Chapter 8: Willow’s Mother

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 Keiths 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

The phone rang while I was sitting on the porch with Hondo the morning after I shot the car. “Hello,” I said.

“Mr. Boyd this is sheriff’s detective Amos. Why exactly did you want me to get a copy of the report on a couple of trespassers,” she asked.

“Since you are a big shot detective, I kinda thought you could figure it out. I have no idea whether you didn’t know what you did, or you did know and wanted it to happen. Either way you set me up to get killed last night.”

“You are crazy,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll contact the Deacon’s daughter to see if she will represent me in a civil lawsuit against the county for a couple of million bucks. You have a nice day now.” I said breaking the contact before she could reply.

I turned the phone off, but I did leave the battery in. I went from coffee on the veranda to a scooter ride into Greenwood. As usual I had a half hour to kill, since I was never one hundred percent sure of the scooters ability to deliver me on time. So I arrived in town way too early.

I parked the scooter then walked into the small farmer cooperative store. I bought a twenty pound bag of dog treats. I had never bought any for Hondo so I had a problem finding them. He was beginning to look healthy, so I thought he could probably handle a little junk food.

When Willow walked into the restaurant I recognized her immediately. I got a clue from the description Alice had provided me. Willow was way over weight. We are talking double the normal weight of your average twenty year old girl. She also had barn red hair which would have shocked me once, but had seen plenty of it by that time. She was dressed all in black with one exception. She wore a blue jean work coat with a corduroy collar. The big give away was the large bag she had over her shoulder.

“You Keith?” she asked.

“I am indeed, and that would make you Willow. I have heard a lot about you,” I said.

“Don’t bother trying to be my friend. This is strictly business. My mom told me all about you, so I’m doing this as a favor, but there are no discounts,” she decided.

“In that case I will need to get a price for the site before I go forward.” I demanded.

“Five hundred for the site on line and registered for a year. That includes getting it registered with the half dozen largest search engines. I’ll give you a package of free software, so that you can compose and place free advertisement anytime you want. You will also be able to accept on line orders and accept ‘pay pal’. There are several more things in the package, but those are the highlights,” she said.

“Tell you what, I think I’ll pass, but thanks a lot for meeting with me.” I placed a twenty on the table. “That’s for your lunch.” I stood to leave.

“Why not?” she asked.

“You have a computer in your bag. It’s filled with a ton of freeware, or pirated software allowing you to plug in information and have a bunch of web crawlers do the rest. In other words you want to charge me fiver hundred bucks for two hours work. So no thanks. And I only work with friends, unless I go into a retail store or a brick and mortar office. You need to work on your customer relations kid.” I stood to leave.

“What do you mean?” she asked in a different tone.

“You never asked me what I wanted. You were too busy trying to overwhelm me with how much smarter you are than me. Being impressed with your abilities does not necessarily result in a contract,” I said.

“Okay, I didn’t know how to handle the meeting. I’ve never done this before. So what do you need?” she asked.

“First of all I need you to price yourself reasonably for the services I need from you. Let’s start with an hourly rate to plug my shit into your web page layout program. Then register it with a reasonable priced service provider. A provider who is visited by the search engine crawlers. I don’t need a lot of custom work on the web page. I’ll just pick one of the providers layout and you color inside the lines,” I said.

“How about a hundred bucks an hour and I won’t pad the bill,” she said.

“Fair enough, order lunch and after we finish eating, we will cross the street and sit in the sunshine while we work,” I suggested.

I was home by four with the layout complete. Willow’s two hours and the fees for the provider were going to run about three hundred bucks. I would also have a twenty dollar a month fee which would be covered by my pay pal account. They in turn would take it from my bank account.

The web page should be on line in a couple of days Willow promised. She shot a video of me riding the scooter around the park. The narration was provided by me and sounded pretty amateur, which I thought fitted the scooter. I was looking forward to it being posted.

The ride home had been interesting only in the quality of the road. I should say the abundance of cracks and pot holes in the surface of the road. I know tax dollars are tight, but there should be a way to maintain the roads, I thought.

I decided to stop thinking about the scooters for a few minutes, so I checked my voice mail messages instead. Message one was from Detective Amos. ‘You threatened a cop. I will make your life miserable.’

Message two was from a Major in the sheriff’s department. ‘I just wanted to let you know I am in receipt of your lawyers brief. I have no idea what went on yesterday, but rest easy I will be investigating.’

Message three was from the detective again. ‘Please disregard my previous message. I lost my temper. What can we do to make this right?’

I called my friend Deacon Andrews. “What the hell did your daughter to do?” I asked a soon as he answered the phone.

“She filed a quick brief before filing a lawsuit. You and I both know that Detective Amos is going to fry for what she did. She has been lucky up till now, She hasn’t run into anyone who knew better than to let shit like that happen. Hell I’m sure everyone in the department does it all the time. This time they just didn’t check who their patsy was.”

“Or what the victim’s kids might do,” I added.

“So do you want the money or an apology,” Deacon asked.

“No money to be had. Amos was wrong but I handled it so there was no real harm. But I want a sit down with the victim and his family. Tell her Detective Amos is suddenly all apologetic, so one of us should drop the demand for an apology on the Major right fucking now,” I said.

I’ll have Marcy call the Sheriff and make the demand as part of a settlement. She will get her fee and you get your apology. All is right with the world,” he said.

“Maybe they will learn not to cut corners,” I suggested.

“Or something,” Deacon agreed.

It was time to cook dinner when I finished that call. I saved Amos’s message threatening me, just in case.

Dinner was a mac&cheese dinner with some hamburger and onion from the skillet on top of the camp stove. I was getting to be quite the cook, it seemed. At least me and Hondo thought so. It was pretty much a typical meal. I did have a half dozen frozen pizza’s in the Circus Tent’s refrigerator freezer. To heat them in my toaster oven, I had to cut them in half. Which was enough for me but Hondo wouldn’t appreciate being left out. That being the case I ate a little less, so he could have at least a bite with is kibble.

I did the usual Internet searches before I called it a night. I got a phone call around 10PM. The voice on the other end belonged to Detective Amos. “I made sure the Abdi family knows you were not the one who burned his store. Since I can’t tell them who did, they won’t meet with you.”

“Then I guess the war is still on,” I said.

“It isn’t a war those kids just wanted to scare you. Instead you scared the hell out of them. You and your dog,” she said.

“I keep telling you all, that he isn’t my dog,” I said. “Never mind then we go on with the litigation, only now Marcy adds a restraining order against the Abdi family to the mix.”

“I guess you’ll do what you feel you have to do,” she said.

“If I were you, I would look at people who do business with the Abdi family and the kids friends. This looks less racial and more personal,” I said.

“Thanks, we have looked at them as well,” she said. “Nobody jumps out us like you did.”

“Well good luck with that. Since I didn’t do it, you are going to have your hands full unless you want to plant evidence,” I said.

“We don’t do that here,” she said.

“Right, like you don’t get tainted identifications,” I said.

“Bastard,” she said.

“Bitch,” I replied. The phone went dead in my hand.

I slept well enough. I always had issues in the middle of the night of one kind or another, but I was used to those. Even with those issues I rested pretty well.

Hondo wanted to go out when I headed for the shower. I let him out before I hopped to the shower. I felt pretty steady just holding onto the walls. When I came back, I dressed in lots of warm clothing, since I was dressed for it I headed to the deck for coffee.

Once I had my leg on, I made Hondo’s breakfast and slipped it out the door. The coffee took a little longer, since I still poured boiling water through a funnel filled with a filter and coffee grounds. Half the time I was out of coffee filters so I used a paper towel. From the coffee funnel it dripped directly into the two cup size thermos called big bubba.

I went outside to drink my coffee on the deck. I was a little chilly, but it was warm enough to enjoy the sun and the coffee. Hondo looked happy laying on my coat, but I knew the wind was cold when it blew. Those were the nights I brought him inside.

My phone rang. Since I had nothing but bad news lately, I almost didn’t answer it. “Hello Alice,” I said since I saw her name on the screen.

“Are you and Hondo awake?” she asked.

“We are basking in the sun while sitting on the deck,” I said.

“Good, I have been to Walmart already this morning, and have a present for Hondo,” she said.

“I bought him a twenty pound bag of dog treats yesterday,” I said.

“Good, but this isn’t dog treats. Just wait. I’m in the car and headed over now,” she said.

Alice pulled down the farm road with the hatchback door open. She parked near the deck. I went out and removed the shell of a plastic dog house. Hondo didn’t know what it was, so I gave Alice a hug for him. The dog house required some assembly. Due to it’s light weight I was able to do it from my plastic chair. It was a no tools required assembly as well.

In less than five minutes the house was ready for Hondo. I moved his dog bed, my old coat, inside for padding and warmth. Then I positioned it so that the Gatehouse was at his front door to serve as a wind break. Hondo was officially a resident of The Gatehouse at last.

“Now,” Alice said. “I’m going to go home and make him an appointment with the vet for a physical. If you have a shortage of funds it’s our treat.”

“You are destroying the myth I have been working to create,” I said.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Alice said. “Hondo is going to get a physical and neutered.”

“My ass on cutting off his balls,” I said.

“Okay compromise he has the physical, and he can keep his balls,” Alice said with a smile.

Alice had out maneuvered me, so I agreed. I offered to make her coffee, but she refused. “You make terrible coffee,” she said. “Besides I have to call a vet. I have a recommendation from a friend.”

“Of course you do,” I suggested bitterly.

The night was filled with the evening routine things. The morning was filled with my normal morning routine. Hondo came to the door after spending the night in his new house. He obviously didn’t get too cold overnight. He was ready for breakfast bright and early.

I was on the deck when Alice came even though there were things I could be doing inside. The first thing I noticed was that she had an old blanket on her back seat. I decided it was a very good idea. There was no way to tell how Hondo would react to being in a car.

Once I coaxed him inside, he lay on the blanket covered seat and chewed on the rawhide bone he found there. Alice obviously knew dogs, I thought. Hondo obviously wasn’t terrified of cars, but he also knew he was in the car with friends. The drive to the vet took twenty minutes. It would have taken me over an hour on my best day on my scooter.

While Alice and I waited in the waiting room, I had to leave Hondo with the vet. Before I left him, I was forced to put a canvas muzzle on him. I hated doing it, but he seemed to accept it. It did make him nervous though.

“What do you plan to do with Hondo,” Alice asked.