Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery R.M. Wild (inspirational books .txt) 📖

I turned red. “No. I don’t believe it. You’re kidding me.”

“I am not. Destruction of state property.”

The guilt congealed in my throat and made me nauseous. I knew Matt had been taking too many risks. I should have spoken my mind. Instead, I was complicit.

“Why would Mettle do such a thing?”

“I have no idea. You know him better than I do. As much as I disliked him, Matt never struck me as one of the dirtier pigs in the pen. I guess I was wrong.”

I stared at the blackness of the fireplace. “Me neither,” I said quietly.

“You mentioned being with him earlier today, right? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about any of this, would you?”

“Are you asking as a lawyer? Or as a friend?”

“I wouldn’t call that meathead a friend.”

“I meant to me.”

“As a friend, Rosie. Of course.”

“Will you help him out? For me?”

Kendall sighed. “I’ll do my best, but the facts are the facts. He stole state property and he destroyed it. They’ve got a police witness.”

“How bad are the charges?”

“Stealing the cruiser is a class B Felony.”

“What does that mean?”

“He could get up to ten years and a fine of $20,000.”

I bobbled the phone. “What?”

“Destroying the ignition falls under the category of tampering with the property of law enforcement. That’s a class D crime, criminal mischief. So on top of the ten years, he could get another fine.”

My heart tried to escape my chest, but got trapped between my ribs and sent dull reverberations through my sternum. If I admitted my role in damaging the cruiser, I might be able to reduce his sentence, maybe take the heat entirely. But what would happen to me? If I went to prison, I’d never find Chrissy, nor my father.

“What would it take to reduce his sentence?”

“If he pleads guilty and accepts some jail time for his actions, I can probably knock it down to less than a year.”

“But if he pleads guilty, he’ll never work as a cop again.”

“That is correct,” Kendall said.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. My ragged breath caught in my throat and I coughed on the sudden staleness in the air.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” I mumbled. At any point in the carjacking I could have put down the phone and refused to go further. You’re not innocent if you sell the murderer a broken gun, are you? But still, I couldn’t admit culpability, not without speaking to Matt first. For all I knew, he’d take the noble road and despise me for throwing myself under the bus—even if I did bear some responsibility in the crime.

I swallowed hard, the self-loathing thick as phlegm in my throat. “Where is Matt now?”

“He’s being held at the prison until his preliminary hearing.”

“He’s not in jail?”

“No, straight to Thomaston. There was some kind of problem with the facility near the courthouse.”

I winced. There was nothing more dangerous for a cop than living among the scum he had scraped off the pond and dumped on the banks of justice. Mettle was a big guy and fully capable of defending himself, but his skin wasn’t made of steal. In prison, there would be plenty of shanks looking for a good, warm home inside a cop. Phyllis Martin was one of the toughest women I knew, and yet her cellmate had turned her into a goat.

And then I had another thought, this one infinitely worse.

“Caesar,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Caesar works at the prison.”

“I can’t hear you. The connection’s bad.”

“I need to go see Matt, ASAP. Are visitations allowed?”

“Not until he’s officially sentenced, but I can probably get you in early if you come as my legal aid,” Kendall said.

“How about now? Can we go now? Like right now?”

“I guess. I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Thank you, Kyle,” I said. “You’re a good friend.”

Every time Kendall pulled away from an intersection, the force of the acceleration sucked me into the hugging grasp of my leather seat. His Mercedes was much faster than the souped-up cruiser, giving the rich an unfair advantage in outrunning the law, and the comfort of the seat on my shoulders made me feel a little more secure, as if Kendall had the situation under control.

“We’ll get this straightened out, right?” I stammered. “Mettle’s not actually going to prison, is he? Driving that car was a pretty silly thing, am I right? I mean, he needed a car. This is America. There’s no public transportation. He can’t afford an Uber every day.”

“Calm down, Rosie. We will try to argue to get his sentence reduced. All is not lost. Have faith in me and the system.”

“What if Mettle wasn’t the one who damaged the property? Would that change anything?”

Kendall took his eyes off the road long enough to look at me. “You mean like a vagrant or something?”

“Right. A vagrant. What if we could argue someone broke into his car?”

“I suppose. If we could produce a witness. Why? Did you see something?”

“Maybe?”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

“You’re telling me a woman knew how to drill that ignition?”

I crossed my arms. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

“It’s not whether or not I believe it. It’s whether or not the jury believes it. Have you seen your fellow townsfolk? Dark Haven is stuck in the 1950s. Plus, it’s going to be hard enough finding someone who Mettle didn’t bully in high school or offend on the side of the road, so we’re going to have to go outside the county to find an impartial jury.”

“Great,” I mumbled. That meant total backwoods Mainers, the kind of folks who, in the winter, left their trucks running in their garages all night instead of buying space heaters.

Night had fallen by the time we pulled into the prison. God was sitting on his stool, reading something on his phone.

Kendall pressed a button and the driver’s window went all the way down by itself.

“I’m here to see Matt Mettle,” Kendall said.

“You’re way past visiting hours.”

“I’m his lawyer. He’s entitled to it.”

God raised an eyebrow. He put