Golden Booty Duty: The Detective Enters The Scene
Authenticating the existence of dueling poets who were supposed to be dead
“Herald, I’m not a detective.” I state firmly, pushing away the whiskey he’s poured and placed at the stool now considered ‘mine’. He yanks it back and dumps it into his molar-less mouth. “I’m a marketing and analytics consultant.”
“Whatever the heck that means, dahhhling. I just knows in me heart ya can figure this one here out.” He swipes at the counter using a dishrag that hasn’t seen the sun or a washing tub since the War of 1812.
The night before, over a plate of fries sporting enough grease to sculpt Elvis’ mane for a year, Herald had finished sharing the rest of the Golden Booty Duty Mystery.
After Terry Trueman swashbuckled his way into Annie’s heart, they’d spent three years around the globe filling her apple crate with tango trophies. Returning to her hometown with a sizeable baby bump led to such a rambunctious reunion that her father, after toasting his soon-to-be-birthed grandchild amongst a crowd of townies, sizzled into hepatic failure. In a puddle of his own urine, and with eyeballs the color of spring daffodils, her father died with a smile on his jaundiced face.
