Every Friday afternoon you can pick up a copy of Gibby’s Gazette at Top O’ the Mornin’ and other important locations throughout Cray Ridge. Like Loretta’s Candy World- Home of the Best Chocolate-Covered Cherries in the Universe and Beyond. Washateria keeps a stack near the detergent dispenser. And there’s always a neat pile on the counter of Ye Olde Boo Store. (The k fell off a couple of years ago and Mr. Deacon, ye olde owner, isn’t in any hurry to replace it. He gets a kick out of lecturing visitors that they’d be better off “quenchin’ their thirst for knowledge” when they come sniffing around for bourbon and find nothing but good books instead.) In my humblest of opinions, the absolute finest of those knowledge quenchers is one called-The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation. I used to be the editor of my high school newspaper, so I believe Grampa gifted me the book the day I got out of the hospital to keep my brain, like those doctors suggested, “stimulated.”
Like always, we’re busy at the diner, feeding the regulars and even the not so regulars. The fans are whirring overhead and the smell of frying eggs is strong when Senor Bender, a teacher of Espanol up at the high school, eases down onto his usual counter stool along with last week’s copy of my Gazette. I can’t waitress ’cause our customers get all kinds of irritable if I disremember and bring ’em home fries when they order grits, but along with wiping tables, I am permitted to get folks situated.
“How’s the best-lookin’ girl in Grant County this mornin’?” the Senor asks when I pass him the menu. (You can’t tell just by looking at me that I’m NQR. The scar on the left side of my head is blanketed by the chili bean hair I got from my daddy and my celery-colored eyes are from Mama, so all in all, I believe I’m considered somewhat appetizing.)
“Why, I am just g-r-e-a-t,” I say, showing off my outstanding service smile and superior spelling skills. “Muchas gracias for askin’, you bastard.”
“Gibson!” Grampa shouts outta the kitchen peek window.
Uh-oh. (The only time he calls me by my Christian name is when I’ve done something just the opposite.) “What?”
“Home… home on the range… where the deer and the antelope play…,” Grampa begins singing so loud that I bet the folks in Mercer County are tapping the toes… “where seldom is heard… a discouraging word…”
Him doing that? That does NOT mean Grampa’s a music lover. No. Sad to report, that singing is a secret code we got between us to let me know that I’m cursing and should quit ASAP. And it is too discouraging.
I bend down to explain to the Senor like I’ve been taught, “I was in a car crash that banged up my brain so now it’s got a blue streak runs through it.” Goodness, this man has real nice hair. Good and greasy. “Please accept my deepest of apologies. I’m workin’ on it.”
“Apology accepted, like always,” he says after a sip of the coffee one cream I set down so carefully so as not to spill on the lovely shirt he’s sporting. That paisley pattern’s all the rage now. “So what’s new in the world of investigative reportin’, Gibby?”
“Lemme see,” I say, trying to corral my thoughts. “Well, first off… I got an awfully hot lead, and second off… one of Miz Tanner’s mares had a filly week before last. You’re never gonna guess what she named it.”
“Que?”
“Nooo.” But I add on real fast, because I wasn’t born in a barn, “But Kay is a solid guess and a real pretty name. Try again. Take your time.”
The Senor short snorts, and says, “How about… ah… Gibby?”
“What?”
“No, I meant… did Miz Tanner name her new filly-Gibby?” he says. “After you?”
“How’d ya know that?” I ask, completely floored.
“Front-page news,” he says, running his polished finger under the headline I musta wrote last week:
Filly Named Gibby! How Do You
Like Them Apples?
Ya know, this is one of those moments it feels like no matter how good the plan, I’m not ever gonna get Quite Right again. Round and round and round I go. I swear, it’s dizzying. If I could, if Grampa wasn’t hawk watching me like he does, I’d run out the back door right this minute and hide in the crook of the pin oak, that’s how weepy I’m feeling.
“Wait a minute now… go ahead and correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t ya just mention something about havin’ an awfully hot lead?” the Senor asks.
Did I? I think I musta since he wouldn’t make that up. The Senor’s not that well known for lying. But what was my awfully hot lead? Bubby Heckler winning darts night at the Tap? No, no, that’s old news. Focus, Gib, focus. It was… it was… that dead body. Yes! Lying on the beach near the jumping tree, the gnarled-up one kids yell “Geronimo” from before they tumble into the lake. But that body wasn’t drowned. I’ve seen a drowned body before. No, the body I found this morning was not greenish like that other one, but it was puffy as hell ’cause it belonged to Mr. Buster Malloy, who is legendary large. And s’posed to be the next governor of the fine state of Kentucky.
Mr. Buster wasn’t perspiring buckets like he usually did. He was cool to the touch on that toasty sand. Punctured something bad four times in the chest. His head dangling off his neck like a cherry twisted off its stem. Butterscotch candies tumbling out of his pocket, which was not unusual. He was well known for those candies. In fact, if Mr. Butter (that’s what he was fond of calling himself) ever came upon you when you were just going about your business, he’d give a hearty laugh and say, “Lookee here, girl, look what Mr. Butter’s got for ya. Sweets for the sweet that’ll melt in your mouth.” Never mind refusing him. He wouldn’t leave you be until you stuck your hand in his deep pants pocket and rooted around. Another one of the things Mr. Buster was well known for-his thick ole eyeglasses-were smashed to smithereens next to his corpus delecti. According to Mr. Howard Redmond of New York City, New York, the author of The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation-evidence is EXTREMELY important. Thank goodness, I also remembered to take pictures of that dead man.
So I got a body, and I got some photos, all’s I need now for my awfully good story plan to work is to stay in focus. Plant the memory of finding Mr. Buster deep inside my brain so there’s no chance of it gettin’ blowed off like a dandelion wisp to parts unknown. (I’m sorry if this should occur from time to time. When it comes to my rememberings, I’m ashamed to say, it is apt to.) Once I get the chance to investigate that murder and publish the resulting story, I know that Mama will…
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
Am I jumping to conclusions? Mr. Howard Redmond would be extremely disappointed in me if I was. In fact, in the chapter- The Dangers of Jumping to Conclusions-he warns specifically about doing just that. Maybe Mr. Buster wasn’t murdered at all. Maybe it was nothing but…
“Gibby?” asks Senor Bender, tapping his cup for a topping off.
“Yeah?” I ask, pouring.
“That awfully hot lead you mentioned?”
“What about it?”
“Thought you might like to brag on it a bit,” he says with a wink.
Well, for crissakes, everybody and their aunt Martha knows that you gotta keep a breaking story top secret. Poor, poor Senor. Looks like the only thing he’s got going for him in his brain department is his real nice hair.