Box

16

Dr. Gideon Box.

The County hospital at Starbucks must think they’re hosting a family reunion, admitting Trudy, Darrell, and Scooter at the same time for different reasons. I try to imagine the conversation among the emergency room staff at the front desk prior to admitting.

This one was beat up by her husband and brother. This one was run over by his sister and wife’s boyfriend. This one had a roof fall on him.

Crazy.

Sheriff Carson Boyd follows me to the Clayton police station to get a statement. Tells his dispatcher to run a check on me. Tells him to do an internet search for good measure.

Three hours later, he says, “Tell me about the letter.”

“What letter?”

“The one we found in the console.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It takes another half-hour to convince him I know nothing about a letter, or who wrote it. Then he leaves the room a few minutes, comes back and says, “You ought to thank Trudy for writing that letter.”

“What letter?”

“Let’s don’t start that again,” he says. “Trudy wrote a letter while Scooter was interrogating you in the barn. Her letter corroborates your story, not hers.”

“She has a different story?”

“She and Scooter gave different accounts of the hangman’s noose we found on the floor, how the barn roof caved in, and how you may have acquired those rope burns around your neck.”

“She’s trying to protect her father, and he’s trying to protect his job.”

“Thanks Sherlock, but we’ll draw our own conclusions if it’s all the same to you.”

He follows me to the Dew Drop Inn and waits for me to check in. Then gives me a warning not to leave town.

“I’d like to check on Trudy,” I say.

“Did I just tell you not to leave town?”

“It’s twenty miles from here!”

“You’ll have to wait till tomorrow,” he says.

“Is she okay?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Her husband beat her up pretty badly.”

“Visiting hours start at eight. Seven if you’re family. Tell me you’re not a blood relative.”

I frown.

He says, “Tomorrow when you visit Trudy at the hospital?”

“Yeah?”

“There’ll be a police officer in the room.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Maybe not. But you’re a magnet for trouble like I’ve never seen.”

“You think?”

“Let’s review. You’re driving through town on the way to Ralston to hook up with a lady you met on the internet named Faith Hemphill.”

“That’s right.”

“You stop at Alice T’s for a bite to eat. After dinner you steal my deputy’s handcuffs and chain his daughter, our homecoming queen, to the fence behind the restaurant.”

“Yes.”

“And this was her idea.”

“That’s right.”

“Moments later my deputy catches you feeling up his daughter and somehow gets the impression you’re molesting her, so he knocks you unconscious.”

I nod.

“They drive you to Jake Thatcher’s barn. In the space of twenty minutes all the following happens: One. My deputy ties you to a chair. Two. Unties you. Three. Kicks you in the nuts. Four. Hangs you. Five. His daughter-our homecoming queen-willingly gives you a hand job while her father lies on the floor of the barn, unconscious, roof caved in, with a broken leg.”

“That’s right.”

“After the hand job, but before you call the ambulance, Trudy’s husband, Darrell, who’s also her brother, drives up, pulls Trudy from the car, and beats her up. As this is going on, you pretend to drive away, but suddenly back up and crash your car into Darrell, to save Trudy from further harm.”

“Exactly.”

“You check Darrell’s vital signs, administer morphine, and do the same for Trudy and Scooter.”

“Except that I gave Scooter the morphine twenty minutes earlier.”

“Before the hand job.”

“That’s right.”

“So before you drive into our sleepy little town, everything’s running smoothly. You stop to get a bite to eat, and two hours later three people are in the hospital.”

“I was also hung, don’t forget.”

He looks at my neck, then stares me down and says, “Don’t leave town till I say you can.”

“Other than visiting Trudy at the hospital?”

“Other than that,” he says.