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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496933683 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 08/19/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 126 |
| File size: | 139 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The Meter Man
By Steven E. Winters
AuthorHouse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Steven E. WintersAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-3369-0
CHAPTER 1
"Ned! Get your ass in here!"
Ned Waters rose from his desk and strode quickly toward the office of his boss, Mike Evans. Mike sounded excited, and it was rare to hear that particular emotion in the offices of the Kentucky Bureau of Statistics.
"What is it, Mike?"
"These numbers!" Mike said as he held up a sheet of paper. "Have you seen these numbers?"
Ned took the printout from Mike and studied it for a few seconds. "Wow, are these correct, Mike?"
"That's what we need to find out. Get with Sara and have her cross- reference these numbers with the Field Research Department. I want to know if they are real, or if someone goofed!"
Ned nodded and slowly walked back to his desk. In his twenty years with the bureau, he had seen a few odd things, but this seemed to top them all. He picked up his phone and buzzed Sara Eckels on the intercom. She picked up right away, which didn't surprise Ned. There wasn't always a lot to do at the bureau.
"What's up, stud?" Sara asked.
"Why do you always flirt with me when you know I don't date Rednecks?" Ned replied.
"Very funny! What do you want?"
"Come to my desk, my dear Watson. We have a mystery to solve!"
Ned hung up the phone and studied the sheet again. He began to suspect that one of the census workers had failed to do their job. According to the data sheet, there were one hundred and fifty people living in Devil Hollow, Kentucky, and not one of them was over the age of fifty-five. That was impossible. You could walk down any random street in the United States and find at least one person over the age of fifty-five. Ned shook his head and reached for his coffee mug.
Sara Eckels arrived a few minutes later and lowered herself into the chair in front of Ned's desk. She was a recent graduate of the University of Louisville, and was a very attractive girl. She had piercing blue eyes and long, blonde hair that sat on top of a slender, athletic body. Ned found it difficult to sway his eyes from her long legs as she crossed them and smoothed down her pleated skirt.
"My eyes are up here, Ned!" Sara said as she pointed toward her face.
Ned blushed, picked up the data sheet, and handed it to Sara. "Here's the mystery. Do you notice the maximum age of all these people?"
Sara glanced at the sheet, and handed it back to Ned. "So, it looks like whoever we hired to do the census in Devil Hollow didn't actually go there." Sara said.
"Correct," Ned replied. "This is common, since we hire part-time help to deliver the census sheets. Sometimes they simply pocket the money and turn in false documentation."
"They were kinda lazy in this case," Sara said with a laugh.
"Yes, I agree. At least they could have varied the ages a little."
"So, what do you want me to do, Ned?"
"Call down to Field Research and see if you can find out who was paid to distribute the census sheets in Devil Hollow, then see if we can contact that person."
"Will do, Sherlock!" Sara stood and walked away, and Ned caught himself following her with his eyes.
Gotta stop that old man. She's half your age, Ned told himself. He loosened his tie, laced his fingers behind his head, and closed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. He thought back to when he'd been closer to Sara's age. He had been a star running back for the Kentucky Wildcats in college, but a knee injury had derailed his career at the end of his junior year. So he'd focused on his studies and had begun to plan for a career that would never include playing football on Sundays. He'd never envisioned that 'career' would have been spent behind a desk.
This job was about as far away from the excitement of playing football as you could get. Ned spent day after day and week after week crunching numbers and responding to data requests from various Kentucky businesses and agencies. Advertisers were their biggest customers; they were looking for which areas had the highest target age groups for the products they were promoting. Still, it was a good job with state benefits, which would allow Ned to retire at an earlier age than most people.
Once in a while an interesting case would pop up, and Ned would be sent out into the field to investigate. He hoped this would be one of those cases, because other than occasionally seeing Sara, being inside every day was a tedious existence.
CHAPTER 2Sara Eckels was smiling when she returned to her office after meeting with Ned Waters. Since she'd begun working at the bureau one year ago, she had been dropping subtle hints to Ned that she was interested in him, but today was the first indication he had given that he'd found her attractive. She had felt a warm flush in her face when she had caught him peeking at her legs. She almost felt sorry now that she had chastised him. Maybe a longer look would have made him more interested.
Since she'd been a young schoolgirl in Owensboro, Kentucky, Sara had been aware of Ned's football exploits. He had played football at the same high school she'd attended, and his pictures and trophies were still displayed in the main hallway. Even though it had been over twenty years since Ned had graduated, his legendary status was still evident on campus.
When she'd graduated from college, she had hoped to land a job with the Bureau of Statistics just to be close to her hero. Although Ned had obviously aged from the photos she had walked by every day in high school, he was still a very handsome man. Standing six feet tall with large shoulders and Brad Pitt-type facial features, he still drew looks from young women. Sara had heard the office whispers among the women at the bureau about Ned's exploits, but they had not fazed her. Instead, they had given her hope that she might have a chance to date him.
Sara tried to set aside her personal feelings and concentrate on the task she had been assigned. If she did a good job, maybe Ned would notice her more. She called down to the Field Research Department and spoke with the supervisor. Within fifteen minutes, she received an e-mail with the name and address of the census worker who had been assigned to Devil Hollow. Hmm ... no phone number? Guess I'll have to pay him a visit.
Sara pulled a company credit card from her desk drawer and called for a taxi. She thought about calling Ned to see if he wanted to go with her to check on the worker, but she decided against it. She didn't want him thinking that she couldn't handle a simple investigation.
The taxi arrived in front of the building ten minutes later. Sara opened the door and settled into the back seat. It was a short drive to the address she had been given. She paid the driver with her company credit card and added a five-dollar tip from her purse. After exiting the taxi, she immediately regretted not bringing Ned along. She was on a street with a row of old, rundown townhouses, half of which appeared deserted. There were broken window panes in one of them, and some yellow "DO NOT ENTER" tape was draped across the entrance to another.
Sara leaned into the open passenger window of the taxi and told the driver to wait for her. She walked over to the townhouse that matched the address she had and walked up the four steps to the front door. At least this one looks clean, she thought. She rang the bell, and a few seconds later, a pudgy, middle-aged man opened it. He squinted into the sunlight and raised his hand to shield his eyes.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, sir. I'm Sara Eckels from the Kentucky Bureau of Statistics. Are you the Mr. Jim Johnson we hired to do the census in Devil Hollow two years ago?"
The man nodded. "I reckon I am. Why?"
"Well, sir, we were checking the data from the forms you turned in, and we found an irregularity."
"Oh? What would that be?"
Sara began to feel a little uncomfortable but continued, "Well sir, according to those forms, no one in Devil Hollow is over the age of fifty-five. We found that to be ... well ... odd."
Johnson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose that is a mite odd."
"Sir, did you deliver those census forms to Devil Hollow? I hate to ask you, but, with this information, it seems that you may not have."
Johnson looked at her for a moment before speaking. "Young lady, there ain't no one who can get into Devil Hollow. The old bridge was torn down years ago."
"Then how did you deliver the census forms, Mr. Johnson?"
"I took them to the old river bridge road, right where it forks with old Route 22. A man comes down there from the mountain every two weeks to pick up and drop off mail for the folks who live in Devil Hollow. The mailman told me that's the only way to get stuff in there."
"So you did not personally deliver the forms?"
"No, Ma'am. But I did go back to the fork and pick them up two weeks later. The same fella that took 'em brought 'em back."
"I see. Did you check the forms to make sure they were correctly filled out?"
"Yep," Johnson answered, nodding. "I did, and all of 'em were completed."
"So you didn't notice the fact that no one in Devil Hollow was over the age of fifty-five?"
"Wasn't my job! All they told us in the training was to make sure each of the categories had a mark in the column of circles under it. All of 'em did."
"Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate your cooperation."
As she turned to leave, he said "You wouldn't have a few spare dollars on you for an old man, would ya?"
"I suppose you'll be using it for food?" she replied as she noted his stained flannel shirt.
"Well, I could use a cold drink, if ya know what I mean."
She pulled out a ten-dollar bill, handed it him, and then went down the steps and opened the taxi door.
"Oh, lady! There's just one more thing!" Johnson yelled to her from his doorway.
"Yes, Mr. Johnson?"
"You say none of them folks in Devil Hollow is over fifty-five?"
"That's correct, Mr. Johnson."
"Well, that's odd, 'cause the fella that met me had to be in his seventies!"
CHAPTER 3Sara returned to her office and typed up the information she had received from Mr. Johnson. Technically, he had carried out his duties as a census taker, so there was not going to be a simple solution to this mystery. She figured that it had to have been a joke. She knew that the Kentucky mountain people didn't care much for the government. The most likely scenario was that, when they had received the forms, they had decided to play a little trick on the state by falsifying their ages. Mountain life might be hard, but it couldn't possibly be so hard that no one lived past the age of fifty-five!
The phone on her desk rang, startling her. "Hello?"
"Hey there, Redneck! Did you solve the case yet?"
"You're just a bundle of laughs, Ned Waters! You should take your act to Comedy Central."
"I might do that! So, what have you found out?"
She told Ned the details of her visit with Mr. Johnson. "I'm sending you the report via e-mail attachment right now."
"Great. I'll be sure to read it first thing in the morning. It's five o'clock Watson, time to go home."
She looked at the clock on her desk; she hadn't noticed the time. "Oh, okay. Well, see you in the morning Holmes!"
"Oh, and Sara ... good job! Have a nice night."
She smiled and hung up the phone. It wasn't often that she heard words of praise. She quickly gathered her things and rushed out to the parking lot, hoping to run into Ned as he left for the day. She was disappointed to see that his red BMW was already gone. Bum knee my ass, she thought. No one could ever accuse a Kentucky state employee of being slow when the clock struck 5:00 p.m.
The drive home was uneventful. The traffic was bad, but that was to be expected when you send everyone home at the same time every day. Sara laughed at the road-ragers who changed lanes every few seconds in the hope that someway, somehow, it would deliver them home to their cold beer faster. She had learned to use the time as a way to unwind. Placing the latest Green Day CD into her car stereo, she happily sang along with the lyrics as she slowly made her way home.
Sara opened her apartment door and was pleased that the vanilla air freshener she had purchased at the grocery store over the weekend was working well. She inhaled the aroma, kicked off her shoes, and headed to the fridge. The wine she had also selected at the store should have been properly chilled by now. She removed the bottle from the fridge, popped the cork, poured half a glass, and then shrugged her shoulders and continued pouring until the goblet was full. She carried the glass into the bathroom and began running a hot bath.
Sara stepped out of her skirt and panties and then removed her blouse and bra. She tested the bath water with her toes before sliding into the tub with a sigh of contentment. There was just something about a hot bath that relaxed her more than anything else. Maybe it was the warmth of the water, or maybe it was the glass of wine that always accompanied her. Either way, it was an experience that she began looking forward to every work day as quitting time neared.
As she sipped her wine, Sara began to let her mind drift back to Ned Waters. Even though it probably meant nothing to him, the words 'good job' meant the world to her. Sara had been born in the tiny town of Sistersville, WV. Her biological father had died when she'd been two years old. Although he had never married her mom, they had lived together until his death. When Sara had been eight years old, her mom had married. Her stepfather had been a boozer and an abuser. He'd resented Sara from the start, even telling her (when her mom hadn't been around) that she'd been a bastard child. When Sara had begun to bloom into a young woman, the verbal abuse had stopped ... and the physical abuse had begun.
Sara could still smell the stench of alcohol on her stepfather's breath as he would paw at her young body. She'd always pretended to be asleep when he would sneak into her room in the middle of the night. The memory of his hands groping her tiny body still haunted her. It was only after he'd begun abusing her mother that those late-night visits had stopped for good. A young Sistersville police officer named Curtis Knight had arrested her stepfather for beating her mother, and after several court hearings and interviews with social services, Sara and her mom had moved to Owensboro to start over. Sara had heard somewhere that her stepfather had been killed while in prison. Deep down, she was glad.
As the memories flooded back, Sara reached down and pulled the drain plug. Enough of that! She stood up, toweled off, and then slipped on the soft white cotton robe that hung by the tub. She walked to the kitchen and refilled her glass. A simple compliment from a man whom she idolized had opened up the floodgates of pain; such was the depth of old wounds.
Sara walked into the living room and switched on the TV. There was a special report about the University of Kentucky extending the contract of their basketball coach. Oh please! Sara laughed. As a graduate of the University of Louisville, she had a keen dislike for the Wildcats, in spite of the fact that Ned Waters had played football there. She stretched out on the sofa and, using the remote, flipped through several channels until she found an episode of Appalachian Pickers. The bad memories, the interview with Mr. Johnson, and even Ned Waters faded from her mind as she watched her favorite pickers buying antique treasures. By 9:00 p.m. she was fast asleep.
CHAPTER 4Ned stopped off at the China Wok restaurant on the way home and ordered their General Tso chicken. As he sat at the drive-through window, waiting on his order, he opened the glove box in his BMW and pulled out a bottle of antacid. When he was in college, he could eat a large pizza with all the toppings right before bedtime and never miss a second of sleep. Now, anything with a little spice in it required him to coat his stomach with medicine before eating it. Such was the bitter reality of growing older.
After receiving his dinner from the drive-through, Ned steered his car back onto the interstate and let the events of the day run through his mind. The statistical data he had received from his boss had made no sense. When Sara had told him the results of her interview with the former census worker, things had been no clearer than before. All she'd really seemed sure of was that the man had carried out his job duties, and hadn't been trying to hide anything about the forms he had distributed to Devil Hollow. Ned shifted into a lower gear and pulled his BMW into the local ABC liquor store.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Meter Man by Steven E. Winters. Copyright © 2014 Steven E. Winters. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse LLC.
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