Fester Descent – Crawford Smith

I believe it would help us direct our search.” “Let’s just take that off boil, Martin. There are a number of considerations we have to weigh. You know the Schmidts still swing a lot of weight with certain elements in town. Powerful elements. I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that might endanger anyone’s job—especially mine! Ha ha!” Martin steamed.

He’d had a good relationship with all of the mayors he’d served under—Thad Lincoln was the third. Both were fully aware Martin’s position was an appointed one, and the mayor was the one who could appoint and fire the chief constable. Never before had one of them so overtly threatened him with his job. “Sir, are you preventing me from continuing with my investigation?” asked Martin. “No, no, no—nothing like that.

I wouldn’t think of interfering in a police investigation. I’m just saying, given the current situation, it would be best for all involved to wait until tomorrow. I will speak with the interested parties, and I’m sure we can arrange to have anyone you like be made available for an interview. There’s no need to pester a judge, Martin.

Let’s wait a few hours and take care of it then. I really think that’s the best course of action, don’t you?” Martin thought nothing of the sort. He paused before continuing. “Honestly, Mr. Mayor, I think the best course of action is for me to interview the Schmidts immediately.” “Why?” demanded the mayor. “Certainly, you don’t think one of them is involved, do you?”

That was exactly what Martin thought, but again he held his tongue. In the background, he could hear the chopper approaching. “The idea is preposterous,” continued the mayor. “This is one of the oldest and most respected families in town. You cannot go around accusing them of wanton crimes with no evidence!” “Sir, I would never make such an accusation without adequate evidence.” “Good, then it’s agreed. We’ll wait until tomorrow and when everyone has had a chance to calm down, we deal with matters in a civilized fashion.”

“Sir, I rather think …” Martin had to raise his voice—the helicopter was right overhead now. “I can’t hear you!” shouted the mayor. “The chopper must be there! We’ll talk in the morning.” Then he hung up. Martin stared at the phone for half a minute. Never had he encountered such naked political meddling in an investigation. Sure, traffic tickets got fixed and misdemeanors got swept under the rug, but this was a whole new level of interference. He could go ahead and get the warrant—or try to.

No doubt Pierre Nasté could pull some strings in Weaverville and delay the whole process anyway.

First published by Sweet Weasel Words 2026 Copyright © 2026 by Crawford Smith All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localities is entirely coincidental. The words and thoughts of the characters are not meant to be offensive to readers; they’re merely characterizations, meant to convey the attitudes and worldview of certain characters.

Please don’t get your shorts all in a bunch over it. First edition This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com OceanofPDF.com for NancyAnne OceanofPDF.com Acknowledgments Special thanks to Kim Smith and Jess Truhan for helping me bring this project from concept to completion with their patience and valuable suggestions. Also, many thanks to Rob Padovano, who helped straighten out some of the legal and procedural issues in the book. Any errors or outright BS are mine, not his. Thanks to my aunt, Claudia Pattison, for helping me proofread and generally clean up the text.

It was great to have Paula Guran back to edit this work. I always love working with her, and always grow as a writer when I do. Above all else, super-extra-special thanks to my wife NancyAnne, for putting up with all of my foolishness. OceanofPDF.com I Part One September 1995 OceanofPDF.com W Chapter 1 here the hell’s my money?”

snarled Cecilia Schmidt. She lounged behind the enormous mahogany desk that would be in her possession for another few minutes. On the other side of the desk were her two most hated in-laws: Ophelia Schmidt and her husband Herkimer. Ophelia was the aunt of Cecilia’s late husband, Emile. When Emile died and left everything—including control of the family business—to Cecilia, Ophelia had become her bête noire and opposed her at every turn.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 505704bbf176fe05
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 5,143,436 bytes (4.905 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 407
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 535.14 minutes
• Total Words: 107,029
• Total Characters: 597,900
• Average Words per Page: 262.97
• Average Characters per Page: 1469.04

Most Frequent Words

said (849), martin (427), bolly (413), like (359), back (357), he’d (307), one (293), get (284), now (283), harold (281), time (263), ronald (250), around (227), didn’t (211), billy (204), good (203), going (196), got (196), i’m (193), right (188), know (180), see (179), sure (172), well (168), don’t (164), it’s (159), man (159), still (158), really (149), place (148), schmidt (147), asked (143), lot (141), okay (140), janie (139), mall (138), thought (137), even (134), much (133), way (133), door (132), looked (128), yeah (127), went (126), take (126), made (125), head (125), want (125), first (121), two (120), house (119), something (116), think (115), look (115), front (115), little (115), top (113), wasn’t (112), ophelia (109), room (108), last (107), another (106), family (106), maybe (106), make (105), hand (105), thing (105), that’s (103), took (103), away (103), came (101), long (101), seemed (100), thelma (99), work (97), chief (97), fester (96), knew (96), behind (94), things (94), louise (94), vince (94), come (92), home (92), car (92), enough (90), himself (90), blount (89), pretty (88), felt (86), night (85), nasté (84), hadn’t (82), never (81), charlene (80), need (79), turned (78), com (77), small (77), you’re (77).

PDF Download