Mr. Rogers' Research
Chapter 5

Copyright© 2018 by MysteryWriter

Lester Davenport- sharon and amy green- the green mother and father of sharon, - Jenny the writer from hammer and tong. Ralph and Ester the parents of Sharon Green. Eve Sims the real reporter.


When we got outside the newspaper’s office I said, “Why don’t you go to the offices on both sides of the street. Show your ID to the managers, and ask them if they knew the green family. Then get all the details that they can give you. Don’t be in a rush, let them get chatty.”

“Come on Rogers, I feel like shit,” she said.

“Do you mean, you can’t pull your own weight?” I asked.

“Fuck you Rogers,” she said as she turned right.

After she went into the small variety store next door to the paper, I walked across the street to sit in the shade with my coffee. The coffee was barely warm, but that was good enough. I sat there in the heat of the day. Another old man came up and sat on the bench beside mine. I expected someone to do that. I knew that tn a town as small as Woodbury people had to be curious about me. The people who sought me out would most likely be the town gossips. Those would be good people to know, I figured.

I waited to see if the old man would ask anything. It took him a while, but he did ask. “You a stranger in town?” The old man asked.

“Yep, I’m visiting. I’m here doing some research on the Green tragedy,” I admitted. “Did you know the family.”

Yeah Ralph and Ester were friends from church. Sharon went to church till she got pregnant, then she drifted away. Little Amy came with her grandparents. She was a beautiful little girl,” he said.

“So what did Ralph do for a living?” I asked.

“When he was young he was a chicken catcher. When we got older we moved on to other things. He took over a crew a few years before this mess happened,” he said sadly.

“Yeah it was a mess alright. I hear they were murdered for sure, but I didn’t hear how they were killed,” I suggested.

“Ralph and Ester were shot. Sharon was killed with a knife. They said she was a bloody mess,” the old man said. “The baby was choked. That’s what I was told by somebody close to the cops.”

“A paramedic,” I guessed acting more sure than I was.”

“Yes the Morton boy,” he said. “Since he knew Sharon, he was really upset. Said it was a god awful mess.”

“I can only imagine. Do the cops have any idea who did it?” I asked.

“They questioned Lester Davenport at first, but he was visiting his mama. Course all his brothers and sister swore to it. Now I hear they are looking at Ralph’s friends.” the old man said.

“Why is that,” I asked.

“Something to do with his new business. He was a farm broker. Bought and sold crops before they was harvested. He did harvest some, but mostly they went directly from the fields to the buyers,” the old man explained.

Just about that time an older woman, and her small spotted dog came into the plaza. “Hello Lucy this is Roger,” the old man said.

It didn’t bother me that he screwed my name up. Lucy smiled she was snooping I decided. “Roger here is doing an investigation on Ralph and Ester’s murders.”

She nodded.

“I’m no cop though. I’m involved with a freelance news crew,” I explained.

“Are we gonna be on TV,” Lucy asked.

“Maybe, do you know anything? If you do, I can make a note and have Jenny come back and interview you on camera,” I explained.

“I don’t know anything about them getting killed. I know Ester had been worried lately, but I didn’t know why. She was worried about all the new people moving into town.” Lucy said.

“Hell we are all worried about that,” the old man said. “Don’t hardly anybody speak English. If they do you can’t understand them without somebody who knows them helping.”

It was a strange thing to say, but I knew what he meant. Back home there were places that hired clerks just because the spoke Spanish, English, and broken English. Drug stores almost all had to have one of those interpreters.

The woman left first, then the old man drifted off. It was after lunch before I got bored. I left the park and walked around the perimeter of the downtown, it was my second hike of the day. It felt like it was more than a mile, and it wore me down. I returned to where we had left the car, but it was gone.

I called Jenny on the cell phone, “Hey Jenny come back downtown and pick me up.” I demanded. She made me wait thirty minutes. I leaned against a brick wall and cursed Jenny,

I couldn’t help it, I was in sever pain at the end of ten minutes. I went inside the newspaper office again. The middle-aged female reporter was on the phone when I sat in the chair across the desk from her.

“I googled you Ed Rodgers,” she said after a couple of minutes. “I should probably interview you.”

“No, you really shouldn’t,” I said.

“You sound pretty interesting to me. Fired Chief of police, the researcher attacked by drug dealers. You held them off in a gun fight in the parking lot of a car wash. Hell that could be a movie,” she said.

“You don’t have a name tag on your desk, so what is your name?” I asked.

“Evelyn,” she said. “but you can call me Eve or Mrs. Sims.”

“Well Evelyn did you know that Ralph was dealing pot,” I asked.

“No, and neither do you. That is just a rumor. The cops found no evidence of that at all. That was the quote when I asked.”

“So the local cops are discounting it as a motive?” I asked.

“We are looking into various possibilities. That is also a quote,” Eve said.

“So what does your husband do?” I asked.

“He is the morning DJ at a Nashville radio station,” she replied with a smile.

“Is his show hip hop, or rap,” I asked.

Just then the horn from the Hammer and Tong production company blared. I said, “To be continued.” then I left her office. I picked up a card from her desk on the way out.

“So where did you go?” I asked.

“I went to lunch, I was told a good operative never gets wet, cold, or hungry,” she said.

 
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