Walking the Grain

Note: This story is featured in Season 9, Episode 2 of Mysteries to Die For, and you can listen to it here. If you'd like to read it for yourself, it's in the M2D4 Anthology here

~While McClure went to collect the farm’s owner, Friday continued her examination of the recently deceased Mr. Vester, starting with the hands. A victim's hands told a story, and Friday needed to work out the dead boy’s last chapter.

The left hand didn’t tell her much. No broken nails or defensive wounds, just the heavy callouses she’d expect to find on a farm worker. Beneath the dust and dirt, she found a class ring. The year engraved in the band told her the boy had been a senior, and for some reason, that detail made the detective’s heart hurt a little more than usual.

What the left hand lacked, though, the right hand had in spades. Every finger but the thumb was broken and twisted. Whatever had killed him, it was neither quick nor painless.~

Driving, cleaning the house, yard work: I don’t really listen to the radio anymore, but I’m a sucker for a good true crime or real play RPG podcast. I also love going to see plays, particularly murder mysteries, so when I find a podcast that has a murder mystery element, consider me hooked.

 The Mysteries to Die For podcast has a pretty fun premise: The host reads a murder mystery, and her partner tries to figure it out before the detective in the story. When they put out a call for STCKY (Stuff that Can Kill You) mysteries last year, I had to toss my hat in the ring.

See, I had a story I’d been sitting on for decades. Once upon a time, I was an eighteen-year-old construction worker building houses in North Texas for $6 per hour. The drive to some of the job sites was long and boring and usually started before sunrise. One early morning, my partner told me a story about a friend of his who died in an industrial accident on a farm. It stuck in my head for decades, and now I had a chance to work it into a story.

This is the seventh published Friday Hampton story and, aside from the podcast’s solve-it-your-self format, it’s also a lot of fun because it’s the first mystery Friday’s had to solve without her mentor and friend, Ambrose Broyhill. Of course, she's up to the task.

Can you figure it out before Friday? If you don't feel liek reading the printed version, the podcast is free; give it a shot!