by Anne Hagan
“What? I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, that’s not all.”
“What’s not all?” I was confused and my head still hurt making me just want to sit down. I moved around the island and perched on one of the stools.
Gevona stayed in the kitchen but turned to face me from across the countertop. I watched as she took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m just going to say it; I’m moving out.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at her.
“Janet? Janet? Say something.”
I have no idea how long we sat like that as I tried to process her latest salvo. Realizing I was about to cry and not wanting her to see me, I got up, turned away from her and, tossing “Good luck” over my shoulder, I retreated to my room to be alone in my misery.
###
March 30th, 2012
Steak & Shake
“Girl, you’ve got to snap out of it, she’s gone and she ain’t comin’ back.”
I dipped a shoestring fry in ketchup and popped it in my mouth. It was already cold. They’re so thin, they don’t stay hot long if you let them sit. I pushed the side plate of them away and focused back on my steak-burger.
Reggie tried again, “We need to get you out to the club or something; get you back among the living.”
I looked at him shook my head no. “No clubs. You know that’s not my scene.”
“Honey, you met me in a club.”
“Wrong; Gevona met you in a club. We,” I pointed at him and then back at myself, “just hit it off better.”
I thought back to that night nearly a year ago when she’d been dancing with him at a club while I was trying to coral a wannabe rapist. The drag queen and she had exchanged numbers with platitudes to each other to ‘hang out sometime’ and we’d all three ended up getting together. But, as Reggie rather than Regina, Gevona didn’t have a lot of interest in him and soon it was just the two of us getting together.
“Girlfriend, you know I love you. You know I want what’s best for you, right?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t the one for you. She liked women that were crazy in and out of the sack, not level headed steady ones like you.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not. My point is, on the job she was in control and level headed, am I right?”
He didn’t wait for me to respond. “She didn’t want the same thing at home baby doll. You two were always better as friends and co-workers and whatnot than you ever would have been as a couple.”
I didn’t see it that way.
Chapter 18
November, 2013
Hancock County, Indiana
I thought patrol was busy. It had nothing on being a Detective in training. I could only imagine my workload when the Sheriff turned me loose to work cases on my own.
I threw myself into my work because I knew I was lucky to be there at all. After Gevona left, I didn’t even want to sit for the department’s detective exam. I couldn’t see the point.
Reggie was the one who convinced me, finally, that if I couldn’t let go of my thoughts of her, I at least needed to think about my future too. He seemed to be the only friend that I still had. Some of those that stopped calling and texting and dropping by called me a workaholic because I started picking up all of the shifts I could leaving me with less and less time to spend with them and still others said I was obsessed with someone I couldn’t have. I didn’t care.
What surprised me most were the women on and off the department we used to hang out with that drifted away from me but remained friends with her as if it was me that somehow had wronged her. They talked about me behind my back and shunned me to my face. I pretended I didn’t care but it hurt losing them and having them act like that as much as it had hurt having Gevona just walk out of my life…as much as losing her.
Stopping myself, I reminded myself for what was probably the hundredth time; you never really had her.
###
5:45 PM, March, 18th, 2014
Hancock County, IN
The body was still warm; the gunshot wound to his chest fresh with blood that hadn’t yet started to congeal. The victim hadn’t been dead long.
There was nothing but corn and soy fields on both sides of I-40 in the area I was in, for the moment, between Greenfield and Indy. If patrol hadn’t stopped to investigate the older model Lincoln parked slightly cockeyed on the berm, the man probably wouldn’t have been found until morning. Darkness was coming fast.
I got up from my crouch as the coroner approached and gave him and his team room to do their jobs. The car was my primary piece of evidence now and I was wasting daylight.
Had to be drugs, I thought to myself as I popped open the trunk from the dash and then walked around to the back to have a look. It was empty save for a nearly bald spare tire, a crappy little jack and a tire iron. It wasn’t clean though. The carpeting inside was covered in grass clippings, dirt, lint and who knows what all else.
“Forensics will have their work cut out for them with this,” I said out loud into the dusk.
My attention was drawn to a vehicle pulling off the road behind me. Self-preservation instincts kicking in, even though there were two patrol units still on the scene with me along with the Coroner, I moved around to the side of the vehicle and out of the line of impact.
Relief flooded through me when Warren McDonnell got out of the unfamiliar vehicle. I hadn’t been able to tell it was the Sheriff coming onto the scene in the waning evening light.
He grinned as he walked toward me. “Had ya’ wondering didn’t I?” he asked as he waved his arm at the sedan he’d stepped out of. My wife’s new car. It was the first one out. What do we have?”
“Judging by the scene, the murder victim was targeted. There’s enough left front end damage to indicate he was run off the road by something even bigger than this thing. I’m thinking he was running drugs and somebody that was aware of that ran him down, robbed him of his cargo and killed him to keep him quiet.”
“It’s an odd vehicle for that.”
“How so, Sheriff?”
“A Lincoln Town Car? Maybe back in the ‘70s or ‘80s but, these days, they’re so unusual they stand out, especially these older models that are big as tanks. It would draw too much attention from patrol just about anywhere. Any dealer or mule worth his salt would know that.”
“Guess I hadn’t thought of it like that.” I berated myself silently.
“You could be right Mason but my hunch is something else was going on with this one. We’ll just have to investigate all the angles now, won’t we?”
“Yes sir.” I learn something new every day.
He moved forward to get a look at the front of the car. My personal cell buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t dare pull it out with him here.
###
2:10 PM, March 21st, 2014
Warren Park, Indiana
“I’ve been trying to reach you for a few days now.”
“I know Aunt Leslie. Work is crazy right now what with me training as a detective and…and, just being as crazy busy as it always is. I’m so sorry.”
She skipped right over my apology. “You can drop the ‘Aunt’ hon. We’re all adults now.”
I didn’t really feel comfortable calling her Leslie, even though she was my favorite aunt. My mother had always pushed me to be so polite and formal with everyone in the family that just the thought of only calling her ‘Leslie’ was odd to me.
“Janet, your mama wouldn’t call you; that’s why I am.”
“Is something wrong?”
“That’s just it; she’s been feeling poorly for a while. I finally convinced her to see her family doctor a couple of weeks ago.”
That old quack, I thought to myself.
“He referred her out to a cancer doctor in Columbus. We took her over there to the James where they ran a bunch of tests on her.”
“And?” I swallowed hard. My mom and I still didn�
�t see eye to eye about a lot of things but I love her and, deep down, I know she really loves me. I wasn’t at all prepared to hear about a medical diagnosis of cancer or anything else, on any level. I sank into the chair adjacent to the couch and clutched my phone tightly as Aunt Leslie poured out the details of what little they knew so far.
When she paused for a breath, I interjected, “How long?”
Sighing, she told me, “They don’t know for sure dear. They’re going to start her on Chemo but she’s far enough advanced that it’s probably too late to do a whole lot more than slow the progression. She might have six months; she might have a couple of years. They won’t speculate beyond that.”
Chapter 19
Sunday Evening, October 19th, 2014
I hate I-70! Such a boring drive!
I’d stopped picking up extra shifts and working extended overtime. I’d been spending every 36-48 hour break I could get for months commuting between Indy and Zanesville after coming to terms with the fact that it was time to make amends and be with my mother as much as possible while she was still on this earth.
As I stared straight ahead into a long stretch of nothing, I thought about this latest visit home. Saturday, mom was doing okay. We’d gotten out and about a little bit to enjoy a beautiful fall day. This morning, I’d had to call Aunt Leslie away from church services to come and help me as mom had started to have a really bad spell.
It tore my heart out to leave with her in that state but I had an early morning shift and cases backlogged for miles. I had to get home and try to get some rest so I could go at the job fresh, with a clear head.
The job…love it, but I’m beat. “I can’t keep doing this,” I said out loud. The announcer on the radio didn’t respond to me; he just continued with his pitch.
###
Friday, November 28th, 2014
Muskingum County Sheriff’s Department
Zanesville, Ohio
“Zanesville is my hometown. I’d be really happy to get back here finally; if you hire me that is, Sheriff.”
The woman sitting behind the desk knitted her brows and peered at me closely. “Why don’t you tell me a little about your career, Mason?” she asked me. “Your record here only covers your time with your current department.”
“Well, there isn’t a whole lot beyond that to tell, is why,” I responded, ashamed to hear my voice tremor a little. “I’m actually only 30.”
Now Sheriff Crane’s eyebrows rose but she schooled her features very quickly. I still caught her look of surprise and I chuckled. My confidence boosted, I launched into the mini version of my story.
“I grew up in Zanesville. Right after high school, I went to Zane State and got an Associates in criminal justice. I was only 20 by the time I finished that though and I couldn’t get a job in law enforcement in Ohio…I couldn’t even get into OPOTA, sponsored or not.”
Crane nodded.
“Basically, I did they only thing I could do at the time to get police work, I joined the Army. I did my four years as a Military Police Officer and got out.”
“How’d you end up in Indiana instead of back here?”
“A, uh…buddy I served with was from Indy and convinced me to apply to Hancock County; said they needed more women on the department. My mom and I weren’t on the best of terms then anyway. I wasn’t ready to move back home, right then, so I took the plunge to be completely on my own.” I knew it was a slight distortion of the whole truth but I was trying to keep any thoughts of anything having to do with Gevona completely out of my mind.
“And now?”
I wasn’t sure what she was asking but she rephrased her own question, “You’re ready to come home now?”
“I’ll be honest; my mom is sick…cancer, among other things…she can’t work anymore. She’s getting where she can’t do much of anything but get out of bed some days. Other days…well, she’s almost normal. I want to be back here for as many of those ‘almost normal’ days as I can be.”
“This job isn’t a nine to five deal; you know?”
“Completely. I didn’t expect anything less and I don’t expect any special treatment. My mother’s older sister Leslie…my aunt Leslie Toth…cares for mom most of the time when she can’t do for herself. Her and her husband Bob live right here in town too.”
“Alright then,” she shifted gears again, “let’s talk more about your career with Hancock County.”
“Right; I applied there coming out of the Army and got picked up by them right away. They sent me straight to the academy.”
Sheriff Crane glanced down at my paperwork and then asked, “You went right out on the road after you graduated then, I take it?”
“Actually no, I did my year as a jailer just like everyone else does…but to the day. As soon as I had three-sixty-five in, they put me on the street. My uh Army buddy wasn’t kidding; they needed to bring more women on board because there was a lawsuit against them for unfair hiring practices towards women.”
Wincing, Melissa Crane shook her head. “Bet that was fun!”
I shrugged in response, “It was fine. The Sheriff that was there lost in the next election. The new guy turned the whole department around.”
“So, that’s what, four…five years on the road?”
Nodding, she told me, “I sat for the detective exam early in my fourth year on the road with the department. I passed and got pretty high on the list. I made detective sergeant not quite a year later.”
“That’s fast!”
“It’s a pretty big department, Sheriff with some turnover. I mean, Hancock’s population isn’t quite as high as Muskingum County’s but, being so close to Indy; it’s pretty busy, especially with patrol and all the crap we had to deal with just rolling through trying to get to the city. People get a couple years there under their belt there and then they apply to Indy’s police department or to State.” I started to shake my head at the memory of Gevona doing exactly that but I controlled the urge.
“I know your Sheriff.”
“McDonnell?”
Crane nodded. “Yes. Things are rough all along the I-70 corridor. We met at a conference in St. Louis last year for Sheriff’s in the region when I was still wet behind the ears as the Sheriff here. It okay if I give him a call?”
I nodded at her. “Yes ma’am. He’s well aware of my situation and that I’m looking for a position closer to home.”
Part Three
Love at ‘First’ Sight?
Chapter 20
Janet
Tuesday Evening, December 23rd, 2014
Boar’s Head Bar
I walked into the bar and looked around. Mel waving at me from half way across the room caught my attention. As I moved toward the table where she was sitting with several other women, I thought I vaguely recognized a few of the faces dotted around the room. Several people from the department were hanging out, relaxing.
“Have a seat. Janet,” Mel offered. “You know Holly and my wife Dana. This is my sister Kris.”
As I sat down, I stuck out my hand to Mel’s sister and offered, “Nice to meet you Kris.” Something struck me just then and I did a double take. “Hey, wait a minute!” escaped unbidden from my mouth.
The other three women laughed.
“You're pretty quick,” Kris said. “Not everyone picks up on it right away since we wear our hair different and all.”
“She's a detective; she better be quick,” Mel told her twin.
“How are you liking it working with Mel, so far?” Kris asked me.
We’d spent some cold evenings on stakeouts and I was still feeling a little under the weather. My body picked that exact moment to have a coughing spell as I tried to respond. “It's...um...fine,” I rasped.
“Are you all right? It doesn't sound like it's been fine.” Kris shot Mel a look.
Coming to her own defense, Mel told her, “We got off to a bit of a rocky start but everything's good now.”
Still not able to talk, I s
miled instead, saying 'thanks' with my eyes.
“Okay, here we go,” a woman said, as she stopped at the table and placed a beer in front of Dana and then a daiquiri in front of Kris. “And, you've added another I see.”
“Barb, this is Janet,” Mel said. “Janet, Barb owns this place now and she's done an amazing job cleaning it up. It used to be a real pit and responsible for a lot of our evening and weekend business.”
“I was admiring it when I came in; very nice.”
“Well thanks! So you're a deputy too?” Barb asked me.
“Detective. I've only been with the department a couple of weeks...moved back home from Indiana. I grew up here in Zanesville.”
“What's your last name?”
“Mason. Yours?”
“I'm back to using Wysocki...what everyone knows me by around here. Where did you go to school Janet Mason?”
“I went to Zanesville and to COTC after that.”
“Hmm. Well, I'm sorry I'm being so nosy but you look so familiar to me,” Barb said to me.
“You look familiar to me too.”
“Ahem,” Mel cleared her throat; “I hate to break up this game of 20 questions but I think those guys over there are trying to get your attention Barb.” She pointed to a group of guys that had come in just after me and took up residence a couple of tables over.
She looked in the direction Mel was pointing and then turned quickly back to me, “What can I get you to drink hon?”
“Whatever's light on draft.”
“Be right back.”
Barb moved over to the table of guys and spent a couple of minutes talking with them and taking their orders. She returned shortly and placed my draft down, telling me, “I'm not done quizzing you yet.”
She continued over to deliver two pitchers and a round of shots to the table of men and hung there for another minute as they talked with her some more. I watched, curious as she looked our way, laughed and looked back at the guys. Concentrating hard in the din of conversation, jukebox music and pool balls clacking, I heard her laughingly tell them, “I don't think you want to do that...it's a table of mostly married women and all but one of them are cops but, I'll ask them if you want.”
