[Exotic, Juvenile, Carefully, Possessions, Neglect]

  When I had enough oxygen and could finally speak, I blurted out.

  “Faith, someone may be trying to kill you.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill me, Laura? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I don’t know everything about your life, so I can’t say for sure that anyone is. But the back window in my car was shot out, and a round little hole was made straight through the headrest. Can I please have a sip of water?”

  I was still breathing heavily. I’m a big walker, usually an hour or more a day all in one shot. No step tracker at all. If I track anything it, time and possibly distance if I’m hiking a trail with a posted mileage. Faith handed me her extra water bottle and I took a big swig. I began again.

  “Faith, one person that would benefit from your death is Jones. He’d avoid a trial, he’d avoid losing, he’d avoid getting fired again in less than a week. I know he is a horrible cop, but is he so bad that he’ll kill to keep his job? I just don’t know. People kill for money, you don’t have any so that motive is out. For sex? Maybe you did wound Jone’s ego that is for sure. People murder for power. If he kills you, he keeps his badge and authority. There would be no trial to clear your name. Would he kill to keep from getting embarrassed again? I just don’t know.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “If it is Jones, we just need to keep you alive until the trial has begun. He can’t very well come into court and kill you. Not only would he lose his badge, he’d go to prison. So like I say if it is him, less than two days from now, you’ll be in court. You haven’t had any romantic relationships go bad lately have you?”

  “Just Lachlan when he was murdered.”

  “No, honey I mean before Lachlan, someone who may not know that Lachlan is dead.”

  “No, I haven’t had any serious relationships in quite a while. I’m focused on school and the firehouse. I want to become a professional fire fighter. So I don’t want to fall in love in Lake Placid, give up my dream, stay here only to have my relationship fall apart somewhere down the line. Then I’m still in Placid, with no career. I love Placid, the mountains, but there is no opportunity here for me. The best case scenario for me is getting a job in a firehouse in Burlington. The Green mountains aren’t the Adirondacks but they are the next best thing. Albany is my second choice. It's only a few hours drive away with the northway, so I’d be back a lot.”

  “Alright, we’ll work on who is trying to kill you later, they may even think that you are already dead. But we need to get down off this mountain. When we are close to the trailhead, I’ll scout ahead. We’ll go down as quietly as we possibly can. If we hear someone approaching and we can get off the trail we will.”

  We started down the trail, straining to hear the approach of other hikers or potential killers. We walked slowly and as silently as possible. I heard a pair of women giggling as they were coming up the trail. I was sure that a killer stalking his prey wouldn’t be giggling and chatting with someone else on the trail. So we just kept going straight down the path.

  Two young women rounded a bend and were standing in front of us.

  “Hi, you haven’t seen any hunters have you? I could have sworn that I heard a gun shot just a little while ago.”

  “No, you are the first people that we’ve seen since starting to hike. Is it a nice view from the top, today?”

  “Oh, yeah a beautiful view. Have fun.” I lied, no reason to tell them we were fleeing for our lives. Unless it was a poacher, with a really bad aim. We kept up our descent, slowly and quietly. But I was really pleased to hear that we might be alone out here. We didn’t see or hear anymore hikers on the way down. But it took a lot longer than it normally would have taken, due to our caution.

  When we had made it almost all the way back to the trail head, I took Faith’s backpack and went right to the parking area. There was only one car there, it was empty and it felt safe to assume that it belonged to the two girls we’d met. I never locked my car, and with the shot out rear window, locking it would just mean that whoever wanted into the car would crawl through the back window frame. I put Faith’s backpack on the floor in the backseat.

  Then I went back into the woods, told Faith it was all clear. Faith crawled into the back seat lying down on the bench seat. I closed the door. I had the thought that now if the sniper was still out there and they knew that Faith was lying in the backseat the only way to get to her was to kill the driver and then just keep the car covered until Faith emerged. I didn’t like that thought as I was the driver that would be killed, so I tried to banish it. But once a thought gets in your head it’s not easy to banish it. Especially if it’s a thought you really don’t want to have. It’s even worse with an eidetic memory. There is no way to banish anything.

  Ever since I was a kid, I always wondered what would happen if my brain was completely filled up with memories. Would I lose the oldest memory to make room for the new. Or would I be unable to form new memories because there was no place to put them and no way to banish old memories. Would I become like Drew Barrymore in Fifty First Dates? Most people thought that was a romantic comedy, to me it was the stuff of nightmares, existential horror. If you can’t form new memories, what is the point of being alive? I might not have to worry about it, first I could be shot and killed any minute, that makes the memory issue moot. It really would be preferable, to a brain filled with memories and unable to process more. The second and more hopeful, therefore the opinion I’ll adopt, is because of my brain injury, and fuzzy memory of past events, maybe I’m writing over some of those events and that’s why they are fuzzy. If that’s true, I have nothing to be concerned about. If my memory has filled up in over sixty years and I can now overwrite those memories, as long as the eidetic memory is gone. I have until I’m at least one hundred and twenty years old, before I have to be concerned with the possibility that my brain might be full.

  Just imagine every day taking notes of everything that happened, but then the next day you have to read those notes, so you have lost the day before yesterday. Because you wouldn’t have time to read more than one or two days worth of notes. Otherwise you’d spend all day writing notes, today I read my notes all day. With each new day. So you’d have to be a ruthless editor. Only write down what might be important for your survival. But then your notes would just be terrifying. For example, to boil down today into one sentence. ‘Car window shot out, don’t worry sniper might have been aiming at Faith’

  Luckily we were back at the bookstore before my mind spiraled any further. Faith called Sarah, telling her what had happened, letting her know that she was safe and at my bookstore and also to stay away from Haystack at least for the time being.

  I hustled Faith inside and introduced her to Lucy, before going back out to the car and starting to carefully dig out the slug. It took about a half an hour to carefully dig out the slug and the little round hole in the dashboard now looked like a crater. I can just imagine what Anais will say when she sees it. She better not show up here with a new car, or I will be seriously PO’d.

  The slug was safely in a plastic bag when I went back into the bookstore.

  “Faith, I’m going to the gun store, do you want to come? Then I’m going to the Lake Placid police department. I really think you need to come with me to see my cousin, the chief of police.”

  “You’re buying a gun?”

  “No, no, never. ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.’ I’m sure I’d rather be dead than incompetent. I am going to the gun store to find out what I can about this bullet before turning it over to the police. Once I turn it over, they won’t tell me anything they learn, so I need to learn whatever I can about it before giving it to the police. If you want to learn about a book you go to a bookstore, so I figure the place to learn about guns is a gun store.”

  “Sure if you think it’s safe for us to be driving around town?”

  “Yes, the person who shot at me was hidden. They’ll want to stay hidden. I’d say that town was about the safest place for us right now.”

  “Someone shot at you?”

  “Oh, yeah Lucy, I’m sorry I forgot to mention it.”

  “To mention it, yes I’m surprised you forgot. Is it something that happens so often, the attacks just all blur together.”

  “No, it is not, as a matter of fact, it was my first time. But I was close to the woods, so it could have been a poacher, or just an irresponsible idiot with their first gun taking target practice in the woods.”

  “Or it could have been the preacher you tore apart this morning, showing you a little of god’s wrath,” said Lucy.

  “Or Annette, I’m sure that you didn’t make a fan there, either,” Faith added.

  “Yes, I have a lot of fans, nothing to be done about that now. But Lucy, you can go home if you want to. I really don’t think it’s dangerous here in town, but I wouldn’t mind at all if you’d prefer to leave.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere, nobody's running me out of our store.”

  I really do like it when she refers to the bookstore as our store. I’d love for her to take it over someday. But she is so young, and has so many choices yet to make. I can’t get ahead of myself. I had to go off to New York city for thirty years before realizing that I never should have left. Lucy might feel completely different about her life by the time she graduates college.

  “Alright intern, you are in charge. I probably won’t be back in time for Lis to go to the post office in my car. Maybe she can take the most important things to be shipped today on a handcart. Just help her sort out the ones that should go today, you took most of the video orders or better yet, call the delivery company. I’ve been avoiding them since Harry was arrested. Let them pick up the boxes and ship them. In the long run they may be cheaper than the post office. Maybe it’s about time, I just got rid of the car, it’s what Thoreau would do. I’ll decide that on another day.”

  “Alright, Laura, I got this. You go ahead and do whatever you need to do. Thursday morning I want to discuss an idea I have. I’ll write up some notes, and see where it takes me.”

  “Alright I’m intrigued, make it good. Think outside the box, but don’t make it a sphere, just think how hard it would be to ship spheres. Plus all that wasted space inside, unless you were shipping something very small or round.”

  “Yes I promise, no spherical boxes. You get really philosophical when you are shot at don’t you?”

  “Yes, it’s quite possible, I have been having a lot of odd thoughts, a lot to do with memories. Hmm, maybe it’s the Adrenaline forcing my brain into overdrive. Good thinking Lucy, I hadn’t even considered that. That could be a way for writers to motivate themselves to put themselves in mortal danger every morning. Then they’d have a very productive day. But the downside is that sooner rather than later, the mortal danger will actually be mortal. So not such a great idea. But you can get Adrenaline released during exercise. Maybe that is why so many writers are great walkers. Thoreau certainly was and Tolkien, Stevenson, Wordsworth, I wonder how many contemporary authors also take long walks to help with their writing?”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “If you don’t get going soon, the gunshop will be closed. There is a sentence I didn’t think I’d be saying anytime soon. Laura go, you are starting to infect me, to. Just like that preacher warned, you are a virus and causing spontaneous thoughts to pop into my head.”

  Faith and I left without another word. I wasn’t going to stand there and be insulted. Faith and I drove over to Red Circle Sports. Suddenly it dawned on me why a gunshop would be named Red Circle. Lucy was right and this adrenaline had better wear off soon or I’d be exhausted. The brain consumes twenty percent of the calories we consume, as long as we don’t overeat. What a great excuse for an extra cookie after dinner tonight.

  Faith and I went into the shop. Hank Walsh was behind the counter, he was a strictly cozy fantasy mystery reader. Which must be odd for the owner of a gun store. I’m surprised he isn’t into men’s adventure, or books about wars.

  “Laura, what brings you to my shop?”

  “I didn’t know you owned the store, Hank.”

  “Yep, it was my Dad’s store, he left it to me. Much like you and your aunt. But you are thinking, why does a cozy mystery fan own a gun store? Right. Well, I could have sold the store and done something else, but dad was a great hunter and I’d say more than half of the protein I consumed before I left for college was game that dad had shot. So I always had great respect for hunters. Everyone but vegans and vegetarians should because they know exactly what the animal has sacrificed in order for me to eat. Unlike the mindless MickyD customer, who has no clue what the animal he is eating had to go through to arrive on that bun.”

  “But I thought I heard you say once in the mystery book club that you were a vegetarian.”

  “Yes, I am. But I do still have respect for the hunters and fishermen that help to feed their families. Also if I had a choice of being a deer or a cow, I’d choose to be a deer who lived free before becoming some family's meal rather than a cow, fenced in and some of those factory farms never even leaving the barn.”

  “I was a vegetarian, when I lived alone in New York city, but living and eating with the writers, we only occasionally get a nice vegetarian meal. Plus it was easy there in the city, every restaurant had at least one vegetarian option along with a load of vegetarian only restaurants. ”

  “So what brings you two to the store today, planning on supplementing your protein with some wild game?”

  “No, I’m hoping for information. Two specific kinds actually, first can you tell what kind of slug this is? What kind of gun?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but just from the size, I’d guess a twenty two.

  “A rifle?”

  “Probably, but handguns are also made in that caliber. You need specialized equipment to say with any certainty.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I, aaa, dug it out of my dashboard.”

  “Oh god, was anyone hurt?”

  “No, just my car, but that brings me to my second question. I was out by Haystack. I pulled into the trailhead and turned around and headed back toward town. That's when the back window exploded. Is there any reason a hunter would be out there today? I thought the hunting season ran in the fall.”

  “It does and nothing is in season, only nuisance animals may be shot this time of year and only on private property. Nothing anywhere near Haystack is legal to hunt this time of the year.”

  “What about poachers?”

  “A possibility but a slight one, fines are high, jail time a real possibility there are easier safer ways to get food for your family. The chance of getting caught is substantial.”

  “How about a new guy with a gun, just playing around in the woods?”

  “Lots of people think guns are toys and just can’t wait to play around with them. I’d say that is more likely than a hunter or a poacher. Especially a poacher who’d be poaching in an area, where they are less likely to get caught, than a well traveled area like around Haystack.”

  “Thanks a lot Hank, your next cozy mystery is on me.”

  “In that case come any time for advice, any time at all. Also if you think of it please order The Skeleton Makes a Friend by Leigh Perry. Last time I checked you were out of stock.”

  “I’ll get you a copy Hank, I didn’t know you were a Sid fan.”

  “Yep sure am, actually I love all the characters. I hope the author continues the series. I hate it when I reach the end of a series that I love.”

  “Yeah I know what you mean. See you at bookclub.”

  We drove straight to the Lake Placid police station. I didn’t expect them to actually do anything. I mean what could they do except take the bullet and put it into evidence. So we went into the lobby, waited behind an older man complaining about something, to the desk sergeant. Who nodded in agreement, but I didn’t see him writing anything down. So that means they weren’t planning on doing anything about it. If the police don’t write it down, it is like it never really happened.

  “How can I help you ladies?”

  “I’d like to see my cousin please. Would you just mention to him that I need a quote for my essay to the gazette. I’m sure he’ll see us.”

  I had a feeling that opening line would get us through his office door quickly. I wasn’t disappointed. As we were swiftly buzzed through. August saw me but failed to notice Faith besides me. I’m like a red flag to a bull for my cousin.

  “Laura, I thought we’d agreed that the matter was resolved, there is no need for any essays,” he said before I’d even got through his open door. But I ushered Faith into the office in front of me, closed the office door and tossed the lead slug in the sandwich bag onto his desk.

  “OH, August the matter is far from resolved. So far from resolved I’m thinking of writing a letter to the attorney general, to have the whole lot of Essex county law enforcement investigated. From the sheriff, to Lake Placid Chief of Police, to the Saranac Lake Chief of Police with a special focus on the Essex County Executive’s Office.”

  “Why is there a bullet in a plastic bag that smells like peanut butter?”

  “Because Amy had peanut butter on her fingers when she handed me the bag.”

  “Where did you get the bullet?”

  “I dug it out of my dash after it imploded my rear window and passed right through the passenger headrest.”

  “We haven’t received any shots fired calls today. Where did this happen?”

  “By Haystack, I had just dropped off Faith to hike and pulled right back out again when the bullet hit my dash. Faith, this is my cousin August. If Faith had still been in the car, the bullet would have killed her.”

  “You can’t know that Laura.”

  “If you’d like to come out and look at the big round hole through the headrest we can argue intelligently about this. But for now, I want you to assign police protection to Faith.”

  “What? Some stray hunters' bullets accidentally break your window and you want police protection. Faith, do you have any reason to believe that someone wants to harm you?”

  “Well, Laura seems to think that Jones might be behind this.”

  “Wait what Benjamin Jones?”

  “Yes, the very same, the one I told you if he wound up in another police department in Essex county I was going to write a series of essays that exposes the corruption of the law enforcement community in the county. That’s the Jones we are talking about. The first article is how the Lake Placid Police Chief doesn’t bother to take past employment history into account, and if you think you are getting it bad wait until you read what I write about the third stooge to hire Jones, in a matter of weeks. Yeah I’m thinking we’ll call the Sheriff, Moe, your Larry of course and Shemp would be the third idiot in the line of Jones’s bosses.”

  “Now just calm down, Laura.”

  “Yes, August, thank you for adding another line to the essay. Because just about every woman on the planet loves to be told to calm down by a man who is a major part of the reason that she is upset. So tell me again to calm down, this flipping article is writing itself.”

  “Laura, how does Jones have a motive for wanting to harm Faith, were they involved romantically?”

  “Euuuu,” groaned Faith.

  “Of course not, you idiot. She is so far out of that guys league, they wouldn’t even be playing the same game. No that’s the problem, she rejected him and so he arrested her for prostitution. But the reason he has a reason to harm her is because all of this will come out at the jury trial Wednesday night. We’ll sue the town of Saranac for false arrest. There were six women in the bar the night that he arrested Faith for prostitution. Out of the six women in the bar, only one was not a prostitute. Guess which one he arrested. So for my article Jones will be an idiot, but he’s not really to blame. It’s Larry, Moe and Shemp that I’ll hold responsible for this travesty to occur.”

  “No, Laura, just because you asked for a jury trial wouldn’t make Jones scared. At best it’s a he said she said. The jury is more likely to side with the cop, no offense Faith.”

  “You really think that Jones can stand up to a cross examination. I don’t think, I know he’ll cry like a little baby. You’ll be able to read all about it in the Friday edition of the gazette because I’ll be there relishing every word. Right next to the article about you, the mayor and the other two stooges.”

  “Laura, I know the public defender, he’s the PD for our court too. Jones may be green, but they will have trained him how to handle himself in court, at the police academy.”

  “Oh, he’s not facing the public defender, August. Eve Whittle is on the case and after all of this is on the public record, aka court transcript. The three stooges will sink like Three Men in a Boat.”

  “Laura, that’s not fair, first I assume that is a literary reference and I don’t read a lot. Second, I fired him at my earliest opportunity. Third, what can I do about this now?”

  “I’ll tell you what you can do. If you and that dim witted sheriff want to stay out of the newspaper.”