The Good Investment

First installment appeared in the afternoon
edition of the daily paper and was written
by Agnes Upchurch on her deathbed
or so it was thought before Miss Upchurch
showed up the very next day at the Post
Office to collect her mail and proceeded
to the newspaper office to receive the balance
of what she was due which amounted to
three dollars and ten cents. She clenched
the money in her left hand that was swaddled
in the left pocket of the coat which
belonged to a dead woman before her
and said to herself, this is for you Edna.
The coat had been sold to the local thrift store
by the dead woman's ungrateful brood of children
who didn't appreciate that it was made
of herring bone tweed with a nice black collar
that could be turned up against the neck
during cold weather. Miss Upchurch
paid fifty cents for her old friend's coat
with the comfort that she
had been right all along and for this
she was paid well enough to purchase
a pound of coffee, loaf of bread
and half a dozen pencils with which to write
the second installment of the series
which she named The Red Herring.