Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4) by Nick Pirog (best ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

wasn’t a whole lot I could do. I’d already talked to the only witness. I had no way to see the case files. My only lead related to the Save-More murders had just been murdered himself. Even worse, I was considered a suspect in his death.

If I did anything, I would have to tread lightly.

I had three text messages. All are from the same number.

This is Jerry Humphries.

Heard you stopped by to see me at the bank the other day.

What can I do for you?

I texted back.

Hey. Just stopped in to say hello. Just moved here. There’s a chance we might be cousins.

I didn’t even have time to set the phone down before it chimed. He must have been bored.

Jerry: What? Seriously?

Me: Yeah. Long story. Maybe we can grab lunch?

Jerry: What are you doing in an hour?

Me: Having lunch with you.

Jerry: Damn right.

Me: How about Dina’s?

Jerry: How about we try to squeeze in a quick nine?

Me: Nine?

Jerry: Holes. Golf.

Me: Oh, right. I don’t have clubs.

Jerry: I have an extra set.

The last time I swung a golf club was with my dad a decade earlier.

Me: Okay.

Jerry: There’s a little course off County Road 34. Three miles north. We can grab some brats there. Let’s shoot for noon.

I told him I would see him there.

He texted back: Booya.

I already liked him.

Maybe I should get some shirts made.

Humphries Family Reunion.

Maybe not.

I played with the piglets for half an hour, then headed toward the course.

My stomach was uneasy. I would love to say that I was still recovering from my run, but I couldn’t. I was nervous. I felt like I was about to go on a first date with Kate Beckinsale.

Loved you in Underworld.

I still have the outfit.

Check, please.

There were three or four cars in the parking lot. One was a Lexus hatchback. A man in a blue suit was sitting on the back bumper of the car switching out his shoes.

I walked toward the man, trying to mask how sore my legs were from my three-mile run. Paradoxically, they were simultaneously made of Jell-O and stiffer than a puberty boner.

The man pulled on a second shoe and glanced up.

“Thomas?”

I nodded and we shook hands.

Jerry Humphries was slim with thinning brown hair parted to the left. He looked like a politician masquerading as a banker, which I suppose many of them were.

Zing.

“You gonna golf in that suit?” I asked.

“Have to,” he said with a chuckle. “I forgot to pack my golf clothes.”

He shucked off his jacket and pulled his tie up and over his head. Then he pulled a bag of clubs out of his trunk and heaved them at me. I caught them, my thighs and calves spasming with the impact. “We’re gonna get a cart, right?”

He laughed.

I guess not.

“I have to warn you,” I said. “The last time I played golf, it was in a bar, and I ended up going in the lava sixteen times.” I expanded on this, detailing how my Golden Tee avatar had also fallen into the lava and I was forced to put in six dollars to get him out.

He laughed, which was a good sign, since my sense of humor was “idiotic” according to one man at the Whole Foods, right before he asked me to “please stop putting watermelons in his cart.”

“That’s alright,” Jerry said. “I’ll give you some pops.”

“Pops?”

“Strokes. I’ll give you ten strokes.”

I realized then that he wanted to bet. “How ‘bout we just play a friendly game?” I hadn’t even planned on keeping score.

He shook his head as if the thought of not betting was more absurd than getting a golf cart. Then he grabbed his clubs and walked briskly toward the small clubhouse. To his credit, he paid for both rounds. I thanked him, then asked how long he had before he needed to get back.

“An hour.”

“We’re gonna play nine holes in an hour?” When my father and I used to play, nine holes would take us two hours, sometimes three. And we had the luxury of a cart. Not to mention the well-endowed cart girl who came around every twenty minutes to drop off more Bud Lights.

“Don’t worry, the course isn’t very long. Mostly par threes with a couple par fours.”

“I can handle that.” I looked around and asked, “Where are the hot dogs?”

“Hole five.”

I’d never heard of the grill not being at or at least near the clubhouse. “Hole five?”

“Yeah, hole five backs up to the Craisly farm. During the summer, one of their kids is usually out there with a grill.”

“Usually?” I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything other than a protein shake.

“You guys are on the tee box,” the old man behind the counter said.

Jerry slapped me on the back. “Let’s go.”

We decided to play skins. Five bucks a hole. He gave me a stroke on each hole but he could have given me three. After four holes, he had three pars and a birdie. I had a seven, two eights, and a thirteen.

Not only was I already into him for twenty bucks but I spent so much time looking for my ball in the thick, long underbrush that we didn’t even have time to chat. And I had a rash on my legs. And I had a thousand little pricklies in my socks. And I was convinced a snake was stalking me.

Finally on the fifth tee box—the group golfing in front of us was still on the fairway, waiting on the group on the green—we got a minute to converse.

“Usually logjams around hole five,” Jerry said. “But that’s a good sign. Means the grill is up and running.”

Thank God.

My blood sugar was getting low, and I was getting cranky. And I should mention it was the hottest, stickiest, buggiest day yet.

We took a seat on the bench near the tee box, and Jerry said, “So you think we might be cousins?”

My shoes were off, and I was picking the little tan thorns from my socks. “There’s a chance,” I said, pulling