“Not really. We had a talk a little while ago. I think he learned a thing or two.”
“Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks,” Willis said with a grin.
“Maybe,” I said, grinning back. “As long as one of those tricks is putting the toilet seat down, we’ll be fine.”
We laughed as we walked back to the patrol car. I stopped at the door and looked back at the grave, where three filmy images of old woman wavered in the wind. The Dead Old Ladies’ Detective Agency had helped solve their first case, and even if it didn’t end happily for everyone, it did end, and we did put Jenny Miller to her heavenly rest. I had to count that as a win, I decided.
Then I slid into the passenger seat of the sheriff’s car and let my boyfriend drive me home, the first time that had happened in my fifty-seven years. I guess that was another win, this one for the Living Old Lady.
* * *
THE END
Author’s Note
Let’s get this out of the way—none of the people in this story are real. Okay, maybe it’s better to say that all of the people in this story are real, but not in a bad way. This version of Lockhart, which is about nine miles from where I grew up in rural South Carolina, is actually a mashup of the real Lockhart, where my dad’s cousin Johnny Thomas ran the barber shop where we got our hair cut, with a healthy dose of Sharon, the town where I went to church and elementary school, and a little bit of York, all mixed in together.
The closest thing to real people in here are the Grapevine ladies. My mother, Frances Hartness, along with Faye Russell, and Helen Good were the network for all news in Western York County for decades. Mama held down the very tip of the Western triangle, with Miss Helen (“Tot”) in the middle of Sharon, and Miss Faye covering the Hickory Grove end of the news. All of these women were married, but in the 70s and 80s in the rural South, you just referred to these women as “Miss First Name.” It was the same as calling them “Aunt Faye” or “Aunt Helen,” which I certainly would have felt perfectly natural doing. Miss Faye is the only one of the trio still around, after Miss Tot’s passing last year and my mother’s death two years prior, but she’s still spry and sharp as a whip, as we say.
None of my family talk to dead people. Well, I was being completely sincere about one thing—all Southerners talk to dead people, and country folk more than most. So pretty much everyone in my family talks to dead people. Just for us, they don’t talk back. A lot of times I wish they would.
So, this was in no way intended to mock small town Southern life. It’s much more a love letter to the people who raised me, who taught me how to take care of people, how to respect people, and how to be proud of where you’re from. Because I am proud of growing up a country boy. I still drive my pickup truck, call my daddy “sir,” and pull over to the side of the road when a funeral procession comes along. And my tea will always be sweet, thank you very much.
So I want to thank the people that didn’t even know they contributed to this book: Dr. Clyde & Nora Mitchum, Nora Jean Hope, Hazel Montgomery, Bonnie & Jean Dowdle, Faye & Margaret Hood, Bill & Lib Shillinglaw, Bo & Henny Mickle, and so many more. I appreciate the lessons they taught me. I haven’t forgotten where I came from, and I never will.
* * *
<<<<>>>>
Acknowledgments
Thanks as always to Melissa Gilbert for all her help, and for trying in vain to teach me where the commas go.
The following people help me bring this work to you by their Patreon-age. You can join them at Patreon.com/johnhartness.
Sean Fitzpatrick
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Wendy Kitchens
Andrew Bolyard
Darrell Grizzle
Lawrence Nash
Delia Houghland
Douglas Park Jr.
Travis & Casey Schilling
Michelle E. Botwinick
Carol Baker
Leonard Rosenthol
Lisa Hodges
Patrick Dugan
Leia Powell
Noella Handley
Butch Howard
Bob
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Recommendations
If you like the Southern flavor of this book, I highly recommend Touch: a Trilogy -
* * *
Touch: A Trilogy
A.G. Carpenter
* * *
"I loved this novella series. Brooding, earthy, whispering to us with a delicious mood of creeping dread while filling the heart with a pure sense of wonder." – Charles de Lint, World Fantasy Award Winning Author of Moonlight & Vines and The Blue Girl.
* * *
Magic and madness don't always run hand in hand, but there's a reason they call it the Touch.
Delaney Green is one of them that don’t burn, not that no one ain’t never tried. After her mama tried and failed to murder her for pulling on the future like it was a piece of string, Del has spent her whole life in a mental institution for her own safety. And everyone else’s. No one wants to see what might happen if she goes cracked.
When a dozen young women turn up burned to a crisp, local folks are quick to point the FBI team investigating the supernatural killings straight at Del. But Percival Cox, the quiet agent with secrets and magic of his own, doesn’t see a monster, and he finds himself drawn toward Del and her strange abilities.
As Del struggles to keep their newfound love from going the way of Romeo and Juliet, but with less fancy speech and a lot more killing, she’ll cross from this life to the next, and back. Her daddy always said, once you see the future you can change it, and Del will do her damnedest to temper the wild magic she sees in Percy before he destroys them both.
* * *
"Powerful, haunting, and beautifully written, the TOUCH trilogy will remain with you long after you have turned the last page. A.G. Carpenter blends Southern Gothic voice with the pacing and tone of an urban fantasy, to create something that is uniquely her own. Read this." -- David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson, Compton Crook Award Winning author of Thieftaker and Spell Blind.
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About the Author
John G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the best-selling author of EPIC-Award-winning series The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, a comedic urban fantasy ser
ies that answers the eternal question “Why aren’t there more fat vampires?” In July of 2016. John was honored with the Manly Wade Wellman Award by the NC Speculative Fiction Foundation for Best Novel by a North Carolina writer in 2015 for the first Quincy Harker novella, Raising Hell.
In 2016, John teamed up with a pair of other publishing industry ne’er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a publishing company dedicated to pushing the boundaries of literature and entertainment.
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and getting caught in the rain. An avid Magic: the Gathering player, John is strong in his nerd-fu and has sometimes been referred to as “the Kevin Smith of Charlotte, NC.” And not just for his girth.
Find out more about John online
www.johnhartness.com
http://www.subscribepage.com/g8d0a9
Also by John Hartness
The Black Knight Chronicles - Omnibus Edition
Paint it Black
In the Still of the Knight
Man in Black
* * *
Scattered, Smothered, & Chunked - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season One
Grits, Guns, & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season Two
Wine, Women, & Song - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 3
* * *
Year One: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Collection
The Cambion Cycle - Quincy Harker, Year Two
* * *
Queen of Kats Book I - Betrayal
Queen of Kats Book II - Survival
* * *
From the Stone
The Chosen
Falstaff Books
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Copyright © 2017 by John G. Hartness
Cover by Natania Barron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental. Except that bit about that guy. That’s totally a thing. No, it’s not really a thing. Come on, do you think I’d admit it here if it was really a thing? Give me a little credit. Jeez.
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