March Street Menace by Estelle Richards

Author:Estelle Richards [Estelle Richards]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Estelle Richards
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I’ve come to deeply appreciate the relationship I have with Maxwell. He’s both the chief of police in Marchville and also my ex from many years ago. Things were awkward between us the first time I helped with an investigation. But we’ve put the past behind us, and now he seems to see my insight as genuinely helpful.

“Hi Maxwell,” I said, mostly to let Grandma Iris know who was on the phone.

Grandma Iris nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. In the couple hours I’d been painting, the wind had died down and the sun had come out again. The yard outside the window showed bald spots in all the places the sunshine reached, with last night’s light coating of snow melting away.

Buddy had stopped barking as soon as I answered my phone. I patted his head and he gave my hand a friendly lick. Having satisfied his canine duties and left me with a whiff of dog breath, he went to sit at Grandma Iris’s feet.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“Come out to the impound yard and see.”

“The impound yard?”

Grandma Iris gave me a look of curiosity. I shrugged.

“Gotta go. Meet me out here if you’re free.” Maxwell ended the call and I put my phone in my pocket, not wanting to leave it lying around again.

“What’s at the impound yard?” Grandma Iris said.

“He didn’t say. Just told me to meet him there if I’m free.”

“You should go. It could be a clue to our joyriding problem.”

“Do you want to come too?”

Grandma Iris thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I think I want to get a little more rest before I’m out in public. But I’ll expect a full report.”

I drove to the impound lot thinking about Grandma Iris. Normally she was ready for any adventure and eager to come with me to get information and clues. How sick was she feeling to miss out like this?

The impound lot was a gravel lot enclosed by a tall chain link fence. Unlike on TV or in the city, there were no coils of razor wire on top of the fence. The lot was a block from the town’s administrative building, which sat like a fat, tan brick bug at the far end of March Street.

I pulled up onto the gravel outside the fence, my tires crunching as I parked next to a police car. When I opened my car door, I smelled the motor oil that had dripped onto the gravel from years of clunkers in the impound lot.

The half dozen cars inside the fence had a scabrous look from sun-faded and weather-peeled paint jobs from the years when the car manufacturers tried to cheap out on finish. Beyond those cars, the long term residents of the lot, sat a new arrival, a small off white RV with a lot of rust damage on the underside.

As I stood there, the door of the RV swung open and Maxwell stepped out holding a faded white banker’s box with words written and crossed out in marker on the side.

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