Page 15 of Stone

Hailey told him that she was going to see if she could get herself her first doll. It hurt him that she didn’t have anything but he was going to make up for her life up until now. As he started bidding on the box lots, he told Sage to get her the dolls even if she had to pay a hundred bucks a piece for them.

He lost sight of the women for a while. Seeing his brothers and them bragging on the things that they’d gotten, he showed off his glass paperweights he’d gotten for next to nothing in several boxes. Dad was able to find a stand with pipes.

Dad’s passion was to take them apart, clean them up, and resell them for some profit. All his life, he thought that his dad’s natural smell was a mild cherry smell about him. It had been the pipes that he cleaned that made him smell so wonderful. Dad had been doing that since he’d been able to afford to buy his first one.

“I got the dolls.”He asked her how many. “I don’t know if you’re going to be happy with me, but Hailey is over the moon. Not only were there the dolls but there were boxes of clothing too for them. So if you want to be the one to tell her she can’t have three dozen dolls, that’s all on you, Buster. I made her happy, and that’s all I care about.”

“I hurt when she said she’d never had a doll before. Between the two of us, we’ll get her fixed up. There’s doll furniture over here that I can get her. A doll bed with some other things that only a little girl might understand. Even a stroller for one.”She asked him if Hailey could be there when he got them.“I’d love to spend time with the two of you when it’s time for them. I’ve already fallen in love with the little girl.”

“I have as well. The look on her face when she picked up the first doll was like magic. I’ve never wanted to see someone smile as much as I do her.”He nearly lost track of what he was bidding on when he had to wipe at his own eyes.“I’ll see you in a bit. We’re having fun.”

He was able to bid on a few other items. There were some stained glass birds that he liked. At one point in his life, he made glassware for churches and homes. He thought that if he could get the birds for a good price, he could make some nice ornaments for the tree. Speaking of which, there were several of them at this auction.

Chapter 7

Roland couldn’t understand why he’d been caught. He’d worn gloves so that when he loaded the rifle that he’d gotten secondhand, it didn’t have his prints on it. Even for the gun residue, he’d worn gloves so that he’d not have any on his hands when tested. There wasn’t any way that they’d been able to pick up his DNA. He didn’t leave one thing behind. Yet, as soon as he got home, the police were there to arrest him. Of course, he’d not had a chance to get rid of the gun. That was something that he’d meant to burn in the fire pit that he’d had outdoors.

“Mr. Jorden, do you have anything to say about your actions against Mr. and Mrs. Griffin?” He asked which Griffin he was talking about, knowing full well which one it was that he wanted dead. “Stone and Sage Griffin. I believe he used to work for you.”

“He did until I fired him.” Again, he was told that he’d done no such thing and that Stone had quit when he ordered him to work the summer holidays. “I don’t know what his beef was. It was just a few months out of the summer. He could have done that standing on his head. I fired him before he told me that he quit. So there.”

Roland didn’t like that the people around the room snickered at him. They were grown men and women, and they acted like he was some kind of plaything. Well, he didn’t care. Stone was out of a job and that was because of him. Of course, it looked like he was out of a job as well. But he figured that once the school year started back up, he’d have to be rehired as there wasn’t anyone that could do the job as well as he did. Or at least he made it look like he did a good job.

Mostly, he just spent his time at his desk. He didn’t play on the computer. That would get you caught. But he did use his phone a great deal as well as the little tablet that he had hidden inside the lower part of his desk. There were other things, too. A deck of cards that he used. He also had himself a stash of whiskey that he hid, too. No one was the wiser when he pulled out the bottle and took himself a nice swig just to get him through the day. He wasn’t a drunkard or anything like that.

Roland also had a change of clothing along with several ties so that when he took too many drinks from the hidden bottle. He was able to look like he was the first person in that morning and would hold it over everyone’s head how he’d come in early. When in reality, he’d slept on the floor of his office when he’d been too drunk to drive home.

He had no family to speak of. His mother had died when he’d been about six. His father, not a good man either, had dropped him and his sister off at their grannie’s house and never returned for them. Not even when he graduated from college. He could be depended on to come around and knock them around a bit, take the money that Grannie had, and then leave them again. His childhood had been one of rough fights and sleepless nights, thanks to the people in his life.

“Mr. Jorden? You’re not paying attention again.” He asked them for the tenth time at least when he was going to be able to get out of jail. “As it stands right now, you’re in for attempted murder of two people and drinking on the job.”

“Who said I was drinking on the job?” The attorney for the Griffins, a damned Griffin herself, said that after his arrest, his room had been gone over and they found his stash. “You had no right to go through my office. I was going to go back there to work. You probably planted the things that you found that were in there.”

“Your fingerprints were all over the bottle. As well as your DNA around the lip of it. We also found your computer and tablet, as well as the stash of kid’s games in the drawers.” He asked her what that was. “A coloring book with crayons. There were checker games as well as marbles. All with only your fingerprints on them.”

He didn’t know what to say about that. He’d never thought of a coloring book as anything buta way to relieve stress. It helped him, too, when he forgot to refill his whiskey bottle and he needed a little bit of calmness in his day to get through. Then he remembered something.

“There was a bunch of chocolate in there too. What did you do with that? Claim it as your own?” She asked him if he meant the empty candy bar wrappers that were in his second drawer. “Oh yeah. I forgot that I ate them the last time I was—your honor I’m sure that you have a few things stashed around your office that might get you into trouble if it was taken out of context. I didn’t mean any harm in having that there. It’s my way of calming my nerves. You’ve no idea how taxing it is to be around hundreds of kids all day. Them wanting things from you, and my goodness, you have no idea how many times they want a hug.” He shivered some. “I don’t care for hugs, but I have to do it.”

“Mr. Jorden, how long have you been principal there, if you don’t mind me asking?” He told him he’d been there eleven years. “Eleven years, and you’ve never come to like hugs from kids? My goodness, man, why did you become a principal of an elementary school if you didn’t care for children?”

“Children are icky. They carry germs and crap.” He shivered again, thinking about the snot that most of the kids had in the colder months. “I got the job there thinking that I’d only stay for a little while, but I began to enjoy all the perks. And there are a great many of them if you know just where to look. You don’t think that all those donations end up with the brats, do you?”

“Are you telling this court that you stole from the donations that were to help out the school and thus the kids?” He waved him off, thinking that it was something that everyone did and that he shouldn’t be surprised. “I need words, Mr. Jorden, not you waving your hand around. Did you or did you not just admit to taking donations for your own personal use?”

“You do it too. You can’t tell me that the money for your campaign goes to just you being elected. I’ve seen how much you guys get donated to you. It’s no different when it comes to the schools. A few bucks here, a few there. Even gift cards come up missing and into my pocket. What’s the difference? No one counts that money.” He looked over at the attorney for the other side and sneered at her. “I’m betting that she makes more money than you do for working for the almighty Griffins, too. It’s all water under the bridge right now. I’ll go back to work when this sham of a trial is over and I’ll go on doing what I’ve been doing. You’ll see. No one cares.”

“I care.” Again, he waved the man off and told him that he didn’t count as he was a judge. “And in being the judge, I’m remanding you over to a higher court. I cannot believe that I’m having to tell you this, but you’re never going to be able to work within any government system as long as I’m still kicking.”

“So you’re saying that after you die, I’ll be able to go back to work? I don’t suppose you have any illness that is going to hurry that along, do you?” The judge just stared at him. “I’d like to make some plans, you know? I have a life that I need to get going on.”

“Get him out of here before I do something I’m sure that I won’t regret.” He was still fettered to the table in front of him, and it looked like he was going to be that way for a long time. The judge didn’t look all that old, so all he could hope for was that he got cancer or something and soon. He needed to get his job back so that he could benefit from the things that he had before.

As he was being taken away, he realized that he’d not gotten any answer as to when he was going to be getting out of jail. It was a stuffy place and he didn’t want to have to sleep on that nasty cot again. There was no telling what sort of criminals had been using the bed before he had.

Once he was back in the cell, he was given a lunch. It wasn’t anything that he wanted but since they wouldn’t let him order out, he was stuck with it. Who ate bologna sandwiches anyway? Not him, that was for sure.

Lying down on his cot, the stupid thing wasn’t nearly as comfortable as he thought that it should be for someone like him. He started thinking about all the things that he was going to do when he got out of jail. Almost as soon as he was ready to take a short nap, he was asked to go to the back of the cell.