Redemption
Chapter 5

Copyright© 2017 by MysteryWriter

cabin tents rented for $25 a day
trailer rentals: larger $75 mid size $60 small $50
John Boyd 28yrs old
Gabby Boyd 25 yrs old.
Alice Boyd current owner of the Gatehouse
Edwardo world famous catfish chef (according to mom)
Joy and Jen wait staff for Alice Boyd’s catering
Jasper Amos hunter, guide, knife make
Sylvia Amos sheriff’s detective lieutenant
deputy Angie Davenport
Marion davenport Angyie’s mom
Clyde Summers suicide victim
Edward Gaines suicide victim while serving time with John
Max Bork Gabby’s fancy man
Willow computer geek


When I got through dropping the trailer, I was torn between my survival instinct and my curiosity. In the end it didn’t matter, because the deputies came to me. I was in the Circus Tent skinning catfish when Silvia Amos showed up.

“Mr Boyd, seems like someone is always dying around you,” she said.

“Who was it this time?” I asked.

“Not sure but one of the brothers who stayed in cabin three. I think their names were Fontain,” she informed me.

“They did a ‘no contact checkout’. I get a lot of those. These are the type people who want to be on the road early,” I said. “There were no bodies in there.”

“But you went inside the cabin/tent this morning and removed evidence,” she said.

“If you are going to take that attitude, I’m going to call Marcy,” I said. “I went in and took out the trash. I do it every morning after a no contact checkout. I empty the trash and sweep the floor. I probably should have mopped the floor as well, but it looked as though it had been mopped already. I can show you where I disposed of the bloody shirt.”

“Okay, am I going to find your DNA on it?” she asked.

“Almost guaranteed,” I said. “Unless I’m mistaken, it won’t mean shit.”

“Jailhouse lawyer?” she asked.

“Finest kind,” I replied.

“Any idea where he left the body,” she asked.

“I’m not at all sure there is a body or a victim. Most likely an Alabama argument,” I suggested. “But you are welcome to waste your time and money.”

“What’s an Alabama argument?” she asked.

“One where somebody makes his point with a shank,” I said.

“Do you have a knife?” she asked me.

“Of course I do, I’m a fisherman,” I said.

“If you want to try to vacate my parole for that, you are just going to cost me more money. Marcy will be happy to take you on again,” I said.

“No problem, I just might need to do a DNA test on it. That is, if I don’t clear the case without it,” Sylvia Amos said.

“Well in the meantime I’m going back to my house and watch Judge Judy,” I suggested.

“Don’t go too far,” she said.

“Not a problem. I belong here. How about you?” I asked.

“As long people keep dying around you, I’ll keep dropping by,” she said.

“Good I feel safer already,” I said walking away.

When I reached the house, I checked with mom to get the previous night’s guest’s phone number. I called the number with my burner phone. “You need to contact Sylvia Amos at the sheriff’s office in regards to a blood stained shirt. The one I found in your trash,” I said into his message machine.

Then I just shut down. I switched to watching TV and playing around on the computer. I also went to bed early. I was surprised by the knock. I looked out the door and spotted Angie Davenport. I opened the door. She stepped through it and kissed me. Yes it was a long hot kiss,

“My god woman you make me crazy,” I said.

“Good,” she said as she pushed me onto my rumpled bed.

It was an hour later when she spoke again. “I have a message for you from Sylvia Amos.”

“Really what kind of message,” I asked.

“She is going to forget that you contacted a potential murderer giving him a chance to run, because you also convinced him to turn himself in. He explained that he and his brother had too much beer, and words were exchanged.”

“So it wasn’t a homicide?” I asked.

“No just an argument between brother,” Angie said. “It never got to a Cain and Abel type thing.”

“That’s good,” I said. “So why did Detective Amos have you deliver the message.”

“She wants this feud between you guys to be over,” Angie said.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I said.

“She got me returned to patrol effective with the next time my old platoon is on duty,” Angie said.

“How about internal affairs?” I asked.

“One thing at a time. We still need to be low key. At least I’ll be doing real cop work again,” she said.

“Okay, I guess that’s a real improvement,” I said. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her being back on the line. It could very easily go so wrong for her.

“So are you staying or what?” I asked.

“I think I might do an ‘or what’ for a while,” she said. That was exactly what we did. It was a beautiful ‘or what’ as a matter of fact.

When she left I went to the bathroom to urinate, then went to sleep. It was much easier to fall asleep after sex with Angie. It was also nice and warm in the Gatehouse which helped tremendously.

When I woke the next morning the cold snap had passed. Well it was at least in the process of getting out of the area. I started my cleanup of the campground early, which made it possible to run the line early.

By 1PM I had the catfish skinned and filleted. Now and then I caught a small catfish and that one I froze separately into a two gallon plastic paint can. I was saving them separately to make a catfish stew. It was really a very thick red soup with lots of cajun spices. We were almost at the point where mom and I were going to have to cook it. We usually reached that tipping point two or three times a year.

I had a couple of more weeks at least before I had the catfish we needed for the giant stew. In the mean time I intended to enjoy the nicer weather. I went back up the river for a quick limb hook check and re-bait for the night ahead. After that I just watched TV and banged around the internet.

I got an email from a KG Enterprises Inc. It was a sales solicitation for a sleeping bag. It was the kind of thing that went to my junk mail directly. Gabby and I agreed to the code after her last email to me. Since she didn’t have cops looking for her, it should be enough code without setting off the alarms that a heavily encoded message would. This wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

The special sale on the sleeping bags ended five days before Christmas. That message told me when to expect her. I knew that Uncle Keith would figure out how to get her in and out of town unnoticed. I just had to keep it an absolute secret, even from mom.

The weather was good for the next two weeks, so I ran the line twice a day. I had no idea if it helped or not, but it was something I could do to pass the time. I also alerted Edwardo that we were going to be cooking the catfish stew during the week Gabby was coming to town. He didn’t know about Gabby, but the date was carved in stone as far as I was concerned.

I couldn’t even tell momma about the visit. I just couldn’t take a chance. I had no idea where I could get a stew pot large enough for the stew. Edward came to the rescue. He knew where there was an abandoned stainless steel cook pot. The cook pot had once been part of a large still. It would hold twenty to thirty gallons of liquid, but it was going to require a good scrubbing. Edwardo would donate the use of the pot, if I got it cleaned and sterilized.

I rented myself a steam cleaning machine. It was a mother to operate, but I used it carefully and liberally. After a while I assumed that it was sanitized, but I wasn’t sure. I added a solution of bleach and an antibiotic into the pot and let it sit overnight. Then I used a twenty dollar water fountain submersible pump to empty it. I killed two birds with one stone, I sanitized both the pot and the pump with one step. Though I had no idea when I might need a pump again, I stored it with the other tools stored in the Circus Tent.

Early on the morning of the day I had set for the catfish stew cooking, I found myself moving the scrubbed and sanitized stainless steel pot. It was a huge job so Edwardo helped me install it into the mobile kitchen of Mama Boyd’s Catering Business. I had the kitchen set up in the middle of the campground parking area. People began arriving with the donated ingrediants about and hour after Edwardo inspected the cook pot and declared it ready to go.

People came loaded down with vegetables. A few of them I had to pay, other I promised bowls of stew and their names on the list of those who donated to the Christmas stew for the homeless. Thirty gallons was going to be a hell of a lot of stew. We planned to deliver some of it to the area shelters. And sell the rest with every penny of the proceeds going to the homeless shelter’s food pantry funds. Tables were being set up inside local churches even as Edwardo and I cut and cooked everything.

Mom’s catering equipment was used to deliver the stew with flat bread chips. The catering service had a blue ton of storage boxes donated for the surplus stew sale. After Edwardo and I loaded the two buckets for the local homeless shelters. I bought a gallon of stew for myself and a gallon for Edwardo. I paid cash for it.

After that we sent a half gallon to the battered women’s shelter and the veteran’s shelters. The remainder was sent to the various churches to sell. The first church sold out two hours after our delivery to it. We sent more stew as as churches sold out. That pattern continued for most of the afternoon.

At the end of the day, the churches raised over twenty seven thousand dollars. Most of it from providing a place for their customer to sit and eat the stew. In some cases the church’s choir provided live music. Donations were accepted from all the diners.

At the end of the day the businessmen of the community chipped in as well. They decided to round up the total. The final total was thirty thousand dollars. We had made a difference and I was proud of it. So were mom and even my dad was proud.

Edwardo’s daughters had assisted in the delivery of the food. Our two families had been deeply involved in the project. I shook his hand at the end of the day. I had a hundred dollar bill in an envelope for his work that day.

When I handed it to him he said, “The stew was more than enough payment for my family. When I first came to this country my family was still at home in Mexico. I spent three months in a shelter before I could bring my wife and two little girls here. So you help me to repay a debt. That is worth more than money.”

“Okay Edwardo,” I said. “Why don’t I buy you a beer then? At least let me do that.”

“Very well but we go to my cantina to have the beer.” he said.

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

Edwardo order Modelo beer. It was supposed to be the most popular beer in Mexico. I sat and toyed with my glass. I drank about half of mine while Edwardo had two. Most everyone spoke Spanish and I didn’t know word of Spanish. But I made a guess about what they said to Edwardo.

“Edwardo, do you own this place?” I asked.

“I told you it was my cantina,” he said with a smile.

“Good for you,” I said in agreement. “So do Joy and Jen work in it as well.”

“Not a chance,” Edwardo said.

“Good, I do have to go now. I hope you are doing well here,” I said.

“Well enough, but I love working for your mother, so don’t mention this to her?” he asked.

“You got it friend,” I said. I left and drove home carefully even though I only had half a beer.

When I got home, I found Angie’s car parked in my drive. She was nowhere in sight. I walked by her car after looking inside. When I opened my front door, I immediately saw her on top of my bed. She had her clothes on, but she was still sexy as hell.

I moved to the bed and kissed her deeply. She seemed to enjoy it. I sure as hell know that I did. I felt her soft warm willing body respond to me. We kissed and gasped for breath for what seemed like hours. Finally I stood up and put a cup of coffee in the microwave to heat.

Angie got out of bed to join me when I had the new pot boiling. I took a moment to check my email before I poured two fresh cups of coffee. When I opened the email, I couldn’t believe that it was just bedtime. There was an email from GK Enterprises. It was a recipe for catfish stew. Anyone who knew anything about catfish stew knew that it had to be cooked all day, not three hours. I took that to mean that the meet was tree days from the date of the email, which made the meet two days later.

There was an email the next day from the Big Bad Breakfast Restaurant. The advertisement didn’t give an address, but I knew it was on Lamar Blvd in Oxford Ms. So the meet was at BBB Restaurant two days from that moment. The time was the next thing to figure out. The BBB served breakfast and burgers all day long. My guess was Keith wanted us to sit a while to be sure we hadn’t been followed. I decided to leave at first light and drive straight there. I was taking mom, but not telling her anything until the morning when we left.

My guess was that Gabby and Keith had a pretty good idea how it would go. I of course told no one where I was going. I had baited all my hooks the night before. The cabins could take care of themselves one day. So everything looked normal when I forced myself from the bed. I had to force myself out of bed because I hadn’t slept well the night before.

“Mom,” I said into the phone after it rang several times. “Get dressed, I’ll be at your house in ten minutes. I’m taking you to breakfast.”

 
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