“Make what any better? What’s going on?”
“You’re both under arrest.”
That’s when I noticed the oversize star pinned to his shirt. “What for?”
“Indecent exposure!”
CHAPTER TEN
Indecent exposure!
“But you’re the one who tore our clothes off!” Randy Beaver protested.
“Judge ain’t gonna buy that.” Sheriff Pete shrugged,
“How can you arrest us for being naked when its your fault we are?”
“Makes no never-mind. That’s the charge. Indecent exposure!” Saying which, Sheriff Pete marched us off to jail.
Separate cells. But not for long. To my surprise, the wheels of justice, as cranked by Sheriff Pete, spun quite fast. We hadn’t been locked up an hour when he was back to take us up before a judge for arraignment.
“What about some clothes?” Randy asked. We can’t go into court naked like this!”
“Not my responsibility.” The sheriff relented a little.
“Courthouse is just across the street,” he told her. Its still early. Nobody’ll see you.”
When we entered the courtroom, there were only two people there besides the judge. As we were ushered toward the front of the courtroom, I did a double-take at the figure looming over us on the bench. It was Julius, the henpecked lecher who’d kept groping Randy during the tar-and-feathering.
One of the other two people present was Julius’ wife. The other one was a man I recognized as also having been a member of the mob at the graveyard. He stepped up behind us as we came to a halt in front of Judge Julius.
“Charge is indecent exposure,” the judge announced. “ ’Fore I take your plea, law says I’m s’posed to ask you if you’re represented by counsel.”
Randy and I both shook our heads.
“That case, court ’signs counsel. Zachariah”— the judge nodded to the man standing behind‘ us— “you can confer with these here clients as to plea.”
“Thank you, your Honor.”
“Hurry it up, Zachariah. I already lost enough sleep for one night. Let’s get this over with, so’s I can get proper sack time.”
“Won’t take but a minute, your honor.” Zachariah turned to us and spoke softly. “Best enter a guilty plea,” he told us.
“Why should we?” Randy wanted to know.
“ ’Cause you’re guilty. Charge is indecent exposure. Fact is you’re as indecently exposed as anybody I seen in this town since the boiler blew up in the cathouse. No point in denying it.”
“But that’s because--”
“Now, hold it!” Zachariah held up his hand. “You’re gonna tell me ’bout mitigatin’ circumstances. An’ I’m tellin’ you if you plead not guilty, they ain’t gonna be heard. Leastwise if you plead guilty, then maybe when it comes to trial, Julius here’ll of had him a night’s sleep and maybe listen. So my advice is—”
“What’s takin’ so long there, Zachariah?” the judge w”anted to know. “These clients gonna disrupt this court some more?”
“Now, Julius, they ain’t hardly disrupted the court.
“Who’s the judge here, Zachariah?” Thunder.
“You are, your Honor.” Zachariah snapped to.
“Then if I say they’re disruptive, by God they’re disruptive!”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“Comin’ into court ’thout a stitch on! Now, what do you call that if it ain’t disruptive?” the judge demanded.
“But we couldn’t help—”
Zachariah shut Randy up. “My clients apologize for being disruptive, your Honor.”
“All right, then,” the judge grumbled. “Now, how do they plead?”
“Guilty, your Honor.”
“So entered.” Judge Julius stared down at us over the tops of his glasses. Or, rather, he stared at Randy. His watery blue eyes worked their way up and down her naked body like she was a candy cane and he was, a long-tongued peppermint freak. “Now ’bout bail— he started to say.
“ ’Scuse me, your Honor.” The sheriff spoke up. “ ’Fore you set bail, there’s somethin’ you oughta know.”
“What is it, Pete?”
“Can’t say right out, your Honor. Not with ladies in the courtroom.” The sheriff gestured respectfully toward Julius’ wife seated in the rear.
“You can approach the bench.”
The sheriff walked to the bench and leaned up to whisper. Judge Julius bent his head to hear h1m.
“With a porcupine!” the judge exclaimed quite loudly after he’d listened for a moment. He stared at me over the top of the sheriff’s head, his eyes wide with disbelief.
The sheriff whispered something else.
“Turn around,” the judge ordered me.
I turned around.
“I don’t know, Pete,” I heard the judge say. “Could be cactus thorns.”
“Now, Julius, you know ain’t no cactus growin’ in Iowa.”
“That a fact?” The judge waved the sheriff away from the bench. His eyes lit on Randy again. They grew brighter, as if he’d had a sudden inspiration. “Sheriff having brought certain special circumstances to my attention,” he announced, “I’ll see the accused separately in chambers to determine bail.” He fondled his gavel, as if in anticipation of softer fondlings to follow.
“JULIUS!” His wife’s bellow filled the courtroom. “You just set bail right now an’ send that hussy on her way! You hear me?”
He heard her. He set bail. Fifty bucks apiece. Fifty for me, and fifty for the piece he didn’t get.
The sheriff led us back to the jail. He decided to let us make a phone call. We called Twitchcock, who agreed to bring down some clothes for us and bail us out—provided I reimbursed him. I promised I would, Twitchcock hung up, and the sheriff locked us back in our separate cells to wait for him.
There were still some thorns stuck in my backside. They kept me from sitting down. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever sit again. Plucking at them, I walked idly over to the barred cell door and looked at the hallway outside. After a few minutes I noticed the mirror.
The mirror was set in a corner where the hall turned sharply right. It was arranged so that it could be seen from the sheriff"s office, which was at the far end of the L-shaped hallway. The way it was angled, the sheriff, sitting at his desk, could keep tabs on the prisoners in the cells by looking at the reflection in the mirror.
And vice versa!
From my vantage point at the barred door to my cell, I had a clear view of the sheriffs office as it appeared in the mirror. I did a double-take. It couldn’t be! . . . It was!
Judge Julius’ wife was sitting on the sheriff’s desk! Her mouse-brown hair, worn in a tight bun before, now flowed loosely around her shoulders. Her blouse, which earlier had buttoned up to her neck about as intriguingly as a slab of gray cardboard, was now opened to the waist to reveal a pair of bra-encased mammaries which would have done credit to a melon grower. Her long skirt was pushed up around her hips to reveal shapely legs with thighs that were a little heavy and quivering like sour cream. Her sensible bloomers were down around her ankles, which stretched wide apart to hold them in place. A stout girdle concealed the welcoming mouth of the V formed by the juncture of her widespread thighs.
The girdle was giving the sheriff trouble. He was standing in front of her with his pants and underpants in a fallen heap tangling up his feet. He held the instrument of his aroused lust in one hand the way he’d held the shotgun earlier. With his other hand he was probing the mysteries veiled by the girdle.
“Man can’t hardly tell where he’s at with this damn thing, Amanda,” he complained. “Come on, now, an’ shuck it.”
“I can’t do that, Peter. Suppose someone should come?”
“Someone’ll be me if you’ll jes’ take it off. Anyway, you already got your bloomers down.”