Sam Keilhorn knew his daughter better than she thought he did. He was one of those in the Spearfish Lake Café when the arrests came down, and as soon as he was in his truck on his way to work, he called her up.

Ashley had worked late the night before, like most nights, and wasn’t even out of bed yet when the phone rang – which meant that she was wearing her normal bedtime attire, a T-shirt and panties. “Hi,” she said into the phone, still half asleep.

“Good morning, Ashley,” her father said. “Time to rise and greet the day.”

“Daddy!” she replied in a huff. “I was sound asleep.”

“Then wake up,” he smiled, imagining her in one of her slutty outfits that she didn’t know he knew she wore when the house was empty. “You might like to pass the word on to your friends that the city police and the sheriff’s department just arrested Frenchy LeDroit, Matt Effingham, and Larry Coopshaw.”

“Daddy!” she said, coming instantly awake. “Are you sure?”

“About as sure as I can be,” he replied. “I saw all three of them being loaded into the backs of patrol cars in handcuffs. They looked like they’d been drug through a knothole backwards, too.”

“Do you know why they were arrested?” she asked.

“No idea, all I heard was that the police had a warrant. I have no idea what it’s for, but it had to be pretty good.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” she smiled. “I owe you one. I gotta make some calls! ”

You owe me more than one, he thought. Too damn bad I’ll never collect.

“All right,” Chief Charlie Wexler smiled, now that his plans were back almost on schedule thanks to the perps walking into their arms out at the Spearfish Lake Café. They were at the county jail, where the three were being checked in and fingerprinted by the deputies. “We’re back on track. Leo, Fred, I want you to go get the girls, Brianna Melbourne and Vanessa Robideaux. They are not going to be under arrest just yet, and we don’t have warrants on them. Take them to the station, and I’ll talk to them there.”

“What if their parents protest?” Leo asked.

“Bring them in,” Charlie told them. “You can read them their rights and ask if they’d like an attorney. They’re both minors, so their parents can accompany them. Be nice and businesslike, guys. Those girls probably will be the key to settling this quickly.”

“OK, boss, we’re out of here,” Sergeant Piwowar smiled. “This shouldn’t take long.”

“It’ll take longer than you think,” Fred laughed. “Those are teenage girls and it’s still pretty early in the morning.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Leo shook his head. “You going to need me after that? If you do I probably ought to let my wife know I’m gonna be running late.”

“Most likely not,” Charlie said, “but call her in case I’m wrong. Now, get moving. The timing is a little screwed up but we’re still in business.”

“Right, Chief, we’re out of here,” Leo said as he and Fred headed for the door.

“You’re still going to play it like you planned, Charlie?” Sheriff Stoneslinger asked.

“Might as well, it still ought to work,” Charlie said. “The key to this isn’t so much to have the perps in place, but to have the court, the prosecutor, and the lawyers in place so we can run this quick.”

“I think you’re being a little too cute,” Stoneslinger smiled, “but that doesn’t mean it can’t work, it’s just that the interrogations have to go about like you expect.”

“They should,” Charlie shrugged. “We can lose a piece or two and still get the puzzle together enough to recognize it. You guys aren’t so full that you can’t keep LeDroit and his buddies separate, are you?”

“No problem,” Stoneslinger smiled. “They won’t get a chance to coordinate their stories. It’s going to be a while before you get the girls into your office, that’s for sure. You still want to start with them, or do you want to get busy with the guys?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie shrugged. “My plan was to hit the guys with the girl’s statements to keep them from bullshitting us, but I want to get to them while they’re still whacked out, too.” He thought about it for a moment. “Oh, hell,” he said finally. “Let’s get started with LeDroit. If nothing else, that’ll kill some time.”

This is showing signs of being simpler than it might have been, Fred Piwowar thought as he drove the patrol car across town to the Melbourne residence. Now, if the kid’s parents don’t pitch too much of a bitch, I still might be able to get something useful done today.

On the way to the Melbourne’s, he happened to pass within a block or two of the Erikson’s house. Remembering his stop there the night before, he thought it might be nice to stop off and let them know the news. It might make things a little easier for them today.

He drove in the driveway and parked next to the Jeep, which was dirt covered and filthy from its rambles on the dirt roads the night before. Hell, they probably haven’t heard about Frenchy’s car, he thought as he climbed the steps to ring the bell. Have to tell them about that, too.

Barb Erikson came to the door, looking like she was getting ready for work. “Hi,” he said. “Is Jack here?”

“He’s still asleep,” Barb told him. “He had quite a night last night, but I’m sure you know all about it.”

“Yeah, after a night like that sleeping isn’t always the easiest thing,” he said. “He might like to hear this direct from me, so you might want to get him up.”

“Hear what?” Barb asked.

“We arrested Frenchy LeDroit, Matt Effingham, and Larry Coopshaw about an hour ago,” Fred told her. “They’ve been lodged at the jail.”

“How long are they going to be there?” she asked.

“I can’t say because I don’t know,” he told her. “I won’t know until later today at the earliest, and LeDroit may be in for a while because of the PPO violation. I’ll ask the chief to make sure to keep you in the loop with what happens.”

“Yes, I think Jack would like to hear that,” she smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

Jack came down the stairs a couple minutes later, wearing only a pair of shorts, wiping the sleep from his eyes, but Piwowar’s news woke him up in a hurry. “That’s good news,” Jack said. “Now they can just keep them there for all I care.”

“We can always hope, but don’t hope too much,” Fred warned. “But you won’t have to worry about Frenchy chasing you in his Eagle Talon again.”

“Did you guys confiscate it or something?” Jack yawned.

“No,” Fred smiled. “They rolled it, trying to get it off that hill you led them up. It’s lying upside down at the bottom of the hill, all wrecked and beat to hell. Kind of interesting, you might want to go out there and take a look.”

“Well, son of a gun,” Jack smiled. “I’ll bet Frenchy isn’t too happy about that.”

“I’ll bet he’s not too happy about a lot of things right now,” Sergeant Piwowar smiled. “Hey, I’ve got to get on the move, I’ve got something I should be doing. Could you pass the news on to your friends?”

The Spearfish County Jail was fairly new, built in the 1980s, and it had been kept up well. Among its features were a couple of interview rooms. Charlie was sitting in a comfortable chair behind a table in the room, and the Sheriff was sitting at the end of the table. There was a video camera set up at a third side of the table, already running when a couple of deputies brought LeDroit into the room in handcuffs. They sat him in the interview chair, undid the handcuffs and shackled his wrists to the arms of the chair. “What the fuck is all this?” LeDroit demanded. “I didn’t fuckin’ do nothin’.”

Charlie ignored him, and turned to the video camera. “Interview with Frank LeDroit,” he said, giving the time and date. “Conducted by Spearfish Lake Chief Charles Wexler, with Spearfish County Sheriff Stephen Stoneslinger observing,” he said for the record.

He turned to LeDroit, who again said belligerently, “Come on, I didn’t do nothing.”

Again Charlie ignored him, and again gave him the words of the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

“I don’t need no fuckin’ attorney,” LeDroit sneered. “I told you I didn’t do nothin’.”

You ignorant fool, Charlie thought. I’m half tempted to call in an attorney anyway, especially since we have one waiting, but you want it coming and going, don’t you? “As I told you out on the street,” Charlie told him. “We have a warrant for your arrest.”

“It’s that fuckin’ Jahnke wuss, isn’t it?” LeDroit swore. “I told you I didn’t do nothin’, not that I shouldn’t have kicked his ass.”

“We may get to him,” Charlie sighed, knowing that he could have taken LeDroit down right from where they stood, but unable to resist the fun of hammering him. “However, we have more important things to talk about, like the murder of John Ordway.”

“Murder?” Frenchy frowned, suddenly realizing that the water was a little deeper than he’d been expecting.

“Yeah, murder,” Charlie said with a very serious expression on his face. “We haven’t had a murder one charge in this town for a while, it ought to be real interesting. You knew Ordway, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, fuck, I had him in one of my classes,” LeDroit said

“He almost flunked you, didn’t he?” Charlie said, reaching, although it wasn’t much of a reach. In his experience, grades were about the last thing people like LeDroit worried about.

“Yeah, shit,” LeDroit frowned. “The fucker almost cost me my football eligibility. Would have if Pansy Payne hadn’t gotten to him and made him pass me.”

“You’re referring to Bryson Payne, the Principal at Spearfish Lake High School?” Charlie replied formally.

“Yeah, the fucker is as queer as a three dollar bill for jocks,” LeDroit said. “Damn good thing, too. It wasn’t the only time he saved my ass.”

This was an area that Charlie would have liked to explore, but he was already far off where he wanted this interview, no matter how interesting the diversion was. He filed a mental note and went on. “But you still didn’t like Mr. Ordway, did you, Frenchy?” Charlie said, using LeDroit’s nickname for the first time.

“Hell, no, I hated the little fuck,” Frenchy said, still unable to see where this was going.

“That’s what I thought,” Charlie smiled. “Well, Frenchy, I have to congratulate you. You’re not going to have to look for work or anything else for a while. The state Department of Corrections will be happy to give you three hots and a cot for the next few decades. You might want to watch your ass, there’s a bunch of big black dudes in there who’ll want to get into it, but relax and enjoy it. You might learn to like it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” LeDroit demanded.

“You know,” Charlie grinned like he had a fish on the line. “The coroner’s report on Ordway is interesting. It looks like someone bopped him on the head and then slit his wrists to make it look like suicide, then left him in his car way the hell out on the Point. It had to be someone who didn’t like him very much. Whoever did it was the kind of person who likes to make sure he gets even with people he doesn’t like. He may think he got away with it, but let me tell you Frenchy,” he grinned evilly, “we’ve got a shitload of evidence.”

“I didn’t kill him!” Frenchy replied in agitation. He’d seen the fish hook now! “I don’t know nothin’ about it. I didn’t even hear about it till a couple of days later.”

“What couple of days later?” Charlie said, watching LeDroit twist against the chains that held his wrists. “He was dead out there for a week or so before they found him. If you know about it only a couple of days after it happened, then something interesting stands to reason.”

“I didn’t kill him!” Frenchy protested. “Shit, like I said, I only heard about it a couple of days ago.”

“You said a couple of days after it happened,” Charlie smiled. He had LeDroit dancing nicely now. “I find that interesting. When did it happen, Frenchy? ”

“I didn’t kill him!” Frenchy almost screamed. “I swear, I didn’t kill him! Yeah, I admit I pounded the fuck out of a few people that deserved it, but I didn’t kill Mr. Ordway!”

“Mr. Ordway didn’t deserve it, Frenchy. Or do you think he did?”

“I didn’t fuckin’ kill him!” Frenchy protested frantically. “Yeah, it would have been nice to pound the fuck out of him, but I never got the chance.”

“You only pound the fuck out of people who can’t defend themselves because your buddies are holding on to them, right? People like Alan Jahnke?”

“Yeah, I pounded the fuck out of him,” Frenchy admitted. “The little fucker deserved it; he laughed at me when I fell down. But so what, it don’t mean nothin’.”

“Mr. Ordway didn’t mean nothin’ either, did he?” Charlie smiled. He already had the confession he needed, but it would be nice to have details. LeDroit was already doing a good job of hanging himself, so he thought he might as well press on. “Was that as much fun as pounding someone smaller than you while your buddies held onto him? Wasn’t it fun to pound on someone who really dissed you?”

“I didn’t fuckin’ kill Jahnke!” Frenchy snorted. “Yeah, Matt and Larry held on to him while I slapped him around a bit, but we just dumped him out on the rail grade. That’s not like I killed him.”

“Not like Ordway,” Charlie observed.

“I keep tellin’ you, I didn’t fuckin’ kill Ordway!” Frenchy replied frantically. What the fuck had happened? All the shit the last few days, and now he was on the way to getting framed for the murder of that prissy little fucker!

“But you admit that you and Larry Coopshaw and Matt Effingham caught Alan Jahnke out on the sidewalk last Friday night. The two of them held onto him while you punched, kicked, and slapped him around, and then you threw him in the trunk of your car and dropped him miles out on the old rail grade south of the lake, right?”

“Right, we did all that,” Frenchy said. “But I didn’t kill Mr. Ordway.”

“And you tried to punch out Jack Erikson and Vixen Hvalchek down at the Fiesta the night before last, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but they used that pepper spray shit on us,” Frenchy told him. “Shit, that wasn’t hardly fair! Shouldn’t they be the ones in trouble for using that shit on us?”

Charlie ignored him; he was on a roll, now. “You tried again last night, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I almost had ’em, too. They fuckin’ deserved it for spraying us with that shit. A few feet closer and I’d have had that fuckin’ Erikson while he was in that Jeep.”

Charlie already had all he needed, but decided to twist the knife a little. “How close did you get to the Jeep. Ten feet, maybe?”

“Yeah, about that when we tried to get to them,” Frenchy said. “That was after he rammed the back of my car.”

“Did you happen to notice who was in the Jeep?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, that Erikson fucker, that Hvalchek bitch of his, that Trevetheck bitch, and that little Jahnke wuss. But that didn’t mean nothin’, they had it coming! I tell you, I didn’t kill Ordway!”

“All right,” Charlie nodded. “That’s enough for now. We’ll talk about Ordway again later.” He glanced up at the video camera. “That concludes this interview with Frank LeDroit,” he said, and signaled the deputy standing at the door.

“Good enough,” the deputy told him. “You want one of the others? ”

“Yeah, since I’m here, we might as well get this over with,” Charlie grinned. “Get him back on ice.”

The deputy came over, unfastened the shackles holding LeDroit to the chair, handcuffed his hands behind him again and led him off toward the depths of the jail. As soon as the door closed, Sheriff Stoneslinger got a huge grin on his face. “Charlie, that was a masterful job,” he said broadly. “My hat’s off to you. I noticed you never actually accused him of the Ordway murder, you just let him jump to conclusions.”

“It wasn’t much,” Charlie said modestly. “It just had to be thought of.”

“I wondered why you wanted me to keep quiet on Ordway. That really was a suicide, you know? We’ve got a note and everything.”

“I know,” Charlie smiled. “Worked like a charm though, didn’t it?”

“Sure did,” Stoneslinger replied. “You going to use it on the other two?”

“I don’t think I need to,” he replied. “We’ve got LeDroit’s statement now, which we didn’t have before. Those two don’t take a shit without him telling them where and how much, and that statement should be enough to do the job. If not, I may have to do it again.”

The phone was busy at the Erikson’s for a while after Sergeant Piwowar left. Jack called Vixen first, of course, and then Alan. By the time he punched Summer’s number, her line was busy, so he guessed that Vixen must be calling her. He tried again in a couple minutes, but it was still busy. “Come on, Summer!” he said, fuming a little. “Get off the phone.”

He stood there, still just in his shorts, fuming at the phone, when it rang. He picked it up, to discover that it was Tom Jahnke, Alan’s dad. “This is great news,” Tom said. “I think you kids need to celebrate. What do you say if I buy all of you breakfast at the Spearfish Lake Café?”

“Works for me,” Jack told him. “I take it you or Alan talked to Summer. Why don’t you figure on getting her? I’ll pick up Vixen and meet you out there.”

It took a little while for Jack to call Vixen back, then get dressed and head out to pick her up, but as luck had it they pulled into the Spearfish Lake Café about the same time as the Jahnkes and Summer.

They got a table in the back, and talked about nothing in particular until the waitress came to get their orders.

“I don’t know if this fixes the problem,” Mr. Jahnke said, “but it’s got to cool things down just a little. Jack, do you have any idea how long those three are going to be in jail?”

“Not really,” Jack said. “All I know is what I told Alan earlier. It sounds like Frenchy may be out of action for a while, but I just don’t know about the other two. I don’t think they’d try anything anyway with him out of the way. They kind of take their lead from him.”

“We can hope, anyway,” Alan said. “We’re just not going to know until we know. Did he give you any idea if the personal protection order was a part of the deal against him?”

“He didn’t say so in so many words,” Jack reported. “But I got the impression that’s what’s going to keep Frenchy off the streets for a while.”

“So we just don’t know,” Tom nodded, “and I guess we can’t know until something official happens.”

“Sergeant Piwowar told me that he’d have the chief get back to us later today,” Jack said. “So maybe we’d better hang around and wait to see what happens, rather than just going back to normal.”

“We could hang around my place,” Alan offered.

“Yeah, but the police would be more likely to call us at mine,” Jack said. “I guess we could hang out there, listen to Howie and Misty play Nintendo, and look at birds at the feeders again.”

“We really need to wash the Jeep,” Vixen said. “It looked so bad that I almost didn’t want to get into it this morning. Jack, you ran us through more crap out there than I can believe.”

“Yeah, it deserves a good washing,” he replied. “It did a good job for us last night.”

“Before you wash it,” Tom suggested, “the four of you might want to run out to that hill to see the mess I hear Frenchy made of his car.”

“I don’t understand that,” Summer said. “It was stuck on the hill when we left. How did it wind up rolling down?”

“He probably tried to turn around, and the hill is a little steep for that,” Jack said. “That was a heck of a risk I took. All I know is that it worked.”

“I don’t know,” Alan shrugged. “A wrecked car is a wrecked car, and when you get down to it I’m not all that interested in it. I mean, I know it’s Frenchy’s, and good riddance. I think hanging around your place is a good idea, and I agree that the Jeep deserves a good wash and wax. It really did the job for us last night.”

“I’ve got to get to work as soon as we get done here,” Tom said. “Jack, can you run everybody home so they can pick up what they need to spend the day at your place?”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem at all.”

“I think we need swimsuits,” Vixen mused. “With the four of us working on the Jeep, it’s bound to turn into a water fight.”

“You’re probably right,” Summer laughed. “It won’t be as good as swimming in that little pond, but it will be something. Maybe Vixen and I can throw together a decent lunch, not just sandwiches and something.”

“You know,” Jack smiled, “today has the potential of being a pretty good day, too.”

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