Road Trip

by Dan Taylor

Grace, who’s sitting beside me, refrained from partaking.

  After one of the deputies has walked past, I say to Grace, “I feel like they know.”

  “If I were you, I’d lose the shades and stop chewing gum. Two red flags right there.”

  “Why did you let me do this?”

  “I tried to stop you, but you said, and I quote, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’”

  I shake my head. You should never take a Dr Pepper commercial as gospel. I say, “I realize now that the worst is pretty bad.”

  I take off the shades and look at Grace. “How do I look?”

  “Like you haven’t slept all night and just recently had pepper spray sprayed into your eyes.”

  “Is that your way of saying I should put them back on?”

  “Better to be the L.A. asshole who wears shades inside than the L.A. asshole who definitely smoked weed before an interview with the sheriff.”

  I put them back on, and then go back to relaxing and definitely having a good time.

  Then Grace says, “I don’t know how, because I can’t see your eyes, but you look paranoid behind the shades.”

  “After this, I’m getting breakfast.”

  “Just try to make your responses more logical when the sheriff asks you questions.”

  “Can you do the talking?”

  “I think we both have to.”

  I shake my head again. “This was a bad idea.”

  “I think he’s coming.”

  I look at where she’s looking, down the corridor, at a mid-thirties guy in gray sweats. “That’s not the sheriff.”

  “He just looked over and held a finger up, indicating he’d be a minute.”

  “Which finger?”

  She shushes me. “He’s coming over now.”

  He does, and we stand. He holds out his hand for me to shake, and asks, “Are you two the Hancocks?”

  I shake it, aware my palm is sweaty. “We are.”

  He shakes Grace’s hand too, and we stand up, and he introduces himself as Sheriff Jade Winter.

  Then he says, “I’m just waiting for the interview room to become available.”

  “Oh, should we sit back down?” I ask.

  “Nah, they’ll just be a second.”

  We stand in silence thirty seconds or so. Then he says, “How you guys enjoying this part of the country?”

  Grace and I look at each other. I wait for Grace to respond, but she doesn’t, so I stutter, “Downs… and ups. I mean, it’s been really great until last night.” I turn to Grace. “Beautiful part of the country, right, Grace?”

  I wait for someone to carry on the conversation, but Grace and the sheriff just stand there in silence, so I say, “Not many ‘ladies of the night’ around here.” And then, putting on a funny voice, like the voice I use to tell my dad I love him at the end of a FaceTime call, “And I think that’s a good thing. Amiright?”

  “It’s nice,” Grace says, interrupting me. “I like looking at the fields.”

  Rescuing us from small talk with the sheriff, a deputy leaves what I assume is the interview room we’re waiting for, followed by a sobbing woman.

  “We’re good to go,” Sheriff Winter says. “Follow me.”

  We follow him into the interview room. We take a seat on the two folding chairs by the table in the middle.

  The sheriff stands behind the folding chair opposite us, leaning on it.

  “Before we start, can I get you folks anything to drink. A cup of coffee, anything like that?” he asks.

  “Coffee’s good,” I say.

  I mentioned last night Grace doesn’t put airs on for anyone, but turns out I was wrong, as she says, “I would also enjoy a coffee.”

  “Righty-ho. I’ll be right back.”

  Grace and I sit in silence as we wait. A couple minutes after he went out, he comes back in, puts down our paper-cup coffees, and takes his seat.

  I’m more of a tea guy, as coffee gives me the shakes and irregular bowel movements, but I figure I need the extra kick bean juice gives you.

  “I just want to say before we start that I appreciate you two coming down here.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I say. “It’s our pleasure.”

  “And I apologize for my state of dress. That lunatic stole my last sheriff’s uniform right off the washing line, and the police department, they insisted on keeping that one for a little while.”

  Here we go, the moment where we find out what the hell happened last night. The crazy hitchhiker. The guy that looked just like him who owns the restaurant and bar but who speaks with a non-English British accent. Marlboro Man. And Officer Field.

  But before we find out, I say, “I just thought you’d come from the training studio. Didn’t you, Grace?”

  She looks at me confusedly. “I agree.”

  The sheriff looks at Grace and then me, and says, “Anyway, you’re probably wondering what the hell went on last night.”

  “We are,” I say.

  “One word: Dirk Field.”

  “Come again?”

  “That’s the guy that was posing as the police officer.”

  “Ohhh, two words.”

  He ignores my correction, and says, “We’ve been wanting to catch that nuisance for a while now.”

  “Oh, I thought he was maybe a serial killer or whatever.”

  I look at Grace, partly because I don’t like making eye contact with the sheriff, even behind the protection of a pair of designer sunglasses, and partly because Grace was shot by this ‘nuisance.’ She says, “Or whatever.”

  “Nah, he’s just a nuisance,” he continues. He leans forward and lowers his voice for some reason, and says, “Between you, me, and your wife here, he used to be one of my deputies. But we had to let him go six weeks ago, because of performance issues. Seems he wasn’t none too happy about that, and went rogue, going on some misguided crusade against the sheriff’s department, which brings us to last night.” He leans farther forward, and lowers his voice even more. We can barely hear him when he says, “We’d appreciate it if what’s said behind these four walls stays here,” and then, after picking up a tape recorder I didn’t notice upon coming in, “and on this device, which I’m legally obliged to tell you I’m recording this interview with.”

  The sheriff puts it down, presses the RECORD button and then goes through the routine of stating the date, time, and asking us if we agree to be recorded. With that out the way, the interview becomes a regular one. We tell the sheriff all the details of last night, minus the bit about the cocaine and my seeming willingness to drug my wife with it. When we’re done, and after we’ve agreed to say all that stuff in a court of law, the sheriff presses the STOP button.

  I raise my hand and the sheriff says, “You don’t have to do that. You can just talk.”

  “Oh, okay. I just have a few questions. Just to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How does the sheriff figure into all this?”

  “The sheriff?”

  “The scarecrow.”

  He scratches his chin. “I’m not one for spouting pop psychology theories, because it’s a conflict of interests, but I figure Dirk was so pissed at me, or felt so oppressed by my management style, which is stern but fair, that he may have become unwell and felt like he needed to appease me for his wrongdoing while on the force. That and the pressure of the gig made him into a lunatic. It happens. Of course, he wasn’t able to appease me directly, as we’d taken his badge away—or at least we had, but he must’ve got one off eBay or whatever—so he bought a police scanner radio, must’ve kept one of his uniforms, and tried to carry out some vigilante justice. We figure this is the only semi-serious incident involving Dirk, though there have been a couple reports of him harassing perpetrators.”

  “That clears that up. Just a couple more questions.”

  The sheriff nods.

  “Marlboro Man, who was he?”

  He shakes his head. “Marlboro Man?” />
  “The guy I mentioned in the denim suit.”

  “Oh, that’s his brother, Karl. We have him too. He thinks he was working indirectly for the sheriff’s department, working undercover, when all he was doing was gaining his victims’ confidence in Dirk. He had no idea he was working for a scarecrow. What was your next question?”

  So that settles it. Officer Field was some mentally ill guy who worked as a deputy, got fired, which he wasn’t too happy about. He then became obsessed with the sheriff, carried out vigilante justice under the imagined duress of a sheriff-effigy scarecrow, with the aid of his brother who thought he was Donnie Brasco. That’s more or less what the sheriff said, right?

  I did have another question, until the sheriff mentioned the police scanner radio: How did the hitchhiker figured into this? He’s unrelated, in a way, though he must’ve phoned the police on us, if we were to become one of Dirk’s victims. But why wouldn’t we have heard about the hit-and-run allegation against us from the real sheriff?

  Even when stoned, I know not to ask the sheriff about this. And looking at Grace, who looks a little bored by all of this, if anything, I’ll let hibernating bears lie.

  When I’ve stopped processing all this information in my stoned mind, I look at the sheriff to find him frowning and staring at me. “So?” he says, “the question?”

  I think a second. “Do you know any decent places in the vicinity to grab breakfast?”

  He looks behind me at something on the wall. “It’s nearly one, but I know a couple places you can grab brunch.”

  “Brunch sounds good.”

  Before we can say our farewells, the door opens up behind us, and we turn around to see one of the deputies pop his head through the door, and say, “Sheriff, can I speak to you a second?”

  “Can’t it wait, Howard? I’m conducting an interview.”

  ‘Howard’ glances at us, a sheepish look on his face, and then back at the sheriff. Says, “Sorry, it can’t.”

  The sheriff sighs and then goes out, leaving Grace and I sitting there.

  We sit in silence a second until Grace says, “Do you think they’ve just realized we’re wanted for a hit-and-run violation?”

  I don’t know what I thought when he insisted on speaking to the sheriff, but it wasn’t that.

  “Ah shit, you’re right,” I say.

  “And is that the same sheriff who was the victim of your prank?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw the guy. It’s either the hit and run, the tire-deflation payback, or both. Whatever that guy’s saying to him, it’s definitely about me and or you.”

  Grace sighs. “I suppose we can go ahead and cancel brunch.”

  I try to look on the bright side. “Or we can bargain with the sheriff, tell him if that he drops the charges for the hit and run we’ll agree to testify against Dirk, but only after we’ve eaten? I’m pretty sure I saw something like that on The Wire, but with McDonald’s instead of smoked salmon and poached eggs.” I think a second. “Is letting down a tire in the State of Oklahoma even an offense?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s an offense wherever you are. And as for bargaining, haven’t we already agreed to testify and already given evidence?”

  “You’re right. No dice.”

  We sit in silence a second, and then I say, “Don’t worry. My lawyer will get us out of this.”

  “Didn’t you say that you’ve been meaning to get a new one, and that he’d find some way to have Bill Cosby doing The Cosby Show again in no time if he were on the prosecution?”

  “If I did, I didn’t mean it. There’s no way a suit would green light that project.”

  The door opens, interrupting us. As the sheriff walks past us, I try to put a look on my face that says A) I have no idea why he went out to talk to ‘Howard,’ B) I’m not guilty of anything, not even running over a bum’s toe in Hollywood that I’ve never been caught for, and C) “Does this face really belong to a guy who would let down a law-enforcement officer’s tires, does it, sheriff?”

  But I needn’t have worried about making a face like someone who’s taking a dump and looking real confused about it. Turns out I did know why the sheriff went out to speak to Howard, and it isn’t anything to do with the two episodes Grace and I discussed while he was out of the room.

  35.

  When I worked as a private investigator, one of my many clients was a guy determined to catch his wife cheating on him, and wanted video evidence. It’s an usual request—not the catching-a-spouse-cheating bit; that was my bread and butter—but the wanting video evidence. No guy in their right mind would want a video of his woman being seen too, and most likely well, if her having been doing it for nine months, give or take, was any indication. Billy Fido, my client, was in his right mind, because it wasn’t her male lover he wanted me to catch her with; it was her female lover Saskia.

  The reason why I’m telling you this is not to tell you about my favorite gig ever, but as a segue to describing the look on the sheriff’s face when he sits down on the folding chair opposite us.

  Anyway, Billy phoned me one evening and said he had a problem, and that he couldn’t phone a family member or friend to help him with it. He needed my help, and he’d pay extra for it. I wasn’t sure, because I was drunk, off the clock, and enjoying watching a BBC wildlife documentary about ibex, a goat-like animal ostensibly not made for its cliff habitat.

  But I went. He said it was an emergency, which piqued my interest.

  When I arrived at his apartment and was invited in, Billy remarked upon how drunk I was and swore me to secrecy about what he was about to tell me. I agreed, and what he showed me blew my mind. Without warning, he turned around, pulled down his pants and draws, and revealed the scrotum end of a condom hanging out of his ass. Inside that condom, Billy told me, was a carrot organic in girth.

  That look on his face, when he said it was stuck up there, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t pull it out, is the same look the sheriff has on his face.

  He has little to no complexion and is sweating like a fat guy in a sauna.

  I’m no longer thinking about if the diners around here do takeout.

  Grace plays it cool. “Are we allowed to phone our lawyer now?”

  We were never not allowed, but I don’t think that explains the sheriff’s response. He takes a seat, a blank look on his face, and ignores Grace’s question. He then reaches in his pocket and pulls out a tobacco tin, out of which he takes a Woodbine.

  He holds it up for us to look at, and says, “I haven’t smoked one of these in six years.” He puts it in his mouth and lights it. Then says, “This was my lucky one.”

  So that explains why a man who had long ago quit cigarettes would carry it around in his pocket, along with a lighter, but we’re still none the wiser about what Howard told him.

  He takes a long drag, smiles a crooked smile, and says, “There it is. I can I feel it in the tips of my toes, the nicotine.” Then he looks at us, and says, “You’re going to hear it anyway, so it might as well come from me. My sheriff’s shirt lab results have just come back, and there’s no less than five different types of blood on it. Seems you were right about Dirk. He wasn’t just a nuisance.”

  Feigning surprise, I say, “Oh shit! No way!”

  Grace, the recipient of Dirk’s bullet, is slower to attract surprised, so I elbow her, and she says, “That’s unbelievable!”

  There’s thirty or so seconds of awkward silence.

  Then the sheriff says, “I guess that clears up the influx of missing person’s cases we’ve been investigating.” And then, “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to smoke this alone.”

  “Of course,” I say.

  Wanting to escape the bad atmosphere created by the sheriff realizing some of the people in his county he was elected to serve and protect have been likely killed by a madman he’d assumed was a nuisance, and wanting to avoid breathing in the sour smoke of a six-year-old-plus Woodbine, Grace and I leave, but only a
fter thanking him for his time and offering our sympathy.

  When we leave, a puff of smoke escapes the room with us, and we go and sit on the waiting area seats we’d occupied before.

  A moment later, Howard comes running past us, carrying a fire extinguisher and sniffing the air with his nose raised, like a dog.

  “There we were thinking it was all about us,” Grace says.

  “I know. If I said, ‘What are the odds?’ would that be appropriate?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  Silence a second.

  “Should we go and grab breakfast?” I ask.

  “Brunch. Let’s go grab brunch.”

  But before we get up, the owner of the restaurant and bar comes into the sheriff’s office, goes over to the reception desk, and with interest we watch him speak to the deputy behind it for a couple of minutes. Then he comes and sits on the available seat next to me.

  We make fleeting eye contact, and then he gives me a double take. He says, “Are you the guys who were at my restaurant yesterday evening?”

  “We are.” I glance at Grace, and then say to him. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?”

  He sighs and rubs the tiredness out of his face. “I have a little advice for you. Never choose to have a bipolar brother.”

  He seems to be confusing ‘bipolar brother’ with baby, child, or pet, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. I ask him, “You don’t happen to have a twin brother, do you?”

  He sighs again. “That’s not why you’re here, is it? To press charges against Braylon?”

  I frown. “What do you mean, to press charges against Braylon?”

  “When he’s up, and I mean really up…” His voice trails off and he laughs. “He gets it into his head he can make his fortune by getting run over by and extorting folk passing through. He says, ‘Out-of-court settlement’ a lot. I assume that’s why you’re here.”

  “No, but we did run into him yesterday. I mean, we picked him up, but we didn’t run him over, he climbed onto our roof and fell off when we started driving.”

  “That sounds like Braylon. He’ll have phoned the sheriff’s office, too, but they mostly ignore him, long as he didn’t hurt anyone. Did he, hurt you, I mean?”