Dead Man in a Lincoln

By Jim Billman

The investigation into the unlikely death of a local bully leaves two rural law officers perplexed. Whether an improbable accident or an orchestrated homicide, the answer lies somewhere inside a secret theistic organization that causes life-changing decisions for everyone involved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543901221

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Acknowledgements

DEAD MAN IN A LINCOLN

September, 2003

Hey, Lennie, what’ve we got here? A sleeper run off the road and wind up out in the corn? No skid marks, not much debris that I can see. Maybe a heart attack or stroke, you think? Is he dead? My scanner only said personal injury accident. Iowa State Trooper Steve De Cook finally took a breath as he unfolded himself from his cruiser and donned his Smokey hat.

His counterpart, Sheriff Lawrence Lennie Gregg, hitched his utility belt that habitually rode below his paunch, turned to meet the deluge, and gave a sardonic, Yeah, he’s dead, so relax with the twenty questions a little. It’s always nice to see you too, Trooper Motor Mouth, regardless of the circumstances. His tone softened, I would, however, like for you to go down there and take a look before the clean-up crew gets here. Just walk on down and let me know what you think. I’ll stay up here on the road and keep the ‘Looky Lous’ moving ’less we have another accident. There’s some blood, so put on gloves.

Sheriff Gregg was in his fifth term as sheriff, having been re-elected four times after serving almost ten years as a deputy. He had assumed the position when his predecessor had been killed in an icy head-on collision on the same highway no more than two miles from where he and Trooper De Cook stood surveying a faded white 1988 Lincoln Town Car that rested below the highway with both of its front doors gaping open. The car had indeed left the highway, plowed a fairly diagonal path down through a weedy incline, bounced over a rutted, but shallow, drainage ditch and torn out a woven wire fence. And now, with the sun two weeks north of the fall equinox, the car rested in the fringe of an Iowa cornfield teeming with crickets and grasshoppers.

Tragic? Always, although the manner of a person’s demise is hardly quantifiable. Both officers had seen more gruesome car fatalities under far worse conditions and involving multiple casualties, and this one had apparently occurred with little incidental damage. As the two men stood beside each other along the shoulder of the highway, their demeanor demonstrated not so much of a flippancy as it reflected the simplicity of the occasion. Beyond uprooting a few fence posts and knocking over several rows of corn, nothing material seemed to be damaged. It was truly an old car: a big, old boat of a car.

Trooper De Cook had pretty well described the whole scenario at first glance which made him wonder a bit about the sheriff ’s request. He adjusted his sunglasses, made sure the strap of his hat was firmly in place and nodded toward an SUV along the side of the road, closer to a bridge. Is that the first person on the scene over there?

Yeah, kinda’, sorta’. She was more a part of the scene, the sheriff ’s southern Iowa lilt apparent. She’s wound pretty tight right now and claims to have seen the whole thing. Told me the white car was right behind a rock truck or some kind of big truck when it pulled out to pass.

De Cook had turned his gaze from the highway to better envision the sheriff: the sun past vertical but glaring brightly, the air heavy with humidity, windless and hot.

Again tugging at his belt, Gregg continued. The vic likely saw her car approaching and pulled back in. Then, right after she drove past the Lincoln, she said she glanced in her mirror and saw a white blur go down the slope toward the field. I’d guess the dust the commotion kicked up caused her to look. She’s pretty sketchy on the details, but she’s our only source of information so far. She can’t identify what kind of truck; and as upset as she was, I’m not sure she could tell a rock truck from a reefer or a straight truck from a semi.

Pausing to watch De Cook wave by a slow-moving car and following a murmured expletive, Gregg said, Anyway, she prob’ly watched the car and not the truck. Once she settles down, she’ll be more helpful. I gave her a bottle of water and told her to wait over there in the shade until I could look things over. It’ll give her a chance to compose herself, too.

Now looking toward the awaiting Lincoln, De Cook asked, The truck driver obviously had no idea of what happened?

Don’t s’pose else he’d came back. The lady did have the presence of mind to call 911 on her cell phone. I was about ten minutes away going the same direction as the Lincoln so I turned around and beat it back here soon as I heard. I told her to wait ’til I checked on the driver, then got her story. Next, I called my dispatcher and had her call the locals in Roseau and St. Mark to watch for a truck, especially a rock truck. Like you, I doubt whether the driver looked back or had any idea that the accident happened in his wake. Plus, it’s not very likely that Dispatch got the word out soon enough to get a comprehensive list of trucks.

Another car crept by with the driver straining to see what had happened.

After the pause, the sheriff cupped his hand over his mouth and moustache and then down to his side in a grooming motion as he was often wont to do and continued. I couldn’t tell them what to look for anyway. Hell, I likely saw the truck myself but don’t remember it. This is no interstate, but a lot of trucks still pound up and down this road every day. Gregg habitually tightened his mouth in a way that made his mustache twitch after explaining something that just as easily could have gone unsaid. Typical of many in the profession, he wasn’t given to long orations; and he had pretty well exhausted his word quota for the day in explaining the wreck to Trooper De Cook.

Okay, Sheriff, I’ll go take a look right after I call HQ and get the camera boys over here to make their investigation. Have you seen that new device they’re using now? It’s got an adjustable lens system that rotates across the entire scene; and although it takes more time, it’s a nice piece of equipment. Doesn’t leave much out. But from what I see from up here I don’t know what good a panoramic 3D picture will do. Also sounds to me like it doesn’t matter much whether the truck is or isn’t located.

Gregg, his steel blue eyes indicating that he knew something that De Cook didn’t, quipped, I’m not so sure about that. You’ll see what I mean when you get down there.

Sheriff Gregg and Trooper De Cook were more than professional acquaintances. Residing in a rural county of no more than 12,000 residents, with over 600 miles of county and state roads that employed only four deputies and one state trooper partially assigned to it, their job descriptions and workloads often overlapped. Actually, the two had become fast friends over the past three years as their experiences had grown into a relationship that extended to some of their common but rare off duty times.

De Cook had come to feel that he was always welcome at the Gregg household where Mrs. Gregg, who never met a stranger, had taken an immediate liking to the tawny-haired young officer. Being empty-nesters, she embraced De Cook as one of the family and treated him better than she treated her own husband to hear the sheriff ’s side of the story.

Although they were affable, Gregg couldn’t help regarding De Cook as a protégé, and not infrequently subjected him to some good-natured kidding. They bantered back and forth over such things as sports teams and bickered over job methodologies past and present. De Cook, over 30 years’ junior to Gregg and a product of the Iowa law enforcement system, nevertheless gave back as good as he got and chided his cohort as being old school.

Gregg, having learned his trade as a military police officer at Ft Gordon, Georgia, had a tendency to use military protocol when transmitting on the police bands. Poking fun at the sheriff ’s radio procedure, De Cook had once asked him, Who’s this Wilco guy, your imaginary friend? and had given him an antiquated army surplus PRC-6 or squawk box for a gag birthday present. Upon receiving his gift, the sheriff had told De Cook that the radio was commonly known as a prick six, and it was a very nice gift coming from prick one.

However, transcending their age difference, the two men shared a common philosophy to their approach in upholding the law and they worked well when circumstances brought them together. Professional to the core, De Cook had never heard the sheriff speak derogatorily toward anyone; it was all business when on the job. No ‘stupid’ jokes when someone had made a really bad choice like driving into axle-deep mud or losing their billfold when holding up a convenience store. The sheriff ’s no-nonsense approach rubbed off on De Cook.

For De Cook, most of his on-duty work was traffic-related while domestic disputes and minor theft occupied a majority of Gregg’s time. Their coordinated endeavors were usually on drug busts, a problem not uncommon in any of Iowa’s 99 counties. Methamphetamine was rampant and a recent poll had given Iowa the dubious distinction of being the nation’s per capita leader in meth use.

Raised on a farm in North Central Iowa, De Cook was surprisingly fearful of snakes, a phobia he kept to himself as much as possible. Always on the lookout, he proceeded toward the Lincoln by staying on the matted path made by the tire tracks and in shuffling his feet to warn any reptilian presence of his coming. Iowa had no poisonous species in this particular area of the state, but the general creepiness regarding any snake was something De Cook had had most his life. His awareness was heightened by the presence of the nearby wetlands preserve and the fact that he had seen several dead snakes lying on the highway from time to time in this vicinity. In trying to understand the ridiculousness of his ophidian anxiety, he attributed it to the time as a child when a Sunday school teacher told her class that people were naturally fearful of snakes because that was the form the Devil took in the Garden of Eden and this was God’s way of reminding Christians of the constant presence of the Evil One.

The easement between the highway and the cornfield was a broad swale more than a ditch and apparently had little effect on the Lincoln beyond jostling some caked dirt from its undercarriage. Whereas a ditch would have caused major damage to the car, the ground was fairly level and descended only a few feet below the shoulder of the road. Grading work had been done in order for the adjoining wetland area to remain a basin for standing water, and the furrow served as a drain to the river after a heavy rainfall. All done to conservational specification, the area provided a mostly consistent, ongoing ecological unit common to man-made bogs.

As De Cook approached the wreckage he saw that the fence was a typical old woven wire one with a single barbed-wire strand above, badly in need of repair.

How many hours, days even, did I spend digging post holes and building fence lines? Lots, that’s for sure.

Current farming methods had done away with the older practice of releasing livestock into picked cornfields so many of the old fence rows were either removed or left to slowly deteriorate. No fences meant that a farmer could get in a few more rows of crops, even borrow a bit of land from the easement; but it also eliminated available habitat for wildlife such as pheasants, quails and native grasses. Farming allowed for one’s individualism via ownership; and this, like many choices landowners made, reflected one’s attitude toward stewardship. At this time of year, whether there was a fence or not bore little impact on the literally thousands of grasshoppers, some as big as a man’s thumb that whirred erratically and voraciously from leaf to leaf.

Accompanied by the incessant chirping of a near-infinite number of crickets, a heat index reaching triple digits, and the uncomfortable humidity, De Cook was not enjoying this particular moment of his work. Amid this annoyance, he was reminded of the old saying, almost a mantra, his dad often used: For every four seeds a farmer plants, the weather kills one, the government takes one, the insects eat one, and the farmer reaps one.

A few shuffle-steps short of the Lincoln, an errant brown grasshopper landed on the back of De Cook’s neck. In trying at least three times to brush the thing off him, the fourth swat unfortunately crushed it at his collar line behind his left ear making a gelatinous yellow-green mess that stained his collar and left squished grasshopper entrails on his fingers. At least he had heeded the Sheriff ’s advice about wearing gloves.

Yuck! Damn things.

Hoping that Sheriff Gregg wasn’t watching his histrionics, De Cook shook the grasshopper remnants from between his fingers. Not only had he stained his shirt collar, but now he had to dirty a handkerchief.

Minimally damaged but maximally pissed, he drew abreast of the scene and peered through the open door of the Lincoln.

Friggin’ Gregg thinks it’s funny to send me down here when he’s already done it himself. ‘Just go on down there, take a look and let me know what you think,’ he said. I’ll let him know what I think all right.

The man inside the Lincoln was certainly dead.

A white Town Car, old model; probably had all the bells and whistles at one time, VIN number in place, windows down. Lennie likely turned off the ignition. Nothing unusual about the vehicle. Open ashtray filled with butts, seat belt wasn’t fastened, no air bag to go off but there wasn’t much of an impact ‘cause the car just came to a gradual stop as it hit the fence and corn. So why is there blood? And why from the side of his head; you’d think if anything, he’d hit his head on the steering wheel or even the windshield? He’s still in the driving posture so he didn’t bounce around even without his seatbelt.

De Cook rested his left arm on the open door and his right hand on the car’s roof and bent down for a closer look. In doing so, his question concerning what hadn’t seemed normal about the scene was answered when he noticed the man’s left temple; the source of the blood that had coursed through the victim’s elongated sideburns, over the side of his jowl and neck, and onto a tattered old tee-shirt. His stomach churning, De Cook’s first impression was the driver either shot himself or had been shot, but closer scrutiny revealed a singularly striated, rather gray-brown, roundish object protruding from the dead man’s wound.

A piece of his brain? What the…?

Although blood had stained much of the object leaving its entire shape indiscernible, there was little doubt what he was seeing, perplexing as it was.

So this is what Lennie wanted me to see! It’s a piece of gravel. There goes the natural cause theory.

Immediately De Cook related what he was seeing to the Sheriff ’s mention of a rock truck.

But it still doesn’t add up!

Iridescent bottle flies had started to appear around the edges of the uncongealed wetness below the rock-like object, seemingly undisturbed by De Cook’s presence. Where they came from was a mystery, but soon there would be enough of them to form a solid beard over the blood.

How the hell could a rock hit a guy sitting inside a moving car, let alone hit him hard enough to crack through his skull and stick to the side of his head?

As it was, there was little in the way of further explanation. With his still-open eyes turned upward toward the car’s headliner, his head tilted back and his mouth agape as if to speak, the deceased struck a rather haunting pose that De Cook knew he would find hard to forget. Any thought of trying to close the man’s lids was left for someone else. Also, any cognizance of the six-legged insects, the no-legged reptiles and the two-legged, wise-ass sheriff were gone as Trooper De Cook searched the scene for a clearer explanation of what happened.

The car’s front right tire was totally flat which posed two questions: 1) had the tire blown out while on the road, or 2) had the victim been hit by the rock while on the highway and the tire knocked loose from its rim afterward? A blowout on the left side would have pulled the car toward the center of the road and because this was on the right side, it would explain the car’s veer in that direction. Seeing no evident gash in the sidewall, De Cook mentally noted that the rest of the car’s tires appeared to be in decent condition. The Lincoln carried Roseau county plates; and having recently passed the county marker not more than a mile behind, a person would surmise that the driver was headed home.

There was a blanket with some dried grass sticking to it in the back seat, assorted debris strewn throughout the interior, and an inordinate amount of trash consisting mostly of fast food wrappers. Plastic bottles littered both the front and the back floorboards. An overturned coffee mug lay on the floor of the passenger side in a small puddle, likely jarred loose from its after-market cup holder mounted on the dashboard. A bong lay conspicuously nearby on the passenger seat.

De Cook didn’t recognize the driver as anyone he had seen before. Being asked to look rather than to investigate, he did not lean inside the vehicle to look for any registration or insurance papers, preferring to preserve the arrangement for the investigators as well as to avoid any close contact with the deceased; a decision made easier knowing that, in death, the victim had released his bowels. De Cook was neither enjoying himself nor did he want to linger.

Further, the decedent’s head and torso listed slightly to the right and his right hand remained on the steering wheel indicating that he had reacted to the impact to his head and had yanked on the steering wheel. This explained the rather abrupt exit from the highway as well as concurring with the lady’s eyewitness account. It also precluded a blowout having occurred on the highway. Despite the stench, there seemed to be no noticeable smell of gasoline or fluids. Rigor mortis was yet to set in even with the oppressive summer heat.

De Cook’s opinion had been drastically altered. Although the report he would have to write would be ancillary to the one both the investigation team and Sheriff Gregg would file, De Cook was already thinking how to construct the scene legibly. He imagined that the circumstances of this mess could lead to an extensive forensic endeavor encompassing multiple explanations and a good deal of time.

Cause of death: A rock flew off a truck and lodged itself in a man’s skull. Yeah, that’s believable. It happens every day. So do alien visitations.

Completing other precursory examinations in which nothing else seemed to be amiss, De Cook returned the hundred feet or so to the road, visibly concerned.

Glad that’s over.

With more questions than he had a few minutes ago, he was greeted by the sheriff ’s frown and the permanent lines time had etched in both his forehead and around his mouth.

Gregg, with his rather dissonant tone, greeted him. Now what do you think, Steve?

It’s pretty bizarre; hard to believe, but the poor guy must’ve been hit by a flying rock that made him lose control of his car.

Sheriff Gregg had drawn a similar conclusion. Difficult to tell, but the expression on his face tells me that he was pretty damn surprised. It sounds preposterous to think the rock struck him while he was driving. It’ll be interesting to hear what Doc will make of it.

Even more interesting will be what forensics might find, Steve added.

During the time De Cook had been investigating the car, Gregg had set out orange cones surrounding the area where the Lincoln had exited the road and had continued to wave traffic through. His vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee with its flashers on, was parked on the wayside allowing the traffic to move in both directions; but curious motorists, nevertheless, slowed down to look, some almost coming to a stop which made the area a potential site for another accident.

Stupid gawkers.

Glancing toward the crest of the hill on the other side of the river toward Roseau, De Cook saw the flashers of the approaching ambulance, Here come the bus and the body snatchers. Then, Did you get the victim’s name, Lennie?

Didn’t need to, said Gregg. There’s too much speculation for me to want to disturb anything so I didn’t try to get his identification. Didn’t find any registration or insurance papers above the visor; I trust you didn’t either. But I did run the plates and found that the car’s registered to a Mrs. Lucille Hope of Roseau. The sticker’s current on the plate; and Marley, my dispatcher who knows everyone living in and around Roseau and can give us an up-to-the-minute account of most of them, told me that Mrs. Hope resides in Meadow Park Nursing Home. No one had to tell me it’s her son, Roscoe, down there. I’ve seen him hundreds of times over the years.

Looking at De Cook, the sheriff had a barely perceptible smirk. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him from some of the shenanigans he’s pulled, from both sides of the law. He’s probably been in a courtroom more than you. Maybe his mother will miss him, but I don’t think many other people will.

De Cook was somewhat surprised to hear the sheriff speak in such an uncharacteristic manner of the deceased. Rubbing the back of his neck in search of any lingering grasshopper parts, he responded, Oh yeah, I remember now that you said his name. Hope’s the guy who intimidated that local officer in Roseau, the part-timer, right before I came to the district. Didn’t he take the gun away from the officer during a suspected OWI?

As they stood on the road holding traffic to enable the EMT to reposition her vehicle, Gregg looked over his shoulder and continued, Yep, the one and the same. It’s a tale that has become part of the lore of Roseau.

A few minutes later, as the ambulance slowly descended toward the Lincoln, Gregg’s eyes had narrowed as he continued his narrative, "The local cop, a criminal justice student at the time, was scared shitless; and no matter how hard the chief leaned on him later, the kid wouldn’t press charges on Hope. Hope was a real badass. Actually, I’d call him a bully and a badass. Clever though, and mean as a two-headed alligator.

Over the years, I went out of my way to try to catch him doing something that I could arrest him for, but it never happened. Yeah, I coulda’ got him on a bunch of minor stuff that wouldn’t been worth the hassle. But to be honest, I wanted his balls for something big and I wanted them bad.

After stopping to give precursory instructions to one of the EMT’s that had walked back up the incline, he turned back to De Cook and gave a little hop as he tugged at his belt. From the account I got at the time, the part-timer stopped Hope up on the square and followed procedure when he suspected OWI. When he asked Hope to step out of the car for a breathalyzer test, Hope got out and immediately grabbed the kid, spun him around and got him in a choke hold and took his weapon. He stuck the gun in the guy’s kidney, drew back the hammer and pulled the trigger. But it didn’t do anything but click ‘cause there wasn’t a round in the chamber.

De Cook muttered something and wagged his head incredulously at what he had heard.

Yeah, Steve, Lennie said, "something about being a trainee called for them to have to cock their weapon to chamber a shell rather than the way you and I keep one at the ready. Whether the kid remembered this detail at the time the gun was poked into his side or not probably didn’t register, but Hope obviously knew about the policy. Think about it! If the trainee would’ve earlier gone ahead and chambered a round, Hope would have blown a two-inch hole through him. Then, after pulling the trigger, Hope supposedly threw the weapon to the other side of the street in front of the old S and J shoe store and told the kid if he ever said anything about it, he’d be dead.

Anyway, I got my third hand version of this down at the Sportsman’s Bar. Mutt Muhlenberg was with Hope that night and told the barkeep who then told me. I corralled Mutt later on but couldn’t get enough out of him to call it a statement. Mutt was always looking for a way to go on a drunk and wasn’t always choosey who he drank with. Poor guy. He’s dead now, too. And there you have one illustrious event in the saga that was Roscoe Hope. May he rest down there in the corn sitting in his own shit forever, for all I care.

Wow. I never knew all the details of that. You know, Lennie, I’m beginning to think that there’s a lot more to this whole thing than we’ve seen so far.

Like what, Divine Intervention? Maybe so. The sheriff was back to his usual stoic self. Do you want to take traffic while I stay with the EMT’s? I’ll try to stop them from stepping all over what may be pending evidence, which means they’ll do it anyway. It looks to me like your crew with their magic camera isn’t going to get here before they remove the body. Anyway, I’m going to take some pictures of my own. Maybe better, you could take some time and talk to the witness and then send her on her way. Traffic can take care of itself now.

Okay, man, Steve returned. Hopefully she’s composed herself by now and can give a better account of what she saw. Looks like a long day for us.

Aren’t they all? Oh, by the way, LMAO watching your St Vitus’s dance. I think that you still have a grasshopper leg on your collar.

Face burning with embarrassment, as De Cook walked along the road to take further statements from the lady, the thought occurred that maybe the woman had thrown the object from her car and it serendipitously had struck Mr. Hope.

Possible, but why would she toss a rock into the path of oncoming traffic? And how hard would she have had to throw the damn thing for it to pierce his skull? There should be an angle of entry that forensics will be able to determine. No, the rock had to have come from the truck.

Shortly afterward, not knowing the state of mind the elderly Mrs. Hope might be in, the Sheriff called the nursing home director to first inform her of the accident, and secondly, to inquire how Hope’s mother might be approached with the news. The Director told him that she would take care of telling Mrs. Hope so as to save the Sheriff a trip and allay any awkwardness he might feel. Small towns are closely-knit societies in which little kindnesses are often shared without being scored and remembered.

It was also Sheriff Gregg’s responsibility to notify the other Mrs. Hope of her husband’s demise as well as to inform the farmer of the damage to his fence and crop. As a matter of respect, Gregg had returned to Roseau to visit with Mrs. Hope before calling the farmer to tell him about the damage to his fence and corn. Mrs. Hope’s eyes had registered surprise but without the flash of autonomic anguish that so often accompanied such news. Upon hearing Gregg’s report, her hands first went to her cheeks and then she crossed her arms in front of herself as if to show superiority. She wanted to hear the details and looked beyond the sheriff as he stood in the doorway explaining. She had no questions of her own, thanked Gregg for telling her and, by turning away, dismissed him. After completing all of this and promising to send a deputy out to survey the damage with the farmer, Gregg surreptitiously noted that the farmer seemed to have taken his news harder than Hope’s spouse had taken hers.

De Cook and Gregg agreed to meet later that day in the sheriff ’s office to discuss further findings concerning the Hope accident. The Sheriff was seated at his desk and motioned for De Cook to take a seat while the former concluded a phone call. Mealtime for the prisoners, the aroma of fried chicken wafted in from the hallway and throughout the small building, reminding De Cook that he had missed lunch. The Sheriff ’s Office had no cooking facilities of its own; and with a capacity for only eight prisoners, the meals were provided by the town’s grocery store that also sported a small restaurant, known by the locals as Yesterday’s.

Gregg had a compiled report of truck traffic along the three major roads, major only because they had a concrete surface. He had also made inquiries of the county’s two quarries and the nearby trucking firms concerning their transactions for the day. As De Cook sat, he saw Gregg had taken Polaroid pictures and spread them across his desk near his computer. He informed De Cook that, already, the Roseau County Coroner had removed the projectile from the victim’s head and it would be sent to the Iowa State Department of Criminal Investigation even though it had not been ascertained that anything criminal had taken place.

De Cook reported that the Lincoln had been towed and impounded pending future findings, and the witness had provided her statement and been informed that she would most likely be asked to submit to further interviews as more data was gathered. He also told Gregg that the investigation team from the highway patrol had taken pictures and thoroughly searched the Lincoln. Iowa State Patrol lab people were in the process of making a precursory report from the findings. After leaving the scene, De Cook had remained on duty.

Hearing this, Gregg growled out a not unfamiliar comment about bureaucratic duplicity and too many departments doing the same thing.

Both officers agreed that it would take time for the reports and ensuing investigation to be finalized.

The lack of a clear explanation of the event had delayed an official press release to the media and limited the afternoon news reporters to statements of unconfirmed reports… Death by flying rock while driving along a highway might not be so hard for the public to find credible if the rock had been larger, had entered the Lincoln through a shattered windshield, or caused the driver to leave the road and crash into a large stationary object. But a death caused by a rock no bigger than a pigeon’s egg flying at a very high rate of speed and breaking through a man’s ossified skull as he drove along a highway on a hot September day would open itself to wonderment, to say the least.

Gregg, already slumped back in his chair, pushed himself away from his desk and looked over the top of his glasses at De Cook who immediately crossed one leg over the other when he sat. Both men were visibly tired from the long day as well as the oppressive heat and humidity. Well, Steve, do you have it figured out?

No sir, it’s all speculation.

So, tell me Sherlock, what do you speculate?

Droll son of a gun.

Never knowing quite what to expect, Steve countered, That’s not my job, but I have often wondered about debris that gets thrown out from under lawn mowers, weed eaters and those devices. Circular saws and grinders are dangerous that way; and even when I’ve worn safety glasses, debris has flown up and hit me in the face. It hurts and stuff like that can even break the skin. Rocks fly out of tire treads and are always chipping windshields, and I’ve often been driving behind a truck and seen rocks fall from their bed and bounce along the road toward me. Rock trucks and lowboys are notorious offenders.

Gregg replied, "An object doesn’t come