Murder at the Book Fair (15 page)

It only took one step for me to
know that I wasn't paralyzed. Whatever it was, if I had one of them, it hurt. I
reached back into what was left of Lightning and located the ice scrapper,
which had survived the ordeal quite nicely, although it was wedged between the
seat and what used to be the door. That was good because otherwise it would
have been on the bottom of the car, and I had no intention of diving back into
the scrap metal that used to be my car. The ice scraper had a brush on one end
and I used it to sweep the rest of the glass off Lou's clothes. He returned the
favor, although I had only a handful of glass pieces on me.

Once Lou and I had finished our
grooming we made our way to our advisor's house and knocked on the door. I
don't think we could have raised the little old lady with an air horn. I'm not
sure if I would have used one if I had one. I was afraid I would raise Elmer,
provided he was still alive. I looked around to see if I could see him
somewhere. Maybe he was off nursing his wounds. I was sure he had some.
Lightning wasn't made of Styrofoam.

Gently, we walked down from the
old lady's porch and weighed our choices. Neither Lou nor I had any cell phone
reception, so I couldn't call Herb Wainscott to come and get us. I wasn't about
to go traipsing off through a field in the dark, so we had only two options.
Town was a lot farther than Portwood's house. I knew where the key to the house
was, so we started off on our two-mile hike. Both of us gritted our teeth quite
a few times, as one foot landed on the pavement. I didn't think we'd run into
any passing motorists, and we didn't. Not even Elmer was hoofing it down the
road.

Sometimes it gets a little nippy
in
Kentucky
in November. Especially at night.
It gets even nippier if it's raining. It doesn't rain a lot in
Kentucky
in November, but I guess we were
just lucky. Wet weather also allows a person to identify his aches and pains
more easily. Lightning, the kind that falls from the sky instead of a bull,
allows you to see where you are going in the dark. I guess we were blessed.

We were thoroughly drenched when
we got to Portwood's place. Some of the thunder roars sounded nearby, but
lightning didn't strike anything within our sight. Our luck started improving
when I tried the key in the lock and was able to open the door again. We
stepped inside, ready to strip off our clothes and dry them in the dryer. I
planned to use Portwood's house phone to call Herb and have him come and get
us, if he could get by the overturned car in the road.

I was halfway across the room when
I heard more thunder and saw another bolt of lightning show stranded people the
way. It was less than a second until the lights went out. Five minutes later,
after running into Lou twice, and running into several pieces of furniture, one
wall, and one door facing, I found myself in the kitchen. I used my hands and
found a drawer. I opened it and felt around without coming in contact with any
sharp objects. I fumbled around and located a flashlight. It actually worked. I
used it to light my path until I found Portwood's house phone. I picked it up
and the line was as dead as Portwood. Our luck was going up and down faster
than a hospital monitor.

We took off our clothes and hung
them over the shower bar in the bathroom. Lou and I are both modest, so I
refrained from shining the light on either of us so we could compare bruises. I
thought of using the flashlight to see if it would dry our clothes quicker, but
I decided to use it to see if anything in the refrigerator was edible. The best
I could come up with was bologna and crackers. The bologna didn't look green or
gray by flashlight, and there was no fuzz attached, so I checked the expiration
date and found out it came from this century. I found a jar of peanut butter
too, so Lou and I wouldn't starve, even though our dining choices wouldn't be
considered upscale. We might freeze to death, but we wouldn't starve. I thought
about going to one of the neighbors and telling them that they were under house
arrest, and then I remembered that I wasn't dressed and it was still pouring
down rain.

We ate, drank, and used the
facilities by flashlight. We found a couple of beds, and located some towels so
Lou and I wouldn't soak the sheets. I went to sleep and was so tired I slept
until after daylight.

I got up Thursday morning and
found Lou, dressed and seated by a living room window, reading a Bible he had
found. He had the flashlight, but had let light in through the front window,
which shed a lot more light on our proceedings than anything did the night
before.

"The power's not on
yet?"

"Nope. And the phone still
isn't working. Maybe we can check with one of the neighbors and see if their
cell phones are working."

I went and rescued my clothes,
which had dried some but were far from presentable. I took time to read the
Bible Lou had found and then Lou and I dined on peanut butter, crackers, and
the rest of the bologna. Luckily the inside of the refrigerator was still cool
enough.

Lou and I talked and we thought
Bob Barney might be more agreeable to our interruption than Millie Longacre. We
walked across the road and knocked. This time he didn't watch us approach.

"Well, hello again. Something
you forgot to ask me?"

"Yeah, can we use your
phone?"

"You drove all the way back
out here to ask to use my phone. Hey! Where is your car? I didn't hear you
coming."

"That's because we stayed at
the Portwood Hilton last night."

"You stayed in the dead man's
house?"

"Well, I didn't think he'd
mind. Now can I use your phone?"

"Come on in. It's over
here."

My jaw dropped when he headed to a
land-line phone.

"I don't think that's
working. That reminds me. How come your electricity is working."

"It isn't. I have a
generator. Don't you hear it?"

"So that's what the noise is.
Do you have a cell phone?"

"Haven't got one of those
newfangled things. Besides, I'm not sure it would work way out here."

Sure enough, Barney's phone didn't
work either. I thanked him anyway and headed for Millie Longacre's. A minute
later I found out that she didn't have a working phone or a generator. So we
turned away, back to our dilemma.

"Got any ideas, Lou?"

He pointed down the road and we
took off walking toward a reconfigured Lightning. The sun and a breeze helped
dry our clothes the rest of the way as we walked. It was cool enough and our
aches and pains made us go slow enough that neither of us worked up a sweat.

A few minutes later I found out
why the electricity and phone were out. A pole had fallen. It had also landed,
right on Lightning. If Lightning hadn't already been totaled, she was now. I
turned away and grieved a little.

I was too preoccupied with my loss
that at first I failed to notice there was a power crew there, as well as the
sheriff's car. When Herb saw us he came running up to us.

"Don't tell me this is your
car?"

"Okay, I won't tell
you."

"What happened?"

Herb and I filled in each other on
what the other didn't know. I told him that Lightning had quit running as we
were driving down the road, and then Lightning was struck by a bull, with us
still inside. And he let me know that a different kind of lightning spooked
Ethel Goocher's bull Elmer and he ran into the pole and knocked it over. I
didn't need to ask him where it landed. I didn't inquire about Elmer's health,
either.

"See, the Bushmillers, who
live in the first house on the right as you drive down this road, drove down
early this morning to assess the damage and see if everyone was alright. Of
course, they couldn't get past your car and the downed pole, but they went back
and called the power company. I heard about it, knew you were headed out this
way, and when I couldn't raise you by phone I drove out to take a look. And it
looks like you two will need a ride. A tow, too."

Herb told me that as soon as he
finished he would give us a ride back to LaGrange and we could call someone to
come and pick us up. I went over and looked at Lightning again. At least she
put up a fight. When the pole hit her that pole cracked a second time. Again I
wasn't going to inquire as to the status of the bull.

+++

Herb was through in a few minutes
and the three of us were on our way to LaGrange. We called Jennifer, who called
Thelma Lou, and the two of them drove over two hours to pick us up. Ain't love
grand? Lou and I didn't look all that presentable, so Herb went and picked up
something for lunch for the three of us while we waited on the girls.

They arrived and we introduced
them to Herb. We had nothing against that part of
Kentucky
, but we didn't want to spend more
time there, so we headed off to Jennifer's car.

We talked on the way back to
Frankfort
. We had already paid for two
rooms at the
Capital
Plaza
, so we paid for rooms for the girls and they stayed
there, too. We cleaned up and took them to get something to eat at Gibby's. Lou
and I were both hurting, so we bid the girls an early goodnight, and I went to
my room to get on the computer to find a suitable replacement for Lightning.
Actually, there would be no suitable replacement. I just knew that in one way
cars are like dogs. When one dies and it's time to get another one, you either
want something close to what you had, or something a lot different.

+++

I got up the next morning and the
aches and pains as I got out of bed reminded me of the previous day. I knew Lou
was already up, but I wasn't sure about the girls. Jennifer had driven all the
way to LaGrange to pick up Lou and me, and I figured that she and Thelma Lou
might be tired. I didn't want to wake them too early. But I had things to do
before I left my room.

Sometimes I have my priorities
right, so each morning I read my Bible and devotional books before I get
started on the rest of my day. The devotional books I read are one called
Reflecting
Upon God's Word,
and one of the Guidepost annuals. Then I read a chapter in
the Bible each day and reflect upon what it says. I have a yearly reading
program that selected three-hundred-and-sixty-five chapters to give a person a
good overview of the Bible. My reading that day came from 2 Kings Chapter 4,
one of my favorite stories in the Bible. It's the story of a widow who had
debts to pay, but didn't have the money to pay them. So, she went to a man of
God. The first thing to learn from this lesson is the widow went to the right
person to help her get rid of her troubles, Elisha. He reminded her that she
had something of value. In her case it was oil. All of us have something of
value. We just have to figure out what it is. After the widow realized what she
had could help her get out of debt, Elisha told her to go to her friends and
collect as many jars as she could, because he didn't want her to get back in
the same predicament again. Broke. Many people do only the minimum they have to
do to get out of their dire straits and end up back in the same place after
some time. After the widow had collected all those jars, God saw to it that the
oil continued to flow until she ran out of jars. The oil was valuable, so Elisha
told her to go and sell the oil. He wasn't giving her a handout. He was showing
her how she could do what she needed to do to get on her feet again and not
fall back into the position in which she had found herself.

+++

After I had showered and read my
Bible I called Lou on his cell phone and asked him to come over for a few
minutes before we checked on the girls. He came, not knowing what I wanted. I
didn't keep him in suspense.

"What kind of vehicle should
I get?"

"One that's bull proof."

"I know the President has one
that's bullet proof, but I don't know if you can get one that's bull proof. I
know some people have deer guards on the trucks, but that wouldn't have done us
any good, either. The bull hit Lightning on your side, not the front."

"You don't have to remind me
of that, Cy. My teeth are still chattering. I still might end up eating that
bull for supper some night. And if you had seen him earlier I could have
hollered at him to ram us in the front instead."

I walked away and picked up my
laptop. I went on the Internet and, with no help from Lou, decided on a
Toyota
or a Honda van, because I had
heard how good both of them are. Over breakfast I shared with Lou and the girls
what I planned to do, and all three of them thought it was a good idea. We
arrived at the first dealership and took a test drive. I was amazed at the room
the van had and how comfortable it was. All that was left was to find out how
much it was going to cost me. A little over an hour later I walked out of
Green's
Toyota
the owner of a new Salsa Red
Pearl Siena. Once again I went against the grain. I'd been told many times that
only young women drive VWs, which Lightning was, and that only families with
kids drive minivans, and usually the woman of the family drives them. I didn't
care. I'm my own person. I will drive what I want to drive. I even went against
the grain by selecting red. More people buy gray minivans than any other color.
Gray reminded me of a cop car. I never wanted to look like every other cop, so
Lightning was yellow. The only drawback I could see from buying a minivan was
that I no longer had an excuse for Lou to drive on our double dates, so
Jennifer and I couldn't scrunch up in the back seat. But then I could say,
"Lou, you want to see how this thing drives?" I wondered if he would
fall for that.