This bit was just practice. But now, here it is, even though it's still just practice. 

Title:  Moody and Grimm, Chapter Three
Authors:  Bob Freye

He didn’t so much arrive at the office the next morning as stumble into it by accident, which made him wonder how dangerous it had been to drive the several miles to work with his mind so preoccupied with the idea of Mrs. Jensen and her offer to make him a partner in her scheme to defraud the state. Not that there had been any traffic, especially on the gravel roads that ran from the farmhouse almost to the very edge of Pumpkin Center. The weather was clear and warm, so by the time Oliver dragged himself out of bed, the farmers were in the fields, leaving the gravel pretty much clear of traffic.

Maddie was already at her desk with a stack of phone books piled to the side and one open in front of her. She didn’t bother to look up as Oliver scuffed past.

“No luck so far,” she called through the open door to her office. “Not that I expected any.”

No, Oliver thought. Not much chance that they would find the Mr. Jensen they were looking for among all the Jensens who lived across the state. He pushed a pair of white athletic socks off his desk into the wastebasket and plopped down in his chair. This was just one of those days that he didn’t want to be at work, like yesterday, and the day before. Come to think of it, there weren’t many days he wanted to be at work.

The phone rang, and he picked it up, partly to spare Maddie, who was probably still reading the fine print in some small town phone listing and partly because this seemed like the kind of job he could handle. Maybe, he thought, this would be a career to pursue once the private investigation experiment finally went belly up.

“Hello,” he said, straining to clear the early-morning crustiness out of his voice. 

The voice on the other end was far too animated for this early in the morning. What time was it anyway? He looked at the clock. Ten-thirty.

“Are you listening?” the voice rattled. “I’ve found him!”

“I’m listening,” he lied. “Found who?”

“Your guy. The guy on the news.”  

“Wait a minute,” Oliver fumbled through the clutter on his desk for a pencil, “you found Jensen?”

As he listened, Oliver scratched out notes all over the surface of a yellow pad.

“Yeah,” he kept saying as the voice on the other end talked. Not that it was a two-way conversation. The voice just talked, and Oliver talked to himself. Yes, he had wanted that information. Yes, he would follow up on that lead immediately. Yes, he always knew that they could crack this case.

He cradled the phone without saying goodbye and left his desk to cross the little outer room that they used as a reception area. He pressed his hands against the frame of Maddie’s doorway and leaned into her office.

“Let’s go.”

Her finger traced slowly along a line of names. She still had not looked up.

He leaned farther into the office, waiting for her to ask. She had to ask him. He had to tell her, so the least she could do is ask. She had to.

“I got a call.” He spilled it, not the whole story, but just the first part, just so she would ask.

“I heard,” she muttered. “Where we going?”

“It was Kenny,” he gushed. “He saw the story on the news, the one out of Rapid City.”  

She lifted her head and leveled her bleary eyes in his direction like two barrels of a shotgun, two very tired shotgun barrels, aimed at him.

“So let’s go,” he added quickly.

“Where,” she moaned.

“Chamberlain.” And he pushed himself out of the doorway and raced back into his own office to fill a nylon bag with a few things he might need, things that he didn’t keep packed in the briefcase, extra paper mostly, and a spare shirt. At the last minute, he tossed in the Colt and zippered the case. 

Maddie met him on the way out. She was waiting by the front door. She let him breeze past before bothering to follow him out the door. By the time she slid into the passenger seat of the Focus, he had the engine running and the radio switched to a country music station that would follow them as they headed west.

“I gotta stop for coffee,” she muttered as he backed away from the curb and turned out onto Third Street, the heart of the Pumpkin Center business district.

“No problem,” he said, almost as if she wasn’t there. His mind was already a hundred and fifty miles away.