Król CASE XX Partial Partners

Author's Note: Since I began writing mysteries in the summer of 1977, I never considered the origin of my protagonist. Now in forced semiretirement, I have time to write his origin. In this mystery, he moves into a new neighborhood and meet his best buddy to solve the first mystery. They were like brothers until the tragedy of the Cynical Syndicate some thirteen years later. (C) Alopex, 2026 

Król and Hough first meet around age nine and become best buddies into adulthood. They become partners in solving crimes and often use the help of others to do so. In this one, the Króls move within the Wilkes-Barré area, and he first meets his lifelong friend and companion. Here the boys stumble upon suspicious activities during 1967. under construction in 2026

I awoke in my own bed for the first time in over three years. The light of dawn was streaming through the bare windows in my bedroom.

Winter was losing its grip on this Monday. The windows showed a view of an approaching sunrise over the neighborhood houses. I smiled as I thought of how wide the view was compared to the cramped room I used for sleeping with two long windows which had shown the house next door. One frosted window, probably the bathroom, would light up and shine into the bedroom.

I must have lain in bed a good half hour before getting out of bed. Finally, I overcame the Bettschwere with an exhilarating thump on the floor of my new bedroom. I knew I would be walking to school along a different road, but it shouldn't take much longer on the same street from the opposite direction.

My bedroom led into the kitchen. An old coal stove sat next to gas burners. The table sat opposite to my left. I pulled a bowl from the cupboard and a spoon from a drawer. I opened the back door and retrieved the milk from the window sill. I came back in, sat down, and poured cereal into a bowl.

"Buddy, are you up?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Paul says he'll meet you on the front porch to walk to school. He said be there in fifteen minutes."

I finished the cereal, returned to my bedroom. Mom came in and showed me where my clothes were in the dresser and the closet. 

I felt so strangely disoriented as I put on underwear and socks. It dissipated as I picked out my shirt, tie, and pants. I had one pair of black shoes on the floor.

"I'll unpack the rest," Mom promised.

I had a flashback of when I was falling asleep. I was lying in my bed and through the doorway and beyond the stove while my aunt and mother tried to remove the advertisement on an electric hanging clock from the bar. Despite the furniture 's having been moved over a month ago, Mom was too busy in the move to have done everything. before we moved in yesterday. Content to go to school as I had the past three year and the same classroom since September, I met my cousin for the routine day.

I mentioned to the teacher at lunch that I had finally left my grandparents. She gave me a sarcastic statement. That evening, I did my homework in the livingroom, instead of the kitchen table.

We moved so fast we gave up luxuries. Besides lacking a refrigerator, we had no hot water. Mom said she didn't know how to set up the coal burner in the heater. Besides the system needed a new faucet in the bathroom.

That Friday evening, Mom set up huge pans on the gas stove to boil water then throw it into the bathtub and add cold water.  

 

I met Paul at the front porch where the front door and the door at the bottom of the stairs met.

"So, Paul, who walks to school this way?"

"I'll introduce you to the walkers."

We walked down the hill to the main street, passing the railroad tracks. Going to school the opposite way took about as long.

"Hey, Paul! Wait up!" I heard behind us.

"Hurry, Don. It's already  quarter after eight."

Don caught us just past the tracks.

"I didn't know you'd moved, Buddy."

Don was a ginger with curly hair and freckles. I extended my left hand.

Don gave me a funny look. "Buddy, are you left-handed?"

I felt embarrassed. "I'm not used to handshakes."

Don extended his freckled left hand.

"Give me your freckled left hand. We have two traits in common", he commented as he slapped my shoulder with his right hand.

"You must come over to the fourplex sometimes to play," Paul interjected.

"Sunday after Mass," Don suggested. "After we go for the Sunday newspaper."

I meet my best buddy Don Hough.

After we left the church, Don followed us outside. We were walking to the store for the newspaper.

"I'll be by a bit later," he said.

Mom sent me to get a paper while she talked to my aunt. Paul and I bought the newspapers.

"Why did you buy two?" Mom scolded. "I'm not paying a dollar every Sunday for Sunday papers!"

"You didn't say which paper," I retorted.

"Just get the Independent."

The four of us walked up the hill after another store visited. 

"Play until lunch," Mom said.

I looked around the yard. Winter was starting to fade, but it looked like the season. The bare grass had spots of snow. The playground set sat metallic and cold. Paul and I tried the swings, but it was too uncomfortable.

Don came to join us with another boy. 

"This is my friend Tom Lupino."

"Don and Tom, this is my cousin Paul. He lives in the apartment above us," I introduced. "Don't I know you from somewhere? Aren't you in my class?"

Tom gave me a dimpled smile.

"Buddy, I didn't know you'd moved. Don didn't reveal where we were going."

"Shake left hands," Don teased. "He's a freckled lefty like me, It's our secret handshake."

"But I'm right-handed," Tom protested.

"You still have freckles. As a strawberry blond, you're midway between Buddy and me."

"Okay, I'll shake lefty," Tom  agreed.

The three of us shook lefty together with freckled hands.

 

We really learned about each other over the next month. We were in the same grade at school and walked there and back often. We consulted each other on homework and over the lush we had for a teacher.

Then in late March before the weather warmed, Mom told me that she'd be gone all day. 

"Rather than leave you alone all day, I've arranged for you to go to the bar with your friends."

"Good, I wanted to show Don and Tom around the bar. The woods around it should be good for exploring."

I speak to a neighborhood boy named Tom Lupino on a Sunday morning.

The three of us went down to the unfinished basement of the bar. The land sloped sharply, so the basement opened to the ground one floor lower than the front of the building. 

"How far are we going into the woods?" Tom inquired.

"We're walking straight through only a short distance," Don explained. "So we don't get lost."

"We should have set up a picnic," I contemplated. "We could have packed knapsacks."

We walked for about ten minutes along a trail. I saw that Don was curious. Then he stopped. I walked up to him and put my left hand on his right shoulder.

"Look. There's a house back here I wondered why there was a trail back here."

"I see it too, buddy," I squinted at the building.

"It looks abandoned," Tom noted as he joined us. 

 

It was a one-story house with broken windows and a back door ajar. It looked abandoned about a year.

"Done about a year ago," Don interrupted my thought. "Let's explore inside."

I rolled my eyes as if to find the answer. Don gave me a smirk, patted my back, and moved ahead. Wordlessly, I followed. Tom looked concerned, but then joined us.

We walked into the back without touching anything. Don stopped at the first room.

"I doubt if we'd find any food in this kitchen."

I passed him and led them into a liviingroom.

Continued in process 

We find an open and damaged house near the bar.

These pictures are not permanent with this story. In thought, Buddy Król is the freckled blond, his buddy Don Hough is ginger, and Tom Lupino is the strawberry blond. Artel makes them handsome, which is fine with me. Ashley was a small coal town in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania next to Wilkes-Barré. There are woods around the area, especially at the lounge between Nanticoke and Wilkes-Barré.

The boys stumble upon a mystery in May 1967.