The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 35

Enjoy!

The Alibi – Chapter 35

 
Tony Morelli let his car roll forward to a patch of pavement clear of onlookers and reached over the center console to the Impala’s glove compartment.

Ed Vox’ booted feet snapped against the car’s floorboards as he pushed himself back into the passenger seat. “Brake!”

Morelli’s eyes returned to the road. A pudgy-faced, middle-aged, overweight man, long black greasy-looking hair, wraparound Ray-bans and needing a shave stopped in front of the Impala, and stared at Vox. His Arrest-Me-Red jogging suit, white racing stripe up the right leg and continuing on to the ill-fitting jersey top, gave him a bad “Saturday beer and burgers football with the boys” look.

Morelli stopped and honked his horn.

The man cocked his head and continued to stare at Vox. Every few seconds he’d quickly shake his head as if gnats encircled him.

Morelli pointed. “Is that Ron Jeremy and is he refusing to move?”

Vox blinked. “He’s not refusing, he’s remembering, shaking a memory loose.” He opened the glovebox. “What do you need?”

Morelli’s gaze went from the man to Vox. “How do you know that?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a badge, lowered his window, and called to an idle patrolman watching the crowd. “Officer? A little assistance, please?”

Ron Jeremy scratched his head as the officer approached.

Vox nodded the man then at the crowds and emergency vehicles. “Must be the government plates. How long ago did this happen?”

Morelli held his shield up for the officer and pointed. “Mind removing Ron Jeremy from our path and telling the rest of the BPD we’re coming through?” He turned back to Vox. “And unh-uh. He’s staring at you, not the car. This went down about an hour ago. Came while I was on my way in. You were on the way.”

“Convenient. You plan it that way? And Ron Jeremy the porn star?” He took a long second look. “Yeah, kind of. I guess.”

The officer looked at the man who hadn’t stopped staring and shook his head as he shuffled towards him.

Morelli watched. “There’s a Federal ID in a plastic sheet in there. Mind handing it over?”

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A Healthy Young Fellow Trots Away

We are blessed the The Wild often.

Sometimes the blessings last a great while.

Other times they are fleeting.

Case in point, this healthy young fellow.

A bit camera shy, he.

But I, like the oceans, the winds, the earth itself, am patient.

I know he will return.

And I, trusty camera in hand, will be waiting…

Enjoy.

 

Four More Books Accepted into Library of Congress

I am thrilled and honored to have four more of my books selected by the Library of Congress, accepted into General Collections, and assigned Library of Congress Control Numbers:


Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires LOCCN 2023448306


The Augmented Man LOCCN 2023448307


The Inheritors LOCCN 2023448305

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The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 34

I didn’t get much writing done in November. For the first time since pre-Covid, I was doing booksignings, talking about writing, the usual marketing stuff. The holidays came and went and we were busy with those. Also preparing Search for release (the second-round print format is on my desk for review. still waiting for the final cover).

In short, busy.

But I did lots of pissing and moaning about The Alibi in November, mostly to myself, some to others. Lots of plotting and strategizing. Realized a plot point isn’t going to work last night, going to take it out this morning.

Don’t worry, it about twenty chapters from where you are now. You’ll never notice it’s absence. I hope.

Anyway, on with the show!

Enjoy!

The Alibi – Chapter 34

 
Cranston nodded at the crowd control officers who waved him through the gawkers, news crews, and internet-wannabes shoving and jumping with mobiles in hand. He spotted Rhinehold moving slowly through the crowd, alternately TXTing and talking on his mobile, and generally paying no attention to anything but the emergency services vehicles, triage units, and crowd control. Once or twice Cranston saw Rhinehold dip his head towards some people pointing at the destruction and talking but otherwise paying attention to nothing at all.

Cranston nodded. Yeah, Marete was right. Tonto handled this kind of undercover pretty well.

Go figure.

Cranston walked up behind a petite woman covered head to foot in a white Tyvek forensics suit. “Mary Frances.”

The petite woman turned, removed her right glove, her mask, offered him her hand and smiled. “William.”

“What’s a good looking woman like you doing at a crime scene like this?”

Mary Frances kept her eyes on Cranston and nodded in Rhinehold’s direction. “Today’s Tonto?”

Cranston snickered. “John Rhinehold. Shall I introduce you?”

“Won’t that blow his cover?”

Cranston watched forensics personnel come and go from SkyHook’s garage. “When will you be able to talk?”

“Maybe five, ten minutes. They know what to do. I’m just here for the unexpected.”

“Buy you a coffee?”

“Large double-double. And from the coffee shop around the corner, not from Starschmucks.”

“Meet you there.”

Cranston sat on a concrete bench outside the coffee shop, a large double-double and a bag containing a single maple-cream donut beside him.

Rhinehold ambled up with an iced something-or-other from the same shock and sat on the other end of the bench. He took a few experimental sips and tossed his cup in a floral pattern painted city trash can a few feet from where they sat. “Should’ve stuck with real coffee.”

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The Family Dines With Friends

Post the (US) holiday food coma (for those so fortunate. it’s a pity people don’t realize two-thirds of what they consume could go to the orphan, the widow, the hungry, the weak, the infirmed…
…but this isn’t the time for preaching…) it’s good to remember the joy we had with good friends gathered around the table.

In my case, that was at the Campbell’s in Middleton, Mass. My family would gather there every year for good food and great stories, a game of Chinese Checkers or Scrabble, perhaps Mrs. Stockton would play the piano and play for us.

I didn’t know at the time that Al Campbell and my dad met working in Boston and became friends. It never seemed odd to me that this New Brunswick, Canadian immigrant and my first-generation Italian-American father would hit it off.

Years later Al, who was heavy for as long as I knew him, lost an amazing amount of weight. I didn’t know if it was health or something else. Blanche, his wife, was also a large woman and lost some but not all of her weight.

Mrs. Stockton, Al’s mother, once confided that Al and Blanche would never have children because they were cousins.

My mother understood. I, somewhere between five and nine years old at the time, didn’t.

One day Blanche called us to let us know Al had left her for some woman in northern Maine. How he met her, I don’t know.

Blanche received a letter (handwritten. ah, those were the days) from Al asking her to box up some of his things and to leave them somewhere he could get them.

She did. Being Blanche, she also included an apple pie. Al loved apple pie.

Years later she received another letter from Al telling her how much he treasured that pie. It was one of the kindest things anyone’d done for him in years, he wrote.

My mother made sure we – especially my father – knew the woman Al “shacked up with” beat him regularly, as did her two sons, and that he had to eat that pie in the outhouse because the woman, if she’d known he got it, would’ve taken it from him and beat him all the more.

My mother made sure my father knew this because (as I found out much later) what brought Al and my father together wasn’t work, it was whoring.

Al, according to mom, even hit on her once. While she was pregnant, too! Oh my!

Such are family stories.

Blanche and Mrs. Stockton were good Christian women. Years later I studied biblical matters and they invited me over for dinner. I hadn’t seen them in years.

They were still Blanche and Mrs. Stockton, still knew how to cook, still gracious and kind people.

I would like to say I stayed in touch with them, but I didn’t. My path took me elsewhere.

Way elsewhere.

I hope their Christian belief brought them peace.

And meanwhile, the family dines with friends.

Enjoy.

 

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