A Shierbet von Lichtenstein Adventure

Chapter 2

Fifteen minutes later I was turning left on Clements Way. The street was, well, ordinary. It was a neighborhood, not one that ended in a turn-around-circle, you know – the kind where if you accidentally go up the street the only way out is to turn around in that little circle and hunch over the wheel because you know the entire neighborhood is watching you? Yea, it wasn't one of those.

This was an old neighborhood, the street snaked in and around a few small hills and eventually met back up with the same street down a few miles. While clearly designed and developed with maximum houses in mind, it had been done so long ago that the trees were making a comeback and staking their claim where the lush lawns and driveways ended.

I passed ordinary colored houses with ordinary things in yards, like sprinklers and bikes that had been jumpped off and left to be run over in the driveway in pursuit of cookies. All fairly new, within the past twenty years or so I'd say with one that looked like it had been built just in the past year or so, the trees having lost a battle.

I eased my way along at the posted speed limit, not wanting to draw attention as an invader to the ordinary. One of the things I love about my car is it is virtually unnoticeable. It looks like every other car. This is not the case, however, if one takes corners at breakneck speed in small rural neighborhoods.

So, even though I was running one or two minutes late, I took my time.

Number 91 was about a mile and a half into the neighborhood. Number 91 was not ordinary. It wasn't bright pink with a Ferris wheel or carousel in the front yard or anything, but it was old.

I drove past the house at first, which is the way I always approach an address I visit for work. Believe it or not, I am not always hired by what one would call the nice folks in town. Typically if you're calling me it's because whatever you want to do or need to know you either don't want the police to know what it is or they don't care what you have to say.

As such it is prudent to be cautious when approaching a new place. Who knows, the guy inside may have a pet tiger or dragon or something just waiting for an unsuspecting private eye to come snooping about.

Having determined in this case there was no dragon (tiger still a possibility) I made what was supposed to be a smooth, graceful U-turn.

It was not.

What it actually was, was a hitching 6 point maneuver whereby I almost got stuck in a ditch, not once but twice.

Alas, the road was not quite as wide as I had thought.

That done, and no witnesses, I made my way back to the drive and took the right that led me down the short gravel path to the home.

It was beautiful. So far from ordinary it was glaring. There was a farmer's porch that spanned the entire front side of the home, complete with bench swing and rocking chairs.

The paint was chipping here and there, but was a rich shade of white with hints of green at the very edges of the trim around the divided glass windows. And yes, it had four pillars surrounding the front doorway.

Off to the left of the driveway there was an old barn, looking a bit worse for wear as it leaned slightly in the direction of the house, as if begging for some support from its friend as the beams and trusses that were supposed to hold it up slowly let go.

My tires crunched to a stop behind a new Range Rover. While I liked the car, I always felt sad for such vehicles because the folks that owned them rarely gave them their due. Instead they insisted on taking the beautify machines on highways and paved roads rather than the mud and rocks for which they are made.