Relic: The Morelville Mysteries - Book 1

by Anne Hagan

  Mel spoke for all of us when she said, “What we have here is a cluster fuck!”

  Chapter 31 – Denouement

  Dana

  “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” I looked up at Mel as she assisted me from a wheelchair into the passenger seat of her sister’s car.

  “Dana, you’re no trouble. You were shot, for Pete’s sake! Thank heaven it wasn’t worse than it is!”

  “Well, what it is, is pretty bad…”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  She looked at me with such a look of sorrow as she went on the defensive that I took pity on her and decided not to take my frustration out on her, especially on our first real date. “I’m just glad to get out of rehab torture for a bit.”

  “How long until you’re out of the hospital for more than an outing?” She started the car.

  “Soon, I think. The bones are set and they’ve started healing. There’s just a lot of nerve damage that’s keeping me from having full capabilities with my left leg, right now.” I stopped talking because I wasn’t sure how to broach the real topic at hand; us.

  “Where will you go when you’re released from the hospital?”

  So much for not really wanting to go there right now.

  “Well, probably back to Cleveland to stay while my rehab continues. Then, I’ll have to be medically evaluated to continue in my normal duty assignment.”

  “And, if you can’t? Do your normal assignment, I mean?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Mel grew quiet and I got lost in my own thoughts as she drove me wherever it was that she was taking me. “It’s a surprise,” she’d said.

  My mind wandered back to that night on the Chappell farm. What a mixed up nightmare that had turned into. I was bleeding and woozy after being shot but Tim came to my aide as three agencies attempted to claim the bust and go through the cargo. A decision was made by people echelons above all of us on the ground to offload the truck and see what we had before determining jurisdiction over the whole shooting match.

  The first couple of crates yielded a treasure trove of knock off, high end cell phones. They weren’t at all what I was expecting to see come off the truck but I would take it. I became smug in my victory and refused to leave the site until Tim stepped up and ordered me to go and be treated.

  He and Mel were waiting for me at the hospital when I came out of recovery after surgery to remove bone fragments from the bullet I took. Over the next couple of hours, as I drifted in and out of consciousness, the rest of the story unfolded.

  The next crate off the truck, much to the surprise of all the law enforcement officers on site but the ATF agents, apparently, contained two racks of high end automatic rifles. Delores and her brother, it turns out, were the primary traders in the Gangster Demons very lucrative arms dealing business. The arms that night came via Detroit in the Demon owned truck and were to be distributed from the Chappell farming operation per usual, in a true stroke of criminal genius, in modified milk tanker trucks. Who would ever suspect a milk tanker to be hauling anything but milk?

  ATF had been tipped about illegal arms trade firearms passing through Detroit and had been working on nailing the whole distribution ring for months. They had been the ones watching the dairy farm from the Amish farm when we had first attempted to set up surveillance.

  The Secret Service, meanwhile, was a latecomer to the whole Gangster Demons – Relic – Chappell party. Mel’s tip to them about counterfeit money and her investigative work had walked them right into a case that might not have come for months or years to come given the quality of the counterfeit money that was being passed. The three men Agent Webb had taken into federal custody gave up information on the money distribution system via Demon owned transport. The truck driver the night of the big bust had another part of his load and a briefcase full of counterfeit twenties headed for Knoxville. He’d never even taken the briefcase out of the cab.

  Secret Service Agents had been the ones to find and collar the two men we had out in the field doing surveillance the night of the bust. Though I’d never be able to prove it, the bullet I took, likely came from one of their operatives. If someone in the FBI van hadn’t shouted out a cease fire and alerted the men in the field that something wasn’t quite what they thought it was… I shuddered at the thought of the lives that might have been lost that night.

  “What’s wrong? You’re shaking,” Mel asked.

  “Just thinking about the night of the bust… how bad it really could have been with all of those agents. If the farm crew had been armed…”

  “But, they weren’t. They were just farm hands out to pick up some extra dough.”

  “I know. Like you said that night, what a cluster fuck! All three agencies are going to be battling for jurisdiction over this case for years. Meanwhile, Illinois wants Delores Chappell extradited on murder charges for ordering the prison hit and there’s a nationwide manhunt going on to find Vincent and charge him with murder as well.”

  “I hate to break it to you Dana, but the local DA is also reopening the investigation into Sheriff Carter’s death.”

  “He’s going to have to get in line!”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Well, you were right about one thing which, given her recent history, was a surprise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Relic…er… Delores going easily. She didn’t even put up a fight. When they stormed her house that night as we were hitting that barn, she barely let out a whimper.”

  “Maybe she realized the jig was up?” Mel’s response was more a question than a statement.

  “Maybe. Actually, I’m thinking she’s so tied into all the gang business, and with all the low level guys singing like canaries, that she’s keeping her mouth shut and will be doing that for forever and a day. With three agencies bearing down on her…” I looked at Mel and shrugged.

  Mel looked thoughtful.

  “What has the wheels turning in your head now?”

  “It’s just, well, I’ve known Delores all my life. I’ve been a cop for years. I can usually spot a criminal right away… I don’t know!” She shook her head. “How does someone like her, from a place like this,” she waved her left arm out her open window to the countryside surrounding her little hometown of Morelville, “get mixed up with a street gang?”

  “Look, she may not be talking but Jonathan Joseph is and he’s had plenty to say because he’s trying to save his own ass. He’s given Gene and anyone else that will listen to him the scoop on her.”

  “Really? I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “Mel, it’s still a federal investigation. There are some things I can’t tell you but, I can give you a little bit of background, if you like.”

  She nodded for me to continue.

  “Okay. Well, first of all, Delores was born almost completely deaf. As a teenager, she was sent to a Chicago hospital for surgery to insert experimental implants in both of her ears. It was a very expensive procedure that her family got done for her for free by agreeing to let the procedure be attempted on a young adult with significant hearing lose. They were too poor to travel with her.”

  “After the surgery, Delores had to stay in Chicago for a while for testing and for speech therapy so she actually stayed with distant family in the area. The branch of the family there, to which Joseph is related, he tells us, had problems with the Mafia during prohibition and beyond. They eventually fought back by becoming involved with the Gangster Demons. Most of that branch of the family, unknown to the branch of the family Delores left back in Ohio, was gang connected. That’s apparently where her involvement started. Why, or how, we don’t know…yet.”

  “Wow. And she came back to Ohio to spread the joy…” Mel just shook her head.

 
I continued, “Which leads me to wonder how, if the family was too poor to travel with her or to pay for her follow up care here, they came to have such a farming empire?”

  “Good question! Guess that’s one for all you feds to figure out.” She looked at me and grinned that same grin I remembered from the first day I met her.

  I laughed. “So, where are we going, anyway?”

  “Actually, we’re here.”

  She pulled the car into a lot past a teenager waving an orange traffic flag. There were rows of cars ahead of us. She drove toward the front of the lot and parked near an entrance gate. My view of the goings on was blocked by a crowd of people waiting to enter.

  “I present to you, the Morelville Mushroom Festival!” She smiled and her eyes beamed her mirth.

  I laughed so hard, tears formed in my eyes.

  Mel parked, retrieved the wheelchair from the trunk and then maneuvered me out of the car. We bypassed the main gate and entered through a side gate reserved for the handicapped. I hated that but I resolved to make the best of it. My resolve, however, would be short lived.

  Prequel to Busy Bees: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 2

  My doctor is giving me a day pass for good behavior. I took a bullet to the left leg on my last assignment that shattered bone and damaged nerves. After two surgeries to remove the bullet and some bone fragments and to piece together my femur with rods and screws, I’m healing but not nearly fast enough for my liking. My leg has little capability to bear weight and feeling any sensation at all in it is hit and miss. Doctor Welle, my surgeon, tells me it will all come in due time.

  I hate the rehab work… absolutely hate it. I feel so useless and incapable when I can’t do an exercise. But, I also hate being confined to a hospital bed for most of the day. Rehabbing well is my permanent ticket out of there and back to my life. Today, I’m told, is a little reward for the work I’ve put in so far. It sure doesn’t hurt that the outing is with the county Sheriff and that the medical staff knows I’ll be in capable hands!

  Mel said she was going to take me on a date somewhere special. I don’t care where we go as long as I get to spend time with her and the location doesn’t involve hospital food!

  ###

  “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” I looked up at Mel as she assisted me from a wheelchair into the passenger seat of her sister’s car.

  “Dana, you’re no trouble. You were shot, for Pete’s sake! Thank heaven it wasn’t worse than it is!”

  “Well, what it is, is pretty bad…”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  She looked at me with such a look of sorrow as she went on the defensive that I took pity on her and decided not to take my frustration out on her, especially on our first real date. “I’m just glad to get out of rehab torture for a bit.”

  “How long until you’re out of the hospital for more than an outing?” She started the car.

  “Soon, I think. The bones are set and they’ve started healing. There’s just a lot of nerve damage that’s keeping me from having full capabilities with my left leg, right now.” I stopped talking because I wasn’t sure how to broach the real topic at hand; us.

  “Where will you go when you’re released from the hospital?”

  “Well, probably back to Cleveland to stay while my rehab continues. Then, I’ll have to be medically evaluated to continue in my normal duty assignment…”

  She glanced over at me and then quickly turned her gaze back to the road. “And, if you can’t? Do your normal assignment, I mean?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Mel grew quiet and I got lost in my own thoughts as she drove me wherever it was that she was taking me. “It’s a surprise,” she’d said.

  I thought about the Chappell mission that had just ended for me as an investigation but that might be with me physically for the rest of my life. I thought about how the jurisdiction battles and the courtroom battles over that case might rage for years and, I thought about what the end of the case meant for any possible relationship I might have with Mel.

  Mel drew me out of my reverie and we talked about the case for a few minutes. After a time, I asked her, “So, where are we going, anyway?”

  “Actually, we’re here,” she said.

  She pulled the car into a lot past a teenager waving an orange traffic flag. There were rows of cars ahead of us. She drove toward the front of the lot and parked near an entrance gate. My view of the goings on was blocked by a crowd of people waiting to enter.

  “I present to you, the Morelville Mushroom Festival!” She smiled and her eyes beamed her mirth.

  I remembered a statement she made to me in one of her police interrogation rooms during our inauspicious first meeting and I laughed so hard, tears formed in my eyes.

  Mel parked, retrieved the wheelchair from the trunk and then maneuvered me out of the car. We bypassed the main gate and entered through a side gate reserved for the handicapped. I hated that but I resolved to make the best of it. My resolve, however, would be short lived.

  About the Author

  Anne Hagan is an East Central Ohio based government employee by day and author by night. She and her wife live in a tiny town that's even smaller than the Morelville of her fiction novels and they wouldn't have it any other way. Anne's wife grew up there and has always considered it home. Though it's an ultra-conservative rural community, they're surrounded there by family, longtime friends and many other wonderful people with open hearts and minds. They enjoy spending time with Anne's son and his wife, with their nieces and nephews and doing many of the things you've read about in her books or that will be 'fictitiously' incorporated into future Morelville Mysteries and Cozies series books. If you've read about a hobby or a sport in either series, they probably enjoy doing it themselves or someone very close to them does.

  Anne and her wife are the co-owners of a haunted house: Hagan's House of Horrors. Much as her dream has always been to write fiction, her spouse's dream has been to create it through the medium of horror. They took their haunt operation fully commercial in 2015. Watch them as they grow!

  Also Written by the Author

  Busy Bees: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 2 featuring murder and mayhem for Sheriff Mel Crane and an uncertain future for injured Special Agent Dana Rossi.

  Dana’s Dilemma: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 3 - The relationship matures between Mel and Dana…or does it…in an installment that features a breaking Amish character, an ex-girlfriend, a conniving politician and murder.

  Hitched and Tied: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 4 - Mel and Dana attempt to bring their growing relationship full circle but family, duty and family duties all conspire to get in the way. 

  Viva Mama Rossi!: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 5 – More murders plus meddling mothers…

  A Crane Christmas: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 6 - Is it the Christmas season or the ‘silly season’?

  Mad for Mel: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 7 - Rival gangs will stop at nothing to gain sole control of the drug trade in Muskingum County and they’ve picked Valentine’s week to create a firestorm of murder and mayhem as they battle each other for supremacy. 

  Introducing, the Morelville Cozies series, Book 1: The Passed Prop:

  Chloe Rossi wants to retire with her husband and move away from suburban sprawl to bucolic Morelville; the only trouble is, Morelville is experiencing its worst crime wave ever and Marco Rossi wants no part of a move there. What to do?

  Faye Crane would like nothing more than to have her good friend Chloe move closer to her and to Chloe’s own daughter. She’s got Chloe convinced it’s a smart move but Marco is a tougher nut to crack. A string of brutal crimes around Halloween with no witnesses and little evidence to work with has Faye’s Sheriff daughter and her entire department stymied. Marco
is second guessing even taking his retirement since Sheriff Mel can’t get a handle on it all and bring peace and well-being back to the tiny village.

  Someone has to root out a killer. Can Faye and Chloe nose around and figure out what the police can’t to solve the crime? If they do, will Marco still waver or will he consent to move? 

  Check Anne Out on her blog, on Facebook or on Twitter:

  For the latest information about upcoming releases, other projects, sample chapters and everything personal, check out Anne’s blog at https://AnneHaganAuthor.com/ or like Anne on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAnneHagan. You can also connect with Anne on Twitter @AuthorAnneHagan.