denizens of Pinewhittle. In each exchange, Mick was regaled with another long-winded anecdote concerning either a previous service freely provided by his cabin mate or the wise counsel the valley's patriarch had offered in times of troubled indecision.
Mr. Loneshark purchased three long white candles in one of the small markets and proceeded with his tour of the township. His random ambulation eventually brought him level with the entrance of The Pinewhittle Police Station. The detective walked into the rock-faced cube. Mick immediately spied Chief Max Mountain sitting at a large desk behind the front glass partition of his tiny office in the back, left corner of the diminutive structure. Adjacent to the right side of the office was a single cell. Stationed at a smaller desk, centered in front of the office and cell, was a younger, uniformed man serving as both dispatcher and the patrolman who would be dispatched if a rare call requested police assistance. The young officer was reading a magazine with a picture of a pistol on its cover. The policeman looked up and started to inquire. Loneshark waved over his head at the chief. They both heard the jovial voice yell through the glass, "Hey! Come in, Mick."
Mick gave a friendly nod to the patrolman and walked past him. Loneshark entered the chief's office and closed the door. Loneshark plopped down in the chair facing Max and pleasantly asked, "How are you, Chief?"
"Call me Max."
"Well, Max, I see you are anxiously waiting for the crime lab to rush its report up the hall to verify your theory on the latest perpetrator's modus operandi."
"You bet, Mick. I believe I heard a line similar to that last week on one of those big-city police shows. They said, 'M.O.' I wondered what those letters meant."
"Modus Operandi is Latin for method of operation."
"Well, the day we get a lab . . . and a hall . . . I'll be able to impress its tech with my knowledge of a Latin term."
"How do you process the physical evidence of a crime scene?"
"Oh, we have a fingerprint kit."
Loneshark gave Max a twisted smile and facetiously suggested, "I bet you have an old bottle of caked baby powder and a wrinkled roll of yellowed cellophane tape."
Mountain's eyes bulged, and he shook his head, breaking into a wheezing laugh, "Mick, you are a caution. Clint warned me not to trade jibes with you. He said if I got into a battle of wits with you, I would soon find I was an unarmed man. To answer your question, we have an official federal fingerprint retrieval kit. One of the FBI guys was kind enough to give it to me for being cooperative enough to stay out of their way."
"Do you want me to show you how to use the kit?"
Max cocked a suspicious eye. "Are you bored today, Detective?"
