Murder For Comfort
Page 22
The more he contemplated the case, the further he sank into dejection as the plane roared homeward. Then he tried to remember, once again, why had he wanted to be a cop so long ago? And he really couldn’t come up with a sensible answer to the question. All of his reasons for seeking to become a law man back in his youth had turned out to be not at all grounded in any understanding of the daily realities that face rank and file police officers, who must deal with the very worst of people in the unimaginably worst of situations. And he wasn’t alone in those thoughts. For the many men and women with whom he’d discussed the question in any depth, police work turned out to be very different from what they had at first thought it would be – and very disillusioning. He started to doze. The flight attendant covered him with a blanket and he murmured a thank you.
67
The meeting had been going on for about an hour. Sergeant Bill Jackson, Lieutenant Paul Hillman, Captain Jerry Squires and Under Sheriff George Matthews sat and listened to his rundown of what had transpired in New Zealand. Matthews wasn’t at all pleased that the sheriff’s office had shelled out the funds for Welch’s plane ticket and per diem travel expenses, only to have him come home without a suspect in the custody of the Auckland Police. He was particularly irked that the major player in the killings, which by now had been thoroughly covered on Colorado television and radio shows for a couple of months, had escaped prosecution. And the finger in this meeting was pointed in Welch’s direction. He was responsible for the conduct of the investigation.
They asked him a lot of questions. Why didn’t he check more carefully to ensure that Marnie and Sammie weren’t communicating after Marnie’s arrest? Why hadn’t he insisted that Marnie be held in jail without a bond, so that she couldn’t tip off Sammie? Why didn’t he monitor their ongoing telephone calls and emails to see if Marnie intended to tell Sammie that she was about to be arrested? Why didn’t he insist that Steve Reilly and Frank Raney file their warrants right away, instead of leaving Marnie out and about to contact Sammie at will? Why didn’t he communicate more regularly with the Colorado Springs Police and have them check up on Marnie? If that had been done, could her suicide have been prevented?
He had a brain. He was supposed to think of those things. They’d made him a detective, hadn’t they? Why hadn’t he thought of all that? And if he had thought of it, why didn’t he act on it? And so it went on for a couple of hours.
The sheriff was out at a La Raza luncheon, delivering a feel good political campaign speech on Hispanic women in law enforcement. He didn’t come to the meeting. He’d been taking a whole lot of adverse publicity after the press releases announced that killer Samantha Newsom was still at large in the world – albeit in the other half of the world. Reporters came to the sheriff’s records desk from all over the State of Colorado and demanded to read Welch’s report about the ill fated New Zealand stakeout. The newspapers were printing hilarious stories about police officers running willy nilly like the Keystone Cops through the Auckland airport, knocking over old ladies, while their suspect wasn’t even in the airport. In fact, she hadn’t even been in the country.
The Roberts County Sheriff was not amused.
All of this drama that was now playing in the administration building conference room of the Roberts County Sheriff’s Office was moving in one direction – to find someone to blame and circle the wagons around the incumbent sheriff. It was a scenario that Welch had seen too many times during his soon to end law enforcement career. Blame for public shame or embarrassment brought onto the agency for a foul up of any situation has to be passed on down to the lowest possible level. And the person at the far end of the blame chain is supposed to take his punishment in silence. So, there he sat, being grilled by the higher ups as to why and how Samantha Newsom had fooled him into making a trip clear to the South Pacific, at taxpayer expense, mind you, and made the sheriff’s office a public laughing stock.
Peter Boyles even featured the foot chase story on his 630KHOW morning radio show. It was in the Denver Post. Channel Nine News did a segment. It was a political disaster in the making, with the sheriff’s re-election campaign coming up in the next few months.
After the meeting adjourned, Welch made a phone call. He got some money numbers from retirement office director Pam Smithson about what his monthly check would be and asked her to send him the papers. He wouldn’t allow himself to be tortured by the administration after so many years of hard work. He’d done the best he could do to solve the case. The end of it went very badly. He wished it could have all turned out better. But this was it for him – the end of the road. He’d had enough.
After leaving the Inquisition Chamber he ran into Jack Swain and Michelle Kuchtar, walking toward him in the hallway of the administration building. They turned away without speaking. Apparently the word about the Big Meeting had spread quickly. When he got to his desk in the substation, there was a silence that hung in the air – in a room filled with other detectives and secretaries. So, he picked up his desk phone and left a voice message for Bill Jackson, who was still at the post meeting conference with all of the higher ups. He was taking the rest of the day off.
He drove to his home with a painful knot in his gut, angry that it could all have come to this, despite his best efforts and best intentions. It was Monday – his first day back on the job. To Hell with it – he was going to take the entire week off. He’d slept all day Sunday after arriving late Saturday evening and he still felt terrible. He felt like he could sleep for a week.
He decided to give Janet a call and ask her if she’d like to have dinner tonight. He hadn’t talked with her since the Friday before his trip to New Zealand – the night their first kiss had been interrupted by that damned pager and the fucking G homie who shot the three high school kids at the party. She’d looked into his eyes and told him she’d be anxious for his return. Yes, it was high time for him to forget about being a cop and start concentrating on continuing this promising relationship.
He felt his spirits picking up a little. He found her much more than attractive and interesting. He was still having dreams about her and saw her face in his mind – all the time. He wondered if she felt the same way about him. The way she had looked at him, put her hands on him, and tenderly kissed him with those beautiful lips – all of it was burned into his memory. There was only one way to find out if this was going where he wanted it to go.
He picked up his cell phone and dialed her mobile number. It went straight to her voice messaging. He disconnected the call and dialed her direct office line. There was no answer there. He looked at his watch. It was twelve fifteen. She was probably at lunch. He decided to drive by the bank and leave her some flowers and a card. That would be a nice surprise. He drove around downtown Denver until he found a floral shop and bought a dozen roses.
The clerk who rang up the purchase smiled at him as he paid, and she asked, “Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Someone very special”, he answered.
He took the flowers from her, walked out the door and carefully put them on the front seat of his police car. He started the engine. Should he have gotten her some chocolate, too? No. He could buy that for her after they had a chance to enjoy a nice candle lit dinner in some quiet first class restaurant. Dinner, chocolate, flowers and then who knew what might follow? He had some pretty high hopes going on.
He walked into the bank and saw the receptionist sitting at the front desk. She recognized him and smiled.
“Hello, Detective Welch. How nice to see you again.”
“Hello, Kathy. Can I leave these with you for Janet? I guess she’s out to lunch. And will you please ask her to call me when she gets back in?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? Her last day here was a week ago Friday. She put in her resignation. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. I thought you knew.”
His stomach flipped over. “Well, I had to leave town in a hurry. Where’d she go – I mean, did she take another job somewhere?”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
He walked out of the bank and put the flowers back into the car. He drove to her apartment and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Leaning toward the left side of the landing where he stood, he looked into the window. The place was empty.
68
Samantha Newsom stood on the beach in front of her new deckhouse, looking out at the deep blue waves as they rolled in toward the shoreline. The top of the setting sun was slowly approaching the horizon. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the gently roaring surf that broke at uneven intervals, foaming and sending a fine salt spray into the air. She breathed deeply and savored the warm evening breeze that caressed the skin on her legs and shoulders. The fine white sand was deliciously comfortable beneath her bare feet, radiating the residual heat provided during hours long past by the mid-day sun. She heard soft music coming from within the open sided shanty that was her special place in this Polynesian paradise. She raised a nearly empty glass to her lips and slowly sipped the last of some post love making red wine, letting its warmth flow over her tongue and down her throat. It was an exquisite Napa Valley Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon, 1980 vintage.
She looked upward at the trees and watched the palm fronds lazily responding as the tropical wind moved them to and fro, creating a soft whispering sound that was now so familiar to her. In the distance she could see the white sails of a yacht making for port in the fading sunlight. The craft moved silently, steadily on its course. She wondered who was aboard, what they could be talking about, what they were doing, and from whence they might have come to this place. She watched for a few minutes more and turned back toward the house. Stepping up onto the entry, she walked into the living room, her empty glass in hand.
“More wine, darling?”
‘Yes. That would be very nice, my love.”
Janet Rogers stood up from the couch where she’d been sitting for several minutes, studying her pensive lover. She smoothed her satin robe and reached for the open bottle on the end table.
“Well, then, let me pour it for you.”
About The Author
John L. Work is a graduate of California State University at Long Beach. He worked for more than twenty years in law enforcement service and thereafter for nearly two years as an investigator with the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office. He lives with his wife in northeastern Colorado, where he is writing his fourth novel.
He has written for Front Page Magazine, Liberty Ink Journal Magazine, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s NewsRealBlog.
Other novels by John L. Work:
A Dark Obsession Times 2
A Summons To Perdition (Coming in December, 2011)