Twenty-Days Lost

It seemed like every cop in the world rushed me as I opened our apartment door. I soon found myself cuffed and loaded in the back of a cruiser and enroute to the Washoe County Jail.

My youngest sister Marcy told the Humboldt County California Sheriffs Department that I was the Tom Darby they were looking for in relation to a pedophile case they were investigating. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know I was the wrong Tom Darby.

The one they were looking for had been a bus drive in Eureka at one time. But he had moved to Nevada and found work at the Nugget driving a shuttle bus at the same time as I wrote Keno tickets for the same casino.

It took 20 days for law enforcement officials and Washoe County District Court Judge Mills Lane to get the mess straightened out. By that time, authorities in Humboldt County had the right Tom Darby in custody.

Judge Lane signed my paperwork, expunging my record. He also suggested I “stay away from that sister of yours as she’s plain trouble for you, son”

I can still hear his no-nonsense, gravelly voice as he barked out that advice.