Whiteboard
This Jail is Getting Too Small
(Episode 33)
Sheriff Leland was pacing. Agent Hailey was on the phones. Ruth was making busy in the outer office, after informing Leland with great relief, for no reason that Leland could figure that, “The bodies are still there!” And Ramey was whining in the jail: “When am I going to get out of here?!!!…” Sheriff Leland spun.
“It’s no use.” Agent Hailey hung up. “No one knows anything. For about a week there we were getting good information. And now, I swear, it’s as if they have lost all the samples.” She looked both dejected and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Leland. The FBI is usually a very tightly run organization. I guess you just have to believe me about that. But I just have no idea where all our evidence is, or who has it, or why we don’t know. Trust me, this isn’t how it usually works.”
Leland shook his head and rubbed his temples. “It’s not your fault,” he said.
“I know that,” Agent Hailey replied.
Leland looked at her; tossed up his hands. “Fine. So where does this put us?”
“Ruth?” Leland called. “Could you go back there and ferret around a little through all of those empty evidence lockers and see what we might have left, if anything, from that serial killer crime scene investigation.”
“Sure!” Ruth called from right beside him. She was glad to be escaping the vicinity.
“Sorry I snapped at you there, Leland,” Agent Hailey said.
“You’re the least of my worries,” Leland laughed.
Agent Hailey huffed.
“I’m sorry!” Leland swore. “I just meant that you’re not my problem.”
When Ruth returned, it was with a small baggie in hand. “I found this one thing,” she said. “I would suppose, the plastic seal got caught in a crack so that the baggie didn’t empty into the shipping box.”
Sheriff Leland held it up against the fluorescents and looked it over. “It looks like manure. A small piece which has fallen out of a boot tread, is my guess.”
“I think that’s a good one. Seeing as we’re surrounded here by dairy farmers.” Ruth chuckled slightly.
Leland frowned. “Well, maybe we can glean a little more out of this one than what first meets the eye.”
“Let me go! What about my patients?” Ramey called from the back cell.
“Trust me, you’re patients are not gonna want their dental work performed by a practicing transvestite,” Ruth shouted back at him.
“They might! If they are in pain…”
Leland tucked the baggie in his jacket pocket and hooked a nod at Agent Hailey. “You wanna come?”
“No. I think I’ll just sit here like a little girl and sulk. And then maybe shoot myself with my revolver.”
Leland just didn’t seem able to win today.
But when he strode out of the office, Agent Hailey smiled and followed.
Photo by Carl Nelson
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