Mr. Rogers' Research
Chapter 40

Copyright© 2018 by MysteryWriter

I crossed the Mississippi state line a few hours after dark. But it was only after I turned on the radio in the Accent that I realized it was Christmas Eve. If my mind and body hadn’t been racing around trying to stay alive, I might have remember the date. I knew from the decorations in the cheap used car dealer’s office, that it was immanent, but not exactly what the date it was when I bought the car. It had slipped my mind as a lot of things did recently.

I knew that I had taken care of presents for Thia, Jon, Mica, and her kid via Amazon, which might lessened the significance of any given date. I had asked them all what they would like, then ordered it when I was last home. At least I had been smart enough to recognize that I might easily forget something. I hadn’t expected it to be as large a thing as Christmas. I couldn’t even call to wish them a Merry Christmas, because I was afraid of any call to Thia being traced.

So the next best plan became to find a motel and spend a warm, but miserable Christmas holiday alone. Oh did I mention the heater on the Accent blew air, but it never rose past the level of tepid in temperature.

The sun was well past the horizon before I got into the state of Mississippi. It had been down a couple of hours by the time I began seeing signs giving the number miles to Jackson Mississippi. I figured it was time to start looking for a motel.

First I found the Waffle House restaurant. There were a surprising number of customers for Christmas Eve. I ordered their biggest breakfast special with coffee. I had my very large thermos in the heavy thermal vest pocket for the trip to the motel.

“So I asked my waitress, when she put the breakfast plate in front of me, “Could you give me direction to a locally owned and operated Motel?”

She smile then said, “When you leave here look for the signs then follow them to highway eighty. Stay on that till you get to south college drive and take a left. From there it’s about two miles to the Motel on the right. It changes names a lot, but the motel sign is usually on,” she explained.

The breakfast and coffee was around ten dollars, so I left her a ten dollar tip. Hey it was Christmas and she saved me a lot of looking for a place to stay. When I got to the motel the light was on, but it was just before midnight. I wasn’t sure it would be on much longer.

I got a room cheap enough to stay three days for under a hundred bucks. I was still on my cash only plan. It took a while for my body to get really warm. The Accent’s heater was just warm enough to keep the condensation off the windshield. It was certainly not enough to keep the passenger cabin warm enough to be comfortable.

I locked the door, moved a chair in front of it, and I laid both the colt and the Taurus .22 mag on the end table. I even loaded and slid the newly purchased .12 ga Mossberg pump shotgun under the bed. It might be overkill, but nobody died from too many guns. Well nobody I knew. Cops or bad guys who tried to arrest me better be damn good I thought.

I drank all the coffee in the thermos before I turned off the small TV hooked to the wall, then went to sleep.

There were a couple of opening and closing of car door noises during the night, but I slept pretty well. When I woke up, I dressed for the cold. Then I assembled my war club, put the baton in my cargo pants pocket, along with the two revolvers. Then I broke down the 12 gauge to wrap in a towel, which I had bought at Walmart at the same time as the Shotgun. I locked the small package it in the truck of my car. After all that I started on my morning walk. The walk along an unfamiliar road took a little longer than usual. I made it back about two hours later. I drove to the convenience store to filled my large thermos and even a small cup for the trip to the motel. On the way out I stopped to buy a sausage dog at the microwave snack area. I packed it into a pocket of my pants as well. The purchases were just over seven dollars. I knew the cash would last a lot longer, if I juggled my purchases. I needed to juggle between the gift cards, and the cash purchases to make the most of my money.

Of course on Christmas day I need to do nothing but rest. I waited until after 2PM to find a restaurant. I chose the one which had been recommended by the older woman at the convenience store that same morning. I wasn’t at all surprised that it was located on the interstate highway twenty exit ramp.

The food seemed to be almost totally from cans, but it was well seasoned at least. I skipped the turkey, but I did go for the traditional honey glazed ham. The meal was expensive for what it was, but Christmas is only once a year, I thought.

I was back in the motel by six, even after my tour of the Brandon area. I didn’t see anything that tripped my trigger, so I decided that I would head into Jackson the next day. I could look around and maybe find something that would interest me.

The motel didn’t have WIFI, so I went to supper late at a McDonald restaurant. I checked all my Email accounts from it. Even if the FBI had a trap on one of my accounts, my location wouldn’t help them much, since I drove twenty miles from Brandon to get to that particular McDonalds.

 
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