We Took The Clock To A Deputy Before Thursday Could Come

The duty investigator took us through a side door at the sheriff's office.

His name was Leon Price. He wore a plain shirt and kept his questions short.

“Do you think someone plans to burn Mercer Packing?”

“I think you should check before midnight Thursday,” Otis said. “I'm too old to make a better speech.”

It was Tuesday afternoon.

Price copied the schedule first. Then he called a state fire investigator from a number in his desk book. He did not call Maddox.

That small choice let me take a full breath.

“We're going to record separate statements,” he said. “Mr. Hensley, tell me where you got the clock.”

I told him about the pay vault and the county worker. I told him about removing the last strip. I told him I had carried the clock home in my truck, under a quilt.

“Did you change the time?”

“No.”

“Did anyone else handle it?”

“Not in my house.”

He photographed everything before he took it. His receipt listed the clock, the tin, fifty-three used strips, the final loose strip, and the original contents release.

He gave me copies.

I counted the pages while he watched.

“Good habit,” he said.

“People leave washers out of hinges. Pages don't seem much different.”

Otis's interview lasted longer than mine. When he came out, he looked tired and annoyed.

“They offered me water in a cup the size of a thimble.”

Price arranged for a deputy to check Mercer Packing that night. The state investigator, Mara Cole, would meet county officials the next morning. She asked that any planned access to the building be cleared through her.

That was all Price could tell us.

I wanted him to say Maddox would never touch my shed again. Instead, he said the shed order needed its own challenge.

“These things can move on separate tracks,” he said.

I had spent my life keeping heavy wood from moving on any track at all. I went home feeling poor at this work.

There were three messages waiting.

One customer wanted his deposit. One asked whether the rumor was true. The third was Maddox.

“Young fellow, folks are saying you're confused about some old papers. Call me before you embarrass yourself.”

I saved the message.

The next morning I called Lydia Penn, a lawyer whose office was above a tax preparer's shop. She had once paid me to rebuild her back steps.

“I have $2,100 I can spare,” I told her.

“Bring the orders and the receipts. Let me see what the problem is before you sell anything.”

She read the shed order without speaking. Then she opened the report on her screen.

“This says your shed was inspected at seven ten Monday morning.”

“I was there from six.”

“Was Maddox?”

“He arrived at nine with an audience.”

“And he entered?”

“No. Looked through the open door.”

She put a yellow mark beside the time.

“I'll ask for an urgent hearing on the closure and the bid exclusion. We'll also demand the basis for both.”

“Can you make him take it back?”

“I can make him answer questions where someone writes down the answers.”

That sounded worth $2,100.

By Thursday morning, a county clerk named June Bell had answered my records request. She said some records would take time, but she could send the signed bid sheets and purchase orders at once.

North Ditch Clearance had received an emergency notice to proceed for $138,000.

The notice was dated the morning after the fire.

My bid had offered salvage credit. North Ditch's sheet listed every standing beam as burned waste.

I knew that was false. I had walked the marked safe area with the county worker. Half the longleaf beams had only lost their outer faces. There was sound wood underneath, tight as a fence post.

“Don't go out there,” Lydia said when I called. “Send me your photographs from the authorized visit.”

I sent them from the library.

At four, Cole called. Mercer Packing was secured. There had been no approved midnight fire exercise. She would not discuss what her team had found inside.

“Mr. Barlow did the right thing,” she said.

I passed that on to Otis.

“Naturally,” he said. “Now somebody tell my knees.”

That evening, June came to my porch with a certified packet she had offered to drop off on her way home.

“This is responsive to your request,” she said. “Please keep the cover page attached.”

Inside was a purchase order for Mercer Packing's emergency fire cleanup.

It promised North Ditch $164,000.

The order was nine days old. Mercer Packing had not burned.