Deputy Lee Harper (From How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson)
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That Harry Wagoner must think I was born yesterday, telling me them two fellas is Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry. Yeah, like them two outlaws would come prancing into the Sheriff's Office with a bag full of all the money that got stolen from the bank. Yes siree, Bob, I've been a deputy for too long to fall for that story.
Oh, I've got no doubt that Hannibal Heyes was involved in that robbery, but I'm talking about the real Hannibal Heyes, the one that actually knows how to blow a safe with nitro, not some low paid deputy who just happens to resemble the wanted poster for the leader of the Devil's Hole Gang. Heck, there's at least fifty men in this town alone that likely match the descriptions on them posters cause those descriptions are pretty vague and they don't even have an artist sketch picture to give you an idea as to what Heyes and Curry look like. If you ask me, it's Harry Wagoner that talks like he was born yesterday.
And I'll tell you another thing, too. That Harry Wagoner, in my opinion, made that claim about Deputy Smith and Deputy Jones to protect the real Hannibal Heyes. Now I don't know why he would do such a thing, unless the real Heyes had threatened him or maybe he was sweet on one of them two women. But there's a reason, sure as I'm a deputy, that Wagoner was trying to implicate them other two deputies and steer the law in the wrong direction for the real Hannibal Heyes.
To tell you the truth, I'm a pretty good good judge of character, so I know what I'm talking about when I say this, but Harry Wagoner just plain looks like the kind of person that would try to pull something like he done. He's got beady eyes that are set too close together and kind of a chiseled face, stiff and tight lookin. He just looks like he's got something to hide.
Now I've been a deputy for twenty-two years. I started when I was just eighteen. My uncle was the sheriff then and he hired me on just two months before he was up for re-election. Good thing he done that, cause he was voted outta office two months later, but the new sheriff kept me on to work the night shift, and in twenty-two years, I ain't missed a night of work. Folks in town can set their clocks to my nightly rounds schedule. Yep, at exactly three minutes after ten I'm rattling the doors of the general store, then it's on to the dress shop, the barbershop, and a quick check of the saloon. And at ten twenty-one every night for twenty-two years, I'm checking the doors and peering in the windows of the bank. Yep, like clockwork, my schedule never changes. A couple of the sheriffs I've worked with have wanted me to vary my night watch schedule, and Wagoner says that's how he knew just what time to break into the bank, but I reminded him that schedule also told him exactly when not to break into the bank.
Yeah, I weren't born yesterday.
The one thing I just don't understand, but I guess I'll leave it to the sheriff and the lawyers, and that is, if Hannibal Heyes blew up that safe, how did Harry Wagoner end up with all the money? Everybody knows Heyes works with his partner, Kid Curry, and the members of the Devil's Hole Gang, and it ain't been till recently, when them rumors about Heyes and Curry going straight began to float about, that you heard anything about any of them other fellas pulling a job on their own.
I guess I probably shouldda asked Smith and Jones to hang around until the Sheriff came in for his shift, just to tell him how they come to capture Wagoner and his lady partners. For one thing, the sheriff sometimes brags about the fact that he could spot Heyes and Curry on sight cause he was on a train they robbed once. Now that wouldda really made Wagner look foolish. And I bet Smith and Jones wouldda enjoyed seein' that.
The sheriff sure is gonna be surprised when he gets to work in the morning and learns all that stolen money has been recovered and the thieves are locked up in a cell right here in this jail. Smith and Jones was right, I'm gonna be a hero, thanks to them. There is one thing I'm hopin' the sheriff can explain when he comes in. You see, when I locked that bag in the safe for the night, I felt something odd in the bottom of the bag, and when I looked, I seen there was an alarm clock stitched into the bottom lining of that bag, and it was all wound and running, just ticking away as regular as my night watch schedule.
I asked Wagoner about that, but he just shook his head real slow and blew me off with a wave of his hand and mumbled somethin' about a fool and his money. Now I ain't heard that the bank is offering a reward for the return of that money, but that ain't an uncommon thing for banks to do, and being as them two deputies didn't stick around to collect on it if there is a reward, I'm thinking I just might be the one to profit from all this. Now wouldn't that be something, having the thieves locked up when the sheriff gets her and collecting the reward when it was Smith and Jones that did all the work.
I guess Harry Wagoner will be thinking twice about me being born yesterday...