Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret by Tim Kehoe Page B

salt, piled an inch high on the windowsill. I left it alone. Maybe there was something to Betty’s crazy voodoo. I did feel great, after all.
    I checked my dad’s website, and there were two new excerpts available. I was starving and figured I’d read the first one over breakfast.
    I found a copy of the Galena Gazette outside my door. I picked it up and walked downstairs. Betty was sitting at the small round table in the middle of the living room. The crystalball was gone, and the table was now covered with tarot cards.
    â€œGood morning, dear,” Betty said, appearing to be deep in thought.
    â€œGood morning.”
    â€œSay, honey, in all the excitement yesterday, I forgot to ask your name.”
    â€œI, ah—” I quickly tried to think of a name. I remembered Carson Kidd’s advice about keeping your actual initials when making up an alias and, before I could stop myself, I blurted out “Finbar Jennings.”
    â€œFinbar? Well, that’s an unusual name,” Betty said.
    â€œYes, it is,” I agreed.
    I finally got a chance to try living with a different name and I came up with Finbar? Not Fred or Frank, but Finbar? I had gone to school with a Finbar for a while when my mom and I were in Ireland. For whatever reason, his name just came out. Stupid brain.
    â€œWell, it is a lovely name. And, oh, you look so much brighter today. I told you, the House of Taurus was what you needed.”
    â€œThe room was great, thank you,” I said. I was just about out the door when I heard Betty call my name. Well, actually, Finbar’s name.
    â€œYeah?” I responded.
    â€œI know it is none of my business, but is everything all right?” Betty asked.
    â€œYeah. The room was perfect.”
    â€œNo, I mean with you. Sometimes these cards are wrong, but . . .” Betty’s voice trailed off as she looked back down at the tarot cards.
    â€œNever better,” I lied. “I’ll see you in a bit.” I quickly closed the door behind me on the off chance that my aura changed colors when I lied.
    It was a perfect day outside. Not a cloud in the sky. I walked down High Street and took the stairs to Main Street. It was 8:30 a.m. and Main Street was already crowded with tourists. I grabbed a booth at a little diner and ordered eggs and a Coke.
    I unfolded the Gazette . There was a small photo of Sena­tor White and Attorney General Como along with a story about a recent presidential debate. According to the headline, Como had bested White and was one step closer to becoming the next president of the United States. But most of the Galena Gazette was devoted to the farm accident. There was a large color photo of the victims, Carl and Lily Freiburger. Apparently the Freiburgers had been new residents of Galena. And the story was quick to point out they were new to farming as well. Somehow they both wound up in the farm’s hay baler. But no one was quite sure how. Although everyone interviewed agreed that hay balers were among the most dangerous pieces of equipment on a farm, and several farmers in the area had lost a finger or, inJoe McDermott’s case, an entire arm to a baler, no one had ever heard of a baler taking two whole bodies. Of course, no one, including me, had ever met the Sicilian.
    The story went on to remind farmers to use extra care when baling this fall and listed some online resources for additional baling safety instructions.
    I set the paper down as the waitress brought over my eggs. I wished I hadn’t seen the picture of the Freiburgers. Looking at Lily’s picture, I knew I had seen her eyes, or eye, before. I pushed my food away. I hated the way my photographic mind worked. All I could see now was Lily’s eye resting in the bloodred hay.
    The shrinks had called it eidetic memory. And it was just one more term in a long list of terms that had been assigned to me over the years. An army doctor in Germany thought it was