Before I could protest, Tommy had become a smiling-faced deputy and was on his way up the mountain, carrying three officers of the law loaded down with guns!
Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn sat with me through part of that long afternoon. The spot newscasts on the radio continued to offer no news as to the killers. However, Mrs. Rachel Peabody, at the south end of the county, swore she saw what looked to be a very suspicious character fishing on the river bottom, and Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn snorted out her opinion that Mrs. Rachel Peabody’s mouth was so wide that if it weren’t for her ears, the top of her head would be an island.
I walked the floor, looked at the clock every ten minutes and, in between the country music, listened to the weather reports, crop and hog prices and the local news items — until Tommy arrived home at near-dark and told me all about it. He told it as only a boy with the sophisticated, arrogant, ambitious part of his brain left out, and the homespun, down-to-earth, ready-to-help part left in. He told it chronologically, with few words and little emotion.
“I took them up there to the V place, and told them how to get to the house. Then I watched. They made me the lookout, Mom,” he said proudly, and I patted his shoulder and swallowed.
He told how there were three against three, the sheriff and two deputies against the girl and two boy killers, and some shots fired, “...but they didn’t do any hurt except to get the chickens to squawking so they probably won’t lay any eggs for a while.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess Miss Mattie Jackson won’t never mind about that,” dropping into the vernacular of the hill people — my people and Tommy’s — these wonderful people with great imagination and the talent to send a message on a quilt and have it read correctly.
The country radio music stopped abruptly to allow the latest news report to come through, all about the apprehension of the three young killers, found in their mountain hideaway. They didn’t know the half of it!
“Miss Mattie Jackson is all right?” I asked Tommy.
“Sure, by golly, Mom,” he said. “She told me she was going to make a special quilt for me. She said it would be like a letter. How can she make a quilt like a letter, Mom?”
“Well, she can,” I said. “Miss Mattie Jackson can send a beautiful letter on a quilt. Now, would you like to shine the engine of the jeep before supper?”
Tommy didn’t get a chance before darkness fell, for the sheriff came to pick up the county jeep and told the story again, more graphically and more in detail, but not nearly as well as Tommy, who knew what the V Block really meant, and because he knew, Miss Mattie Jackson can make patchwork quilts until she dies a natural death.
I Kid You Not
by Edward Wellen
Not all of a policeman’s shooting, it appears, is done with a firearm.
“A good cop,” said Kavanah, the retired cop, “is a good shakedown artist.”
“I know just what you mean,” I said. “I never yet turned down a pair of tickets to a policeman’s ball — even though I don’t dance.”
“Nah,” Kavanah said, “you don’t know just what I mean.”
“Just what do you mean, then?”
Well, take one time I was covering a squeal. Say, why do civilians call cops pigs when it’s all civilian squeals? Never mind. Well, this particular squeal came from this guy who was in town for a convention. He said that on the way back to his hotel — and when he could see its sign only a block or so away — he had the hackie let him off at some bar. When he finally left the joint and got back to his hotel, he found three hundred bucks missing from his wallet.
He said he had been drinking in a booth with a girl he picked up there — or she picked him up, since she seemed to be a regular — and that she must’ve rolled him for the three yards because she got up and said she was going to the little girls’ room and never came back. He got tired of waiting and left. He said he couldn’t remember the name of the bar, but it should be easy to spot because it was only a block or two from his hotel.
Well, the convention hall is north of the hotel, so I and the guy set out that way on foot. Now, it may sound screwy to you if you know how civilized my town was, but for three blocks north of the guy’s hotel there wasn’t a bar on either side of the street. We’ve got a few oases since, but back then it was an absolute desert. I get dry thinking about it, so I’ll have another beer on you... That’s better.
Now, I could’ve dropped the case right there. If it had been some other cop and he let go of it, I wouldn’t’ve blamed him for thinking the guy had been telling a lie straight from the start. It looked like the guy had lost his money playing cards or something and was trying to make out that somebody had rolled him for it so he could put in an insurance claim — only he hadn’t bothered to check the facts so he could keep his story straight.
I didn’t feel like going back to the hot station house for the balance of my tour, and the bar would have air-conditioning — if I could find the bar — so I stuck with the case. Besides, I had a hot flash — and none of your cracks about was I going through change of life.
See, it came to me that the hackie taking the guy from the convention hall to the hotel had really taken him by driving the long way around to run up the meter; regulation for strangers.
So now I turned around and walked the guy south of the hotel and, sure enough, we hit the place.
“Now I remember the name,” the guy said.
Sure, now that the sign was staring him in the face, he knew the name — MacCabe’s Bar & Grill.
We went in and sat down at one end of the bar and the barkeep came over. He spoke just to me, like he didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, the guy with me.
I flashed my tin. “What I’ll have,” I said, “is some information.”
“What kind?” he said, real smart. “We may be all out of the brand you want.”
“You’re MacCabe?” I said.
“Do I look like I’m six foot under?” he said, and before I could say yes, he did have a moldy look, he said, “MacCabe’s the owner that was. Aside from the goodwill, signs come too high to change. I’m Mulligan.”
“Okay, Mulligan,” I said, “this man was in here earlier and sat with a redhead with jade earrings. What does she call herself and where does she live?”
Mulligan shook his head. “I told you we might be all out,” he said. “I don’t remember faces. I see too many of them.” Then he worked himself up to put me on the defensive. “You trying to say I’m running a clip joint? All I do is serve drinks and keep the customers quiet. As long as they keep quiet they can be purple-headed with jade ears.”
I let him go on about how he kept his nose out of his customers’ business and then I said, “I didn’t say anything about clip joints. You’re the one who put the tag on yourself. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Mulligan. I’m going now, but I’ll be back. I give you fair warning that I’ll be leaning on you, until you come across with the dame’s name and address. I’ll be looking for you to violate the law, and then you’ll either tell me the name and address or I’ll have the state liquor board yank your license and somebody else will take over the sign. Just the sign — there won’t be any goodwill.”
Mulligan smiled and said, “Come around any time, Officer. I know how to keep my nose clean.”
I got the complainant out of there and told him I’d let him know how it turned out, and started him back to his hotel. Then I called in with what I had and the lieutenant said that kind of thing was bad for the convention business, but since my tour was over to knock off and go home — but that kind of thing was bad for the convention business.