Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted - Posts Tagged "mystery"

I swear that’s what the note from my editor said. Like a have an extra one in my pocket?

Some of you may be able to pop them out like cupcakes, but I like a bath and a facial, a long drive in the country, appetizers and yummy bites, and desert, before desert.

That’s why I order breakfast in bed and linger in, hoping for seconds.

CHEER: Well, GOAT-RIPPER is all done, professionally edited, proofed & polished, except for a final sex scene.
I’ve always wanted to write about a trapeze, so maybe I have an idea.

It’s because my mother was once a costumer for the circus. And that’s a true bit of our family myth. Anyway, Mom, this book’s for you. Now exactly how did I get here? Oh yeah, the sailor suit.

RULE: I’ve heard that every sentence must advance the character or the plot. In a crime thriller, like GOAT-RIPPER, sex is not a plot point.

It’s a character-building interlude. Unless my P.I. Jake Knight is shooting high-def video on a serial fill-in-the-blank for a client. Then we lay low waiting for low-light conditions.

“Ready to roll tape, your honor? May we dim the lights?”

Jake Knight has always wanted to say that. With judges today, ya never know.

What plays in one community sure doesn’t in another. And Sonoma is no different.

My favorite Beta reader comment to date? “You do every Marine proud.”

That means, men, you have permission to read Peter Prasad’s book Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case.

Due Flag Day. June 14th. Kindle willing. At ease.

Best to you, dear reader. Save room for wine & cheese & murder this summer.

Cheers!

Save Words: See Pics at PeterPrasad@Pinterest.com

However I'm a writer, so meet the two good guys, Jake and Hap, who go after the wicked wine adulterater. I hang with imaginary characters most of my writing day. ON'YA.

Sonoma Knight:Goat-Ripper Case, pg.118

Hap sat, enthroned behind his desk, in the center of the room. His desk was clutter-free except for a gold-framed photo of Sonya supine, nude, suggestively draped by a blue silk sheet. On a redwood credenza behind the desk under a wall of south-facing paneled glass sat a tray of more than 20 orchids in individual baskets. Jake was instantly reminded of Tanya’s tattoos.

Hap’s office had plenty of boy-toys: a Bowflex, a Treadmill, a golf swing practice booth, a rowing machine, a padlocked rack of hunting rifles and shotguns. A row of framed photos showed Hap with several world leaders from the last two decades. A Lionel HO-gage electric train track wound across the floor.

In the corner stood an authentic set of knight’s armor in polished black metal, circa 17th century France. Jake noticed the inlaid sign of the lily on the chest and visor, hallmark of the French Plantagenet kings.

Hap volunteered, following Jake’s gaze on the armor: “Sonya wants me to wear it to our wedding. I said, no way. I’d look like a can of spam.” He paused while Jake chuckled.
- due about July 4 - CHEERS!

The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club by Duncan Whitehead.

Here’s a fun read that becomes a perfect storm of suspects. This rich murder pot-boiler is endearingly Miss. Marpel-esque in its pace and a Goodread’s finalist for 2013 Readers' Favorite in the humor category. I hope Dunc' wins.

English author Whitehead does crime in an off-handed character-driven was that is charming and filled with gentility. Laps around a dog-walker’s park lead to Argentina and Paris and red herrings galore. Some of the characters deserve Spanish Moss growing in their hair. So join the Club. Huzzah for Whitehead. More please. 5 Stars.

Welcome a new American hero – Buffalo Dick Maddock. Run as they might, Dick makes this chase of mad bombers a cake walk with blood splatter. Bet on Buffalo Dick in a dust-up. He’ll dog you from Brazilia to Argentina to danger zones north. Then he sprints in a chase that raises the bar from page-turner to cinematic blockbuster. It don’t matter, Dick refuses to die.

I’m amazed when a writer weaves story craft this tight. DICK’s enemies jump off the page with full-blown back story. Hats off to new author Duff O’Brian, a master of plot that drips credibility and rings true in technical detail. The research could crash Wall Street. The havoc promised will keep Homeland Security up at night. So cut your teeth on Uncle Sam’s nightmare.

I emailed O’Brian to learn more. Everything in Buffalo Dick, he says, can be checked on the Internet: The deaths from radiation poisoning in Goianas; the private intelligence agency; the top-secret British army unit; etc. The legend of White Buffalo Woman is authentic Plains Indian lore. He hopes people read along with a live Internet connection.

O’Brian cites Borges, Marquez, and Kafka to explain his ‘magical realist’ perspective. My favorite reference: When Lewis & Clark reached the Mandan villages in 1804, they noted tall, white-skinned Mandans who spoke a language similar to Welsh. It was believed they were the lost descendants of Prince Madoc (Maddock), a 7-foot tall Welshman who historians say made two trips to North America 300 years before Columbus; on the second trip he brought 100 colonists, and they were never seen again.

From a lost tribe to a New York brownstone to an Argentine bistro, Dick chases ‘hell on wheels’ until the tires come off. For pure grit, I loved it. The first 20-pages are resilient with word choice, then the yarn puts you in a hammer-lock until the last page. The dastards do their do until Dick is driven to drill them through and through. 5-stars, plus Orion’s Belt for plausibility, as in OMG this could really happen.

Baa, baa, milk sheep,
Have you any cheese?
Yes, Jake, yes, Jake,
Three wheels full.
One for my master Marco.
One for your sweet Tanya.
One for the governor
who lives down the lane.

* * * * *

A sexy romantic crime thriller set in the heart of wine country. A fast, fun foray into making artisan cheese, adulterated wine and murder. Afghan vet and bronze Star Jake Knight comes home with a bullet hole. He needs to heal, save his farm, fall in love … and stop a puffed-up wine merchant with a taste for murder. Not yet a licensed P.I., Jake races to catch another bullet hole.

* * * * *
Dedicated to my brothers and sisters,
Warriors all, pushing up marble by the yard.


SONOMA KNIGHT: THE GOAT-RIPPER CASE

Late one autumn night Wild Bill Nastor sat at the edge of the fire pit. He used it to get rid of trash and tonight for another thing. Doc said no more roadside dumping. Bill did what Doc said. It was the best job he’d ever had, regular with fringes and no inspections. His motto: Pay me and leave me alone.
He chugged from the red-wine bottle and felt his headache step aside. Sparks swirled above, lifting a spirit into the night sky.
Smoke annoyed his eyes from the fat burning off the body below. The guy’s plastic eye-glasses melted. His lab jacket and pants curled to carbon; his shoes bubbled. His face cooked off and his skull emerged.
Wild Bill longed for red lips. He wanted to eat his road-kill raccoon, finish his wine and get some shut-eye. This burning was taking too long. He decided to go and let the fire do its work.
Tomorrow he’d climb down and crush the bones. As if in agreement, the scorched skull rolled to the edge of the fire pit and sank into ashes.


CHAPTER ONE

Jake heard a sad goat cry as he woke from his last nap in Redwoods hospital.
This was no holiday. He preferred the scent of jasmine wafting through open patio doors in a bungalow on Maui to the odor of bleach, stale bandage and the artificial cheeriness of a wounded veteran’s ward.
After patching him with two surgeries post-Afghanistan, Uncle Sam shipped him as close to home as it could: Redwoods hospital in Santa Rosa, California. Today he was due for discharge.

His cell phone rang, with the opening bars of “Tied to the Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers.
It was his dad, Jerry’s, favorite song. Jerry lived as a fourth-generation dairyman tied to his land. He held 50 acres of rolling meadows that backed up to Sonoma Mountain. This was long-grass cow country and Jerry drank too much and lost his herd before he departed earth.
It fell on Jake’s younger brother, Wally, to clean up the mess. Jake was half a world away, third in command of a Ranger patrol in Afghanistan.
A clerk from the Sonoma County Tax Assessor’s office had visited Jake at Redwoods two days earlier. The tax man waved some papers. Jake ignored him. The tax man swore he’d carried the dairy as a patriotic duty for four years. Jake replied, “My country leaned on me, now you want to do the same?”
Jake and Wally faced a tax bill with penalties. The debt had soured like bad milk. The County threatened a forced land sale with no credit given for a bullet hole. Wally mentioned he had a plan, so Jake waited until he was upright and walking to hear it. Today was that day.
***
In Jake’s 90-day tour of military hospitals, an Army shrink had labeled him angry and rebellious toward authority. “No shit. A sniper’s bullet can do that to you.”
The shrink prodded. In response to another inane ping, Jake summed his personal philosophy: “Remember to wipe your boots at the door and don’t be late for supper.”
Pushed further, he blurted his favorite line from a class in western civilization: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Jake couldn’t remember who’d said it or if it was true. He added, “When death drops by, run the other way.”
The female therapist who observed the session giggled. Later, Jake learned she smiled from sheer nervousness and cried when she thought no one could see her. In another private session, she asked him to discuss his feelings toward his mother. Did he feel abandoned? Jake had no answer. She said he’d be incapable of a stable emotional relationship until he forgave his mother.
Jake gave her a wry smile. “Instead of forgiving her, I decided to readjust my expectations and settle for three hots and a cot.” The therapist shook her head and studied him with sympathetic brown eyes. He saw heartbreak in them.
“Jake. You know what I mean. Work with me here, please.”
“So you think it’s a trust issue I have with women?”
“Yep, text book.”
“Ma left fifteen years ago. I was ten. My brother got it worse. He was seven.”
“Let’s just work on healing you.”
The therapist looked better than Ellen, Oprah or Doctor Phil.
Jake continued. “My last memory was when she wrapped a red scarf over her hair and lit out in a convertible next to this new guy who wore too much cologne. I hate Brut for Men. She said she’d be back with pizza. That was it. After midnight, Jerry came home crying-drunk.”
“So, you do remember?” She seemed pleased. She asked Jake to write a letter to his mother, explaining his pain. Pumping from a well he never knew he had, Jake filled an entire notebook. On all the left-hand pages he doodled black-ink cow paddies.
“My own ink blots.”
This excited the therapist. She called it a breakthrough. He was healing. They cried together, burned the notebook and limped out for take-home Chinese.
They ended up on the floor of her apartment and in her bed. She returned his incoming fire with passion and cried between her orgasms.
Jake came to understand that she had soaked up the pain, anguish and confusion of dozens of returning vets, the hobbled and the gimp. He by comparison had escaped with a single bullet hole, thigh-high, through and through.
How do you heal the healers? Jake had no prescription. He sensed that it helped to dilute bad memories with good ones, and to wake up sticky and wet with love.
It helps to forgive the snipers in life, even the snide ones who steal your parking place, cut you off without using a turn signal, and bark at your eleven items in the ten-item line.
As to his Ma, Jake decided to forgive her and wish her well, honestly. As a consequence, her memory faded to black. He imagined her wearing a red scarf in a place where old ghosts go to stand in line to try, try again.
So where did that leave him on the state of his own psyche? He had no QuickClot for the soul. He was twenty-five, a decorated vet due some Uncle Sam-thank-you money with a divot of white scar on his thigh, a reminder that life is not always grand and that most people miss.
As for the hole in his heart? A good-looking woman demonstrated that with tender care she could fix it in record time. Like most guys his age, getting naked was the best band-aid. He was not racked with guilt or a cratered sense of self-worth. He was a specialist in staying alive, with a dinged leg.
The doctor said he needed daily exercise. He planned a regime of running, good nutrition and farm chores—assuming Wally had a plan to save the dairy. Three months of fallow green pasture would set him right. It was time to hobble home.
***
As his cell phone rang, Jake began a mental search for a new ring tone. “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” might do. Ee-i-ee-i-oh. Was there an Etta James version of that? He fumbled for the phone lost in his sheets.
“Hey, Jake. I’ll be outside in twenty minutes. Just leaving now.” It was Wally. Jake hadn’t been back to the dairy since a shouting match with Jerry a week after he graduated from Cardinal High. Jake saw greener pastures down south. He had a full-ride football ticket to San Diego State and the promise of a summer job.
By spring he’d flunked out of San Diego State and learned to surf. He bounced around two junior colleges and completed an AA degree in criminal justice, fueled by a vision of being a G-man. He survived five years in the Army, his last two in the troop build-up in Afghanistan. After basic training, he completed courses in investigative procedure, surveillance and electronics. On track for the military police, he washed out after a run-in with an instructor.
Jake’s unrepentant streak of standing up to bullies got the best of him. He hated hazing. The slightly-built kid in the bunk next to him, Martinez from Merced, was sometimes slow and always late. A newly-minted sergeant doused Martinez and his sheets with lighter fluid and pulled a Zippo lighter out of his pocket.
Jake zipped him instead, with three swift punches to the Adam’s apple, temple and jaw. His psych assessment reported he had an ‘uncontrolled reaction to people who smoke inside buildings.’ Jake might have said that. It was a simple decision for the all-volunteer Army, the sergeant was transferred and Jake went Ranger-ho to Afghanistan.
Now he had a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and an honorable discharge.
The military can be a hard life to leave. Most days are repetitive and boring, but Jake found comfort in routine. What he disliked were ambushes, unexpected explosions, and jihadist snipers. For the last two years, his motto was: Stay Alive. He had accomplished that.
While killing time in hospital, he completed an on-line course for an investigator’s license in the state of California. With the clock ticking on his new career path, he had yet to pay the fees or secure the bond money for the insurance requirement.
However, Jake was good at shoe-boxing his worries and taking life sun-up to sun-set. He’d heal on the farm and work on his red-neck tan.
“See you outside, Wal-bro.” Jake hung up. A discharge nurse checked in with a clipboard of release forms for signature. The packet contained an Army payroll check—$1,818.00. That was it—Hoo rah.
He’d wait 60 days for his wounded veteran’s benefits to kick in and he didn’t expect much. He wondered if the GI Bill would see him through two more years of college. In his heart of hearts, a new campus of acne and beer bongs did not ring his bell.
A swish nurse wrapped his thigh in a compression bandage and handed him a white sack filled with antibiotics, pain pills, gauze and wraps. He looked inside for a packet of QuickClot for the mind. Nada.
One of the wounded ward’s traditions—a $100 credit with L.L. Bean, courtesy of the Patriot Daughters of Sonoma. Jake idled half a day on the glossy, four-color pages of Maine farmer chic. The FedEx package from Bean lay on his bed.
He tore the box open and emptied the civilian cornucopia. Carefully, he slipped his injured leg into a stiff new pair of blue jeans, waist 32, length 32. He buttoned a red-checked flannel shirt, size large, over a new white V-neck T-shirt. He noticed that the T-shirt had a size stamp instead of a tag. He smiled at how life changes.
He wadded up his hospital pajamas and tossed them into a pile on the floor. His Bean box contained a stiff black leather belt with a shiny bronze buckle: “Army Strong.” He wondered where he could trade it for one that said: Eat My Grits.
With unerring accuracy, he wove the new leather through his belt loops and bent to tug tight the laces on his black, government-issue boots. His days in desert camouflage melted away.
“Is someone coming to get you?” the discharge sarge asked.
“You bet. Little brother is waiting outside.”
“An orderly will help with your duffle. That leg’ll be tender yet. Thanks for your service, Sergeant Knight. A Bronze Star is a noble thing.” The nurse saluted; Jake shrugged.
He’d enlisted while at loose ends. He hadn’t seen much of the world. He’d seen too much death and the down side of human nature. He wondered if he’d ever stop scanning rooftops for snipers
Jake limped down the hallway, followed by the orderly. His leg throbbed. The cane helped. But he was too stubborn to begin his new life as an invalid. He took a deep breath, hung the cane on the push bar of the exit door and left it behind as he walked out into the Sonoma sunshine.
Wally waited in Jerry’s beat-up ’86 Ford F-150 pick-up truck. The ‘red rust bucket,’ dusted in dents, was a year older than Jake. But the engine purred with the deep V-8 rumble of stump-pulling power. Both Wally and Jake were able mechanics. They’d spent years working with Jerry to keep the farm patched on bailing wire and duct tape.
“Hey, Jay-bro!” Wally ran around from the driver’s side and embraced him. The Knights weren’t long on expressing emotions. Wally wore his hair long, even for a civilian. He looked geeky in round glasses, as expected for a lab rat, fresh from UC Davis. “How’s it shaking?” He looked down at Jake’s leg. “Hurt?”
“Nope. I have better things to think about.”
Jake hugged him hard. His thigh ached and his eyes watered. Jake had Wally by two inches and 30 pounds of muscle, but Wally had the college degree in chemistry. Jake could take an M-16 apart and reassemble it in under a minute and knock the center hole out of a bull’s eye at 600 yards. Wally could dissect a frog and run a toxicology screen on its liver. Jake had waltzed into an Afghani ambush. Wally could dance rings around a biohazard site.
The orderly lifted Jake’s duffle into the back of the truck. Jake opened the door, mounted the bench seat and lifted his leg into the cab. Wally jumped in behind the wheel. He pointed to a paper bag on the floor. “Cold beers.”
Jake twisted the cap off an ice-cold Lagunitas IPA, splashed beer on the driveway and gave a one-finger sayonara-salute to the hospital. He handed a beer to Wally. “Do you drink and drive now?”
“No, sir. They’re all for you.” Wally grinned and shifted into gear. The bench seat of the red rust bucket brought back memories of smooth moves, make-out sessions and drive-in movies. Jake felt a dusty piece of home-coming click in.
He lifted his head, smelled death and looked across the road.
Two guys in white hazmat suits wrapped plastic around a carcass and loaded it into the back of a County truck. There were no cop cars attending. He assumed it was a hit-and-run, maybe a dead dog. He studied the face of the lead collection guy; it was familiar.
“Let’s get to the bank before we go home,” Wally said. “Okay?”
“Yep. We’ll put my discharge check in. How you holding up for money?”
It was Jake’s turn to help. Wally had come home from college one weekend to find Jerry cold in bed, long gone to the other shore. Over the Internet that weekend Jake talked Wally through the tears and gave him a check list of what to do. Jake and Wally got roaring drunk, half a world apart, with a video hook-up and laptops linked on Skype. Wally talked about Jerry’s demons; Jake’s demons already knew the song.
“I’ve got rental income from the other cottage. And I want you to meet Marco and Sandy Spencer at the bank. They’re cheese-makers. The farm board referred them. We’re talking land lease to start a sheep dairy.”
“Sheep? What do we know about fur-balls?” Jake swallowed a red pain pill, a blue antibiotic and popped the top off another IPA. “They’re hippies or flakes or what?”
“No. I checked references and read their credit report. The farm board says, ‘Do it.’ Powell says ‘Do it.’ The deposit’s ready to go. We need the frickin’ money today.”
“Who’s Powell?”
“That pot-smoking liberal lawyer with the Japanese art collection up on Sonoma Mountain. He was Dad’s friend.”
Jake wanted his next decision to be how slowly he could savor his ale. The baked-dry Sonoma heat poured through his open window. The familiar smell of death was gone.
Wally had a point: cash was king. He decided to begin to trust again, starting with Wally. “They’ll pre-pay the first year. The check’s in the glove box.” Wally waved at the dashboard.
“Money’s a good start. This sounds better than growing bud in the barn. How much?” Jake felt the new civilian wheels in his head kick into gear.
“Enough plus improvements, water pump, barn repairs. I worked up a list with Marco. It’s all there.” He waved at the dashboard again. Jake finished his beer and wiped his hands on his jeans. Wally merged onto a country road toward the bank in Santa Rosa.
“Artisan cheese is getting support in Sonoma. We have 20 cheese dairies in county now. Sheep make great cheese.” Wally began bouncing up and down on the bench seat, driving with one hand.
“The Spencers are cool. They’re big on organics, bio-diversity. They’re flat-out clean freaks. They want me to run the lab. I’ll do quality control, milk analysis, cultivate native yeasts, and harvest bacterial agents.”
Jake felt a twinge of pride in his little science-professor bro. He pulled a manila envelope from the glove compartment. He scanned the paperwork, starting with the lease agreement. It looked complete. He reviewed the checklist Powell had made. He saw where Wally and Marco had initialed each page. He saw the deposit check and whistled: $18,000.
“Frick sake, the tax man can take a hike. I’m in.”
Wally hooted and hand-tapped the dashboard. Jake kept reading. Wally’s contract specified lab-tech with a list of job functions to keep a ‘farmstead certified’ rating. Jake looked up. Wally cut him off. “Organic comes later, after seven years of paperwork and inspections.”
Jake watched the brown hills capped with green-tree fringe roll past. Jake knew cows, not sheep; milk, not cheese—but he was willing to learn.
He selected his words carefully. “Bro, this looks great. You’ve been busy. We can improve the place and you got a job. Jerry would like it.” Wally grinned at Jake’s approval.
“So will you sign as co-owner?” Jake gave his brother a moment of eye contact and nodded in agreement. Wally hooted and shook his clenched fist out the window at the sky.
“Diggity! You’ll like the Spencers. Marco knows sheep and Sandy sells at farmers markets. They work a circuit, long hours, bro.”
Jake watched Wally’s eyes shine with a new future. “We’ll move a cheese shed onto the property. All stainless steel with a 30-gallon pasteurization vat. That costs $30,000. Way chill. And an air-conditioned clean room for the cheese to age. Marco designed it. We’ll improve the barns and build sheep pens.” Wally paused to let the vision sink in.
Jake drifted behind Wally’s enthusiasm, half-listening and soaking in the sunshine.
He noticed the beers and pain pills begin to smooth the heat.
“See the last page? That’s for you, property manager, if you want it. Basic dairy duty.”
Jake turned to the job description and read through the list. He knew how to do this: install pumps and new electrical circuits, mend fences, build paddocks, feed animals and move manure. A regular $1,500 a month plus gas and materials. Minimum wage, but no commute. No resumes. No interviews. No lines. No rejections. No snipers. The tax man could go shoot someone else.
Jake opened another beer and turned to Wally, grinning. The Knight Brothers Sonoma Sheep Dairy bumped bro-fist.
At the bank, Jake shook hands with the Spencers, and excused himself to the Men’s room. He decided to ease off on being hard-charging Jake; this was Wally’s deal. He swallowed a red pain pill and slowly walked back to find his new tenants.
Wally was right. He liked them. Marco, lanky and calm-spoken, had the gentle vibe of a dairy man with a calloused grip hardened by chores. Grinning, he showed a chipped front tooth. Jake sensed Marco reserved judgment. He’d help birth a lamb at midnight and clean pieces of placenta out of the birth canal.
Sandy, not yet 30, the bubbly talker in the family, came from Sonoma. Marco, a Wisconsin native, met his younger wife in a college food-science program. They’d launched their brand a year earlier and leased commercial kitchen space.
They dreamed to turn it up a notch with a milk-sheep herd. “From grass to cutting board,” Sandy said, her pale freckled face beaming. Sun-streaked red hair framed her bright blue eyes. Jake smiled and signed the lease agreement. He and Wally banked his discharge check, the lease payment and cleared the tax liens.
They were broke again. Jake figured he’d bought himself a year and time to heal.
Wally was clearly caught up with these cheese dreamers. If the creamery worked out, he’d have found himself a career. For now he had a lab to run, applying his chemistry education. Painkiller haze was coming over Jake. Saving the farm was enough for one day. He wanted to go home.
Poverty hadn’t changed the view. Sonoma was in late dry season, earth in slow fade under a remorseless sun. Jake had missed the green grass of spring and the riot of wild yellow mustard. Now in October, the land was baked to a faded ivory dotted with brown patches. One good cloud-buster would bring renewal, but rain wasn’t likely until mid-November.
His two dairy barns on the crest of a hill grinned defiantly. Jake grinned back.
He and Wally owned it all now, free and clear: his buildings, his manure, his blades of grass. Jake was surprised his throat choked up. For five years, his home had been a billet, a bunk and duffel dumped into a locker or closet.
The pain pills made him think sideways. He might start shouting sonnets. He and Wally hadn’t been roommates for eight years. He waited for Wally to look away and he splashed beer on his small speck of mother earth.
Jake raised his sunglasses and squinted. Behind the barns, the land sloped down in a wide sweep to more pasture. A glint of emerald showed where the grass sipped at a year-round spring, fed by an aquifer with run-off from Sonoma Mountain. His dairy had more green than most. He had deep wells.
Water is life across California farmlands. Jake’s natural spring was like money in the bank. Other dairies were forced to supplement with alfalfa and grain by June. Jake would try to keep Marco’s sheep on grass almost year-round. He made a mental note to check the spring. It had to be kept cleaned out and directed to drain to feed the grass. It was his job and he’d be paid; hell, he’d do it for free.
The fences stood strong; they ran straight and true. None of the outbuildings had collapsed. The barns towered above it all, without paint, framed on thick oak beams and slatted in wide first-cut redwood planks, weather-worn dull gray and contoured to the land.
The sheet-metal roofs, once white, showed bare patches and oxidization. The squat red-brick cottages had wrap-around verandas and overhanging metal roofs in better condition. He saw Sandy’s wash hanging on a line by the upper cottage.
Wally explained that Marco and Sandy had moved in a month earlier. Wally had cleaned the other cottage, where he and Jake had grown up. He donated Jerry’s clothes to Salvation Army and upgraded to dorm deluxe with fresh paint, a coffee maker, new pots and pans, a large computer monitor and no TV.
Up valley, grape growers delighted in Sonoma’s long, dry summers. The wine makers praised the afternoon heat that pushed the sugar in the grapes. They delighted in the morning fog that chilled grapes to a flavorful acid balance. The mineral rich volcanic soil contributed more flavors. Fermentation lifted sugar into alcohol and alcohol into money.
Early morning chill preserved fruitiness before the afternoon sugar race-up. Most mornings, the fog burned off between sun rise and midday. Sonoma winters were gray and wet, with rain blowing in December through March from the Pacific Ocean 20 miles away. Yet winter’s monotony was often broken by crystal bright blue days that made Sonoma almost perfect.
He collected his beers, lifted his kit from the truck and followed Wally into their cottage. The solid wood door opened onto a large living room with a kitchen area across the back wall. Jake took the bedroom on the right, once Jerry’s room, clean and Spartan now. The new bed looked like heaven. Jake pushed it into the corner of the back wall under the window. He jumped into deep, dreamless sleep.
He woke early, before dawn, his body on military time which worked for a sheep-dairy man. He lay awake and listened to the quiet, peppered with gusts that rattled the cottage. He celebrated with a beer and a sandwich.
He tasted ocean salt in the air. The fog carried moisture to wet the grass. He smelled home and childhood, his piece of dirt. It was a civil change from an Army of snores, grunts and farts. He preferred the honest smell of dairy manure to the odor of G.I. barracks.

Huzzah sparkling new readers and authors.

We all have our favorite first sentences from exciting novels, noir and classic. I do too. I’m also a believer that the best first sentence often gets written last, after you know the story flow and ending. Then you write a sterling first sentence that promises at the pleasures the story contains. Even in the best and worst of times (joke).

The first sentence sets the tone. Is it a teaser? An appetizer of flavors to come? A challenge? A reminder? So I got curious.

I wanted to see the first sentence for each chapter in Sonoma Knight: Gurl-Posse Kidnap. It’s a crime thriller, the first paid case of my new PI Jake Knight, a Sonoma dairy farmer and Afghan vet.

I expect Gurl-Posse to be published as an ebook before Christmas. And I bet each first sentence tells a lot of story. Let’s see if I’m right.

C1: Ricky Serrato wheeled the transport van off the rain-slick freeway north of Santa Rosa and steered for the warehouse on the Rancheria.

C2: Wealth made Jake Knight uncomfortable.

C3: As Jake drove his faded Ford F-150 farm truck, the red rust bucket, down Hannah’s manicured drive, he dialed Colonel Harland “Hap” Hazard to debrief.

C4: The next winter storm rolled in dark and wet that evening.

C5: “Flash your lights, Mol.”

C6: “Otter” Arriba, chief field investigator of the Unified Tribes reservation constabulary heard his walkie-talkie squawk: “Shots fired.

C7: Molly roamed the back roads of the reservation in a thunderous downpour.

C8: Deep in a muddy three-acre corn field adjacent his house, Otter sketched a center line through the slop with his shovel at first light.

C9: Serrato stumbled from his cot, walked outside and unlocked the security gate at his warehouse on Sunday morning.

C10: Jake woke at dawn on Sunday morning, opened his laptop and dialed into the server at Hazard Security.

C11: Sunday morning after a shoot-out and Molly was home already – Jake couldn’t believe it.

C12: Serrato approached Jason Tambor’s house in his white Jeep Cherokee.

C13: As Jake cleared Hannah’s drive, he punched speed dial for The Colonel.

C14: Otter drove his black Escalade down the muddy road toward Tambor’s house early Monday morning.

C15: Jake turned into Hannah’s long drive past the open gates.

C16: Jake drove through the rain up the winding road to Tanya’s cottage.

C17: Serrato sat in his office drinking from a half empty bottle of tequila.

C18: Jake wheeled his truck into the gravel parking lot of the United Federation police station five minutes before ten o’clock on Tuesday morning.

C19: The next morning, Jake drove the ten miles from Tanya’s to his sheep dairy to catch up on chores.

C20: At three a.m., Molly woke from a dream and for the first time in her life could not get all the way back in her body.

C21: Valentina and her grandmother dozed in the back seat as Molly and Allie kept their heads together and their voices low.

C22: Serrato sat in darkness in his upstairs office.

C23: Jake sat in the red rust bucket outside Hannah’s house and pulled the laptop from its carrying case.

C24: Hazard had mentioned the Druids Club before.

C25: Serrato turned down Tamarack Lane toward Hannah’s mansion in the early evening twilight and cut his lights.

C26: Serrato drove through the open gate at his warehouse and parked by the door.

C27: Jake raced north on the freeway toward the reservation.

C28: Jake saw the flashing lights of the Sonoma Sheriff’s department cruiser pull into Hannah’s driveway from Molly’s upstairs bedroom window.

C29: Pitt raced his black sedan north on the freeway toward Serrato’s warehouse in the dead of night.

C30: “So what’s next?” Jake asked Pitt.

C31: Jake approached the driver of the DEA Task Force Suburban.

Still with me? Then you have perseverance. So email me for a free review copy of Sonoma Knight: Gurl-Posse Kidnap. PeterPrasad.SF@gmail.com.

And if you’d like to read the book that launched Jake’s career at a PI, find it here. http://dld.bz/cGQGK. Sonoma Knight: The Goat-Ripper Case. Thanks, readers.

After Thanksgiving when new wine rests on the lees at bubbling ferment, family secrets tumble out in a drenching rain, blind to who gets hurt. A drug deal unravels into murder, kidnap and redemption as PI Jake Knight helps his client see the light. Is Molly guilty? How guilty is she?

"My granddaughter is headed for a bad patch, Mr. Knight." ~Hannah Draper
"Drugs? I don’t bother. I’m lifted on love, thanks."~Jake Knight
"A girl with that much money has a target on her back." -Col. Hap Hazard

The Tea and Crackers Campaign
Insane antics in a Florida election, 2014

Here is Henna Rabadel’s coming of age journey, a wry and witty look at the evolving American spirit. Over the summer of 2014, Henna struggles to help her Aunt Veda win election in Florida’s fictional US House District 28. This raucous uphill battle opens her eyes to all that is politics today. Henna’s tale is told with keen observation, outrageous characters and prescient insight, framed in a murder mystery. If you enjoy the blood sport of political campaigns, then join Henna as she matures to realize laughter is her favorite elective balm.

Dedication
Extremism in defense of virtue is no vice. – Barry Goldwater, US presidential candidate 1964. A small man who talked like a tiger, scion of a department store fortune, Arizona senator, first man to put an electronic sun sensor atop his flag pole so the Stars & Stripes rose to salute the dawning day.


Chapter 1

It was wicked hot and unnaturally dark outside as if the stars closed up early. I lifted my head from a sweat-damp pillow and sat up in my own bed at Aunt Veda’s with the window open. Maybe what I heard was a trick of the wind or the whisper of old Seminole spirits. It happened at two o’clock, I know because I looked at my wristwatch. It was a night with no moon in October 2013, nine months before Aunt Veda announced her candidacy.

I swear I woke up before I heard the shot that got Uncle Leland Rabadel, but that’s almost impossible to say. Sound travels for miles on a still night over the swamp, echoing around hammocks and bouncing off the flat shallows. It was a high-powered rifle, that’s what I heard, and the coroner confirmed it, dead center behind the ear, so we had a closed casket ceremony and suffered through nine months of misery.

It was hardest on Aunt Veda, that’s for sure. And I’m confident Unc’s ghost comes by to look in on us now and again. Sometimes I’ll see his face in the wrinkle of a window curtain or sense his presence by how a voter rolls his shoulders before asking a question. Uncle Leland may have leaned on some voters for Veda’s benefit, or plain spooked some into standing in long lines to cast their ballot, at least that was the fruit of my prayers.

Uncle Leland was out in his Boston Whaler with the two Merc engines, cruising at low idle, using his high-beam spotlight to patrol the Tide Swamp a few miles up the coast. He knew the swamp; he knew what he was doing. As a Florida state park ranger, his patrol quadrant covered the wildlife management area around Steinhatchee.

Often he’d patrol down to the Chassahowitzka refuge by Weeki Wachee Gardens, but most nights he stayed close to Deadman Bay. That’s where the big gators were. The name Deadman Bay shows up on old Spanish charts for this section of the Florida Gulf coast, so the bay wasn’t named after him. Unc’ made money for the state by enforcing hunting permits and putting fines on poachers. He always said his job was to use awareness and help interpret man’s foolishness for God’s understanding. But that night the swamp reared up and chewed off his head. Was it poachers, gator hunters or pot runners? It was fifteen months later, after the primary and a nasty general election, that I learned the truth.

It was a hellacious time for all of us Rabadels, pushing a boulder uphill with a bunch of junior varsity retreads, you might say. On the other hand, I did some important growing up. Fact is, it made me a woman. And once I got ahold of my guy -- his name is Jeeter -- it weren’t bad a’tall. Here’d how it all came to be.

***

Aunt Veda’s creaky green breadbasket of a Jeep caterpillar-crawled around another rain pond on the asphalt highway. Had I been driving, I’d be scorching the tarmac and rooster-tailing the dank behind me. The wipers slapped overtime as lightening gutted the sky. I tugged at my bra strap under a red and white hibiscus print dress, the first time I’d worn it since Easter Mass and my high school graduation and the funeral before that. I consider it my misery dress, even though my graduation had been fun. Normally I live in a sports bra and shorts.

Hereabouts in West Florida, the land is dead flat. Aunt Veda drove by hopping from one dry patch to another. It’s no way to outrun a gully-washer in late afternoon. My motto: if you see a dry patch ahead, floor it. But Aunt Veda didn’t drive like that, more like she hikes up her skirts and tippy-toes. For my taste, a good drencher rarely lingers long enough to make a proper flash flood that uproots trees and undermines sinkhole cave-ins. All that downpour drains off into the swamp and out to the Gulf by the next day anyway. And the thunder-drenchers always drag in ferocious heat and humidity behind them, bare-foot and in chains.

A Hare Krishna chant reverberated from Veda’s speakers, all whining harmonium, thumb-tapping drum and dippity-do chanting. Strapped tight in a seat next to Veda, I shimmied and weaved my elbows and shoulders to stay tuned into Kali, the destroyer of worlds. Lord knows, I could have been a belly-dancer in another life. I bet God would have bought a ticket to see me peel through a scarf or two.

Veda didn’t know it but I had a small chaw up under my lip. It made me feel armed and dangerous. Since the age of twelve, five years now, I’d lay a hock of tobacco spit at a guy’s feet and he’d back right off. It works every time, even when I land some on his shoe, especially when we’re outnumbered and about to be grabbed at by a boys’ team at a volleyball tournament. Hell, half the girls on my volleyball squad are chawed up when we board the travel bus. We’re the undefeated warriors hereabouts with a district reputation to maintain. Being called the scary witches of Steinhatchee works for us, plus spitting is fun.

God bless the Steinhatchee Bobcats. I finished my senior year as co-captain. ‘Hammer the Slammer’ my team mates called me, though Henrietta Anthrop Rabadel is my birth certificate name. My friends call me Henna, like the ancient organic hair mix, because I have flaming red hair. Like my forbearers, I have an inch-wide streak of white flowing back from my widow’s peak. It’s genetic, so we can tell who’s who around here.

The Hindu chanting was cranked loud so I didn’t have to sit still. I lifted my hands in a parade of Balinese hand mudra, like egrets rising from the knobby knee of a mangrove tree. It didn’t bother Aunt Veda, she drove wearing large black headphones, ensconced in her affirmations for a better tomorrow. I could have been listening to Prairie Home Companion, it wouldn’t matter. Veda was focused on driving and mouthing platitudes from her latest self-esteem CD from Club Audio Oprah. Maybe it made her feel chawed up in her own way, but never as belligerent as me.

She had a two-handed white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as a rain squall buffeted the Jeep. A howling black hat lightening licker of a storm was trying to blow us off the road. Aunt Veda powered through it, heading for G-string Gainesville, where all the sinners lived. My Aunt Veda, she’d get up extra early to drive across our little redneck town of Steinhatchee, so as not to upset the egg lady. It was the opposite of me, I’d replicate Sherman’s march to the sea, but I loved her for it.

Tea & Crackers Campaign: Chapter 3

It was nine months after Unc’s funeral that Aunt Veda and I drove to G-string Gainesville. She was coming out of her mourning. It was rough watching her work it out. There had been an inquiry, a funeral, an awards ceremony in Tallahassee for her to receive Unc’s distinguished service award in recognition of being killed in the line of duty. It was an open case when we drove to Gainesville.

It took forever for her insurance money to come through, but on the day it did, Aunt Veda stopped drinking vodka, filed for leave of absence from her job as a counselor at the junior college and began making plans to run as a Democrat in gerrymandered U.S. House of Representatives Florida district 28. The district was some bastard concoction from a pointy-head Republican in Tallahassee, where the politicians play with a marked deck that favors Republicans 60-40%. A hundred and fifty years earlier, our habit was to shoot Republicans at the Mason-Dixon line, but times have changed. I never knew Aunt Veda had so much martyr in her, and I doubted her campaign would ever get out of the quagmire with only fifty thousand dollars in financing. But that’s my aunt Veda, a do-gooder with no quit in her.

Her biggest advantage was that she was running against a first term tea party Republican named Earl Tugg. Tugg was a tall, boisterous man that always had a Bible quote chambered and ready to fire. He’d inherited a chain of liquor stores in north Florida, then found Jesus and a new wife. He sold off his holdings and became a tea-totaler with rental incomes. You might say he was a mouthpiece looking for a mantra because he memorized the tea party message lock, stock and barrel. He equated Washington with Hell and Obama with the devil, and he testified for a year in every neighborhood church that would have him, and he won. Then he got to Washington and did nothing at all except broadcast the message of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

My introduction to Tugg was a YouTube video of him working a tea party crowd in a tent at a north Florida fair. He squeezed out a tea bag and put it in his top pocket, where it left a dark stain on his sweaty blue shirt. He fired a fiendish grin at the camera and claimed his heart bled for America and would everyone join his fight to protect the Constitution. I thought it was a cheap stunt, but the crowd loved it. Tugg went back stage and changed his shirt. His campaign manager then auctioned off his tea-stained short for five hundred dollars. I suspect he had a shill in the audience that bid up the price.

The rain let up and the road dried off as we wheeled into Gainesville, a college town overflowing with students, gawkers and God-knows what, all young and excitable. Veda parked at the curb in front of one of those fancy buildings with a brick portico and Greek Ionic columns that made portions of the campus look a white-bread reform school. Two gawkers protected a parking spot for her beside a palm tree. Both had bad acne. I took them to be freshmen, and they didn’t disappoint me. Who else wore khaki slacks and yellow polo shirts? All my friends are the blue jeans and t-shirt crowd.

One of the pimply-faced college kids opened the door for me and eyed me hard as I straightened out my red hibiscus dress. He smirked, so I leaned forward and landed a tobacco juice goober right on the top of his yellow canvas shoe. My goober was nasty brown. He jumped back so fast he tripped on the curb and landed on his butt. I must have had extra juice that night; it’s rare I can knock a guy off his feet.

Once we got past the wrought-iron security gate and the brick portico, Dr. Thetis Spector and his wife Marge welcomed us into their stately Colonial door. Dr. Spector towered over his wife, a tall, gangly man with spidery long fingers and curly nut-brown hair bunched like a halo around his mostly bald dome. He had huge hands, a firm handshake, a red face and a rich, warm voice. I guessed he was in his sixties, and saw he needed to trim his nose hairs. Veda said he headed up the university’s political science department, and chaired the local Democratic Party. Marge was dressed in Birkenstocks, casual stretch jeans, a red silk blouse with a string of misshapen pearls and gold hoop earrings. Her hair was the same color, pecan-brown with lots more curls.

Their spacious living room vibrated with a mix of passionate beliefs, loud conversation and Dave Brubeck jazz. Eager young couples crowded onto three orange couches around a coffee table covered with paper cups and bowls of pretzels. Behind them a few rows of folding chairs were mostly taken by keen young Democrats. Standing by a wall of glass windows were a group of senior men in suits. The air conditioning was turned up high and kept the room habitable. Outside, patio lights illuminated ferns and rose bushes, damp from the rain.

Aunt Veda followed Dr. Spector around the room, shaking hands and making small talk. She projected a calm concern and interest in everyone. Dr. Spector leaned in to give her background on each person she met. Dr. Spector acted like Veda’s advisor and mentor, which made me a little jealous. I began to worry about securing a safe position on Veda’s campaign. I was too young to vote and was afraid I’d get skipped over entirely.

Veda worked the room, rubbing elbows and getting the lay of the political landscape. I was surprised how many people she seemed to know. I’d forgotten about Veda’s years of working on steering committees, environmental groups and educational outreach, plus all the counseling she’d done. Now I could see her years of political activity were steering her toward trying to win the lottery. I guessed that most of the couples were university faculty, and all the singles were students representing various interest groups and campus clubs. I wandered over to the self-serve bar stocked with beer and jug wine.

This was my first proper political meet-and-greet. What galled me most was I felt over-dressed. In fact, Veda and I were the only women in dresses. I fetched Veda a bottle of spring water off the bar and poured myself a cup of beer.

Marge snuck up behind me and took it away. She didn’t say anything rude; instead she smiled at me. “I understand you’re quite the volleyball star,” she said.

I grunted and eyed a diet cola can. “Undefeated last year. I was co-captain of the Steinhatchee Bobcats.” I watched her hand my beer to another student who didn’t look much older than me. I wondered if Marge could remember back to when she had a teen-aged obsession for free beer.

“And you’ve got a couple of local colleges talking scholarship?”

“Yep, University of Florida and Florida State in Tallahassee, but I haven’t decided yet. I have to pass a physical exam scheduled for next week,” I said.

“That would be so wonderful for you,” Marge said, smiling brightly. “The University of Florida would be lucky to have you on their team.” When she said that, I decided I liked her. “You know we’re very fond of your aunt Veda. I think she’ll be a fine candidate for us.”

“Have you known Veda for long?”

“More than five years. I consider her and your uncle friends. Thetis was planning to run Leland in the race, but then with the accident, Veda stepped in.”

I gave her a sharp look. “It weren’t no accident. He was murdered. And one of my duties will be to catch the guy that did it.”

Marge took a step back, then reached out and touched my arm. “I am truly sorry for your loss. Your Uncle Leland was a wonderful man.”

“Yes, he was. We all miss him something terrible,” I said and looked down at my shoes. Marge squeezed my elbow again and let her hand linger there. I looked up and asked her point-blank, “So, do you think Veda can win?”

“It’ll be a tough race and lots has to go right, like not having a young member of Veda’s family get in trouble for under-age drinking,” Marge said. That’s when I looked at her and smiled and reached for the diet soda can.

“You know, Florida is changing, and the District is changing with it,” Marge said. “We have lots of retirees now, and young urban families that haven’t been represented by the old crackers in the boonies. If we can get those folks to vote for the future instead of for a party or a principle, we have a good chance. I believe Veda Rabadel can represent that spirit of change and made a solid run against Tugg.”

“My Aunt Veda is going to work her ass off,” I said.

“It’s nice to see a qualified woman elbowing her way to the table,” Marge replied. These political folks speak in metaphors that I’d have to learn. And if Veda needed someone to do some elbowing for her, I decided I wanted to do that too. Marge wandered off, with a fresh glass of white wine, and I watched Aunt Veda hop from one special interest group to another. She favored the women over the men, but was polite and interested in everyone.

Three gals in black leather jackets cornered Veda for a few minutes. One of them went off on her, rising her voice, saying her human rights were being violated. Veda nodded and asked her to be patient, reminding her that change takes time. Having met the candidate, the black leather jackets returned to the bar and finished the red wine. One of them smiled at me and looked me over pretty good. I saw too much hunger in her eyes, so I wandered back into the crowd. Later, each of the leather jacket gals dropped a twenty dollar bill into the ice bucket when Dr. Spector passed the hat.

I circulated among the Gator Nation t-shirts and met representatives from Open Internet, Environmental Gainesville, Save the Suwanee, and the medical marijuana initiative. Each ranted at me about their issue. “It’s critical to the voters and the District,” I was told. Each group wanted to know Veda’s position. I escaped each time by saying, “You’ll want to ask her yourself, but I’ll let her know you were here.”

The college crowd liked Aunt Veda. She didn’t go school-marmish on them and stuck to her positions: family, jobs, education and the environment. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my red dress, though three wives chatted with me and commented on how exciting politics can be. Each wanted a woman in the campaign and said they’d give Veda their support. No one offered me a drink, so I circled back for a bottle of spring water and managed to ditch my chaw by spitting into an empty cup when no one was looking.

Perhaps I was feeling some regret, so I walked up to the pimply kid that had saved a parking place for us. I handed him a napkin and pointed out that what was on his shoe didn’t belong inside the house. He mumbled, looked down, blushed and grew more red bumps on his face. I guessed he was a freshman there for brownie points with his professor. He didn’t have the good looks of a politician and had no charisma, being all Adam’s apple.

I handed him my email sign-up sheet. His name was Rusty, a political science major, so he was older than a freshman. Dr. Spector was his favorite professor, and giving extra credit for students that worked on Veda’s campaign. Rusty volunteered to build a website for Veda, and wanted to help me with the email list. I circulated for a while and collected fifty three names.

After small talk and mingling, Dr. Spector hushed everyone up, cleared his throat and asked for attention. As a professor, he couldn’t help but profess himself. He launched into a short lecture on the roots of America, the importance of the two party system, the need to represent all voices, and to create a government that represented all kinds of people. Most importantly, he stressed the value of a good education if you wanted a decent job, and he said the University of Florida was a great place to do that. Then he got around to introducing Veda.

“Many of you have taken time to meet Veda Rabadel by now, but let me introduce her to you again. Veda is a native daughter of District 28. She hails from down on the coast there at Steinhatchee. In fact her family go back several generations.”

“Aw hell, further back than that. She’s got Seminole blood. Plus some swamp skunk. You can tell by the white stripe in her auburn hair. So she’s ready to stomp that tea party carpet-bagger who’s making a laughing stock of our state.” The comment came from a tall, walnut-faced man leaning on the bar. He wore his black hair in a ponytail, and shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable speaking in public. His dark jacket, hand-stitched with a bright pattern of horizontal stripes in a narrow zigzags, identified him as a Seminole Indian. Dr. Specter smiled at the interruption; Veda nodded at him and absent-mindedly patted her hair. I made a mental note to remember to ask her who he was.

“Veda Rabadel is an honored member of our community,” Dr. Spector said, back on track. “She’s been a school teacher, a junior college counselor, and is the widowed wife of a Florida state park ranger. She is a humanitarian, a people person, a true Democrat concerned with the well-bring of all Americans. And she is an environmentalist, having grown up in pristine swamp country. Tonight, Veda Courtney Rabadel is pleased to announce her candidacy for District 28’s US House of Representatives seat. With your help, and we need all of you, we can unseat incumbent Republican, Earl 'room-temperature IQ' Tugg.” Most of the crowd snickered at that. “If any of you have met Earl, then I know Veda Rabadel can count on your support.”

The gathering clapped, several hooted and Dr. Spector sat down. I nudged Aunt Veda forward and she sipped from her spring water. If she didn’t burst into tears, I knew she’d be all right.

“Firstly, let me thank you all for coming out tonight.” Veda took her time and made lots of eye contact. “While I may be new to politics, and some of you may wish it was my husband Leland standing here, I’m willing to take his place and be your candidate, and be your representative in Washington. I’ve been looking after Florida, her land and her people, all my life. I know the issues and I grew up in District 28. As a school teacher, I believe in the power of homework, and I’ve been done my homework. And, yes, I hope you’ll vote for me.”

I watched my aunt blink a few times, then I saw her face harden. In a stronger voice, she began again. “Our freshman representative, Republican Earl Tugg, is an embarrassment to us all. He doesn’t represent the interests of anyone in this room. He represents the do-nothing Republicans and the always-say-no tea party faction that has no platform and no agenda. He represents the special interests of a few billionaires that finance his campaign. He votes “no” on everything. Even worse, his tea party is holding the Republican Party hostage, and so we have gridlock in Washington. That’s unconscionable. When you elect a person to go do a job, they’re supposed to do it, not grandstand, make lunatic statements, and try to shut down government.

“Now many of you know politics is all about money. To date, Earl has half a million dollars in campaign funds from tea party PACs. Those PACs are funded by libertarian billionaires. He gets to keep it as long as he wins reelection and does what Karl Rove tells him to do.” I watched an elegant, dark complexioned man with brushed back black hair in a cream colored suit adjust his necktie and look uncomfortable. He sat next to the best dressed woman in the room. I squinted; she might have been wearing a diamond choker. I wasn’t sure; I’d never seen one before.

Veda continued: “Shut down government. Throw his weight around. Hold the middle-of-the-road Republicans hostage. Take no prisoners. Disrespect the President. That’s no way to represent the state of Florida. Earl Tugg wants to bankrupt social service programs, cancel your medical coverage, restrict the right to vote to property owners, and keep your head buried in the sand.”

Veda shook her head and sized up the room. I sensed she was getting ready to really let loose. This was more fire in her than I’d seen for months. “Earl Tugg is the absence of leadership. He thinks the Rapture is coming for him before his term expires. Well, I’d like to see him gone that quickly.”

People laughed at that. One of the gals in a black leather jacket folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. I saw her mouth the words, “Ain’t going.”

“I ache for our Florida. We’ve become the laughing stock of the nation by hanging chad, disenfranchising voters, gerrymandering districts, and running candidates with a ‘do-nothing’ agenda from the tea party. And now we find some of our local policemen are closet members of the Ku Klux Klan.” Veda stared at her audience and shook her head.

“That’s not public service. That’s not what we elect these people to go to Washington to do for us. And this has got to stop. So I want you to join me, get angry as all hell and tell your friends to vote for me.” The room burst into applause.

Tea & Crackers Campaign: Chapter 4

Veda was smart about making a graceful exit and leave her audience wanting more. She took another lap around the room, chatting with enthusiastic supporters. Dr. Spector followed behind her with an ice bucket asking for campaign donations. Marge got faculty wives to volunteer for committee work. She and Dr. Spector would officially run the campaign, as they spoke about filing dates and such things with Veda. I got busy with my email sign-up sheet again, and gave it to one of the faculty wives who made a copy by photographing it with her phone. Veda thanked them all again for their organization and support, and we headed out the door.

As we left Dr. Spector’s house, Veda and I had our first real conversation about the campaign. Now that I’d seen her in action, I had a better sense of what she intended to do. First we stopped at the bank so Veda could put her donations in the night deposit. I endorsed each check with Elect Veda Rabadel, District 28 Campaign, and the account number, and we kept the cash for gas and traveling money. Veda handed me a small notebook to use as a three column donations and expense log. Later she wanted the numbers copied into a spreadsheet. In all, she’d raised more than two thousand dollars, with five hundred coming from one donor, a sugar magnate, the dark haired man whose wife wore the diamond choker. We were far from the five hundred thousand dollars Tugg was sitting on, but it was a start. Veda reviewed my columns of entries, initialed and dated the page and I ran the envelope to the deposit box.

As we drove out of the parking lot, I asked her, “So how are you going to win?”

“Henna, I don’t know if I can, but we’ve got to try.”

“Why try if you don’t think you can win?” I fired right back.

“Well, some things have to be said, discussed in the public arena. At least I know I can do that and give a good public airing to the issues that concern me and some of the people you met tonight.”

“That’s like playing volleyball to make the air more breathable by knocking pollution out of the sky.”

“What?” Veda paused for a minute and laughed.

“So tell me again, how are you going to win?”

“Florida is a swing state,” Veda began again. “And lots of people are embarrassed by the way the governor and his Republican legislature have been running things. We need to capitalize on that dissatisfaction. Also, the district has been Democrat for generations. Then it got gerrymandered into a safe Republican district. Then the dumbest possible Republican got elected.”

“Gerrymander, like salamander, like alligators, right?” I asked, trying to keep it light.

Veda smiled and shook her head. “Look it up,” she said.

The immensity of her candidacy suddenly hit me. If it worked out, it would change my life. I assumed it would be a change for the better, but I really had no idea. I was lost in dreams of volleyball and working at the general store when Veda asked, “You want a job? You can be my campaign aid or researcher or something.”

I held up my list of fifty-three new email names. “Already on it.”

“So, to start, provide me some talking points and facts for my speeches, and do some competitive analysis on what the other side is saying and doing?”

“I get paid?”

“Free room and board.”

“I got that already,” but I said it with a smile.

“Well, I’ll buy you a laptop computer if you can give me facts to build into my speeches,” she offered, “and manage my email list to voters.”

“With your insurance money?”

“Yes, then you’ve got something that can take you to college other than a volleyball.”

“Balling is not so bad.”

“What?”

“Joking. Sure, I’ll do it. But Aunt Veda, I’m different than you.”

“I know you are. I’m doing it because some of these things have to be said. Your uncle was fond of saying it’s our human responsibility to the leave the world a better place than when we found it.”

“Yep, I guess so, but I’m a little too young for that. I’m a jock; you’re a teacher; Unc’ was a warrior for planet earth.”

“So how does that make us different?”

“Real simple,” I said. “I love you, but you’re mostly in your head. Me, I just want to win.”

“Well, I could do with some of that.”

“Then bring it on, Congresswoman. We have 144 days to slam-dunk Tugg. He’s such a mule-faced corn cob, he’s got no chance.”

“Please don’t talk like that.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Veda, I’ll only tell the truth around you.”

Veda wiped away a tear. Maybe it was my mention of Unc’. That topic was emotional quicksand, and I’d have to remember never to remind her of her sadness. And it was her first tear all day; she was improving. She parked at a big box computer store outside Gainesville. “Let’s get you that laptop computer, then.”

Inside, we ran into the political science student whose shoe I spit on. He got excited when Veda pulled out her plastic. I had a shiny new laptop with an Internet subscription and a satellite dish to mount on the roof. Veda said she’d call one of the Askaloosa brothers to come over and install the dish. And that’s how I met my Jeeter. I could have climbed that ladder myself, but I was learning how a woman can act weak and useless to get a man to do her bidding.

As I was walking out, the pimple-faced kid insisted on carrying my laptop to the car.

“You a registered Democrat?”

“Not yet, but I intend to do it,” he said.

“Tell ya what,” I offered, “you register and get ten of your friends from the store to register too and I’ll put you on my campaign mailing list.”

“Deal,” he said.

“You ever won anything before?”

"No.”

“Great. I like working with political virgins.”

"Takes one to know one,” he said.

I smiled and shook his hand. Soon enough my smile would turn into a smirk, and my years of innocence would be over. Don’t worry; the pimply-faced kid had nothing to do with it, though he did prove to be a valuable geek resource. He got Veda’s campaign website built in three days.

Tea & Crackers Campaign: Chapter 5

My brain was burning and the information overload thrilled me. I’d been up most of three nights on the Internet, reading everything from Mother Jones to the Drudge Report and Wikipedia. Once I got into the Florida Secretary of State’s public campaign records, I began taking notes. I boned up on how to run a grassroots campaign, read about the birth of the Tea Party, where their money comes from, and who all of Congressman Tugg’s donors were – realtors, airplane manufacturers, the religious right and the tobacco lobby. I even got the address of his rental houses in Ocala and thought about lighting one on fire. When I mentioned that to Jeeter, he talked me out of it, saying Tugg was probably insured.

After seeing Jeeter up on the roof with his shirt off to install my satellite dish, I made sure I had his cell phone number. He even offered it, in case the satellite dish needed adjustment or a stiff wind turned it crooked. I couldn’t help myself; I began having little problems with dish reception on a daily basis which gave me good reason to chat with Jeeter on the phone.

I nailed the cardboard box from my new computer to the wall and used a magic marker to create a campaign calendar. The critical dates were August twenty-sixth for the primary election and November second for the general election. I also put a sign on my bedroom door: Congresswoman Rabadel’s Campaign War Room. Now, if the Tea Party wanted to shoot a missile at me, they’d know where to find me.

After one of my famous ninety minute cat naps, I went for coffee downstairs. Gramm was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Veda went out to another meeting. She said I was to let her research assistant sleep in.” Gramm was smoking a joint and polishing a tray of silver jewelry. She liked to dress up as a Seminole elder on Saturdays and sell trinkets to tourists up from Gainesville and from as far away as Tampa or Pensacola. If they bought a bangle, she’d let them take her picture for free.

I poured a cup of chicory coffee and made oatmeal. “I’m on a volleyball training diet until I pass the physical next week.”

“Decided who you’ll play for yet?”

“I think I’ll decide for University of Florida. I’ll be working the campaign in Gainesville this summer and I’m getting to know people on campus.”

"So be careful not to put honey on your oatmeal. I dissolve my magic mushrooms in the honey jar.”

I covered my oatmeal with brown sugar and a sliced banana. “Good to know, Gramm. College athletes get tested for all kinds of drugs.”

“So you’re going to help Veda win the election?” Gramm seemed surprisingly clear-headed.

“It’s my new summer job, helping with research and talking points. And I’m digging for dirt on Tugg. I’ve got a new need for political news. I like seeing Veda in campaign mode. She speaks well and gets people excited.”

"That she does. It’ll be a good way for you to learn how things work around here. The Rabadels have lived in Steinhatchee for generations, and we’ve always worked to make this part of Florida special.”

“Your husband started the marina, and sold it, right? And his father before him planted much of the citrus groves around here, right?”

“Right, and before that we were fishermen and farmers going back to the Seminole Wars. Rumor was a Rabadel ran with Andy Jackson but I’ve never been able to research that accurately.”

“Maybe I can do it on my computer, Gramm.” She smiled and offered me a pull on her joint but I waved her off. “I have to be careful not to get Veda in any trouble by being caught doing under-age drinking or things like that.”

"Hell, no one around here is going to arrest me.” Gramm grinned devilishly. I imagined that was true. She had her ways of flowing around obstacles and always landing on her feet. Also, she owned the Steinhatchee General Store and gave everyone credit. Most folks in the vicinity worshiped her for that. The store was the only place to get a cold beer for twenty miles, and no one wanted to lose that. I’d worked behind the cash register many a hot afternoon.

Gramm would occasionally throw some young kid out, and deny him service, usually for messing up the girly magazines. If she knew the family, she might threaten to cut off his older brothers too. That always brought a parent around with their child in tow to apologize. That’s how Gramm kept the peace hereabouts.

“It’s good for Veda to find something she has passion for. This election may get her fired up and bring her out of her sadness about losing your Uncle Leland. So we have to help her anyway we can, and be prepared. If she loses she might suffer a let-down.”

“Yes, it’s crossed my mind, but we’ve got to try. All of us. She did well with the folks in Gainesville and we’re getting organized.”

“And well you should be,” Gramm declared. “Old Tugg is going to bite into this district like an old gator and be tough as hell to beat. He’ll roll and scratch and bite like swamp vermin, and stay in the good graces of the crackers up north of here. We’ve got to get people riled up and willing to vote for change.”

“How do we do that, Gramm?”

“Don’t know yet, but keep a watchful eye out. The issues and opportunity will come along, and when they do, we have to jump aboard. Meanwhile I think I’ll start sponsoring some bingo and domino tournaments at the senior centers in the district.”

“Lots of those seniors like to vote absentee and mail their ballots early, Gramm.”

“Well, now you’re thinking, child. Maybe bingo for Veda will get people talking.”

“I like that, Gramm. Bingo for Veda.”

“Bingo for Veda,” she repeated and then cackled. She had a shine in her eyes by then. It made me feel good as I could see the Rabadel women getting organized behind their candidate.