Jar of Pennies by John Yearwood
.jpeg)
About Jar of Pennies:
Excerpt:
Huh, he thought, you don’t usually see ducks in a pothole. Two males and a female. Story of my life.
He stood there for several minutes, watching the game birds and wondering about putting decoys in the pothole in late August when the season opened up, maybe putting up a blind in Darryl’s front yard.
Nah, he decided, the city probably doesn’t want people firing off weapons inside the city limits. He decided he would check, though, just to make sure. If he could bag some ducks right here out of Darryl’s front yard, it would save a world of trouble.
Because of the pothole, or rather pond, Darryl had stopped parking his pickup on the street. He had it nestled into the chain link fence at the end of his driveway, almost in the backyard where his pair of beagles were setting up a din to welcome Deputy Lewis to the property. And moments later, Darryl came out of the side door, his jeans fastened but barefoot, with two cups of coffee in his hand.
“You’re here early,” he said to Lewis, handing him a cup of coffee. “Well, yeah,” said Lewis. “Just covering the bases. Have you heard from or seen Trey?”
“Trey Green?”
“Yeah, Trey Green. Police chief of Whitmire. Not too tall, not too bright, kind of pudgy, about fifty years old, capable of being a real mean son of a bitch. That Trey.”
“The one with the wart on his nose like a size-ten boot?”
“No, the other one. The one with the double chin and size forty-eight khakis, wears his belt about twelve inches below his navel. Got short arms.”
“Oh, that one.”
“Yeah. Police chief.”
“Name rings a bell.”
“He told people you were his best friend.”
“If I didn’t feel sorry for him before, I do now.”
“I’m just repeating what I heard,” said the deputy, raising his cup. “No offense.”
“Oh,” said Darryl, as though he suddenly remembered. “Oh, you mean that Trey Green. Why sure. Why didn’t you say so?”
“You seen him?”
“No. Why?”
“He ain’t been heard from since Tuesday is all. He radioed the office over here from the police station in Piney Creek, said he couldn’t get home because of the floods. Nobody believed him, except his wife, which was good enough. But he hasn’t been heard from since. Thought maybe you’d heard something.”
“No, I ain’t heard from Trey all week. Kinda strange, actually. I think he’s got a thing for Mary, the way he keeps stopping by.”
Amazon
About John Yearwood:
Former stringer for the New York Times, John Yearwood taught in high schools and universities for 30 years and was an award-winning journalist for 15 years. He has published hundreds of editorials and columns and thousands of news stories, as well as academic works on the First Amendment and the extra-Constitutional powers of the Presidency during times of crisis. Since retiring in 2012, he now volunteers helping elementary students improve their reading skills and assisting refugee immigrants when he is not writing.
He is the author of The Icarus Series: The Icarus Jump, The City and the Gate and The Gender of Fire; The Lie Detector App, which is set in modern California and follows the unfolding life of a genius kid who creates apps for the smartphone and discovers there is truth everywhere if you know how to look; and Jar of Pennies, a historical and cultural crime fiction novel set in a small town in East Texas. John lives in Austin with his wife and two small dogs.
Comments
Post a Comment