Memorial Day: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Novels) Read Online Free PDF Page A

a word or two about having grown up a few miles south, near Starr Valley. Then I'd take a question or two and hold forth on the wonders of modern psychology and how I got my degree and license at such a young age.
    Oh, bullshit.
    I did several alternating one-armed pushups and two hundred stomach crunches and jumped to my feet. Cold shower: tall, howling dervish under icy needles. Then I opened the peeling, fake wood-grain kitchen cupboards to retrieve the spoon, a chipped cup festooned with Disney characters, and one small jar of generic instant coffee. I groaned. Maybe a dozen fossilized, dried brown flakes remained in half-moon clumps near the bottom. I dressed in a flash: the local uniform of a T-shirt, comfortable blue jeans, and plain cowboy boots. My short black hair would dry on its own. When I was a kid, I had fried an egg on the sidewalk on a morning just like this.
    The office at the far northern end of the Saddleback Motel was open. I saw a little red scooter parked in front, heard rap music. Jerry looked after the motel, did odd jobs all over town, and had a collection of used electronics big enough to open a repair shop. As I approached the motel office, a thin girl with long, dark hair appeared in the doorway. She had a sweet face, wore blue jeans and a white blouse and a long string of red beads. She glanced my way, seemed to recognize me and ducked her head. She walked away, arms folded and eyes on the sidewalk.
    "Yo, Callahan!"
    Jerry was a skinny twenty-something, with shaggy brown hair and a seemingly endless supply of dark glasses. He had taken to wearing a baseball cap backwards, a cultural trend I despise. He was playing with what appeared to be a graphic equalizer now attached to an old desktop computer. Music wailed from quad speakers. "Jerry?"
    " What? "
    "Turn it down. Who was the babe with the beads?"
    "I can't hear you."
    "Okay. It's none of my business or she has a boyfriend."
    Jerry smiled. He sat up and turned towards me, trusting me with the bad side of his head. Jerry had a nasty, triangular burn scar that ran from the corner of his jaw and spread ever wider as it crawled to his temple. The scorched area had no hair; it ended in a straight line high on his scalp. I had never mentioned it. I think Jerry appreciated that. I crossed my arms, shook my head. "Now, please turn down that damned noise."
    "Hey, I just got this thing fixed," Jerry grinned, although he complied. "And it's not noise, it's music."
    "That most emphatically is not music," I said. "Randy Travis, Dixie Chicks, George Jones . . . they play music. That is a recording of a twelve-ton oil rig, pounding in the middle of a sorority house while an angry teenager argues with his parole officer."
    " Good morning , Mr. Callahan. That's why everybody used to watch you on the tube." Jerry also wriggled his eyebrows a lot; the telltale facial twitch of an obsessive-compulsive. I wondered if he had a counting ritual.
    For just a moment, I considered telling him about Sheriff Bass and the dead body, but I decided to keep my word. "By the way, thanks for that stupid E-mail."
    "I thought you'd need a chuckle. I caught the entire show last night. Man, enough dead air for a prayer service."
    'Then you should have called in while I was on the air, instead of during a damned news break."
    "I did call," Jerry said. "You took somebody else. Some chick who blew you off after a minute or two." He adjusted his baseball cap . . . bill backwards. "Man, you really sucked."
    "Gee. Thanks."
    "Well you did. I burned a CD of the show, just in case you want to hear for yourself."
    "Pass. Jerry, I need coffee. Can you help me out?"
    "Sure thing." Jerry went to work with packets of synthesized creamer, pre-packaged sugar, and powdered coffee. He produced something potent and handed over a tall Styrofoam cup, the kind that doesn't decompose until entire civilizations have risen and fallen. I checked out the back room, where Jerry slept. It was packed with old