Free Here Be Monsters (Tyler Cunningham) by Jamie Sheffield

books for this very thing; Parker is a violent criminal who moves relentlessly forward through the problems he faces in the books like a shark or bull, actively charging towards/though the obstacles in his path. I wanted a clear path, and the drive to charge along it no matter the consequences ( sort of an anti-serenity prayer ), so I selected a Parker novel and let the casual, but ordered, violence wash over me; as always, I enjoy the simple plots with interesting variations and explorations running throughout... like jazz with a brutal band of thugs playing their victims delicately with lead pipes. When I had finished the coke and Ziploc bag of GORP, and the book, I had made some useful leaps, bridging gaps in my information with guesses and suppositions that I couldn't easily fault or poke holes in; nothing a jury would like, but most of it good enough for me. I put the can in the Ziploc, dropped them both on the ground beneath my hammock for retrieval later, tucked the Kindle back behind my head and closed my eyes to let my brain finish the puzzle while I took a nap.
    I came back to the world in full dark and a damp coldness that let me know that it had rained; surprised that I had slept for more than five hours. I groped for my headlamp, stepped down onto the ground, found a tree to water, and then started my stove to make some oatmeal. I knew what had happened to Cynthia with as much surety as if I had watched it, and the enormity of what I knew made my head spin. I had spent a decade in Saranac Lake and the woods nearby, making it my home, remapping my world with people and places completely new to me after the upheaval of 9/11; it felt as though it had all been swept away... again... during the course of an afternoon. I focused on making my oatmeal, angry and scared and sad, and so bewildered by the presence of these emotions that I couldn't, for the moment, look beyond a snack in the dark to what lay ahead of me.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    50 feet from shore in Upper Saranac Lake, 11:17p.m.,
    9/5/2012
     
    I floated on my back, feeling the water beneath me and the sky and stars above. After finishing my oatmeal and a drink of Gatorade, I noted that I felt more than a little grimy and stiff, and so made my way down to the water's edge, stripped to my boxers, and went for a swim. It made me feel better, the water pressing on my body from all sides like a hug, warmer than the air, but not warm. I raised and lowered myself in the water with deep inhalations and exhalations, feeling control and comfort and calm return; after a few minutes of just breathing and floating, I rolled it all out for my inner moron observer.
    First, Cynthia had heard that George Roebuck was a drug dealer. She hated the drug culture and all involved in it because of her sister's death as a result of drugs. She noted with increasing suspicion over time that George used the SL Free Library computers with some frequency, despite the fact that he was clearly wealthy enough to buy/own as many computers as he wanted. She began to suspect he was using the library computers to support/enhance his drug business. So, she purchased and installed a net-nanny program suite ( including software called “eBlaster” ) which tracked his online activity ( to an astounding and illegal and unethical and unexpected extent, given my previous judgments about Cynthia's moral boundaries ), including: copies of emails sent and received, screenshots of pages visited, chat logs, searches, uploads/downloads, and more. Using the information gained through the use of the net-nanny software, she figured out that he had cleaned up his act in his own backyard so that he could use the idyllic wilderness surrounding the Tri-Lakes to produce methamphetamine, for delivery and sale to bigger towns ringing the Adirondacks.
    I was initially shocked at the volume and quality of information that she had managed to intercept by installing eBlaster on the Library computer: names,