Chapter 10 Lou Anne DOJ

Kieth Boyd-
Fred Boyd his brother.
Alice Boyd his sister in law.
Nephew John 15
Niece Gabby 13
Jo Anne Wall old girl friend
Windy Wall her ex husband.
Lewis and Ellie Keith’s in laws.
Sarah Marsh retro hippie
General Briggs rd
Doris owner of the consignment shop.
Jo Anne Joyner Wall : Keith’s first girlfriend. Three girls 16 13 10

oldest daughter ginger
Mr Jessup buyer of Keith’s scooter.
Rebecca Avondale deacon and keith’s client.
Marsha stylist to Rebecca
Gulfcrest hotel/casino
Elanor, Mark and Simon family being stalked
Sylvia Amos sheriff’s detective.
Willow goth chick. Computer nerd
Abdi arab family victim of arson.
Ginger Moss Willow’s mother
Mr Serpico client in motel.
Liam Amos hunter.
Jasper Amos Liam’s son
Jerry Geyser first seperated man to stay in cabin/tent.
Lou Anne Mason justice dept

I caught a ride to the hospital with a very attractive, but too young cop. The detective investigating the shooting drove me to the hospital as a passenger in her car. I spent thirty minutes waiting for the detective to interview Deacon, then when she came out it was my turn to visit him myself.

“So how’s it going,” I asked when I entered his room.

“It’s great. They have the best drugs here, and it’s all covered by my insurance company,” Deacon said.

“Cool,” was all I said to that. “Is there anything I can do for you before I head back to Gatehouse?” I asked.

“No Marcy is coming down from Philadelphia tonight. She can sneak me in donuts in that big purse she carries,” he said.

“Good,” I replied before I turned to head out the door.

“Keith, we are good aren’t we?” deacon asked.

“We will be when I get your bank draft,” I said.

“It should be in your bank tomorrow. Marcy will have to see to it,” He explained.

“That’s fine, I’m headed to the first motel for my trike,” I said.

“Good, why don’t you stay there tonight. Leave early in the morning tomorrow,” he suggested. “That way Marcy will know where you are, if she needs to talk to you tonight.” Deacon said.

“I can do that,” I replied.

I got a ride to the state line with a Memphis police officer. We were met there by a Mississippi state police officer. That was courtesy of the Tennessee State Attorney. The ride from there to the motel was just a courtesy. Of course they also hoped I would spill something to incriminate the deacon or myself. I had learned to be very quiet and when I did speak, I said almost nothing.

I got to the motel about 9PM. I slept in the room with my three wheel scooter standing guard in the corner. The next morning I took a leisurely shower before putting on the left leg with a chunk missing from the calf. The fit hadn’t been just right since the day before’s shooting. My plan was to tough it out till I arrived home, then decide what to do.

I hit a chain restaurant with a drive through window for breakfast. I ate in the parking lot while I checked my email using their WIFI. Marcy sent me a message via Email. According to the message Deacon’s money was in my bank account. I checked the balance and found that there was an additional hundred thousand. It was the first of the settlement money.

She had agreed to three payments $165,000. She got $35,000. Her firm figured the tax bite would be at least $60,000 which left me $70,000. That was the amount deposited in my account. The $60K was held in an escrow account for the IRS as a quarterly tax payment. She had more than doubled my bank account with her deposit so I was thrilled.

I had another cup of coffee to celebrate before heading home. It was an all day ride with an hour’a stop in the early afternoon to recharge the batteries. I made the pit stop to be sure that I could make it home that day. I arrived around 5PM. Hondo was in his house. He raised his head. He wagged his tail once then he dropped his head back to the floor of the house. His actions didn’t upset me at all. As a matter of fact I approved of them.

I called Alice on the phone to leave this message. ‘Thanks for taking care of Hondo. I’m home now so everything is back to normal. Thanks again and you decide on a suitable payment and it’s yours.’

After I hung up the phone I went into the Circus Tent and found everything as it should be. I removed the last of my frozen Mac & Cheese dinners. When I returned to the house, I put it into the toaster oven to heat for dinner.

When it was hot. I added some crunch with crumbled Dorito chips. I also spiced it up with two packs of the hot sauce from Taco Bell. The dish was fairly good and it was filling for sure. As I always did I placed a large spoonful in Hondo’s dish. I added his vet approved dinner. His share of the Mac & Cheese didn’t have the Taco Bell hot sauce. I was sure the Vet wouldn’t approve.

After dinner I began catching up with the TV shows I had missed while out of town. I also checked on the Project I had planned for the summer. I placed orders for several building materials from Home Depot. I arranged to have it all delivered along with a cheap set of post hole diggers.

I fell asleep trying to decide how to approach Fred about the two acres I needed across the farm road from Gatehouse and Circus Tent. Nothing came to me, so I decided to just wing it the next morning. After making coffee and taking my shower, I called Fred. It surprised me that he was willing to give me the land.

“No way, that is your kid’s inheritance. Just call a realtor and get a decent price and I’ll pay it. Of course less the family and friends discount,” I said with laugh.

“I’ll call Alice and get the name of a realtor,” Fred said. I should have the price in an hour.”

I was on the phone when he called back to tell me the price. “The average is a little more than three grand an acre. That would make your price for two acres $5000,” he said.

“Are you sure you are okay with that,” I asked.

“Sure it will cost you a few hundred for lawyers, and other shit involved in the sale,” Fred said.

Two weeks later found me the owner of two acres of not so prime land. Next I had the building supplies dropped in the small clearing. I paid two hundred bucks to have that space opened. The generic building supplies waited while I researched what I should do next.

According to an article on building a road bed, I needed to get the farm road scraped and covered with gravel. It needed to be a half a foot deep. I had the farm road done so that I could get heavy equipment into one the single acre lot I planned to use. Then I had two forty feet by eight feet concrete pads poured to support camping trailers.

After that I paid my nephew john, who was sixteen at the time, to help me layout the foundation for two hunting cabins located near the camper slabs. We dug the holes for the frame of a 14x 24 building. The frame began with the holes set every twenty four inches. John and I dug a total of twenty holes per house. I regretted that I didn’t rent a post hole auger. The digging wasn’t hard just time consuming. The posts were short two foot long pieces of six inch PVC pipe. When the pipes were level and plumb we cemented them into the holes.

A few days later the concrete truck was back pouring the floors. When the floors cured John and I constructed a frame made of six inch PVC pipe. Since neither of was a plumber or carpenter we dry fitted all the joints first. In the end we glued them together. The frames were up for two small building like the Circus tent. The heavy vinyl shells cost me about three grand each. The road and site improvements, including concrete pour ran just over ten grand.

I was out of pocket about fifteen grand, but I had the beginnings of my sportsman’s camp. It would also be a place to stash my customers, if they needed a place to stay while checking the bikes. The site was also a cheap hunting and fishing camp.

It helped me pass the time until June. I wasn’t selling enough bikes to stay busy. I certainly didn’t expect to rent the trailer spaces or cabins/tents enough to keep busy. I made improvements now and then just to have an ongoing project.

By the middle of June I was absolutely out of things the needed to be done. I had stopped using the fancy left leg replacement. I was using the carbon fiber running blade I had been fitted with by the Air Force doctors. I didn’t like it as well as the leg that replicated the human form, but it got me around just as well. I had changed because the one which had been shot began to come apart. Fiberglass doesn’t do will with an elephant gun round through it. Okay it was smaller than an elephant round, but it was still a high velocity round fired from a sniper rifle.

Anyway the point was I was considering the purchase of a new leg. Every time I looked at the price of a leg, I changed my mind. I knew my government supplied insurance would bare a large portion of the cost but still I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to be sure I needed such a thing.

I was still weighing the advantages vs cost and inconvenience of having it fitted when I decided I needed a couple of Kayaks for the hunt club more than a new leg. First I needed to use one to see if I could manage it at all. I hadn’t be inside a boat of any kind since the ‘accident’. Since we were less that five miles from the public access I decided to give it a try.

First I bought a ten foot long Kayak and then I bought one hell-of-a-life jacket. On the way to the check out, I picked up a double sided paddle. The cost was a whopping four hundred dollars and change. I had serious thoughts about purchasing more Kayaks for the campground.

Then of course I had to have my nephew John bring his pickup truck, a gift from his dad, to carry it all home. Before I went to the trouble of building a trailer to carry the Kayak, I wanted to test it. So John drove me to a public access to he Yazoo river. I would like to say there was some drama. Just to make this more interesting, but there simply was none. I managed to get into the Kayak from the boat dock. I didn’t even come close to rolling it over. I did have to arrange the Kayak so that I could enter from the left side. But all went well.

I paddled the Kayak around a few minutes the came back to the dock. I lifted myself up with my arms then used my good leg to climb the ladder. It was all in all a perfect trip. After it was all over I realized that I had enjoyed it more than I had anticipated.

After dinner that night I researched fishing in the area and the most basic equipment. I wasn’t interested in gill nets since I couldn’t carry a large number of fish in a Kayak. I could get a net bag to drag behind the Kayak. It would work for a couple of fish, but twenty I just had no desire to haul out.

I didn’t need to research the trailer redo to compensate for the length of a ten foot Kayak. My building materials trailer would do just fine. I just had to lengthen the hitch holder. That I decided could most easily be done with a twelve foot two by two. I could cut it in half at the store, then load it into my building supply trailer and ride home with the two, six foot long pieces. Once home I could bolt them to the trailer hitch shaft one on each side then bolt the surplus together. Then replace the hitch end and hook it up.

After a few days of testing and proving the workability of the concept, I just built a permanent trailer. It was a trailer I could roll into the water to launch the Kayak. It saved me having to lift and carry the molded plastic boat. It also meant I could launch it easily without a dock. I could enter the boat in just inches of water. I might get my feet wet but that’s why I wore canvas shoes in the summer.

Willow helped me launch a second page to my website. It was devoted to the Mississippi Sportsman’s Camp. I began getting inquires almost immediately. No bookings, but people did have an interest.

I knew Deacon liked to fish, so I invited him down. We could still be friends, I told myself. I just didn’t want to work for him again.

He was all healed from the bullet the snipe delivered to him. According to the Deacon he was doing nothing at the moment, so he agreed to come down the next day. He went so far as to check the website, then book one of the forty foot travel trailer concrete pads.

Deacon came to town in a thirty foot Travel Buddy. It was a well decked out trailer. It had everything including a shower big enough for two people. Naturally there was a hot water on demand feature in the thing.

Deacon stayed for three days fishing and partying. He drank a lot of booze ate a lot of fresh catfish. When his trip ended, he seemed sad to be leaving. He promised to come back again real soon. Then he unhooked from the site, hooked up to his truck and pulled out. It had been a good visit, but even the best visit has to end sometime.

I made it through the summer without doing anything too stupid. I tried dating a woman from my failed relationship group. It turned out to be a stupid move. However it wasn’t too stupid, since I figured out she was bat-shit crazy before she got me killed by her ex-husband.

Then there was the furniture I built for the cabin/tents. It cost much less than if I had bought it. Since I was building sportsman club furniture it should be rough, I thought.

I had John come over so that we could build a building to be used for a compost toilet, and another one to be used as a shower. They were buildings to be shared by the two cabin/tents. Since I hadn’t had a single booking for a cabin/tent or trailer space it was probably a waste of money.

“Do you know Liam Amos?” John asked.

“Name sounds familiar,” I said.

“He was a friend of grand dad,” he explained.

“Sure the old man with the long gray beard. I saw him at dad’s funeral,” I said.