Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) by Linda Ross (pdf to ebook reader txt) 📕

second half is pretty much straight down to the highway.  I was almost to the halfway point when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye.  My purse seemed to have a life of its own, and it was bobbing up and down.  Odd, but maybe it was the bouncing of the car.

Then I saw a nose and long whiskers coming up under the purse.  It didn’t register at first, and then my brain identified what I’d seen. A rat. There was a rat in my car.

I shrieked and stared at the seat.  The car kept going, but now it was heading to the side.  I guess it ran off the driveway, because the next thing I knew I was in the ditch on the side of the drive.  My head hit the window sideways, and I saw stars for a moment.  The car was stopped at an angle, the driver’s side higher than the passenger side, but I got the door open and tried to climb out.  Anything to put distance between me and the rat.

I had one leg out the door when I realized I’d need my phone to call for help, but it was in my purse, and my purse was apparently sitting on a rat.  Yikes, yikes, yikes.

I took a deep breath and tried to reach into my purse while staying as far away as possible.  My hand was shaking, and it took three tries before I located my phone.  I pulled it out and managed to scramble out of the car.  Thank God I’d had cheesecake for breakfast or I might not have had the energy.  The door slammed behind me, and I leaned against it to catch my breath.

It took me a couple of minutes for my hand to stop shaking enough that I could punch Jimmy’s number into the phone.  My voice was shaky when he answered.

“I had a little accident,” I said.  “Do you think you could come over?”

“Where are you?”

“In my driveway.”

“You had an accident in your driveway?”

“There’s more to it than that.  Just get here if you can.”

Jimmy got there in his truck in under ten minutes.  He pulled over to the side as far as he could, then got out and surveyed me and my car.  “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I bumped my head on the window when I went in the ditch, but that’s all.”

Jimmy checked my head and gently probed the bump.  “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he said.  “You weren’t eating more pot brownies, were you?”

“There’s a rat in my car.”

“What?”  Jimmy frowned and shaded his hand to peer into the car interior.  “I don’t see a rat, but there’s a hole in your passenger seat.”

“That’s where he is.”  Just then a head poked out of the hole, and beady eyes looked around.  Jimmy jumped back.

“Well, you’re right.  There’s a rat in your car.  How did he get there?”

“Good question.”

“Was your car locked last night?”

“I thought so, but I can’t swear to it.”

Jimmy walked around the back of the car and stepped into the ditch.  He looked around at the side and said, “It looks like the door might have been jimmied with something.  You didn’t notice anything when you got in?”

“No, I guess I wasn’t paying any attention.  I mean, who would break into my car where I live?  It’s out of the way, and you sure can’t see it from the highway.’

“Well, apparently it was someone who wanted to put a rat in your car.  I’ll get a guy out here to dust for prints, though I doubt we’ll find any.  Then we’ll get your car towed out of here.”  He made the call, and a county cop showed up fifteen minutes later.

“What’s the problem?” he asked when he got out.  “Looks like you ran off the road here.”

“Well, I had help.  There was a rat in my car.”

“A rat.”  He didn’t sound convinced.  “You sure it wasn’t a mouse?” he asked.

I stood aside and let him look for himself.  He did what Jimmy had done, shaded his eyes to look inside the car.  Then he jumped back.  “Man, that’s a big rat.”

Another cop car was called, and someone dusted for prints without any luck.  Then the tow truck came to take my car to the body shop.  “What’d you do?” the driver asked.  “Try to put on lipstick while you were driving?”

“There was a rat in the car,” I said.

“Probably a field mouse,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Shouldn’t we get the rat out before they take the car?” I suggested.

Everyone agreed that was a good idea.  Jimmy opened the passenger door, but the rat was hiding back in his hole. Jimmy, the tow truck driver, and two county cops all tried pounding on the driver’s side of the car, but the rat wasn’t budging.

“Okay,” one of the county guys said.  “Your upholstery’s shot now anyway.”  He put down my window on the driver’s side, had everyone stand back, pulled out his gun and fired a shot into the passenger seat.  The rat shot out of the hole as if it had been launched from a cannon and flew through the open passenger door.  The last we saw of it, it was racing through the weedy patch alongside the highway.

“Ma’am,” the tow truck driver said, his eyes wide, “I apologize for what I said.  That was the biggest rat I’ve ever seen.”

Jimmy and I followed the tow truck to the body shop, and I retrieved my purse, which now had a bullet hole beside the hole Stewart had left.  I gave the clerk at the desk my insurance information, and he said they would have a rental car for me as soon as they checked with my insurance.

Jimmy offered to drop me wherever