Now For Something Totally Different

Two weeks before we came to the SunShine State my friend, and full time Florida guy,Dick Stolper let me know he was having the batteries changed in our golf cart. (Down here it is the transportation of choice. Grocery store, restaurants, the hospital of course.) That done for a month now we have driven it everywhere. Yesterday it died at a stop sign a few miles from our place. I guessed it needed charging. A gracious couple offered us a tow using Miss Lizzie's leash as a rope. They brought us home and we pushed the offending vehicle into the garage. Half an hour after I had assumed my place at the keyboard, the house shook with a loud bang from the garage which was filled with smoke and an acrid sulfur smell from the $750 battery explosion.    I just love the unexpected, It's what makes getting up in the morning worthwhile. and costly to boot.

Crossin The LIne Of Flight

CHAPTER 1

            Nina tucked a number 2 pencil through the the holes in her her hairnet and grabbed the regular coffee carafe.

                        "Nina, what are you mumbling about?"

"I'll tell you, Shirley, there are few things in this world I really hate, but near the top of the list would have to be that over there."

            The eyes of Nina's fellow waitress followed the direction of the older lady's stare. "What over there, Nina?"

            "That rat pack of over-the-hill golfers talking to the charter boat captains, that's what. They are damn near whispering, and I can't make out a word they are saying."

            "Let me try; give me that coffeepot," said Shirley, reaching out with a nicotine-stained hand.

            After two hours of sopping up free refills, every member of the gathering covered his cup with a palm on seeing Shirley approaching the two tables they had pushed together. Her mission a failure, Shirley returned to her station behind the diner’s turquoise counter.

            Nina glared across the room at what she felt was a clandestine gathering. "Well done, sweetie; now the two of us have no idea what those louts are mumbling about."

            Nina was about to propose an alternate eavesdropping plan when she was distracted by an ambulance and two sheriff's squad cars, sirens wailing, entering the marina parking lot next door.

            "Mind the store, Shirley; this has got to be interesting." Looking back at her assistant, she applied all 105 pounds of her bulk to open the plate glass door of the diner, collecting Carl Fletcher and her boss Sharon Waters in the process.

            They brushed past her before she could ask if they knew what was going on. She wasn't certain, but it appeared that Sharon's makeup was streaking down her cheeks.

            Nina had reached the curb separating the marina and diner parking lots when the medical examiner's black van pulled into the marina’s lot and parked at the end of Pier 31. People—some, but not all, in uniforms—swarmed over the lot like it was an anthill. Several were stringing crime scene tape in an effort to keep out the curious.

            Sheriff's detective Michael McCaffery had his hand atop Maggie Fletcher's head as he guided her into the backseat of one of the squad cars. Teddy Berger, Carl's deckhand, appeared to be waiting to be loaded into the same car.

            Nina wondered if Carl knew they were hauling his mother off in a cop car. She caught a glimpse of Moss and Gibby taking in the action as they peeked around the corner of the boat repair shop.

            So engrossed were they that Nina's touch on Moss's arm sent him airborne. He landed on Gibby, his diminutive partner. Both ending in a heap at Nina's feet.

            "Get up, you two Looney Tunes, and tell me what is going on over there!"

            Gibby took in his usual gasp of air before attempting to make a statement of importance, but no sound escaped his trembling lips.

            Moss straightened his ever-present porkpie hat and intervened, "The way it looks, Carl's mom and that Teddy kid killed a bunch of people, including that Anderson couple that lived on the big sailboat."

            Gibby joined in. "They shot the mean guy, who we was paid to watch, with a bow and arrow, and then whoever else was on the boat with a gun, I think."

            "Maggie shot someone, are you sure? I don't think that's possible. Slap them around a little maybe but… Wait a minute, did you say, ‘bow and arrow?'"

            Moss gathered a little indignation, "I know an arrow when I see one. I did just what they say you should. I tripped Tad Anderson with Gibby's broom so he would stop and drop, you know. I would have gotten him to roll if it wasn't for that arrow sticking out of his back."

            A twitch started in the corner of Nina's right eye. She was doing a running inventory of where the diner's regulars would be at this time of day. Sharon and Carl were at the diner. Maggie and Teddy appeared to be headed to the sheriff's department under the direction of Michael. That would leave Meyer and his crew from the boat shop.

            "Is Tad Anderson dead, Moss?" The question went unanswered. Gibby and Moss had made a quiet retreat in an effort to avoid any more questions. Nina's eyes saw them slipping behind the boat shop, but her mind held an entirely different vision: Sharon's makeup. The wiry little lady turned on the heels of her sensible white shoes and broke out in a dead run for the diner.

           

The Same Old Song

“How long do you suppose he’s been like this, Moss?”

“What, Gibby? Dead or a druggie?”

“Either, I guess.”

“Drugging, I have no idea. You know how it is: Some of them die the first time they try it. I hear some of them go on for years and then that’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“What do you mean, ‘What’s it’?”

“You said, “‘That’s it.’ What does that mean?”

“They usually die, Gib. A lot of them end up like this. They take too much of something and they always want more. That’s what it does to them, Gib. They can’t help it. Sooner or later they end up something like this. Lying in the snow.”

“He don’t look like the last one we saw. This guy has a suit and everything.”

“There ain’t no rules about this kind of thing, Gib. Like they say, it takes all kinds.”

“Who’s they, Moss?”

“What? Who?”

“They. Who is that they, that says all those things?”

“It’s just an expression people use when they want to quote someone and they don’t exactly know exactly who. I suppose we should check and see if he has anything on him.”

“Like what, Moss?”

“Gibby, Gibby, Gibby. Like a little cash, a wallet, maybe.”

“We didn’t do that to the last one we found.”

“I didn’t want to touch that guy.”

“I don’t want to touch this one.”

“Why not? He can’t hurt you. The least we could do is brush the snow off of him. That’s really gross. While we’re at it, we could just kind of frisk him. Don’t you think? Look out for that needle there by his hand; you don’t want to touch that, Gib.”

“Okay. I’ll start down here at his feet. You can do that up there. I wish he hadn’t come here to our alley. I wish he didn’t die in front of our door. I think the neighborhood might be slipping a little, Moss. Don’t you think, Moss?”

“I don’t think it can slip too much, Gib. After all, our front door is on an alley. Look here, Gib, I got his wallet. Quite a bit’a dough here, my friend. Oh, God.”

“What, Moss?”

“Pictures, Gib. Look at the pictures. He had kids.”

“I don’t want to see, Moss.”

“Here, Gib, hold the wallet. I’ll roll down the guy’s sleeve so he looks decent. Then we’ll go.”

“Go where, Moss?”

“We’ll find Deputy McCaffery; he’ll know what to do with him.”

“What about the wallet, Moss?”

“We’ll give it to Mike to take along. I suppose the kids will be needing the money more than us, Gib.”

“How would we go about getting in touch with him?”

“Who you talking about, Gib? Get in touch with who?”

“Mike McCaffery, Moss. I mean, he usually gets in touch with us for one thing or another. I don’t remember ever having to look for him. He always seems to be right behind us, looking for us.”

“Good point, Gib.”