Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Closed Out (A Shannon O'Day Short Story)

Closed Out
((Shannon O’Day, 1956-57) (Part Three of Four Parts))


When Gus O’Day and his wife had come back from Fayetteville, North Carolina, he heard about Shannon’s run in with the law, not to mention his reckless try at farming had ended, but “Thank God for that,” he told his friend Ronald Short, the county attorney.
Why in fact, Mr. Short was initially confused on the Kent Peterson murder he didn’t let out, but the sheriff, Dakota Country, Sheriff Terry Fauna, never pursued the murder, or his inquisitive nature, just let it go, again both Gus and Short were puzzled. It appeared it never needed the law to close out the case; it just did on its own, as if someone pulled the blinds down. Now instead of Shannon hanging out with Gus, because of his browbeating over wanting to know the details of the killing, what wasn’t brought out in court, wanting to know, what he didn’t know, or pretended he didn’t know, but he should have known, if indeed he did kill Kent, and he did of course kill Kent, but hanging out with Gus might bring things to light, and Shannon was alright with the results of the Court, so he started hanging out at Dickey’s Diner, he ate there before, he just didn’t hang out there, and now he was hanging out there, got to know Old Josh the cook quite well, and a few waitresses, and some young guy blind who played Ricky Nelson songs, and some little black lad who came in and tap-danced, called Zam Zam.
It was a Friday night, Shannon, he had left the Diner, leaned half the night against the lamppost looking at the empty lots about, you would a-thought he could a-held his staring indefinitely. Then he stumbled on back to his apartment on Wabasha Street, by the World Theater, where he could do no harm to his-self or anyone else—to include innocent bystanders or perhaps all three.

This is when he changed course in his life, which was simple unavoidable—to be—a hazard if he hadn’t. He drank in Gus’ neighbor’s cornfield now, Mr. Orville Stanley (who had retired from the railroad, and had this hobby farm with his wife) Alice Stanley, their daughter, Nadine, and her five year old daughter, Dina.
He knew them as well as anyone else knew them. So of 1956, he asks them without any troublesome interruption, if they wouldn’t mind him drinking among their corn stocks. And as time passed that summer, he’d drop a pint of moonshine whiskey into the old man’s mailbox and when they met and talked, he’d drop a pint into his hind pockets.
So now no one need bother to question Shannon over the murder and he didn’t get that browbeating from his brother, and the way he figured it: out of sight out of mind, or perhaps, what you don’t know, can’t hurt you, or possible, the concept of blood-kin being thinker than water, would not be tested under fire, as Mark Twain would have put it. And that was that, and that was all right with Shannon O’Day.
But it wasn’t the way Gus and that Country Attorney saw things, Mr. Ronald Short, but Gus was not to be as persistent as Mr. Short.
The next, Saturday, Mr. Short and the Sheriff Fauna, both friends, kind of friends, not bosom-buddies but lightly friends, had eaten at Dickey’s Diner, the sheriff believing, and telling Mr. Short in so many words: simple destiny was taking its expected course, and he shouldn’t get too reckless in taking advantage of destiny and poking his nose into the case anymore than he had already, that Judge Finley, had made his decision, and he’d not take a likening should he take this to another level, other than curiosity.
Mr. Short knew, Finley had a short temper, and didn’t care to be questioned on his judgments, and in particular this matter of Shannon O’Day; and Finley had told his dear friend, Sheriff Fauna, not to let Short, get one whiff or light flash of the real picture.
Ronald Short did start to meddle into what Judge Finley thought was his business. Short feeling he wasn’t doing Finely no harm in the process but he was telling the Sheriff about his new investigation into the murder, and forgot that the Sheriff was a dear friend of Finley’s, more so than his.
“No,” he said to Fauna, “what baffles me is Henry Sears, the witness, the very one who saw some stranger kill Kent Peterson then runs deep into woods. And then after the court hearing, he up and leaves the state. I think Shannon had some money hidden, and paid Sears to lie?”

Judge Finley said to Sheriff Fauna, that following Monday morning, in the Dakota County Court hallway, “What in creation kind of County Attorney do we have here, a detective? Ask him if he has a license to snoop beyond the courthouse!”
So for that moment his trust and assurance in Ronald Short shined unsteadily, you could say. For that trying moment he told the sheriff, “Mr. Short could be the victim of pure circumstance, compounded…jest like any one else; if that darn boy don’t believe the old picture show, that he might slip in some alley, or be subject to some outrageous misfortune and coincidence that befell Mr. Peterson, and then we all can rest in peace. Matter-of-fact, if he says anything more about being a detective, burn his britches, and if that don’t work, well, the alley will do.”
Short still never had one second’s doubt that it had been Shannon who paid someone to lie for him, with the clear and simple color of money. But Shannon never had a nickel to his name at this time.
So all Ronald Short needed to do was find out where the money came from, or where the witness was, or work with Gus on Shannon’s guilt, and consciousness, realization to the killing. Anyone, either one would work. And this is exactly what he was determined to do, to pursue, and if need be, persuade, and he was not discreet, having the sheriff provide spies for him, thinking the sheriff was one of his respectable spies himself, with pride in his profession to catch the real killer, instead of chasing shadows, since any little child who could read the court files would have said, ‘hogwash’ to them, and would have known something was fixed.

In plain sight of half the city of St. Paul, evidently going home from the late picture show, nobody could locate Judge Finley to tell him about it. Anyhow, Ronald Short, had found somebody, someone he felt he could squeeze information out of, who called him, and said they had information he was seeking, and Short met this man, in an alley by the Diner, but there was someone behind hidden doors.
He never had anymore sense then to believe the sheriff was on his side, and he could tangle with the old Judge, and walk away as if nothing happened. Not to mention to try and question the witness, and assure him of no ill feelings, and he’d keep it a secret of his identity, but secrets are not secrets when two people know them, they are agreements.
Inside the Baptist church that Sunday morning, Short’s wife had the funeral, and of course Judge Finley and Sheriff Fauna were present, but not Shannon O’Day, nor his brother. They both even brought roses for his wife to lie at the coffin.

That was a lot of money, $10,000-dollars back in 1956. It could have paid for two small houses on the North End of St. Paul, matter of fact it did buy one, for the judge. And as far as the judge and the sheriff were concerned, the investigation was closed out. Forevermore; off the register.

Written 5-27-2009 xx No: 407

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