Category: Fantasy

(i can tell you right now this chapter will either get moved to a new location.
Extra points if you can guess why (leave your idea in the comments))

 
Ed reached up and caressed a ripening apple. It hung like a glittered like a red and green Christmas ornament in the sun. Except for the August heat and the gnarling branches of the apple tree, Ed remembered a childhood with Christmas treats and presents and goodies and smells of baking and roasting permeating his house. He wondered what became of this brothers and sisters. Christmas was one of the few days everyone came together in the orphanage. There were times he missed it so.

He snapped the apple from its stem and bit into it. Sweet nectar of the sun dribbled down his stubbled chin, over his fingers, pooled in his palm.

Morelli’s Impala came up his dirt road. A short bed lowboy, two men in overalls in the cab, came up behind it hiding something big and roundish under a tent sized tarp. A knuckle boom crane sat at the very end of the lowboy, its crane reaching over the tarp and locked in position behind the cab.

Morelli got out of his Impala and pointed to a large shed at the far end of the road, on the far side of the orchard.

Voss shouted, “If what’s under the tarp is sensitive, better let them know that track’s rutted from tractor tires.”

Morelli called up to the lowboy’s cab. “You got that?”

The driver held a thumb’s up towards Voss. The lumper got out of the cab and stood five feet in front of the hood.

“And you damage any growing thing, I’ll put a shotgun shell into whatever’s under that tarp myself.”

Both driver and lumper gave Voss a thumb’s up.

The lumper got ten feet in fromt of the truck, turned to face it, and waved his hands to guide it forward. The driver kept his eyes on the lumper’s hands and never took the lowboy out of low gear. He let the diesel’s idle drive the lowboy forward.

Morelli came up beside Voss. “Did I tell you the Director sends her thanks?”

Voss focused on Morelli’s abdomen before looking up.

“Will you stop doing that?”

“Going to tell me what’s under the tarp?”

“You want G20 or higher security clearance?”

“And you know for a fact this isn’t going to harm my orchards?”

“I asked. Nobody thinks it could. It’s completely passive. No moving parts. Just…” Morelli stopped, looked down, cleared his throat.

“Just a lot of direcitional and distance sensing gear?”

Morelli frowned at him. “What makes you say that?”

“You didn’t do a deep background check on me once your found out who I am?”

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Voss felt a tingling along his arms, looked up, and saw Morelli’s Impala coming up the dirt road to his farm.

Morelli got out and waved.

“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Still haven’t seen Gio. Don’t know where he is.”

“Couldn’t keep away. I need a favor.”

“Do I have to kill somebody?”

Morelli chuckled. “Sorry, that’s not in our charter. Did you have somebody in mind?”

“What’s the favor?”

“You have any outbuildings you’re not using? Empty? Maybe a small barn or big shed? And not near your house?”

“What are you going to use it for?”

“Storage. And I’ll pay any rent or fees you want.”

Voss cocked his head at him and snorted.

Morelli reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills secured with a thick elastic band. “Off the books. Nobody needs to know. What’s your price?” He undid the elastic. Ben Franklin frowned up at Ed from the top bill.

“Don’t you work for the government?”

“Right hand left hand thing. I won’t tell anybody if you won’t. So?”

Voss kept his eyes on Morelli. “Last time I saw a roll of bills like that was in an FBI Al Capone movie. What d’you want the buildling for?”

“The Costner-Connery-Di Nero one? Yeah, that was a good one.” Morelli paused. “You’re not buying the storage story, huh?”

“Uh-uh. Your attitude makes me think this is something illegal. Is this illegal?”

“Hey, I work for the government, remember?”

“Is this illegal?”

Morelli wrapped the elastic back around the bills and shoved the roll back in his pocket. “I told them this wasn’t the right approach.” He sighed. “Can I ask you a question?”

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Yeah. Well. So.

As I wrote in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 6 (Brand new!), The Alibi continues to grow and get restructured. I mentioned in that previous post – Surprise! – Quite a bit got added and edited in June. The throughlines are pretty well established, individual character plotlines are merging.

Surprise!², more changes occurred since last week.

What, you blinked?

Originally a continuous storyline, then it grew to three, then four, five, and now we’re at seven. I’m hoping it quits at seven.

This chapter is one of the ones added while you were busy reading The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 6 (Brand new!).

 
BPD Patrolwoman Irene Casey walked north on the North End’s Commercial Street and cut over into Langonne Park. She had nothing against night shift – the Boston skyline from the waterfront always took her breath away – and she liked the fact that the North End, despite mia familia stereotyping, was one of Boston’s quieter nighttime neighborhoods.

Besides, her powerlifter frame didn’t make her a pushover and she kept up with the latest hand-to-hand trainings.

An ex-boyfriend called her “short and mighty” and she liked that. He didn’t like the fact she could do one-hundred sets of Fenway stadium stairs and he coudln’t do five, or the fact that when he went down on her and she came her thighs damn near crushed his skull like an overripe melon.

“Oh, well. His loss.”

A beat, puce green Ford Aerostar van drove along the waterfront walkway towards Puopulo Playground, the only note of its passing the rattle of its muffler and squeak of its springs. “Yep, some other drunk didn’t know the difference between a street and a public walkway.”

Just out of sight, the Aerostar’s horn blared, its tires screeched, a door slammed, and a man starting screaming.

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