“Homer, I ’membered the name on that missin’ Wanted poster.” Nina was all out of breath from runnin’ up the stairs to my office. She was a little heated, an’ glowed. I had to catch my breath. “It was Ransom Thomas. I ’membered ’cause he’s distant cousin to the Okra Thomases an’ a even more distant cousin to Ash Jackson. Ash’s ma was in fer some stamps an’ happened to mention one of her nieces on the Thomas side was fixin’ to tie the knot.”
Now that she mentioned it, I did vaguely ’member seein’ that name on the poster the day I’d axed Nina to lunch. I’d been preoccupied or I’d’a noticed the face, too. No matter. I could get the particulars faxed to me by the state cops, along with a better pi’ture’n the original. I said, “Much obliged, Nina.”
“Much obliged? That’s all you got to say?”
“See you later?”
“Humph.”
She stalked out, an’ I called the state police. A half hour later, my fax machine spit out a piss-poor pi’ture of Thomas. He looked about nineteen an’ scared. I wondered what a bank surveillance pi’ture of him robbin’ the bank’d look like. Prob’ly make you wonder why he wasn’t laughed outta the bank when he announced the stickup. He didn’t look like anyone I’d seen lately, but I made a couple copies anyway. Just to get on Nina’s good side, I dropped the first one off at the post office. An’ to be on the safe side, I axed about Thomas when I made my rounds.