A/N: Hey, everyone, thanks for the reviews, glad everyone's liking so far. Only two more chapters left!

Straightening the Curves

Chapter Eighteen: Meet Eli Moore

The Next Morning

Eli Moore was wearing sunshades, a black bucket hat, a black jean jacket, black muscle shirt and even a pair of black slacks. He was picking up a gallon of milk and some bread at the small corner grocery store. The reason for the shades was a dual purpose—they looked good and they kept people from recognizing him as the same guy that was arrested for the Hammer Head murders. The resemblance was uncanny—they could have passed as identical twins, yet they weren't even remotely related.

He was giving the clerk a lingering gaze at her well-proportioned body while heading out the door when he was suddenly run over by someone wearing overalls and a knit hat. Eli's bag of groceries fell and his shades went tumbling down after them.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" the other fella said, bending down to help Eli pick his belongings up.

"I'm fine," he growled slightly, not wishing to be bothered by anyone.

The overall-wearer took a good long look at his face. "Cooter?" he asked with a big grin on his face. "Well, sweet mother of pearl, Coot, how've ya been?"

Balladeer: Folks, y'all remember L.B. Davenport, another one of Cooter's cousins, don't y'all?

Eli gave the guy a strange look, then realized that he had the two of them mixed up. Of course that meant he would have to play along so that this kid wouldn't get suspicious.

"Hey!" Eli said back, a little uncomfortably though. "I'm doin' all right, it's all cool. Uh, how're you?"

"I'm doin' great, Coot, I'm just passin' through here on my way to a weldin' job downstate." L.B. looked at Eli's eyes and asked, "Hey, cuz, since when did you have pretty blue eyes like that?"

Time to go! Eli thought as he maneuvered his way around L.B. and started backing up towards the sidewalk. "Uh, they just look that way in certain light . . . I'll have to catch ya later, I'm real busy—bye!"

"But—" L.B. started, but Eli was out the door and walking quickly out of view. L.B. scratched his head. "Sure is jittery," he muttered. "Ain't like him to do that . . ."

Luke and Ali had hit a dead-end with Nick Rogan yesterday—he wasn't listed in the telephone directory. They took the night off to rest.Luke seemed a little discouraged but Ali quickly suggested they just follow him from the courthouse one day. But Luke didn't seem to up for that—be kinda hard to follow someone in the city without being noticed, even if he didn't have the General Lee with him.

They sat at a little roadside diner for a quickbreakfast the next morningand to discuss what the next move was when Ali looked around Luke's shoulder and saw someone she recognized. "L.B.!" she exclaimed, getting up and rushing to her younger cousin, who was in between her and Rachel's age.

L.B.'s eyes got big and a grin spread across his face. "Well, I'm just runnin' into everybody up here!" he declared, giving Ali a big hug when she reached him. "Hey, Luke's here, too!"

Luke smiled at the younger boy as he walked up. "Nice seein' ya, L.B." He thought about what he had said and asked, "Uh, L.B., what do you mean by runnin' into everybody."

L.B. had a goofball grin on his face, saying, "I don't know what else I'd call it—I done seen Cooter 'bout ten minutes ago an' now I'm seein' you an' Ali. I like that short hair on ya by the way."

Ali ran a hand through her short locks. "Thanks."

"You saw Cooter?" Luke asked a little doubtfully. He didn't think that L.B. knew about him being in jail.

"Yeah, gettin' some stuff at that little corner store at the Millsbury-Trent intersection." He shook his head as he remembered their brief encounter. "Sure acted strange. An' he had blue eyes, too! There ain't never been a blue-eyed Davenport in all of family history an' here he shows up with a pair of 'em that he ain't never had before! Plus he was wearin' all black!"

Eli Moore, Luke thought, his mind racing. "Uh, which way did he leave the store?"

"He went east from there, but I couldn't tell ya where he was goin'." He gave them both a strange look. "Is everything all right?"

"It's fine, we just have to run—we'll see ya again sometime. Come on, Ali!"

They ran out the diner, then Luke had to turn around and throw some money on the counter to pay for the food before running back outside again. L.B. shook his head. "Everybody's actin' strange today."

Just as L.B. had said, they managed to find the character thathe had thought was Cooter. He was walking inside of a building—a small apartment complex—carrying a brown paper bag that you'd see groceries being put in. Luke and Ali crossed the street once he had gone inside and carefully entered the building. They heard a door slam upstairs and they quietly went up to figure out which room he had gone in. Luke put a finger to his lips to signal being silent as they began to hear some voices. Apparently, Eli had company waiting on him.

"Where have you been?" they heard an angry voice growl.

"That's Nick," Ali whispered softly, recognizing the mean tone.

There was a silence before they heard Eli respond in a low voice, "Outta groceries."

"How do you expect us to keep you safe when you're out in public like that?" they heard a third voice ask in a raised level.

"That's Detective Yulch," Luke whispered.

Balladeer: Yulch? I wasn't countin' on that . . .

Eli was laid out casually on his torn up couch, a cigarette burning in one hand and his hat and shades in the other. "Why did we invite him in on this anyway?" he asked Nick who was leaned against the closed window, arms crossed.

"I'm the one that's dishing away evidence leading to you, Mr. Moore," Yulch snapped, who was sitting on the opposite sofa from Eli. "If not for me, you would be the one in custody."

"Calm down, girlies," Nick replied calmly, walking towards the two. "We got a problem here. Turns out that Evie knows about Eli's existence."

Yulch gawked at him. "What? How could she possibly have done that?"

Nick glared sideways at Eli. "Because dumb-ass here allowed Mr. Davenport to see his face, that's why! Evie heard the story and she's convinced that you're real an' even has a few people out lookin' for ya!"

"Is it my fault the he decided to show up at the murder scene?" Eli snarled, thumping his cigarette ashes onto the hardwood floor. "At least he got caught, that was the plan wasn't it?"

"The plan didn't call on you gettin' discovered!" Nick hissed. "If you hadn't gone ballistic on Summer after she dumped you, none of this would've happened in the first place!"

Eli breathed in some more smoke and exhaled it slowly. "Sad, what happened to Summer. I actually kinda miss her."

Nick shook his head. "You're lucky I'm still friends with you after that. An' here I am tryin' to keep your sorry butt outta prison."

"Hey, you were the one that suggested pinnin' it on what's-his-name," Eli told him. "How'd you find 'im anyways?"

"Ex-wife's favorite cousin," he replied simply. "An' now ex-wife has her little posse out huntin' the streets for ya."

Eli opened up his jacket to reveal a small handgun that he had picked up a few days earlier. "I'll take care of 'em," he promised, closing up his jacket. "I'll blow 'em to hell if they come for me."

"We are gonna be the ones blown to hell if anything else goes wrong," Yulch noted. "What are we going to do about this, Rogan?"

"I tell what we're gonna do. Eli's gonna stay outta sight until this whole thing is over with, you keep your mouth shut an' do like you've been doin', an' I will take care of lil' Evelyn Coltrane personally. She's gotten in way too deep for her own good."

Balladeer: I never liked the guy, but if he's plannin' hurtin' poor Evie, I really don't like 'im.