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The Poor Farm
The Poor Farm
The Poor Farm
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The Poor Farm

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An action-packed mystery, elderly love and ghost story (157 pages)
A 1930s Poor Farm in Justice County, Missouri, bought by Alice and Leroy Griggs in 2009, is taken over by drug lords and jealously guarded by the ghosts of Blacks who were wards of the state during the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Alice and Leroy Griggs believe themselves secure in the last economic venture of their lives. They are active, hard-working seventy-year-olds, still deeply in love.

Alice and Leroy buy the abandoned Poor Farm to plant Christmas trees. Tilling the soil together, they find bones of murdered Blacks from the time of the Great Depression. Along with the skeletons, they uncover spirits from the nether world.

Corruption, past and present in Justice County, finds Alice and Leroy. The two are helped by Jeremiah, leader of the ghosts, to join with members of the First Baptist Church of Wilson to fight the White Angel. And the drug dealers. The descendants of pioneers who freed the prairies and plains of Indians, Commancheros and Renegades, rally under Leroy's leadership to battle against trained killers.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherDov Silverman
Release dateJan 12, 2013
ISBN9781301918973
The Poor Farm
Author

Dov Silverman

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Dov Silverman has served as a U.S. Marine in the Korean War, worked as a Long Island railroad conductor, been an auctioneer, and even established the Autar Microfilm Service. While working so hard on the railroad, he earned his high school diploma and went on to graduate from Stony Brook University, Long Island, New York, cum laude, at the age of 39. He and his family settled in Safed, Israel in 1972. He credits a spiritual meeting with God and a Tzaddik (righteous man), Jules Rubinstein, in the Brentwood (New York) Jewish Center, with setting him on the path of study, religious involvement and settlement in Israel. His novel, FALL OF THE SHOGUN, appeared on the London Times Best-Seller List and has been published in multiple languages. He also won a 1988 Suntory Mystery Fiction Award, Japan, for REVENGE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERDS.

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    The Poor Farm - Dov Silverman

    The Poor Farm

    By Dov Silverman

    Smashwords edition, copyright 2013

    License notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    THE POOR FARM

    Dov Silverman

    It was after midnight. A seaplane without running lights circled the dark waters of Lake of the Ozarks. Around the 126 square mile reservoir, summer homes were boarded up for the Missouri winter. The pilot saw two red lights and one green on the water below. He maneuvered the plane behind the green light in the center. It moved ahead of the other two. The plane descended. The three speedboats raced at full throttle. Powerful searchlights from atop their cabins lit the water behind for the pilot to land. The pontoons cut neatly into the surface. The pilot throttled back and followed the powerboats to a wooden dock. The boats switched off their lights, turned and formed a protective shield around the plane. Six automobiles facing the dock turned on their headlights. Men leapt from the cars, ran onto the dock and secured the seaplane.

    The pilot opened the cabin door and threw out one large duffle bag after another. The men ran the duffle bags to the cars stowing them in the trunk. Two men went to the rear of a white stretch limousine, opened the trunk and pulled out a man. He was bound and gagged. They dragged him onto the dock and stood him in front of the plane. The harsh car headlights outlined the fear on the man’s face and the terror in his eyes. The two men pulled pistols and simultaneously each shot the frightened man through one of his eyes. His head snapped back and he crumpled at their feet. They lifted the body and with the pilot’s help shoved it into the plane’s cabin.

    The rear window of the white stretch limousine purred open. An accented feminine voice from within ordered, Drop him far away from here. The electric window closed.

    The men pushed the seaplane from the dock. The plane’s engine roared to life. The plane raced over the water until it was airborne and lost in the night sky.

    CHAPTER 1

    WILSON, MISSOURI:

    Rolling out of the east with the sun behind, a bright new Fairbanks Morse diesel engine pulled seven cars over the flat Missouri prairie land. The engineer sounded three blasts on the air horn. Today he had two passengers for Wilson.

    From out of the west a battered Chevy pickup truck headed into the sun. It reached the railroad station before the train and backed up to the wooden loading platform. The woman driver, in her mid-sixties stood six feet in her high-topped work boots. She wore a baseball cap, woolen shirt and strapped overalls. She waved to three older men sitting across the street on the public bench. They waved back.

    The man who stepped out the opposite side of the Chevy stood two inches taller and was seven years older than his wife. Both were trim, moved energetically and their weather-beaten faces highlighted a glint of mischief in their eyes. He climbed some railroad ties to get up onto the loading platform.

    Leroy Griggs, Alice called. Why can’t you use the steps like a human being?

    Leroy waved her off and tugged his battered paratrooper cap. He pulled a browned corncob pipe from his shirt pocket and re-lit the cold tobacco.

    Alice smiled. Forty-three years married and he still showed off for her.

    The train pulled into the station. The engineer spotted the mail car on the loading platform in front of the sign:

    WILSON

    POPULATION 535

    JUSTICE COUNTY, MISSOURI

    The mail car door slid open. An elderly black man smiled out at Leroy. He ducked back in and dragged two flats of seedlings to the door. Leroy stepped up and pulled them onto the platform. The mailman went back for two more, placed them on the platform and Alice said, How you doing John Henry?

    Just about everyone I can, Mrs. Griggs.

    She asked how, Leroy said, not who.

    Talkin’ about how; how is that haunted house of yours?

    Get offa’ that John Henry. Alice laughed.

    He pulled two more flats onto the platform. Leroy, John Henry asked, How many more seedlings you got coming?

    Twenty thousand. Then I sit back, watch them grow into Christmas trees and become rich, famous and humble.

    We’ll be mostly humble if we don’t get them planted, Alice said.

    Leroy climbed from the platform into the back of the pickup truck. John Henry handed a flat of seedlings to him.

    Two hard-looking men in suits stepped from the first passenger car. Leroy happened to glance up at them and they glared back.

    Alice and John Henry caught the visual exchange. They saw Leroy’s gray eyes turn dark, his shoulders hunched up.

    Leroy! Alice cautioned. Mind your work!

    John Henry passed another flat of seedlings and said, People like that comin’ to Wilson a couple a three times a week.

    A large white stretch limousine with dark windows wheeled into the station. It skidded to a stop between the two men and the pickup truck, sending a cloud of dust towards the loading platform.

    Damned inconsiderate, Leroy said, taking the pipe from his mouth and covering his face with a kerchief.

    The three at the loading platform peered through the dust at two men getting out of the big limousine. One dressed and walked like the two toughs from the train. The other appeared younger. He wore a powder blue cashmere sweater, neat slacks and tennis shoes without socks. He ordered the other men to follow him. Leroy pointed at him, Joe College is in charge.

    Listen to their accents, John Henry said. They got to be from Chicago. It hurts the ears.

    I have to listen to those out-of-state cars traveling down to the lake and back, Leroy said. It’s every night now. Can’t sleep.

    You sleep well enough when there’s work to be done, Alice said.

    Look at the bowl cut on that young ones hair, Leroy said. My Mama cut our hair that way.

    Mine too, John Henry said. In Chicago’s, Central Station that kind a haircut costs forty dollars without a tip.

    They watched the four men walk past the three older men on the bench without even nodding.

    No manners, John Henry said.

    They’re headin’ for the Red Rooster. Leroy pointed to the only bar in Wilson. Why don’t I join them?

    Why don’t you finish loading, Alice said.

    How come you two bought the Poor Farm? John Henry asked.

    Cheap and fertile land. Alice said, She pronounced fertile as two separate words. It’s also too far for Leroy to walk to the Red Rooster. She slapped Leroy on the backside and he growled.

    Make a Haunted House tour, John Henry said. My folks are from round here. They tell stories make your hair stand up. Big money in haunted houses.

    Ain’t no ghosts! Leroy said. You know why? He pointed at Alice. They’re afraid of her. Oh yes! We could have been rich, but she scared all the witches, banshees and ghosts right offa’ the property.

    Alice punched Leroy’s arm. He wants to be a Dam Keeper. He sneaks off from work and I find him building that dam.

    Leroy, you really goin’ to make the Poor Farm into a hotel? John Henry asked.

    With the biggest stocked fishing pond in Missouri, Leroy said. "Then we’ll see what El-wife-o here says about the damned Dam Keeper. Two short blasts on the engine’s air horn sent John Henry hurrying back to the train. Alice and Leroy waved him off.

    Alice, you were born here, Leroy said from the rear of the truck. How come you don’t know what those city boys are doing in Wilson?

    Alice helped Leroy down. He tried to land lightly but his knees were stiff and she stopped him from falling. Get in the truck you old buzzard, she said. We got business and them young fellas ain’t it.

    She got behind the wheel and put on the radio. Waylon Jennings soon caught them up in a song called, In the Pines. They smiled at each other and sang.

    Approaching a neat steepled church. Leroy slouched down. Alice waved to the man sweeping the front steps. Minister Paul Corcoran waved and read the rear bumper sticker on the pickup,

    MISSOURI, THE SHOW ME STATE AND PROUD OF IT!

    Leroy pulled himself upright. On either side of the road spread rich tilled farmland as far as he could see. Furrows undulated over flat prairie land where deer and buffalo once roamed. Left of the road, the ground sloped away and a stream ran alongside from an underground spring that led to Leroy’s pond. To anyone else, the rise of water in the pond would not be noticed but Leroy could sight measure it in millimeters. A lot more work before that pond’s finished, he said. Got to cut down these plum trees along the road.

    They’re just starting to bloom, Alice said.

    Not now. When the pond is ready. Then the summer folks goin’ and comin’ from the lake will see it.

    Well don’t do no cuttin’ until you talk to me. I like them trees. She wheeled the pickup left between two light poles and stopped on an old tar road at the corner mailbox. . Behind the box covered by weeds was a large boulder with a bronze plaque inset.

    State Poor Farm built 1933

    Justice County Missouri

    Leroy leaned out the window and removed two loaves of fresh crusty bread from the mailbox."

    Alice drove to the Big House. On the left of the road thousands of pine seedlings in neat rows spread all the way up and out of sight to the dam. On the right the seedlings reached almost to the bottomland and the Black House. Alice parked close to the tractor near the entrance to the Big House.

    Leroy got out and looked up at the large, red brick building. Big, double hung windows

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