Sassafras, Part 78

June

I started cleaning the kitchen, while Billy went back in the living room and got on the computer again. A couple of minutes later he called my name.

“What is it?” I asked while I filled the sink with soapy water.

“Come here, Aunt Jo! I’ve got to show you something.”

“Okay, just a second.” I wiped my hands on a towel while I walked over to him. “What’s up?”

“Look what I found, Aunt Jo. I was going to put a post on the Asylum about Mom, but I found something she wrote the day she died but never posted. She must have written it right before she left that night. Read it, Aunt Jo, read it!”






November 3

I can't post this yet, but I am so excited I have to write about it. I think I finally nailed the cops here. They are all a bunch of crooks. I hear people talking about them all the time at the diner. I even hear the cops talking. They don't pay any attention to who might be listening, the bunch of retards. Anyhoo, I saw something on the TV last night about a dead body they found a couple of nights ago. They found out he was a big drug dealer in Chicago that had been missing for about two months. When they showed a picture of the guy I about fell off my chair. I recognized him from somewhere. I had to go through all my pictures, but I found one of him standing in front of Kroger's talking to Detective Sneider, the police chief of Sassafras. I don't know for sure when I took the picture, but there are signs in the window about homecoming, so it had to be less than two months ago. I called the sheriff's department and talked to Officer Stapleton. He wants to meet me tonight. He said not to tell anybody I was going to meet him, and to bring all my evidence with me.

This is just too cool. Nothing exciting ever happens here. I think the last exciting thing that happened in Sassafras was when a cheerleader was doing a flip and her top got snagged on somebody's class ring and came off mid flip. And that is only exciting if you like seeing topless cheerleaders, which I don't particularly look forward to.

I wish I could go ahead and post this now, but I don’t know who reads this. Maybe I’m getting paranoid, but if the chief of police finds out I have evidence he killed a drug dealer he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me too.









“I don’t understand. If this was on her blog, why didn’t we see it before?”

“She didn’t post it. Put it on-line.” He clicked to a different page. “See here, where it says ‘Draft’? She started writing this but didn’t post it. I guess she was going to finish writing it when she got home. I wouldn’t have seen it, but I wanted to let everybody who reads Mom’s blog know what happened, why she won’t write anymore.” He clicked back to the entry Jenny wrote. “I remember that,” he said. “What she wrote about the cheerleader. I was there. It was hilarious.”

“I’m sure it was. I wish she had posted this. If I read this the first night I got here I never would have called Sneider. I can’t believe all this time he was the one who killed Jenny. I can’t wait to tell Rick.”

“Rick? How do you know he wasn’t in on it? He was in prison. And Scott and Steve say he’s always at the police station. Don’t trust him, Aunt Jo. Call that sheriff guy she was going to meet. Stapleton. Call him.”

“Oh, you’re crazy. I think I know Rick a little better than you do. I trust him. Just because he was in prison doesn’t mean anything. He didn’t kill anybody. I don’t think he could.”

“Yeah, you trusted Sneider, too.”

“Well, I’m calling Rick. No matter what you think, he’s not a killer.” I called his cell phone, but just got his voicemail. We had real evidence now, something we could take to the police and clear all this up. I picked up the phone book and looked up the number for the sheriff’s station, but Stapleton wasn’t in so I had to leave a message for him.

I was almost finished with the dishes when the phone rang.

“Hello, this is Officer Stapleton. May I speak with Joan Weaver?”

“This is Joan. I’m glad you called back.”

”You left a message saying you had information about a drug dealer that killed your sister.”

“No, my sister had evidence connecting the chief of police with the death of that drug dealer they found in Memphis a week or two ago. She was supposed to meet you the night she died. I guess he killed her before she could meet you.”

”What day did she die?”

“A week ago. Monday night.”

I could hear him flipping papers around. “Monday, Monday. Yes, I had an appointment to meet a woman late Monday night, but she never showed up. She didn’t leave a name or number so I couldn’t follow up on it.”

“Well, I have the evidence she wanted to show you. My nephew found it on her computer this morning. Would you like me to bring it up to the sheriff’s station?”

“No, if the local police are involved I’d rather not meet you here, just in case somebody here is involved. I’d rather meet you in Sassafras somewhere. Do you know where the car wash is by the bank?”

“Yes. When would you like to meet?”

“How about noon?”

“Okay, noon is fine.”

“I’ll meet you then. Don’t tell anybody you’re going to meet with me. Bring all the evidence you found, and bring your nephew, too. I need to ask him some questions. I’ll see you then.”

Finally, I thought. This is all going to be over soon. I didn’t know that was really just the beginning.