Finding Sheila

by Anne Hagan

  I yelped my surprise at Mel’s sudden roughness but, then, my body betrayed me. My pulse quickened, my nipples hardened, and my crotch grew moist. I felt the heat of my desire burning my neck and cheeks. She took my embarrassment at my physical reaction to her as rage and she leaned in harder.

  “Whoa! Ease up. We're on the same team here!” I tried to sound like her equal and not the sex starved lunatic I was currently channeling.

  She spun me around to face her. We were so close; I could feel her warm breath on my face as she looked down at me. I was breathing hard, but she was the picture of calm resolve.

  “Are you going to cooperate now?”

  “I’ve spoken with your Sheriff, briefly,” the Agent across the table from of Dana was saying. “If you cooperate, we’ll get you on your way pretty quickly.”

  “Sure…sure, Agent?”

  “Bennett. Jacob Bennett. I’m the Agent in Charge of the Louisville Office.”

  “Okay Bennett. I get that you want to talk to everybody involved, but you need to start with that EMT, Caleb Lighty. How many times do I have to say it?”

  He raised a hand to stop her tirade. “I’ve got two of my best people working him over right now. Give them a half hour with him, they’ll know everything he knows. I want to know everything you know.”

  Bennett’s manner was almost cordial, but Dana knew she wasn’t out of hot water by miles. While he took notes, she lurched through her version of the events of the day starting with only being on the road with Lighty to drive in the first place.

  “So, who picked the rest stop location?” he asked, when she got to that point.

  “Caleb.”

  “What protocol did you follow for watching the prisoner while you were stopped?”

  “That’s where I screwed up…but honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered. If he’s in on it, as soon as I left the squad…You know what I mean.” It wasn’t a question. “Anyway, Ford was handcuffed to the gurney when I got out. I had the key to the cuffs and I took it with me. The trooper that arrested me took it and my gun from me. Whoever knocked me out, didn’t need my key to free her and they had no interest in taking my service weapon. They knew what they were doing, and they did it quickly.”

  “And the ambulance? Who locked it?”

  “Caleb did, and I watched him do it.”

  “He had the only keys?”

  “That’s what he claimed to me. I certainly wasn’t given any keys.”

  “Did you test the lock?”

  She hung her head briefly then looked back up at him. “No. I blew that too, okay? I’ve been in investigations for a long time. I think like a detective, not a street cop.”

  “When did you find it unlocked?”

  “Me or when did Caleb say he did?”

  “You.”

  “Caleb told me in the hallway outside the restrooms that Sheila was gone. I got back to the squad first and opened the door. It wasn’t locked then.”

  “You’re positive he locked it?”

  “Not a doubt in my mind. I saw him put the key in and turn it.”

  “A team is going over the vehicle now. I need a list from you of what Ford had with her. Did you get an inventory from corrections?”

  Dana knitted her brows but didn’t speak.

  “Deputy?”

  “Sorry. That’s just it. Now that I think about it, she had nothing at all but what she was wearing.”

  “No personal items? A toothbrush, comb?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing was turned over to me.”

  He made a note on his pad.

  She was extradited in civilian clothes. Those should have followed her around too.

  “Did she have any visitors today? Someone the Tennessee Department of Corrections might have passed her things along to?”

  “No. At least, not that I’m aware of. Look, it was a transfer, not a release.”

  “Right,” he said. “Her stuff should have followed her.”

  Dana shrugged it off. “We’re probably making too much out of it. Maybe her daughter took what few things she had figuring she was going to be incarcerated for a while. Maybe it was just the clothes on her back and she didn’t care to get them back.”

  Dana looked up, hopeful when Bennett re-entered the room.

  “The Kentucky state police found your truck. Shook it down when it went through a weigh station in Rowan County.”

  “Rowan? Where’s that?”

  “East. It was headed East on I-64. Has Virginia plates.”

  “Pretty far from here?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  “So, let me guess; no Sheila Ford?”

  “The woman in the passenger seat fit the description the trooper got from Thomas Harrington. It isn’t Ford. The semi is operated by a husband and wife driving team, Randall and Lynnette Willard, of Roanoke, Virginia. They’re being questioned but it looks like a dead end. They’ve got proper ID. Cab’s clean and the trailer is empty.”

  Ford is from Virginia. “What were they doing out there?”

  “Look Deputy, they’re independent truckers. They own their truck outright. That checks out. It has valid Virginia plates on it that also check out. We went through their logs. They were on a regular, twice a week run with goods for convenience stores that takes them west across Virginia, West Virginia and southwest through most of Kentucky. They were on their return leg home to Roanoke. Like I said, the trailer was empty save for a couple of pallets.” He held out his phone and showed her a picture of the woman’s driver’s license. She bore a similar facial structure to Sheila and had nearly the same hair color, probably dye.

  “What else do you have? Something? Anything?”

  “There’s a manhunt going on in three states. We’ll find her.”

  Yeah, but which three?

  Chapter 7 - It’s All On Dana

  Friday, November 20th

  “They released Lighty, Mel”

  “To who?”

  Dana ran a hand through her hair, tugging through some tangles. “His own recognizance, I guess. Someone from his company did show up here, though.”

  “In Kentucky?”

  “Yes. I’m at the FBI Field Office now in Louisville. They brought him and the squad here too. Told me they were going to hold him as long as they could. They seem to think now that the guy really doesn’t know anything.”

  Mel shook her head on the other end of the line in disbelief. “She had nothing with her Dana, right? Not one thing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then she didn’t get out of your cuffs and out of that squad by herself. Someone helped her. He’s the most obvious suspect!”

  “I agree but they seem to think differently.” She sighed. “He’s pretty new at his company but not so new as to be suspicious and he’s fairly young. Hardly a hardened criminal. He’s riding back to Nashville with the guy the company sent to reclaim the squad.”

  “Are they at least watching him? Tailing him?”

  “They haven’t shared that information with me.”

  Mel bristled and threw up a hand on her end of the line, but she couldn’t take her frustration out on Dana. “This whole thing smacks of a grand conspiracy from the word go. Hell, Coventry is probably in on it, the jail. Every damn body!”

  “What if it’s not an escape Mel? What if she was kidnapped?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “These guys really believe Caleb had nothing to do with this. That doesn’t leave us with much for an escape, but what if she was kidnapped?”

  Mel gave that some thought. After a long pause, she asked, what does Bennett have to say about that?”

  “I don’t know,” Dana admitted. “He’s pretty tight lipped about their process. He’s only told me there’s been no sight of her and nothing at all suspicious. She either escaped with help, Mel, or she was kidnapped by someone who knew when and where to find her.”

  “Which means, it was an inside job, either way
we look at it. Think about a kidnapping though. There’s usually a ransom demand or it’s for some sort of revenge and the kidnappers make their reasons known.”

  “Usually. Either way, my gut feeling is, it was all part of a plan from the start.”

  Mel considered that. “Have you heard anything about them moving their investigation into Tennessee, to the prison?”

  “Nothing. I told you, Bennett’s tight lipped. He’s not giving anything up. If he was going to say anything to anyone, I would think he’d tell you before he’d tell me.”

  “He mentioned having me run down Sheila’s daughter but that’s been a dead end, so far.”

  “Strange.”

  “You aren’t kidding. She’s dropped off the map.”

  “Do you think it’s related?” It almost has to be…

  Mel sat back in her chair and gave that some thought too. “I don’t know,” she finally conceded. “She seemed genuinely worried about her mother’s health, but I find it odd that she wasn’t breaking down my door when the arrangements were made for the transfer and you were underway to Ohio. She’s completely out of the loop now.”

  “Then, she has to be involved somehow, Mel.”

  “Part of the plot? I don’t get that from her.”

  “Maybe a victim too, then” Dana said.

  Changing the subject, Mel asked, “When are you free to go?”

  “Anytime. They’re not holding me here anymore. Hell, they let Caleb go. They can’t hold me.”

  Mel didn’t respond. Dana was quiet for a minute too.

  They both started talking at once.

  “I can’t help but think,” Mel began.

  “By the time I get home,” Dana started off. When she realized Mel still had the investigation on her mind she let her thought go and said, “You were saying?”

  “I was thinking that, no matter what the FBI thinks, that driver is still a key to this in some way, maybe a very small way. If you weren’t being followed, someone had to know where he was going to stop and be there waiting. Maybe he radioed dispatch…”

  “We were well out of that range, Mel. Frankly, he didn’t strike me as smart enough to work through relays and such.”

  “Just thinking out loud here.”

  A thought occurred to Dana. “There were supposed to be two guys Mel. What if the one who called in sick set him up?”

  Mel pulled a note pad closer and picked up a pen. “What was his name?”

  Dana’s shoulders sagged. “Caleb mentioned the name ‘Theo’, probably short for Theodore. That’s all I know. Sorry.”

  Mel tapped the pen on the pad. “We need to find that out.”

  “We? It’s the FBI’s case.”

  “True, but it’s a local concern for several reasons.”

  “Mel…really. What are you going to do? What can you possibly do?”

  “The question is, what are you willing to do? I’m not in a position to do much from here other than investigate Ford’s daughter. You’re already in Tennessee.”

  “Kentucky…but, I started to say earlier that I’m probably going to have to turn around and come right back down here…er, go down to Tennessee for the closing on the cabin, no sooner than I get home.”

  “You could go down there now then and watch Caleb, maybe get a handle on this Theo character,” Mel suggested.

  “And then do what? Tell the FBI I’m horning in on their investigation?”

  “I have some contacts with the State Police down there. What if I could get you into that prison to nose around?”

  “It’s the FBI’s case, Mel.”

  “So you don’t want to try?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  Chapter 8 - Jailing

  Saturday Afternoon, November 21st

  Mel glanced at the caller ID. Her mother again. She knew she needed her help getting the farmhouse ready for the annual Crane Thanksgiving bash, but she just didn’t have the time. She didn’t like working weekends any more than her deputies did, but it was part of the job.

  Sighing, she picked up the phone. “Sheriff Crane.”

  “Seriously, Melissa? You knew who was calling you.”

  She smiled and hoped it carried over into her voice. “What can I do for you mom?”

  “I thought you were coming out today to lend a hand. Your sister’s working, Chloe’s still at the store, the kids are off at some school thing…”

  Mel cut her off. “I’m swamped here. Way behind.” I’m not worried about dusting and vacuuming. She’ll just want it all done again on Wednesday, anyway.

  “Where’s that…that wife of yours?”

  “Dana’s still in Tennessee, mom.” I told you that.

  “Well how much longer is she going to be down there?”

  Mel ran a hand through her shock of short, black hair. “I don’t really know.”

  Faye Crane drew back from the phone for a moment. “She’ll be here for Thanksgiving, won’t she?”

  “Uh, I’m not too sure.”

  “Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that. You two aren’t fighting, are you?”

  She wasn’t about to tell her mother what was really happening. She knew how she felt about her being the Sheriff and all of the dangers of the job. She suspected Dana hadn’t said anything to her own mama about what was really going on in Tennessee or Faye would already know and both women would be up in arms, wanting to go down there and stick their noses in where they didn’t belong.

  ###

  Dana steered the little rental car into the prison lot. Here goes nothing. She felt a sense of deja vu and involuntarily shivered as she approached the staff gate.

  “Deputy Dana Rossi,” she told the officer manning a clipboard at the first outpost. “I have an appointment with Warden Jeffers.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “He’s here. I…the appointment was made with him this morning.”

  “I know he’s here and that’s unusual. Must be pretty important for him to be here on a Saturday, and all. Got the weekend staff all uptight.”

  Have you been under a rock? She wanted to ask him, but she held her tongue. Instead, she offered him her badge and ID and kept her mouth shut. Maybe he didn’t see any reason to tell his staff about the missing prisoner. If it was an inside job…it probably all started here.

  After studying her ID closely, he handed her stuff back, requested that she divest of any weapons and had her sign in. She was glad she’d left her old service pistol locked in the trunk. She didn’t need that kind of scrutiny again and she knew, once inside, if she got what she wanted, they’d have taken it from her temporarily anyway.

  The man directed her down a narrow walkway that was fenced in on both sides and overhead. She’d been inside a couple of other prisons. As she walked toward the administrative building, she noticed things she hadn’t had the time to take note of on her first visit, two days prior. This one had a well-kept yard to either side of the entry walkway and windows along the front of one side of the building, looking out toward the staff lot. It was a far newer facility than State, in Illinois, the last correctional facility she’d had the displeasure to visit.

  “I’ve been on the phone with the FBI on and off since Thursday. This is their case, isn’t it?” The Warden didn’t wait for an answer to his question. “I told that Sheriff of yours when she called here, I have very limited resources to go after a prisoner we’re no longer responsible for. The FBI is doing a manhunt. That’s completely out of my control.”

  “But your prison is in your control.” Dana’s tone was firm as she nodded along to her own statement, encouraging him to agree.

  He shot her a look and took the bait. “Yes. Of course. I wouldn’t have been here two days if I couldn’t control what goes on within these walls. But, once they’re outside, past my gates, signed over otherwise, they’re not my responsibility.”

  “The FBI is doing the manhunt, yes, but Ford is Ohio’s responsibility now, specifically Muskingum Co
unties’. My Sheriff is cooperating with the feds and running down Ohio based leads. They’re supposed to be sharing information that might be helpful to her, but you know how that goes.”

  The portly, balding man on the other side of the desk rolled his eyes to the ceiling and conceded. “Yes, I do, but I still don’t see where you come in.”

  Dana stood and stretched a little, trying to work the kinks out of the leg she’d taken a bullet in 18 months before. Time flies… “I’m here to try and talk to a couple of people. See if I can find out anything that would be helpful to find her.”

  Jeffers frowned. “Who, pray tell?”

  “Her cell mate, for starters.”

  “She hasn’t had one the past couple of months since she’s been in the med bay. The cells are smaller over there.”

  “Before that?”

  He hesitated a fraction of a second too long for Dana’s liking before saying, “I’ll have to have a look at the records.”

  “The FBI hasn’t asked for that information?”

  He looked away and muttered something about having more to do than hours in a day.

  So they have asked; you just haven’t produced them. “How about your prison Doc? Anyone talked to him yet?”

  Jeffers tilted his head then and gave her an odd look, holding her gaze. “Her; and no. Why?”

  Dana let her frustration show. “Oh, let’s see; could be that Ford was a lot more able bodied than she was letting on.”

  The Warden’s phone buzzed. He held up a finger to her as he reached out to take the call.

  While he did a lot more listening than talking, she resumed her seat, thinking, Is he really this dumb, or just pretending to be? Or, is he lying? Dana couldn’t fathom why the FBI wasn’t all over the prison.

  When he finished, he hung up and eyed her for several long seconds. “It seems you have some friends in high places, Ms. Rossi.”