Tuesday, April 20, 2010

He did stay in that shower with his finger wrapped in a wadded up towel, until Louise returned my call. "We found the knife right where you said it would be. How did you know?"

"I must be psychic," I replied. I gave Robbie a choice, I could drop him at his car and he could put some miles between him and the cops, or I could take him to the ER.

I drove Robbie to the ER immediately after I offered him the option. Seemed that Robbie was near as tough as he thought. Not only wasn't he tough, I could tell he wanted to tell the doctor what had happened. He didn't want revenge himself he wanted someone else to make it all better. He decided against trying to roll over for the doctor since the staff of the ER all knew me, They brought me a cup of coffee while I stood outside the treatment room. I made sure Robbie knew I was there just in case he wanted to shoot his mouth off. All those donuts I had taken to the ER over the years paid off that afternoon.

Brett, one of the golden boys of homicide, showed up to take Robbie back into custody, and to take a statement. "Did you torture Robbie?" he asked after his interview with Robbie.

"Who me, I have never tortured anyone. We talked and he just got a case of remorse and told me where the knife had been thrown. He also told me why he had killed Charlie. Something about Charlie suggesting he might have better luck plying his trade in Williamsport. Robbie didn't take the advice well."

"So is he connected?"

"I certainly hope not, I would hate to have the mob on my ass." I did laugh because there was no way the mob authorized a hit on a cop for a penny ante deal like Robbie's.

"Well you know there are going to be a lot of questions about this."

"The knife is evidence of a crime. You came by it acting in good faith. If there is anyone in the barrel its me."

"I think the DA will refuse to prosecute, even if some cop finds evidence of a crime."

"There isn't any evidence anywhere. Not even in the grout in a fifty year old shower stall. We both knew that there was going to be a lot of melted plastic sheeting in an incinerator a very few minutes after I left the hospital.

"He probably has tape residue on his hands and legs," Brett suggested.

"Hey, I have no idea what kinds of kinky games he plays with his brother." I smiled again.

"Okay, you go take care of your house cleaning, before he makes his official statement."

"Right," I said that with a grin.

I realized at that moment that my life had become an action video game. Shit happened and I just reacted to it. If I reacted fast enough and in the right way, I could live on to play again. If I did it wrong, I would suffer some kind of penalty.

Good or bad everything I did as a civilian effected me personally. I couldn't hide behind the job any more. It was a realization I would have to think about at some point.

It was otherwise a quiet weekend. I drove around looking for that one great image. I settled for an image of the antique train depot in one of the neighboring towns. It have been saved by the local men's club. They had their meetings in it, so they hadn't whored it up yet. It still had the turn of the century rundown look about it.

On Sunday I worked on the image a while, then did even more research on batteries . I finally placed the order for 120 C cell Nimh batteries. They cost me over a hundred and fifty bucks but I had made that much delivering court orders, so I was still working on found money.

Since I had the summons business on my mind, I weight the Seymore offer. Mary Seymore was determined to repay me for the courthouse incident. No matter how many times I told her it wasn't necessary, she was still just as determined. I might as well go ahead and let her throw the firms business my way and be done with it. I was pretty sure it would take a big bite out of my time, but It wasn't like I had no free time available. I had plenty of free time with which to serve a few more summons. Besides I might need a good shyster any day now, being able to choose between two might be a good thing.

Susan's paralegal called me when there were court orders to be serviced. I picked them up at her office in Williamsport. So when she called on Monday morning, I called Mary Seymore, before I went to Susan's office. Mary and I arranged for me to pick up papers at her office on the same day as my pickup at Susan's office. Mary thought I might need to pick up twice a week at her office.

"We have a bit more volume than Sue," she informed me.

She did indeed have three times as many papers than Susan. Of course at least half of them were old papers that the other service company had not been able to serve. It took me almost all week but I got them all served. Some I had to chase down to put the paper in their hands but the reason was that they were prepared to dodge me. If I got first slice at the apple, that number would be very very small.

Mary had a paralegal prepare the new files for me, I was sure. No matter she insisted that I pick them up from her personally. She also decided that if she had business in Carthage around the time of my second pickup of the week, she would meet me to deliver them personally.

I went along with most anything. I really didn't like the drive to Williamsport. It didn't make much different what I liked, I didn't have much of a choice when most of the papers had to be served there.

To make my life easier I picked up a couple of magnetic signs for the car. I could slip on the Lightening Express Delivery Service sign when I delivered court orders. It would make it easy to mislead the recipient of the court order.

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