Sheriff Jeremiah’s head sprung back and forth, side to side. A plastic smile graced his lips.
“Do you like it?” Deputy Jones asked.
“The jury’s still out. Where’d you find it?”
“During my layover in Pittsburgh. A gift shop had a whole bunch of them.”
Sheriff Jeremiah made the ‘that’s strange’ expression and set the bobblehead down. Its jumbo melon danced a jig, egged on by the overhead fan.
“Did you pick up anything else?”
“In Pittsburgh? A hoagie, a six pack of Iron City, and a major case of the scabies. Don’t worry. I’ve been deloused.”
“I meant at the seminar,” the sheriff said.
“At the seminar. Yes. Of course. That’s why you called me in.” The deputy pulled out a notebook and cleared his throat. It sounded like, ‘ggggmmmhemm.’ “Let’s see,” he said, flipping through the pages. “Words that rhyme with phlegm. The recipe for Swedish meatballs my ancestors brought with them on the Mayflower. Did I ever mention I’m a descendant of a Mayflowerite?”
“About a hundred times.”
“Right.” The deputy continued his perusal. “Politically correct ways of saying you’re ugly. Harvard graduates who haven’t become president. That’s a short list. Ai’sha, the favorite. Did you know she married at the age of six? Hmm. I’m not sure that was appropriate. Anyway.” Flip, flip. “Ah. Here they are. Notes from the FBI seminar in Quantico. I had a great time, by the way. Thanks for sending me.”
“We had some extra funds.”
Deputy Jones nodded in understanding. “I picked up a lot of information. Where do you want me to start?”
“Just give me the highlights,” Sheriff Jeremiah said.
“Sure thing,” Deputy Jones said. “The first day was a lot of procedural stuff. Miranda Rights, Brady Rule: how to circumvent them. Best place to strike with a baton. Note: It’s to the side of the knee in a place with no cameras. Nothing important. Then, we had a nice brunch with these little muffins you could eat in one bite. And fresh fruit slices imported from Cuba. Delicious. Apparently, a Cuban national dressed up as a server had defected in a banana box, giving us the perfect opportunity to practice the baton skills we learned.”
Sheriff Jeremiah held his hand out and rolled it forward a couple times to hurry the deputy along.
“Sure. Let me see. How to tell a good immigrant from a bad immigrant. It’s a matter of skin color.”
Sheriff Jeremiah didn’t ask him to explain.
The deputy’s finger scanned the page. “Blah, blah, blah. Relaxing the requirements on moral turpitude for new hires. Oh. Here’s something new. How to secretly overthrow a government.”
“Isn’t that the CIA’s job?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked. “They’ve been taking down foreign dictators and other people they don’t like for decades now.”
“Not foreign governments,” Deputy Jones said. “Our own.”
The loud thud was the sound of Sheriff Jeremiah’s jaw crashing onto the desk. “Taking down our government?” he asked. “Is someone plotting a coup against President Clinton?”
Deputy Jones had a hearty laugh accompanied by a few tears before he could compose himself. “Of course not. It’s pre-emptive learning. You never know when it might come in handy in the future. Say if a Republican ever gets elected again.”
“Like George Bush?”
“I said Republican.”
“Oh. Well, what did they say?”
“They gave a few suggestions. Number one: make sure your guy gets in office.”
“Guy or gal,” Sheriff Jeremiah corrected.
“If you say so. Number two: it’s probably best not to have an affair with another agent and then text all of the undocumented activity you two are doing.”
“What’s texting?”
“Not a clue.”
“Carry on.”
“Number three: speaking of undocumented. If you are doing something undocumented, don’t document it. That way, the Brady rule never applies to begin with. Makes sense, huh? Right after that, we had a working lunch where we found out how to set up a honeypot and how to get a person to walk into a perjury trap. Fascinating stuff.”
An unsettling feeling settled in Sheriff Jeremiah’s stomach. “I’m not sure the FBI should be wading so deep into the river of undocumented activity. Pretty soon, there’ll be no distinction between them and the criminals they’re after. And to go after a sitting president …”
“Don’t worry,” Deputy Jones interrupted. “It’s only in case we get a Republican again.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a lifelong Democrat, and it still doesn’t sit right with me. What if the FBI used this against a Democrat? Worse yet, against one of us?”
Deputy Jones scoffed. “That’d never happen. When our future Democrat tyrant, ahem, president, gets elected for life, he’ll …”
“Or she’ll …”
“… rule with delicate and profound justice in a manner so loving that all strife and crime and disease and poverty and envy will immediately disappear.”
“Even though any time a person or group gets unlimited control, they always turn against the people that helped them get there? Whereupon, disease and crime and poverty become the rule?”
“It’s different here. We’re Americans.”
Sheriff Jeremiah let out a sigh of relief. “Of course. You’re right. Especially if it’s a socialist, seeing as how they lie, steal, and murder to get into power. They get it all out of their system before taking office.”
“Exactly,” Deputy Jones said.
Somewhere across the city, Country let out a sarcastic, “Sure,” without having a clue why.
“Anything else?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked.
“There’s a lot more,” the deputy replied.
“You’ll have to save it for later, then” the sheriff said. “I’ve got a couple issues I need you to handle that are time sensitive.”
“What are they boss?”
“You see the people out there?”
Deputy Jones turned to look through the window. A line of men dressed in orange jumpsuits waited as patiently as convicted felons normally do. Across the hall, a line of women cowered as the tattooed, incorrigible, fashionably orange criminals barked and clawed at them.
“Yeah. What about ‘em?”
“The jail’s overcrowded again. We’ve been ordered to release the non-essential prisoners.”
“Got it. And they’re in jail for …?”
Sheriff Jeremiah answered. “You got the repeat offenders waiting to go to court on one side. The others disobeyed the governor’s order to sign the waiver giving up their Constitutionally protected rights to the 1st through 9th Amendments.”
The deputy rolled his eyes. And his tongue. “Can you make your tongue into a hotdog, too?” he asked. Although, it sounded like, “Can woo maig yo tug i’doo eh hah’dah doo?”
Sheriff Jeremiah ignored the question. “Get out there and take care of it. When you’re done, we need to discuss the case.”
He watched the deputy walk up and down the line of prisoners, talking with each one. Ten minutes later, de-manacled wrists got a good rubbin’ as convicts shed their orange tuxedos and walked out the front door. Sheriff Jeremiah scratched his belly and waited for the deputy to return.
“What was that all about?” he asked in a tone so dry it made the Sahara jealous.
“What was what all about?” the deputy replied.
“You let them go.”
“You told me to.”
Sheriff Jeremiah shook his head.
“Yes, you did,” the deputy said. “You said the jail was overcrowded and to let the non-essential prisoners out.”
“And those were the ones you determined were non-essential? Those ones? Don’t you think they’re going to go out and repeat offend?”
Deputy Jones’ face scrunched up so that he looked like the Joker with a bad case of gas. “No. Of course not. I made sure I talked to each one about their behavior. I’m sure you saw that. Billy Guns, for example. I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘No more killing, you hear?’ He tells me, ‘I hear you boss.’ I could tell he was contrite, so I had no choice but to let him go under California Penal Code 41.345 Section A, Paragraph 8.”
“How about Julio Hernandez? Why did you release him?”
“Who’s he?”
“Serial rapist, arsonist, extortionist. Has a rap sheet as long as the unabridged version of War and Peace.”
Deputy Jones shrugged in non-recognition.
“Has a tattoo of MS on one side of his face and XIII on the other.”
“Ah, him,” the deputy said. “I couldn’t legally hold him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s an undocumented immigrant. A divine spark of humanity, one might say.”
Sheriff Jeremiah kept going. He had to know. “And the women? The ones who defied the governor’s order?”
A disgusted snarl formed on the deputy’s lips. “Let them burn in hell,” he hissed.
If the sheriff thought that was a bit extreme, he didn’t say so. “That doesn’t explain Carl, though,” he did say.
“Carl?”
“The guy in the gray jumpsuit. The one with the fresh baton bruises all over his body.”
“He had it coming,” Deputy Jones said.
“Whyyyyy?”
“He’s guilty. You can tell by the smarmy look on his face. Embezzler. Climate denier. Hard to tell exactly, but definitely something especially heinous.”
“He’s the janitor. The man has worked here thirty-three years. Hasn’t even thought of committing a crime in his entire life. If ever there was an innocent man.”
Deputy Jones scoffed. “Innocent? Give me an hour alone with him and I’ll find a crime. Or make one up. Just like at the FBI.” Evil cackle and malicious finger tapping. “Just like at the FBI.”
Sheriff Jeremiah took a short sniff, the kind a person might do when he has lost all hope in humanity. “Alright,” he said. “I guess we need to get down to business.”
“What business is that, boss?”
“The case.”
“Right. The case.” Deputy Jones’ head bobbed up and down.
“Where do we stand?” the sheriff asked. “Quite honestly, I’m having reservations.”
“You gotta go where the evidence leads,” Deputy Jones said.
Apparently, the irony was lost on him.
The deputy continued. “He was observed leaving the scene just before the body was discovered. Not just by eyewitnesses. We’ve also got him on camera.”
“I’ve seen the footage. It’s too grainy to definitively say it was him. Not to mention, there’s an hour plus gap between his appearance on the video and the discovery.”
“We also have the 911 call from the person who said they observed an altercation between the alleged perp and the victim.”
“Do we have any idea who it was that called in?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked.
Deputy Jones shook his head. “No. He hung up without giving his name. We traced the call back to a pay phone near the crime scene, but we have no witnesses willing or able to place anyone at the phone around that time.”
“Which means all we have is an anonymous tipster and a grainy video of someone who could be him?”
“That and the recordings we made,” Deputy Jones said.
“Of course. I forgot about the recordings. Did you get a warrant to plant the bug?”
They both laughed until their stomachs hurt.
“Phew,” Sheriff Jeremiah said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Anyway. Have you received the transcripts yet?”
“I got you one better.” Deputy Jones pulled out a miniature tape recorder from this pocket and pressed play.
“Turn the volume up a little, will ya?”
The deputy obliged. A few hummed notes in a deep baritone greeted their ears. Either the Star-Spangled banner or something by Wham! They couldn’t tell which.
“Fast forward a little,” the sheriff ordered.
The tape recorder wheel screeched onward. The deputy hit play again. In the background, they heard a faint scratching sound like a rake testing the soil. It grew louder and louder, a mild scraping becoming rough abrasions, progressing on to frantic itching. Then, a scream followed by something that sounded like woolen underwear being stripped off.
“Stupid Genny,” they heard Country mutter.
“Who’s Genny?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked.
“Not sure,” the deputy replied. “Someone we need to look into, I suppose.”
“You think this has to do with the murder?”
“Possibly.”
They both fell silent and tuned into the recording again.
“Ahhhhh,” Country’s voice proclaimed. Rustle, rustle. Pop. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Pffssst. Gulp, gulp. Tooooooooot. Whew! Ugh. Rustle. Crunch, crunch.
“Move on.”
Squeal, squeak, screech.
Crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
“The guy loves his doodles.”
“I heard that.”
Squeal, screeeeeeeeeeeech.
“If I ever see you messing with her again, I’ll kill you too!”
Deputy Jones’ eyes flung wide open like old timey shutters. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Rewind it,” Sheriff Jeremiah ordered.
“If Ioooo eeeevvvvvvverrrr moi gon verrrrr.”
Deputy Jones smacked the bottom of the recorder.
“What’s wrong?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked.
“I think the tape got stuck.” Deputy Jones removed the mini tape. Sure enough, the thin brown ribbon had jammed in one of the spools. He pulled it out and showed it to Sheriff Jeremiah. It had more wrinkles than Cloris Leachman after an hour in the bathtub. “Well, that’s not good.”
“Doesn’t look recoverable to me,” the sheriff said.
“But you heard it?”
Sheriff Jeremiah sighed and paused. “I’m not sure what I heard.”
“You’re not sure, or you don’t want to believe it? It seems your fondness for the young man might be clouding your objectivity.”
The sheriff mushed his lips together. “You watch your tongue!”
“Mmy dib’n meem do offemd do.”
Sheriff Jeremiah let go of the deputy’s lips.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” the deputy repeated. “I’m just saying that you might be a little too close to the case. It’s clear you feel an affinity towards him.”
“It’s just that in my experience … I ….” He paused again and stared out the window. “It’s just that my gut tells me he didn’t do it. That something’s off.”
“I understand,” the deputy said. “I don’t want a repeat of the O.J. incident either. But ….”
“But I gotta go where the evidence leads,” the sheriff finished.
“Or you wouldn’t be honoring the badge.”
Sheriff Jeremiah stared silently for a little while longer. “See if you can get the tape fixed,” he said.
Deputy Jones nodded and stood up. As he reached the door, he turned around. “Say, boss.”
“Yep.”
“Can I borrow your baton? Mine broke.” A dark shadow crossed his face. “And I’ve got some protestors who need to be taught a lesson.”