Harold and His Sweetie Have Vanished

                                                                 Part 19

“No question about it, Jackie.  I am in one hell of a mess.” I said into the phone. “Unless this is cleared up I can’t get on with my writing. What do you want me to do? Just make up stuff?”

“Great Gods, how creative of you,” she said. “Stuff. And just what is stuff?” Silence. Silence. I was ready to hang up when she said, “And yes I think you should make up stuff.” She emphasized stuff. “Connie, that’s what you do.”

“But this is real and I’m in the middle of it.”

“I thought they excluded you as a suspect. They did, didn’t they?”

“Depends on who they are. Two friends and the sheriff. The rest of the rubes around here. To them I’m likely guilty as sin.”

“Then I suggest you get the Hell out of that god-forsaken place. Back to home. Back to normal people.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then—my god, Connie. You are a writer. You write. So write. Either solve this yokel-hokel mystery or make it up. But write. I’ll check in next week. And mark my words. You better be working.” She hung up before I could respond.

I was still staring at the phone when it rang—making me jump—in body and mind. “Hello,” I said trying to modulate my quivering voice.

“Connie, that you? You sound funny. Jake here.”

“Yeah Jake. What’s up?”

“Got news for you. Not over the phone. Can you meet me for lunch? Harry’s hotdog stand. You know where it is. 12:15. I only have forty five minutes.”

At a corner table away from other patrons Jake and I sat with our hotdogs and beer. “Things are hopping,” Jake said with a mouth full of hotdog.

"Things.  Like what things?” I nibbled at the dry hotdog on the stale bun.

“Relax. You look like you’re ready to pop.”

“No kidding. Why I ever came here is a question I may never be able to answer. Here in the ass-hole of the civil world.”

Jake’s laughter attracted universal attention. Silence fell on the noisy crows. All eyes were on us. In lowered voice Jake said, “”Asshole of the world or not. Right now it’s yours. And—“  He held up a halt hand to stop me from interrupting. “Right now we have to solve this. And there’s news. That’s why I called you.”

“Oh,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “There’s news. What is it? Somebody confess to this murder?”

“Harold is gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Nobody knows. His little sweetie is gone too.”

“I thought she was already gone.”

“From here. Yeah, but now it seems she’s gone from the face of the earth, at the same time that Harold is.”

                                

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