Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

Fred protested. “On what specific charge do you think you could arrest both of us?”

“Litterbugging,” the sheriff said. “You two been throwing wads of paper around, and that can play hob with the ecology.” He put a hand on the butt of his revolver again. “Now stand up and turn around.”

We did as we were told.

He found no weapons.

“Fine,” he said. “Turn around and march out the door. The jail is right next to Harry’s Bar.” It was a short, though dusty, thirty-second walk to the adobe jailhouse. Inside, it was nicely cool. The small building consisted only of an area for the sheriff’s desk and filing cabinet and two unoccupied cells.

The sheriff put one of us in each of the cells.

“What do you intend to do now?” Fred demanded. “Wait for the mail?”

“No,” the sheriff said. “The simplest thing to do is for me to drive up to Phoenix and have a look at Hannibal Coggins’ picture.” He picked up the phone, dialed, and got somebody named Jim. He told Jim to come over to the jailhouse.

Jim appeared within ten minutes. He was a thin man in his middle twenties, thoroughly Adam’s-appled, and with the usual suntan that ended abruptly at the hatline.

“My deputy,” the sheriff explained. He handed Jim a badge and then turned back to us. “I’d like to take your fingerprints along to Phoenix.”

Fred and I both protested, but our prints were taken.

After the sheriff left for Phoenix, Jim sat down at the desk and picked up a true detective magazine. He turned through it, found something interesting, and began reading, his lips moving slowly.

Fred went to the bars of his cell. “How long will it take the sheriff to get to Phoenix?”

“Two hours there and two hours back,” Jim said.

Fred watched him read for a while. “So you’re the deputy?”

Jim nodded. “Part-time — whenever I’m needed. Otherwise I work at Bud’s Garage.”

“How much does deputizing pay?”

“Three fifteen an hour. And when I get in six months’ time — that’s nine hundred and sixty hours — I become eligible for health insurance.”

“How many hours do you have in now?”

“Exactly six hundred twenty-three. Took me five years of part-time to accumulate that.”

Fred reached for his wallet and pulled out a number of bills. “There’s five hundred dollars in this roll.” He folded the bills and tossed them out of his cell. “Well, well, deputy, look what dropped out of your pocket.”

Jim frowned and shook his head. “No, sirree. We’ll have none of that hanky-panky while I’m on duty.”

He got a broom and pushed the money back to the cell bars. “It might be more polite to hand it back to you personally, but we’re not supposed to even touch the prisoners’ money.”

I lay down on my bunk. After a while I groaned slightly.

The deputy looked my way. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I have a terrible pain in my side,” I said. I groaned again.

The deputy scratched his ear. “If it’s appendicitis, there’s nothing much I can do except phone the doctor. Only we don’t have any here in town. I’d have to get Red Rock.”

“I’m positive it isn’t appendicitis,” I said. “But perhaps you could bring me a glass of water and a couple of aspirin?”

The deputy found some aspirin in the desk drawer and drew a paper cup of water from the water cooler.

He put the cup and the aspirin on the end of a narrow board and shoved it through the bars toward me.

“I’m not allowed to go in there,” he explained. “Especially when I’m alone. You can never tell what might happen.”

I swallowed the aspirin, drank the water, and lay down again.

In the next cell, Fred chuckled. “Nice try.”

I turned on him indignantly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I get this stitch in my side during moments of stress.” After a while, I dozed off.

The ring of the telephone woke me. The deputy reached for the phone and listened. Finally he hung up and smiled in our direction. “That was the sheriff calling from Phoenix. Seems as soon as he got there he found out that the real Hannibal Coggins was just picked up in Stafford. I guess we owe you two an apology.”

He rose, got the ring of keys, and released both Fred and me.

I was a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Fred, but I could have sworn you were Coggins.”

Fred nodded. “I felt exactly the same way about you.” He sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll get my gas can filled.”

The deputy consulted his watch. “It’s eight thirty. Bud’s Garage stays open until nine.”

Fred and I went back to my car, still parked at the cafe, and he picked up his gas can. “Maybe I can get somebody at Bud’s Garage to drive me back to my car.”

I felt that possibly I owed Fred something. “I’ll drive you back. I really don’t have anything important to do at this time of the night anyway.”

We got gas at Bud’s Garage and then headed back in the direction we had come. It was a rather beautiful night, with a full moon and a clear sky.

I drove nearly ten miles before Fred directed me to turn off onto an ungraveled side road. I had to slow down considerably to negotiate the rough surface.