Free Combustible (A Boone Childress Novel) by CC Abbott

parted on the side.
    Holding the skillet he had used to cook the bacon, he waited at the door. Boone wondered if he was going to offer breakfast or throw hot grease on him for trespassing.
    " I brought back the finger," Boone said and showed him the plastic container.
    " Like you promised," he said, and the lines under his eyes softened. "I was about to eat. Bacon sandwiches. They was going to throw the bacon out at the Piggly-Wiggly, so I took it. No use wasting meat."
    He held the pan out. Boone’s stomach lurched at the thought of eating spoiled bacon. “No thanks. I’m not hungry. You wouldn't happen to have a drink of water, would you?"
    "If you ain't minding well water. Gets sorta tangy."
    " We have well water," Boone said and followed Stumpy inside. "My dentist could swear to that. I've had cavities since I was three."
    "Don't talk to me about no dentists." He took a seat at a dinette made of yellow Formica. “You’re Mary Harriett’s boy, ain’t you? She’s good people. Thought you was in the service."
    “Got out around Christmas time,” Boone said. “I'm finishing up my associate’s degree at Coastal.”
    Stumpy filled a slice of bread with four strips of fatty bacon and slathered it with mayonnaise. “An education’s one thing they can’t take away from you. Everything else is fair game.”
    " Did you hear any noises before you found a finger out on the patio?"
    “Something woke me up, that’s for sure. It wasn’t just me falling the floor again.”
    Boone nodded. “Were there any other body parts besides the finger? Or big chunks of metal, maybe?”
    “The one finger is all I found.” He took a huge bite of the sandwich. A glop of mayonnaise oozed out and landed on the table. "There’s something's fishy about that house, though. There’s these two old boys been snooping around ever since the fire.”
    "Don't say?"
    "Y ou making fun of me?"
    "No, sir, I'm not."
    "Wouldn't be no first, I tell you what. My family’s been laughing 'hind my back the whole time. They think I'm touched, don't got no sense no more, but I tell it like I told them, I heard two booms last night, a little one and a big one."
    "You heard two booms? That's the first I've heard of that. Did you show the dent in your trailer to the sheriff?"
    "Hellfire, they ain't caring about no dent. The deputy who come around yesterday wrote it down and shook his head the whole time. He was laughing at me. I could tell."
    Boone had never met anyone who suffered from paranoid delusions, but Stumpy seemed to be a textbook case. He wasn’t sure he could believe a word the man said. “You said there were two men snooping around?”
    Stumpy belched. There was only one strip of crinkled bacon in the bowl, resting on a piece of grease-soaked paper towel. He picked it up and offered it to Boone.
    "No thanks," Boone said.
    "Suit yourself," he said and gobbled it down. Another belch. He fanned the gas out of his face. “Time for my nap.”
    He stood, and Boone took the hint. It was time to go, anyway. He had classes today, then he needed to get ready for his first date with Cedar. "Okay then, Stumpy. Been nice seeing you."
    "Hey ," he said and opened the door. "Let me pass on some advice. Stay out of the middle of family business, if you know what I mean."
    He winked, and Boone nodded, but he had no idea what the man was talking about. Then the door shut.
    Stumpy definitely lived up to his billing. Maybe he was delusional, but Boone suspected he might know more than anyone thought. He was like a janitor in a school. Though people treated him like he was invisible, he kept both eyes open and he heard everything. The problem was how to get that information out of him without Sheriff Hoyt finding out he had been poking around a crime scene.
     
     
     
    Navy veterans were allowed to wear their uniforms for special occasions like weddings, funerals, and important state dinners. A date with Cedar may not have passed the acid test for importance to