Barney raised his head from his desk. It was almost eleven at nigh as read by the clock on the wall. He sat hunched over his desk for a moment, his face wrinkled and pruned with the steaming anger inside him. He slammed his fist on the desk, "Not this time." He went to the back room and to the safe. Barney got down on his knees and placed his ear to the door of the safe and began turning the dial. Slowly, he listened for the clicks. He heard a tumble and smiled, he pulled the lever, and the safe remained locked. He tried again and again. The clock on the wall smoothly ticked away to eleven thirty. Barney was dripping with sweat on his forehead, that he wiped with his sleeve, and he sighed, "One more try, then I quit." He stuck his ear to the safe. His tired and shaking hand turned the dial to the left very slowly, then he stopped. He went back to right, even slower, and he stopped. He moved his hand away and shook his tired wrist to relieve the sorenes. He turned back to the left the slowest he had yet, not because of purpose, but because his wrist was that tired. He heard a tumble and gulped.

Barney grabbed the lever by the knob and pulled up. It would not bludge. Barney stood, almost in tears. His teeth made grit and his lips pulled taunt, "Damn safe!" He raised his foot and stomped the handle. It dropped downward and the door cracked open. The handle had been a push down, not a pull up, all this time. Shocked, Barney jumped back, then he pulled the door open and whisked the bag from the safe.

Barney carefully removed the mask from the bag and inspeted it. There was no blood. On the inside of the mask though, there was a smudge of grease on the bottom edge. Barney had seen this smudge before, "Gomer," he whispered to himself, "It can't be."

Barney placed the mask back in the bag and closed it inside the safe. He ran to the door and out onto the sidewalk beneath the streetlights. He was double checking the bullet chambers in his gun, afterwhich he saw Floyd walking towards him. "Floyd, it's almost midnight. What in the world are you doing out so late?"

"Just a late stroll," said Floyd.

"Well, I'm in a big hurry, see you later, Floyd."

"What's the rush, Barn? Got a crook to catch."

"If you must know," Barney stuffed his pistol back into the holster, "I've had a big break in a big case. Can't give you details."

"Big break, you say?" Floyd took a deep breath and said, "Barney. There's something very important I have to tell you."

Barney stopped what he was doing when he noticed how grave Floyd had become, "Yeah?"

"Barney, I don't know how to tell you this."

Barney waited for Floyd to finish, but could tell Floyd was having trouble saying what was on his mind, "It's okay, Floyd. You can trust me."

The words almost shocked Floyd, "How poignant," he whispered. He suddenly smiled, "I just wanted you to know that next week all of my regular customers get one free haircut."

"That's it?" Barney asked in a shrill nasal tone.

Floyd shrugged, "Just thought you should know."

Barney turned from Floyd and got behind the wheel. The patrol car spun off. Earnest T. was suddenly standing behind Floyd, "Almost let the cat out of the bag, didn't you?"

Floyd never even looked back Earnest.

Barney had a key to Gomer's garage, and he let himself in. He searched Gomer's office and behind the customer counter, looking for any piece of evidence that would tie the mask to Gomer permanently. He found nothing. "He's smart enough not to hide anything here," Barney pondered to himself. "I guess I will have to go look at his home." This is when Barney noticed a door he had not gone into, it read 'EMPLOYEES ONLY.' Barney shook the locked door knob, he knew he had no keys for this door. Barney searched inside the office and found a key ring with several keys on it, through trial and error he found that one of the keys did fit the door. He turned the knob and it opened.

He stepped into the dark room and flipped on the light. Inside he noticed chemicals set up on a table, these were in trays and above them was a wire suspended from wall to wall with pieces of film hanging from them. On a second shelf beneath the table top was a stack of the masks matching the one in his safe, "Got you!" he whispered. He stood again and saw what an impossible thing to miss, but he did. The wall was covered with photographs. Barney walked to them and looked closely. In almost every photo was Gomer... and Thelma Lou. In some photos, they were together only smiling. In some they were kissing. In some they were nude and making love. In the worst, they were posing over the victims that had been dug up from the crimshaw woods. Barney even seen a photo with the young child the detective had uncovered in the woods.

Barney felt a dizziness come over him. He grabbed his stomach. He took the photo with the small child from the wall and several others. He was almost to step out of the little room when he heard two voices inside the garage. It was Gomer and Thelma Lou.

Thelma Lou laughed, "You should have seen his eyes almost pop out when I strangled him."

Gomer laughed back, "I've done that before to one. It's not as funny as when you run a drill up thier nose though. I reckon you must hit the brain or some..."

Gomer and Thelma saw Barney standing some twenty feet from them. The murderous couple both wore the same white work uniforms, identical to what Gomer would wear when working in the garage. Each had a mask in their hands, which they slowly hid behind themselves. There was specks of blood all over their uniforms. Thelma said, "Barney, what are you doing here?"

Barney held the photos so they could see them, then he stuffed them in his uniform pocket. Thelma shrieked, "You don't understand Barney, Gomer force me to do it all. He blackmailed me."

Gomer's mouth dropped open, "That's a lie."

Thelma began to slowly approach Barney, "Barney, you don't want to send me to jail. I took care of you. I brought back to health. I don't love Gomer, I love you. You don't want to arrest me."

"No, I don't want to," Barney said.

"We can get rid of all of the photos with me in it, Barney. There are many in there with only Gomer and a corpse."

Gomer said, "What? You bitch."

"We could clean my record Barney, make it pure as snow. Then it's just you me, like it should be."

Barney cleared his throat, "We could do that."

"Don't you want me Barney?" she began to unfasten the top buttons of her uniform, cleavage slowly showing.

"I do want you, Thelma," Barney said.

She took a step closer, another button unsnapped, her complete bra showing.

"I want you," said Barney, "to know the two of have the right to remain silent."

Thelma looked as though she had just taken a pie to the face, "Barney!"

"Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law."

Thelma whined, "Barney you need me."

"You have the right to an attorney," Barney continued.

Gomer screamed, "Fuck this," and pulled a long knife from his back pocket. He rushed Barney, who grabbed the weapon wielding forearm but was shoved back against the wall. Barney now had both arms holding off the one knife. He quivered under the srength of Gomer. Thelma pulled a knife of her own from her trousers, "You should have protected me Barney."

Thelma drew her weapon back and pepared to stab Barney, but now the entire garage was flashing red and blue and white with lights from outside. There were many of the lights, and they were surrounding the outside of the garage. Gomer and Thelma stopped and relaxed their attack and were hypnotized by the flashing colors. It almost made them appear they were standing in a rock concert. "What's this?" asked Gomer.

Barney groaned as the knife was still over his head and he was still applying pressure, "The state police. I called them shortly after you arrived."

Gomer released Barney and both he and Thelma walked to window. Outside, at each car was a single police with a rifle aimed at them inside. Aside one of the cars, the detective from the woods spoke into a loud speaker, "Come out with your hands up. You're surrounded."

Gomer and Thelma dropped their knives and raised their hands in the air.

The two killers were cuffed and sitting in the back of a state police van. The doors slammed shut and an officer locked the doors. Inside the garage the detective told Barney, "I really had you figured wrong. We were completely on the wrong lead. Your town owes you a great gratitude."

Barney was almost to respond, when Andy appeared between the two and shook the detective's hand, "Yessir. That's one fine deputy I have there. Of course I was in charge of the whole investigation, but Barney is a powerful right hand man."

The detective smiled, "Well, this was an important case. It had the entire nation's attention. You're going to be quite the hero Sheriff."

As the two spoke, Barney quietly slipped away and stepped into the restroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and took his hankerchief out; he bagan to wipe clean his badge pinned to his shirt. "Yep," he said to himself in the mirror. "This town is going to be cleaned up."

Outdoors, seated on the roof of the garage were two angels, one of wings of black, one of wings of white. The two sat in silence, watching the lights from the state patrol cars bounce around the surrounding trees.

Earnest said, "You know, he's just one man. The town is still in jeopardy."

Floyd said, "Does that mean you concede?"

Earnest smiled, "I concede that my work here is not finished."

Floyd stood and gave Earnest a pat on the back, "Better luck next time," and he soared into the sky.

Earnest only sat there, staring into the trees, and took a deep sigh.