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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Four men had entered a restaurant in town and sat at a table and ordered coffee. That is when Lynx and two friends went over to check on these men since they were new in town. They pulled up extra chairs and sat with the strangers. One man told them they were not invited. So, that brought a stupid remark from Lynx.
“Around here old man,” he said, “we do what we want, and we ask the questions.” Suddenly the ‘ old man’ grabbed Lynx’s ponytail and smashed his head against the edge of the table, then pulled his head back up. The other two friends did not move since they found knives with a sharp point pushing against their stomachs.
“Today you learn some respect punk,” said the old man, “now, what is your name?” “Who wants to know?” snarled Lynx. The man smashed his head against the table edge once more. “Wrong answer,” he said, “now we try again, what is your name?” “His name is Lynx,” said one of the other guys. “Good, we make progress,” said the man, “now, I am Patty’s uncle, which one of you punks killed Patty?”
“What?” said Lynx, “No way man, we did not kill her! She was one of us, she was Musk’s girl. Buck would kill us if we did something like that.” “And who is Buck?” asked the uncle. “He is our leader,” said Squirrel, “and he is a big man, he would break you in two, so be careful.” The uncle and his friends just laughed. “We are not here to waste time with The Creepers,” said the uncle, “I want Patty’s killer, who did it?”
“We do not know man,” said Lynx. “Well, if Patty was one of you then how come you are not trying to find out?”, said the uncle, “And what is it about that old house that scares everyone?” “That place is haunted,” said Woodchuck, “I have seen ghosts out there, they walk through walls, they glow in the dark and there is all kinds of weird noises at night.”
“Then who are all those people out there?” he asked. “They are PI’s,” said Lynx. “Names boy, names,” he said again. “No idea,” Lynx answered, “but Pinky would know, she was with them.” “Where can I find this Pinky?” asked the uncle, “And is Flo still living in the same place on Spruce St.?” “Yeah, she still lives there,” said Squirrel, “but I cannot say about Pinky, against our rules.”
“You know,” said uncle, “if someone had killed one of our girls, we would be out looking for the killer, and then he would not be doing anymore killing.” “Cops,” said Squirrel. So the guys put away their knives and uncle let go of Lynx. The cops came inside and over to the table. “What happened to your head Lynx?” asked officer 1. “Tripped and fell against the table,” he answered, “guess I am a bit clumsy today.”
“Well, go home and stay out of trouble,” so the guys left. “As for you 4, who are you and what do you want around here?” asked officer 2. “I am Patty’s uncle,” said the one man and he took out a photo of her from his wallet. On the back was written, “To my favorite Uncle Matt, Love Patty.” “Hmm, looks like her handwriting,” said officer 1. “Now, why are you two not out looking for Patty’s murderer?” asked uncle Matt.
“We think it was an accident,” said officer 2, “lots of old people around here go out hunting squirrels.” “Patty was shot, inside the kitchen and you think that was an accident?” he asked shaking his head, “Maybe I should call some real cops from the city to come and check on this. What about the coroner’s report?”
“There was no autopsy, the mother did not want any,” said officer 2, “but, yeah, we were just heading out to that house to check the area for some clues.” “I hear there is already some PI’s working out there,” said uncle Matt, “what is their name? I want to check them out, make sure they are okay.” “They are called “The Investigators”, said officer 1.
“I know every PI in this country, never heard of these,” said uncle Matt. “They are from Europe,” said officer 1, “Hope hired them to look over that haunted house.” “Haunted house,” said uncle Matt, “there are no such thing as ghosts, yet everyone is scared of the place. I want to know what is going on around here and I will not leave until I do!” “Well, we need to get going,” said officer 1, “keep out of trouble.”
“Seems like that might be a little hard to do here,” said uncle Matt. The cops left and the men went to see Patty’s mother. Uncle Matt went to the door and knocked. A woman answered, still crying. “Please do not be alarmed,” said uncle Matt, “I am here to help find Patty’s killer. May I come in and talk briefly?”
The woman allowed him inside. “Is this your daughter?” he asked, showing the picture he had. “Yes, yes, that is her,” she said quietly. Then she looked at the back and read what Patty had written. “That is Patty’s handwriting,” she said, “but she has no uncle Matt. Who are you?”
To Be Continued.
©2024 Steve McLeod.
We all dropped to the floor as 3 shots came through the kitchen window. My team ran out back looking for the shooter, except Kat and Jennifer who stayed with me. Patty had been standing at the stove getting more coffee, she was now lying on the floor, dead. All 3 shots hit her, so she was a definite target, though the shooter may not have know who it was.
The guys followed the angle of the shots and found where the shooter had stood, quite a distance away. This was likely a warning to us that we should leave quickly. A good reason for us to stay. Hope and Pinky took Patty’s body to the police in town and decided to stay where it was safe. That is better for us, now we don’t need to protect them.
A couple of police officers came out and asked a few questions, but they did not stay long, they were obviously afraid of something. I think people around here know more about this house then they are willing to talk about. The police wondered why we were not scared to be out here after Patty was killed. I explained who we were and that being in dangerous situations was quite normal for us.
Shortly after the police left Hope returned from town. “I thought you were going to stay at home?” I asked her. “No way,” she said adamantly, “this is my property and you are here because of me, so I am staying!” “I thought all 3 of you owned this place,” I said.
“Well, we do, sorta,” she explained, “but they did not have any money, so I bought it and they would pay me their share when they could. I really did not care if they paid or not though. We all loved this wild property and were looking forward to camping out here this summer.” She started to cry a bit at that point and hugged me.
Jennifer just looked at me. What could I do? Hope did her best to monopolize my time the rest of the day, but Jennifer kept interrupting which I do not think Hope liked too much. Hope has not changed, that is for sure. Anyway, Hope also mentioned that Harvey broke down crying when he discovered Patty had been killed. That is interesting.
It could mean it was none of his gang that killed her, though not necessarily. It could also mean another group wants this house for some reason, and they want us to leave. They also wanted us to know that the warning they had given about Sky is real, and we should pay attention and leave. We are paying attention, but we are not leaving.
Now we need to look around this house thoroughly and see if we can find out why someone wants this place so much that they are willing to kill for it. The house has a total of 30 rooms and is a two story house, plus a basement. We decided on checking the basement first, but I left Kat, Dawn, Aari and Rusty upstairs to make sure no one could sneak up on us.
There were 3 rooms, one was empty, one was nearly full of empty wood crates and the main room was half filled with old furniture, plus more of those wood crates. But this time the crates were full…of rocks. I called Kristina over to take a look, she knows a lot about rocks and minerals and has a nice, large mineral collection back home.
She broke a few of the rocks with an old hammer that was on top of one crate. Three of the crates had been broken open, and quite recently too. “There is a lot of pyrite in these samples,” said Kristina, “often it is called ‘fool’s gold’. It shows someone was a prospector at one time, and perhaps there is a small mine close by.
Real gold is often found with, or close to, pyrite. But, they may have been fooled into thinking it was real gold.” After looking around for 2 hours we headed back upstairs. Jennifer and I were at the back of the line, Kristina was just ahead of us and talking about those rocks. As she arrived in the kitchen, still talking, she turned and Jennifer and I were not there.
Kristina looked down the stairs and called out for me, but no answer. Aari, John and Mac rushed down to the basement, but we were gone. They checked all around the stairs since that is where we were last seen, but there was no sign of a hidden door anywhere. Then Kat remembered the picture of Sky with a noose around her neck.
She called out to come back upstairs and she ran quickly to our bedroom. Sure enough, Jennifer was hanging from the ceiling with a noose around her neck. Kat jumped and cut the rope with one slice of her knife, and still managed to catch Jennifer before she hit the floor. “Thanks Kat,” said Jennifer, “I was wondering how long I could hold out without breathing.”
They found me cowering in a corner of our closet. I did not even want them to help me. “He must have been given a drug,” said Mac. This all happened very fast, which was alarming. Meanwhile in town… “Those guys are new around here,” said Lynx, “we need to check them.” They came to the table and sat down. “I never said you could join us,” said one man…
To Be Continued.
©2024 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 