Partridge Daze

A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery



The silver Mini-Cooper pulled into the Gas-Food on the outskirts of another small Kansas town—a slow spot in an otherwise straight line between horizons.  A couple got out.  A short guy with graying hair and a white mustache slipped a credit card in the pump, selected premium, and began filling the car.  His wife, a younger blonde, went inside to get herself some pretzels and a Dr. Pepper for her husband. 

“Where in Arizona?” a voice inquired from the other side of the fuel pump.

The guy with the white mustache turned and discovered a trim man with short-cropped hair, high cheekbones, and piercing-blue eyes leaning against the corner of the building. 

“Noticed your license plate,” the stranger said.

“Tucson,” the Cooper driver replied.

“Really?  I got family out there.  Hope to visit one day.”

“Come in the winter unless you love heat,” the driver said. 

“What brings you to Kansas?” the stranger asked. 

The driver was used to encountering friendly folks who liked to chat out here on the Great Plains.  “High school reunion.  My 50th.”

“Hey, that's great.  My brother was back here for his 50th this summer.  Almost three-quarters of his class showed up.  How'd yours do?”

The pump clicked off and the driver hit the nozzle's trigger a time or two until he managed to stop at a round number.  “Twenty four of us graduated together.  Twenty-one survive.  Twenty made it to one part of the reunion or another.  Plus one, actually.  We went to grade school with a brilliant Amish boy who wasn't allowed to continue on with us.  He attends all our reunions and we consider him an integral part of our class.” 

The Arizonan put the nozzle back into its slot on the pump and screwed on his gas cap.  Folded the chrome cover closed over it. 

“That wouldn't be the Partridge reunion, would it?”

“How'd you know that?”

“Good news travels fast out here.  I heard Partridge just held its annual festival and celebrated a multi-class reunion.  Got almost perfect attendance out of its 50th class.  You have as much fun as I heard?”

“Even more,” the driver said.  “After a few minutes together, it was like we'd never been apart.”

“I'm glad you came, glad for any travelers here,” the stranger said.  “My brother wore a t-shirt to his reunion.  'Kansas Trek' it said, 'To Boldly Go Where No Tourist Has Been Before'.”

The driver laughed.  “Yeah, I know.  Most people only see Kansas from the interstate or out of an airplane's window.  They don't know what they're missing.”

“Thanks for boosting our economy,” the stranger said.  He peeled his jacket aside and revealed a silver star over his heart—SHERIFF, it read.  “You were five miles an hour above the speed limit on Main Street.  Don't exceed that and you'll be fine with law enforcement from here to the state line.”

The driver colored a little.  “Thanks,” he said. 

“My pleasure,” the man with the badge replied.  He nodded to the blonde coming out to the Gas-Food.  “You folks have a nice day and come see us again real soon.”

“Ah . . . right,” the driver agreed.

“Who was that?” his wife asked, handing him his soft drink as he finished jotting down their mileage in the Cooper's log book. 

A battered black and white pulled out onto the street and headed east.  The logo on the door was illegible thanks to dust and dents. 

“The sheriff, I guess.”

“Benteen County Sheriff English” a little old lady said from where she'd been filling her car at the pump behind them.  She had a voice like barbed wire scraped down a blackboard.

“You're kidding,” the driver said.  “There is no Benteen County, Kansas.  Not really.” 

“Then why have you spent so much time in it over the last decade and more?” the woman asked.   

“Because . . . ,” the driver began. 

“Excuse me,” the blonde interrupted.  “The woman behind the counter in there told me you're Mrs. Kraus.  That you work in the sheriff's office.”

"That's right, Mrs. Hayes," the old woman rasped. "You all got to excuse me now. I want to go online at the office and see if I can level my Ice Maiden Mage before my lunch hour's over."

"Sheriff English? Mrs. Kraus?" the driver sputtered. "That can't be. You're fantasies?"

The little woman arched an eyebrow. "Do we look like fantasies, Mr. Big Shot Author?" she asked. "You want fantasy, consider how that Covert kid snookered you into being responsible for your class's 55th reunion. Now ain't that a fine mystery?"

The guy with the with mustache couldn't argue with that.  He watched the old woman follow the black and white back into town. 

“You want me to drive for awhile?” the blonde asked.

“Might be a good idea.  I wonder if the class will be willing to hold our next reunion at the funny farm where I'll be staying.”

“From what I've seen,” his wife said, “you guys will pretty much follow each other anywhere.”

“Well, if I'm arranging a reunion, I'm gonna need help.”

“Isn't that what all of you have been giving each other for the last sixty-odd years?”

The guy with the white mustache found he couldn't argue with that either.

“A 55th,” he said.  “Do you suppose we . . . ?”

Partridge Rural High School Class of 1962, taken October 19, 2012. "That's me sitting in the middle of the
front row," Mike says. "with most of our surviving class members and spouses. Twenty one of our 24 grads
survived then, and twenty made it to the reunion. All but a couple attended college and most graduated.
Several MA degrees and one double PhD. Just amazing people."











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