The Good Sam

By James Courneya, James M Courneya and jr

The second book of the Good Samaritan mysteries. Sam is busy helping the Celebrate Auburn committee by hosting his childhood friend, Timothy Tobegan, the famous Rock Guitar player that has been out of the public's eye for over a decade. Meanwhile the Good Sam store has to keep rolling with its odd assortment of customers and employees. Sam has to cover for the pickup driver when he stumbles upon a storage unit filled with bodies. Follow as Sam unravels the mystery

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781456631468

Book preview

The Good Sam

A Good Samaritan Mystery

By

James Courneya

Copyright 2018 by James Courneya

All rights reserved

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3146-8

Cover designed by James Courneya, Jr

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, trademarked products, events, and locations are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be sold or given away to other people.

Table of Contents

IN THE BEGINNING

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

QUEENIE OF THE BIG A

REDEMPTION

THE GRAND FINALE

PEACE BE WITH YOU

AUTHOR’S NOTES

IN THE BEGINNING

All the phones were ringing at once, it must be Friday. Linda, the head cashier, buzzed my intercom. Line one is for you, Sam.

Hello, Sam Simone.

Hi Sam, Robert Parent, boomed the familiar voice. The board will be in to see you this afternoon.

What about this time?

I think that we should wait until the board is assembled to discuss it. The line went dead. As always, Robert calls and gives me some ominous piece of news and gets off the line before we can resolve the news. Dread started swelling up in my imagination. Robert Parent is the President of the Good Samaritan Society and my boss. His term as president has been filled with frequent criticisms of how I do my job and personal attacks, too! If he just stayed with store issues it would be easier to handle the critiques, but the shots at me are outside his area of function. One problem is that I’ve been the manager of store operations for over a decade. Robert has been president for a less than ten years. During the first job evaluation of Robert’s term, he marked me down for the way I combed my hair. Another time a memo was sent to me saying that my now ex-wife couldn’t come in the store when it was open. Jane went nuts the next time she ran into Robert. The rule was soon amended. All I can say is he didn’t know who or what he was dealing with when it came to my ex-wife. Even with all these animosities, I’ve been able to keep a professional relationship with a majority of the board. It doesn’t hurt that the stores have been very profitable under my direction, so you would think that with the sheer number of special meetings the board calls, that I wouldn’t still get nervous, but my makeup is to worry first calm down later. Today is no exception. This has got to be the worst part of my job. As the manager of the South King County Good Samaritan Stores N.F.P.; I oversee three stores, a warehouse, and a truck operation. The public expects to talk to the manager when a problem arises. My employees affectionately call me Bossman. I feel that my job is very worthwhile because the stores are the fundraising arm of the Good Samaritan Society. The society is a Catholic lay organization that helps the less fortunate along the lines of the lines of Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. Donations given to the stores are then either resold or handed out to the needy through a voucher program. The organization has programs for housing, job training, food, and family skills. The programs are funded from the proceeds the stores generate. Help is given to any needy person or family regardless of race or creed.

As a kid, I never imagined that I’d end up working for a Catholic charity, let alone running the place. It has been an amazing journey watching the sustained growth the stores have enjoyed in the years I’ve been here. This wasn’t always the case. During the period preceding my being promoted to manager the stores had suffered from years of infighting and bad behavior on the parts of the board and Charley Braun. The year before my promotion the board had tried to fire Charley twice as sales took a nose dive. The board sacked Charley the second time and promoted me. Charley had saved the store from a series of corrupt managers, but after years of fighting the board had had enough. I wasn’t consulted to even see if I wanted the job, reluctantly, I took the position. The stores began improving immediately surprising the board. It so happens that I used to play the what-if game, you know what-if I was running the show. From watching the sorry group of managers come through the store, I’d always felt that with decent, honest management the stores would do okay. Even with success, I still worry about every problem. I want to be on top of issues before they become problems. It makes a world of difference when the boss takes care of a customer personally. My philosophy is to always treat Good Sam’s as if I owned the business. This helps make the stores be far more successful than I ever imagined they would become.

My impending inquisition seems to have slowed the day to a crawl as I go through my usual repertoire of worries. Sometimes, it seems that not knowing is worse than knowing. I try to do something to keep from thinking about my impending trial. I think that I’ll kick Linda off the cash register for a while and spend some time with the public. The store’s customers have always seemed to brighten my day. Linda gave me a surprised look at my suggestion that she take an early lunch.

Are you sure, Bossman?

Yeah, get out of here. If I can’t handle the mob, I’ll scream for help.

Thanks, I’m famished.

Working the till is one of my favorite jobs. The store attracts an assortment of odd characters. For the most part, our customers are just nice average folks, but some of the other ones are a real odd group that can’t be placed into any slots or categories. There are some real square pegs. The pegs show up like clockwork every day. Sometimes they shop, sometimes they just come to shoot the breeze, and sometimes they show up because they have no place to go. Many of the square pegs make extra money reselling the treasures they find in the stores. Each square peg specializes in certain items, like books or toys. When I have time to venture out to the local swap-meets I can always find that a good number of the venders are square pegs from the store. Good Sam is like the neighborhood bar with junk instead of beer. It was slow this morning in the store. Only a trickle of customers and none of the regulars are lurking about. But, soon the phone starts ringing.

Hello, Good Samaritan Store, how may I help you?

Do you have a pickup service?

We sure do. What city do you live in? I reached for a donation pickup slip as I answered.

I’m in Twin Rivers, or I mean the storage unit is in Twin Rivers. He seemed to stammer.

The first available date for pickup in your area is Wednesday the fifth.

That will be fine as long as I can get a receipt.

We can do that. I just need to get some information from you. Name, address, and types of donations.

Let me see, I think it is all household items. It’s an eviction unit. We need to clean it out to re-rent the unit. The voice paused before continuing, This is Space Savers Storage on the corner of River Highway and 124th. Tell your driver to go to the office and ask for the manager. I repeated back the address and instructions to make sure everything was correct before hanging up the phone and finishing the pickup order. The order was placed with the other orders for the fifth. After the phone call, the store had filled up with an early lunch crowd making the rest of my time go amazingly fast between the customers and the phone.

Linda made her appearance at ten minutes to one. She gave me one of her great big smiles as we did our ceremonial changing of the guard. I retired to my office. I figure that I have at best ten minutes to doomsday. A quick cleanup of my sparse office helped speed up the time before the impending inquisition. My office is rather drab, nothing fancy, just an everyday desk, chair, and filing cabinet filled the space. The room doesn’t even have carpet on the floor. The walls are covered with charts and graphs, all pertaining to store sales and expenses. I guess that the office is a lot like me; what you see is what you get. Some of my problems with Bob Parent come back to this. I try to do what I say I’m going to do. Robert Parent wants me to project an image, but his image doesn’t mesh with what was inside me. I won’t play the politics game just to get along. I spend my day with all sorts of different people; people that come from various ethnic and economic backgrounds. Honesty has always been my first priority. Experience has shown me that if people are dealt with honestly and openly they will give back the same. This attitude hasn’t let me down, yet. Finally, I think that I’m ready for anything Bob Parent wants to throw at me.

The intercom buzzed three short notes; the code for the manager, me. Sam, here they come, Linda gave me a quick warning. The faces were grim as the board members entered my office. I had set up chairs for the meeting. The death brigade solemnly found and mounted their chairs. After the group was seated, the room remained embarrassingly quiet. It was as if they had no starting point. I took the initiative. I offered the assemblage coffee. The frost started melting as the group gave their orders. I stepped out and had Linda arrange for the coffee and soda to be delivered. The soda was for me. I might be the only adult in the Seattle area that doesn’t drink coffee. A few minutes later all the participants were drinking and seemed to relax a little bit.

Some of you, already know, why I’ve called this meeting. The board has received a disturbing letter from a previous employee. The actual letter is very long and detailed in its listing of the allegations against Mr. Simone. The charges are very serious, very, very serious. Robert started handing out papers to everyone. I quickly glanced over the paper and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read the contents.

This paper has the main points of the letter. I plan to go over each point one at a time. Sam will then have a chance to answer the charges.

Why don’t we have the original letter, asked Andy Jones?

I didn’t see the need for everyone to know the accuser.

Knowing the accuser might help us to have a clearer picture about these accusations and why they were made.

I don’t feel that I should betray my promise to this person.

What about your sense of fairness to our manager, asked Al? This comment brought the room to life. A heated discussion about the rights and wrongs of knowing one’s accuser was debated. It was soon apparent that a majority of the board felt that the matter should be dropped if Robert Parent didn’t produce the original letter. Robert felt that as board president he didn’t need to share everything with the rest of the members. This announcement brought a swift resolution to the matter as Andy and Al made and seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting. The vote was 5-1 to adjourn. I don’t have a vote. Smoke was blowing from the pores of Robert Parent as he stormed out of the meeting. Robert had overestimated his power, again.

Sam, I hope that ends that. You know who sent that letter, don’t you?

Sure, George Bansen, I never figured him for the writing type, but it was him.

George was Robert’s boy in the store. Andy continued, Robert is really sore about you firing him.

Wow! That should upset everyone on the board. The board president is willing to keep an employee that was stealing just to keep getting daily reports on the store and my activities.

It bothers us, but Robert does some good along the way, too. It is extremely hard to oust a volunteer.

I guess everyone has their own burdens and choices to make. Thanks, again for bailing me out in there. We parted with handshakes and good wishes. After returning to my office, I looked at the paper again. All the charges were about incidents that really happened, but they were presented from a weird perspective. The most pathetic charge was about my kids making a disturbance when they came to the store. I have three children. The older two are 16 and 17, but they only occasionally appeared at the store. The youngest was four and he was a whirlwind of noise and activity any place he went. Jude and I adopted David after his parents were killed in a car wreck. I love all my children, but David is the apple of my eye. The older kids are typical teens. They don’t spend a lot of time around dad unless there isn’t anything better to do. I love them to death, but you can’t hold back the tides of time. They are growing up. The rest of the charges are more of the same. It’s part of my job to deal with problems from the public, employees, and my ancient board of directors. I would find it odd if there were never any complaints.

Hey Bossman, you gonna be alright? Linda asked from the office doorway. Linda always seems to know when I need a lift.

Yeah, I’ll heal, but I owe Andy, big time.

What was today’s inquisition about?

Here, read this and tell me who sent this letter. She read quietly for a few minutes, before starting to smile.

It appears to be the handy work of the infamous Mr. George Bansen.

Give the lady a kewpie doll. I knew there was a reason that I keep you employed.

You keep me because I keep the customers happy.

Speaking of customers; who’s minding the store?

The new girl; Angie.

Well, we better get back to work. There’s still five hours to closing time. I slipped back into my now empty office and started to work on some overdue paperwork. I needed to clear up this backload before the weekend. Normally, I didn’t pull weekend duty. I was always available in case of a problem, but my assistants worked the weekends. I wasn’t going to be around this weekend because my softball team was playing in a state qualifying tournament. Outside of my family, playing softball and coaching soccer are my main hobbies. Softball keeps me out of pool halls and barrooms. The qualifier was being held in town starting tonight. My team has games scheduled all weekend. So, work would and could get along without me. It hasn’t always been possible to trust that the store would still be standing when I went home on Friday. I’ve had a lot of assistant managers come through the store before I found Bob. There was one that would call every Saturday at nine to tell me that she was counting the till. My ex used to scream bloody murder when the call came. (Come to think about it; my ex screamed bloody murder about everything.) I sailed through the paper work and was able to start working on some other projects.

Phone, boss, its Jude, Linda called through the door.

Hey, I was just thinking about you.

What time is the game tonight, Jude asked?

Seven-thirty, it’s at Brannan Park.

I’ll pick David up at the sitter and meet you at the field, okay?

Great, we’ll go out to eat afterwards.

It’s a date.

Wait till the guys hear that I have a date.

If you’re nice, maybe I’ll be easy.

Now how am I gonna concentrate on the game?

Love you. See you later big guy. After talking to Jude, I forgot all about board members and ex-employees. It was closing time, so I finished my work and helped with the closing.

Brannan Park is one of the older parks in Auburn. It has always been one of my favorite places to play. As a kid I played in the inaugural game. The baseball field is big league size. 330 down the lines and 400 ft. in center field. It was the first place in the area that had 60 feet behind home plate. As a catcher, I spent many days chasing balls to the backstop during the first season that we played there. It made me a better catcher. This weekend we won’t play on the baseball diamond, but on field #2. When it was built #2 was used for both softball and youth baseball. It’s a little small for softball. The fences are all 275ft. Most new parks are at least 300ft. Before rules were established that limited homeruns this park made everyone feel like a power hitter. We play in a two-homer league. After two homeruns, anything out of the park is just a long out. I never worried about this rule because all my homeruns have come on open fields. My motto used to be that if we played on an open field with a downhill slant I would lead the league in homeruns. While I was getting my gear out of my car I see the first of my teammates arriving.

Hey, Sammy, are you ready for some ball?

I can’t wait. I’ve even got a girl coming to watch.

Bullshit, no girl in their right mind would come to watch a fat, slow, old Italian dude like you play ball. How much did you have to pay her to come?

You’re so funny, but wait till I tell Jude what you said. She’ll whip your hide. The bantering continued as we started to warm up for the game. I warmed up with my cousin Vince. We had a pregame routine that hadn’t changed since Vince and I started playing together in fourth grade. My uncle Jim was our coach and he taught us how to play ball and it always seemed to work, so we never changed our routine. Vince and I had played together almost every year since fourth grade only missing the years Vince was in the service. Some years there was almost half a team of my relatives on the field. Other years just Vince and I remained on the team. After warming up, I checked the lineup card and saw that I was batting fifth and playing first base. We were the home team, so I got my glove, a ball and headed out to first.

They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, to put a bum like you on first, a loud voice cackled from the stands. I looked towards the loud voice and saw a wizened old lady clapping and yelling at me. Josephine Barrels, ninety-seven, was still coming out to give me the raspberry and loving every minute of it. Josephine was the oldest living ex-employee of The Good Samaritan store. She first started coming to my games when I played with her grandson; Abe. Now, every few games I hear her loud yells from the stands. It warms my heart to see her still able to get out to games and be as funny and wicked as she always was.

Did they leave the gate open at the home?

I bribed a guard to let me out to see if you were still a lousy hitter.

Well, don’t fall asleep before I get up to the plate.

Hey, you young, punk, I’ll dance on your grave. Josephine burst into a laugh that could wake the dead. All my teammates loved when Josephine showed up for a game. You couldn’t help but laugh and feel good when she was entertaining the crowd. I noticed that Jude had sat down next to Josephine. David was squished between the two women. He was giggling and squirming with the biggest smile on his face. It doesn’t get much better than this; hopefully, I better get a couple hits, so I don’t have to be teased by Josephine all the way home. The game was about to start, so I ended our little sideshow and got ready for the first pitch. The game was anticlimactic. We won by a comfortable margin.

Honey, where do you want to go for dinner? Jude asked through the dugout fence as I was packing my gear.

I know where I want to go, Honey, rang out a chorus of players in the dugout. Jude has always handled the smart asses very well.

You guys could only be my honey in your dreams.

Don’t make me go all Italian on you bums, I replied as I gave them my best caveman look. This brought out more comments and laughs. I like playing with most of my teammates. When you play with a good group of guys you can let the little boy come out and just enjoy the games and times hanging with them at the park on a sunny day.

Let’s get a pizza at that new Greek pizza place, okay?

Wow, I think you just read my mind. I’ve had a craving for that place all day.

Oh no, a craving, say it isn’t so. We have too many kids already.

You may just have blown it, buster.

Give me a second chance. I’ll buy extra cheese, I’ll let you have the last piece, I’ll hold your hand under the table; just give me a second chance.

We’ll just have to see how you behave at the restaurant. I’m not promising anything, yet. More howls of laughter came from my teammates. I could hear Josephine cackling along with the guys. The