by Anne Hagan
Mel folded her notes and stepped to the right of the lectern to be more open to the room, “That’s all that I have for you at this time. Questions?”
“Sheriff; Emily Haines from the Dispatch.”
“Yes?”
“Will you be recusing yourself from your position as your opponent for Sheriff in the August special election, Noland Troutman, has suggested?” Emily hazarded a quick wink at Mel.
“No. I will not recuse myself. OSHP is handling the investigation. I’m not a party to any part of that nor do I have any influence over it. It’s entirely in their hands.”
A few hands went up. Mel pointed at Phillip West from the Advocate, “Yes Phillip?”
“Three questions actually Sheriff; one, are you advising Ms. Rossi?”
“I advised Ms. Rossi to contact a lawyer.” Everyone in the room chuckled.
“Funny, Sheriff. Second, when will Dana Rossi turn herself in?”
“That’s between her and her attorney.”
“Finally Sheriff, is it, in your professional opinion, at all possible for Ms. Rossi to have committed this crime given her medical condition?”
“In my professional opinion? I’m a cop, not a doctor. If I only knew her professionally, I wouldn’t be able to answer that at all without observing her and without consulting her doctors. Since I know her personally, I can say that it’s highly unlikely. She’s barely mobile without the crutches and very slow and limited with them.” Mel looked around again, “Anyone else?”
“Channel 10, Columbus, Sheriff. Do you see the press conference this morning and the subsequent call for you to recuse yourself from your position as a grandstanding move on the part of your opponent to sway the August election?”
“I can’t speak to the mindset of my opponent,” Mel grinned.
“ABC, Columbus. Sheriff; in the same vein, do you think he’s trying to use your lifestyle against you to appeal to the voters?”
“I only got to see the part of his press conference that your networks are showing. I’ve heard what was supposedly said second hand. In answer to your question, it’s possible but, again, I can’t speak to his mindset. I do want to say that I’m not hiding who I am from the voters of this county. My sexuality has no bearing on my ability to do my job. It never has.”
The room was silent. “No other questions?” The only response was a chorus of “Thank you Sheriff.” from a few of those present.
Chapter 19 – Escape
Late Friday Afternoon, June 20th, 2014
I left Joshua King’s office in a daze. On one hand, I felt confident that once we set the wheels of justice, as he termed them, in motion I’d be vindicated but, on the other hand, my bank account was $500 lighter, I couldn’t go home, I couldn’t use my phone to talk to or text anyone and I’d been pretty much admonished to hide out. My first order of business was to get a few items of clothing and a few toiletries and then get out of Columbus to some place I could crash for a couple of days for just a little cash. I used my debit card to withdraw a decent sum of money from my bank account while I was still in the city and then I tucked the card away. If they could track my phone, they could track my card usage too.
I started driving north with no real goal in mind. While I drove, I flipped through the local radio channels to see if anything about the murder or about Troutman’s press conference was being reported. I caught one station at a newsbreak between songs and heard that they’d be airing audio next of a press conference that Mel had held but the signal for the station was weak and I lost it a couple of sentences into the replay.
If Mel felt the need to hold a press conference, the situation back there must be pretty bad... I had to find a way to get some sort of message to her. I didn’t want her to worry about me and my whereabouts and I needed to know what was going on.
As I drove, time flew. I’d taken Interstate 71 North out of Columbus rather than 70 East back toward Zanesville but then I realized quickly that I shouldn’t be on a main highway at all because the State Patrol would be looking for my vehicle. After getting off the Interstate and working my way north and west for a while I ended up tired and hungry in some little town called Marion just off of the two lane I-23.
I stopped at the first eatery that I could find and plunked myself down in a booth. I wasn’t there two minutes when two highway patrol officers walked in and took seats at the booth behind me. They were followed a minute later by another officer who took a stool at the counter. The servers working the floor seemed to know all of them by name.
What the hell? I’ve got to get out of here!
A tall bleach blond server stopped at my table, pad at the ready, “Know ‘whatcha want hon?”
I hadn’t even seen a menu. Spying a pie case overhead behind the counter and thinking fast, I said, “What kind of pie do you have today?” She reeled off a list of a half a dozen kinds. I chose cherry and a large iced tea in a to-go cup. My plan was to eat fast and get the hell out of dodge.
Pie finished in 3 minutes flat, I high tailed it back to my car and jumped back on Interstate 23, the road I’d ended up on after zig-zagging across from I-71. I’ve gotta get off of this Interstate too! Just north of Marion, I passed a highway patrol post. No wonder that whole damn town was crawling with OSHP!
I couldn’t use my phone so I had no GPS. At the next gas station, I stopped and bought a road map atlas. Using it was the old fashioned way to navigate but I didn’t have any other options and my patience was wearing thin.
My left leg was throbbing. I needed to get somewhere away from interstates, get a hold of Mel and then crash for the night but my atlas only showed hotels along the major routes. I felt a bit more comfortable on the two lane I-23, once I was out of Marion, than I’d felt on I-71 but staying in a hotel or motel along it overnight would be as risky as being out there on I-71 had been. There was no way to know what would be available to me on the county and local roads without my phone or, heaven forbid, without a good old fashioned phone book.
Since I was in a pickle, I decided the logical thing to do would be to keep working my way north until I crossed from Ohio into Michigan. Pain or no pain, I had to push on.
A couple of hours later I found myself in Dundee, Michigan , a town whose only claim to fame seemed to be a rather large Cabela’s outdoors store located just off the freeway. Still, there were reasonably priced hotels nearby with vacancy signs flashing on a summer Friday night so Dundee would just have to do.
I tangled with the desk clerk at the place that I picked over the idea of paying with cash instead of with a credit card but, after showing him a card, my Illinois driver’s license and finally my badge - which I was lucky to even still have - he finally relented.
It was late but I was starved. The piece of cherry pie was the only thing I’d eaten since having lunch with Hannah hours before. I’d been too nervous and too hurried to eat anything since. There was a little fruit left over from our lunch in my trunk but not much else.
I used the room phone to call a local pizza chain and set up a delivery order and then I figured I’d better call Mel. The realization came quickly that I had no idea what Mel’s cell phone number was. I’d put it into my own cell once upon a time and never bothered to learn it. The only way to get it would be to turn on my cell and get it out of my contacts. I hit the on switch and while the phone took its sweet time powering up, I grabbed paper and a pen from the desk.
As soon as my cell came to full power, it went crazy buzzing in voicemails, texts and emails. I was half tempted to look through everything but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. Instead, I got Mel’s number and shut the damn thing right back off.
“Hello? Who’s calling, please?”
“Mel, it’s me, Dana.”
“Dana, where in the world are you? Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick!”
“I’m a little tired but I’m fine. I knew you’d be worried and I’m sorry. This is the first chance I’ve had to get to a phone.”
&nbs
p; “Where’s your cell?”
“Oh, I have it but I can’t use it right now.”
“Why not? Where the hell are you?”
“Mel please calm down. Everything’s fine. I can explain.”
“Please do!”
I spent the next five minutes explaining the course of my day after our last conversation to my half sick with worry girlfriend. By the time I was done, I could sense that she’d calmed down a little but she was still upset over the entire situation that I was in and that she was also in by association with me.
“Baby, I’m so sorry that your good name is being drug through the mud over this. I heard on the radio that you held a press conference today but I didn’t get to hear any of it. Why did you do that?”
“Just between you and me, that asshole Troutman’s whole campaign strategy seems to be trying to win this election by turning the voters against me because I’m gay.”
I interrupted her, “I knew that would happen! I should never have...”
Mel interrupted me right back, “Dana, listen to me. That’s not the point here. I could easily counter that sort of stuff. That was part of the reason for the press conference. This murder though and your link to the victim has played right into his hands. If I could investigate it myself, I would. I can’t help but think he has something to do with it, somehow, some way.”
“So, you don’t think this is a result of the criminal investigation in Chicago and what Terri was trying to get me to look into?”
“Shh! No names!” She paused for several long seconds and then continued, “No, I really don’t. Think about it this way; she gets here on a Friday and she’s hiding out in a cabin at a state park. Some criminal outfit finds her there, two states away, and kills her by Saturday afternoon and also knows enough about why she was here to find you and enough about you to effectively frame you for her murder? Do you really think that’s plausible?”
“Well, not when you put it that way, no.”
“I really think now that you were being followed the first time you met with Terri and then that same person followed her out of the park and back to Dillon. She became a target of opportunity for whoever was watching you. I just don’t know why or how to prove it.”
“That would mean someone had to keep watching me or her...or both of us, to somehow lure her into the woods and kill her in broad daylight with people everywhere and then be there in a crowded parking lot to steal my crutch and set me up while running the risk of me or someone else seeing them.”
“That’s just it, there had to be witnesses there that day at the boat launch that saw Terri there, saw who talked to her...I don’t know...who saw anything! If it were my investigation, I’d sure be working on finding them.”
“You’re right! There have to be witnesses. Surely the Patrol has sought out people in that area that day?”
We were both quiet now, lost in thought for a minute. The things that Mel said made a lot of sense to me but one of the last things Terri said also came back to me, ‘Your life is in danger too.’
I didn’t know what to believe.
Chapter 20 – The Past Revisited
Wee Hours of the Morning, Saturday, June 21st, 2014
The ringing of my room phone woke me out of the uneasy slumber I’d finally fallen into. I looked at the bedside clock: 2:37 AM. I tried to shake the cobwebs from my head and sit up. My left leg throbbed in pain after spending the previous day cooped up in my car, driving for hours on end. Since I was temporarily on the run, I didn’t have so much as an ibuprofen tablet to my name. At this hour, I’d just have to put up with the pain.
Grogginess subsiding, I realized I probably ought to answer the offending phone that was still ringing. It might be Mel...It’s probably important...
I picked up the handset of the old fashioned style push button phone you saw only in dated hotel rooms these days.
“lo?”
“Dana?”
There was a woman on the line but it wasn’t Mel. “Who’s this?”
“Is this Dana Rossi?”
I hung up. Whoever was on the other end of the line didn’t have my best interests in mind.
Now I was scared. Someone had found me. Nowhere is safe. Wide awake at this point, I glanced over at the little duffle I’d bought at a Wally-World just outside of Columbus. Other than the new toothbrush and paste in the bathroom, it held all of my world possessions that I wasn’t currently wearing as pajamas. Should I get dressed and get the hell out of here?
Scooting to the edge of the bed, I reached for one of my crutches. A thought occurred to me and I also picked up my back-up pistol from the nightstand. It was currently my only form of protection.
The hotel was still and quiet. There were no sounds coming from the third floor hallway outside my door.
I crept to the window and peeked outside through a crack in the heavy blackout curtains. The parking lot down below was also silent and still. My little sedan was parked far down the row out across from my vantage point, barely visible between a pickup truck and an SVU. I watched the area for a few minutes but saw no movement around it.
I debated about what to do. The phone started ringing again startling me out of my reverie.
If they’re on the phone, they’re probably not waiting in the hall to bust through my door...
I hopped back to the bed, sat down on the edge and put the handset up to my ear but I didn’t say a word.
The same female voice as before came across the line, “Dana, I know you’re there. If you’re not going to talk, at least listen to me. You’re in danger Dana. If you want to catch these guys before they catch you and if you want to find out who killed Terri and clear your own name, you have to go to Chicago. You’ll get your answers there.”
Finding my voice, I asked, “Who are you? Where are you?”
“Those questions aren’t important Dana. “
“How do you know about me? How did you find me here?”
“Those questions aren’t important either. The Highway Patrol has it all wrong. If you want to clear your name, you need to get to Chicago, soon.”
“Who do I talk to in Chicago?”
“Terri told you who to talk to.” The line went dead.
Making a quick decision, I turned on my phone and texted Mel.
Me: I need to take care of some things. I’ll be back in Ohio as soon as I can.
Without giving her any time to respond, I turned the phone off once more and then, as quickly as I could, I pulled jeans on over the pair of boxers I’d bought to wear to bed over the weekend. Once I was finished dressing and tossing things into the little duffle, I hobbled out of the room as fast as my crutches would carry me. If I got right on the road at this early hour, I could be in Chicago well before most people were even awake on an early Saturday morning.
It was a little after 6:30 AM when I stopped my car in front of my ex-husband Nate’s house in Lake Forest, north of the city. I hadn’t accounted for the switch from Eastern to Central time as I crossed into Illinois and I doubted anyone was even up. I thought about just waiting in my car until a more reasonable visitation hour but Lake Forest cops were quite a vigilant bunch because they were very paid well to be. If caught, they wouldn’t take kindly to me staking out a house in one of their upscale neighborhoods.
I swung into Nate’s driveway and steeled myself to either do a lot of explaining or, if I couldn’t rouse anybody, to hide out on his front porch for a while, if I had to.
I was half way up the walk on my crutches when the front door swung open and Nate himself stepped out into the dewy early morning in jogging clothes. He looked as fit and trim as always and, aside from the early hour, it was no surprise to see him getting ready to go for a run.
“Dana?”
“Hi Nate...”
“What are you doing here?” His look was at once quizzical and concerned as he stared at my crutches.
“It’s a long and crazy story.”
“Well let’s
not keep you on your feet since I’m assuming you probably shouldn’t be. Come on inside.”
“Are you sure? I know it’s early and...”
“It’s okay Dana, really.” As we approached the door, he turned and raised his index finger to his lips. “Just until we get settled. Halle and the baby are still sleeping.”
“Ah,” I whispered, “And I interrupted your chance to get a run in.”
Nate grinned over his shoulder and whispered back, “One day won’t kill me.”
He led me to the back of the house, into his marble and copper decorated kitchen and indicated I should take a seat at the large eating island then he turned and grabbed a stainless steel tea kettle off of a Viking stove. Nate and Halle are doing very well for themselves these days!
I was happy for them. Though we’d parted amicably, I’d always felt sorry for deceiving Nate. I was glad when he found someone who could return his love the way a wife should.
“I assume you’re still more of a tea than a coffee fan?”
I nodded but at the same time said, “Please don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble. So, are you going to tell me what’s up because I’m pretty curious to know what has you on my doorstep at this hour?”
“You’re not going to believe this story.”
“Dana, in my business, I’ve heard it all. Try me.”
“Do you remember Terri Sweeting?”
He nodded, “That woman you were with for a while that everyone said was bad for you? Yeah, I remember her.”
I scowled at him, “She’s dead. She was murdered.”
Nate reached into a cupboard for mugs. “Well, I’m sorry then, but what does that have to do with why you’re here?”
“Terri came to Ohio to see me about a criminal matter she was supposedly involved in that she thought I could somehow help her with.”
