Me, I’m still waiting for the telephone to ring, or for opportunity to knock. When I pick up the receiver sometimes I hear a click. Am I being paranoid, or are the feds getting even? Could they do that if I broke down and got a smartphone?
Thanksgiving rolled around. The Macy’s parade rolled down the streets of Manhattan on my TV set. A giant inflated turkey floated overhead. The wind gusted. The skies wept. The girls tossing batons shivered.
I popped a TV dinner into the microwave—mystery meat advertised as turkey, with congealed stuffing, something that looked as if it had been green beans, and cranberry sauce.
The cranberry sauce was delicious.
Stakeout in a Maple Tree
Earl Staggs
So, Mollie, she thought to herself, here you are. Fifty-one years old, after twenty years on the Fort Worth PD and five years as sheriff of Watango County, you’re sitting in a maple tree at midnight, in full uniform, fighting to stay awake and hoping you don’t fall and break your neck. How did this happen?
She knew the answer. It started three days ago when Callie Cullen stomped past her receptionist and three of her deputies like a runaway semi, and abruptly stopped in the doorway of her office. No one dared intercept her. Callie is over six feet tall, built like a linebacker, and always has a scowl on her face like she’s mad at someone. Today, she must have been furious at the whole world. Her hair, half-brown and half-gray, looked like she’d combed it with an eggbeater.
“Okay, Mollie,” she boomed. “Suit up, or whatever the hell you people do, and get out to my place. They’re robbing me blind.”
Callie’s place is five miles out of town and, being the largest farm in the county, made her one of the richest people around. She was also the most irascible and disliked.
Mollie laid the mail she’d been reading on the desk in front of her, leaned forward, managed to offer that tight little smile she used when she felt obliged to smile but didn’t mean it, and said, “Good morning to you too, Callie. Why don’t you sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
The two women had not been friends since that hair-pulling incident in tenth grade. That happened when Callie flirted with Mollie’s boyfriend, Lilburn. It all worked out just fine. Mollie and Lilburn recently celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary.
Callie stiffened her big frame and jutted out her chin. “I’ll stand if you don’t mind, and I just told you, they’re robbing me blind.”
“Suit yourself. Tell me who’s robbing you and what did they take?”
Callie crossed her arms in front of her. “It started a week ago. First, it was the apples. I figure it’s one of those gangs from California. You know. The Bloods or the Creeps.”
“Uh, I think you mean Crips.”
“Whatever. I’ve heard they like to terrorize people.”
“Well, I don’t think they came all the way to Texas to terrorize you by stealing apples. Anyway, isn’t it a little late in the season for apples? This is the middle of November. Thanksgiving is only a week away.”
“Not too late for my Granny Smiths, it isn’t. They’re scheduled to be harvested next week.”
“Okay,” Mollie said. She pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer of her desk and picked up a pen. “How many apples did they take?”
“About a dozen, maybe more.”
Mollie put her pen down. “You have a thousand trees, and you know a dozen apples are missing?”
Callie smirked as if to say, “How dare you question me.” What she said was, “For your information, I only have two hundred and fifteen Granny Smith trees, and one low branch was stripped clean.”
Mollie picked up her pen and wrote 12 apples on the paper.
“And that was only the beginning,” Callie continued. “Three nights ago, they took one of my chickens. I had forty-four chickens, and when I noticed an empty space on the roosting bar in the coop, I knew one was missing.”
Mollie raised her pen. “Uh, can you describe the chicken, Callie? Maybe we could bring in a sketch artist. Instead of an Amber Alert, we’ll issue a Cackle Alert.”
Callie’s eyes narrowed. Her shoulders tightened. “I’m glad you’re having fun with this, Mollie, but I would appreciate it if you’d take it seriously. I’m a citizen of this county, and as county sheriff, it’s your job to take care of things like this. So why don’t you do your job.”
Mollie wanted to say, “Why don’t you and your attitude get the hell out of my office.” Instead, she said, “Okay, I’ll do my job.” She wrote 1 chicken on the paper under 12 apples. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Yes. Last night they took a pumpkin.”
Mollie looked up from her paper. She noticed deputy Timmy Smith, whose desk was closest to her office, watching and listening to the conversation. He caught Mollie’s eye, grinned, and rolled his eyes. Mollie shot him a warning glare. If Callie had seen him, she probably would have punched him.
“How many acres of pumpkins do you have, Callie?”
“Four.”
“That’s a lot of pumpkins, but you can tell if one is missing?”
“Of course I can. When you look down the row and see a bare vine, you know a pumpkin has been taken.”
Mollie sighed to herself. “Of course.” She added 1 pumpkin to the list. “Is that all?”
“That’s all so far, but who knows what they’ll go after next? My squash? My pigs? I expect you to investigate this and put a stop to it. I pay a lot of taxes in this county, and that goes a long way toward paying the salaries of you and your people. I want some action. I’ll expect you at my place later today.”
With that, Callie turned and marched toward the front door. Everyone moved out of her way as always. No one wanted to be bowled over by Callie Cullen.
Mollie added another item to the list. Under 12 apples, I chicken and I pumpkin, she wrote And a partridge in a pear tree.
Then she slumped back in her chair and felt terrible. That wasn’t the way to treat citizens of her county. But this wasn’t just any citizen. This was Callie Cullen, and Mollie couldn’t control herself when Callie was around. Ever since tenth grade. But Callie had been right. It was Mollie’s job to investigate any theft, no matter how petty it was.
And that’s how Mollie Goodall, Sheriff of Watango County, Texas, came to be perched approximately ten feet off the ground on a knobby branch of a maple tree at midnight a week before Thanksgiving.
Mollie was familiar with the Cullen farm from all those play days with Callie when they were in grade school. She decided this was the best spot to see anyone sneaking onto the property to “rob her blind.” This was the third night of her stakeout, and she had yet to see anyone stealing anything. She could have assigned the task to one of her deputies, but they had more important things to do. So, here she was.
Mollie felt her cell phone vibrate and pulled it from her pocket. Caller ID said it was Lilburn. She answered it in a whisper. “Hi, honey.”
Her husband asked, “Why are you whispering?”
“Because I’m on a stakeout, remember? I have to keep quiet and not give away my location. Why are you still up this late?”
“You know I can’t sleep when you’re not home. I was thinking I might come over and keep you company. I could bring you something to eat and some hot coffee.”
“That’s a tempting offer, but I don’t think this branch would hold both of us. Besides, I brought a thermos of coffee and a sandwich. If I get hungry again, I’ll steal an apple. What are you doing? Working on your entry for the Thanksgiving Cookoff next week?”
Lilburn had become a chef since his retirement. He’d won the Cookoff last year, and Mollie was sure he’d win again this year. He was that good. The really good part about it was, he did all the cooking at home. He loved cooking. Mollie hated it. And she wasn’t very good at it. She’d even wondered if that’s why Lilburn took it up.
“Oh, I haven’t decided what I’ll enter this year,” he said. “I have to come up with the right recipe, s
omething different and unique.”
“How about something with apples, pumpkin and chicken?”
He chuckled. “Are you serious? What made you think of that combination?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve lost my mind. If I was in my right mind, I wouldn’t be sitting in a stupid tree.”
“I won’t argue with that. Especially since you’re doing it for Callie Cullen. She’s the crazy one.”
“Not really. I’ve been thinking about her. She’s just a lonely woman. She has no family or friends at all. That’s a terrible way to go through life.”
“Well, you have to admit, it’s all her own fault for being the way she is.”
“Yeah, and you know how she gets under my skin. I was a real smartass when she was in my office. I felt bad afterward. Maybe if someone reached out to her, she might be different.”
“I doubt it. I heard Wally Perkins asked her out a few weeks ago, and she punched him.”
“She said he said something dirty to her. Neither of them wanted to press charges, so nothing came of it.”
“Except Wally walked around with a black eye for a few days. Seriously, Mollie, how long can you keep this up? You’re staying up all night and working all day.”
“I’m doing okay. I sneak into the conference room during the day and stretch out for a couple hours.”
“Are you sure you don’t want some company?”
“I’d love it, but no. You get some sleep yourself and come up with a winning recipe for the Cookoff.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Callie if she wants my company.”
“Yeah, right. You do that, and I’ll give you a black eye.”
Lilburn laughed and they said goodnight.
Mollie sighed and put her phone away. She reached over, being careful not to lose her balance, retrieved the night vision binoculars she’d hung on a branch, and scanned the property once again. Callie’s big farmhouse sat just to the right and, behind that, the overseer’s cottage, which had been vacant for several years. When Callie’s father ran the farm, he hired an overseer to manage the people he hired to work the farm. When her father passed away, the overseer quit, and Callie took over the job herself. The overseer said he wanted to move to Tennessee to be closer to his children. Everyone knew he quit because he couldn’t get along with Callie. No one could.
Mollie scanned to the left and passed over the pumpkin field, the pigpen, and several acres of various vegetables. Behind them, acres and acres of bare, cultivated soil stretched as far she could see, hibernating until it was time to produce another crop of hay and corn. Next, she came to the apple orchard. She saw nothing at first, but then she spotted a figure moving among the trees. The figure stopped under a tree and reached up. Aha! The thief had come back for more apples.
Mollie began to carefully climb down the rough trunk of the tree. Stumps of pruned branches provided foot and hand holds. Halfway down, she heard something rip. When she reached the ground, she felt her backside and found a six-inch tear in her uniform pants. Fortunately, no skin had been torn.
“Oooh, Callie,” she muttered, “you owe me a pair of pants.”
Mollie made her way toward the orchard. When she was thirty feet from where she’d seen the thief, she saw no one. Then she spotted a figure moving among the trees a short distance way and carrying a bag. It looked like a man, a small man. The bag was large enough to hold at least a dozen apples, and it was full.
Mollie thought about yelling “Freeze!” and flashing her badge. Instead, she decided to follow the thief to find out where he was going and why he had been sneaking onto Callie’s farm in the middle of the night to steal apples, a pumpkin, and a chicken.
She followed him for twenty minutes through the orchard and into a forest of pine trees. In a clearing, sat a one-room, dilapidated log cabin so old and weather-beaten it could fall down any minute. Through the one window in the front, she saw a small flickering light. A candle, she guessed. Mollie scrunched down behind a bush and watched the thief open the door and enter the cabin. She checked to make sure her gun was unstrapped in case she needed it, and crept up to the window. Inside, she saw the small man she had followed. In the glow of the candle on the dirt floor, she saw he was only a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Gathered around the candle were a woman in her thirties and two smaller children, a boy about ten and a little girl not more than five years old. She didn’t recognize any of them. They were eating apples.
Mollie moved over to the door, opened it, and stepped inside.
“Police. Everyone stay where you are.”
*
The next morning, Mollie called Callie and told her she’d caught the gang of thieves who had been terrorizing her. She asked Callie to come in and file charges against them.
Callie burst into the office thirty minutes later with fire in her eyes.
“Okay, Mollie, let’s get this over with and put these crooks where they belong. I have a lot of work to do. Where are they?”
“You passed them when you came in. They’re sitting right out there in the lobby.”
Callie spun around and looked behind her. “They’re sitting in the lobby? They’re not in a cell? I don’t see anyone but a woman and some children.”
Mollie said, “Callie, sit down and listen.” When Callie didn’t budge, Mollie added, “Please.”
Callie grudgingly sat in the chair across from Mollie. “Okay, but make it quick. I have work to do. I have to hire a crew to harvest my Granny Smiths next week.”
Mollie smiled, a real smile this time. “I know you’re busy, but I have to tell you something about the people who robbed you. The woman is Jolene Wilkins, and those are her children, Tommy, Danny, and Lucinda. They’ve been through a really rough time. Jolene’s husband was killed in Iraq six months ago, and she’s been struggling to support herself and her kids ever since. They were on their way to Fort Worth where they have relatives, but their car broke down. Jolene tried to fix it, but she fell and injured her back and has barely been able to even walk. They managed to find an old cabin just down the road from your place and were forced to stay there until Jolene was back on her feet again. They ran out of food and remembered passing your farm before their car broke down. Jolene decided the only way to feed her kids was to borrow food from your place.”
Callie’s eye flamed again. “Borrow? It was out and out stealing, that’s what it was. I hope you locked them up good and tight so they couldn’t rob me or someone else.”
“Actually, I took them to the hospital where they gave Jolene a brace for her sprained back. She’ll be fine after a few days of rest. Then I took them home with me where they all had a hot bath and a good meal.”
Callie snorted. “I see you’re still playing the Red Cross nurse. You used to carry Band Aids in your pocket in case someone needed one, and if you found an injured animal, you’d take it home and nurse it back to health. Maybe you should have been a vet instead of a cop.”
Mollie struggled to control herself and continued. “Their plan was to keep track of everything they took and pay you for it as soon as Jolene was able to walk back to your house. I have the list they made right here.” Mollie held up a sheet of paper. “It’s all here. The apples, the chicken, and the pumpkin. They took a total of twenty-seven apples, by the way. Jolene has a little bit of money left, seventeen dollars to be exact, and they were going to give it to you to repay you.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t press charges against them?”
“That’s entirely up to you, Callie. You can—”
A small voice interrupted her. “Are you the farmer lady?”
Callie and Mollie looked to the doorway where a five-year-old girl stood with big blue eyes and neatly brushed blond hair.
Mollie said “Yes, Lucinda, this is Miss Callie, and she’s the farmer lady. Callie, this is Lucinda Wilkins, and she has something for you.”
Lucinda took small steps over to Callie and held out her clenched fist. When she opene
d her hand, a crunched wad of bills was there. “This is all our money to pay you for the food we took. We hope it’s enough.”
Callie started to reach out for the money, but her hand stopped short, and she sat perfectly still.
Lucinda said, “You’re pretty.”
Callie stared at the little girl for a long moment, then turned to look at Mollie. Mollie was sure she saw a blush appear on Callie’s cheeks.
Callie’s hand moved out to meet Lucinda’s, but instead of taking the money, she closed Lucinda’s fingers over the bills. “You’re pretty, too, Lucinda, and I want you to take your money back to your mommy. You don’t owe me anything.”
Lucinda looked confused and unsure what to do. “Are…are you sure?”
The little girl turned to Mollie. Mollie smiled and nodded. “Lucinda, the farmer lady says you can keep your money. You take it back to your mommy and tell her I’ll be out to talk to her in a few minutes.”
Lucinda’s face spread into a huge smile. “Thank you, Miss Callie. You’re a nice lady.” She spun and ran back down the hall to where her family waited.
Mollie watched Callie pull a handkerchief from her pocket and blow her nose. Mollie was surprised to see the terror of the county with moist eyes.
“That was generous of you, Callie.”
Callie wiped her nose again and shoved her hanky back in her pocket. “And it was sneaky of you to have that sweet little girl bring me the money.”
Mollie raised both hands and put on an innocent look. “Surely you don’t think I put her up to that.”
“Surely you did.” Callie turned her face toward the wall and said quietly, “I’m not a monster, Mollie.”
“I know you’re not, Callie. I remember when you and I were her age and used to go swimming in your daddy’s pond with all our friends. We had a lot of fun together back then.”
The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos Page 4
