by Ralph Dennis
“You check?”
“I called Coach Waters. He backs them. They were on the court until a little after five and they had to shower and dress.”
“How old are they?”
“Seventeen, Benny’s a couple of months older than George.”
“Juveniles,” Wilt said.
“Seventeen ain’t like being twelve. I think they could do some time at one of the youth offender centers.”
“Six months-to-a-year. I’m leaning in that direction.”
“The judge in Juvenile Court …”
“Will get an earful from me,” Wilt said. “Not only was this a nasty ball of crap, preying on the fears of the parents, but there’s more. They tied up a lot of my manpower when I should have been out there looking for Dana Moore.”
“That ought to read with the judge.”
“What does Doc Parsons say?”
“Turner’s got a busted nose. Might need an operation later to make it beautiful again. Hall’s got about forty stitches on his forehead.”
“What do you think we ought to do with them?”
“Bail?”
“Not this soon,” Wilt said. “Parsons say anything about the possibility of concussion?”
“He said he didn’t know for sure. Both of them are dizzy. Both of them took a lick when the truck hit that bridge rail.”
“I say we put them in the jail ward overnight. For observation. Check that with Doc Parsons. See if he’ll go along with it.”
“My guess is that he will. Parsons not only didn’t like being dragged out of bed, but he doesn’t like their idea of a prank.”
Joe left to check with Parsons.
Wilt put his head on the desk and drifted. He wasn’t sure how long he was like that before he heard the door open and close. He lifted his head and blinked his eyes clear. Harriman got his coat from the peg behind the door. He folded the coat carefully over one arm and crossed to the desk and held out his hand. Wilt’s mind was blank for a few seconds. Just before it got embarrassing, he remembered Harriman’s holster and pistol. He dragged it from the desk drawer and placed it on the desk just under Harriman’s hand.
“Thanks, Sheriff.” Harriman clipped the holster and weapon on his belt just above his rump. He straightened his suit jacket. “I had a talk with the boys. They’re harmless.”
“Correct my understanding of English,” Wilt said. “Harmless means they couldn’t or didn’t do any harm. Maybe you’ve got time to stop by and talk to Jonas Moore before you leave town. He probably thinks there was some harm done him in the last twenty-four hours. Or if that’s out of your way, you can explain to me how extortion is ever, ever harmless.”
“You know what I mean, Sheriff. They’re kids. I think they’ve learned their lesson.”
“For those two, school ain’t even started.”
“I think you’re overreacting.”
“Bullshit and you know it.” Wilt stood. His left leg had numbed, gone to sleep. He shook the leg to get some feeling back in it. He wasn’t sure which was worse, no feeling or the pain that came and went. “I’ll check the morning paper to see what you say.”
“You won’t be left out,” Harriman said.
“What I don’t want to see in there is any crap about how harmless these two are. That shows up in your paper and you and I are going to butt heads.”
“We’re doing that already.”
“But so far nobody’s bleeding,” Wilt said.
Harriman considered Wilt for a long time. He nodded finally. “Theree won’t be anything in there about them being harmless. It’s your county, Sheriff. I can’t tell you how to run it.”
“Thanks,” Wilt said. “That’s the way it ought to be.”
Harriman sighed. He relaxed. “Call me as soon as you get a lead on the Moore child. I’m still involved. Keep me up to date.”
“I’ll call you when it’s solved. That way you can save the government gas and motel rent.”
Joe Croft passed Special Agent Harriman in the office doorway. He gave the agent a sour look and even bumped him with a shoulder. Joe didn’t say excuse me or even act like he knew he’d touched Harriman.
Harriman looked at him and shook his head. He probably decided that it wasn’t his kind of county, the kind where they kowtowed to the Bureau and said thank you a lot.
Joe closed the door. “Parsons says he thinks the jail ward is a good idea.”
“The kids ready to move?”
“The Doc gave his okay.”
“Floyd still here?” When Joe nodded.
Wilt said, “Here’s how I want it. Have Floyd cuff them. I want you with a pump gun. I want you to lever a shell into the chamber right in front of them. I want it by the manual. How to Transport Dangerous Prisoners. No joking, no talking. They try to talk, you shut them up. I want them to feel we think they’re Public Enemy Number One and Two.”
“Got you.” Joe stepped away. He stopped. “One problem. I let them make a call. That is, Hall made a call. Turner said he didn’t have to. Anyway, there are a couple of pissed off Daddies there in the lobby.”
“What they got to be pissed off about?”
“That their nice, God-fearing, cleaning-living and well-mannered sons are in our dirty slammer with ordinary criminals. Especially when everybody knows it was a joke and a prank.”
“Lawyers with them?”
“No lawyers. A bails bondsman.”
“Too bad there’s no judge around at this hour to set the bail,” Wilt said.
“Ain’t it?”
Wilt followed Joe to the door. “Give me five minutes and then bring the kids through the lobby.”
“Got it.” Joe left.
Wilt closed the door after him. He stood and waited four minutes. When he opened the door and stepped into the lobby, three men were seated together on one of the benches. They got to their feet quickly. Wilt headed straight for them. He recognized the bondsman. Rollie Chessman was his name. He’d been a cop in Durham before he got tossed off the force for taking money for turning a blind eye on a fence that handled stolen goods.
Rollie spoke first. “Sheriff, I’m here with …”
“No bail’s been set yet. It’ll be morning before these two get in front of a judge.”
Rollie turned and spread his hands toward the two men behind him, as if to indicate that there wasn’t anything he could do.
The man behind Rollie on his left side pushed forward. He was a fleshy man with jowls that were just beginning to sag at the jaw line. Of the two men, he was the one with the expensive clothing. His tweed jacket wasn’t off the rack and the trousers looked tailored too. The topcoat was five hundred dollars of Brooks Brothers. When he faced Wilt, there was a certain amount of arrogance, as if he wasn’t used to running into roadblocks. What he wanted he usually got.
“These are juveniles we’re talking about,” he said. “We’re not talking about hardened criminals. I don’t even understand why we’re talking about bail at all.”
“You’re …?”
Rollie introduced them. “This is John R. Turner. He’s vice-president of Datatec.”
“Your son, Benny, is the one who dreamed up this scam.”
“I was assured by Benny that it was a joke, a prank.”
“Everybody seems to be stuck on joke and prank. I wish somebody would come up with a different word, just so I don’t get bored.” He heard a door slam behind him and footsteps approaching. He didn’t have to turn around. He could read what was behind him by the look on the faces in front of him. When this group was abreast of Wilt, he swung his head and looked at them. Floyd was on one side of the two boys, his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. Joe was on the other side, a pump-action shotgun at high port.
“What are you …?” This was blurted by the other father, the one who’d remained in the background.
“They’re going to spend the night in the jail ward at the hospital. That’s for observation. We want to be sure neither of them h
as a concussion.”
“Papa …” It was almost a scream from the shorter of the two boys, the one with shaggy hair that needed cutting. The patch of tape on his forehead identified him as George Hall. “Papa..” The boy tried to pull away from Floyd. The deputy put out an arm and wrapped it around his neck and pulled him back. “Papa, we didn’t do anything.”
“George.” Mr. Hall took a step toward his son.
Wilt stepped between them. “This isn’t doing any good. The night in the jail ward is the doctor’s idea.”
“This is highhanded behavior,” John R. Turner said.
His son, Benny, tried to pull away from Joe. Joe moved in front of him and pressed him back with the butt of the shotgun. “This isn’t fair, Daddy.”
“It’s as fair as extortion,” Wilt said.
A long silence settled upon them before John R. Turner said, “That’s the charge? The charge is extortion?”
“In all this talk,” Wilt said slowly, evenly, “I never heard how the boys planned to return the money after the joke was over.”
John R. Turner saw the trap there and slipped away from it. He lowered his head. Mr. Hall, not as quick, faced his son, George. “Tell them, son. You tell them.”
The boy stared down at the floor. “We never … got as far … as talking … about that.”
“Enough said?” Wilt looked at both fathers. They wouldn’t meet his eyes. Wilt nodded at Joe. He and Floyd marched the two boys down the back steps to the parking lot.
“I guess …” Mr. Hall’s voice wavered and failed him. “I guess we can’t say anything more about jokes or pranks.”
“Go home,” Wilt said. “Hanging around here isn’t going to do anybody any good.”
There was a plea in Mr. Hall’s voice. “George’s mother … she’s worried about him.”
“Tell her he’s all right. The way this happened, he could have been killed. Tell her he was lucky.”
Hall nodded. It wasn’t much but it was something that he could carry home to his wife.
John R. Turner wasn’t done yet. “My lawyer will be here in the morning with me.”
“We have nothing against lawyers,” Wilt said.
“When he gets done with you …”
“Don’t make threats.” Wilt reached into his shirt pocket and took out a single Chesterfield. He lit it. “You’re on my territory now. And threats don’t change the facts.”
“My lawyer is …”
“Go home,” Wilt said.
Rollie Chessman knew that Wilt had run out of patience with Turner’s ways and his manner. Mumbling, whispering, he got Turner on the move toward the front door. But not before John R. Turner looked over his shoulder and gave Wilt a withering look.
Wilt thought, well, there’s another vote I don’t get next election.
“Erskine Hall,” the other man said after the door closed behind Chessman and Turner. He put out a hand and Wilt shook it. The skin the palm of the hand was a hard as kiln-dried oak.
“A coffee before you go home, Mr. Hall?”
“That would be a kindness, Sheriff.”
Wilt filled two cups at the urn. He passed one to Hall. He thought about the man’s hand. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Hall?”
“I’m a foreman at the sawmill.”
“The one Cooper owns? My daddy worked there.”
Hall nodded. “I knew him. Robby Drake was a good man.”
He had been, that was true. Until one night, he had too much white whiskey and tried to make a sharp curve into a wider one and ran off into the trees. The steering wheel crushed his chest.
Wilt had his look at Erskine Hall while they sipped the gagging, cooked-down coffee. His face was lean and bony and weathered. The suit he wore was brown with a muted stripe in it, probably his Sunday church suit. It was shiny at the knees and the elbows and, though Wilt couldn’t see that part of it, he would bet the seat was worn smooth too. His shoes were cracked along the edges toward the soles but they’d been waxed and polished.
Wilt sat on the bench and indicated a place on his right. Hall sat. At first, Wilt had thought about using his office. Sometimes it was hard to get people out of there. If he used the lobby, Wilt could always said that he had business and walk away. “Tell me about your son.”
“You might not believe me.”
“And maybe I will.”
“Mainly he’s a good boy. It’s just that sometimes, and it’s hard for me to admit this, he don’t seem to be very smart. Like this thing they’re trying to call a joke or a prank. It’s like he’s always being led into things by other people. Like he believes if somebody else comes up with an idea, it’s got to be a good one.”
“Why do you think he and Benny pal together?”
“You know how it is in high school. It don’t mean it’ll last past then. They both play ball and George thinks the sun rises and sets on Benny. Another year and they’ll be out of school. George comes to work for me at the sawmill and Benny goes off to some fancy college somewheres.”
Wilt understood that. He’d seen enough of it in his own high school days. The close friendships that barely last past graduation night and those parties. The ones that barely lasted through the summer. And the high school romances that went bloodless and died.
“You think a scare would do George any good?”
“I’d bet my life on it,” Hall said.
“I’ll make a deal with you.” Wilt gave Mr. Hall his stern look. “You break this bargain with me and I’ll come down on him so hard you’ll wish he’d never been born.” The coffee was undrinkable. Susie, who’d come in when she’d called in and heard about the capture of the two boys, was behind the switchboard. “Susie, how about a fresh urn? This is sludge.” He turned back to face Hall. “You think you could make a bargain with me?”
“Yes, I’d trust you, Sheriff.”
Susie and Mr. Hall nodded at each other. Then she kept her distance and got the coffee-making underway.
“I’m going to be around Webster county for some years. And I might even get elected two or three more times. I don’t ever want to see that boy of yours in here again.” Wilt lowered the cup of bad coffee into the trash can. “I’m going to put the fear of the Lord into those two young men. They’re going to be so tight-assed they’ll walk funny. The judge is not going to like what they did any more than I do. In matters like this, I usually get my say about what I think about the sentence. At the least I’d say a year of probation, reporting to a juvenile probation officer. Maybe there’ll be a couple of hundred hours of community service for each of them. At the most, at the other extreme, they could get six months to a year in a youthful offender center. That and probation afterwards and the community service.”
The relief showed on Hall’s face. “His mother is going …”
Wilt shook his head. “That’s our deal. You made the bargain with me blind but that’s the deal. Nobody’s to know except you and me. If you tell your wife, the first thing happens she tells George and he’ll start laughing behind my back and thinking he got away with something.”
“It makes sense,” Hall admitted. “But I wish I knew what to tell his mama.”
“Tell her he’s a minor as far as the law’s concerned. He’s not going to any prison filled with hardened bad-asses. And make it clear that it will be a lot easier on him if he shows he learned his lesson. At least, that’s what you think.”
“I can do that.”
Wilt stood. He took the coffee cup from Hall and dropped it in the trash. “Good enough.”
“You going to make the same deal with Mr. Turner?”
“I wouldn’t trust him to keep it. He can sweat blood as far as I’m concerned.”
Hall nodded. He probably understood the idea of getting even. And perhaps he wouldn’t have trusted Turner, either.
“If you want to bring your wife over to the jail ward in the morning. I’ll leave word she’s to be let in to see her son.”
“Thank you.�
��
Wilt, watching him walk away, thought about his father again. He hadn’t thought about Robby Drake for years. But he’d loved that man and there was a lot in Erskine Hall that reminded him of his father. The same dogged honesty, the same give-a-dollars-work-for-a-dollar work ethic.
The coffee was still dripping through. Wilt leaned on the counter and looked at Susie. “How you feel?”
“Fine,” she said. “I got some sleep.”
“You think this police work is fun?”
“I didn’t say that, but it beats watching TV.” She tilted her head toward the door where Hall was just leaving. “I heard you talking to Mr. Hall.”
“You know him?”
“We go to the same church. He’s a good man.”
Wilt gave her a sour look. “Jack the Ripper probably had a nice daddy too.” He rubbed his eyes. “When you start eavesdropping on my conversations, I start believing I’ve got to get you back on days where you belong.”
“Don’t talk tough to me, Wilt. I’ll break down and cry all over you and that would embarrass you. You see, I know you. You’ve got a soft spot or two.”
“I’ve got a heart made out of rusty old razor blades and you know it.”
Susie said, still smiling, that he probably knew what his heart was made of better than anybody else did.
He couldn’t sleep. The darkness bothered him. He was afraid if he fell into a sleep that was deep enough, he’d dream about Cathy Dobbs and Dana Moore. He fought sleep and at the same time needed it. In the end, he settled for switching on the light in the bathroom and a surface sleep that grew out of the almost daytime like circumstances.
By six-thirty, he was in the kitchen drinking coffee and yawning and watching the sun come up. The day was going to be cold and blustery. He knew if he had any sense at all he’d call and say he’d be late and he’d go back to bed.
Too late. He was wide awake enough to know all the jobs that had to be done. He couldn’t sleep with that hanging around his neck.
He was at the Sheriff’s Station by seven-thirty. Joe Croft was at the switchboard. Wilt tried the coffee. It wasn’t more than an hour old.