by Rex Bolt
“Of course not,” Reba said, “what do you think I am? You make alterations. The one I sold yesterday for instance -- the artist had a sky full of puffy clouds. I shifted them to the right, got rid of one entirely, let the sun filter through that spot.”
“You’re saying,” Chris said, trying not deadpan it too much, “you make them your own.”
“That goes without saying,” Reba said. “It’s done every day in the art world.”
“Unh-huh. And the all-nighter? The art one? . . . That’ll be post the NFL proceedings? If those develop?”
“You know something,” Reba said, “you got a one track mind Jeff.”
And she headed over to the hors d'oeuvres table . . . and meanwhile the attraction on the first tee had apparently subsided, and there was Waylon again now, the idiot, opening one of the barbeque grills back up and pretending to be messing more with the meat . . . and one thing Chris knew about grilling, you basically left that shit alone and let the smoke and heat do its thing.
It was then that he felt the hands on him from behind, making contact around waist-level and sliding up quick and strong into his armpits.
Next thing, Chris was being combination carried-dragged toward the open grill the Waylon was tending, and from the breathing and grunting alone, he discerned that Fritsckie was the one doing the dragging-carrying.
And this guy may be 20 years over the hill with bad knees and arthritis and asthma and who knows, even a heart condition . . . but it wouldn’t matter, there was no more way you were going to fight him off than if you were battling a neanderthal whose cave you happened to be trying to break into.
It was all proceeding pretty rapidly, and it went from Chris thinking this is a little joke, right, a measure of friendly payback, the other NFL guys getting a big kick out it . . . to the thing escalating to where Chris started to worry about getting his eyebrows singed if they carried it out too far and worked him too close to the grill . . . to where he was worried about remaining alive.
Part of the reason for that, the last concern, was the animal-like nature of Frank as he continued the dragging, relishing it -- you had the impression -- plus there was a creeping but real concern about how much the guy had to drink by now -- which went for Waylon as well . . . goofy, maniacal grin on that guy’s face too as he held the barbeque top off to the side and welcomed Frankie directing Chris down the middle, not unlike a full-of-himself bullfighter flaunting the cape activity.
Chris waited -- and then more like prayed -- for one of the NFL guys to call them off, but no one did . . . and Chris was aware of it getting awful silent period suddenly, this supposedly festive back patio full of golf charity patrons who’d been whooping it up all afternoon until now.
Finally, Chris’s face about 8 feet from the grill, Reba let out a scream that would scare off a family of Alaskan Grizzlies -- under normal circumstances.
Except Frank hesitated for a moment, and then continued his work.
At about the 4 foot mark a gunshot went off.
Chris wasn’t seeing much out of one eye but he caught a glimpse of Dale, the cop, standing there in plaid slacks and a golf shirt, and Chris’s first thought was Jeez, I didn’t see the guy all day, I didn’t realize he was part of this.
Unfortunately, despite the gunshot -- which was one of those straight up in the air jobs like you see in the movies, to warn someone off -- Frankie kept at it like nothing happened.
Dale took a big step forward and pointed the gun at Waylon’s face.
Waylon dropped the grill top, put up his hands, and then started waving them and yelling at Fritsckie to ‘hold it up now, dog!’.
Whether Frank got the idea or not, the NFL guys were tackling him finally, and Waylon joined in too . . . and dang, the guy was a difficult customer, but they got him on the ground on his stomach and somewhat under control, though Frank swung an arm backward and caught Bolton -- not in the face, more like the chest, but it couldn’t have been pleasant -- and for the first time today Washington stopped smiling and reached down there and delivered a pretty fair roundhouse right hand to Frank’s jaw region . . . and that slowed him down sufficiently for Dale to get the handcuffs on the son of a bitch.
***
An hour later Chris said to McBride, “Pretty good chicken, you know it? I’m not usually a fan of poultry, in a barbeque situation I’m saying. Thanksgiving of course, fine.”
“Me neither,” McBride said. “I want the grease. The flavor’s in the fat. But yeah, not bad. The sauce saves it.”
There was Waylon now, showing back up, helping himself to a plate of food, and about to sit down at an empty table, when McBride called him over.
Waylon kept standing, he wasn’t about to dignify the situation by sitting with Chris and McBride. “What do you need,” Waylon said.
“Just an update is all,” McBride said. “Everything pan out?”
“Depends on your interpretation,” Waylon said. “Dale worked it, if that’s where you pricks are going.” And then he did sit down at another table, other side of the patio this time, furthest away he could be.
Chris said, “That mean . . . do you think . . . ol’ Frank got hauled in? . . . Or let go?”
“Let go,” McBride said.
“You say that with conviction.”
“I know Dale by now . . . You know how sometimes you get a certain doctor -- even though they’re trained in all the protocols -- they still try to avoid prescribing medicine?”
“No,” Chris said.
“I’m not talking about a guy convulsing, but someone with a cold, and they want antibiotics, and the MD says try gargling with some warm salt water.”
“I got you. You’re saying Dale takes that approach. First do no harm, or whatever the lingo is.”
“Yep. That would fit. So my guess is he spoke to the butt-hole for a few minutes, uncuffed him, shook hands and told him no harm no foul . . . as long as he hit the road and didn’t come back.”
“Good plan,” Chris said. “An act of diplomacy -- that typically comes back to reward you.”
McBride cleared his throat. “As opposed to the way you handled it, whatever fairway that was?”
Chris didn’t answer that one, but he said, “The dead body though still. The poor gal. You think there’s any way in hell Waylon could have had something to do with that?”
“Probably not,” McBride said, “but I wouldn’t mind it being pinned on him.”
“Not at all,” Chris said.
Chapter 11
Monday morning Chris rode his big clunker one-speed bike over to the Eclipse library to see if he could find anything on the Lucy business from the other night.
There were a couple of points here. First, the UFO experience she claimed to have had with her dad when she was four, where the flying object sounded like it might have been struggling a bit mechanically until it released that discharge over the silver mine in her grandpa’s old deserted home town. Hillsdale, New Mexico, Chris was pretty sure she said.
Chris wasn’t a believer -- or a disbeliever either -- in UFOs. He was open-minded, and would admit to being a sucker for much of the heavy stream of UFO presentations on YouTube. Most of them were poor, shaky, illogical, after you’d let it run a couple minutes . . . but a few were well-done, had solid sources being interviewed, such as airline pilots and ex-astronauts and military people -- that you came away thinking -- could be.
It was a bit like trying to solve a serial killer case from the cheap seats -- meaning the internet serial killer amateur sleuth chat boards -- where even a case like the Zodiac (not the best example, since Chris and Ken may have solved that one . . . though maybe not) . . . but the point being, you want to be open to every possibility, until it is ruled out.
Same here, with Lucy. You give her some room. And she had described it pretty cool and calm and collected the other night, hadn’t she, out on McBride’s little back deck. She wasn’t trying to convince you of anything, force an agenda on you . . . and s
he didn’t seem senile or off her rocker either, far from it . . . so you chalk it up as interesting -- and you give the sweet gal the benefit of the doubt.
But fine. Leaving the UFO aside -- the second takeaway from the other night, the potentially alarming one, was obviously the referenced mope who’d been contacting her about her dad.
What did Lucy and Gertrude say again? . . . This was the grandson of a guy who got murdered -- an innocent bank patron -- in the robbery that Lucy’s dad committed?
And now the guy wanted something from her?
At first, according to her story, it was more like the guy was reaching out. He’d found her on Facebook, and Lucy didn’t shy away, she befriended him (Facebook-wise at least) and maybe initially the guy was just after some closure.
Chris could understand that. Again, you never really knew your grandpa because things got tragically cut short -- and on some level maybe you even sympathize with the other party (Lucy), since she lost her dad as well not long after, and certainly as a result of the same incident.
And maybe you even cut her -- and her dad both -- some slack . . . since hadn’t Lucy said this person’s grandpa (Alan was the grandson’s name, Chris remembered -- or at least the fake one he used on Facebook) was actually shot and killed by an accidental bullet from an off-duty security guard who happened to be in the bank making an ordinary deposit and found himself in the middle of a robbery and tried to take matters into his own hands?
All that.
And all that could very well be true.
Except of course, now he wants money.
Never the greatest concept.
So . . . Chris figured, get a little background at least, absorb a few things . . . maybe you can educated yourself enough to at least make a recommendation to Lucy.
To at the minimum -- get the hell off Facebook and don’t go back.
As Chris had learned this last year-plus though . . . they rarely played out that simple.
But here you were.
It took a few minutes, but Chris located a headline for an article from June 30th, 1961. The Oklahoma City Press. It read:
One Killed in State Street Bank Hold-up, Suspects at Large
The problem now being you had to read the darn thing on microfilm, since it was too old to qualify for the internet archives. This was never great, having to involve a librarian, but Chris went for it and fortunately the woman simply set him up at a microfiche machine, and then pointed to a case full of newspaper archives . . . so it was largely self-service, you’d didn’t have to blurt out specifically what you were looking for.
The article itself read:
Dateline June 29th-- Three masked robbers held up a Union Pacific branch late Tuesday afternoon and escaped with $16,212, while leaving one man dead, police said.
Oklahoma City residents are advised to be on the lookout for the trio, who are considered armed and dangerous.
Police spokesman Wallabee Walker said reports indicated the robbers fled in a brown pickup, make and model undetermined.
The men were last seen travelling east on Cherokee Avenue, Walker said, and possibly headed toward Route 62 in the direction of Blanchard.
A bank customer was pronounced dead at the scene.
He has since been identified as Alan P. Hittenger, 44, of 1898 Bing Tree Way.
Walker said, that pending ballistics tests, it remains to be determined how Hittenger was killed. Walker said there is speculation that an off-duty Brinks driver may have opened fire at the suspects, possibly striking Hittenger.
This was the third armed bank robbery in town this year. In February one man struck a Mercy Street bank, also a Union Pacific branch, and in April a man and a woman robbed the Telluride Savings and Loan on 3rd Street.
All three suspects in the two earlier robberies have been apprehended. In the Telluride Savings incident, the robbers allegedly argued outside the bank, whether they should ‘give it back’, and meanwhile an arriving squad car rode up on the sidewalk and crashed into both of them, not fatally, but doing the job.
Hmm. Welp . . . the account more or less lined up with Lucy’s . . . and Chris supposed, with the kid who’s been harassing her. (Chris was using the kid term loosely, figuring -- lining up the dates -- 1961, the dad maybe a teenager when the grandpa dies, so . . . you put the math together . . . you might place the grandson (Lucy’s Facebook ‘friend’) at around 30 years old currently.
In other words, the Alan person.
Interesting that that’s his Facebook name, same as the late grandpa’s.
But you can’t judge it, the dad may have named his own son after the grandpa . . . possibly.
So . . . no mention this early of Lucy’s dad -- Henry Pitts being the name she gave him -- or of any of his associates being arrested -- though Chris figured no doubt if he spent enough time roaming around in follow-up articles it would all be there, including the dad Henry eventually being sentenced to the 12 years at the state penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma . . . where Lucy said she and her mom visited him most Sundays, until the time they got there and were told he’d died overnight, which Lucy the rest of her life chalked up to a broken heart.
Taking a step back for a second, the part with Lucy’s dad, you could certainly empathize with a daughter thinking the world of her dad and missing him every day forward . . . even though at the same time she conceded that he did a terrible thing and contributed -- not intentionally but indirectly -- to the ‘Alan’ person’s grief. Alleged grief.
Meaning Lucy was in a tough spot the rest of her life -- aside from losing her dad, she no doubt wrestled with the morals involved, and you couldn’t blame her for befriending ‘Alan’. There may have been some closure there, that she’d been seeking all these years on her end too.
But still . . . Chris was thinking nah, you can’t sympathize with her dad, unfortunately.
Again, the Zodiac killer discussion forums -- someone was trying to make a case the other day that the taunting letters that everyone assumed were written by the killer may not have been -- that a non-criminal may have been playing a prank and pretending to be the killer in the letters.
But someone else in the discussion forum then pointed out that if you obstruct an investigation in a death penalty case -- and that’s what the Zodiac crimes were -- that you then (the letter writer) could be facing the death penalty yourself.
That’s how you had to objectively view Lucy’s deal. Sure, the dad may very well have been desperate and down and out and in no way intending to shoot anyone that day -- it was all about getting a few bucks -- but the fact is, if he didn’t participate, there might not have been the chain of events set in motion where ‘Alan’s’ grand-dad perished.
That aside . . . Chris went back to the computer and googled Alan P. Hittenger, 44, of 1898 Bing Tree Way, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Not much. Too obscure probably, and too far back in years. Only one little thing in fact, but it may take you somewhere.
Except nah. The spelling was off.
Jeez. Some Alan B. guy, not P, and worse, the last name was spelled with two E’s and no I. The address didn’t line up either, so you had the trifecta.
Chris took a moment to reflect, and once more concluded he was getting way too old for this stuff.
But. You were here, so you go back to the microfilm. Clunky as that whole setup was.
There were some false starts there too, but eventually in the 1961 Oklahoma City Press archives he found the paid obituary section, and the one for Mr. Hittenger.
Except there was little there, other than the standard death notice. The man had passed away on June 29th, and ascended to the acknowledged better place.
Chris was getting ready to give up, but he noticed another paper archived from only 1959-1963, the OC Examiner, and it was pretty clear from the size of each day’s output that this was a small operation, probably trying to compete with the main paper, the Press, and then running out of steam.
But they reported t
he same bank robbery, though not until a couple days later, and it was a brief article but they added the one detail, that the victim Alan Hittenger was employed by Nash-Dalton Certified.
Whatever that was. So Chris got on the desktop once more, found out they were a food processing plant, specialized in tomato products, but were pretty substantial all around in the southwest back then.
Chris never heard the brand name, didn’t remember ever squirting Nash-Dalton catsup on a burger, but that would be logical, if the operation was regional.
In any case, there was stuff you could read about Nash-Dalton, the company lasted a long time, treated the employees well according to various accounts, and finally had to file bankruptcy in 1989 after a half century run.
If you dug a little more, a few of the links, there was a roster of all-time employees -- and man, you had to give it up for whoever compiled this -- and you could click on your employee and see what you might find.
Though half of them had nothing added, other than the years the person worked at Nash-Dalton. A few had a photo attached.
When he found Hittenger half way down and clicked on him, you had the same date business, no photo, but an extra few words, fairly clinical:
Deceased 1961. Wife Mary and 2 daughters.
Wow . . . Chris assumed that meant he left a wife Mary and 2 daughters? What else would it mean?
A separate thought, they couldn’t even get that part into the obituary for the poor guy? Who he leaves behind? Not one thing personal?
So you leave it to a decent company, Chris supposed, to at least chronicle that much.
But forgetting that . . . where was the son then?
Didn’t ‘Alan’ make the case to Lucy that he heard about his grandpa, in stories that his ‘dad’ told him -- stories from his ‘dad’ growing up with the guy?
And this ‘grandson’ now of course wants 10 grand for his trouble.
What a surprise.
Chris thought about it, the ways it could line up, and okay fine, it’s possible the wife was pregnant with a third child, a boy, meaning Alan’s dad, at the time the grandpa was shot.