soul," I couldn't help it, I am just a born wise ass. It did get a smile from her.

"You not fishin?" she asked as she poured the coffee. She was beginning to warm to me a little. Hey who can resist grandpa in red suspenders. Yes, I wear those. I had begun wearing them several years before, since I heard the giggles of my step daughter. The object of her amusement was my butt crack.

"No I haven't fished in years. Just one more of the things I seemed to have run out of time for."

"Well, I can rent you a rod," she suggested. I skipped the obvious comeback since she was much younger than my step daughter.

"Maybe another time," I replied instead. I took the plastic delta cup onto the pier for a walk. It was what I did at the ocean. I found a bench well past the shoreline. I sat down to enjoy the ocean's hypnotic effect. Somehow that morning it's size, smell and movement did not provoke the usual melancholy in me, nor did it give me any peace. Quite the opposite, all the smells and sounds of life and death made me angry. As a gesture of contempt, I tossed the dregs of my coffee into it. It was something I would never have done before.

I passed through the snack bar on my way out. I was upset because I didn't find the peace I had sought in the ocean. All I found was anger and I didn't know why. Like a lot of emotions they just happen, you never so find out what triggered them. I expected even then that I hadn't been in the right mood to find peace.

I pondered that during the drive back to the campground. When I arrived, I carried the mini tower PC along with its monitor to the picnic table. Making all the connections took a while, but I finally had it ready to burn by lunch time. I spent the complete afternoon making CD audio novels and labels. I never left home without my label maker. The miniature printer spit out labels that were perfect for the CD. I couldn't afford the time it took to do the round complete labels so I used the small rectangular ones. I know it looked less classy, but it worked just fine thank you very much. I kept the blanks for the box labels with me. Any copy shop worthy of its name could run me larger color labels for the outside of the generic cardboard boxes.

Replacing the CDs took another day of sitting around listening to music, while the CDs burned three copies at a time. The convenience store near the park took even more of Visa's money. I still felt a little guilty knowing they would never be able to collect on their bill. I rationalized it by thinking of all those people who made that minimum payment every month and the huge interest payments that filled the credit card company's coffers. I felt a little less guilty when I looked at it from that direction. Since the ex and I had a perfectly legal separation, our family lawyer assured me that visa could not go after her. So long as I made the minimum payment the company would keep extending me credit. Extending it right up to the ridiculous 20 grand limit they had forced on me years before. 

By Wednesday the copy work was complete. Since the campground was empty during the week I grew bored, I gave some thought to driving back to the festival town to see Wendy. I didn't only because I decided a clean break was better for us both. Still it was a great temptation, especially during the long nights.




Mysterywriter's Final Spring



With the grunt work done, I tried to write. It was a total waste of my time. I just couldn't seem to find much interest in the larger than life heroes or the buxom women who occupied their time. Okay, maybe the women I could find an interest in, but definitely not the writing. I had lost any desire to create more trash, but not the desire to profit from it. If the last festival was any indication of things to come, it might just prove to be an interesting summer.

Even though there wasn't much sightseeing to do I wandered around the small towns near the park. Usually I just asked a waitress or convenience store clerk if there was anything of interest around town. I got a lot of local museum suggestions but one of them was more than enough. That first day was a waste, except that I found a copy shop to make the labels for the CD replacements.

By Friday I was more than ready to move on to the next show. It took a long half day's drive to reach the only slightly larger town. It was interesting to note that the show was not in the downtown, but rather in a field just outside of town. The good thing about the lousy location was that it was adjacent to the farmer's market. The market drew customers from the whole county even some from a much larger towns nearby.

Since the farmer's market opened in what seemed like the middle of the night to a city boy, they allowed the vendors to sleep in the parking lot. I was able to rearrange my junk. By storing less valuable items on the roof I could roll out on the pads and in the sleeping bag. It was cramped but doable.

Next day when I set up the booth, I found that I was near a very happily married middle-aged women and a man selling leather products. It was going to be a boring show, but then the first show had most likely been a fluke. No one stopped for the first three hours. The little old ladies being escorted by slightly younger little old ladies had no use for the action adventure novels. Most of them wore heavy glasses I doubted that they read at all, but still my audio didn't interest them.

It was approaching noon when the customers I had been promised by the leather worker arrived. The yuppies came in droves from 10am until early afternoon. I sold out of one title probably because the cover promised sex along with the violence. There were about fifty words of a sexual nature among the hundred thousand word novel. I feared they would be disappointed but I didn't explain it to them.

I had given up on finding anyone to help pass the time when the middle-aged almost midget wandered by. I looked and she caught me of course. It was one of the perils of being a dirty old man. Instead of looking away in disgust, she changed her direction to approach my table.

"You write these," She asked in a heavily accented voice.



I tried to match her accent as I replied, "Yes Ma'am."

"My son's a truck driver, you think he might like these?"

"Hard to say ma'am, I like them though." I smiled to let her know it was joke. "So tell me when did they begin allowing teenagers to drive trucks?" 

"What do you mean?" She was almost angry it seemed.

"I can't believe you are old enough to have grown son, so they must be letting teenagers drive those big rigs. That means I have to be a damn sight more careful out there."

"My son is twenty-three," she said angrily and stormed off. I stood watching her walk away almost in shock.

The husband and wife in the next booth heard the exchange and laughed. Their laughter just added to my discomfort. Fortunately in the festival atmosphere it isn't long before someone comes along to stroke your ego. The someone turned out to be a woman in her thirties, at least. We talked until her husband joined her. She told him that she wanted to buy a CD so he paid for one. They bought a single novella but it did have the web address to order more. I laughed at the thought. If they did order, I wondered if there would be anyone to ship it. I was sure there would be someone around to cash the check.

The whole festival went just like that. A promise of companionship but no fulfillment. It went into the book as a fun experience simply because the face to face contact with my buyers. I had sold hell of a lot more at the two festivals than I had on Ebay. I would have bet it was something to do with me being present at the sale. I signed copies whenever asked. The CDs were packaged in what looked like a book but was no more than parchment card stock folded onto itself to make the cover with plastic sleeves inside to hold the CDs. 

After closing the booth that first day, I began searching for the county campground listed in the AAA book. The book promised a list all campground public and private so I bought it. Not only did it list them but it also had directions to them. The problem seemed to be that some of the campgrounds had very small signs. I was searching for the camping area run by the county where the festival was being held. Unfortunately it was a large county with a great many newly named roads. With all the confusion, I arrived at the park after the office closed. The note on the door said, 'Just find an empty space the ranger would be around to collect'.

I doubted they would be able to collect from me, since I would be gone before sunup. As usual I was wrong, the ranger arrived at the site while I was unloading enough boxes to make room for me to sleep. Most of the plastic boxes were stackable. Designed so that I could put one on top of another thereby making room to stretch out. However the tables were just too much. those I put on top of the van covered with one of those ugly blue plastic tarps. I had almost all the renovations done when the green pick up pulled up behind me. Even in the almost total darkness I saw the seal on the door.

"Hello there," I said as she approached.

"Hello, you getting a late start setting up?" The woman was almost my age if not more. The dark was kind to her but the lantern she carried was not. I would never be sure of her exact age but she was definitely no kid.

"Yeah, just closed up the festival in Warsaw," I replied.

"Oh yeah, what you selling?" She seemed only about half interested.

"Books," I replied with a smile to ease the abruptness of the short answer.

"Oh you a writer?"

"Of sorts, and an actor too. I make and sell audio books."

"You gonna be leaving early or are you staying a while?" She asked it looking at my self contained operation.

"Crack of dawn it's breakfast then back to the show. The are opening it early for a Sunday."

"I'm surprised you took everything down?" It was a question and I knew it.

"The promoter said to strip it clean nobody was providing any security. Seems some shows do and some don't. This is one of the don't."

"Do you do many?" She was way past the point of official duties.

"This is just my second one. I am still a FNG."

"Geeze, last time I heard that out loud was from my brother when he got back."

"Sure as hell don't hear it much these days, that is for sure."

"Since we are mostly empty, and since you are leaving at the crack of dawn, I will just forget the fee this time. But why don't you come back and see us."

"In that case hold on." From the box of CDs I removed one at random. "Something to keep you awake."

"Well I need something, I'm gonna be up all night checking campers."

"I would think they would all be tucked safely in their beds by now."

"Most are but we have a few partiers. We had a rape here last summer, so we kind of keep a tight lid on things now."

At the word rape my eyes bulged, I was glad that she hadn't seen it. Drop it, I told myself. You are double retired. You don't need to even be thinking about that. 



"I can certainly understand," I said aloud.

"If you see me before I leave, let me know what you think of the CD."

"I will make it a point to look for you. Hey, tell you what, I will be your wake up service. What time to you have to be up?"

"I had thought about six. So that I can get a bite and have time to set up before nine. What time do you finish up here?"

"Not till about seven thirty."

"Ah well there goes your free breakfast. I will have to be pretty near the festival by that time."

"Yeah, always my luck. Well next year then?" It was a very nice comment for her to make.

"Sure, next year in Jerusalem," I said with a smile.

"You don't look Jewish."

"I'm not just a gentile smart ass."

"Good, I love a smart ass. See you at six." She got back in her green pickup, then drove away.

It was cramped in the mini van but I fell gratefully asleep. I slept hard until I heard the ranger's flashlight banging on my window. I looked at my watch in the glow from her light. Of course I couldn't see a thing except the blur. I found my glasses on the stack of boxes beside me. It was 6am exactly as I has requested.

"Hey there ranger," I said it as I opened the door still inside the bag.

"Your wake up call writer. Before I get side tracked, I loved your book. It is really exciting and fast moving. I recognized your voice and that was fun too."

"I do love a fan," I said it with a grin I doubted she saw.

"Well I am a fan. I might come over to Warsaw to see you. Good, bring your cash cause I don't take American Express."

"What time do you close?"

"I think they said six since it is Sunday."

"Then I will try to time it right. I can't keep missing that free meal. I can trade that breakfast for dinner?"

"Sure but you are going to have to pick the place."

I managed to brush my teeth and put on a clean shirt before I left for the day. Showering then walking back to the van in the chilly spring air was out of the question for me. When I turned the switch on the van, nothing happened. Well it did make the grinding starter sound but it wouldn't fire. I got out and bled the fuel injector system, then it started. I made yet another note in my head to buy the right gas lines for the van. 

It was cloudy and threatening to rain all day. A few drops even fell, but not enough to ruin my stock. I replaced the lids on the plastic storage boxes at the first sign of rain. I also kept the tarp handy just in case I needed to cover the whole table. I had a feeling that if the fake fur got wet it wouldn't do it a bit of good.

Mercifully the day ended with me and the fur dry. I tried to get packed as quickly as possible before I even gave leaving for the next show a thought. Being just on the show circuit left me a lot of time to kill. Everyone else had a home to go to after the show's end.

"Hi, remember me?" It was the voice that had awakened me that morning which asked it.

"Of course, I was about to send out a search party for you."

"Ah, how sweet. I was afraid that you had forgotten me already."

"Not a chance, I don't meet that many beautiful women on the road." It was a stretch but then what the hell she wasn't a dog either. Body types never did impress me all that much. I found most women to be to some degree heavy or thin. The women with perfect bodies are out there somewhere, I just haven't met very many of them.

"I'm Jennifer, so Writer what do I call you?" She had a pleasant smile on her face. I noticed for the first time that she was almost as tall as me. She had to be at least 5'11". When she wasn't in the polyester pants she didn't look hippy at all. In fact she looked very trim too trim even.

"Well I answer to either Writer or Deke," I replied.

"Geeze Deke sounds so redneck, like a character for that old movie Deliverance."

"Then just call me Writer or anything else you like." I was smiling because when I passed the Mason Dixon line I never used Deke at all.

"Don't you have a real name?"

"Deacon is my real name." I said it smiling up at her from my bent over position rearranging the boxes in my van. "So whatever you want is fine. Now, do you have a restaurant in mind?"

"Yeah, Roaring Red's" She somehow said it with a straight face and also as though it needed no more explanation. Probably for a resident it didn't, but for me it did.

"So what is Roaring Red's and how do I find it."

"Wouldn't you rather I drive?" She asked it looking at the van filled with junk."

"Frankly, I would feel better with all this stuff where I can keep an eye on it. Would you mind being seen in this thing or do you want to just let me follow you."

"I better have you follow, I think I might need to make a hasty retreat. I have a feeling you can be quite persuasive." She did say it with a smile of sorts.

I followed her through the downtown which was just a bit more than the small town USA kind of thing. I had been getting a tour of the rural south on the show circuit. I knew that was gonna change soon. It was early in the season so the small town shows were the only ones. Soon the larger towns would begin their festivals. I chose the larger ones when they were available but the small shows were held at the very first, and very last of the season. I suppose it was because they couldn't compete with the bigger towns for craftsmen or crowds.

Once I entered Roaring Red's I began to feel something crunch under my feet. I looked down but it was too dark to see. Jennifer turned before we were seated, she had noticed my curious look. She said simply, "Peanut shells, you will see."

Before anything else the waitress brought us a glass of water and a metal water bucket of roasted peanuts. Since I have only a dozen teeth left, and they are all in the front, I skipped the nuts. I drank the sweetened iced tea which was excellent. That spoke well for the promise of the large ground beef steak. I waited until Jennifer ordered before I did. I ate the ground up meat due to the afore mentioned teeth or lack there of. I didn't want Jennifer to miss out on a steak because of my dental shortcomings.

"So Jen, tell me about the campground Rape?"

"Nothing to tell Deacon, best anybody could figure the woman was there with her small son. She took him to the bathroom about midnight. He woke up with one of those 'I got to go right now mommy' kind of things. Since the camp site where she was staying was open she took him to the bathhouse. The kid got to watch it. The guy who did it held a gun on them told the kid that if he made any noise his mommy would die before his eyes."

"That was not nice at all," I interjected. I noted that Jen seemed almost irritated by the interruption.

"Anyway it got pretty nasty as the man made lil mommy say and do things a kid shouldn't know about let alone see. He just walked away after. He told the woman not to come out of the house for five minutes as he might be waiting. She walked to the pay phone right outside and called us. We came to made sure it was for real, then called the city police. They came and did their cop things, which did no good.

"Yeah, they would have gotten a million prints from that bathroom. I can't imagine anything of value from the crime scene." I know on TV they find all these cute little clues, but in the real world a crime scene doesn't get vacuumed routinely. I wondered about a car. "Did they ever find out how he got there?"

"No,they woke up every camper out here and made Polaroid shots of them but she didn't recognize anyone. Every space, and every man on every space, was accounted for. It looks as though he just drifted into the campground did his thing and left."

"If you are looking to rape somebody, why the hell go to a campground. It would be my last thought. Did the cops check the people who live on the adjacent road?"

"More pictures and more not hims," she replied.

"They didn't get any hits at all?" I asked it surprised that there wasn't at least one false hit, victims and children make pretty lousy witnesses as a general rule.

"No she was adamant not one of the locals raped her. As you would expect several fit the description but no cupie doll."

I just absorbed the information, I didn't even try to analyze it.

After dinner I left a cash tip, then gave the woman at the register the ole visa card. I had no idea how high the balance would get by the end of the trip, but I expected it to get on up there.

It was pretty near dark and much too late to move on, even if I had wanted to. I followed Jen back to the park. The office was still open so I had the privilege of paying them twelve buck to stay there. Since the card processor was down and I didn't want to wait, I paid them with an assortment of crumpled cash. I paid for only one night. If I stayed, I plan to use the visa for payment.

Again that night I rearranged the boxes to make me a small sleeping spot. I must have been closer to the lake than I had been the night before, since it got chilly in the flannel sleeping bag. I rummaged around by lantern light to find the down comforter. It was less than a hundred percent dawn, but it worked really well when combined with the flannel bag. Besides it was spring in the south, not January in Ohio. I was too tired to process information that night so I slept. I slept until almost noon as a matter of fact.

I hadn't asked if Jennifer was working that night, but I assumed that she wasn't. In any case she didn't stop by to wake me. I hadn't expected her to but then again one can hope.

I didn't quite know what to do with my gear, since I planned to at least read the police reports on the year old rape. Since it was an ongoing case it appeared that I wasn't going to get the locals to cooperate. Even my honorary badge didn't do any good. I hadn't expected it to help, retired cops don't get much respect unless they are home town cops. Plus once they found out I was a writer odds were the mayor couldn't have sprung lose those files for me. Of course it was a moot point since I didn't know the Mayor.

I gave it about a half second's thought then went to the local newspaper. The newspaper was a tiny little store front operation. They even farmed their printing out to a larger paper in the next town. The one thing they did have was a microfilm reader. They also had files of their own paper as well as the larger town next door. I explained to the very young, very blonde woman behind the desk what I was up to. She called someone on the phone no doubt getting permission to show me the microfilm. It didn't seem she was impressed by either my charm or the fact that I was an audio novelist. At least it seemed so at first. As the afternoon wore on with her helping me find the sparse articles, she seemed to warm to both the task and me.

"You know I wonder if the victim would talk to me?" I asked it awkwardly as she stood over me. I had finished with the reader and needed some other way to hold her attention.

"I would say no, but then that is all she can say. Why don't you call and ask?"

The young newspaper lady, named Deloris, looked up the number for me. The rape victim was June Silvers. She informed me that she did not wish to discuss it. With that she hung up on me. I couldn't really blame her for not wanting to relive it.

"So much for that," I said as I stood and stretched. When I stretched I lost my balance then almost crushed Dee as she preferred to be called.

"Are you drunk?" she asked playfully.

"No, I just have really bad balance," I replied shortly.

"Ah I see. My dad had a stroke. After a while he didn't need the cane to walk but he used it anyway so people wouldn't think he had been drinking."

"Not a bad idea," I didn't tell her that I already carried a cane most days.

"Okay Deke, I will make you a deal."

"And what kind of deal do you have in mind?"

"I can get you the police report, at least the original one. I don't know about the later ones."

"And how will you do that?"

"They file all the reports with the records clerk. That one gets filed even if the follow ups don't. Since they claim this is open, the follow up reports might still be in the detective division's file and not in the central file."




Mysterywriter's Final Spring



"So?" She seemed to know a lot about the interior workings of the local police. They seemed to be about like all the police departments.

"Well, I got a girlfriend who works for the records division. She has gotten me files before, I expect she would again." 

"I have a feeling the price is going to be high for this little service?"

"Depends on what you call high. You aren't going to just write a novel based on her statement to the cops are you?"

"No, I am going to do a little checking into it, why?"

"I want to go with you." It was a simple statement. She said it like it wouldn't matter at all to me.

"It would be a total waste of your time. I am not going to have a lot of time to look into it. This is my own version of a book tour."

"I understand that, the articles I send back will be as much about that as the investigation."

"Articles? Nobody is gonna be interested in this crap."

"Oh, you don't know me Deke. I am a hell of a writer, I just need a break. If the first article is a grabber, I can sell the whole series to the group that does our printing. I have sold them things before, I know what they want."

"Okay, I will give you a bunch of honest interviews from the road. You know call you every night. How is that?"

"Yeah, you might call once but that would be about all. No I am going along."

"I expect your boss will have a lot to say about that."

"I doubt it my Dad owns this rag. That is why I am not at a bigger paper."

"Even though I am old enough to be your dad, I'm not. I expect he will not be particularly pleased with you traveling with a man."

"Are you kidding he will be thrilled. He knows I am safest with men." I am pretty dense so it took me a few minutes to figure out what she had meant. I just nodded. 

"Tell you what, I am out at the county park. You think about this and if you still want to do it, bring me all the papers you can get on the Silver Rape to either the park tonight or the festival tomorrow. If you do that you can buy yourself a ticket to ride, for a while at least."

"Fair enough, are you staying in campgrounds everywhere you go?"

"I am, but you can stay in motels I expect."

"Oh no Deke, wherever thou goest, I goest to." She gave me a smile meant for a much older woman.

After the newspaper, I spent a couple of hours talking to people in the town. I didn't question them as much as let them talk. In the small town's idea of a supermarket, I met several old men sitting on benches outside. They were talking while the womenfolk shopped. I sat with them a while before I introduced myself.

"You don't look like no writer," The youngest of the old men commented.

"That's what they say every time I send my picture to a publisher." 

"Don't get many strangers round here, don't never get no writers," the man continued. "You in town for that festival out at the farmer's market?"

"I sure was, got one more day then it is off to a new place. Anything going on around here worth writing about?"

"Sam over there has a couple of cut up cows I hear tell."

"Gee Whiz man has he ever had one of them mutilated by aliens?" I asked it with a straight face. They were all speechless till I laughed.

"No aliens but we got some pretty strange mexs here. They might have done it then threw the guts around, but nobody has mutilated a cow for years."

"Well, a healthy cow is just not the makings of a novel." I smiled to show it all in good humor. "You guys know anything about that campground rape?" I asked it after a couple of minutes of silence.

"Couldn't have been anybody local. We all pretty much know each other. If it had been June would have knowed him. Had to be somebody from outside." The row of old men nodded their agreement.

"You think so huh?" I asked. I was surprised that the logic in his statement had until that moment alluded me. That simple statement opened up a whole new line of thought. The cops surely came to the same conclusions as the old men.

"Tell me, I cant get the details from the cops and I don't really need the official version. Was it pretty violent, I mean did he harm her?"

"Look writer," He said it with a sneer. "Every woman is hurt in a rape, some get beat and some don't, but they all get hurt." With those words the man stood to go find his wife.

"He is right, but he didn't do well. His kid got raped at the high school couple of years back." He could see the interest in my eye. "Different guy writer, that one was a basketball coach. Some folks say she didn't resist and at the trial they brought in a couple of other students. You know it got real messy before they sent the coach away. Old Amos, he ain't never forgive those that said harsh words agin his Betty."

"I don't reckon I would either." It was the truth and I knew it. It it had been my step brat, there would have been a line of boys waiting to testify. She had outgrown it thank god, but there was a time that even I would have doubted her story.

"Okay writer, I heard that she was raped in front of her kid. The bastard made her beg for it. Told her he would kill the kid right in front of her. She went along. Didn't have a scratch on her they say. No matter what a woman is her kid shouldn't have to see his mamma do those things. They tell me she had to do it all for the prick."

I got the idea, so I didn't press it. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything to ask that wouldn't look like a stranger trying minimize the woman's ordeal. I stood then walked into the store to see what I could buy that came in cans. I had been searching for things that I wouldn't need to refrigerated, when the sheriffs deputy came into the store.

"Pardon me sir, we need to have a few words." At that moment I realized that I had become a suspect in the rape of the silver woman. When you ask questions in a small town, you are a suspect in everything.

"Do we now?" I smiled at the young cop. "How about you call your supervisor so I don't have to tell this but once."

He was on the hand held radio while I continued to look. "Sir, you need to take this a little more seriously."

"It seems you are taking it seriously enough for both of us. You wouldn't happen to know where they keep the canned chili would you?" He didn't smile and I didn't care. The one good thing about camping out was that I didn't have to buy toilet paper, but I did have to buy paper towels.

"Is that your mini van in the parking lot?" The deputy looked toward the parking lot. Of course all he could see was the stacks of styrofoam coolers which blocked the front windows.

"It is indeed? If you want you can search it, so long as you put everything back just like you found it. I felt the slight nausea then my mind took a vacation for a split second. It was not a good thing to happen in front of a cop, especially when we were talking about my van. 

"Are you okay?" he asked. 

I didn't remember it, but I knew for a split second I had a spaced out look on my face and some real hard twitching. Those things only lasted a second. "Yeah just peachy keen. I have a stress related twitch. You are making me nervous."

"Do you need to sit down?" He seemed concerned. It could be that the twitch had gotten worse they said it would.

"No I'm fine." I leaned on the cart as I continued to collect things. Some of them I was sure I didn't need even as I put them into the cart.. I knew that I would need to reassess the contents of the cart before I checked out.

I saw the older man in the identical uniform approach. I waited while the younger man met him a few yards away to hold a whispered conference. I moved the cart on down the aisle forcing them to walk a little farther to catch up.

"Good afternoon, Mr......." He let it trail off waiting for me to finish it for him. Instead I handed him my retirement Id, and my driver's license.

"Oh a retired cop. I should have guessed. You could have told that to Steve and saved me a trip."

"No it wouldn't. He would never have given up until he called you in to show how on the ball he is. I just cut through a little of the bs."

"Well, we will never know about that will we. Alright so what were you doing running around town asking about a two year old rape?"

"Well Sarg, I am in town for the festival. I heard about it and thought there might be a story in it. That my friend is all there is to it. I am sure a man of my age does not fit the description of the rapist, since our testosterone level is way below that needed for such a crime. Your officer knew that, and if he asked the men outside they told him what I just did about the festival. There was no reason to do it all twice."

"Mind if I look in your van?" 

"Not at all, if you wait till I check out, I will go stand by. If not knock yourself out, but put everything back like you found it. I have photographs of the van as it looks now. I will be shooting it again, if you leave it a mess because you don't like my attitude." I smiled at the two cops.

"Do cops where you are from do that?" The young officer asked.

"Yeah sonny, cops everywhere do that."

"How about you just leave that cart and we do it now?" the sargent asked.

"I won't be but a couple of more minutes. You guys can help if you like." They shook their head in a refusal gesture. I should have hurried but I didn't. They decided to wait outside. Actually the sargent sent the younger man back on patrol. When I walked from the building several minutes later he was waiting for me.

"Okay open the door and let me take a look." I did but only because I needed to put the groceries away. With the cargo door open I slipped one of the four identical black plastic trucks from the van. It was the one closest to the door. 

"You don't have to do that." the sargent said as I opened the trunk.

"Sure I do," I began putting the groceries from the cart into the box.

"So take it easy on the small town cops and rural area sheriff's department?"

"I always do, no matter how weak or strong the investigation. By the way I expect that you won't solve this one." He looked down on my bent frame. "It is much to random. If it wasn't a local, and I am sure you would have found anybody local, then it was a drifter."

"Thanks, we all felt that way too." 

"Felt, so you just gave up on it."

"You know what I mean it is no longer an active case even though we work on them all till they are solved." His look told me the truth, it wasn't on the back burner, it wasn't even on the stove.

"Any chance it was a lover's game?" I asked it pretty sure of the answer.

"If it wasn't for the kid, we would have run that at her a lot harder. They were both absolutely in shock. Had to see a counselor from Princeton." He noted my confusion. "Not the school, it is a town about ten miles away, and twice the size of this one . The woman there doesn't have enough patients so she does the country rape counseling."

"Is the victim still a patient there?"

"Last I heard she was, but that was a few months ago. Either way she has been at it over a year, hardly the act of a pretender."

"True," I said in agreement.

"You done searching?" I asked it as I reached for the cargo door.

"I was done in the store, just had to go through the motions for the kid."

"Aint they just wonderful?"

"Well we was all kids like that once."

"Not me I was born a full growed cop." I laughed along with him.

At the park I signed in for a space, then rearranged the back of the van. I removed the tent first then all the items that made it work. In my case I hated the idea of a ripped floor so I put down a blue tarp, then an old quilt from goodwill. Only after I had the padded floor did I erect the tent. The eight by ten cabin tent went up easily. I had replaced the plastic tent stakes which wouldn't penetrate Carolina clay with the foot long gutter spikes. Even with the improved tie downs a strong wind would topple the cloth house.

I removed the first of the plastic trunks. Each of the four had a symbol painted on top. The one with the star held table cloths and the other items to make the booth. It also held the products for sell at the shows. It went directly into the tent. Whether I chose to sleep in the tent or not, I wanted that box stored in it. Since I had to move it to get to the other things anyway I made absolutely sure I didn't forget and leave it out in the weather. It wouldn't do any of the paper products any good at all.

The two very lightweight tables went in next. They had what surely was almost cardboard tops getting them rained on would be just as disastrous. Then I opened the aluminum web chair where I sat while I smoked smelly cigars and drank bourbon. To do that kind of thing unhindered was probably the real reason I had embarked on the festival circuit in the first place. 

I didn't really expect the newspaper girl/woman to show up so I left the rest of the boxes and bed rolls in the van. Since I hadn't decided where to sleep that night, I unpacked only the bare essentials. I pulled the box containing the cooking equipment to the rear. I hadn't used most of it in years. Even during the first show, I hadn't bothered to unpack it.

From that box, I removed the red tabletop grill. I put it on the picnic table by the tent. From the same box I removed a fifty foot extension cord. It got attached to the power supply. Even though I wasn't in a fancy camper, I had packed some electrical appliances in the box. One was a toaster oven with a couple of diminutive pans, also a ceramic furnace that put out a lot of heat on a chilly night. Cooking tools and a bag of plastic cutlery were to be found inside one of the many large zip lock plastic bags. Since I couldn't make up my mind what to cook, I took the whole box to the picnic table. My cardiologist would have had a fit, but it had been my habit for several years to ignore him when it suited me. I especially discarded his advice, not to lift anything heaver than my penis.

I was just a little winded from all the work, so I sat in the chair to take a short break. I would have enjoyed a drink about then, but I still needed to go for ice. I knew that once I started drinking I wouldn't want to go out again. I had promised myself that I would only smoke the cigars when I drank, so I just looked out at the lake. The Lake side space would surely be hard to get in a few more weeks. However, in the early spring the county run campground was more or less empty.

It was well after dark when I decided to hell with the ice. I drank the bourbon only slightly cooler than bodily fluids. The bourbon burned its way into my gut and my soul. While the first swallow still burned in my throat, I lit the small smelly cigar. The cigars were homemade for me by a somewhat less than law abiding citizen. 

His tobacco was not grown as part of any subsidy program, and the filler was only about sixty percent tobacco. The remainder of the filler was a very low grade marijuana also grown by the man. He had a very select clientele all of whom were on the government's approved list of medicinal users. What was it gonna do lead us to stronger drugs, hell most of us had prescription drugs that dwarfed pot. In my case used to have, I gave up all the drugs when I left on the festival trip. That is a lie I thought, I still take my aspirin and the blue pill for pain.

I could imagine my doctor cringing at the thought of me dumping all those other drugs, with all those years of research, down the toilet. I had staggered across the house to give them a watery grave in the toilet bowl. I could just have easily tossed them down the sink where I stood while making the decision..

I hadn't felt any worse since doing it. I am one of the amazing few people who feel very little pain. At least that is how the doc explains my lack of pain from the heart damage. It was that damage which retired me from the cops. According to him I am a total basket case and should have died the week after the heart attack. The last time I saw him and he looked at my cardiogram then said, "You have to be living on spider webs."

For some reason, known only to God, I seemed to have grown lots of tiny veins to compensate for all the blockages. My heart clicks along pretty much as always and I feel no pain, so I am lucky in that way I guess. Why didn't I have the bypass you ask? I chose the quick death at forty-five to leave that beautiful corpse people talk about at the viewing. The problem was that the body didn't get the message.

Then the bad got awful. I woke up one morning with double vision. When I stood up I bounced off the wall beside my bed. The Ex, who wasn't an ex at that time, tried to call me an ambulance. She seemed to think I had been blessed with a stroke. The sawbones's warning rang in my ear, heart attacks and strokes go hand in hand.

I let her drive me to the emergency room where we were met by the quack. He quickly turned us over to a neurologist, who just as quickly hooked me up to an ex ray machine. When he shot dye into my arm, I saw the oh my God look on his face. If I had my pistol, I would have shot myself and missed my present the trip altogether.

Somebody hit me with more drugs in the IV and I went to sleep. My soon to be Ex-wife was teary eyed, and even the step brat was absent her usual smirk when I awoke. I figured that alone meant I was about to die. I simply chose to go back to sleep.

It was a strange, and slightly attractive woman who awoke me. She did it by running something pointed but not shape over my feet. "If that is some kind of kinky foreplay, count me out." I said it deadpan.

She was taken aback for only a half second. "Gee, I had so hoped to get laid by a total stranger, before I went home to my family." She smiled first so I joined in.

She was wearing a lab coat. I wasn't real sure but suspected that she was some kind of doctor. She looked to old to be a resident and the long lab coat was a kind of symbol. Short coats were technicians, no coats were nurses, but long coats were doctors. At least that was my opinion at the time

"So can you tell me the news that has me flat on my ass, and shot up worse than any street junkie."

"Shot up hell, you just needed the nap." She grinned to make sure I knew it was a joke. I smiled but didn't let her off the hook by breaking the eye contact.

"How long have you had the double vision?" she asked to ease into it I expect.

"I didn't know I had it till today." 

"Come on, don't do this I am trying to help you."

"I had a flare up with it a few years ago. Before the heart attack I think, but then it went away."

"You don't ever have trouble with your vision?" She looked incredulous.

"Sure sometimes I have to move my head to get a better angle on things. But they always settle down."

"And your hearing? You wife tells me you don't hear very well."

"I hear just fine when I want to."

"Is your hearing better on one side than the other?"

"I don't think so," I replied.

After that exchange she ran a few simple test by holding up fingers and making snapping sounds. When she finished, I knew that I had double vision when looking down, and much worse hearing in my right ear.

Alright Dr. Aimes, so what does it mean." I wasn't clairvoyant I had read her name tag. She hadn't bothered to introduce herself.

"So Deacon, your wife tells me you like it up front and straight, is that right?"

"With most things yeah, I can sneak up on some things, but this I think I want all at once."

"You are an idiot," She smiled to show she didn't think it was such an awful thing.

"Well that is pretty up front, but what idiotic thing have I done now."

You have a brain tumor that has probably been with you since birth. Over the years it has gotten bigger of course and you have had multiply symptoms which you ignored. So now it has invaded not one, but two parts of the brain. Do you want the fine print?"




Mysterywriter's Final Spring



"Sure lay it all on me." I was shaken but tried to keep my walls intact.

"Ordinarily I would have you in the operating room at this moment. I would be sawing and chopping as we speak. But since you didn't have that bypass five years ago, no anesthesiologist will put you under. Odds are you will never wake up, and our insurance rates are terrible now. Frankly you can't take an eleven hour operation, and that Deacon is what we are looking at."

"How long?"

"Damn, you do cut to it. I would have expected a list of questions beginning with are you sure, or how do I get a second opinion."

"Stop the tap dancing Doc and lets have it."

"There is no way to tell how long, you have a body that should already have given up. That heart of yours is operating my sheer will alone according to the cardiologist."

"Look get past the malpractice BS S and tell me so I can put my life in order."

Depends on which way the tumor is growing. If it grows up faster than out you will have seizures, they will run anywhere from tiny to grand moll. The grand moll is so severe that it will most likely stop that weak heart of yours.

"And the bottom part?"

"That one is pressing against your brain stem. It is causing all your present symptoms. If it becomes the one to do it, then it will most likely be like turning a switch. Just shut you down one day."

"Well it doesn't sound all that bad."

"True but you didn't ask me what it will be like on the way to the end."

"Do I want to know?"

"Anyone else probably not, but you want to know. On that, I would bet my kids college fund."

"Okay lets do it," I said it looking at the ceiling.

"As the pressure increases on your stem, More balance problems, more double vision, all the body systems will be effected. Everything from your ability to swallow to your ability to expel body waste."

"Now that is an attractive thought," I said it with what I thought was a smile.

"Maybe paralysis, or coma at the very end."

"And if it goes the other way?"

"Best case is the grand moll stops your heart. Worst case you have them uncontrollably till the brains is mush. More coma," She didn't look very professional as she spoke.

"How about we do the surgery?"

"You get someone to put you to sleep, and I will cut you." she said it looking at the floor.

"Will you help me find someone?" I asked it looking into her eyes.

"Yes but not yet. You need to get all the time you can. When you have had enough, come back and we will look."

"Fair enough," I replied. "But how long before the bad shit begins?

"Six months to a year, but that is just a guess it could be significantly more or less."

It was a shock of course but I was used to dealing with tough decisions. I thought I had a pretty good way out if worse came to worse.

I was out of the hospital that afternoon. It took two days for me to decide on the festival trip. I got a late start but I managed to set up a festival almost every week until the next October.

I moved money around from one place to another until I had everything except the house paid off. Since the soon to be ex, had a good job that wasn't going to be a problem. If it was, she could sell the place and move somewhere else. A visit to our friend who had married a lawyer set the wheels for the separation in motion.

It took some convincing but the wife signed the papers. The settlement, which I would never have signed in that form two months before, gave her almost everything I owned. It was all legal since it was made a provision of the separation agreement and future divorce proceedings.

I signed the agreement the day before I left for the festival. That same day I also went to see my farmer friend. Getting the script from my lady doctor wasn't a problem. I told her the same thing I would tell anyone who asked about long range side effects of any drug. I am not going to live long enough for it to matter a whit.

He got the script and I got a hundred of the short tan cigars. The cigars cost more than any Cuban ones, which the doctor's all smoked but they were worth it. One cigar and a couple of shots of bourbon put me to sleep better than any pill. I had to force myself not to reach for a cigar during the long days but I had managed so far at least.

I moved all my junk into the tent then slept in the van. It was more comfortable than sleeping on a tree root or a rock would have been. Sleep had been easier since I began the new regime of bourbon and pot before going to bed.

The Sunday shows were always late starting so I made coffee then toasted a bagel. I worked my way into wakefulness only to discover my usual morning hangover wasn't as bad as some of them were. I looked around for the pillbox with the last of the pills. According to my cardiologist, after I took my last morning pills I would die within an hour. That is a massive exaggeration, but they do try to scare hell out of me. Things are never as bad as they pretend nor as good as I want them to be. I popped those pills with very little trepidation. I had taken a fatalistic approach toward it all.

I was surprised that I hadn't at least seen the ranger truck pass either the night before or that morning. It just never showed though I knew someone was patrolling the park. The ranger in the county park was certainly not the ranger from my last book. The one at the county park appeared to be a nice family oriented lady. I had just caught her bored to tears on Friday night.

The bagel was gone and the coffee cup pretty much empty when I saw the yellow Miata pull into the drive of the camp space. The top was up so I couldn't be sure who the driver might be even though I half expected either the ranger or Dee to show. The thick head of almost white hair slipped from the tiny car. I got to watch her body unwind as she worked her was to a standing position. She was almost as tall as me. That would make her almost 5'11" Probably closer to 5'8". Other than the height her body was pretty unremarkable. Her figure was average for a woman fighting a weight problem. Most women give the fight up after they marry, or turn forty, but she was still in her youth. In other words she had a bit more on the bottom than on the top.

"Good morning Deke," she said it with a smile way to bright to be flashed at a man with a hangover.

"Are you planning to drive that thing?" I asked it because I was feeling snippy that morning, as I did all mornings.

"No, when we leave town my friend Zandy will come for it. I am going to ride with you in that dilapidated van. If you can stand it, I can."

"Okay, I can make room for you I guess."

"So what we gonna do first?" she asked with that youthful enthusiasm any adult finds totally disgusting.

"I'm gonna finish this coffee, then take a shower. Why, do you want to wash my back?" I was kidding but she took it serious.

"Well, this is as good a time as any to get this straight. You are too old." That I had expected. "And the wrong sex." That I hadn't. She just didn't look like a dyke. It took me several seconds to find my tongue.

"First of all it was a joke, though anytime you decide to change sides of the plate you are welcome to do it. I promise I won't try to rape you or try to talk you into it."

"Good, I don't think you could rape me old man, and save your breath on the trying to talk me into changing."

"Fair enough, but if you keep calling me old man, this is going to be miserable trip for us both and I don't have time for a miserable trip. Now did you bring the payment for you passage on this train?"

Without a word she handed me the stack of papers. They were xerox copies of the complete case file. She had definitely paid her freight.

"Is that coffee any good?" She asked it before I started to read.

"I doubt that you are going to like it." I smiled one of those patronizing smiles old farts are famous for.

"You mean because it is strong and black? That is how I drink my coffee."

"Well you are welcome to it. After you pour yours toss in a cup of plain water, then just set it back where you got it." I really should have told her about the filtering system, but hell she was so self assured. I did tell her where she could find the other delta cup. I had taken my complete stash of delta cups from the house. Well all but one, I left the one that the step brat had given me. I left it for her mother as a memory, I guess. Anyway I had five of the cups shaped like the mercury space capsule, tiny at the top and wide at the bottom. In my condition it was the thing for me to use to keep the number and severity of spills to a minimum.

When she poured the coffee, the small particles of ground coffee beans poured with the coffee. "God how do you drink this?" She asked it as she poured the coffee back into the pot. Since I needed more coffee anyway I showed her. I removed the yellow funnel, the one purchased from the auto parts store, from the crack in the picnic table. Then I tore a half sheet from the paper towel from the roll. It made a sort of lining in the funnel by folding the towel. Coffee poured through the arrangement left the ground in the paper towel. The two oversized cups emptied the pot. I didn't bother to refill it or wash it. I just sat it aside for later attention'

"So what we gonna do first?" Dee asked it with the typical youngster's lack of patience. Dee must have been twenty five or so, and yet she had all the enthusiasm of a teenager. She was 'perky' as my ex would say. Usually followed by, "Aint that just disgusting."

"I am gonna sit right here and commune with nature till I finish this cup of coffee, then I am gonna go for that shower. After which if I haven't drowned, I will give the next move some thought. She didn't say another word while I stared at the lake. I gave the last few days some thought and decided that I needed to find a way to sell more CDs. I just couldn't think of anything at all though. It wasn't really important to me, I would just have felt a certain satisfaction in seeing them fly out of the burner and into someone's waiting hands. 

I just couldn't maintain a thought with Dee sitting across from me. She was too pretty and too insistent in her silence. She stared at me while I looked out on the lake with my coffee cup in hand. It reminded me of my step daughter telling her mother over breakfast once, "Mom do something, he is staring at me. Meaning me of course."

"Are you writing?" she asked.

"What?"

"You are so intent in thought, I figure you are working out a problem of some kind."

"Nothing so glamorous. I am trying to figure out how to make more money so that I can keep going." It was a lie only in that I didn't need the money to keep going. I had the ole Visa card and no intention of ever paying it off. She didn't need to know that part. I felt a little bad about it, but what the hell Visa had gotten me at least once over the years. I figured it was just payback with interest. Truth is I knew that I was ripping them off, but hell I figured that honor was for the living.

"So what do we do today?" She asked with her youthful enthusiasm showing again.

"I have a festival to attend. You can do whatever you want."

"I'm going with you."

"I promise you it is going to be dull.

"I need to go to at least one. Can I ask you a couple of questions now."

"Sure but wait till I get out of the shower. I went inside the tent to find the box with the square drawn on it. That box held my clothes such as they were. From the box I removed a folded up pair of pants exactly like the ones I had on. I removed a lightweight sweatshirt exactly like the one that hung from my body. Well not exactly the color was different.

I left the tent on a route taking me directly to the bathhouse. Once inside I was relieved to find it heated. There wasn't much worse than taking a shower in a cold room, unless it was a cold shower in a cold room. The shower was warm and so was the room. If it hadn't been for the terribly uncomfortable mat on the floor, I would have been fine. The damn thing hurt my feet in even the short time I stood on it. Probably the county's way of saving water.

After the shower I brushed my hair and noted with satisfaction that it was getting long. I had always wanted long hair but had never been able to manage it. Nobody seemed to care that my hair was long and bushy on the circuit. It might have even added to my mad writer look.

An hour later found us at the Sunday part of the festival. It was supposed to be the easier day but for some reason it was much busier then Saturday had been. It took me a couple hours to figure out why. I had been for a cup of coffee and was walking back when I saw Dee leaning over the table discussing a novel with a potential customer. I noticed with some concern that her cleavage had grown. Or at least it appeared so when I walked up. I waited for the table to clear before I asked.

"How come your breasts look so much bigger today."

"Different bra, and blouse," She replied. "Do you approve?" There was that little girl look which was totally out of place in that situation.

"It doesn't matter what I think, you seem to be drawing in customers with it."

"I will take that as a compliment. Now that things are finally slowing down, how about you take a closer look at the police report and tell me what you think?"

"If I split my attention, I will miss something." I thought it was quite logical.

"I'll take care of anyone who comes up, you just read." She smiled as she threw her chest out with a chuckle.

I nodded then opened the cardboard folder which she had thrust at me. The prelims I tried to avoid but it shook down this way. June Silver decided she wasn't spending enough quality time with her son, so she borrowed a tent and planned the overnight camping trip.

The county park had a special weekend rate that last weekend of the season. The county's plan was to shut the camping down for the winter after that weekend. June Silver arrived at the campground early because she had no idea how to erect the tent. 

Fortunately for her one of her fellow campers was willing to help her read the directions. The four of them two adults and two children made short work of the tent. She and her son cooked hot dogs over the campfire Later that night she and her son made the chocolate marsh mellow cookies, which no camping trip in the last ten years is complete without.

The rape occurred pretty much as everyone had said. Right down to the rapist making he beg for it to save her son's life. At least that is what both she and the boy said. The cop skeptic in me had me wondering if the child wouldn't tell what his mother wanted. I decided that it was way too early to begin doubting her story.

The details of the rape were far too graphic for my taste. The crime was horrific no doubt about it. She wasn't beaten because she was going along to protect her son. It was indeed admirable of her. It also saved her a few bruises no doubt. 

When Dee got the file for me she got a couple of things more than I bargained for. She had the medical report on June Silver. It seemed that June did not have any vaginal damage. I read back over her report of the incident. Someone, usually a female cop, always asks the victim some really personal questions. Questions about the biological aspects of the rapist and the event itself. They usually try to begin by saying that the body and the mind aren't always in sink. Is it possible that your body reacted positively to the event without your mental participation. In June Silver's case no one asked her.

However in her description of the Rapist she admitted that he was larger than average "in that way" she informed the investigator. Given that fact alone, and the nature of the event, I would have expected some tearing of the tissue. Well, I thought. I suppose it is time to do some checking on Miss Silver.

Since I was sure the detectives had spotted the same things I had, I wondered why their had been no mention of it in the follow up reports.

"Okay Dee, who the hell is Silver?" I asked it looking her dead in the eye.

"What do you mean?"

"Look, I am not the shiniest penny in the stack but I can spot a put up when I see it. So who is she that everyone is tiptoeing around.? Why is she someone that has got you out showing your boobs so that I will keep you around?"

"I was telling you the truth, sort of. The festival thing will make some interesting articles, but yeah I am hoping you will look at this."

"Ah why do you care? Odds are I won't be able to work it out. The cops have the best chance to solve this kind of thing. They are networked all over the place. And why would even that make a story?"

"The cops aren't going to look at it hard because they don't want to know what really happened. Not if it is different than June says."

"We are still down to, why is that?"

"Okay, all of that is simple. You are not from around here which is why you don't know what a big deal it is. June's grand father was a US Senator for about all his life. Her step father is the sitting Governor and may be the next president of the United States."

"You don't mean law and order Abe?" I asked cringing.

"You got it. Nobody around here is gonna look at this because even I know her story stinks."

"No it doesn't stink, it just has some inconsistencies, but so does every rape. So why me?"

"At first it was because you were a stranger who didn't know enough not to go poking into it. You are supposed to be a crime writer, so I figured what the hell. Then I did some checking after you left, before I decided to really do this."

"And what did you find out my little spook?" It was humorous at the moment. I didn't have Abe Storm on my ass yet."

"I found out that you wrote 'Lust and Murder in STX.'"

"So what, you never heard it?"

"No, but I found the review and the newspaper article on google. You and that other retired cop found a serial killer nobody even knew existed. I expect you can find out the truth about June."

"What is the truth about June?" I asked it because I thought she might know.

"Trust me Deke, If I knew I wouldn't need you. I would write it whether I caught hell for it or not. If I didn't, my dad would never forgive me."

"Good for you, I guess." I didn't smile because there seemed to be more that I didn't know. The show was over so I didn't try to begin any long conversations. I closed that book for a while but we both knew it would be open again and soon.

"So, how about I take you to dinner?" She was trying to make nice and I knew it. What I didn't know was whether I was going to throw her out on her ear or not. If she had kept Silver's identity a secret for some purpose other than getting me hooked on the mystery, then I was gonna boot her ass out that very night. 

"Okay on the dinner, but we need to get a couple of things straight before we go to the campground."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because there may be just one of us going." We left her car locked and in the parking lot of the farmers market. There would be a locked gate but no guarantee that the car would be there in the morning. She was a good sport about it, or the car had ten thousand miles on it and she was ready for a new one anyway. Okay, I was being a little hard on her, but hell it was easy she had everything.

She directed me on a ten mile drive out into the country. I let her stew about what she had to do to stay part of it all. I refused to talk about it. Instead I made her sweat. The restaurant wasn't worth the ten mile drive, let alone the thirty five bucks she paid. Yes I let her pay. 

The restaurant turned out to be a chain steak house. I expected that anyone else would have enjoyed the food. In my case it was just a waste of money. I would have been just as happy with pop's diner somewhere on the side of the highway and it would have cost Dee about half as much.