It was Daniel, Linda’s son. Behind him was a small army: Linda, Pastor Williams, Mrs. Kim (the widow Arthur drove to doctor appointments every Tuesday), and Tom from the local hardware store.
They hadn’t come with lawyers. They had come with their voices.
“You’ve got the wrong man!” Linda shouted. “This man is a saint! He hasn’t left this county in twenty years!”
The precinct sergeant was overwhelmed. These people didn’t know the charges, and they didn’t care. They knew the man. They knew the neighbor who shoveled their snow and the teacher who still remembered his students’ names forty years later.
By the time the officers ran the final fingerprint check, the truth came out: It was a case of mistaken identity. A different Arthur Patterson, with a different social security number, was the real culprit.
