Bags of Stone

Bags Morton doesn't have many friends, so he looks out for those he does have.
Johnny B. Stone is one of them. Johnny is mostly homeless, entirely harmless and relishes his friendship with Bags, the mostly-retired cop.
When two homeless people on the streets of Rapid City are found murdered, the local police suspect a serial killer. Johnny is sure of it. How does he know? Because he found a note in his rolled-up sleeping bag under the bridge. Bags is skeptical of the story, as Johnny is famous for his embellishments, and asks him what it said.
"I'm gonna kill you."
Not a lot of wiggle room for misinterpretation.
Bags wonders if Johnny suspects anyone. Johnny pegs a six-ten, three-hundred-pound man with a shaved head and a machete.
Bags figures a man fitting that description shouldn't be hard to find. He's wrong and poses as a homeless man himself to try and find the killer.
On the side, Bags is also hired by the local roller derby team to find their unscrupulous manager who has absconded with their tournament entry fees.
As the paths between the two suspects cross, palms are greased, guns are fired, phones are lost, sex is had and Bags is in line to lose another appendage.

A fifth-generation South Dakotan, Haugen is a recovering journalist living in the Black Hills of South Dakota with his wife and two dogs: Huckleberry and Finn.
Haugen is a former newspaper reporter, editor, sportswriter, publisher and award-winning columnist. He has lived throughout South Dakota - in Montrose, Canton, Sioux Falls and Valley Springs. He's worked at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Tri-State Neighbor and owned the Tea & Harisburg Champion newspaper in Tea. In addition to several free-lance writing gigs, he also had brief forays across state lines and worked at newspapers in Windom and Luverne, Minn., and Rock Valley, Iowa. Haugen is also an avid runner and gardener.