Furnace. Muriel Gray
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straightened his shoulders and started to read haltingly like a shy child standing up in class.
Josh listened, his mind playing the movie that went with the words, fighting to make himself believe that his clear and accurate account was the product of a temporarily fevered brain. As the deputy reached the description of the woman, Josh slid the crumpled handbill picture of Nelly McFarlane out of his pocket and onto the table in front of him. He gazed down at the woman’s open, friendly face as the man’s voice droned in the air like some monotonous tour guide in a national monument.
‘… hard to tell her age, but older than the mother, wearing a little too much make-up, and a tailored pink suit. Her hair …’
Josh looked up.
‘Wait.’
Pace, who had been picking at his thumbnail, apparently bored and barely seeming to listen, looked up at Josh.
Josh was excited, his eyes flashing with impatience. He spoke quickly, turning to Pace to make his point.
‘Pink. You hear? I said it was a pink suit.’
Pace put his wide hands out palms up, and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Josh stabbed at the handbill with a finger.
‘You heard her as we left, sheriff. She mentioned this pink suit, the one in this picture.’
Pace was still looking quizzical, but Josh could detect falsehood in that expression, could see the conclusion to his observation being born behind the sheriff’s narrowed eyes before Josh spoke it.
‘If this is what I saw, how could I have known the suit was pink? This picture is black and white.’
John Pace looked across at his deputy and then back at Josh, who was breathing more quickly now. The deputy’s mouth remained slightly open, as though he wished to continue his reading aloud. Pace spoke slowly.
‘Well now, that’s a fair point. A fair point.’
He turned to the deputy, his voice casual and light.
‘Archie. Any of these posters around town in colour?’
The man with his mouth still open closed it, and scanned Pace’s face carefully before speaking.
‘Eh, I can’t rightly say.’
Pace rubbed his chin. ‘I guess the only explanation is that there must be.’
Josh’s heart raced. ‘But it’s something you can find out.’
‘For sure.’
‘And if there aren’t any in colour then where does that leave our theory about how I’d seen her before?’
There was a pause. A long pause, and then Sheriff John Pace clasped his hands together in front of him and looked Josh straight in the eye.
‘Up shit creek, Josh.’
Josh sat back in the chair and almost smiled. But there was very little to smile about.
‘Then I stick by my statement. Until you find out about the poster.’
Pace paused again for an awkward length of time, then unclasped his hands and wagged a finger like he was scolding an invisible dog.
‘Okay. We’re gonna get right on that. But after you’ve paid your fine for that dumb stunt with your log book, there ain’t no reason to keep you here any more. You feel up to drivin’?’
Josh nodded, unsure how the atmosphere in the room had changed, but certain it had.
‘Sure. I kinda feel better already knowing I might not be crazy.’
This time, Pace snorted. ‘Yeah? You saw Nelly. Even if a decent woman like that could have slipped in and out of town in broad daylight to do the deed unseen by anyone but you, what motive would she have for doin’ somethin’ as wicked as happened?’
‘How should I know? Jesus freaks are always missin’ a few floorboards upstairs.’
As soon as he’d said it, Josh knew he shouldn’t have. Archie made a blowing motion with his mouth and Pace’s voice dropped an octave and darkened to the same degree as his face.
‘Now I reckon you ought to keep that smartass truckin’ talk to yourself. Specially when you’re referrin’ to good folks who choose to follow the Lord’s path.’
Archie said a quiet ‘Amen’ and they both looked at Josh with matching contempt. Josh ran his hand over the stubble of his hair and looked from one man’s face to the other.
‘Sorry. No offence.’
Pace’s face told him that offence had indeed been taken. He stood, pulled Josh’s licence from his pocket, dropped it on the table and waved a hand at the paper in front of Archie.
‘Sign your original statement, take a copy. When you’ve paid your fine, Deputy’ll give you back the truck keys.’
Josh opened his mouth to speak and was silenced by a fat finger held up and pointed rather too directly at his face.
‘We’ll be in touch if we got anythin’ to tell you.’
Pace turned to leave the room, speaking as he went with his back to Josh.
‘Drive careful.’
The two men were left in the room, facing each other over the table. Archie Cameron turned the statement towards Josh. It had been neatly typed, presumably when they were out on their less than social visit. He read it through then held out his hand for Archie’s pen. It was given with bad grace, and retrieved with the same.
‘You wait here. I’ll have this photocopied and you get to keep one.’
The deputy left the room. Josh rocked back on the legs of his chair and exhaled deeply. His mind was racing with more than his embarrassing error. The sheriff had almost convinced him he’d seen McFarlane’s poster and subconsciously dropped her into his mad and confused recollection. Now he didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed that the theory wouldn’t wash. His mind was working like an abacus, clicking possibilities, fantasy and realities together like wooden balls on a wire. Except nothing was adding up.
The baby’s mother slid uncomfortably back into those thoughts. Why would she, the most important and relevant witness of all, say it was an accident? He let the chair bump forward again and ended up with his head in his hands, elbows on the table. Josh looked miserably through his wrists at the papers in front of him, a pile of official-looking forms, mostly handwritten. He glanced up at the door, then put a hesitant hand out and rotated the papers towards him. The top sheet was a scrawl of notes and observations on the position of the truck and the time of the incident, but the next two pages had a hastily-written list of witnesses’ names and addresses. He scanned it quickly, found Alice Nevin, and before understanding why he was doing it memorized the address and turned the papers back to face the empty chair in front of him.
The deputy’s return was abrupt, but he was formal to the point of a lawyer serving a summons in making sure Josh took his copy of the statement. ‘This here is yours. You take that now.’ He held out a brown business envelope with the neatly folded paper protruding slightly from the open end.
Josh took it from the deputy’s hand and was observed carefully as he pressed it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘And you get these back.’
From another larger brown envelope the man brought out a plastic bag of Josh’s personal belongings that had been removed from his pockets when they put him in the cell.
He watched Josh as he removed the items and started putting them back in his jacket. When it came to the wallet the deputy smiled unkindly.
‘Guess you’re gonna need that all right. I’ll get Deputy Busby to bring in the paperwork for your ticket.’
He walked to the door, opened it and called down the corridor. As Josh