For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Here we are at the cemetery digging up the bodies of Joseph and Colleen Candish, the parents of Kathee. We had to work fast because I am sure that Carnival already knows what we are doing. I went over to look with Kathee. “Maybe I better look first,” said Carver. “Hmm, good idea,” I said, and I took Kathee further back. “Not good to look at,” he said, “burned bad.” “That is impossible!” exclaimed Kathee, “they were not burned at all!”
Carver frowned a bit, “someone did some work after the fact.” Just then an older man came over to us. “Sorry to butt in,” he said, “but if you are looking for the folks that was buried here, they are gone.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, 2 days after they was buried, someone dug them up again,” he said, “then took them away and planted these folks in their place. I look after the cemetery here.
So I followed those people to a cemetery across the city, just thought it was kind of odd.” “Can you tell us where they are?” I asked. “I better go along and show you,” he said, “or you might have a hard time finding them in that cemetery, it is a lot bigger than this one.” “Good, we will do that,” I said, “Rock, go with Kathee, Saranna, Sky and Ashley and get a DNA check done, just to make sure.
The rest of us will go to that other cemetery, and hope we are not too late. We will need another exhumation order for those graves.” “I can get it quick once I know where,” said our lawyer. Off we went to this other cemetery, with our guide leading the way in his truck. He did not seem to realize there are speed limits around here and drove amazingly fast. Fortunately we did not meet any police along the way and we got to the cemetery just in time.
There was someone already digging in those 2 graves. I paid the older gentleman and told him he better leave, which he did quickly. John went over to the backhoe operator and told him to stop, but he did not listen, so John pulled him out of the cab and threw him onto the ground. There was a big truck there also, and two men with it. They came over to us and told us to leave, this was none of our business.
I was wearing leather gloves and just suddenly gave that guy a hard back handed slap. The other man was about to pull a gun but Carver had a knife at his throat too fast. He then took his gun and Ralph took the other mans gun as well. “Now I give you some advice,” I said to the two men, “you leave, because this is none of your business. And you can tell that to Alvares too.” The men looked surprised that I mentioned Alvares.
“Carnival does not like being pushed by anyone,” said the man I had slapped, “he will put you in a grave next.” That is when Ralph punched him in the stomach good and hard. The man bent over groaning. As he straightened up, I grabbed his throat. “You tell Alvares to stay out of my way,” I said, “I know these people were murdered. They were friends of mine. If Alvares did this, he will have me to deal with. You can tell him that too. Now you two get out of here before I decide to put you in those holes.”
They left in the truck. The backhoe operator wanted to leave with them, but I would not let him go, we wanted him to continue digging. He was not going to at first, but Carver had a talk with him, so he continued digging while our lawyer got the necessary paperwork. He did not watch what went on earlier with our conversations, just in case he saw something. These were the right bodies this time, so I called the police chief to let him know and he came down with some other officers.
I let our lawyer do the talking while we sat in the cars, just so we would not be seen as friends with the police. Carnival might have someone watching us. The backhoe operator was arrested for illegally digging earlier, and the older man from the other cemetery pointed him out as the man who dug up the bodies originally. That will put him in prison for a while and should make Carnival suitably angry.
Meanwhile, “That was Carver with them,” said the man, “and I recognized Ralph too.” “Why would Victor be interested in these two people?” asked Carnival. “That one guy said they were his friends,” said the second man, “and he was going to find out who murdered them. So he must work for Victor too and be high in the organization for Carver to be protecting him.” “Just what I needed,” said Carnival, “things were going good, now Victor has to get involved.”
To Be Continued.
Β©2023 Steve McLeod.
Yes sir! I knew there would be some shenanigans going on with the two body’s! But now it has worked out nicely to set a tone with Carnival and set him to thinking and off balance a bit. Good work! Nicely done by all!π
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Yep, who would have thought they would move them, would have been smarter to just burn them and put them back to match the police report. Mistake one by Carnival. I am sure he will make more. Major was right, his men did recognize Carver and Ralph, that is great. It just might make Carnival nervous so he will make more mistakes. I am sure he will make the next move.π€π©π©πΎπΎπΎπ΅οΈββοΈ
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Yep! You’ve rattled him a little and set him to thinking π€ maybe a little too much for his own good!
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Yep, I wanted to rattle him alright. Carver said I did good on my part. Now we see what he does next. I wonder if that backhoe operator will talk at all. Probably not, he is scared of Carnival, that was obvious.π€π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Plus he’s a backhoe operator…π he might just be someone they hired or threatened!π€
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Well, it was just a rented backhoe, so I think he works for Carnival, but he may not. Could be innocent, kind of. If they hired him, he’s in trouble, if they threatened him, he might be okay.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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We may not know what happens to him though… but he could have overheard something that might be helpful.π€
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Yep, that’s true. The police have him now, so it is out of our hands. But that is one small blow to Carnival. Now if we can prove that Kathee’s parents were murdered, that will put a couple of cops in trouble, plus the cop higher up than the officers. He had to sign off on that report. So they are in trouble no matter what since these people were not burned at all.π€¨π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Yep, that’s for certain! I wonder what Alvares plan to do next? You can bet there’ll be some phones burning up trying to figure out who you are and what you’re up to!π€π
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Yes indeed! He will try to find out who I am and why he has not heard of me before now. Plus he will likely try to figure out why Victor is backing me. He will want to verify my story about these people being my friends too. That might be the tricky part if Joseph kept any records of helping me with starting The Investigators.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Time for a visit to his office and a little research through his files!π€
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Yes, we will need to do that for sure. Hopefully Carnival did not do that already. If Joseph did have something on Carnival, then he may had ransacked the lawyers office looking for that evidence.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Possiblyπ€ but he would need to know your name.
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Yes, that is true, but I am sure that Joseph took a pic of me and Muffin when our PI license came in. That would be bad. It wouldn’t be good for Victor either since word would get out he was working with the cops. That could finish him.π²π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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That would be very bad for him and you!π«£π¬
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Yep, was just thinking, that would be bad for business if it got out that I was working with a big time gangster!π²π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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It could affect the kind of clientele you get also!π³π²
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Hmm, could be true too, but we can fix that part by saying no and getting killed. We better get that pic first!π€π΅οΈββοΈ
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It seems the “Prudent” thing to do!!πππ
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I think so as well! And I would like to find out what he had on Alvares, if anything. He would have kept notes of some kind.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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That would be for sure! What about Kathee? Is she headed back across the pond?π€
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Sky will be taking her back to our home very soon. They will be on board one of Baldwin’s jets which will be safer.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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She might be useful in going through her father’s files?π€
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Yes, she will be around for that part, then she will head back. Hopefully she will agree with that and not try to fight it.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Sounds like you think she will…π€
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Um, well, she can be a bit, um, headstrong at times, so we will see.π€π©π©π΅οΈββοΈ
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Maybe Sky can make her understand its best for everyone?
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I’m hoping so. Or Sky will have to get tough with her!
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Ooooo…. that could be bed for Kathee….
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It will only hurt temporarily anyway.
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Switching bodies…hmmm…too many unknown S …waiting for the next chapter…π΅οΈββοΈπ©π©π©βπ¦°π©βπ¦±π€βοΈ
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It is an interesting beginning to this case. Now that we have had a confrontation with Carnival’s men, he will likely make the next move and try to figure out who we are and what we are doing.π€π©π©πΎπΎπΎπ΅οΈββοΈ
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This is indeed a grave case. Couldn’t resist the pun. Digging up 2 graves twice. You all were just in time!
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Yes, that’s why I kept our exhumation request secret until the last minute, but someone still alerted Carnival so he sent someone to get rid of the bodies they had moved. That was his first mistake though, he should have gotten rid of the bodies completely, or burned them and returned them to their right graves. That way it would match the police report and make things harder for Kathee to complain. Now we can stop the police who made the report and the higher official who signed off on that report. They will end up in prison for what they did, plus that backhoe operator will also end up in prison for his part in moving the bodies, unless he is willing to cooperate with the police, which is unlikely. He is scared of Carnival which makes sense. But, we have already made things harder for Carnival, and made him angry. Now, we need to search the lawyers office, because he took pics of Muffin and I when we first got our PI license. If Carnival finds that, then we are in trouble.π€π©π©πΎπ΅οΈββοΈ
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Hope Carnival and his gang haven’t already search the lawyer’s office. Although most attorney’s have tons of paperwork the would take a long time to go through unless you knew what you were looking for. Need to use a nickname.
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Yes, too much paperwork and likely they did not really know what to look for anyway, just looking for something, if they did search it already. On the other hand, we know what to look for. Yes, a nickname would be a good idea.π€π΅οΈββοΈ
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