03/27/01

Back to watching the baby today. Phebe’s back at work. She’s plenty pissed at me for taking off yesterday, and then showing up later with Cupcake and her junky Winnebago to drag down the lane and dump off at the edge of Purgatory Swamp.

I find it real interesting, Phebe says, here you got all this talk of selling the place, and yet you let that girl dump a trailer on the place, junking up the place more than it already is.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about my lousy detective work. All this time Porch Rot had me believing it was Phil that was buried in the well. He did such a good job convincing me to stay quiet about it. And here the whole time he was covering up for the girl’s death--- whether it was Porch Rot or Phil who was responsible, I guess we may never know. I was thinking maybe Porch Rot wasn’t quite the dumb fucker I thought he was. He sure pulled off a good acting job. Who knew he had it in him? I’m still not sure which theory I favor more, the one that proposes that Phil Palfrey was the one who dumped the body, or the one that proposes that Porch Rot did. Then you have all these various scenarios related to the cause of death. Phil’s the only person left who might be able to shed light on things but I guess you really can’t assume he’s still alive.

I suppose at some point the forensics will come back from the girl’s remains and maybe they’ll know a little more about how she died.

Today would be a good day to get going on my Phebe Reynolds story, but I just spent the whole time the baby was down for a nap running Phil Palfrey’s name in a search engine. I guess maybe I’m like old Percy, using too much of my left brain.

I’m pretty sure the only reason the police went looking into that well was Stash Skimington tipping them off. No one has confirmed shit with me though but I can only think the tip came from Stash reading my shit that time.

I just keep thinking about what would have happened if I had followed through with trying to dig up Phil from the well to relocate him. I’d probably be facing life in prison. Good thing the frost was still in the ground. One time when Winter proved fortunate I guess.