Archie Goes Home by Robert Goldsborough

Author:Robert Goldsborough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The police allowed both Kiefer and me to drive our own vehicles to the police headquarters, although we had to follow close behind their patrol car with its flashing lights, which made for a poor man’s parade through the downtown streets, drawing curious looks from pedestrians.

Our motley little entourage pulled up in front of the police station, an unimpressive one-story brick structure that I recognized from my youth, although I never had occasion to be inside. We trooped in, Kiefer in the lead, followed by me and then Mutt and Jeff, the unmatched pair of young coppers. They never drew their weapons, apparently seeing the two of us as harmless.

Hardly surprising, Kiefer and I did not speak to each other. He held a handkerchief to the nose I had bloodied, and I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder where his right had landed.

I regretted, at least slightly, having baited Kiefer back in the bar, but then, I didn’t expect the violent reaction that resulted, although maybe I should have, given what Katie Padgett had told me about him and his volatility. It seemed the man was like a grenade ready to discharge.

“We’ve got a couple of would-be prizefighters here,” the tall cop said to the bald desk sergeant, who wore a bored expression. “My guess is that the chief would like to meet them.”

“I’ll tell him you’re here,” the sarge said with a world-weary sigh, picking up a phone and muttering something into the mouthpiece. He hung up and said, “Okay, go on back and see him.”

Blankenship’s quarters were about what I would have expected of a small-town top cop’s office: bare walls; a single window looking out onto a parking lot; a three-drawer gunmetal filing cabinet; a neat maple desk with a framed color photograph of his wife and two young children; and a plaque that read Chief Thomas Robert Blankenship.

The chief had his head down as he signed a small stack of papers. Finishing the last one, he looked up grim-faced, first at me and then at Kiefer, shaking his head.

“I recognize them both, for different reasons,” he said to his cops. “This one”—he indicated Kiefer—“has been here on at least a couple occasions. He can’t seem to control his temper. You boys have brought him in before, the last time was after he got into a fistfight with the driver of a grocery truck just off the courthouse square. It was when—”

“I got cut off!” Kiefer yelped. “That idiot almost rammed me!”

“Mr. Kiefer,” Blankenship said in a patient tone, steepling his hands, “if that had been the only incident you were involved in, I wouldn’t be terribly concerned. But a pattern seems to have emerged here. Is there anything you care to tell us about what happened in that bar tonight?”

“This guy”—Kiefer gestured at me with a thumb—“kept jabbering to me. He wouldn’t shut up.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Uh . . . well, not in so many words.”

“Tell me what ‘not in so many words’ means,” Blankenship said, still in his father-confessor mode.

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