“Seňor Lucas! Pull the RV over. The cops are right behind us, and I have something to confess.”

The trio, Pablo, Lucas, and Paytoneeta were all out for a road trip across America that started three months ago. Lucas was a very shy lad and never tried to get too much attention on himself. Paytoneeta and Lucas thought this would be fun for their two year anniversary. Somehow their Mexican friend Pablo got to come along. Just as they entered Kansas they realized they were all out of food so they stopped at the local general store.
“Oh Seňor Lucas, I found the bread. And it’s on sale!” screamed Pablo in the store.
“I hate Pablo,” Paytoneeta said in her usual dry, no emotional voice.
As soon as they got all that they needed they went and paid for their groceries and left before Pablo’s fit about not being able to get the candy bar escalated any further. Then they were back on the road.
“Seňorita Paytoneeta, Seňor Lucas. I stole the candy bar that I wanted. That is why the police are after us,” Pablo admitted.
Lucas pulled over and waited, the longest 15 seconds in his life. Paytoneeta had to reassure him that everything would be alright. Then Lucas heard the cop ordering him out of the car.
“Driver, please turn you engine off and step out of the vehicle with your hands up!”
“Oh oh oh, Seňor is in trouble!”
“Pablo shut up!” Paytoneeta snapped back.
When Lucas didn’t come out of his car immediately another cop came over and bashed his window in with his baton.
“Oh my gosh, seňor seňor, what are you… seňor it was me. It was me who stole the candy bar, not seňor Lucas,” Pablo said franticly.
All of the officers all bull-rushed the car and grabbed Lucas, Paytoneeta, and Pablo and threw them on the ground. They cuffed them so fast they didn’t even realize it.
“Look man this is a little harsh don’t you think? He only stole one candy bar,” Lucas complained.
“And I grabbed the wrong one seňor. I’m allergic to nuts,” Pablo tried telling them.
“Oh so theft too. Add that to armed robbery and murder in the first degree.”
“MURDER!” the trio screamed.
“Yes and I’m officer Clancy Brown. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?” Clancy barked.
“Yes seňor,” Pablo said.
“How are we getting accused of murder. Who did we kill?” Paytoneeta asked Clancy.
“I responded to a 9-1-1 call saying that the clerk was shot. You guys were the only car for miles. I just put two and two together and figured you guys killed him. We also have witnesses seeing you come out of the store minutes before the next customer came in and discovered the body, well I guess its off to jail for you three,” Clancy explained.
The three were hauled into the squad car and driven off to jail. The ride took at least an hour, an hour through the scorching hot Kansas heat.
“How did he get here so fast? It’s at least an hour drive” Lucas whispered to Paytoneeta.
When the three newly convicts came into jail they didn’t get any special treatment. They had to go through the mug shots, finger stamping, and got their one phone call.
“I will go first seňor,” Pablo declared. “Ooooooh, buenos stenos seňor. La co ca rocha patar… Ciiiiiiiii. Margarita… I am in jail. Ok, adios,” Pablo squawked in Spanish.
Next up was Lucas, “Hi mom. Ummmmm I’m in jail. Murder. Ok,” Lucas hung up looking disappointed. “She’s not going to help me at all.”
Paytoneeta had no help either. Her dad hung up as soon as he heard the word ‘jail’. They were stuck in jail with nobody to help them.
The next few days for them were terrible. Every morning Officer Clancy would wake them up at the crack of dawn just to ridicule them. Paytoneeta and Lucas got to share a cell. Pablo was on his own though. Somehow Pablo managed to get a radio, checkers, and a quesadilla maker. He filled up the nights with the smell of peppers, chicken, and melted cheese. It smelled like the Mexican buffet.
One day Paytoneeta asked him, “Where did you get all of this stuff?”
“I have the hookups seňorita,” Pablo said.
“Well can you get some of your hookups to get us some stuff to break us out of here?” Paytoneeta asked franticly.
“Uuuuuuum OK seňorita,”
One week Paytoneeta and Lucas waited. One week until Pablo confronted them saying that he thought that he found a way out of this terrible building.
It started one morning at breakfast. As Paytoneeta and Lucas were chewing numbly on their oatmeal Pablo gave them the good news. “Seňor, seňorita listen! I think found the way to escape this place. So my outside connections sent me the blueprints for the prison. And here’s the good part Seňor. This prison used to be a theater for magicians. It turns out there is a trap door behind the wall where my cell is. It leads straight outside. The handle is under a brick. All we have to do is find it and push. Then we’re out of this place seňorita.”
They took their plan into action the very next day. Every day in the morning the guards take us out of our cells for role call. The three of them had the back two cells where the guards hardly ever notice. When the guards, including Clancy, led them out to go eat breakfast, Pablo, Paytoneeta, and Lucas made their move. They ran over to the wall and started looking for the fake brick with the handle behind it.
“ I can’t find it!” Lucas screamed.
“ It’s right here Seňor!”
Pablo ripped open the door and there it was. The vast open Kansas dust roads and fields.
“Run!” Paytoneeta shouted.
They ran. They ran long and fast. They ran until it felt like their legs were literally going to fall off. Then they slowed to a stop. Lucas was the first to speak, “Thank God we’re out of there. 48 days in there was 48 too many.”
“Yeah I know,” Paytoneeta said following it with a hug to both of them.
“And by the way, you were starting to grow a mustache seňorita. Like me,” Pablo said jokingly. “Where do we go now Seňor?”
“I know where I am going. I’m going to find the person who framed us!” Lucas said very boldly.
In the next three days the three escaped ‘criminals’ bought two motel rooms and rented a car under Lucas’ dad’s name.
“I say that we go back into that town and ask the residents on that street if they saw anything suspicious during the day that the shop keeper was shot and killed,” Paytoneeta piped up one day when it seemed like nobody knew what to do.
“I agree with seňorita,” Pablo said.
By the end of the day, the two of them have convinced Lucas that that was what they were going to do. The next day the three of them drove 23 miles back to the city. They knocked on all of the doors, saying that they were for a newspaper doing a report on the escaped convicts. All of them slammed the door back in their faces. Then the one resident agreed to talk to them.
“Ummm yes, I am with the uh, Kansas Gazette, and umm I was wondering if you could, umm, tell us what happened that day,” Lucas said nervously.
“Well um I don’t really remember that much about it,” the old woman said back to him. Lucas was pretending to take notes. “But I do remember the cop car driving away. I never heard a gun shot but he insisted that there was a shooting. I remember that he said that he was shot with a 42 caliber automatic pistol. Is that enough?”

“Could you just answer one more thing?” Lucas asked her politely.
“Sure. What?”
“Do you ever remember a 1999 Dutchman RV ever entering the neighborhood?” Lucas asked on the edge of his seat.
“Why no I do not. That is what everyone else is puzzled about too,” she answered quietly.
That was it. That was just what Lucas was hoping to hear. He rushed out of the door almost forgetting to thank the old women.
“Guys I know exactly who killed the clerk,” Lucas told them franticly.
“Who!” they both shouted.
“Well first off I did some research on the type of guns the cops carry around here in Kansas. It turns out they all carry 42 caliber automatic pistol,” he told them.
“What does that mean?” they asked him.
“The old woman told me that they never saw an RV go by during the time of the crime. And she told me that the gunshot wound was made by a 48 caliber automatic pistol. All she remembered was a cop car pulling away with his lights on. I’m almost positive that Clancy Brown shot him, took the money, and framed the first car that he saw,” Lucas said almost jumping out of his shoes.
“And I found where he lives,” Lucas told them.
Twenty minutes later the three were in their rented car looking for 1516 Chestnut Drive. It took them more time than they expected to get there and by then it was night time. Finally they found his house.
“How are we going to do this seňor?” Pablo asked.
“Lets just go up there and demand him to let us go or we will call the police and have him arrested,” Paytoneeta suggested
“I agree,” Lucas added.
The three of them all ran up to his door and rang the doorbell. It took Clancy a minute but he finally answered.
“Hel- Oh my gosh. I’ve found you!” Clancy said excitedly.
“No we found you,” Lucas told him. “We know that you were the one who shot the clerk and took the money. Then you decided to pull over the next car you saw and frame them.”
“I always knew that this day would come. I just didn’t think this early. I wanted to run away to Mexico and start a new life there,” Clancy explained. ”But now there is only one thing that is stopping me from doing that.” He pulled out his 42 caliber automatic pistol, cocked and loaded. He pointed it right at Lucas’ chest. “You.”
Just as he was about to pull the trigger Pablo sprung into action knocking the gun out of his hand and onto the floor. Clancy then socked Lucas right in the face knocking him out cold. The other two ran as Clancy chased after them. They ran into a dark ally. They didn’t know where Clancy was. He wasn’t behind them anymore.
Just as the two slowed to a stop to catch their breath and try to find Clancy, he jumped out from behind a wall.
“I guess this is going to be messier than I thought,” he growled to them raising his fists.
Just as he was about to punch Paytoneeta right in the face there was a sound. BANG! The two came out of their winces and looked up. Clancy was standing there with a hole in his chest and fell. As he fell they saw Lucas, the once quiet child, now very brave and courageous, holding Clancy’s gun. As Clancy was laying on the ground dying he whispered something to Paytoneeta and breathed his last breath.
The next two months were very hectic for the three of them. The town was honoring the three of them with plaques, medals, and cash awards for their heroism. Finally after 60 days in jail or in the small town in Kansas, the three finally got to finish their road trip.
“I never asked you what Clancy said to you that night he died,” Lucas told Paytoneeta one night while he was driving the RV.
“He said ‘Justice, it’s a funny thing huh.”