Chapter 18: Battle Lines

Two weeks after the meeting at the Baptist Church, Judge Mack and Harley Duran walked briskly up the sidewalk in front of Banker Teel's house. Harley rapped hard on the door. A young woman in a black maid's uniform answered the door. "Yes?"

"I'm Harley Duran, the chief of police, and this is Judge Mack. We want to see Mister Teel on official business."

"I'll see if he is in. Wait here." She began to close the door.

Harley knocked it open and walked through. "Enough of this bull shit. We need to see Teel. Now he'll either see us or go to jail. Where is he?"

Teel walked out of his den, his left ear was bandaged. "What is this about? You two get out of here right now."

His arrogance infuriated Harley. "I have come here to either arrest you or make a deal with you, your choice, you useless piece of shit. What'll it be?"

"What are you talking about?" demanded the banker.

"Well, I see she tried to scratch your eyes out as well as have your ear for lunch." Harley's harsh smile never reached halfway to his eyes.

"George," the judge interrupted, "I have you dead to rights on a banking fraud charge. I know we can bankrupt you and send you to prison. You have one chance and one chance only, you agree to turn state's evidence and testify against your cohorts in this horrible thing you have been doing or you go to prison."

"Just who do you two think you are, coming in here like this and threatening me? I can make one telephone call and have the governor of this state absolve me of any trumped up charge you bring against me. Just who do you think you are?" He sneered at the judge and turned to Harley, "As for you, you ignorant white trash, I can buy and sell you before you get up in the morning."

"Nope, you surely can't." Harley grinned and told the man, "I'll be down to your bank first thing in the morning and remove all my money from your bank. I want to get it out before the federal bank examiners get here. The judge here has been telling me some very interesting stories about how the federal banking system works. You're now about to go broke. You want to stay out of prison?"

A sick feeling hit the banker in his ample gut, these men were not bluffing. This barbarian had killed people for no reason at all than they had insulted his wife. They were going to arrest him, George Teel. And after all he had done for this community. It was unfair. Suddenly all resistance left him, "What do you want to know?"

"Let's get in there to your desk. There is a whole lot of writing to be done." Harley smiled to himself. His language was improving. Hanging out with the judge had its benefits.

As soon as Teel sat at his desk, Judge Mack told him, "Start at the beginning and tell how you got involved with Beaudine and Great Western and the relationship between the two. Tell us all about the fraud and the deceit. We want it all, chapter and verse."

Harley interrupted, "Let's get Ellie over here. She has been bragging she can write as fast as a man can talk and have it all neat. I want every word clear and another voice to testify in court. If this fat worm goes back on his word in court and tries to claim we forced him to testify, I want another witness. Since you're a witness to this confession, you won't be the presiding judge."

"Harley, you never fail to amaze me. When did you become knowledgeable about the law?" The judge looked at the big man with open respect.

"There's some law books and a couple of dictionaries there at the station. I've been reading them in my spare time. I mostly have been concentrating on evidentiary procedures and due process. I also did some reading on fraud and theft."

He paused and then asked the banker, "Mind if I use your phone?" Without waiting for a reply he picked it up and asked, "Which relative of the mayor do I have here?" He waited and grinned, "Okay, cousin Lenore, I need to find Ellie, I mean your niece Elspeth. We need her right pronto over here at the Teel house. Yes, Banker Teel." He listened a bit and interrupted, "What I need her over here for is confidential. Yes she did take a gun away from a deputy sheriff. No, it is none of your business why I need her. Just get her."

They waited impatiently. The knock at the door startled all three men. Before anyone could respond Ellie came running in, "What, what do you want?" She was out of breath.

Harley looked at her in amazement. "How did you get here so fast?"

"We live two blocks away and I ran all the way. What do you need me for?" Her eyes glittered with excitement. Her gaze never left Harley's face. He didn't notice.

"The banker here is going to talk and you are going to write it all down. You may not tell anyone what you hear or write. It is all confidential, do you understand?"

She showed her disappointment as she asked, "What do I say when I'm asked what I was doing over here?"

"You say it is all very confidential and you can't talk about it because you would get fired if you talk about it. After you testify in court you can tell your friends all about it."

"Testify in... ?" Her expression said it all. "Mum's the word. Where do I sit? What do I write on?"

Harley told the banker, "Let her have some of your lined fool's cap. She can sit at your desk and you can sit beside the desk and start talking. Ellie, tell us when you're ready."

Teel, his will broken by the sudden change of events, nodded his head and reached in a desk drawer. He brought out an unopened box of lined linen paper. He also laid his expensive fountain pen on the desk. With meticulous care, she placed a sheaf of papers in front of her, uncapped the pen and said, "Ready."

"First the date and then write, 'I, George Teel, make the following confession of my own free will and it is my own decision to confess the following crimes:' After you write that opening, Banker Teel here will start to talk."

"Well? Start talking Mister Teel. I have it all written down and I'm ready." She sat quietly, posture perfect and waiting.

"I was only a tool of all the others. I borrowed some money from the bank and I meant to pay it back and Lester Beaudine found out and black mailed me into acting as banker for his gambling and prostitution activities. The money I borrowed was to pay my gambling debts."

Once he began, George Teel couldn't stop talking. Harley found another pen and filled it with ink and laid it in front of Ellie. Then as the one she was using ran out, she could take the other and keep writing.

The judge sat there, his mouth wide open, and listened as the banker confessed to countless crimes and dishonesties they had no idea of. Elspeth's face became red as the more graphic details of the banker's sexual peccadilloes came out. She let out a nervous giggle and kept writing. Finally the banker ran down. "What else do you want of me?" he asked.

"Start telling us about Great Western buying up the paper on those fraudulent foreclosures," Harley told him.

The banker started and looked at Harley open eyed, "You know about those too?"

"Oh yes, we have proof," Harley assured him.

"I can't tell you, they will kill me. Those people are ruthless. They have actually killed people for defying them. No. You can't make me."

"I think I can," Harley assured him. You see I am hiring the poor woman you dispossessed this afternoon. She will be the new jailer at the county jail. Now I can leave you in her tender mercies or take you to the city jail. I have the deputy who spilled the beans about you locked up there. Now you can either talk here or die in jail over there." He gestured vaguely in the direction of down town. "It's your choice to make. Choose wisely."

Beaten, the banker began a new series of confessions. By the time he finished, his voice was hoarse and Ellie began to slow down. Harley had the banker place his signature at the bottom of each sequentially numbered page and initial every strike out. There were mercifully few. Harley also had him sign three blank pieces of paper. "Just in case we have to revise anything," he told the banker. The man signed and did not argue.

The judge and Harley signed as witnesses. Ellie signed as the person who took it all down in her own handwriting. It was ten in the evening. Ellie left first and hurried home. The judge took possession of the two confessions. He and Harley walked back to the police station. The judge crawled into his car and drove home.

Harley eased himself slid behind the wheel of his Packard and drove home. His mind was still in shock at the enormity of the banker's unrepentant confessions. The man seemed to look on people as less than insects.

Buttercup almost bowled him over. Little Ida was asleep on the sofa, curled up around another new doll. Ida Marie hugged him. They kissed and he carried his daughter in and put her in her bed. He kissed her cheek and went into his own bedroom and began to undress.

"Harley, what are we going to do about those poor people?" Ida Marie was concerned, but did not really seem to resent long-term guests.

"I'm pretty sure I'll have them back on their own property next week. The bank illegally foreclosed on them. I know I can get their farm back free and clear for them. I'm beat, let's go to sleep."

"Damn it, Harley, you all never tell me nothing. Why do I have to learn everything second hand?" He couldn't answer her. He was already sound asleep.

The next morning, Harley sat quiet at the kitchen table as he sipped his coffee. "You're not happy here, are you?" He asked his wife.

"I don't know, hon. It ain't like I'm un-happy living here, it's just all this stuff has just sort of overwhelmed me.' She let out a short explosive laugh and said, "See what I mean? I'm even using such words as 'overwhelmed' and a year ago I didn't even know what the hell it meant."

"Well, Ida, what's happened is, we are in a new world and I think you're fighting it. But if you like, we can take the money we have in the bank, get in our car, take the baby and Buttercup and head out. If it's what you want, we can leave right now. You and little Ida are more important to me than all the houses and jobs in the world. I don't know what we'd do to get along, but with the money we have left we wouldn't starve."

She looked down at her husband with wondering eyes. "You mean it, don't you? You really mean it. You would be willing to just walk away from all of what all you have here and just walk away." Tears were forming in her eyes.

He held out an arm in invitation and she came and sat on his knee. "I didn't say I wouldn't look back, Hon, because I would. But I'd truly give it all up to make you and our daughter happy because I love you both more than life itself. You two are my life."

Then Ida Marie saw everything in a flash of pure inner knowledge. The loss of their original home where they lived together, the dirt floor of the shack they had lived in, the way Harley had fought to save her from the awful overseer. She remembered how the old mule died and then Harley cried because he couldn't take care of them.