Waiting for You

by Kasey Croshaw

  “Sure thing,” Callen said. I could hear the clicking of his keyboard. “Looks like he has an outstanding warrant. Missed a court date in August on a felony possession with intent to distribute. Hang on, let me look at the arrest report.” There was a long silence as he read. “Heroin,” he said. “That’s the drug of choice around these parts. How about out west?”

  “Meth mostly. We have a big Oxy problem, but that’s mostly in Utah. This Lambert fella show any next of kin?” I asked.

  “Nope. Nada. We do still have his girlfriend in custody. She was sentenced to 120 days on the case as an accessory, but that’s only a misdemeanor. Let me see. Yeah, she’s due for release November 22nd. Just in time for Thanksgiving with the family. Turkey stuffed with black tar heroin,” the Deputy said chuckling to himself.

  I didn’t find the remark particularly funny since Natalie was part of our family. “Thanks, can you email that info to me,” I said and gave him my Department email address. I now had a contact point in Wheeling, and more importantly, I knew that Amber’s mother was alive, in jail, and when she would be released.

  I was in a great mood when Amber finally awoke and joined me in the kitchen. I lifted her in my arms and kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning, baby girl,” I told her.

  “Good morning, Uncle Dave. It was fun staying here last night,” she said. I poured her a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk.

  “After you eat your breakfast, we’ll get you ready for the day. Do you like a bath or a shower?” I asked.

  “A bubble bath please,” she answered.

  “I don’t think I have any bubble bath,” I said, “It will have to be just a plain old bath.”

  “Okay, but you need to get some girlie stuff around this place for me,” she told me.

  “Yes, I know. On my next day off, we’ll get you some ‘girlie stuff,' like bubble bath and shampoo,” I said.

  I left Amber to eat and went back to my work. It didn’t take long for me to finish the report on the arrest the day before. My memory was still fresh, and my notes were good. I emailed the finish reported to the county prosecutor and went back to my file on the Lambert case. I made a note to interview Cleetus.

  I called the number to the county courthouse.

  “Records, please,” I said. There were a few clicks on the line.

  “Records,” the woman said.

  “Yes, hi, this is Deputy Sloan, I was wondering if you could help me. I’m trying to find out if there is a marriage certificate for a Jared Lambert and a Jessica Deets,” I said.

  “Oh, hi, Nick, this is Becky Koontz, I graduated a year after you. I saw that Sheriff Lassiter hired you, congratulations,” she said. “Usually, you have to come to the office and fill out a request, but since this is official police work, I’ll just look it up for you. Hang on the line and give me a minute,” Becky said.

  She came back on the call. “I’m back. Yes, Jessica Ruth Deets married Jared Lambert on July 30, 2016. I remember now. They got married in Judge Lewis’ chambers. Yeah, the judge signed the certificate. You two used to date in high school, didn’t you?” Peggy asked.

  “Don’t remind me, but that was a long time ago. It was good talking to you Becky, thanks for the information,” I said as I disconnected the call.

  There was a rapping at the front door. It was Deputy Luker. I yelled for him to come in. He got a cup of coffee, and I gave him the rundown on what I had verified in the Lambert case.

  Amber finished her breakfast and climbed up on Luker’s lap. “Good morning, Depady,” she said with a wide smile.

  “Good morning, are you helping daddy with his work this morning?” Luker asked.

  “He’s not my daddy, you silly,” Amber said. “I wish he was my daddy, but he’s just my uncle, and he’s not really my uncle, he’s Uncle Dave’s boyfriend.”

  My face was flushed. Amber had said she wished I was her daddy. I knew her real daddy was a bad man, but so did she. I also knew that her real daddy was dead. How would I tell her about him?

  Picking her up from Josh’s lap, I said, “Let’s bathe you and get you dressed for the day. Your grandma will think I’m not taking good care of you.”

  “No, she won’t, and I don’t need to wash my hair today. Grandma washed it yesterday, and I don’t wanna get frizzy hair,” the four-year-old instructed me.

  “Yes, ma’am! Now, let’s get you clean,” I said as I carried her into the bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later we came back into the kitchen with Amber all clean and pretty. I had brushed her hair back into a ponytail. She said she liked it best like that.

  “We should probably talk with Jessica. Find out what she knows. It looks to me like her hubby got whacked within a few days of getting hitched. Black widow?” Luker asked.

  “I don’t know. Seems strange that she would be involved. They just got married, and he was the baby daddy. But she didn’t show up to claim the body, so she wasn’t too grief-stricken. That’s kind of weird,” I answered. “Amber, get your coat and gloves. Can you stay with Grandma Georgia for a couple of hours while Deputy Luker and I do some police work?”

  “Yes, but I have to take my doll and my coloring books,” Amber said. I took the bag that we used when we carted Amber around and put her things inside. We were off. The little girl got a big kick out of riding the back of the cruiser like she was under arrest.

  Luker gave her a blast of siren and lights, just to make her giggle. I parked out front of the café and Luker retrieved our special little passenger from the transport cage. I had her bag of things to keep her occupied. The wind was howling outside, and it was nice to get inside the warmth of the café.

  The breakfast crowd was just clearing out and heading back home. Georgia was busing tables. “Hey men, grab a booth, and I’ll get you some coffee.”

  Luker and Amber took the booth where Amber usually hung out while she was with her grandmother. I followed Georgia through the swinging doors to find Dave sipping a cup of coffee and relaxing. I snuggled up to him and kissed him.

  “Georgia, I’ve got some good news,” I said while sidled up next to Dave. “I found Natalie, and she’s alive. She’s in jail, but she’s alive.”

  Dave reached for his mother as she started to faint. I pulled up a chair, and we sat her down. The tears and the sobbing were intense. A mother who had believed her daughter to be dead, but finding out she was alive was cathartic after the long year of not hearing from Natalie.

  When she finally collected her wits, I said, “Natalie is in West Virginia serving off her time as an accomplice in a drug deal. She’s due for release right before Thanksgiving. Maybe you or Dave or Karl should fly there and bring her home.”

  “No,” Georgia said quietly. “I don’t want her to come back here. She’s ruined her life with drugs, but I won’t tolerate her ruining that little girl’s life. She walked out on her own daughter! Her own daughter!” Georgia’s voice was rising as she got angrier.

  “Shh, Mom, we don’t want Amber to hear,” Dave said, squatting down at his mother’s side.

  “You’re right. She can’t and won’t know anything about her mother except the good part. I won’t stand for it,” Georgia had made up her mind. She stood, tall and gallant, in her decision. She blew the wisp of hair from her face, collected a dish tub and went back to work.

  I looked at Dave, and he was white as a ghost. I sat him down where his mother had been sitting. “What do you have to say about this?” I asked.

  “Exactly, what Mom said,” Dave murmured as he lowered his head. “I know it sounds terrible, I mean, she is my sister, but I can’t let her hurt Amber more than she already has.” His tears were sliding down those handsome cheeks, and I held him in close to me as kneeling in front of him.

  “I’m here to support whatever you want, Dave. You loved your sister when she was Natalie, but this isn’t her. I believe that she is dealing and using heroin. There is no real treatment for it, no matter what the expert said. It will kill her,
maybe not the drug, but the way she has to get it, running with criminals, guns, HIV from needle use, she’s a female subject to rape and abuse. Jesus, I’m surprised she lived this long. No, I agree with you and your mom. Natalie will have to stay away for Amber’s sake.”

  I kissed Dave before I stood up to leave. “I love you, Dave,” I said.

  “I love you too, Nick. See you later,” Dave said to me, returned my kiss very passionately.

  Luker was following me out. “Bye beautiful,” I said to Amber. “Bye Georgia, I’ll pick her up in a couple of hours.”

  “Bye Depady Luker. Bye daddy,” Amber said without looking up from her book.

  I gave Georgia a questioning look and shrugged my shoulders, but Georgia had a big smile on her face. That smile seemed ominous.

  “What’s up with Amber calling you daddy?” Luker asked.

  “Don’t honestly know. I think she needs a father figure, and she and I have bonded,” I answered, unsure of what Amber meant.

  I drove to Opal’s Trailer court. The place was a shit hole to be sure. The trailers were run down. Even in spring and summer, there were no lawns. The trees that were barren of leaves. Litter and garbage decorated the muddy driveway through the place. There were obviously children living in these horrible conditions, their toys and broken bikes lay beside trailers with the weather skirting bent and pulling away to expose the underbelly of the inadequate housing.

  “That’s number five,” I said, pointing to the trailer up ahead. I pulled over and cut the engine. “I’ll knock, you back me up.”

  We got out of the cruiser and walked the fifty yards to number 5. Jessica’s car was parked beside the wooden porch. Luker took a position at the corner of the trailer with his hand on his service weapon. My hand was also on the handle of my revolver. I stood away from the door on the right and knocked sharply. “Ms. Deets,” I said loudly. I heard the TV blaring, and, then, go silent. I knocked again. “Jessica. It’s Deputy Sloan.”

  “I’m coming, hold your fucking horses,” I heard her cursing as her footsteps tramped toward the door. The sheet metal door squeaked open, and she peered out but didn’t see me standing to her left against the outside wall. She was only wearing a black bra and a pair of dirty yoga pants.

  “Jessica,” I said. Startled, she looked over at me and had an evil smile on her face, a cigarette dangling from her lips.

  “Christ, Nick, get in here, it's fucking cold out here,” she said.

  Luker had reached the bottom of the stairs before she noticed him. I stepped inside, and Luker followed. “I knew you couldn’t stay away from me,” she said seductively. She licked her finger and pushed her hand inside of her pants as she stared at me like she was some cheap stripper.

  “We’re here on official business, Ms. Deets,” I said. “Or should I call you Mrs. Lambert.”

  She stopped her feeble attempt at seduction. “What did you call me?”

  “Deputy Luke and I just stopped by to pay our respects to the Widow Lambert. You are, or should I say were, married to Jared Lambert, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, so what’s that to you?” she asked.

  “He’s dead,” I said flatly.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Sloan,” Jessica said as she pulled the cigarette from her mouth and ground it out in an ashtray sitting on the kitchen counter. It was then that I noticed her baby in his carrier sitting next to the ashtray on that same counter.

  “You know you shouldn’t smoke around children, stunts their growth,” I chastised her.

  “That ain’t none of your concern. Why do you two numbnuts asking about my late husband, can’t you see I’m just heart broke?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Yeah, you’re a real humanitarian, couldn’t even bother to collect the body. The county had to bury the poor guy?” Luker said.

  “I don’t have that kind of money to pay for his dumb ass to get flopped in the ground,” Jessica hissed. “Fucking idiot never did anything for me.”

  “Excuse me, but the idiot married you and gave you that beautiful son,” I said.

  “Don’t make me laugh, Noah ain’t his. Sure, I married Jared. He was good to me at first, and he loved Noah. He bought me that car. Paid the bills. He even tried to get a job out at the mines, but his drug record kept him from getting hired,” she said. “Sonny Horton’s the baby daddy, but I didn’t tell him.”

  I was looking around the trailer as she talked. It was trashed. There pathways through the dirty clothes that littered the floor. Dishes were piled in the sink, and the place stunk to high heaven of tobacco, pot, and baby diapers. Luker nudged me in the side when Jessica was looking over at the baby. He was motioning with his head. There on the coffee table sat a bong right there in the open.

  I looked away and didn’t say anything to her. “Deputy Luker would you mind stepping out and letting dispatch know our 10-42,” I said, hoping that Jessica wouldn’t know that 10-42 was a welfare check on the residence. That baby was in danger, but we didn’t have the resources to handle an infant at this time. We would be arresting Jessica for child endangerment, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. She just didn’t know it yet, and I wanted to get more information on the Lambert dude.

  Luker excused himself and stepped outside to call for a Welfare work to get the kid. I continued to talk with Jessica and keep her distracted from seeing her glaring mistake sitting on the coffee table.

  “You must think I’m a terrible person,” Jessica said. “It’s not that I didn’t love Jared. He tried hard to change, but he was an addict.”

  I wanted to laugh remembering that Amber had called him a dick instead of an addict, but I held it together. “I’m sure you are doing your best. It can’t be easy to be raising a child and not have a job. Welfare can’t possibly be enough to live on.”

  “It would help if my folks were still around, but you know my dad is in prison, and my mom died, so it’s just me a little Noah,” Jessica had started to cry crocodile tears. I recognized that behavior from when we were dating. I would catch her in a lie, and she would start to cry to distract me. It wasn’t gonna work this time.

  “Sorry, I remember when your mom passed away. That was a very bad time for you and your dad, but I didn’t know your dad went to prison,” I said seemingly concerned when I was just trying to keep her talking and give Child Protection a chance to get someone here to remove the kid.

  “He got caught up in some way to get insurance money for his work injury out at the mines. The judge gave him ten years, and he has to pay back $300,000, as if,” she said, scoffing at her father’s crime.

  “So, when did you last see your husband?” I asked.

  “He let last January when he didn’t get hired,” she said.

  “Are you sure that you didn’t see him the first part of July before he was shot?” I asked.

  “I’m sure. I didn’t even know he was in town until Sonny told me that Jared had been shot,” she said.

  “You didn’t know that he had jumped bail and come back to town?” I asked.

  Luker came back inside the trailer at that point. “I cleared our location with dispatch,” he said. I held out my hand to stop him from talking for a second.

  “How would I know he jumped bail?” She was getting frustrated, but I wanted to make this one point to let her know in on the fact that I knew she was lying.

  “Because you posted the bond and I know that the bail bondsman would have contacted you to find out if you had seen Jared,” I answered.

  “How? I don’t have a phone,” Jessica said. The look on her face told me she was lying.

  “What’s this?” I asked as I reached behind her and took her cell phone from the counter.

  “Okay, I did know he jumped bail, but I didn’t see him. Sonny came to the trailer and told me that he had seen Jared and that he was hiding out at Cleet’s place. They’ve been buddies since back when Jared first came to town,” she said.

  “Before I
arrest you for possession of pot,” I said as I pointed to the bong on the coffee table, “Is there anything you want to tell me.”

  “Arrest me. You can’t arrest me! I have a baby here. What will happen to Noah? No, you can’t arrest me,” Jessica was babbling now that she knew she had no place to go with this.

  “I had Deputy Luker contact Child Protective Service to take your son. He was going to be taken into protective custody, whether or not I arrest you. Look at this place, Jess. You can’t raise a kid in a place like this. You’re smoking cigarettes and smoking pot around him. That is just plain wrong,” I admonished. “You can make it a whole lot easier on yourself if you tell me where you get your pot.”

  “Fine,” she said almost spitting at me in anger. “Cleetus Jones. He’s my dealer. There, does that make you happy.”

  “No, Jess, nothing about this makes me happy,” I told her. “Now put your hands behind your back.” She complied in a fit of disgust, stomping her feet as she turned around and placed her hands for me to cuff.

  “Do you have anything on you that will poke me or cut me?” Luker asked her.

  “No!”

  “How long did dispatch say until CPS arrives?” I asked.

  “At least two hours, probably longer,” Luker said.

  I wanted to curse, but I held my tongue in front of Jessica. I didn’t need a complaint against me for my filthy language. “Let me think a second.”

  “Okay, we transport the baby in his carrier in the cage with his momma. I’ll have to remove Amber’s car seat first. You wait here, and I’ll pull the cruiser up outside the door and get it warm inside for transport.”

  I took off and ran down the lane at a fast clip, unbelted Amber’s car seat and placed in the back of the Tahoe. Parking the cruiser at the front door of the trailer, I let it idle with the heat cranked on high.

  “Nick?” Jessica said quietly. “I know you’re just doin’ your job, but this hurts having you be the one to bust me. You broke my heart when we broke up. I’m not some silly little thing. I know it would have never worked out between us, but I did love you.” Now she was shedding real tears. Taking a tissue from the box beside the baby carrier, I wiped her nose and dabbed her eyes tenderly.