False Accusations by Jacobson, Alan (great novels of all time .txt) 📕

from the couch flew across the room and struck him square in the face. Before Chandler knew it, he was flat on his back. Noah was bouncing on his stomach, Denise was tickling him, and the dog was licking his face.

He finally rolled onto his side to catch his breath. “It’s good to be home.”

After dinner, Chandler checked in with Johnny Donnelly again to see if Ronald Norling had been located. Johnny confessed that he’d had no luck with the hospitals, unemployment office, or junior colleges.

“I checked the utility companies to see if he’d applied for electricity, water, or phone service. Again, nothing. I was beginning to think the PO Box was just a dead end, when sly old Ronald called me asking about his reward. I told him to hold his gombunies, that he’d get it as soon as we got to talk to him. The youngster’s a slimeball, Junior. Not sure how good a witness he’s gonna make.”

“All we need to do is have him tell the truth as to what he saw and heard. You get a number on him?”

“Is the pope Catholic? What kind of an investigator do you think I am?”

Chandler took the number, thanked him, and promised to get together with him soon.

“I assume we’ll invite your pop along too, right, Junior? Consider it my fee for finding this Ronald fella for you.”

Chandler was too tired to argue. “Sure, Johnny.” As he hung up the phone, he thought that perhaps it was time to make amends with his father. But that was an issue he would have to deal with some other time.

The five-dollar “witness fee” that Johnny thought would carry weight became a fifty-dollar advance, paid by Chandler. He had travel expenses to cover, he explained. Once Chandler peeled off the bills and placed them in his witness’s hand, Ronald Norling’s memory became instantly more acute. It was obviously not the first time he had played this game. Chandler wondered about Ronald’s background: where he came from, what trouble he’d been in, whether or not he had a record...things that would become credibility issues were he to testify. But that was all information he could glean from the computer at the precinct.

Right now, he had to find out exactly what Ronald saw that night in the supermarket, and how well he remembered it. He had brought a picture of Harding along, as well as a picture of Denise and Denise’s sister, Shari Moore. Before committing Hellman to a witness, he wanted to be absolutely sure that this cocky twenty-year-old could at least identify the suspect from a photo.

“As I explained to you on the phone, I need information regarding an incident that occurred while you were employed at Food & More.” Chandler pulled out his phone and poked and scrolled his way to the voice-recording app.

“Whoa,” Ronald said. “What are you doing?”

“Recording what we talk about. It’s for my boss, to prove that I was here and did what he’s paying me to do. This way, he can also listen to what you said so you don’t have to go through all of it again. You okay with this?”

“Yeah,” Ronald said with a shrug. “But if I don’t like what we say, I want you to delete it.”

Chandler nodded. “I can live with that.” He tapped the screen and started recording. “This is Ryan Chandler and I’m in Rhode Island at the rest stop along Interstate Ninety-five, near Hope Valley. I’m interviewing Ronald Norling, a former clerk for Food & More in Sacramento, California. This is being recorded on Saturday, January 9, at nine-fifteen in the morning.” He looked up at Ronald. “Ronald, you understand that we’re recording this, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And so far all we’ve discussed is the need to record this, and the fact that we’re going to talk about an incident you may have witnessed while employed at Food & More, is that correct?”

“Right again.”

“Do you remember a shouting match that occurred in the market between a man and a woman in late November?”

“The market’s in a real nice neighborhood, so we didn’t get much problems. But late November...yeah, I remember some crazy lady. She was screaming at this guy. She was real nasty, like out of her mind. Just screaming at him. I felt bad for him.”

“I have pictures of three women here,” he said, handing him the photos. “Do you see the woman from the store in any of them?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Ronald said, popping gum between his teeth. “A real piece. I won’t forget that face. Or that body,” he said with a smile that rose slightly from the corners of his mouth.

“Ronald, can you turn that picture over, the one of the lady you said was in the store? And read me the name that’s written on the back.”

“Brittany Harding.”

“Now turn the other pictures over and read me the names.”

“Denise Chandler...and Shari Moore.”

“Do you remember what the lady in the picture—Miss Harding—said when she was screaming in the market?”

“Yeah, something about getting even. Like ‘You’ll pay for this. I’ll make you pay for this.’ She said he raped her or something. But you look at this guy, and you think he’s not the kind of guy who goes out and rapes someone.”

“You remember anything about what she bought that night?” The second most important question...and Chandler needed a home run on this one.

Ronald stood there and thought for a moment. “Not really. Just some food. There weren’t too many things. It was a cash-only fifteen-item limit line. Oh, she had beer. A six-pack. That black and gold label, what the hell’s the name of it?” he asked, gazing off at the freeway. “Not Miller, but—Millstone. That’s it. I thought like, what’s a lady like this drinking a dark beer like that? I even asked her about it. You know, just to calm her down, take the edge off. She was pretty wound up.” He laughed. “She nearly took my head off. Told me to mind my own