She read it and handed the manual back. She looked over at me. The look of vacuous stupidity was gone, and I realized it was the mask she wore for the world she was in.
“Now, without me saying I would change my story, Sheriff, let’s suppose I did. What would happen to me?”
“Would the new story be the exact truth, Arlie?”
“Let’s say it would be.”
“Would it have you out there seeing anything at all?”
“Let’s say it would have me seeing somebody else instead of Mr. McGee. Let’s say that when I looked in the window, Mr. McGee and Mrs. Bannon were just talking.”
Burgoon said, “What do you think, Tom?”
“I think she ought to do some laundry work for Miss Mary for thirty days.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’d say it’s going to depend on why she showed up with those lies.”
“Regardless,” said Arlie, “would you bust me for any more than thirty days?”
“Only if it turns out you’re telling more lies. We are going to check this new one out every way there is, girl.”
“Okay then, here is the way it really was…” The sheriff told her to wait a moment. He spoke into his intercom and got hold of Willie and told him to bring in some fresh tape, and told him the Denn girl was changing her story, and stop the transcript on the old story. Willie groaned audibly. He came in with the fresh tape, took the old one off the machine and set it for record.
“It’s mostly all still good what I said before,” Arlene said. “I just have to change some parts. I mean it would save doing the whole question bit right from the start, wouldn’t it?”
“Then, save that tape, Willie,” said Bunny Burgoon, “and close the door on the way out.”
He started the tape rolling, and established time and place and the identity of the witness.
“Now, Mrs. Denn, you have told us that you wish to change portions of your previous statement.”
“Just two… no, three parts.”
“What would be the first change?”
“I didn’t hear anybody say anything that sounded like Jan. The two men were mad at each other, but I didn’t hear any word like that.”
“And what is the second change you wish to make?”
“What if you decide to protect your own and throw me to the dogs, Sheriff?”
“What is the second change you wish to make?”
“Well… it wasn’t Mr. McGee I saw. The man I saw did everything in the other statement the way I told it. But it was Deputy Sheriff Freddy Hazzard.”
“Oh, God damn it!” said Tom.
“Hush up,” said Bunny.
“And the third change?”
“I looked in the window back in October but they were just talking. Drinking tea. That was all.”
“Now, hold it a minute, girl. Tom, you go tell Walker and Englert to pick Freddy up and bring him back here and… Damn it, tell them to take his weapon and put him in the interrogation room and hold him until I can get around to him. When does he come on duty, Tom?”
“I think tonight he’s on the eight to eight again. But you know Freddy.”
“Sheriff?” the girl said as Tom left the office. “You weren’t having me on, were you? About how big I could get busted for telling something that didn’t happen?”
“I never said a truer thing in my life, Mrs. Denn.”
“Why box me?” I asked her.
The vacant blue look she gave me was a total indifference. “Every straight one looks exactly alike to me.”
Tom came back in looking distressed. “Damn it all, Bunny, he was out there checking the skip list when you came over the box telling Willie this girl was changing her story. And he walked right out and took off. He’s in uniform, driving number three. Terry is trying to raise him on the horn but no answer. All points?”
Burgoon closed his eyes and rattled his fingers on the desk top. “No. If he’s running, there’s eighty-five back ways out of this county and he knows every one of them. Let’s see what more we’ve got here.” He leaned wearily and put the recorder back on.
“Who induced you to lie about what you saw that Sunday morning, Arlie?”
“Deputy Hazzard.”
“What inducement did he offer you?”
“Not to get busted for possession, and some other things he said he could bust us for.”
“Possession? Do you mean narcotics, girl?”
“That’s your word. That’s the fuzz word. But all we had was acid and grass. Booze is a lot worse for you.”
“Arlie, are you and your husband addicts?”
“What does that mean? We’re affiliates with the group up in Jax. And we get up there now and then. We take trips sometimes here, but it’s a group thing. You couldn’t comprehend, Sheriff. We all have our own thing. We don’t bug the straights, and why shouldn’t they leave us alone?”
“How did Deputy Hazzard learn you’d been a witness?”
“Like an accident. Last Thursday night out at the Banyan Cottages there was a complaint from somebody, and I guess it would be on your records here someplace. I didn’t even know Hazzard’s name. But he was the one who came there. Five of the kids had come down from Jax, three of them gals, in an old camper truck in the afternoon, from the Blossom Group in Jacksonville, and they had some new short acid from the Coast that never gives you a down trip and blows your mind for an hour only. We had almost two lids of Acapulco Gold, and we just started a lot of turn-ons there in the cottage, relating to each other, that’s all. At night, sometime, I don’t know what time, maybe the music got too loud. An Indian record. East Indian, and the player repeats and repeats. Maybe it was the strobes. We’ve got one and they brought two, and each one had a different recycle time, so there was a kind of pattern changing all the time. I guess you have to know the way it was when Hazzard came busting in. We had the mattresses and the blankets on the floor, and one of the gals was a cute little teeny-bopper and I’d painted her all over eyes.”
“Ice?” said the sheriff.
“Eyes,” she said impatiently. “Like eyeballs and eyelashes. All colors. And one boy and girl were wearing just little bells and rattles. You do whatever. Who are you hurting? It was blossom-time. A love-in, sort of, and our own business. Just with the strobe-lights and the samisen music and he came breaking in because maybe we didn’t hear him. Him and his gun and his black leather evil thing for hitting and hurting. You can’t turn off a high like in a second. So he found the lights and ordered things in a big voice and nobody did what he said or cared. So he starts yelling and chunking people. The teeny-bopper wanted to tune him in and turn him on I guess and she started throwing flowers at him and he chunked her too. Of the seven of us he chunked the four that were turned on to the biggest high, chunked them cold, and he chunked the record player, busted it all to hell and got the other three of us finally sitting in a row on the cold bare bed springs holding onto the backs of our necks. Not scared or angry or anything. Just sorry there’s no way of ever getting through to that kind of a straight. All he thinks of is busting people and busting things. And he chunked all the three strobes and broke them up. They’re expensive and hard to find ones that don’t overheat and burn out when you keep them cycling a long time. In my high I understood all about him. He was breaking things and hitting heads because he hated himself, and I had seen him mushing Mr. Bannon with that heavy motor, and I knew that was why he hated himself. He collected up all the grass and the three little vials of powdered acid, and he picked up all the color po laroids laying around that a boy had taken earlier to take back to Jax to the group on account of the girl painted all over eyes was a big turn-on for him.”
“Lord Jesus God Almighty,” said the sheriff in a hushed voice.
“He was going to radio for help and take everybody in and bust them, and I just felt sorry for him being so empty of love and so I said to him that he hated himself for what he did to Mr. Bannon. He looked at me and he picked up a blanket and wrapped it around me and took me out in the night. He shoved me up against his car and I told him the whole thing, just the way I saw it. I told him he could trade in his hate for love, and we could show him the way. I could feel myself beginning to come off the high, because I began to think about it being a lot of bad trouble, and it was a poor time to get busted because of orders Roger and I had to fill. He kept wanting to know who I’d told about it, and while I was coming off the trip I got smart enough to say maybe I had and maybe I hadn’t. So he said he was going to keep the evidence and think about what he was going to do, and we should cool it and he would come talk to me the next day.