by Robin Yocum
He nodded and slipped it into his leather portfolio. “Be happy to,” he said.
“Good. Very good. Now, on another matter. You’ll be needing to hire a replacement for Mr. Oswald. Given my years of service to the hospital and the fact that for all intents and purposes I’ve been running the department, I would think that an executive decision is in order to simply appoint me as the new director of social services.”
He swallowed, smiled, and said, “I certainly don’t see any problem with that, Vincent.” He forced a laugh and patted me on the back as though we had been close friends for years. “No, in fact, I think that’s an excellent idea. I’ll talk to human resources and send out the memo immediately.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I went back to the office and told Shirley to take the rest of the day off but come back in the morning ready to work. “I’ve got big plans for this department,” I told her. After lunch, I would call housekeeping and have them move my things into Oswald’s former office. It tickled me to think how angry it would make Oswald when he learned that I had taken over his job and his office. I shut the door to my office and turned on the local radio station.
I leaned back in my chair. I closed my eyes and smiled, reflecting on the good fortune that had made me a suspected killer, when the music on the radio was interrupted by a special news bulletin.
An excited news reporter said, “Jefferson County Sheriff Francis Roberson is being credited with foiling a plot to assassinate the president of the United States. Details of this dramatic story were released at a press conference today in which Roberson also announced the arrests of two white supremacists in connection with the recent murder of Rayce Daubner of Steubenville.”
My eyes flew open.
Crap!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CONGRESSMAN FRANCIS ROBERSON
I thought Toots was full of baloney when he was yammering on about me being the next American hero. The manifesto was simply so much gibberish—the ramblings of a lunatic. But I’ll be damned if Toots wasn’t right. The morning after the press conference, reporters from every major media outlet in the country were crawling all over Jefferson County—the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Time. It seemed like there was a camera or a microphone in my face all day. I can’t tell you how many interviews I did, but I was hoarse by mid-afternoon. Allison sensed that there would be a lot of reporters in town, so she had me dress in my complete sheriff’s uniform, sans the tie. She said that gave me a more honest, down-home look.
Before she sent me out the door that morning, Allison kissed me on the cheek and said, “Francis, if you downplay this, I swear you’ll never get another blow job in your entire life.”
“It seems that we’re heading that way anyway,” I responded.
She arched her brows. “Be a good boy and play nice with the reporters, and we’ll fix that tonight.”
Perfect. That was better than being a national hero. I did the interviews as though I believed Alaric Himmler to be a threat to the American way of life. My photo ended up on the front page of every major daily in the country the next day, along with mug shots of Himmler and the preacher. I got great spreads in Time and Newsweek. The headlines and leads varied, but mostly they talked about how the sheriff from little Jefferson County, Ohio, foiled a white supremacist plot to overthrow the government and assassinate the president. A few days later, one of those network news magazines came to town and spent an entire day with me—interviewing me in the office, interviewing me walking down the street, interviewing me on the high school football field with my old coach, taping me walking around the charred remains of Daubner’s house. It ran the following Tuesday. On Thursday morning, a representative of the Democratic Party was in my office.
Now here’s the kick in the head: not the local Democratic Party, but a member of the national Democratic Party asking me to consider running for the US House of Representatives. He said that I was a national hero and that I was a lock.
Of course, I agreed. The next thing I knew, I was meeting with consultants who coached me on everything from what clothes to wear to what food to order in restaurants to how to wear my hair. In about three days, they had me in full campaign mode.
I ran unopposed in the primary and won the general election in a landslide. The incumbent Republican garnered just 32 percent of the votes to my 68 percent. It was the widest margin of victory in the history of the district. I appointed Toots my chief of staff and began looking for office space in Steubenville.
Life is funny. I didn’t wrongly go to prison for Daubner’s murder, or even rightly for torching his house. Instead, it was the good preacher and Himmler who would never again see the outside of a penitentiary. By the time you added up their state and federal times, they were both looking at a couple hundred years in the can. I was reasonably certain that we would never hear from them again.
A few days after the election, on a Friday afternoon, Toots and I were sitting in my office sipping whisky, smoking cigars, and talking about the funny bounces life sometimes takes. There were some things on my mind that I had been wanting to ask Toots, but I had been avoiding the conversation because I didn’t really want to hear the answers. However, with the election behind us, I was feeling a little more at ease.
“Toots, don’t you think it was odd that the general had his manifesto, the very document that put him in prison, and one that implicated him in the death of Rayce Daubner, sitting right out on the middle of the desk in the hotel room? There’s the cleaning lady going in and out, and yet he leaves it right out in the open where a blind man could have found it. Didn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Who knows what was going on in his head?” Toots said. “He’s a total whack job, and so is that little preacher.”
“True. I guess you never know, do you?” I looked out the window for a long moment, then back at Toots. “You didn’t kill Rayce Daubner, did you, buddy?”
He snorted and laughed. “Sheriff, would I do something so asinine as to risk my career? Give me a little credit, please.”
I nodded and waited to see if he was going to elaborate. He didn’t. “Toots, you didn’t answer my question. Did you kill Rayce and plant the gun in the preacher’s car? When I was working in the front of the car, looking under the seats, you didn’t slip the pistol into the trunk, did you?”
Toots leaned back in his chair and shifted his butt. “This conversation is making me a little uncomfortable, Congressman.”
“I’ve got to know, Toots.”
“Sheriff, my right hand to God, I was nowhere near that car after it hit the impound lot. And if that sounds evasive to you, then let me clearly state this once and for all: I did not kill Rayce Daubner, and I did not plant that gun in his car. You have my word. I swear to Christ. Besides, do you think I went to the motel room and planted the manifesto and the typewriter with the matching font, too?”
I smiled, relieved. “I guess not.”
On a Friday evening a couple of months after winning the Democratic primary, I saw the Xenakises—Dena Marie and Vincent—at the Federal Restaurant in Steubenville. It wasn’t an accident. I knew they would be there and eating in one of the little alcove booths that offer the most privacy. Dena Marie was in a scarlet cocktail dress, and Vin—as his friends now called him—was in a black suit with a vest and an open-collar white shirt. As I got ready to leave the restaurant, I caught Dena Marie’s eye.
I turned to my wife and said, “Sweetheart, how about waiting for me by the door? I have a little business to take care of.” She looked over at the booth where Dena Marie was sitting, and her brow furrowed. “It’s totally on the up and up, and it won’t take but a minute, I promise.”
Vin and Dena Marie both saw me approaching the table. She sat uneasily, nervously working the napkin in her lap into a ball. He pushed a too-large piece of steak into the side of his mouth and said, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Jefferson County�
��s revered sheriff and future representative to the United States Congress. To what do we owe this honor, Sheriff?”
I put my hands on the plaster sides of the alcove opening and leaned in toward the table. “I want you to hear this from my mouth, Xenakis. I know those two boys who went off to prison couldn’t have pulled off the murder of Rayce Daubner by themselves. They weren’t that smart.”
He looked at me for a long moment, continuing to work the steak. Talking around the lump of beef, he asked, “What are you saying, Sheriff?”
“They had help. Someone had to hatch the plan.” I leaned in closer. “I’m not sure they even had the guts to pull the trigger.”
He smiled. “Sheriff, can I offer you a glass of wine?”
I whispered, “I know you killed him.”
“This heat is a motherfucker, don’t you think?” Vincent said.
Dena Marie pressed her napkin to her lips, her eyes darting between me and her husband. “I don’t know how it went down, but I know you were there. I don’t have the proof yet, but I know in my gut that you were there.” I turned to Dena Marie. “Dump this guy, Dena Marie. He’s trouble. Big trouble.”
“Sheriff, my lovely wife and I are trying to enjoy a rare evening out. If you need to talk, perhaps you’d like to give my lawyer a call. I’m sure he would—”
My jaw tightened. “These other rubes might fall for that social-worker routine of yours, but you’re not fooling me for one second. Not one. I’m on to you, Vinnie. Just because I’m not going to be sheriff anymore, don’t think that I’m not going to be keeping an eye on you. Daubner was a loathsome human being, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.” I pushed myself upright and let my hands drop from the plaster. “Wise up, Dena Marie. Get out while you have a chance.” I looked at Vincent and said, “I’m going to make it my life’s work to see that you join the rest of the scum behind bars.”
“You talk a good game, Sheriff. Give it your best shot. By the way, can I give you the name of my tailor? If you’re running for Congress, you really could use one.”
I turned and walked away.
“What was that all about?” Allison asked after we had gotten in the car and were on our way home.
“I was just doing a favor for an old school chum.” She stared, not satisfied with that murky explanation. I elaborated. “I was helping Smoochie—Vincent—with a marriage problem. He really liked being a suspect in Rayce Daubner’s murder. When Dena Marie thought she was married to a killer, she suddenly found this new respect for him. When we charged Himmler and the preacher with the murder, Vincent was worried that Dena Marie would lose interest because—”
“Because her husband wasn’t a murderer?” Allison asked. “She fell more in love with her husband because she thought he had killed a man?”
I shrugged. “I think she likes the idea that he’s dangerous. Vincent liked it, too. It was the first time in his life that people showed him respect. I went over to the table and told him—really, I was telling her—that I knew he was involved in the murder and that I’d be keeping an eye on him. Now that Dena Marie thinks that I think her husband’s a killer, they’ll be together forever. It’ll give her lots to talk about down at the A&P.”
Allison shook her head. She peered out the window, seemingly mesmerized by the lights of the steel mills that shimmered off the dark waters of the Ohio River. “Do you really think anyone else was involved in Rayce’s murder?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Allison, and at this point I don’t care. Why, do you have any suspects in mind?”
She looked at me and grinned, tilting her head in a way that made her look both mischievous and beautiful. She caressed my arm and gently laid her head on my shoulder. She was my angel.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ALLISON ROBERSON
I killed that son of a bitch.
I did a sloppy job of it, and I’ll be the first to admit that, but it was the first time I had ever shot anyone to death, so cut me a little slack. I didn’t intend to shoot him. Okay, that’s bullshit. I meant to kill him all along. If he had thrown his hands in the air and produced the videotape he was using to blackmail my husband and promised to leave town forever, maybe I wouldn’t have shot his sorry ass, but he didn’t. He did exactly what I knew he would do, so I pulled the gun and announced that I intended to kill him. That’s when I shot him in the kneecap. He dropped to the dirt, yelled, and called me a fuckin’ cunt. That’s when I squeezed off a second round and took out a chunk of his shoulder. By that time, he was royally pissed off. He struggled to his feet and lunged at me. He was just a few feet away when I put one in his chest. The bastard was so full of evil, he just wouldn’t die. He rolled around in the dirt, looking at me, moving his lips, trying to call me names, twitching and moaning. I got a little closer to him, pointed the gun at his head, closed my eyes, and squeezed the trigger.
The last shot was the one that knocked me off-balance. I fell and tumbled to the bottom of the ravine. The contents of my purse spilled everywhere. I wrenched my wrist but otherwise survived unscathed.
I ought to back up a little and give you the full story.
Sheriffs in Ohio have what is known as the Furtherance of Justice Fund. This is money equal to half the sheriff’s annual salary that can be used at his discretion for law enforcement purposes. The sheriff has complete control over this fund and how it’s spent, and I’d imagine that it’s a great opportunity for abuse. However, my husband Francis is famously anal and kept track of every penny . . . until last year. That’s when I noticed that a significant amount of money was being drained out of the fund. When I questioned him about it, he became very defensive and said that as the sheriff there were certain things he needed to spend money on to keep peace in the county. He said he was using it to pay an informant and that’s all I needed to know.
At first, I thought he was spending it on that little tart Dena Marie Xenakis. But about the same time, Rayce Daubner started spending more and more time in Fran’s office. The withdrawals from the fund, I noticed, coincided with Rayce’s visits. I went into Toots’s office and closed the door. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”
Toots rolled a pencil between his thick fingers and nodded once. “Yep.”
“What?”
“Mildred Goins.” My stomach seized up. I had been with Fran and Toots the night they went to Mildred’s home after she had put a deer slug in the chest of her husband. Fran had, essentially, coached Mildred on what to say to investigators in order to stay out of jail. I knew it was going to blow up in his face.
I sat in the chair in front of Toots’s desk as he continued. “Apparently, Mildred got drunked up one night at the Starlighter Bar and started bragging about how she had killed her husband and the sheriff had helped her beat the rap by coaching her on what to say. I probably don’t have to tell you who was sitting within earshot at the bar.”
“Rayce Daubner.”
“He took little Mildred back to his house and videotaped her recounting the entire story in painful detail. He made a copy and came in to the office the next day and showed it to Fran. He said it was going to cost Fran five hundred dollars a week, and maybe after a year or two he’d give him the original.”
“What did Fran do?”
“Same thing he always does when he gets worked up—threw up in the wastebasket.”
I nodded. “He’s got the stomach of a little girl. What’s the plan? What’s he going to do?”
Toots shrugged. “What can he do? Pay the money and hope Rayce eventually gives up the tape.”
“What do you think are the odds of that?”
Toots used the thumb and index finger on his right hand to make a zero.
In late April, Daubner stopped in to see Fran for his weekly blackmail payment. About ten minutes after he arrived, one of the deputies pepper-sprayed an unruly teenager in the lobby. The parents were there, and all hell broke loose. Fran came running out of his office; Daubner followed a few minutes later, sm
irking at me on his way out. Amid the confusion, I slipped off my heels and walked into Fran’s office in my stocking feet. As was his habit, Fran had removed his holster and service revolver, the steel-blue .38, and set them on top of the file cabinet. I had the pistol and slipped out of his office in seconds.
When Fran discovered it was missing, he went into a panic. Of course, he suspected Daubner.
The next time Daubner came to the office, I met him in the hall on his way out. Again, he had that stupid smirk on his face. “I want to talk to you,” I said.
“Talk away.”
I tipped my head toward the front door. I walked with my arms crossed, refusing to make eye contact until we were on the sidewalk outside of the courthouse. “Tell me, Rayce, how many blow jobs is it going to take to get you to leave my husband alone and give me that tape?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Now that’s an interesting proposition.”
“How many?”
“Let’s start with one and figure it out from there.”
I knew, of course, that Rayce would never give up the tape. I planned to kill him all along. Our first encounter was at his house. I stopped on my way back from buying a new dress for my niece’s baptism. He invited me in and put his hand up to my face, running my hair between his fingers. “This isn’t about love and affection, Rayce,” I said, knocking his hand away. “This is about making you happy so that you’ll quit blackmailing my husband.”
He grinned, and I could feel the heat in my belly. I couldn’t wait to kill him. He unhitched his pants and sat down in an overstuffed chair in the living room. “If that’s the case, come work your magic.”