Read Online Mesopotamia by Arthur Nersesian - Free Book Online Page B

dipped her magic wand into her food bowl. “In return I can grant a wish.”
    I went back to my car, got my cell phone and battery recharger, plugged it into a wall outlet, and to my amazement I got a signal. I checked my messages. First my editor Riggs called and again asked where the hell I was. Then Gustavo called to say I should get my ass down to Memphis pronto. Scrubbs was back in town and rumors of his infidelities were swirling like dust devils.
    Before returning the calls, I phoned the sheriff’s office.
    “Can I speak to the investigator who handled the Floyd Loyd case?”
    “That would probably be me.”
    “May I ask your name?”
    “Everyone calls me Sheriff Nick, but let me just say there wasn’t really a case,” he replied. “Floyd died when his crystal lab blew up. The coroner ruled him out of his skull on fumes.” My entire body tensed up.
    “Crystal meth ?”
    “He had a long list of priors. He had been arrested for using, for manufacturing, and for selling.”
    I let out a deep sigh. “His wife didn’t say a thing about that. May I ask the date of his last drug arrest?”
    “Now we both know I can’t release that kind of information, but to save us both some time, I’ll say it was all about ten years ago.”
    “So he wasn’t convicted recently?”
    “No, but we found evidence of the lab all over his property after the fire.”
    “Where was this lab?”
    “It’s a burnt-out shack on the edge of the trailer park.”
    “And you looked for evidence of foul play?”
    After a bit of a pause he said, “Vinetta hired you, didn’t she?”
    “I’m conducting an informal inquiry for her, yes.”
    “Well, ma’am, I’ve gone down this road before with Vinetta and some other investigator. Her husband had a sizable life insurance policy. The fact that he got blown up invalidated it. And believe me, if there was even a remote possibility that he wasn’t at fault, I would’ve found it. I think the world of Vinetta, I really do. I’ve known her since she was a girl, and I know she’s under great hardship. But it was a simple case. Open and shut. Some of the locals testified that he would regularly sell ice in the B.S. parking lot. Others from the local mall saw him loading a box of cough medicine into his trunk. Hell, someone else at the Home Depot in the Murphy County Mall testified that a week prior to the explosion he bought two five-gallon canisters of propane.”
    “Who discovered Floyd’s body? Vinetta?”
    “No, she was away with the kids. It was his neighbor, the minister. He heard the boom. Like I say, it’s really all open and shut, but in the last three months Vinetta has gone on a letter-writing campaign. She’s begged and borrowed from everyone who crosses her path, telling some hullabaloo about Elvis Presley to try to enlist any aide she can to reopen the case—but there is no case.”
    I thanked him for his time and clicked off my cell. Searching through the root cellar the night before, I had seen no traces of ingredients that might be used to cook meth. Still, it was time to move on. Gus was trying to help and Riggs was on the verge of replacing me, just as he had replaced the last reporter.
    Making a quick excursion through the ruptured field of shit to the burnt planks where the toolshed once stood, I now noticed little scraps of yellow police tape flapping around the former crime scene. Cannisters of paint thinner, plastic containers of starter fluid, and boxes of cold or diet medicines were all missing. There was no sign of hosing or metal pots to cook the ingredients in. I picked up one of the fire-singed wooden boards and sniffed it deeply. No sweet ammonia scent, customary for such labs.
    Still, I was pissed that Vinetta hadn’t disclosed this to me. I marched back into that giant beat-up breadbox, where I was about to scold her for wasting my time. But I saw something that jabbed the final toothpick through my martini olive of indignation: Minister Mo