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Writer's pictureMark Sanders

Chapter Six: Lie

Blogtober 2023

Clarkton picked Murphy up from the deputy’s house the next morning. As he stepped onto his front porch, a large black-and-brown dog ran up to him, panting happily and begging to be petted. Murphy knelt and rubbed the dog behind his ears. The dog followed him to Clarkton’s unmarked sedan and sat in the yard as they departed.


“Is that Iron Mike?” Clarkton asked.


“I’m calling him Mikey now,” Murphy replied.


“He didn’t try to eat you?”


“When I got home, he was still asleep in the pickup,” Murphy said. “I gave a whistle to see if he’d wake up. He jumped down and rolled right over on his back for a belly scratch. I knew at that moment that we had a new dog in the family.”


“I guess he wasn’t really mean,” Clarkton said. “He just hated Tippen.”


“Mean drunks have that effect on people and dogs,” Murphy said. “Where are we going?”


“Tippen’s trailer,” Clarkton said.


The men found what they expected there—an excess of empty beer and liquor bottles, general squalor, and no clues as to what had killed him.


“Why do people live like this?” Murphy asked.


“It’s not living,” Clarkton said. “It’s suicide on the installment plan.”


“What’s next?”


“The Twelve-Point Tavern.”


“It’s not even noon.”


“You can bet the regulars have been there for a while.”


“Anything they tell us is bound to be a lie.”


“I’m counting on that,” Clarkton said. “But a drunk’s lie is usually a half-truth.”


Photo credit Adobe Stock #434842382

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