The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella (Joanna Brady Mysteries)

The interview went on for another hour or so after lunch. It ended with Harold laying into Detectives Jamison and Shandrow and letting them know that he would be opposing any efforts made to extradite me to the state of Nevada. After that another jailer led me back to the holding cell area.

 

The Peoria Police Department has two holding cells. Before I went to the interview, the cell across from mine had been occupied by a pair of drunks peacefully sleeping it off, both of them snoring loud enough to wake the dead. When I returned, the drunks were gone. Now the cells held two new arrivals, a pair of scrawny old guys—both of them north of eighty and both wearing outlandish golf attire. Each was dressed in extremely loud plaid pants with a matching shirt. One was in orange, the other in brilliant chartreuse. They stood at the bars of the cells like a pair of colorful old parrots, yelling at each other across the polished concrete corridor that separated them.

 

“You’re a lowdown cheat,” one of them called. “You’ve always been a lowdown cheat. Why I ever agreed to play another round of golf with you, I’ll never know. I saw you move that ball out of the rough, plain as day. The Florsheim club.”

 

“The hell you say,” the other replied. “I never kicked a ball in my life. And even if I did, that’s no reason for you to come after me with a frigging golf cart. You could have killed me.”

 

“I wish I had. They could have buried you there right on the edge of the fairway under that mesquite tree. It would have served you right. And why the hell did you have to go and crack the windshield of the golf cart with your seven iron?”

 

“To get you to stop, you stupid old fart!”

 

“When they come after me to pay for the damages, I’m coming after you, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll pay up or else.”

 

Their fight, one that had most likely started on a golf course hours earlier, was still in full swing. No wonder the jailers had placed them in separate cells. From what had been said, I suspected they would soon face charges of assaults with a deadly weapon—a golf cart and a seven-iron, respectively. Any other time that might have been screamingly funny. Not right then.

 

“Settle down, boys,” the jailer cautioned. “You both need to cool off. I understand your attorney should be here soon. He’s evidently been delayed.”

 

The jailer opened the door that led into the cell occupied by Mr. Green Pants. The guard ushered me inside and then slammed the door shut behind me. There was that awful, ominous clang again. The metallic noise the locking door made rattled my nerves and chilled my soul. Leaving the two old guys to continue their shouting match, I went over to the stainless steel bench and sank down on it. I had barely closed my eyes when the shouting ceased suddenly as someone walked past me and joined me on the bench.

 

“You two take your golf way too seriously,” I said without opening my eyes. “It’s dumb to land in jail over a stupid golf game.”

 

“Well,” he said, “look who’s talking?”

 

That actually made me laugh. He was right, of course. Since I was in jail, too, I didn’t have much room to point fingers.

 

“My name’s Roger,” he said. “And don’t worry about Matt and me. Harold will have us out of here in jig time.”

 

“Harold?” I asked. “You mean Harold Meeks?”

 

“That’s the one. He’s an old pal of ours. He doesn’t play anymore because of his walker, but he usually rides along, drives one of the carts, and helps keep score. He called us when we were about to tee off on the third hole—the par five—after the cops took you away. He asked if I thought Matt and me could figure out a way to get ourselves locked up for the day so we could have a private chat. He said to wait for about an hour, so we staged the whole thing on the par three on the back nine. How’d we do?”

 

I remembered what Harold had said about not talking to anyone in the slammer. Had the Peoria detectives gone so far as to hire a couple of retirees as jailhouse snitches? That seemed unlikely, but still . . .

 

“Great,” I allowed. “But why would Harold do something like that, and why would you two go along with it?”

 

“Like I said, we’ve all been friends for a long time, and he asked us to do it as a favor. Said he forgot to ask you a question before they took you away, and he didn’t want to ask it when any of the cops might be listening in.”

 

“I thought conversations between attorneys and clients were supposed to be private.”

 

“Sometimes what’s supposed to be doesn’t match up with what is,” Roger replied somberly.

 

“What’s the question?”

 

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