((Shannon O’Day, 1956-57) (Third part of four parts))

When Gus O’Day and his wife returned from Fayetteville, North Carolina, he learned of Shannon’s run-in with the law, not mentioning that her reckless attempt to farm was over, but “Thank God for that,” he told his wife. friend. Ronald Short, the county attorney.

Why, in fact, was Mr. Short initially confused about the murder of Kent Peterson that he wouldn’t let out, but the sheriff, Dakota Country, Sheriff Terry Fauna, never pursued the murder, or his inquisitive nature just let him pass, again both? Gus and Short were puzzled. It seemed that he never needed the law to close the case; he just did it on his own, as if someone had drawn the blinds. Now instead of Shannon hanging out with Gus, because of his bullying for wanting to know the details of the murder, which he didn’t bring to court, wanting to know, which he didn’t know, or pretended not to know, but he should have. known, if he really did kill Kent, and of course he did kill Kent, but hanging out with Gus might bring things out, and Shannon was okay with the court results, so it started happening. He hung out at Dickey’s Diner, he ate there before, he just didn’t hang out there, and now he was hanging out there, he got to know old Josh the cook pretty well, and some waitresses, and a young blind man who played Ricky Nelson songs. , and a little black boy who came in and did a tap dance, called Zam Zam.

It was a Friday night, Shannon, he had left the Diner, he had spent half the night leaning against the lamp post looking at the vacant lots around, you’d think he could have held his gaze indefinitely. Then he stumbled back to his apartment on Wabasha Street, next to the World Theatre, where he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else, including innocent bystanders or maybe all three.

It was then that he changed the course of his life, which was simply inevitable, to be a danger if he hadn’t. He was now drinking in the cornfield of Gus’s neighbor, Mr. Orville Stanley (who had retired from the railroad and had this hobby farm with his wife) Alice Stanley, his daughter Nadine, and their daughter Five years old, Dina.

He knew them as well as anyone else knew them. So from 1956, he asks them without bothering the interruption, if they wouldn’t mind if he drank among their corn supplies. And as time went on that summer, he’d drop a pint of moonshine into the old man’s mailbox and when they met and talked, he’d drop a pint in his back pocket.

So now no one need bother questioning Shannon about the murder and he didn’t get that intimidation from his brother, and the way he thought of it: out of sight out of mind, or maybe, what you don’t know, may ‘ It wouldn’t hurt, or possibly, the concept that blood relatives are smarter than water, wouldn’t be tested under fire, as Mark Twain would have said. And that was it, and that was fine with Shannon O’Day.

But that wasn’t how Gus and the country’s attorney saw things, Mr. Ronald Short, but Gus couldn’t be as persistent as Mr. Short.

The following Saturday, Mr. Short and Sheriff Fauna, both friends, good friends, not close friends but light friends, had eaten at Dickey’s Diner, the sheriff believed and said to Mr. Short in so many words: simple fate was taking the expected course, and he shouldn’t be too reckless in taking advantage of fate and prying his nose into the case more than he already had, that Judge Finley had made up his mind, and wouldn’t have it compared. takes this to another level, aside from curiosity.

Mr. Short knew that Finley had a temper and didn’t want to be questioned about his trials, and in particular about this Shannon O’Day thing; and Finley had told his dear friend, Sheriff Fauna, that he not let Short catch a glimpse or a glimpse of the real picture.

Ronald Short began to pry into what Judge Finley thought was his business. Short feeling that he wasn’t doing Finely any harm in the process, but was telling the Sheriff about his new investigation into the murder, and forgot that the Sheriff was a dear friend of Finley’s, more so than he was.

“No,” he told Fauna, “what puzzles me is Henry Sears, the witness, the same one who saw a stranger kill Kent Peterson and then went off into the woods. And then after the court hearing , got up and left the state. I think Shannon had some money hidden and paid Sears to lie.”

Judge Finley told Sheriff Fauna, that following Monday morning, in the hallway of the Dakota County courthouse, “What kind of county attorney do we have here, a detective? Ask him if he has a license to snoop around there!” of the court!”

So at that moment, his trust and confidence in Ronald Short shimmered unsteadily, it could be said. In that moment of trial, he told the sheriff, “Mr. Short could be a victim of pure, compounded circumstance…joke just like anyone else; if that damn kid doesn’t believe the old image he’s portraying, he could get into trouble.” somewhere”. alley, or be subject to some outrageous misfortune and coincidence that happened to Mr. Peterson, and then we can all rest in peace. If it doesn’t work, well, the alley will do.

Short still hadn’t a second’s doubt that it had been Shannon who had paid someone to lie for him, in the plain, simple color of money. But Shannon never had a penny to his name at this point.

So all Ronald Short had to do was find out where the money came from, or where the witness was, or work with Gus on Shannon’s guilt and conscience, in doing the murder. Either, either would work. And this is exactly what he was determined to do, to pursue and, if necessary, to persuade, and he was not discreet, having the sheriff provide him with spies, thinking that the sheriff was one of his respectable spies, with pride in his profession to to catch the real murderer, instead of chasing shadows, since any small child who could read the court files would have told them ‘nonsense’ and would have known something was arranged.

In full view of half the city of St. Paul, evidently heading home from the last display of pictures, no one could locate Judge Finley to tell him about it. Anyway, Ronald Short had found someone, someone he thought he could get information from, who called him and said they had the information he was looking for, and Short met this man, in an alleyway by the Diner, but there was someone behind. hidden doors.

He had never had more sense than to believe that the sheriff was on his side, and that he could tangle with the old judge and walk away as if nothing had happened. Not to mention trying to question the witness and reassure him that he doesn’t have bad feelings, and he would keep his identity a secret, but secrets aren’t secrets when two people know about them, they’re agreements.

Inside the Baptist church that Sunday morning, Short’s wife had the funeral, and of course Judge Finley and Sheriff Fauna were there, but not Shannon O’Day or her brother. Both of them even brought roses for his wife to lay in the coffin.

That was a lot of money, $10,000 in 1956. He could have paid for two small houses in the North End of St. Paul, in fact, he bought one, for the judge. And as far as the judge and sheriff are concerned, the investigation is closed. For ever and ever; off the record.

Written on 27-5-2009 xx No: 407