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Spilling the Beans
Chapter 12


“How ya feelin’ this morning?” Opie greeted Jarod.
Jarod smiled at him. “Better. I hope I can leave today.”
“I don’t. I like having you here!”
“I like being here, but I don’t like putting you in danger.”
“Aw, that’s okay. We don’t mind. My Paw can handle any bad guys!”
Jarod laughed. “Your Paw is a great man, Opie.”
“He sure is! Is your Paw?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. I haven’t met him yet.”
“Oh, really?” The boy’s quick eyes took in something in Jarod’s face. He had a good deal of his father in him. “I bet you want to meet him real bad. Anyone would want to meet his Paw. I bet you he’s a real good man, just like my Paw.”
Jarod’s mouth compressed. “Thank you, Opie. So you met Sydney and Broots yesterday. What did you think of them?”
“They were a lot nicer’n I thought they’d be.”
“That’s true. They are nicer than you’d expect. Sometimes I forget how truly nice they both are.”
“Then why are they chasing you?”
“Because even the nicest people can make the stupidest decisions. You have to have wisdom, too. Neither of them has much wisdom.”
“And neither has Opie,” Andy said, coming into the room. “It’s not wisdom to come bugging a sick man in the morning.”
“It’s alright, Andy. We’ve been having a good talk.”
“Wa’al, alright, then. Ope, get yourself down to your breakfast.”
“Alright, Paw. See you later, Jarod.”
“See you, Opie.”
“I see Aunt Bee brought you your breakfast already.” Andy gestured at the empty tray beside Jarod. “You must be feeling a whole lot better to clean it up like that.”
“I am. I’ll be able to leave today.” Jarod seemed to expect Andy to contradict it, but instead he nodded thoughtfully.
“That might be best, for you and for us. We shore like having you here, Jarod, but you have things to do, and we need our lives uncomplicated again.”
Jarod smiled. “I appreciate your honesty, Andy. I hope I can make it back here sometime—without Miss Parker on my tail.”
“I hope you can, too. Now, tell me—” He drew up a chair and sat down, putting his elbows on his knees and staring intently at Jarod. “Did you know about Otis?”
After staring at him a moment, Jarod let a smile break over his face. “So it worked.”
“Me getting Miss Parker into jail just in time for Otis to come in and recognize her but be too drunk to tell her anything, ensuring that she stays in jail? Yes, like clockwork. How did you do that?”
“I have a special talent for organizing things like that. Miss Parker has helped me develop it.” His eyes became dark slits of ominous humor.
“Wa’al,” Andy breathed, “remind me not to ever play chess against you.”
“Chess? You play chess?”
“Just learned. You play?”
“I was allowed to play once, long ago. I haven’t since then. Maybe I should take it up.”
“Did Sydney teach you?”
“No. You’d think he would have. Why, did Sydney teach you?”
“He shore did. He said it helps you learn how the other fellow thinks, and it shore does. Maybe I should make all newcomers to town play with me.”
“Did you learn how Sydney thinks?”
“Wa’al…some. He’s not real obvious, like some folks. Keeps a lot hidden.”
“He shore does,” Jarod said darkly.
“I think I learned a few things, though. He’s not a real competitive feller. I think he’d be just as happy to play against himself as another person—except then he wouldn’t have someone to learn about. A real gentle sort of feller, but one who never gives up, just keeps coming at you, quiet-like. If he moved to my town, I’d think, There’s a nice feller to have in the community, but I think I might want to watch what sort of things he keeps in his basement. If he was my deputy, he’d be a real help in figuring people out and keeping track of little details, but I’d never know whether to trust him with arresting somebody. He’d might get so interested in talking to the feller he’d let him get away. Or else he’d do things to him to see what he does.”
Jarod nodded slowly. “Sydney doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body, but he has a blind, amoral streak a mile wide. Not precisely sociopathically amoral. More like traumatically amoral, like something has been battered until it has died, or can no longer afford to live. It has taken me a long time to be able to see that—but I’m still resentful and angry at him.”
Andy nodded in turn. “That’s normal with children and parents.”
“He’s not my father.”
“No, but he raised you, didn’t he? It’s as close as you’ll get to having memories of a father. And kids think their parents’re perfect. Opie’s still there. When they find out they’re not, they can get very angry, especially if their parents did real bad things. That sticks with you, even when your brain gets more reasonable and understanding.”
Jarod gave a painful chuckle. “Maybe you should have been the psychiatrist.”
“Naw, I like my work. Knowing about people helps it.” He could see how painful the subject was, so he changed it. “You know they think you’re in New York?”
“New York?”
“On account of them newspapers you used to borrow from Helen.”
His eyebrows went up. “Oh. Well, that could be useful.”
“That’s what I thought. Aunt Bee says Miss Parker had Sydney on the phone talking to someone about back issues of the newspaper and getting someone named Angelo to look at them. Is that some special investigator?”
“Very special. Maybe he’ll send them tearing off to New York. That would be funny. I wasn’t going to New York; I was headed further south, with no real aim in mind. But maybe I should go there after all. I haven’t seen the Empire State Building in a while.”
“But they’ll be going there. I think you’d want to stay as far away as possible.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Jarod grinned. “I always enjoy it when I get to be the tracker. It drives Miss Parker crazy.”
“Ya know, I just don’t get you. I sure like you, though. Wa’al, I better get goin’ and see if Otis has spilled the beans yet.”
Jarod looked at him quizzically. “Is this something Otis normally does on his Saturday mornings in jail?”
“What? Oh—spill the beans? Ain’t you heard that before? It means talk—tell his story.”
“Oh.”
Andy left Jarod still looking perplexed.









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