READ CHAPTER ONE OF MY DETECTIVE NOVEL: HAND IN GLOVE

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HAND IN GLOVE
Sequel to : Nice Ain’t Enough And Cute Don’t Count

Chapter One Detached

I was heading North on Highway 101 at La Conchita (where the hill slid down on a lot of houses years ago and nobody in the government seemed to give a shit). Further on at Rincon, the surf would be awesome with surfers vying for waves. Those were the days.

Anyway, I couldn't complain, all was cool with my life. I groped for my cellphone and commanded Karma, my secretary-factotum, (who actually doesn't take well to commands from man, beast, or God) to lock up the office and go home and get into trouble with Dave, a police detective a couple decades younger who helps Karma not to act her age.

I was clipping along at ninety, testing whether I could lose control like the assholes on the road in cellphone never-never-land talking to 900 numbers with the inevitable ensuing distractions. (I actually leave the 900 numbers to others.)

Flawless weather. I wasn't gonna play private investigator for the balance of the day. I was going home to Santa Barbara after a trip to L.A. to a spy shop loaded to the hilt, credit card and otherwise, with all the latest in surveillance devices.

Karma says I'm psychic, but a little high-tech help never hurts, especially if I've kept Dracula hours and am feeling a little less than indefectible.

The damned ancient pickup truck ahead of me didn't have his load covered and tied down. Where's the CHP when you need them?

I weaved between lanes trying to avoid any airborne detritus, perhaps coconuts (not really coconuts, but being an over-age-in-grade-surfer I like the Hawaiian image). Couldn't get close enough to pass without getting rejectamenta thrown into my wind-shield. A replaced windshield is never the same. It leaks. It sucks.

Baskerville, my half-wolf-half-malamute, was riding shotgun. She liked the bucket seats in my new Toyota Tundra truck. Ditto the CD and all the rest of its expensive options which will take me about four hundred years to pay for. But I had to do it. My old pickup groaned to a halt when two hundred and twenty-eight thousand rolled up on the odometer. It's a bummer when old friends die. But, life is short. That's basically it, and I don't want to live on a basic level anymore. Hence my extreme paranoia and caution about damage to my new vehicle. I'll have plenty of time for regrets when some moron bounces a shopping cart off the pristine finish. I stayed back. Way back. Maybe, I thought, I'll get lucky and some idiot will pull a L.A. trick and fill in the gap between me and the brain-dead-half-baked-driver and get his share of the shit.

No such luck. Whoa! A glove went airborne out the passenger side window. It bounced? Something wasn't right. I was at a section of the freeway that wasn't freeway. I made a U-ie and cruised back to where I was before.

I pulled over on the shoulder and stopped when I caught sight of the glove which had also pulled over on the shoulder and stopped. I got out of my truck. ("No Baskie. You gotta stay. Roadkill is for rodents.") I assumed my best investigative stance: I kicked the glove. Nudged it, actually. It was heavy for a glove. I rolled it over on its back: palm up, fingers curled skyward. I prodded it again, gently, with the toe of my cowboy boot. It was solid. I maneuvered it with my other boot so I could see inside. Then I stooped down and had a look. HAND IN GLOVE. Grotesque beyond imagining! I can’t stand the sight of blood, and there's something about amputated limbs that really gets me down.

Could the driver possibly have known he'd lost a vital part? Was he driving with one hand? This one was the right. Guess he couldn't turn on the radio as well as he used to. I hoped his vehicle was an automatic. He'd better have leather upholstery (highly unlikely in that old tincan). Blood's a bitch to clean off fabric unless he or she knew to use OxiClean. If the driver were a she, I'd expect she'd know this. I'll have to be excused for this sexist assumption.

I returned to my car and dog. Cellphone. Time to raise a reaction from my cop-buddy: the conversation was more or less: "Hi Dave. How's it goin'? Not much. A bloody hand in a glove. Blah. Blah. Sure, I'll guard it. No, I won't let Baskie eat it.”