Tin City Tinder by David Macinnis Gill Read Free Book Online Page A

directions. “Much better. Now when Gretchen sees me, she will recognize me.”
    “Because you’re so hard to pick out of the crowd?” I asked.
    “Exactly.” He waved. “See you in class, partner.”
    We waved back.  
    Luigi turned down the road toward his host family’s house. His shiny ankle boots were completely wrong for walking. Blisters were in his future.
    “He has a thing for Gretchen?” I asked.
    “Huge crush. Didn’t you notice how he tries to get her attention? Juggling. Drawing her with manga eyes. Giving her little gifts.”
    “Hadn’t noticed.”
    “I am totally not surprised. You pay too much attention to molecules and let the big things slip by.”  
    We walked to Cedar’s car, a yellow VW Bug. It matched her sundress. She got in and rolled down her window. There was a tennis racket beside her. “Still on for dinner tomorrow?”  
    “Worried I changed my mind?”
    “Not in the least.” She flashed a smile. “My schedule’s pretty full, and I don’t like to change it.”
    “You can count on me. I won’t call a surprise practice.”
    “Sorry to be neurotic. I’m not very good at curveballs.”  
    “Some theorize that a curveball is actually an optical illusion.”
    “Hate to break it to you.” Cedar tilted her chin just so. Even sweaty from practice, she looked amazingly kissable. “Lyman Briggs used wind tunnel testing to prove that the backspin on the ball causes it to break, so a curveball does curve.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind, in case I need to throw one.”
    “Don’t even try it with me, mister,” she said. “I feast on the curve.”
    Cedar backed out, pulled onto the highway, then sped off. She took the next turn on two wheels. Her taillights disappeared into the night.
    “I bet you do,” I said and looked down at the plastic container.  
    Condensation had formed on the outside. It needed refrigeration. I put the container in my glove box and fired up the truck. How did just a finger, I wondered, end up in Stumpy’s yard? Who did it belong to, and where was the rest of the body?
    Abner would know.
    I dialed my grandfather and got voicemail. “Hey, Doc. There’s some evidence I want to show you. Call me back before it starts to rot.”

    11

    My family lived in a split-timber log house at the end of Tobacco Road. Lamar had built the house himself, and he had named the road after a bestselling novel about white trash. He said it made him laugh.
    It made my mother cringe.  
    Lamar’s farm was about two hundred acres. He grew organic strawberries, Christmas trees, and scuppernong grapes. He also raised horses, miniature goats, and thirty head of Angus beef. Lamar had inherited the farm from his parents, who grew tobacco for fifty years. They passed away just before the tobacco market in North Carolina collapsed. Unlike many farmers in Allegheny County, Lamar had taken the death of tobacco in stride and diversified. He hated smoking anyway. It had killed two of his grandparents, parents, and only brother.
    I walked into the cabin to find Lamar nuking a plate in the microwave. Dinner was warmed up lasagna, one of the three he had baked over the weekend. With two firefighters and a veterinarian in the house, we never knew when dinner would be served, and Lamar liked to be prepared for any emergency.
    He didn’t look up when I shut the door. I thought of heading upstairs to the loft. If Lamar was ignoring me, maybe I would return the favor. But doing that would only prolong the inevitable.
    I put the plastic container way in the back of the freezer and grabbed a beer. I drained it while Lamar set a casserole pan and a tossed salad on the table.
    “Plates,” Lamar said.
    “Silverware, too?”
    Lamar grunted a reply.
    It was easy to tell when Lamar was perturbed. Most people yelled when they were upset. Lamar got very quiet and started fixing things. In high school, I learned about Occam’s Razor, which posits that the simplest solution to a problem is the