A Tourist in Mayberry

8/6) Romey Honeycutt tells his story to Celebrity Magazine.

The day the baby was born, and I became a hero again (I was famous in Mount Airy before this day for catching some bank robbers) I tried to call the Sheriff and update him on my findings. Brenda at the dispatch told me the sheriff went to Elkin to help the Elkin police chief with some school lockdown drills. I was on my own. I could tell something was up because Matthew Jenkins was gone to talk to one of the missing teenagers' moms. I knew this because I was still nosing around, and I heard a nurse, who was nosing around too, talking about how sweet it was the old FBI guys thought they could help out. "Maybe they can find the mayor too," one said giggling.

I was paying extra attention trying to remember and take notes for the Sheriff when I saw a stranger enter the nursing center from a side door entrance. By stranger, I mean someone I never seen before visiting. When I got a closer look, I realized I knew this stranger and his name was Randall Michael Wall. I knowed this law breaker since he was arrested his first time for punching a lady principal. I was the one arrested him. He had been in trouble since, before I retired, but he graduated to being smarter at being a bad guy, because though we knew he was up to no good, our department could never connect him to anything specific. There was speculation he killed a man left in a parking lot a few years back, but just speculation. I did go to his house about five years ago for a domestic dispute where his wife was sporting a black eye and a busted lip, but she would not press charges and acted like she spoke no english, though I know she did. Anyway, my point is that Randall Michael Wall was not the type a person who would come to a retirement home to visit an ailing grandma. He'd only come to visit to steal an ailing grandma's wedding ring. I knew his presence there meant no good was getting ready to happen. I was right.

I watched and I waited, and when I saw Randall Michael Wall rush out the side door almost in a run and get in his car with Candi, the nurse's aide, I followed.