The door slamming shut behind Vince Markilini was enough to retrigger the hangover he thought he killed with eight Tylenols and some Irish cream in his coffee.
“This is the greatest day of your life,” Deputy Rothman said, before hello.
“I doubt it. What do we got? Office lottery pool finally hit and I can retire?”
Rothman stood and motioned for Sheriff Markilini to follow him into the tech room.
“Remember what a bitch it was, how damn expensive it was, to wire up the disc golf course for surveillance?
Even though Markilini walked behind Rothman, he simply nodded. His head hurt too much to talk.
Rothman turned. “It was worth every bit of aggravation.”
“One of those kids bring a kilo out there in one of them little wagons?” Markilini asked, wincing.
Rothman laughed.
“Better.”
He flipped on the bank of surveillance cam footage and highlighted one of the fourteen cameras they had installed in the trees of the Samson Disc Golf Course.
Pulling Camera Four to main screen, he played the footage from the morning.
“Simpkins might regret his announcement to run against you this year. Seems he had a bit too much to drink last night.”
Markilini belched. “I know. I was drinking with him.”
Rothman wheeled, stunned.
“I thought you guys hated each other”
“I was trying to coax him not to run against me. His wife’s family has deep pockets. It involved good bourbon until we ran out of good bourbon and switched to the crap I had in the basement.”
Rothman sucked bits of breakfast burrito through the gaps in his teeth.
“Well, you must have got him good and schnockered, because that’s him. That’s his pistol.
Rothman slowed the tape.
“That’s him trying to shoot a whooping crane on hole number 7 of the Samson course. He hasn’t told us why yet, but DNR is gonna fry him hard for it.
“And that…” Rothman freeze-framed the image “Is one of the local disc golf pros knocking his pistol out of his hand with a goddamn piece of round plastic. Kid told me it was a driver, not that I can tell the difference.”
***
Photo by Kemble Hildreth on Unsplash
And disc golf makes it into a story!
Samson got clipped.