Chapter 11

I was sitting by the front door waiting for Alison to show up at 6:55AM. When she did, I opened the door. “Do you need to come in?” I asked.

“No I peed five blocks ago before I left home,” she said with a smile.

“I didn’t know. Let me get my stick,” I said. The stick wasn’t a stick at all. It was actually made from a piece of half inch PVC water pipe. It was four feet long, too long to be called a cane. It also had a completely different purpose. It was to discourage aggressive dogs, and teenagers. The pipe was stiffened by adding three unnecessary coupling, as well as a tee coupling on top. The topper also had a five eights inch in diameter, and four inch long bolt run through it. There were three nuts on the end. Then the all the excess bolt was cut off with an angle grinder. It was also given a rounded point on each end. Just another perk of owning the Car Wash. I actually had tools, and a space to build things. I stored the black walking stick by the front door, so it was no problem to walk out carrying it.

Alison waited until we were out of the parking lot before she spoke. “I like your walking stick. Is it new?”

“Yes, you might remember that I gave The Judge my cane version of it.” I replied.

“Yes he carries it all the time, even around The Haven,” she informed me smiling.

I nodded first, “You never can tell when he will run into a vicious old lady.” Then I asked, “So how has your quest for the perfect case gone so far?”

“It’s going slowly. The internet doesn’t have a search engine to compile a list of what we are looking for.” she complained.

“Well I came up with something. I not sure if it is up to your high standards as an author,” I suggested. It was only slightly sarcastic, I thought.

“Oh really, and did you have this story in mind, before you let me waste a whole evening?” she asked, sounding slightly irritated.

“No I didn’t, I had to dig it out of the known mist of the Internet myself,” I replied.

“Of course you did. You are just as helpless on a computer as I am,” she replied.

“My, my so sarcastic, just because I came up with one first,” I suggested with a grin.

“Well the final decision is mine to make,” she reminded me.

“Of course,” I agreed. “Just remember this. I am not under contract, so I can just walk away at any time.”

She just glared at me. Sweet little Alison had a little fight hidden inside her, it seemed. The rest of the walk was up and down a fairly steep hill. I could have laid out the path to skip the hill, or walked it backwards to make it more downhill than up but it was good exercise the way I had laid it out.

When we arrived back in the parking lot, we had traversed three miles, spend an hour and a half on a one hour walk. When were were back in the parking lot, Alison demanded I show her the file.

“Let’s do it over breakfast at the lake,” I insisted.

“Why not? You are here, I am here, and the car is here, but you are buying,” she demanded.

I agreed while thinking, she has never shown me this side of her before. There was definitely the air of a school teacher in charge about her that morning. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. We might have a need to work on our relationship. The particular morning a Hardee’s bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit occupied my mind, as well as a the sight of a fisherman in his kayak. I assumed he was trying to stay warm.

I watched the half frozen fisherman as Alison read about our witch. It was a two year old cold case so the odds of us doing anything other than a fiction piece were long. Still it would be interesting, I thought.

“There isn’t much in this file,” Alison said.

“There was less than nothing when we started looking into Eve,” I said shortly. I didn’t like the idea that I had to defend myself to her. I guess my ego was in danger of being bruised. It made me sound petty, but I felt that I needed to establish dominance somewhere. Okay I was an idiot, but I didn’t really give a crap.

“Yes, you are right, the witch thing could be good,” Alison said. “I could have the ACDC get a request from another member of the coven.

“Oh so you are planning a comedy this time?” I asked. I figured she would definitely get the sarcasm from me that time.

“Well it will be a nice change from your dry humor,” she said. “A little whimsy would be nice. Not take ourselves too seriously. Why don’t you just work on the bones of the story, and let me do the window dressing” That sounded a lot like her trying to establish that school teacher dominance again.

The man in the kayak came back to shore while I tried to decide on a response. I watched him load the lightweight plastic boat onto the top of his car. He had one of those luggage carrier sets. After he got it tied down, I had a thought. How long had he been fishing. It was only 10AM and he was packing up to go. Did he give up on everything so easily, I wondered. Hell maybe he did. Either that or he just loved loading and unloading his plastic boat. That thought made me smile, but I still had to work out the dynamics of my relationship with Alison. It would probably take a lot longer than the fisherman’s testing of the waters.

“At first glance I don’t see how we would manage it, but if you say you can, then go for it,” I suggested.

“You might want to have The Judge along for the ride when we go to Chapel Hill.” Alison recommended.

“Oh why?” I asked.

“Witchcraft and con men seem to have a lot in common,” she suggested.

“I promise, I’ll give it the thought it deserves,” I promised. Then I forgot it. I decided to wait and see how long it took Alison to crash and burn as team leader. “So how does the expense account work?”

“I thought you aren’t doing it for the money?” she asked.

“I wasn’t when I investigated the murder of Eve. That was for family. What you are asking is something different,” I explained.

“Yeah, but how much are you going to spend doing research?” Alison asked as the fisherman drove away.

“I don’t know, I need to make the trip to chapel hill and spend a couple of days. I could once have done it on a hundred a day,” I said. “These days a cheap motel in the Research Park is a two hundred minimum.”

“Then we need to go together. I can go along with you, to keep the spending in check. At the same time I can learn how to do the research, just in case,” Alison suggested.