10:27 AM

26
10:27 AM

     Deputy Powell was watching a stream of cars on the horizon. Somehow he knew from the outset what it was. The Sheriff came over to the window.
     "What is it?"
     "Don't know just yet," he said glumly.
     "But you're watching it just the same."
     "Got a feeling. Got a feeling that FBI agent and some of those Texas Rangers are coming back."
     "You think?"
     "I don't know."
     There was a silence in the room, as they all knew who it was that was being transported. Had to be. Had to be.
     But it could be anything. They couldn't assume.
     The Sheriff felt a sinking feeling in his gut. As things were developing, he felt that this thing went deep in the town, maybe across a lot of towns in this area of Texas. Maybe cross-nationally. They were only skimming the surface right now, and there could be danger to the department, the whole town even. But, then the Sheriff supposed, if it got any deeper it wouldn't be in his hands any longer. He'd be relieved of it the second it got any deeper.
     The cars pulled up finally, and out walked Agent Danley, Lieutenant Cantroux and Captain Beaks, with three Federal Marshals and a whole contingent of FBI from the Dallas field office and Texas Rangers. They reached into the back of one of the cars and pulled out a man. Well, not really a man, a boy really. A slight boy with hair over his eyes. He flipped it out of his eyes as he stood up fully.
     "It's got to be him," Margaret said behind them.
     "Could be anybody. Could be somebody else."
     "Don't think it is, though."
     "The Sheriff walked up to the Department."
     Agent Danley walked over and smiled. "Got your suspect. Ready to be booked."
     "You don't want to remove this to another jurisdiction?"
     "Can't think of any one better, Sheriff. He's got to be tried. Got to be tried where he committed the offense. Got to face the town he changed through his actions."
     The Sheriff looked over at the boy. "Got something to say for yourself?"
     He looked at the Sheriff with wide eyes, but said nothing.
     County lockup was an ancient jail behind the Sheriff's Department. It could house up to fifteen inmates. Most inmates that had done serious crimes were transferred to state lockup, but those sorts of crimes usually came so few and far between that the Sheriff couldn't think of the last time they'd called the state to transfer someone.
     They brought him inside the Department and all sat around him with him in handcuff on a chair in the middle of the Department.
     Margaret shouted over the gathering. "Harry says he's going to stay late and do his arraignment at 7:30."
     "Tonight?" the Sheriff said. Usually the good judge was the kind to be in bed by 7:30. 
     "Tonight."
     "Thank you, Margaret. Always looking ahead."
     "Someone's got to," she said and got back on the phone with the county clerk to give all the particulars."
     All eyes were on the boy.
     "We're listening," the Sheriff said simply.
     "Well, I, uh, I got to confess. I had a part in this crime."
     "You did. Well, of course you did. What did you do?"
     "I helped plan it."
     "You did. Anything else?"
     "Maybe I came up with the idea."
     "Uh-huh. That's what I heard."
     'From who?"
     "Ben Damand."
     The boy nodded slowly. "I shouldn't have included him."
     "He's a big boy. An adult, even. An adult with a lot of responsibility in this community."
     "Well, he didn't have anything to do with it."
     "I hope so." The Sheriff paused. "You kill this man, son. Were you the one that did it?"
     "No."
     "You sure. You just planned it, or you came up with it."
     "I did. I did I did."
     "You don't feel anything for that?"
     "I do," he said calmly.
     'You don't sound all that remorseful."
     "Well, I didn't do it. The deed I mean. The shooting. So, you know, it doesn't totally feel real, that it happened."
     "You were involved in the murder or the getaway?"
     "Nope."
     "Just planning it."
     "Yeah."
     "So who was it? Who killed Dr. Jones?"
     The boy paused, and then he looked around the room. "It was that landlord of ours. Dietrich."
     "That's who we make it for. But there's just one problem. His car wasn't at the scene. Got two witnesses describe a lime-green Ford Taurus. He doesn't have one. Who's car is that?"
     "Must have been a friend of his, huh? I don't know. I never saw a car like that before, or if I have I don't remember it."
     "So what you're saying is, according to you, you planned it, this guy shot him, he did all the logistics. You heard about it later. Did you talk to your landlord after the shooting?"
     "No. In fact, I owe him for the month still."
     "So when you heard about it, you fled."
     "Yeah. Yeah, that's right. When I heard he'd done it, I fled."\
     The Sheriff looked at him, calmly turned off the recording device, and then smacked him hard across the face. "You're a smug little son-of-a-bitch."
     And then Deputy Powell hoisted him up and pushed him out the back door in the direction of the jail.
     "I'm frankly surprised," Agent Danley said, "at your lack of composure."
     "To be quite honestly, agent, so am I."