Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 by Susan Wittig Albert Page B

his
Stetson over his eyes. "Could've been an accident. Say the old lady hops
in her Ford and goes out for an illicit Sunday-afternoon spin. Say that Swenson
is standing beside the road when she comes around the curve and she knocks him
a good wallop. What happens next?"
    I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to think
about it. After a moment I opened my eyes and said, unhappily: "I suppose
she goes home and tells Terry and Donna what she's done." I frowned.
"No, I don't think so. I think maybe she tells them that their problems
are over, that the Klingons have beamed Carlos Swenson up into their spaceship.
That she saw him being snatched, just the way she predicted." I
remembered something else Aunt Velda had said. "Or that the Klingons
borrowed the truck and ran him down."
    "Whatever.
Doesn't matter."
    "Of course it matters," I said sharply.
"It goes to competence. If Aunt Velda struck him with the truck but believes
that he was abducted by aliens, she's incompetent. She can't be charged with
his death."
    The brim of Blackie's hat was riding on the tip of
his nose. "You lawyers make it so damn difficult to get a conviction,"
he growled.
    "That's the way
it's supposed to work. It's not called an adversarial system for nothing."
    "Don't include
me in that adversarial shit. All I have to do is get the evidence. The rest of
it's up to the district attorney and the grand jury." He pushed up his hat
with his thumb and turned to look at me. "But I'm afraid there's more here
than just a hit-and-run, China. Say the old girl comes home with her
story—accident, little green men, whatever. The nieces check out the truck,
discover the broken headlight, and come looking. They find Swenson dead.
Obviously, there aren't any witnesses, or it would have been reported. In fact,
they're positive that nobody else has even seen the body. So they go back home
and hide the truck somewhere on their property and try to get the old lady to
keep her mouth shut."
    I couldn't fault
Blackie's logic. I'd been harboring something of the same idea since Donna's
clumsy performance in the kitchen. I just hadn't wanted to put words to it.
    "So you think
Donna and Terry are shielding their aunt," I said reluctantly. If this was
true, they were both in serious trouble—more trouble, probably, than their
aunt, who was clearly certifiable. Once the judge read the psychiatric evaluation,
Aunt Velda would never see the inside of a jail, although she might think that
being confined to a nursing home wasn't a very attractive alternative. But if
Donna and Terry had done what Blackie was suggesting, they could be charged
with hindering apprehension—usually known as obstructing justice. It's a Class
A misdemeanor, with a fine of up to four thousand dollars, a year's jail time,
or both. A high price to pay for protecting their aunt.
    "I don't know
about Terry, but Donna is sure as hell covering up for somebody," Blackie
said. He shook his head. "She was nervous as a mail-order bride. She
didn't want us in the house where her aunt might pop in on us, and when the old
lady showed up, she did everything but stuff a dishrag in her mouth to keep her
quiet. Even dropped the coffeepot to distract us."
    "I can't argue with you," I
conceded. "So what are you going to do?"
    Blackie sat up and stared out the windshield.
"Need to find that truck," he muttered. "Can't prove anything
without it."
    "I suppose you
could get a warrant and search the place," I said.
    "How
many acres did you say they've got?"
    'Two hundred, I
replied. "And most of it's pretty rough. Might be hard to locate that
truck, unless you use a helicopter."
    "A
helicopter?" Blackie snorted derisively. "Hell, I'm lucky if I can
buy gas for the squad cars. This isn't Bexar County, you know. If you don't
count the jailer, I've only got two deputies and a half-dozen patrol officers. Helicopter." He snorted again. "Even if I had one, I
wouldn't have anybody to fly it. And if I had somebody to fly it, I wouldn't
have