Free Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder by Jessie Chandler.

river for scrap. Its rather piggish owner, Stanley “Kinky” Anderson—Coop’s former boss—had been murdered onboard, and there wasn’t a soul around who wanted to deal with a poltergeist of that magnitude.
    One good thing came of the fiasco. During his time as a bingo slave, Coop had honed his computer systems programming techniques, both legal and illegal. Since then, he’d moved on to designing customer rewards programs for gaming establishments, and he frequently worked with Eddy’s Mad Knitters and their friends on their computer skills. They were generous with their pocketbooks when they finally grasped what he was trying to teach them.
    The Mad Knitters, a group of between three and fifteen or so gals, regularly met at the Rabbit Hole to work on their latest knitting projects. However, they usually wound up in Eddy’s apartment playing Texas Hold ’Em, Mexican Train dominos, or lately, Mahjongg. I’d tried a couple of times to learn how to play myself but gave up. I had no idea how the ladies did it. The strangest terms came out of their mouths, and they’d do fancy moves and other things with the tiles as they shuffled them out and played them. Too much brainpower for me.
    Now Coop was making enough moolah off his reward programs and the crazy knitting crew that he no longer had to worry about where his next buck was coming from. It was a nice but still-unreal change.
    Coop rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin and frowned as he considered my words. “I don’t think back in my phone-book-jockeying days that there were four different books for each address. Kind of puts a kink in my fast and easy money-making plan.” He shrugged. “Oh well. If it helps out Rocky, I guess it’s worth the pain in the back. He told me he feels bad that we’re all giving him dollars when he thinks he should be earning it. Although if I ever try a stunt like this again, do whatever you need to do to put me out of my misery immediately. Please.”
    Eddy said, “We’ll have to shoot you later. Shay needs to borrow you for a little while before I pull the trigger.”
    Ten minutes and an abbreviated regurgitation of my tale of trauma later, Coop shook his head. “How on earth do you do it?” He stared at me incredulously. “You’re a badass magnet for trouble. Poor JT.” He stubbed his cigarette out and carefully tucked the filter back in the box. I had to hand it to him; if he had to do the deed, at least he was a responsible puffer who refused to litter the ground with his butts.
    Eddy and I then outlined the task at hand. “So,” I finished, “are you up for the job?”
    “Hell yeah—”
    “SHAY O’HANLON!” Two arms flung themselves around my midsection from behind and squeezed hard. “Shay O’Hanlon! I am so happy to see you! I have missed you!”
    The pure delight in Rocky’s voice never failed to warm the cockles of my heart.
    He let go of me and latched onto Eddy. “Eddy! Oh Eddy! Did you know I am bringing great volumes of information to every household? There are two thousand fourteen pages of knowledge in that yellow book,” he pulled one arm free and pointed at a four-inch-thick tome on the tailgate of the truck, “One thousand four hundred thirty-five pages in the white pages,” he paused to take a breath, “One thousand thirty-three pages in the Dex, and then a miniscule four hundred thirty-five pages in the Century Link book.”
    Rocky finally relinquished his grip on Eddy and tottered around to face us. He was round and stocky, with a smile just waiting to burst across his face. A rarely removed teal aviator cap sat at a jaunty angle on top of his head, and he was encased in an oversized Twins parka that would keep him warm at twenty below.
    He said, “Nick Coop agreed to help me make one hundred sixty-three dollars and seventy-two cents to add to the three hundred twenty-four dollars and forty-seven cents I have already saved up so I can go to New Orleans, Louisiana, in the