Frank Cartwright said. “Got turned into subdivisions. Now a lot of those houses are in foreclosure and the neighborhoods are going to hell.” He was garrulous in the way of old men. He hadn’t stopped talking since Jock and I arrived at the double-wide trailer where he lived with his three dogs. He was tall and spare, his face creased with wrinkles earned by age and hard work in the sun, his white hair mostly hidden by a ball cap with a John Deere logo, his ice-blue eyes rheumy. The jeans he wore were thin with age, his flannel shirt threadbare. His home smelled of unwashed dog and old cigarette butts. He was drinking from a mug half full of coffee that looked as if it had sat in the pot for the last year or two. Jock and I had declined his offer to join him. “What can you tell me about Jim Fredrickson’s grove?” I asked. “Wasn’t much to it. His ma and pa eked out a living with it. They couldn’t afford to hire no pickers, so they did it themselves. Little Jimmy filled his share of boxes before he got that scholarship to college down in Miami.
What do You think about Found: A Matt Royal Mystery?
