Coop Knows the Scoop: Chapters 1–6

Liberty sauntered in, joining Justice and me in the kitchen.

Ignoring his glare, she stood straight and shoved her baseball into her apron pocket.

“And it’s too late. No one can get within a hundred feet of the playground.” She frowned. “Or the baseball fields. The police already cordoned off the whole area.”

Three years ago Justice started carrying a dictionary in his back pocket after an unfortunate misunderstanding of the word “rendezvous” left him locked in the women’s bathroom of the Piggly Wiggly for two hours.

According to Gramps, life is a journey, and what we are now is not necessarily what we will be.

He would’ve let us go—in fact, I reckon he would’ve even given us a ride to the playground.

He might be a stickler for the rules, but he had his mischievous side too.

“Don’t forget you’ll need to bring them their order. Lord knows we don’t want them trying to carry their coffee again. Not after yesterday’s fiasco.”

I mustered up the most charm possible for any thirteen-year-old boy stuck behind a counter serving coffee when a perfectly good skeleton lay in a shallow grave just a couple miles over.

Miss Ruth constantly smiled and had mischievous eyes, but Miss Meriwether had scowl gutters that ran deep, making her face look like that picture of Winston Churchill that hung in the library—which was pretty unnerving considering she wasn’t a man.

Mama said some people ease their way into a cranky lifestyle, but not Miss Meriwether. She cannonballed right into a swamp of cantankerousness and has been treading the murky water ever since.

She had an intense dislike of mugs. Thought they were uncouth.

Said one could slurp mud from a teacup and be more refined than being seen drinking coffee out of a mug.

Her beady eyes bored holes through my head.

Miss Meriwether gawked. “Cooper Goodman, do you mean to tell me you haven’t heard?”

TIPTON COUNTY SHERIFF was emblazoned on the side of the doors.

“You have a prodigious grasp of the obvious,” muttered Liberty.

Chair legs scraped against the old wooden floor, and tabletops jostled as people rushed to the front of the store to spy through the windows.

How someone his height ever managed to fit inside any car boggled my mind.

“Wondered if that was you causing such a ruckus, Keith. We heard it all the way back in the storeroom.”

“Murray left yesterday for a two-week cruise with his new bride. And O’Connell just had his appendix out. No wonder she feels overwhelmed.”

Burma moseyed into our store moments later, gray hair slicked back and smelling of aftershave.

Last week he took it upon himself to rearrange all of Shakespeare’s tragedies based on how the main character kicked the bucket. It took Liberty and Mrs. Gordon ages before the books went from stabbed, poisoned, or baked into a pie (that one’s from Titus Andronicus), back to alphabetical order.

Justice’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
“Romance befuddles him even more than vocabulary, Burma,” I said.

Mama had wanted our help that morning, but now that she’d had time to get some work done, maybe we could cut loose. As if divinely directed, Gramps walked through the swinging door of the kitchen.

“Gramps! Perfect timing.” I smiled casually. “Can you watch over the place? We got an important errand for Tick.”

Sure it was a sweltering ninety-five degrees in the shade, but he still wore a three-piece suit.

The investigators were sifting through dirt, taking photos, or writing on clipboards. One CSI dumped shovelfuls of dirt from inside the excavator’s large scoop into a shallow box while another person gently shook the box back and forth, allowing the dirt to fall through the holes.

Most of the customers from A Latté Books, along with several other town folks, craned their necks and stood on their toes to see what was happening.

Its rusted frame leaned at a precarious angle, threatening to collapse any second like a bad game of Jenga.

“That stupid pile of dirt is in the way—can’t see diddly-squat.”
Justice huffed. “The police should be more solicitous and move the dirt to the other side.”

I could tell a part of Liberty was sorely tempted to have a go at those binoculars, but then she sniffed the air near him and grimaced.

I picked the paper up and tucked it under my arm, with plans to scour the pages for information later.

He had accidentally gotten himself trapped in one of the coffins in the showroom when he was a kid. Suffice it to say he didn’t rest in peace.

“But Chester got him back—he came to and puked all over the navy blue upholstery.”

Tick bounded up the steps of A Latté Books.

Two years ago, Mama had volunteered my services as lawn boy to the Feather sisters after she overheard them fussing over their too-small teachers’ pensions and the price of yard care.

Fridays were my day to wrestle with Ol' Feisty—their angst-filled lawn mower—for a measly five dollars.

Before he could answer, Mama materialized from Lord-knows-where and laid a hand on his shoulder.

I jumped at the sound of shattering mugs as shards went flying.