The Middle Finger of Fate (A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery Book 1) Read online

  The Middle Finger of Fate

  A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery

  Book One

  Kim Hunt Harris

  Kim Hunt Harris Books, LLC

  Lubbock, Texas

  Copyright © 2013 by Author Name.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Kim Hunt Harris Books, LLC

  3410 98th St Ste. 4-157

  Lubbock, TX 79423

  www.kimhuntharris.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Ordering Information:

  Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the address above.

  Middle Finger of Fate/ Kim Hunt Harris. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978- 1492352990

  Acknowledgments

  So many people encouraged me on the way to publishing this book, and they have my most sincere gratitude:

  My Harvard-educated sister Kelly, who thinks I’m brilliant. She’s Harvard educated. She knows these things. Thank you, Kelly, for constantly bolstering my confidence. And, you know, for being an awesome big sister.

  Debbie Holt, critique partner and cheerleader. Everyone’s opinion counts, but the opinion of a fabulous writer counts for a little extra. Your certainty that I am not a complete hack came at a time when I desperately needed encouragement.

  Nancy Krebbs, my former writing-group buddy who is also a fabulous writer. You were the first person (besides me) to actually like this book, and I have not forgotten that.

  Shirley Webb, editor extraordinaire. Writers need editors, most especially the self-published ones. Thank you for your enthusiasm, your expertise, and for telling people about my book.

  And most importantly, my always patient, ever hopeful, ever encouraging husband Darryl. Without question, I would not be where I am without you. Thank you for helping make my dreams come true.

  Other Titles in the Trailer Park Princess Series

  The Middle Finger of Fate (Book One)

  Unsightly Bulges (Book Two)

  Caught in the Crotchfire (Book Three)

  ‘Tis the Friggin’ Season (Short Story)

  The Power of Bacon (Short Story)

  Mud, Sweat, and Tears (Short Story)

  Coming in 2017

  Knickers in a Twist

  Pssst. Do you like free stuff?

  Silly question. Of course, you do. How about super-top-secret information? Then I have a deal for you! Click on the link below and get two free short stories! These take place between the full-length Trailer Park Princess books, and can’t be bought anywhere. Put your money away, it’s no good here. The only way you can get these stories is by signing up for my newsletter. (I solemnly swear I will not sell your information to anyone – I don’t know how to do that anyway.) I only send good stuff -- news on book releases, excerpts from time to time, etc. Sound good? Go to this link and start reading your free stories now! www.FreeBooksFromKim.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter One

  The thing about finding a dead body is, you don’t expect it to look so dead. On television, when someone finds a dead body, the first thing they do is start feeling for a pulse. But when I found the dead woman at the bottom of the basement steps outside the First United Methodist Church, I knew without a doubt that she was deader than my split ends, and I couldn’t even see her that well.

  Knowing she was already dead didn’t stop me from flapping around the courtyard and yelping like I needed to do something quick, when any idiot could see there was no need to hurry. I yelled these goofy, useless yelps, and hopped around long enough to see that the woman had one arm flung over her head, and her neck crooked in a very disturbing fashion. It occurred to me that she could possibly rise up from her basement resting place and look at me with her dead eyes. We were, after all, on holy ground.

  Running anywhere suddenly became a stellar idea.

  The closer I got to the heavy wooden doors of the church, the more certain I was that not only had the woman risen, but she was floating right behind me, reaching out a bony finger to touch the back of my neck –

  I yanked open the door and spewed forth a string of words I promised I would never say again when I became a Christian. At high volume.

  Don Chambers, the associate pastor, and Viv, my octogenarian Alcoholics Anonymous buddy, were passing down the hallway. They stopped and stared at me.

  I gulped back the obscenities and focused on conveying what was most important.

  “Dead body! Dead body outside! Dead!” I realized my feet were still running in place and I tried to get them to stop, but I had very little control over anything at that point. I did get one nailed down but the other stomped along by itself a couple of times. I jabbed a finger at the door. “Dead body outside.”

  “What?” Don and Viv said in unison.

  “Dead body at the bottom of the stairs. Dead.”

  “Is it Merline Wallace?” Viv asked. “She looked gray last time I saw her.”

  Don moved past me toward the door. “Show me.”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. I’m not going back out there.” My heart was beating so hard I saw spots. “You can’t miss it. It’s the only dead body at the bottom of the bell tower.” I wrapped my arms around my waist and moved away from the door, in case there was a ghastly surprise waiting on the other side.

  “Use the phone in my office to call the police,” Don said before he opened the door.

  “I want to go too.” Viv shuffled out after Don.

  My legs shook as I hurried down the hallway to Don’s office. I grabbed the phone and slid into his chair.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

  “I’m at First Methodist Church. I need to report –”

  Unfortunately, at that moment an image popped into my head of Don’s face when I yanked open that door and screamed the F-word.

  Now, something you should know about me: I giggle when I get nervous. And man, was I nervous. Plus, it was kind of funny. Not the dead body, of course, but Don’s expression.

  I felt the laughter bubbling up and I cleared my throat. “I found a de-he-he—”

  I bit my lip to stifle the giggles.

  “Ma’am? Are you there?�
��

  I nodded, my teeth still clamped to my lower lip like I was holding back a tidal wave with a rubber band. It did no good to nod, but I knew the moment I opened my mouth I was going to really let loose. I gripped the edge of the desk so hard my nail beds turned white and I took a deep breath through my nose. There.

  “I’m sorry,” I said calmly. “I have found a dead – a dead…body.” My throat closed and my voice shot up on the last word, and uncontrollable giggles overtook me.

  “A dead body?” the operator asked, calm as you please. “Male or female?”

  “Fe –” was all I could get out.

  “And who is calling?”

  I cupped my hand over the phone and fought back the giggles to catch my breath. “Salem Grimes.” I stood and paced behind the desk, twisting the phone cord tight around my fingers. I bit my lip again and told myself to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. Or did I have that backwards? I tried it the other way and ended up snorting into the phone. “Sorry,” I said again.

  A fresh wave of giggles threatened to engulf me and I focused on the picture of Don’s family on his desk. His blue-eyed wife and red-haired daughter, the teenage son with his foot propped on a stool behind them, one arm draped across his raised knee, his own brown hair just long enough to say that he might be a preacher’s kid but he was still cool. And behind them Don stood with his arms around them all, looking like he had the best family in town.

  I pictured him going home that night to tell them all about the dead body, and later whispering to his wife that Salem Grimes had been so upset she’d screamed the F-word so loud the trustees probably heard it in their meeting on the second floor.

  I let out a hoot of laughter and slapped my hand hard over my mouth.

  “Ma’am, are you there? I need you to stay on the line. Ma’am?”

  I lifted the phone to answer but only got out a strangled noise, so I clapped my hand back over the mouthpiece and fell on my side, helpless and pathetic and just plain weird, giggling because I’d found a dead body. I’m telling you, I’m not all there sometimes.

  “Police are on their way,” the dispatcher said. “I need for you to stay on the line, ma’am. Are you in any danger? Salem? Is anyone there with you? I know it’s scary, Salem, but I need you to stay with me.”

  I pounded the heel of my hand against my forehead but that didn’t do anything but make my head hurt. I’ve learned that there really isn’t much you can do when one of these laughing fits hit. It’s like what everyone says about a stomach bug. You just have to let it run its course.

  So I thought about Don and Viv outside, peering over the iron railing to the bottom of the basement stairs, looking at the woman below. I thought about her, wondered if she had any family.

  That did the trick. Nothing funny there. I wiped my eyes and caught my breath. The operator asked me a few more questions that I managed to answer. I heard sirens outside and told her the police had arrived.

  I figured as the Finder Of The Body, the police would want to talk to me, so once I’d caught my breath I went back outside. I told myself I had no reason to be nervous about talking to them. I hadn’t done anything wrong – this time.

  Still, it’s natural instinct for me to run the other way when I see a cop uniform.

  As soon as I rounded the corner, I wished I had run the other way. Of all the people I’d prefer never to see again, Bobby Sloan was at the top of the list. And there he stood, in jeans and a powder blue button-down shirt, next to a patrol officer.

  Bobby was one of the reasons I had a fear of the police. Well, that’s not entirely fair. The reason I had a fear of the police is because I had a history of screwing up, and the police had a history of catching me. It wasn’t their fault they were better in their role than I was in mine.

  I would rather have seen just about any cop in the world than Bobby, though. We had a history, too, starting with the crush I had had on him from the fifth grade through the eighth grade. Little girls really should be taught not to write notes of undying love and devotion. They always come back to haunt.

  The love notes and unreturned adoration would have been reason enough for me to want to duck and hide when I saw him, but unfortunately for me, mine and Bobby’s story didn’t end there. Two years ago, Bobby had been serving arrest warrants and came to my house to pick me up for passing hot checks. I had been drunk and had decided to hide under the bed. It might have worked if I hadn’t had a waterbed. Not one of my brighter moments, but fortunately, not one of my dumbest, either.

  So there I had been with Bobby’s hand around my ankle, pulling on me and laughing at me wedged up in the four-inch-wide space I was trying to hide under and hanging on for all I was worth. He tugged hard right about the same time I decided to give it up and let go.

  He fell back, which would have been kind of funny, except he fell back into a big pile of dog poop from my roommate’s Rottweiler, and so it was really only funny to Bobby’s fellow officers. While one of them was outside hosing Bobby down and I was being led in handcuffs to the squad car, I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t my dog and that that dog and his nasty habits were one of the reasons I was looking for another place to live. But the look he gave me told me he didn’t really care. In fact, the look he gave me told me he hoped he would never see me again. That hurt, considering I’d pledged my undying love to him practically every day for three solid years.

  Now, I just hoped he wouldn’t recognize me. After all, it had been two years, and since I’d quit drinking, I’d replaced Jack Daniels with super-size french fries and gained about thirty pounds. Or forty. Or so. I used to wear my hair long and bleached blonde, but after my last arrest I let the brown grow out and stuck with an easy-to-maintain chin length bob. On a good day, I told myself I could resemble Katie Holmes’ fat cousin.

  Bobby took one look at me and said, “Oh no.”

  So much for that hope.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I didn’t do anything, Bobby. All I was doing was walking up the sidewalk, I swear.”

  “Walking up the sidewalk to a church.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I can go to church.”

  “I know you can.” He looked back over the railing. “Seriously, Salem, what were you doing here?”

  “I was going inside. You’d think I was going inside a bar.” Which I was actually not allowed to do. A condition of my probation.

  “I would be less surprised.”

  I scowled at him. This was one of those times when it was better just to keep my mouth shut.

  “Did you see anyone?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you know her?” He didn’t take his eyes off me as he motioned with his head toward the stairs.

  Again I shook my head. “Why aren’t you wearing a uniform?” Let him be the defensive one for a change.

  “Because I’m a detective now. Stay put.” He walked over to a uniformed officer and they talked for a minute.

  The uniformed cop came over. He had that same passive, no-need-to-worry-I’m-in-complete-control face that every cop has. “I’m going to need for you to go back to the station with me.”

  I took a step backward. “Me? Why?”

  “We need to get a statement.”

  “I gave my statement to the operator. I found a dead body. End of statement.”

  “We need for it to be written down.”

  “Fine.” No need to panic. I hadn’t done anything wrong. But I’d made a promise to myself that I was never going to see the inside of a jail again. “I’ll be happy to give you a statement right here. I’m sure Don won’t mind loaning me some paper.”

  He put a hand on his hip and looked back at Bobby. Bobby narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin and I knew that whatever passed between them wasn’t in my favor.

  The uniform turned back to me. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to come to the station with me.”

  I looked at my watch,
then read his nametag. “Officer Walters, I have to be at work in half an hour.”

  “You can call your boss from the station. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  I was beating a dead horse but couldn’t keep from asking, “Do I really have to?”

  Walters nodded. “Are you going to come willingly?”

  I bit my lip and looked at Bobby.

  “Go, Salem. It’s just a few questions. I’ll be there in a little while.”

  I made a face at Walters. “Fine.”

  “Thank you.” He touched the small of my back and steered me toward his car. “This way, please.”

  Two more patrol cars drove up as we pulled away, followed by the Channel Eleven news van. I sat in the back of the squad car and tried to wrap my arms all the way around my body.

  “So this is what these things look like when you’re sober,” I said.

  Walters caught my eye in the rearview mirror but didn’t say anything.

  I have to say that, all in all, being taken in for questioning is a lot better than being taken in for driving under the influence. I didn’t have to go through the whole fingerprint, smile-for-the-camera, now-blow-into-this-hose routine. I figured I would be taken to one of those little rooms with a table and four chairs and a big one-way mirror like you see on cop shows. Instead, the cop took me to Bobby’s office.

  “Detective Sloan should just be a few minutes. Have a seat.”

  I sat on the edge of the rolling chair across from Bobby’s desk. “Are we going to wait for him?”

  Walters nodded.

  “Is that necessary? I mean, isn’t there someone else who can take the statement?” Sitting across the desk from Bobby and facing probing questions wasn’t high on my list of wishes at the moment.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You have a problem with Detective Sloan?”

  I chewed my lip and didn’t answer. Yes, I had a problem, but not one I wanted to discuss.