{"id":10151,"date":"2014-03-27T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T06:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/?p=10151"},"modified":"2014-03-26T23:54:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T05:54:26","slug":"slime-incorporated-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/slime-incorporated-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"Slime Incorporated: Chapter One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;ID=OneJS&amp;OneJS=1&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=ss_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=adamsblog03-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=1496030524&amp;asins=1496030524&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true&amp;MarketPlace=US\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the first chapter of my mystery novel\u00a0<em>Slime Incorporated.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter One<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo would you put idiot or moron?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jerry Newton looked up at me from behind his gold-colored PC. \u201cUstick, neither is quite up to our professional standards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss and I were seated in the office of Newton Investigations. We had eight peeling, artificial wood desks and eight mismatched office chairs in need of yet another reupholstering. My other six colleagues had all either gone home for the weekend or were out on assignment.<\/p>\n<p>The sterile white walls bore only our business license and the first dollar the business ever collected. Both framed items hung behind the boss near the window. It gave a nice view of the traffic headed down\u00a0River Street\u00a0toward the library, which was cleverly named \u201cLibrary!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I swished around in my mouth my flavorless Juicy Fruit gum. \u201cThis has got to be the dumbest guy I\u2019ve run into yet. I go to his house, and he\u2019s got a stack of these stolen computers\u2014with the company lease numbers facing the windows, mind you. He copped out to the whole thing. And I got on to him just because of his shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow?\u201d\u00a0Newton\u00a0asked as he picked lint off his navy sweater vest. He was chubby, but his afternoon snack was plain celery sticks, in a plastic baggie. They were on his desk beside his Idaho Medal of Honor for Law Enforcement certificate. He straightened it. \u201cThey were just a pair of tennis shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the untrained eye, but I saw their label. Those shoes retail for $300 on Amazon. They\u2019re not available locally. Thirty bucks would be pricey for a pair of shoes on his pay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0typed on his computer\u2019s keyboard. \u201cYou have too much faith in your own instincts,\u00a0Ustick. If they\u2019d been a gift from a rich friend, you would have cost the client two billable hours plus and ninety-six miles of gasoline.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe lives in Homedale.\u201d I snorted. \u201cIf the people there had friends that gave them $300 shoes, they wouldn\u2019t live in Homedale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s where you\u2019re wrong. Some of us don\u2019t want to spend our whole lives like rats trapped on a wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I smirked. \u201cDid we get transported to\u00a0New York\u00a0or Philly?\u00a0Boise\u00a0is only what? The 120th largest city in\u00a0America?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss stopped typing and glared at me. \u201c104th,\u00a0Ustick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSorry, I didn\u2019t get the latest circular from the Chamber of Commerce.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He pointed a celery stick at me. \u201cYou can be wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure, I\u2019m wrong twenty-five percent of the time. That\u2019s built into my salary. Otherwise, I\u2019d be Sherlock Holmes, and you couldn\u2019t afford me. I\u2019d be living the good life in Homedale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss leaned forward. \u201cYou\u2019re playing with people\u2019s money and lives. Sometimes, it\u2019s like you\u2019re living out a boyhood fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNah. It was simply easier to get on here than to join the Power Rangers, and becoming a cowboy was impractical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss sighed. \u201cNever mind. Do you have anything else to do other than distract me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have to hit the save button on my Word document.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo Control S. It\u2019ll give me more time to work without you chattering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A bald man in his thirties blustered through our door. The stranger wore a pin-striped suit, a red tie, wingtips, and the ghost of a permanent smirk, from the wrinkles around his mouth.<\/p>\n<p><i>Time to live up to\u00a0Newton\u2019s definition of professionalism.<\/i>\u00a0I turned my head away from the visitor, spit my used-up gum in a wrapper, and dropped it in the trash can under my desk.<\/p>\n<p>The stranger was swaggering past me, smelling like a fifty-dollar bottle of Gucci cologne. He stopped by\u00a0Newton\u2019s desk. \u201cHey, Fig.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss shuddered but shoved the celery in his desk and looked up with a standard issue, professional smile. \u201cAre you talking to me, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSir?\u201d Laughing, our guest slapped his leg. \u201cThat\u2019s no way to talk to the best power forward ever in the history of Mount Tacoma High. I certainly remember our respectable point guard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0scrunched his eyebrows together and stood. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t remember you. High school was more years ago than I\u2019d like to admit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFig, I\u2019m surprised. You\u2019re a detective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I rolled my eyes.\u00a0<i>Not another joker who thinks detectives have Jedi powers.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The smirk grew wider. \u201cOkay, the old powers of deduction are allowed to be a little off at the end of a hard week. I\u2019m Bart Bradley.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0eyed Bradley\u2019s chrome dome and inhaled, leaning away from him. \u201cYou\u2019ve changed a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou haven\u2019t\u2014aside from too many donuts.\u201d The jerk\u2019s smirk stretched into the proportions of a cheeky grin.<\/p>\n<p>Gritting his teeth,\u00a0Newton\u00a0shook his hand and waved at the chair across from his desk. \u201cHave a seat. What can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The chair creaked as Bradley lowered himself into it. \u201cFig, I need you to help with a background check on a job candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sighed.\u00a0<i>Great. I\u2019m the only operative available, so this will delay my weekend.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0sat and pulled a yellow notepad from his desk drawer. \u201cWho is the candidate?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bradley reached into his jacket\u2019s inside pocket, pulled a photo out, and slid it across\u00a0Newton\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n<p>The boss glanced at it, snarled, and flicked the photo back at Bradley like he\u2019d wanted to stab him with it. \u201cGo to the devil!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I gaped at him. What had gotten into him?<\/p>\n<p>Bradley raised a hand. \u201cFig\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd another thing.\u201d\u00a0Newton\u00a0jumped up and got in Bradley\u2019s face, his eyes blazing. \u201cI hated that nickname in high school. If you use it again, I\u2019ll lay you out. You lied right off and said this was an employer background check. You want a smear job? Find yourself another boy,\u00a0pally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bradley stood. \u201cOpposition research is a legit field of investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNice Orwellian euphemism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of men look good until you find out who they really are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can hire every bottom feeder in\u00a0Boise, but they won\u2019t find anything on Ignacio Hernandez.\u201d\u00a0Newton\u00a0stabbed at finger at Bradley. \u201cGet your rear out of my office before Mr.\u00a0Ustick\u00a0and I toss you out on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I stood. And here I\u2019d thought I wouldn\u2019t have any fun at work before I went home.<\/p>\n<p>Bradley shook his head and chuckled. \u201cToo bad,\u00a0Newton. Just wanted to send an old pal some business.\u201d He glanced around at our office. \u201cLooks like you could use it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With that, he strode out the door without closing it.<\/p>\n<p>Party pooper. I flopped at my desk.<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0strode to the door and slammed it.<\/p>\n<p>The frame rattled.<\/p>\n<p>He kicked over the empty trash can by his desk, straightened the can, and sat. \u201cUstick, get me that report, now!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I bit back a comeback and emailed\u00a0Newton\u00a0the report. I poked my head out from behind my computer. \u201cThat was disappointing. It\u2019s been years since I\u2019ve gotten to toss someone out on their rear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0sighed. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. That was unprofessional.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I rolled my chair out into the aisle, so I was facing his desk. \u201cOh, I found it entertaining. You were so upset, I thought you might say fanny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I did curse out a potential client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>In a way I consider worthy of being made fun of.\u00a0<\/i>\u201cTwo questions, boss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0glowered. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat kind of nickname is Fig?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPut the nickname and my last name together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFig Newt\u2014\u201d I chuckled. \u201cThat\u2019s a good one. I\u2019ll have to remember it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He grimaced. \u201cJust don\u2019t repeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecond question. Why did you go nuts over exposing a politician?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t you have work to do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther than shutting down my computer? Nope. I\u2019m ready to go home. So again, what set you off?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0turned his chair towards me. \u201cWhen I was in college, I worked part-time at Hernandez\u2019s corporate office. During my sophomore year, my dad died while stopping an armed robbery. I left school and sought a full-time job that could support my family. Hernandez found out. He helped my mom find work and took care of my undergraduate tuition as well as my brother\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNice guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd there\u2019s never been any publicity about it. He really took an interest in me, and I\u2019m not the only one. He and his wife are good people. It boils my blood to think, because he wants to make the state better, they\u2019re going to be put through the ringer by the likes of Bart Bradley.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I leaned back. \u201cHernandez sounds like the type of guy I might vote for\u2014if I voted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0lifted his chin. \u201cI never you took you for an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My cheeks grew hot. \u201cWhat do you mean by that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smiling, the boss leaned in. \u201cIn Ancient Greece, the word idiot referred to people who didn\u2019t vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I waved it aside. \u201cIn modern\u00a0America, idiot means the guy who sits on pins and needles for two weeks on call waiting to see if our beloved county will summon him to jury duty. That won\u2019t happen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019d be surprised. The registered voters list doesn\u2019t double as a jurors list in\u00a0Idaho. You can still be called.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI won\u2019t get called. Anyway, are you going to tell your kindly benefactor to watch his back?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Newton\u00a0shook his head. \u201cHernandez has been around long enough to know a gubernatorial campaign isn\u2019t going to be a breezy picnic. Even scum like Bradley deserve what happens in this office to be confidential.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I looked at my watch. \u201cNow that my curiosity is satisfied, mind if I leave? I\u2019ve already put in forty-four hours this week, and you have no client to bill for my overtime pay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boss waved me away. \u201cSure, see you on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I shut down my computer. I pulled my fine black hair out of its ponytail, retied it, and let it fall just below my shoulder blade to the middle of my back. I put on my scarlet fedora, and walked to the coat rack. I pulled my tan overcoat on over my scarlet suit, worn with a pair of red leather wingtips. Under my jacket, I carried a 9mm\u00a0Glock\u00a0in a shoulder holster.<\/p>\n<p>After ambling out of the building, I walked down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. A little uneven pile of slush remained on a shadowed portion of the grass. The rest of the grass was wet with no slush. The sun was shining bright while a cold wind was blowing, as if nature wasn\u2019t quite sure what season it was. Typical for February in\u00a0Boise.<\/p>\n<p>I hopped into my pink 2005 Jaguar.<\/p>\n<p>Across the parking lot,\u00a0Newton\u2019s pal Bradley sat at the wheel of a late model silver Impala with rental car plates, hunched over a\u00a0smartphone.<\/p>\n<p><i>On second thought, my curiosity hasn\u2019t quite been satisfied. Where would you go to find a bottom-feeding private detective in\u00a0Boise?<\/i>\u00a0I plugged my\u00a0iPhone\u00a0into the car\u2019s docking station and turned on my tunes.Beyonce\u2019s\u00a0voice filled the cabin.<\/p>\n<p>Three songs in, Bradley finished with the phone and started the Impala.<\/p>\n<p>I waited for him to pull out before following him and merged into traffic two car lengths back. We drove down\u00a0River Street, across 9th, past the library, and turned left onto Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of the boulevard, Bradley turned right onto Bannock and pulled into a parking lot of a two-story building. The wooden sign listed only one private investigator firm, Sheryl Thompson and Associates. Bradley parked and stomped to Thompson\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>Well, that figured. I drove around the block three times before finding a metered parking space in front of a dentist\u2019s office half a block away, in sight of Bradley\u2019s car.<\/p>\n<p>Time for the most exciting part of my job: waiting.<\/p>\n<p>I fed the meter for half an hour\u2019s worth of parking and popped in a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit. I leaned back in my seat, savored the orange cream pop flavor and hunkered down with the Angry Birds on my\u00a0iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>After twenty minutes, Bradley came downstairs, got in the car, fiddled with his\u00a0smartphone\u00a0a bit, and drove away.<\/p>\n<p>I followed him over to 9th and to\u00a0Vista Avenue. About two miles down, he hung a left into the lot of the Holiday Inn Express.<\/p>\n<p>Most likely, he was simply returning to his hotel room after having found his bottom feeder. Sheryl Thompson would turn down a paying job the day Donald Trump refused publicity.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, it wasn\u2019t my case. I yawned. Time to head home.<\/p>\n<p>A few minutes later, I parked outside my duplex\u2019s garage, picked up a stack of mail I\u2019d grabbed from my box, and went inside the house.<\/p>\n<p>The kitchen\u2019s gray tile stretched into the entryway. I headed to the left, onto the slate blue living room carpet.<\/p>\n<p>Against one wall was a baby blue leather couch with matching recliner. I laid the mail on the end table by my recliner. To the right of it was my purple keyboard on a music stand with a brown chair borrowed from the dinette set. On the wall across from the couch was a stone shelf. There, I kept three food-flavored candles in jars and one lighter. I lit the butterscotch\u00a0blondies\u00a0candle and breathed in the \u201cfresh out of the oven\u201d smell without the fuss.<\/p>\n<p>I slipped my phone into the high-end docking station and turned on the radio app. The Hip Hop station\u2019s tunes poured out of the station\u2019s speakers. I switched it to a reggae station, perfect for chilling on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>I settled into my recliner and smiled at my mural of the Vermillion rocks at\u00a0Pariah\u00a0Canyon. The ruddy, spiraled formations looked like they were from another world.<\/p>\n<p>After a minute, I yawned and sorted the mail. Junk, circular, junk, junk.<\/p>\n<p>Letter from\u00a0Ada\u00a0County.<\/p>\n<p>Huh? What would the county want with me? Assessments shouldn\u2019t be out for a couple months.<\/p>\n<p>I opened the letter and cursed.<\/p>\n<p>A summons for jury duty.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Slime Incorporated&#8217;s<\/em> available as a <a href=\"ttp:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1496030524\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1496030524&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=adamsblog03-20\">paperback<\/a> and for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Slime-Incorporated-Cole-Ustick-Mysteries-ebook\/dp\/B00IMHRS1C\">the Kindle<\/a>. From March 27-April 2nd, it&#8217;s available as part of a Kindle Countdown deal for 99 cents for the first half of sale. Amazon Prime members may borrow the book for free through the Kindle Owners Lending Library.<\/p>\n<p>You can enter to win a paperback copy at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/giveaway\/show\/86891-slime-incorporated\">Goodreads.com\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the first chapter of my mystery novel\u00a0Slime Incorporated.\u00a0 &nbsp; Chapter One \u201cSo would you put idiot or moron?\u201d Jerry Newton looked up at me from behind his gold-colored PC. \u201cUstick, neither is quite up to our professional standards.\u201d The boss and I were seated in the office of Newton Investigations. We had eight peeling,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[168,496],"class_list":["post-10151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-book-excerpt","tag-slime-incorporated"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pECdK-2DJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10159,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151\/revisions\/10159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}