“Is Mr. Schubert in?” I asked.
“No, I’m sorry; he’s in court all day. May I take a message?”
I left a message telling him I wanted a restraining order against Lorraine Paso and Frita O’Donnell and I needed to know how to do it. One or both of them tried to have me killed and I wasn’t taking any chances on making Mandy an orphan. I wasn’t waiting for one of them to post bail.
* * *
I received a call from Bonnie early Monday morning. She knew she could call me after five thirty because I was up feeding Mandy.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey! What are you doing up so early? And what are you doing, calling me? You usually text me and tell me to call you,” I said with a giggle.
“I just had to tell you my news.”
“Oh?”
“I am dropping my lawsuit in exchange for my job back with a raise, back pay, my attorney’s fees, and a settlement for my pain and suffering.”
“Are you serious? The mayor agreed to that?”
“No. According to Colby, council can take a vote at their next meeting on the terms of my settlement. They don’t need the mayor’s vote to make a majority, and the other council members will approve it.”
“Do you think they will go for it?”
“Oh, I think they know they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning my suit, so they either take it or the town loses a heck of a lot more than what I’m asking for and gets some bad press.”
“Wow! That was really fast. We just got served less than a week ago.”
“The powers that be didn’t want any more negative publicity for the town, given what just went down with the mayor. My timing was impeccable.”
“Well, then let me be the first to say, welcome back!”
“You missed working with me.”
“I did. And Mr. Triggers missed you too.”
“Ugh. I forgot about him. Is he back bothering you? Maybe I shouldn’t come back to work.”
“Why are you coming back? And yes, he is back.”
“My husband’s after me to get back to work.”
“Is he finally tired of you changing the siding on your house?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I don’t think I want to know!”
I was relieved that Bonnie was coming back to work. I needed her, not only to help with the workload, but to help keep my sanity. I made it through the council meeting without incident. Triggers wasn’t there, Frita wasn’t there, and there wasn’t any drama for a change. I wasn’t sure I’d be so lucky at the next council meeting, which was in less than two weeks. I couldn’t wait to have Bonnie back.
I hung up with Bonnie, put Mandy in her crib, and got into the shower to get ready for work. I heard my phone ringing, but decided whomever it was could wait. I was going to be late to work if I didn’t get moving. I got dressed, quickly dried my hair, and slapped on makeup. I put Mandy and her diaper bag in the car, then drove to my parents’ house. After dropping her off, I looked at my phone to find a missed call from Tex. I dialed him back.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said.
“Uh oh,” I replied.
“What ‘uh oh’?”
“You’re about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. You always try to ease the blow with a compliment when you are about to dish out bad news.”
“You know me too well.”
“So, what is it?”
“Mayor O’Donnell was bonded out.”
“When?”
“A couple of hours ago.”
“Ugh.”
“Sorry to be the bearer of the news.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
I was happy that I went forward and filed for an emergency temporary restraining order on Saturday with the Madisen Police Department. I wished that the county court offices had been open so that I could have filed for a more permanent order, but Mr. Schubert hadn’t gotten back to me until Friday night and the court was closed over the weekend. I planned on calling the county court later to figure out what I had to do.
I made copies of my temporary order and distributed it to everyone who needed to make sure I didn’t have to be near the mayor. Rodney, Colby, the eight members of council, the police department. I wanted everyone to know that she was required to stay away from me.
I found myself biting my nails and not getting much work done. I couldn’t work like this. I hoped that those who were not fans of Frita O’Donnell would step up to the plate and call for her resignation. I hoped she lost the upcoming election.
I picked up the phone and dialed Bonnie back.
“Hi. Sorry to bother you again.”
“You’re no bother,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be at work by now? What’s up?”
“I am at work, but I just learned that Frita is out of jail. I’m so worried, I can’t think straight. Do you think you can take me to buy a gun and teach me how to shoot it?”
“I don’t think she’ll try to go after you again. It would cast a tremendous amount of suspicion on her if you were to end up dead.”
“I don’t care; I need to protect myself and Mandy. I want a gun.”
“Okay.”
“Can we go now?”
“Now? You’re going to leave work?”
“Yes, this is important, I’ll tell them I have an emergency and I’ll take personal time.”
“Okay. Come on over.”
I left an email for council telling them I had to leave unexpectedly, then I drove to Bonnie’s house to pick her up. We drove over the bridge to go to the police station in Madisen. I asked the police records clerk for the form that I needed to fill out to purchase a handgun. She handed me the form for the permit and a clipboard. I took a seat and carefully filled in each section. I returned it to the clerk when I was finished and she asked me to take a seat.
After ten minutes, Patricia appeared in the lobby and said, “So, you are getting yourself a gun.”
“Hi, Patricia,” I said. I was a little embarrassed. I didn’t think I’d run into anyone I knew and I felt silly being so scared that I wanted a gun.
“Come on back,” she said as she directed me to a small room where she took my fingerprints. Patricia informed me that it could take as long as six weeks for the fingerprint checks to come back.
I paid the fees and thanked Patricia for her help. Bonnie and I exited the building and jumped back in the car.
“Six weeks is a lot longer than I expected. What am I supposed to do to protect myself in the meantime?” I asked Bonnie.
“I have some pepper spray at home. I’ll give it to you. I would also recommend a good alarm system.”
“Good idea.”
Next, we drove to the sporting goods store a few miles away from the police station in Madisen. We walked up to the gun counter and started looking.
“May I help you?” said the old man behind the counter.
“Just looking,” I said.
He directed us to where the pocket-sized guns were located. I never realized there were so many varieties of handguns and I felt overwhelmed.
“What kind of gun do you have?” I asked Bonnie.
“One of my guns is a Ruger LC9,” she said as she pointed it out.
“One of? How many guns do you have?”
“I don’t know, five or six.”
I should have known better. Bonnie had more than one of everything she owned. Someone with money could buy multiple “toys,” I imagined.
I read the description of it on the tag in front of the display model. It said it was a double-action-only, hammer-fired, locked-breech pistol with a smooth trigger pull. This might as well have been written in Arabic. I had no idea what it meant.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” I told Bonnie. “This is beyond my comprehension.”
“Maybe I should have just taken you to the shooting range and let you try my guns first, then see if you like any of them. I don’t
have time this morning, but let’s schedule a day to go.”
I dropped Bonnie off and thanked her. She told me to let her know what day worked for me to go to the range. She also told me she would go with me to buy my gun when my permit came in.
I drove home and called an alarm company. They were willing to come out right away to install the alarm. It took them the remainder of the afternoon to install all the motion detectors, hardwire everything, and give me instructions on its use. I felt safer already. I bought the model that talked. It would say things like, “The back door is open.” I thought this was a great feature since Mandy would be walking soon. I would instantly know if she tried to open any of the doors.
I went back to my parents’ house and picked up Mandy. I thought it best not to tell my parents what I had learned about Frita being released or what I was up to all day. They were already scared sick about my safety. I didn’t need to give them something else to worry about.
I decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I loaded Mandy into the cart and went into the store. I needed to buy some baby food and I didn’t have any food for myself in the house. I was in the cereal aisle when I saw Mr. Triggers coming toward me. Oh crap, not now, went through my mind.
“I need to talk to you,” Mr. Triggers said to me. Again, he smelled to high heaven. My eyes started to tear. What was that smell? Onions? Mandy started to cry. She was at an age where she didn’t like strangers and she probably got a whiff of his bad body odor too. I decided to pretend I was someone else.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked.
He looked confused. “I’m Robert Triggers,” he said.
“Have we met before?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “You know darn well who I am.”
“I don’t think we’ve met before. Are you one of my customers at the dry cleaners?” I imagined this man had never set foot in the dry cleaners by the way he smelled, so I felt I was safe making up that occupation.
“Dry cleaners?” he asked. “Are you on drugs? You know me from the municipal building.”
“Oh! You must be talking about my twin sister Chelsey. I’m Christine. We look exactly alike.”
“Oh,” he said and he turned and walked away with a baffled look on his face.
I chuckled to myself. I thought it was pretty clever of me to think of that. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him outside of work. He would have taken up all my time and I needed to get done and get home.
Chapter 18
The next morning, Mr. Triggers was at my office bright and early.
“I met your sister yesterday,” he said.
“We don’t get along,” I said. “How may I help you?”
“I need to look through those boxes again.”
I had totally forgotten about the boxes. I don’t know why he was saying “again.” He hadn’t bothered to come in and look through them the first time! It was irritating knowing that he was going to make me go through all the trouble of getting those boxes a second time, then probably never come back to look at them, just like before.
“Do you know which boxes you needed?” I asked.
“All of them!” he demanded.
I made him fill out a records request form and told him I’d have them by noon tomorrow. Shockingly, he left without an argument.
Bad memories of the boxes came flooding back to me as I picked up the phone to request them from storage. I felt embarrassed all over again when I remembered tripping over them in front of a bunch of men from the public works department. I also suddenly remembered all those fire alarms we were having back then and realized I hadn’t heard an alarm since I had been back. I surmised they finally fixed the problem. I laughed to myself at Bonnie’s firemen comments, or “Bonnie-isms,” as I recently started calling her candid remarks. I missed Bonnie and couldn’t wait for her to come back to work.
* * *
Boxes upon boxes arrived in the municipal building. I grew disgusted just looking at them. I put in a work order for public works to bring me a table and chair for Mr. Triggers. To my surprise, Mr. Triggers showed up at two o’clock to go through them. I told him he was welcome to have a seat and help himself to the boxes.
By four o’clock, he hadn’t made a dent in searching through the boxes. He approached my window and told me he had to leave, but he would be back the next day. The next day, he arrived at eight thirty in the morning. He asked me if he could come inside and use our computers.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Triggers, we do not allow residents to use our computers for safety reasons.”
“What safety reasons?” he said.
“To prevent acts of sabotage,” I responded.
“What kind of sabotage?”
“The kind that ruins computer networks.”
“I’m not going to ruin any computer networks. I just want to set up a spreadsheet to record the documents I’m looking at in these boxes.”
“You’re welcome to bring in your own computer to use, but I cannot allow you to use our computers.”
“Why not?”
Irritated, I said, “I just explained that to you.”
“Explain it again.”
“It’s not our policy to allow residents to use our computers.”
“I want to see that policy,” he said, growing agitated.
“It’s not a written policy.”
“Then I’m allowed to use them.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Then I want to speak to someone who knows what they are doing around here,” he screamed.
Rodney was out for the day, so I didn’t know who to get for help. I wasn’t going to be speaking to the mayor. The council members were all at their full-time jobs. Triggers was not going to take no for an answer and with him being so adamant and my patience running out, I decided to call the police to diffuse the situation.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
“Where are you going? I’m not done talking! I will not be ignored!” he yelled.
“I’m not ignoring you; I’m going to get someone else in here, like you asked.”
I hurried into my office and dialed 9-1-1. I was so frazzled, I wasn’t even sure what I said to the dispatcher who answered the phone. Within seconds, Detective Texidoro arrived with another officer and our town’s K-9. Mr. Triggers didn’t seem to notice the dog.
After ten or so minutes of Mr. Triggers trying to convince Tex that he should be allotted appropriate time to utilize the town’s computers, Tex grew weary and told Triggers he had to leave. When Triggers refused, Tex said that Triggers was creating a disturbance with his shouting and he would be escorted out of the building if he wouldn’t leave peacefully. As Triggers’ voice increased in volume, the dog became progressively more agitated.
With both hands, Triggers shoved Tex. The other officer let go of the dog and the dog attacked, biting Triggers in the arm and not letting go. Triggers kicked, squealed, screeched, and screamed in agony. He fell to the ground with the dog still latched onto him. The dog growled and flung his head from side to side tearing open the skin on Triggers’ arm.
“Call it off! Call it off!” he shouted.
The officer called off his dog. I tried my best not to laugh. I mean, the man was hurt. Blood was trickling down his arm out of the puncture wounds. But it served him right for putting his hands on an officer. Tex then arrested him for assault. This maniac was racking up quite the rap sheet. Assault by egg, assault by coins, assault on a police officer, assault with a picket sign. Actually, I didn’t think the picketing arrest was an assault, but it was another arrest. I thought he was a loose cannon and I wondered what types of antics he would try next.
Triggers was processed and bonded out within a few hours. I was rattled when I saw him in the parking lot on my way out of the door for the evening. He started to follow me to my car. I reached into my purse and clutched the pepper spray Bonnie had given me. If the pepper spray didn’t work, my pl
an was to grab his bandaged arm, then kick him in the nuts and run like hell.
I turned around and said, “Why are you following me? What do you want?”
“I want to know why you called the police.” He looked at me with a sinister glare.
“Don’t you see how you act? You intimidate people. You berate people. You are condescending, insulting, mean and aggressive. You scare people.”
I hurried to my car, jumped in, and turned over the engine. I looked back and Triggers was getting into his own car. I blew out a sigh of relief. I drove to my parents’ house and picked up Mandy. On my way home, I saw Triggers’ car in my rearview mirror.
“You freak,” I said out loud to myself. “You better not be following me.”
I told myself not to panic. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Triggers lived on Fourth Street. Maybe he had stopped at the grocery store and was merely driving home. I kept my eye on him. When we passed Fourth Street, my red flags went up. I drove over the causeway with Triggers hot on my trail. I made a couple of unusual turns to make certain he was following me. He was. I reached into my pocketbook and dialed the Madisen Township Police Department. I told them that an infuriated resident from my work was following me and I feared his intent was to do harm to me or my infant child. I told them I was afraid to go home and I would meet them at a local shopping center.
A Madisen Township police car was sitting near the entrance to the shopping center when I got there. Triggers saw the police car and drove off. I pointed the car out to the officer and gave them Mr. Triggers’ name. He took a report and said I could come down to the station to file a complaint. I needed to get Mandy home to feed and bathe her, so I opted to forgo the complaint and report the lunatic to Tex later.
Installing the alarm system in my home was proving to be the right thing to do for my peace of mind. I wished I was also able to get that gun, but I still had weeks to wait for the permit. I was jumping out of my skin at every little sound. After seeing the K-9, I thought about getting myself a dog too. A Doberman or a Pit Bull. Something with big teeth. The alarm helped to calm my nerves, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel secure. I was on full alert.
Red Tape Page 14
