Filbert Riggins

Filbert Riggins

Filbert Riggins was a small man, with small ideas and he knew the only way he was going to leave a lasting impression on the small community of Cedar Falls was to kill someone, or blow up the bank, or discover oil, none of which he had the motivation or expertise to follow through on.

On this bright, sunny day, he stood in his yard, wearing slacks neatly tucked into the tops of his green rubber Wellingtons, and holding his garden hose at the correctly arched position to hit all the flowers, including the ones in the back row, by the freshly painted, white picket fence that separated his yard from his neighbor’s.

A new shiny car pulled up at the curb and a dapperly attired man opened the door of the car and stepped out.  His hair was medium brown and medium in length.  The sun sparkled off the gold watch on his wrist and the Ray-Ban sunglasses.

“Are you Mr. Riggins?”

Riggins turned to face the man, squinted a bit and slowly murmured, “Yes.”

“I want to buy your car,” said the man, who obviously had a perfectly good car already.

“My car?”  Riggins voice held the tone that people have when they’re trying to think of something to say when they don’t really understand what’s going on. 

“That’s right.  I’m prepared to pay cash. Now.”  He smiled a big, toothy, Hollywood smile.

“Well….” Riggins said and having lost track of where the hose nozzle was pointed, the feminine scream from next door startled him.

“You’ve soaked me!”  Mrs. Pratner, the gray haired widow, had never liked her neighbor.  He’d spilled paint all over her azalea brush when he was working on his fence and he’d tossed dog poop on her yard, thinking her little Lily Bug was the culprit.

Riggins turned suddenly, trying to avoid the direction of the scream and showered the man standing with his car door open.

“Jesus Christ!” the man screamed, jumping to one side and allowing the stream a full shot at the interior of the car.  He reached over and slammed his car door and the stream gave him a full shot in the face, knocking his Ray-Bans over the top of the car, just as another car passed.  “Have you lost your mind?” the dripping man shouted.

“Oh, sorry,” Riggins said, and turned the hose in another direction, just in time to hit Mrs. Pratner with a full blast as she rounded the corner of the fence that separated the two properties. Lily Bug, smelling disaster and catching her share of water, slipped from her mistress’ grasp and took off down the sidewalk like she’d heard the voice of the lord calling her to doggie heaven. This caused Mrs. Pratner to forget about everything else, and take off at her best gimpy pace and screeching for the dog to come back.

Lily Bug, who had never been subjected to the ridicule of proper training, paid no attention and didn’t know the first rule about crossing streets, look both ways, and when the steamroller hit her, she quickly became useful only as wall decoration for Dracula’s country home.  Maybe it had been the voice of the lord calling.

The man who wanted to buy Riggins’ car returned the next day, carefully driving by once to insure no one within earshot was watering his lawn.

He knocked on the front door and Riggins appeared.  “I’m the guy who wants to buy your car,” he said, adjusting his new Ray-Bans.  This time he wasn’t smiling.

“What for?” Riggins asked.

“What do you mean?  I’m making you an offer.”

“I mean why do you want my car?  It’s ten years old.”

“Let’s just say I’m a collector and your car is the perfect model and color I’m looking for.” His voice indicated he was talking to an idiot.

“How much?”

“I’m willing to pay you three thousand dollars….in cash. Right now.”

“I can’t buy another car for three thousand dollars.  What am I going to do when I need to run errands?”

“Ok.  I’ll make it five thousand dollars.”

“I’ll think about it,” Riggins said.  “Come back tomorrow.” And he closed the door in the man’s face.

The following day there was a knock on the door and when Riggins opened it, he saw a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, wearing a ball cap, t-shirt and jeans.  The man handed Riggins a large brown envelope.  Riggins blinked, but took the envelope.  “Thin crust?” he asked.

“You’ve been served,” the young man said and walked down the steps, got in his car and drove away.

Riggins opened the envelope to find a court summons for Thursday, two days away.  The summons alleged that he, Filbert Riggins, was being sued by Mrs. Pamela Pratner in small claims court for being the direct cause of the demise of her beloved pet and friend Lily Bug.  The summons went on to say, the maximum amount allowed in small claims was ten thousand dollars and Mrs. Pratner was asking for the full amount.

Unfamiliar with small claims court, Riggins called the county clerk’s office and learned he didn’t need a lawyer, but could hire one at his own expense.  There was no jury, and rulings came immediately from the judge, unless there were complications.  If there was a payment stipulated in the decision, the judge would set the time and circumstances for payment.  There was no appeal to the judge’s decision.

In the late afternoon, the car buyer returned.  Riggins explained about the lawsuit and demanded ten thousand dollars to settle and another five thousand for the car.  The man refused and didn’t look too pleased.

That night, Riggins thought he heard a noise outside.  He still had a double-barreled shotgun, although he hadn’t been bird hunting in years. 

Before he went out the front door, he heard another sound coming from the garage.  Then there were metallic sounds again from the front.  He picked up the phone to dial 911, but then put it down.  What if a dog, or a larger animal was scratching around?  Last year a raccoon had tipped over his trashcan and in a neighboring town he’d read there was trouble with a bear.  He thought for a moment and decided not to make a fool of himself by calling the police when it was just a raccoon.

With some trepidation, he turned on the porch light and opened the front door, holding the butt of the gun to his shoulder.  Mrs. Pratner dropped the shovel she’d been using to dig up Riggins’ flowerbed and raced around the fence to her yard, screaming, ”Don’t shoot…oh god, don’t shoot me!”

Then he heard a shuffling noise from the detached garage.  The door was open.  A big shadow appeared.  A damned bear!  Riggins squeezed off both barrels and the big black shadow snapped back like it had been snatched by a giant Bungee cord.

Riggins reloaded and raced forward.  Too dark to see much.  He ran back to the front door, raced inside and grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen table before blundering back to the garage.  The dark form was still there and still silent.  He shined the flashlight at the dead face of the man who had offered to buy his car.  His chest looked like raw hamburger.

Without saying a word, he went back in his house and dialed 911.

One plain clothesman and two uniformed police showed up. The detective did the talking, while the patrolmen stood by the patrol car.

“Does the name Allen Langford mean anything to you?”

“No,” Riggins said.

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t know his name, but he came by offering to buy my car.”

“Did you sell it to him?”

“No.”

“Where is your vehicle now?”

Riggins pointed toward his garage, the door still wide open.

“Why do you think he was in your garage?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you shoot him?” 

“I thought he was a bear, you know, like the one they had trouble with in Swansonville.”

“Did he look like a bear to you?”  The detective’s sarcasm bit deep.

“I couldn’t see him.”  Exasperation crept in.

“You told us you had a flashlight.  It was how you found the body.  Your next door neighbor told us you also pointed your shotgun at her.”

Riggins didn’t say anything.

“Well?”

He explained the whole episode as best he could, that he didn’t have the flashlight and then he did. It was the middle of the night.  Fear took over.  He didn’t mean to point the gun at Mrs. Pratner. 

The police decided not to hold him.

The next day, he got a notice that Mrs. Pratner had dropped her suit.   She also put her house up for sale.

The day after that, the police impounded his car.

This time the Chief of Police called him in for a chat.  “You’re not being charged with anything, Mr. Riggins.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” Riggins said.

“Allen Langford is a suspect in a theft of property.  Money mostly.  Apparently, he stashed some in your car.  Do you normally lock your car, Mr. Riggins?”

“No.”

“This is a small town, but you might want to start.  We found money, $35,000 dollars worth under the passenger seat.  Apparently, when he robbed a downtown store, the sound of a police siren scared him off, He put the cash in the first place he found.”

“Why didn’t you arrest him right there?”

“Identified him and figured he was the one, but he’d worn a mask and a Panama hat and red bandana around his neck.  The clerk couldn’t ID him.   We found the articles of clothing in a dumpster next to the store, but couldn’t prove they were his.”

Filbert Riggins finally got his name in the local paper.  “Homeowner Shoots and Kills Known Felon.”  He wished they’d put his picture in the paper, or in the online version.  Fame is so fleeting.

The next day, Filbert called the news desk, then sat in a lawn chair in front of his house, with his shotgun across his knee, waiting to be interviewed and photographed.  

A patrol car came by and cited him for open display of a firearm within the town limits.  A reporter and photographer arrived in time to see the police serve the citation and confiscate the shotgun.

Pamela Pratner came running out of her house and told the cops she had been watching Riggins point his gun at birds and also at nearby houses.

Riggins said, “If I were going to shoot anybody, it would be you!”

On the spot, the citation was changed to an arrest warrant, for displaying a firearm in a menacing manner.  Filbert Riggins got his photo in the newspaper.