Sleutherin'

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is a gal of hidden talents. She has a penchant for getting to the bottom of things. Perhaps that's due to her career as a public school teacher. Perhaps that's due to her marriage to Farmer H.

Anyhoo...Mrs. HM is hanging out her Private Investigator shingle. Hoping nobody steals it.

On the way home from town yesterday, I turned T-Hoe onto my gravel road and saw a white truck up ahead. That's not unusual. Several people out here have a white truck, HOS (Farmer H's Oldest Son) being one of them. I'm not well-versed in truck models, but this one didn't look like the one I see parked in our BARn field when HOS is there helping Farmer H.

Normally, I wouldn't freak out about such a sighting. It's probably someone who lives out here. What caught my eye was an object in the back of that white truck. I don't know what it was. It looked kind of awkwardly loaded. Not all wrapped in an old bedspread, or tied down with come-a-longs like a valued piece of furniture might be, if somebody was moving it to their house.

AND this white truck was driving really slow. I know that some people have a nice car, and don't want to kick up dust from the gravel road. This was not a nice car. The area where I came upon the white truck was where we found a broken aquarium that had been trashed there a few months back. It's near the shallow waterfall of the now-frozen creek, where there's a little gap in the trees. Ne'er-do-wells have always used that area for dumping.

Had I come upon a would-be dumper?

Well! If I HAD, that varmint wasn't going to get away scott free! No siree, Bob! I could gather evidence, and turn it over to my enforcer, Farmer H. So I took out my phone, and tried to get a picture of that truck. Unfortunately, that road is bumpy, and my picture-taking leaves a little to be desired, even when I'm NOT piloting a 2008 Tahoe.

He must have seen me waving the phone around, because he sped up a little bit. Didn't stop and drop his truck bed load. He turned left on the first branch he came to off that gravel road. It's a dead end up there. So either he lives on that branch, or he thought he was escaping my investigation.

Farmer H says there's a new guy out here who just bought a house. But you can't reach it from that road the truck turned on. He doesn't know what the guy drives.

You can bet I'm going to leave this case open.