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Chapter 9
It was late when Otis Campbell stumbled into the jailhouse. Andy had lost game after game of chess but was acquitting himself better and better each time, learning rapidly and surprising even Sydney with some of his innovations. Broots and Barney were having head-to-head pitched battles over the checkerboard, and Miss Parker, pretending to be bored out of her mind, was reading a book Aunt Bee had brought her, a horrifically wholesome book with a surprisingly good plot. Even she looked up, though, when the door crashed open and a stout man stumbled through it.
“Oh, hi, Otis,” Andy said and moved his bishop. “Check.”
Otis was short and fat and balding with a round, good-natured, but completely drunken, face, and he wore a rumpled, soiled white suit and a white hat. “Oh, hi, Andy,” he slurred, staggering down the step inside the door. “Having’ a party?”
“Nah, just keeping a friend company. Looks like you’ve been having a party yourself.”
“Jus’ keeping some friends company,” he chuckled and rolled his way across the floor to the other cell. Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots all watched in astonishment as he went in and pulled the door closed so that it locked behind him. As one they turned to stare at Andy.
“Otis comes in here most Friday nights to sleep off his drinking,” Andy explained conversationally. “Alcohol’s illegal in this county, you know.”
“Illegal?” Miss Parker exclaimed. “What have we done, gone back in time to the Dark Ages?”
“Naw, there was plenty of drinking going on back then. This county’s been dry since Prohibition. That’s probably a big reason why it’s so peaceful. We recognize that drinking destroys lives faster’n a lot of things. Look at Otis and his wife.”
“Yeah, m’wife never made me so happy as one good still,” Otis grinned.
“Maybe if’n you thought about making your wife happy, things would go better.”
Otis waved off Andy’s moralizing. “Andy, d’ya mind if I shtep inter the back room?”
“Go ahead, Otis.”
With even greater astonishment, the three trackers from Delaware watched as Otis reached through the bars to the key ring hanging up on the wall between his and Miss Parker’s cells and unlocked his cell, hanging the key back up before stumbling into the back room. They had all seen it hanging there and thought nothing of it, assuming it to be for the filing cabinets or something, never once entertaining the thought that someone would be so dim as to leave the jail key hanging where the prisoners could reach it. Andy caught Miss Parker giving Sydney and Broots meaningful glares and grinned to himself. When Otis came back and locked himself in his cell again, Andy took down the key and held it out to the drunk through the bars.
“You better sleep on this tonight, Otis.”
“Hey!” Barney said, “you can’t do that! Only authorized personnel’s allowed to have the key!”
“Alright. Otis, I’m deputizing you for the night.”
“Aw, Andy, I don’ wanna be a dep’ty. I hate bein’ a dep’ty. Barney always gets me in trouble when I’m dep’ty.”
“Not this time, Otis. Now hush up and take the key. Satisfied, Barn?”
“I suppose,” he grumbled. “Though it’s just ridiculous.”
“As much as I hate to agree, it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” Miss Parker said.
Otis jangled the key at her. “Now, Catherine, don’ you be sayin’ that. I know you seen plen’y more ridcluous—riliclidous—riculous—things.”
Miss Parker sprang up and seized the bars of her cell. “What did you say?”
“Relicuous,” Otis said proudly. “”Seen plen’y of that. Ever ridden a cow? That’s relimiculus.”
“You called me Catherine!” she shouted at him. “Why did you call me Catherine?”
“S’name. Nice name. Catherine Parker. Ver’ good name.” He collapsed onto the bed in his cell and promptly began snoring.
“Otis!” Miss Parker shouted at him, trying to shake her bars. “Otis!”
“It’s no use, Miss Parker,” Andy said. “He’s out like a light. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get your answers.”
She hit the bars with an exclamation of rage. “Jarod! He planned this! He knew I wouldn’t leave until I got information out of this drunken idiot!”
“Hey, now. Otis is a drunk, but he ain’t an idiot.”
“Why’d he call you Catherine?” Barney asked. “Is that your name?”
“It’s my mother,” she muttered. “She…died when I was young. I look just like her.”
“Wow,” Barney breathed. “Do you think he knew her?”
“No, I think he’s psychic!” Miss Parker snarled. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Why would you kill Otis if he’s got information you want?”
“Not Otis! Jarod! I’m going to kill him. He knew this was going to happen.”
“Oh, come on,” Andy protested. “How could he know?”
“It’s Jarod. He does things like this! He’s probably sitting in New York laughing at me!”
“New York?”
“Parker, you know that when it comes to your mother, Jarod doesn’t laugh at you,” Sydney said gently.
“Maybe not, but he’s still happy to put me in these situations!”
“That’s true. He is. Tit for tat, perhaps.”
“Shut up, Sydney! Just go away, will you? All of you—go away and leave me in peace!”
Sydney began collecting his chess pieces without another word, but Andy shook his head.
“Sorry, Miss Parker. Barney’s staying here overnight.”
“What?”
“We can’t leave prisoners alone in the jail. But don’t you worry. He’ll sleep on the couch in the back room and never bother you.”
Miss Parker gave Barney such a glare that he flinched. “He’d better not.” She twitched her curtain shut, and no one got anything else out of her.
