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This story made a huge impact on my life. There were six of us kids and come summer my mother couldn't handle all of us so she farmed me out every year to the aunts. One aunt lived in Indio. My mother put me on a Greyhound bus and nine years old; all alone with my brown paper grocery bag as luggage. I was scared to death. A Seagull hit the expansive windshield with splat of blood and feathers. Unfazed the driver merely turned on the windshield wipers and made and even bigger mess.
I arrived in Indio a hundred plus degrees and my aunt Carol picked me up at the bus station. She said she was taking me and my cousin Danny to the movies. Oh, boy I loved the movies. We stopped at a store to pick up some candy and I bought my favorite Chicken-O-stick. I was nine my cousin was seven, she bought our tickets at The Aztec theater and ushered us through the door. She said she'd be back when the movie was over. It was nice to be out of the sweltering heat. We sat down ate our candy in great anticipation. The movie started and it was in black and white. It was In Cold Blood, not something a nine year old should be watching.
Ten years later my cousin Danny and my Aunt Carol would be arrested for killing my favorite uncle Don in a murder for hire. My aunt hired a hit man out of Orange County named Cornelius. They stiffed in a fake call of an emergency at the Metropolitan Water Distinct where my uncle worked. There was a clause in the life insurance policy that if he died at work it was double indemnity. My uncle showed up in the middle of the night and they shot him in the back of the head. Of course there is lots more to this true story.
And to this day I can not forget In Cold Blood, the movie.
Sorry for the rant this was supposed to be a book review.
David Putnam Author of the Bruno Johnson series.