So, as I alluded to before, I have no choice but to soldier on with the novel writing. I did two sessions today to catch up with the quota. Only 7 days left and I think I’m pretty much on the right flight path to end the story pretty near 50,000 words. Today I’m at 38,412, just a hair ahead of the 38,333 scheduled.

“Can we see those ammo boxes that we talked about?”, asked Denton.

“Sure, follow me out to the garage.”

The three men walked through the dining room and the immaculate kitchen. The door to the garage was just off the kitchen in the laundry room and opened onto a small set of steps that went down to the cement floor. There were clean shelves stacked with plastic tubs and in the corner were stacked eleven ammo boxes. Ten were clean and stacked neatly, but there was one sitting off to the side, a little dirtier with a padlock on it. Exactly like the troopers had described the one stolen from the crime scene earlier in the day.

“Why is that one locked?”, asked Denton.

“Oh, that’s one that I’ve had for years. Let me find the key”, Eric said, walking back into the kitchen.

“Get ready sir”, said Denton, thinking that they might be in for an ambush.

The Sheriff put his hand on his weapon and ducked back behind the water heater. Deputy Denton pressed himself up against the wall so Eric wouldn’t see him until he came through the door. He had already unholstered his gun. They could hear Eric rummaging around a drawer, then it was silent except for a loud click.

Eric walked back into the garage with the key on a magnetic stick. He had dropped it into the cabinetry when he was pushing things around the drawer and he had to fish it out. Denton just saw the metallic object extending through the doorway and thought that this was it.

“Whoa! What’s up guys?”, Eric yelled putting his hands over his head and dropping the stick and the key on to the garage floor.

Denton and the Sheriff both lowered their weapons and tried to shake it off. They both just looked at each other and started laughing. Eric had actually wet his pants during the standoff.

“Not funny. Not even funny. I thought we were all going to be friendly”, Eric said brushing the front of his pants.

“I am sorry, man. We’re all a little jumpy”, Denton said.

“Go change your pants. It happens to everyone sometime”, the Sheriff said, trying not to laugh.

Eric just shook his head and walked back into the house. He thought that he might have wanted to have a gun fight rather than wet his pants in front of the Sheriff, but shit, he had wanted to take a leak all the way from Montesano.

“Get the key”, the Sheriff said to Denton.

Denton grabbed the key and then picked up the ammo box. He put it on the work bench and unlocked it, after monkey with the rusty lock for a few seconds. The latch was rusted too, but it came loose and then he opened the box. It was full of Magic the Gathering cards, hundreds of them, not the evidence that the two policeman dearly wanted to see.

“Hey, I wanted to open that!”, Eric shouted as he walked back into the garage, sporting clean blue jeans.

“What the hell is all this?”, the Sheriff asked.

“Those are my Magic cards”, Eric replied.

“Like baseball cards?”, asked Denton.

“No, don’t your kids have these? They are for a game I used to play. I used to be pretty good at it too. I won all these cards from other players at tournaments, but I haven’t played for four or five years”, Eric said.

“You played with these when you worked for me?”, the Sheriff asked.

“Sure, what’s wrong with that?”

“Oh, nothing. Nice pants”, the Sheriff snickered.

“You fuckers drew down on me for holding a padlock key! How messed up is that?”

The Sheriff and Denton both put their hands up as if to apologize, trying to defuse Eric’s anger.

“You know, the cards in that box are probably worth about ten thousand dollars at least. Here, look at this one”, Eric said, pulling out a card wrapped in a plastic sleeve. “This is a Bazaar of Baghdad card that went straight from it’s wrapper into this sleeve, never touched by a human hand. This one card is worth at least two hundred bucks.”

“Hmm, well those are worth keeping locked up I guess”, said the Sheriff.

“Where do you keep your Cabbage Patch Dolls?”, joked Denton, ribbing the Sheriff.