The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 80

I’m Fixin’ To present part 80 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

Jimmy Ray was feeling exhilarated with that big fat envelope stuffed with 15 thousand dollars lying on the seat next to him. But then his ominous sense of survival was revived and he knew he needed to secure the cash at once. So at the next stretch of deserted road he pulled off on the side of Hwy 86, and extracted a big flat-head screwdriver from the glove compartment.

Then he got out of the truck and made sure no other vehicles were coming or going before he popped off the antique hubcap, shaped almost like a Frisbee, stuffed the envelope full of money inside it and then popped it back in place.

When he pulled into Shady Grove Trailer Park he slowed down as he passed the big doublewide on the right, noticing it was still empty, and thought about moving into it. On second thought, he figured he might just run down to Panama City for a few days and eat oysters and drink beer.

That was the last good thought he was going to have for a while, because when he looked up his heart skipped a beat and he was immediately seized by waves of panic. To his great dismay there were two Ocmulgee County units parked at his trailer. His first thought was to do a u-turn and make a run for it, but when he took a quick glance into his rear view mirror he saw there was another one of them right on his tail. And it was Murphy!

They arrested him, handcuffed him, read him his rights and took him directly to the Ocmulgee County Jail. After they had booked and finger printed him they took him to an interrogation room and left him sitting there at a bare table for over an hour.

He was startled when the door suddenly opened and a man whom he had never seen before came in. He was wearing khaki pants and a long sleeve dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. What he did realize was that the man was a cop, even before he introduced himself as Lieutenant Kelly of the Ocmulgee County Sheriff’s Department.

The lieutenant pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table from Jimmy Ray, opened a folder he had brought in with him and said, “Looks like you done got yourself in a heap of trouble, Jimmy Ray. Let’s see, it appears you have been charged with grand theft, burglary, breaking and entering along with a long list of other charges. You could go away for a long time. They would eat you alive in there, son.

“Now,” the lieutenant continued, “these charges could be reduced down to something like robbery. But in order for that to happen we would have to have complete cooperation on your part, which means revealing the location of those weapons and jewelry and the recovery of them.”

Jimmy Ray heard what he was saying but he was too busy thinking to answer. He was wondering how in the heck they had connected him with the heist. It had to be Elroy, he thought, and regretted that he had not cut his fat throat after all.

“Well, son, you ready to talk to me?” Lieutenant Kelly persisted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jimmy Ray told him. “I don’t even know why the devil I’m here!”

Lieutenant Kelly leaned back in his chair and said, “I’ll tell you why. We got a video from a Waffle House, not even a hundred yards from the crime scene, which shows your truck entering their parking lot this past Sunday morning at precisely 1:45 am, and not leaving until 8:15 am. You want to tell me what you were doing for six and a half hours? I don’t think you were eating waffles all that time.”

Jimmy Ray thought about making up a lie about leaving his truck there while he went off and met a woman in secret, but then he decided the best thing to do was to just keep his mouth shut until he found out what else they knew, so he just sat there, staring straight ahead and didn’t respond at all.

That’s when the lieutenant dropped another bomb on him. “We’re also looking into the unauthorized use of a garbage truck that belongs to Consolidated Waste that was seen in the area about the time your truck departed from the Waffle House. Got anything to say now?”

Dang! Jimmy Ray thought. This son-of-a-gun had been doing some real investigating, and he knew that once they got their hands on Eloy he could be in real trouble.

But he decided that the best thing to do for the time being was to be fixin’ to keep his mouth shut.

(www.teddunagan.com)