Fly Like a Bird

CHAPTER 3: THE COOKIE JAR VIOLATION

Chapter 3THE COOKIE JAR VIOLATION

That night, Uncle Tommy and Reuben Smith, a local farmer, bowled and drank rounds of beer at the Blue Moon Bowling Alley and Bar. The corrugated tin structure with a flickering blue neon crescent moon included a bar, ten bowling lanes, and three pool tables against the wood-paneled wall by the snack bar. Charlie Carter, the deputy sheriff, joined them. There wasn’t much of a need for police in such a small town as Coffey and since Charlie lived there, he became the only law enforcement in town. At Conrad’s insistence, the town gave Charlie an office in the bottom of the courthouse with a couple of cells.

Uncle Tommy put down his beer mug and rubbed his balding head. “I heard Walter had Luther build him a new shelf for his dang cookie jars today. He’s over at my mother’s playing cards tonight.” He stood up and slapped his hands. “Let’s go mess up his veg-ta-bles.”

Reuben Smith drank the rest of his beer and wiped his foamy mouth on the short sleeve of his green and yellow bowling shirt. He wound up, hiking his leg up like a pitcher on a baseball mound, and threw his bowling ball down the lane. It hit the center pin.

“STEE-RIKE!” he shouted. His sunburned ears stuck out beneath Reuben’s John Deere cap. “I’m right behind you.”

Charlie Carter, who was an old high school buddy of Reuben and Uncle Tommy waved them off. “You go on. I think I’ll stay put and keep your seats warm for you at the bar.” He sniffed. “Can’t be involved in such mischief, considering I am the deputy sheriff and all.”

“You never cared about the law when you were a kid,” Tommy said.

Charlie’s jowls lifted in a smirk. His bristly dark hair showed an unusual solitary patch of white hair starting at his forehead like a thin streak of lightning through the middle of his head. Aunt Hattie called Charlie’s patch of white hair “the mark of the devil.” The sheriff scratched the snowy patch of his crewcut. “Well, come back and let me know how it all comes out.”

When they got to the trailer Reuben took out his pocketknife and picked the lock that Luther had installed on Uncle Walter’s door that very morning. The drunken intruders staggered into the tidy trailer. As Reuben stumbled toward the shelf of cookie jars, he tripped on a mousetrap concealed under the skirt of the avocado-green recliner.

He hopped around the trailer trying to shake off the mousetrap snagged on his boot. His wild jumping made him dizzy. The mousetrap flew off and he fell into Uncle Tommy, who fell into the flimsy paneled wall. The bump shook the small trailer. The zucchini cookie jar tumbled from the newly built shelf and shattered into tiny shards of green vegetable ceramic.

He shook his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Walter’s got so many dadburn vegetables, he won’t notice if one’s missing.” Uncle Tommy flipped his finger at the broken cookie jar and wrinkled his nose. “What was that green thing supposed to be anyway?”

Reuben hooked his thumbs around his overall straps and kicked at the broken pieces with his big farmer’s boot. “Zucchini. My zucchinis won first prize over at the county fair two summers ago.”

Reuben liked to tell Ivy how he’d been a farmer all his life. He grew abundant crops of corn and soybeans and had a big garden with all kinds of exceptionally large vegetables which won blue ribbons every year at the McKinley County Fair. The extraordinarily large crops grew in the fertile fields directly behind his house. He swore his high-yield crops resulted from his expert farming methods, but many local people believed that his crops grew so large because dead bodies lay buried beneath his fields. The fact that the Weeping Willow Cemetery at Deadman’s Woods was a short distance away only added to the spooky rumors.

For decades, he had farmed the acreage that belonged to his family. But the family line stopped with Reuben. As much as he wanted them, he and his wife had no children.

The two tipsy friends swept up the remains of the ceramic zucchini and buried the evidence of their crime in the trailer park dumpster so Walter wouldn’t be tipped off to the zucchini murder. Then they headed back to the Blue Moon to tell the sheriff and their drinking buddies about their latest hilarious prank.

As they snuck past the window of Bertha Tuttle’s doublewide trailer next door, the red gingham curtains moved a little.

Later that night, Uncle Walter and Ivy came back to his trailer to get more bottles of Dr. Pepper for their weekly Saturday game night at Grandma Violet’s house. As soon as they walked in the door, Uncle Walter stopped.

“Ivy, my trailer’s been violated again.” He pointed to his green recliner, which was never out of place. “Somebody moved my chair.”

Ivy grabbed Uncle Walter’s arm and looked up at him with her blue eyes. Her nose twitched. “It smells like Uncle Tommy in here. It was him and Reuben again, wasn’t it?”

Uncle Walter pursed his lips. He sniffed the air. “Yep, that’s the stink of Old Sage.”

After a quick roll call of Uncle Walter’s cookie jars, they discovered the zucchini, the last vegetable in the alphabet, was missing.

“First my eggplant and now my zucchini. Cookie jars aren’t safe in this world anymore and no number of locks can keep Tommy from his mischief.”

Uncle Walter picked up a small ceramic fragment off the floor. He showed Ivy the broken bit of zucchini, resting it in the palm of his well-manicured hand. “Evidence of foul play.”

Ivy hugged him. “I’m sorry, Uncle Walter. Why can’t Uncle Tommy and Reuben just leave you alone?”

Uncle Walter ran his hand through his thick black hair. “It’s hard for Tommy to let a good rivalry die.” He shrugged with a heavy, exasperated sigh. “And Reuben, well, he’s just Reuben.”