The cute, little Jeep Liberty pulled into the loop at the end of the drive late in the evening. The young woman who was driving only saw an older couple, so she piloted the vehicle over to them, stopped and put it into park.
A young man exited the passenger side and walked enthusiastically up to the old man and said “Uncle Roger. It is great to be here!!!” His manner was reminiscent of Salesmen world-round.
Sig looked at the young man and asked “And who are you?”
It took a few minutes to sort out the whys and where-fores. Joshua was the son of one of Copperhead Cove’s far-flung alumni. The driver of the vehicle was his girlfriend Darcy. Given the lateness of the hour and the fact that every adult in Copperhead Cove had just put in a 14 hour work-day, Sig decided to put Joshua in the now-vacant van next to Gregor's and to park Darcy in the spare bedroom.
They would sort things out in the morning.
***
As was his habit, Gregor showed up in his mother’s kitchen first thing in the morning for a cup of coffee.
“How did you sleep?” Ellie asked. Moms can tell when their children are at their best.
“Not worth a lick” Gregor muttered.
That got Sig’s attention. Gregor had worked as hard as anybody the day before and he should have slept like a log.
“Why is that?” Sig asked.
“I bet that if you look into the room where you told the girl to sleep, you will see that she isn’t there” Gregor answered, obliquely.
A half minute later, Ellie popped back into the kitchen. “Sure enough, she ain’t there.”
Gregor nodded and took a long pull from his steaming mug of coffee. “She was in the van next to mine making them springs squeak.”
Sig’s eyebrows lifted like thunder-clouds. “She what?”
“She and that young man were having sex” Gregor said, speaking plainly.
Sig started to stand up. He was a man who dealt with problems head-on.
Both Ellie and Gregor suggested that he not charge off, half-cocked. There are times when a bit of planning is worth the time invested.
***
A half-hour later, Sig knocked on the metal door on the side of the van.
“Go away” the man inside commanded the person knocking.
Sig pounded harder.
“I told you, ‘Go the Fuck Away!” the man’s voice yelled. “It's the middle of the fucking night!’
Sig threw the door open.
Sure enough, the man and the woman were sprawled out on the mattress and neither one of them were wearing a stitch of clothing.
“You have five minutes to leave the property” Sig informed them.
The woman smirked and shook her shoulders, making her boobs jiggle. Joshua had told her that his kin were fundamentalists and she liked putting prigs like that on the defensive.
“You can’t make us leave” she taunted him. “We have a lease.”
“Nobody signed no leases. You can either leave easy or we can help you” Sig asserted.
“Judge don’t know if there was or wasn’t a lease” Darcy rubbed Sig’s nose in the fact. “It will take at least six months to get a ruling. So you just better get used to us being here” she crowed
Sig looked at his wristwatch. He had seen plenty of boobs in his time, admittedly most of them were on the bottoms of cows. A part of him wondered about the utility of piercings and hardware inserted through the nipples but that was neither here-nor-there. “You have 4 minutes and 30 seconds.”
“Shut the door, old man. We have better things to do than to listen to you talk shit” Darcy said and then she leaned over and put a smokin’ hot kiss on Joshua’s lips.
“Okey-dokey” Sig said. “You made your choice."
In all fairness, it took over six minutes for Gregor to hook the tow-chain to the front of the Jeep. He had to make sure it was snug or he would lose it on the hair-pin turns in the drive.
A 5500 pound truck in 4WD-Low can drag a 3000 pound vehicle downhill any day of the week, especially when “Park” only engaged the front two wheels.
Gregor realized that he had a problem when he reached the public road. He couldn’t just dump it on the road. There were no shoulders and it would be a major traffic hazard. Not having a better plan, he kept dragging it and headed toward the old cemetery.
He goosed the gas pedal figuring that as long as he didn’t stop moving, the rubber of the Jeep's front tires would liquefy and lubricate the movement. Looking through his outside, rear-view mirrors he saw smoke boiling off the front tires.
As the cemetery hove into view, he realized that he had another problem. He could not pull the Jeep completely off the road without tearing up the turf of the cemetery. He eased as much of the Jeep off of the pavement as he could and then paused to consider his options.
After stowing the tow-strap, he parked behind the Jeep and turned on his hazard flashers. Then he called 9-1-1. “I wanna report an abandoned vehicle that is a traffic hazard” he told the operator.
A half hour later, Officer Rosa Canina pulled up behind Gregor’s truck and lit up her flashers. Stepping out, she walked over to Gregor, who was leisurly smoking a cigar and asked “Are you the one who called in?”
“Yes, officer. I am” Gregor answered. He decided to answer as much of what the officer asked as seemed prudent.
A quick glance informed him that Officer Canina did not have any rings on her fingers.
Looking at the skid-mark leading up to the disabled vehicle, Officer Canina asked “So you just happened to be driving along and saw this vehicle?”
“Yes officer. Looks like they had a wheel-bearing lock up” Gregor offered. In fact, it did look like that could have been what happened.
“Any idea where the owner of the vehicle is?” she asked.
“Nope” Gregor said. Heck, they could have been walking this way or still in the van or having breakfast in Roger’s house or out in the woods looking for mushrooms for all he knew.
Officer Canina sighed. “Thanks for calling it in. I would rather sit here waiting for a tow-truck to show up than to have to be pulling bodies out of a wreck.”
Waiting for the tow truck to wend its way from Dayton, Gregor and Rosa made small-talk. Gregor learned that Rosa liked to fish for catfish in the Tennessee river and even had a boat. Rosa learned that Gregor had recently returned to be with his family and didn’t have a girlfriend.
As the tow-truck was dragging the Jeep onto the flatbed, Gregor had an inspiration. He called his buddy in town and asked, “Hey Conner. Do you still know any repo-men?”
In fact, Conner still did.
“I just had an intuition. I seen Snider’s Towing in Dayton pick up a 2002 Jeep Liberty, Tennesse plates, number KMG-8279. I don’t suppose anybody is looking for that vehicle. Iffen they are, they can call Snider’s and figure out where they took it” Gregor told his buddy.
