Chapter 5: Red Hair-ings
The next day, at 10:30 A.M., Halve and Roy answered questions from the police. Halve had just narrowly avoided assassination. Thirty minutes earlier Halve and Roy were going off chit chat, warming up to questions. Roy then heard a muffled scream, a whispered “Shut your mouth!”, and someone ripping out the call box. Roy also heard the click of a Desert Eagle pistol outside. After telling Halve to hush, he hid on the side of the door without the hinges. When the assassin broke in, Roy acted quickly, knocking him out in 10 seconds flat. Roy stood up and told a shocked and panting Halve “I’ve knocked people out in five seconds before, I’m still drowsy apparently.”
Back to present times, it was discovered that he was from the Scarlet Hand Cartel, and was going to kill the person who did it. Because Bobby was under police guard in the hospital, he hoped to kill Halve because the assassin had apparently heard he was a suspect and the wanna-be killer wanted no loose ends.
Roy was waiting to get on with his questions to Halve, but the police wouldn’t stop asking question after question. Then, out of the corner of Roy’s eye, the keen investigator saw the letter he noted yesterday. Scooting over in front of the desk, and making sure that no one was looking, secretly and silently, slipped it into a hidden pocket on the back of his jacket cleverly disguised as a patch and closed it so as to not lose his clue. Roy said that he would ask his questions tomorrow to Halve, with an agreeing nod from the latter, and so Roy walked out. He didn’t know why, but he somehow ended up outside Mavis’ room. He could tell because he saw in the TV’s reflection the two of the same name, the person and the toy.
“You got a big break in the case didn’t you?” Mavis suddenly said out of the blue.
The detective tried to respond but got tongue tied from the sudden truth that Mavis had spoken.
“I’m right aren’t I?” Mavis giggled. “I’ve gone to elementary, Whitman.”
Roy couldn’t hold back laughter after that response. “Alright, so you guessed it right!” He sputtered. “I suppose you want to see it?”
Mavis nodded and so Roy took the unopened letter from the secret slot on the inside of the coat and handed it to Mavis. Mavis ripped the top off and began reading.
“Oh dear sweet John!...” Oh dear, I know where this is going. “How I long for you to be with me here in Miami, Florida! But how much longer must you pretend to be the leader of that dreadful liquid-deprived wasteland of a town so you can arrange the sale of that valuable train down here to sell?’ She listed her phone number here, apparently she lost her previous one in a sewer gutter or something.”
“I don’t think we’ll need that number, Mavis, for the woman just condemned her ‘dear sweet John’ to a few dozen years in a federal jail, but we need something else, something that proves that Halve was impersonating Bobby.” Roy replied.
Suddenly, Mavis said “Hey wait a minute! Halve looks almost just like Bobby, doesn’t he? All he’d need was a red wig to complete the look!”
Roy was dumbfounded. A red wig! Why didn’t he realize that detail earlier? Officer Bob mentioned that part; he’d seen both suspects and did agree that a red wig would make them look like twins, and the traces of a red wig near the painting in Halve’s office! It all made sense now as to how Halve pulled it off.
“But we need more evidence proving that Halve could drive the train, or else everything could be judged as planted evidence”. Mavis suddenly said in a frustrated manner.
“Officer Bob found that evidence first.” Roy answered with a grin as he took out the incriminating article.
Indeed it was all clear now. Back when Halve was still a middle school student, he’d been taught how to drive the locomotive, and remembered how seemingly. The shopkeeper said that Halve remembered anything if he tried hard enough to memorize it, so that confirmed that part. Now, fast forward to a few days ago: Apparently Halve, now the mayor, had been approached by some train collectors from China and was offered $1,000,000 finder’s fee if he brought them the CNW F3 #4056, and Halve couldn’t resist, so he agreed to meet up with them, 4056 in tow, and exchange property and money. Halve was blocked by some obstacles, however. First off, Willie was still the engineer for the F3, and he wouldn’t ever let Halve sell it. Then there was Bobby, Willie’s son, who would take over driving the F3 because he was more experienced in driving it, and he was believed to be the only one who could drive it after Willie. Halve knew he had to eliminate them, and he got lucky: no one remembered he had some experience behind 4056’s controls. He tricked Willie onto the tracks late one night, and by dressing up as Bobby, wig and all, he ran Willie over. Halve had planned to run Bobby over, but his resulting necessity to go into psychiatric care made his job easier. But when Bobby was getting better, Halve had to make sure he was out of the picture. Dressing up as Bobby once more, he drove the train around while at the same time Roy was looking for Mavis’ gift, and accidentally ran the drug runner over. That’s why he was late for his first meeting with Roy, he was covering his trail so he wouldn’t be caught. Halve was probably hiding his wig on his person, but there were strands of it near the painting.
“Well Mavis,” Roy spoke suddenly. “With this evidence, Halve doesn’t have a defense.”
Mavis just smiled and said “Go get some sleep Roy, you’ll need it for tomorrows hearing. You got a town to save.”