Chapter 14

cabin tents rented for $25 a day summer.$30 a night winter rate
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
Janson Marshall Angie’s husband.
Marion davenport Angie’s mom
Clyde Summers suicide victim
Edward Gaines suicide victim while serving time with John
Max Bork Gabby’s fancy man
Willow computer geek
Tom Jasper’s cousin and half ass builder
Martin cameraman
Vanessa producer
Walter Pickering Vanessa’s boss
Lamar the mechanic and junkyard owner
Everette mom’s new bf
Greta a camera person for Country channel
Manson country channel lawyer
Joyce Reedmon TV personality
Dawn Goldman ex-con
Mark Herman corporal with highway patrol.
Lucy Lovett Wedding photographer.
Tommy Lovett her ex
Lucy Lovett’s 13year old son Jude
Ned and Nadine Drake bait shop owners
Cindy SAA member
Lewis Smith excon computer repairman.

The winter months of December, January and February passed without anything significant happening. Sure the fish sandwich trailer got well tested on a few family reunions, and such, but for me it was business as usual. Cleaning up puke in the campground cabin/tents for instance. Keeping things working in the Chilly air was uncomfortable but doable. There are seldom any frozen pipes to deal with, but lots of things react badly to the chilly air.

Forty degrees over several hours feels like thirty. Throw in some wind and it could easily be hypothermia weather. In other words it can still be nasty. Most people in Mississippi don’t dress for the winter chill. They just don’t get out in it for any length of time. Those of us who have to be out in it, dress for it, or suffer the consequences. Fortunately the weather in March was transitional. By the time May day arrived the temperatures had turned decidedly into spring mode.

People were moving around more outside during the days, and spending some time indoors at night. Inside meant clubs and restaurants. The large nightlife venues in my area were located in Starkville. and Jackson. There were smaller places were in Vicksburg and Greenville. There were even larger ones in Biloxi, but that was a whole different market. Both Edwardo and I agreed never to do any business in Biloxi.

Business was good at the campground, and the potential for the fish shack was extremely promising, so naturally something had to go wrong.

“John, how would you feel about my nephew Louis operating the fish shack,” Edwardo asked.

“As long as he doesn’t use it as a front for anything illegal, or to laundry money, I’m cool with it.”

“Why would you even say that?” Edwardo asked.

“Because it’s a natural cover for a drug dealer and a way to clean his money,” I said. “I don’t even know your nephew, but I do know something about drug dealers.”

“I think maybe your racist side is showing a little,” Edwardo said.

“Okay, do you want to buy me out, or do you want to sell out?” I asked.

“I thought we were friend?” Edwardo said.

“So did I,” I replied. “If it has come to name calling, then it’s time to buy or sell.”

“How much for your half, and your promise to stay away,” Edwardo asked.

“Eight grand, and you buy your fillets from me,” I said. Even at eight grand I was covering expenses and nothing more.

“I buy at the same price you sell to your mom minus ten percent. Call it the freezer age discount,” Edwardo said.

“You are a tough customer,” I said extending my hand to him. I also made a mental note to never show up to help him for free again. There would be no more discussion about the business. I did learn yet again that I was not good partner material.

I had a customer for my older catfish fillets and a different customer for the freshest ones as well. That business was still more than simply viable it was thriving. Of course it was just a matter of time, so I needed to look for something else. It was hard to come up with a small business, but if I kept my eyes open, I figured something would come along.

I, like most self employed people, spent my time working on improving and growing the business. I was looking at new equipment, or new products all the time. Something innovative would be a big deal, but when it happened it happened by accident.

It wasn’t really an accident I guess. The guy who tried to steal my catfish business knew what he was doing. I never said much about what I was doing or how I did it. That was because I figured someday someone else would figure out how easy the work was. He likely would begin doing the same thing. What I didn’t expect was for someone to just tie their limb hooks within a foot of mine.

When I first noticed the second colored ribbon of cloth tied on a limb, I had started running my line of hooks twice a day. It was only a few inches from my marker. Who ever he was, he was daring me to get into a war with him. I also noticed that all my hooks were empty of both catfish and bait.

Whoever the prick was, he was stealing my catch, and not re-baiting my hooks. I took whatever fish were on either hook, and did not re-baited any of them. I even used my bowie knife to cut the lines going to my hooks. I had no desire to get into a pissing contest with some other fisherman. What I did do after my trip up river was to check the CCTV camera in the parking lot. There was a live feed on the county’s parks and recreation website.

Since I had taken down my hooks, I had nothing to do but watch the camera while I hung around the house. It took two days, but what I saw was a tricked out Dodge truck pulling a boat and trailer. He backed it down the launch ramp. I watched it continually until the two Latino boys returned with buckets filled with catfish.

“Edwardo,” I said into the phone. “Sorry but I’ve decided to discontinue cat fishing on the scale I have been doing it. So I won’t be providing you with product any longer.”

“Did something happen,” he asked.

“You could say that,” I said. “Two teenaged Latino boys has pirated my spots and even taken fish off my lines. Now I have two choices, stop fishing, or kill them. I have done time and I didn’t like it. So I pulled my hooks.”

Since I didn’t have to run the river limb hook line, I practiced with the cross bow every day. First thing I did was to get a bale of hay to use as a target holder. Even with that, I got my exercise searching for the bolts. I usually went home and found something to work on inside the Circus tent. After lunch I took to the river, but I didn’t leave any limb hooks behind. I just sport fished. It was mostly catch and release type fishing.

When I got the text from an unknown number, I was in line at a Vietnamese wash, dry, and fold joint. It read, ‘keep an eye on your mail box.’ I deleted it since I recognized it as spam. I dropped off sheets from the trailers, those got changed twice a week when the trailers were in use. If clean sheets daily were important to a person, they shouldn’t be in a travel trailer at all, was my thinking.

Later that afternoon, I took a break from cutting grooves in my new homemade crossbow bolts, to check my mail. Inside the mail box I found a large manila envelope. It was large enough for the five pages of copy paper, but it had to be folded over to fit inside my rural mail box.

It didn’t appear to be a piece of junk mail, so I handled it carefully. I used my smallest knife with almost not handle to slit the envelope’s bottom flap. Just in case it was a trap of some kind. When I got it open, I took two and a half minutes to stared at it’s contents. I did that while my day old coffee heated in the smallest microwave ever made.

I sat at the counter, where I took my meals, to look over the five pages of type and drawings. They were all part of Lucy Lovett’s autopsy report, and crime scene photos. Lucy died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, which was no surprise.

The results of her drug panel showed that she had high levels of Valium and Percocet in her blood. To my knowledge she didn’t use either. Of course she could easily have scored both in her new friend’s world. It also indicated, she could have been drugged, then put in the car to die of auto exhaust.

The only thing that amounted to a red flag was hemp micro fibers on her wrist and on her clothing. I was no detective, but it all pointed to a possibly staged suicide. I kicked that idea around in my head the rest of the afternoon. What would it mean to her family to change the cause of death. I asked myself would her son Jude’s mental health be impacted more by a suicide or a murder.

In my own case I would I feel less guilt, if someone else killed her. If that were the case, maybe I could stop feeling that I was responsible for her taking her own life. Maybe I could get her out of my dreams. If I could eliminate her from the list of wrongs I had to live with, I might sleep easier.

I needed to know what the cops were doing. The copy of the autopsy report was sent to me for a reason. I needed to know why. Then I needed to know who sent it. With that information I might figure out what to do about Lucy’s death. I was in no hurry to do anything. This turn of events meant slugging it out for me at least. I wouldn’t be a visited by the bird of paradise, in the form of a brilliant deduction. I was no Sherlock Holmes. One thing at a time I told myself.

I returned to the Circus tent and my work on the crossbow bolts. I finished the grooves for the vanes. They had to be in exactly the right places on the soft plastic shafts. I was testing the shafts made of driveway markers. I wanted something cheap for my practice bolts. I cut the groves with a Dremel type grinder. One 48” orange plastic driveway marker, from Home Depot, made three bolts. I just sharped one end with an electric pencil sharpener I found at the 2nd chance store in Greenville. I had bought it months ago on a whim. I finally had a use for it.

I had been working on fletching the shafts most all morning. I finally had all three bolts laying on a counter top. There the super glue would cure making a permanent bond between the Ritz cracker box vanes, and the plastic driveway marker bolts. I had no idea how they would perform at that moment.

I sat drinking iced tea while I thought about my next move in the Lucy Lovett mystery. The only two cops I had a relationship with were Angie Marshall and Sylvia Amos. My relationships with the two of them ran hot and cold with Sylvia the coldest.

Even Angie avoided me since Lucy’s death. Regardless, someone had sent me the copy of the autopsy report. My bet was on Angie, but if I was wrong, it might be a fatal mistake, for one or both of us. I needed to wait for a further contact with my mysterious text person. At that point I was assuming nothing.

I went to the crossbow range. I had built it back when Dawn was part of my life. When I got there, I posted the front page of a local advertisement from a grocery store. I used it’s whole front page 11.5” by 14” as the target. It was pretty much the size of a person’s chest center mass. I drew an imperfect circle in the center of it with a red marker.

Then I returned to my plastic chair to fire the crossbow with the plastic bolts. The first one went though the paper at the bottom and buried itself almost completely inside the hay. I adjusted my aim then tried again. That one was closer to the center but off to the left. I adjusted again, and cocked and loosed the bolt. It was high and to the left still.

Then I walked down range to make a better assessment of the result and to recover my three test bolts. I spent two hours firing and then recovering the three bolts. They were shooting true, but I wasn’t sure about it how precise they ran. I needed a vise to bench test the bolts to be absolutely sure. I was sure of one thing, the orange plastic bolts were easier to find.

I went back to the Circus tent. I could arrange a twenty foot bench test for the cross bow. Since it was likely to be my last tests with those particular bolts I straightened the vanes before loading the first one into the crossbow. I didn’t cock it until I had the target attached to a hollow core door. I had rescued it from a demolition scrap pile on the side of the road. When I rescued it, I had no idea it’s eventual use would be as a target.

I fired all three bolts into the door frame. They didn’t split the shaft, but they fell within a two inch circle. Two of them were less than an inch apart at twenty feet. I deemed that close enough. All three penetrated the hollow core door and wound up hanging in my circus tent fabric.

I spent another hour patching, and curing the patch with a hand held hair dryer. I walked back to the Titan happy with my days tests of the crossbow. I received another anonymous text during my dinner. I was eating the left overs from mom’s latest catering. The one that night was from the Mexican Buffet. It consisted of a soggy taco and a small bowl of re-fried beans. I enjoyed it even though there was no love lost between me and Edwardo at that time.

The text read, ‘So what did you think? Don’t bother trying to trace this it would be a waste of time.’

My return text said simply, ‘K, Lots to think about.’

His or her reply, ‘Cops r going to shut it dn.’

I wrote, ‘they are going with the suicide shit?’

‘yep’

‘wht do I call u?’