Finding Sheila

by Anne Hagan

  Lynette looked at Randy. “Blue jeans, a windbreaker.”

  “Not jail attire?”

  “No. I honestly didn’t know anything about that. Not then. Not until after all this happened.”

  “Talk us through what happened step by step.”

  “She…she walked over to me and hugged me. Told me how good it was to see me again. Randy turned around and spotted us. He came back over, and I introduced him. That’s when everything changed. She ordered us back into the truck and told us to pull out. We rode down the highway a few miles, then she had us pull off onto the berm. She told us we were not to say anything to anyone about her catching a ride with us or Caleb would pay. She got out, a car pulled up, picked her up, and she was gone.”

  Andrea asked her, “Did you recognize the driver of the car?”

  “Not me,” Randy said.

  Lynette shook her head. “I didn’t get a very good look. I was so scared.”

  “I was driving,” Randy said, picking up the thread of the story. “By the time I got us rolling, back out into traffic, they were long gone. We wanted to go back and check on Caleb, but we…we were just so worried about what she said.”

  Tears streamed down Lynette’s face. “And now he’s gone anyway, and they need to pay for that.”

  Chapter 30 - Raid

  0500 Hours, Tuesday December 1st

  Townsend, Tennessee

  The FBI descended on twelve different targets, in and around Townsend, Tennessee, all at 5:00 AM. Dana and Yvonne sat in the Knoxville Office, on pins and needles, waiting for the roundup of Ford family members and their associates to start coming in.

  Dana’s new cell phone rang. “It’s Mel,” she told Yvonne. “I’ll put her on speaker phone.”

  When Mel’s voice came across the line, it was to say, “It’s all over but the crying here in Ohio. They picked Jennifer and her husband up a couple of minutes ago without incident. They’re sacking her house now.”

  “You’re there?” Dana asked her.

  “Just as an observer. They didn’t let me go in.”

  “What about her kids?”

  “Oddly, not here. She told one of the agents they’re with her husband’s parents. Maybe they got word which way the wind was blowing. How’s it going down there?”

  “We don’t know,” Dana told her. “Most of the places they were hitting were 40 minutes to an hour or more away. It will be a bit yet before they start bringing people in.”

  Yvonne spoke up, “I want to thank you again Mel. If you and your DA friend hadn’t tracked down the Willards and got them to come in and then talk, none of this would be happening.”

  “You can’t say that for sure,” Dana said. “You had a lot of leads, names…flat out evidence.”

  “True,” Yvonne bobbed her head in acknowledgment, “but both of your efforts to track Sheila Ford at all costs is what broke this case wide open. I might have been a long time yet, trying to piece it all together.”

  “We still don’t know everything from our end,” Mel reminded them. “Randy and Lynette told us how she got away from Dana. We still don’t know exactly how they got her sprung in the first place.”

  “Actually, we do,” Dana told her wife. “Not in laborious detail but Caroline Rutledge, the prison doctor, tipped us off. The Ford arrests down here today are just the first wave. Between Lynette’s research, what I’ve found, and what people give up in cooperation to get lighter sentences, she thinks she has enough to bring down the whole fraud ring.”

  ###

  Sheila Ford sat, looking smug, in an interrogation room while Agent Bennett from the Louisville Kentucky field questioned her.

  Dana was incensed. “Since he’s been assigned to the case,” she told Yvonne, “He’s done virtually nothing to find Ford or any of her associates. For what little he’s actually provided to the investigation, any new recruit agent could do just as good a job of the interrogation as he is!”

  Inside the room, Bennett walked Ford through her Thursday escape, but asked nothing about how it was all arranged to begin with. She said nothing about the plan to get her sprung in the first place or why she wanted out. He didn’t ask about her medical ruse either.

  She was shaking her head, complaining to Yvonne that he was blowing it when the Field Agent in Charge walked into the viewing room.

  Dana stopped complaining but the AIC was an expert at reading body language and facial expressions. She watched the Louisville agent herself for a couple of minutes, then spoke to the other two women. “Louisville tells me this is his first case as lead.”

  “Him?” Dana pointed at Bennett. “He’s got to be pushing 40.”

  “He is. Prior military.”

  “He’s blowing it with her.”

  “Think you can do better, deputy?”

  “I know I can. I won’t bore you with the long story, but I was Federal for several years.”

  The AIC tapped the intercom button and called Bennett out of the room. “Take ten,” she told him when he walked out. “We’re going to let Deputy Rossi here have a crack at her.”

  “But it’s my case,” he argued.

  “It is, but she has all the background and you don’t.” Her tone was smooth and calm, but her eyes said, ‘watch and learn’.

  Dana didn’t waste time. She strode into the room and got down to business.

  “Remember me?”

  Ford didn’t bother to answer.

  She went for shock value. “You know Caleb Lighty is dead because of you, don’t you?”

  The statement had the desired effect. “No…no. He was fine when I left the scene. Just a little bump on the head.”

  “You’re right, he was fine at the scene. We both were, no thanks to you. No, he was killed a few days later. Took a bullet to the heart at point blank range.”

  Sheila shuddered visibly and rubbed her hands along her forearms.

  “You actually feel bad about it? Isn’t that nice.” She paused a beat before going on, “That’s sarcasm, in case you were wondering.” When she said nothing, Dana asked, “Who killed him, Sheila?”

  The older woman shook her head side to side and then rubbed her arms some more. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. No one was supposed to die. Not in that crash that day, not springing me. No one.”

  “What do you know about the crash?”

  Sheila looked stricken, realizing she’d slipped. “I mean, I knew there was a crash because we had to go to that depo and try and find someone to drive with…with…”

  “Caleb,” Dana supplied. “The young man with his whole future ahead of him who’s dead now because of you.”

  The other woman unfolded her arms, braced her hands against the edge of the table between them and studied her fingers.

  “Why’d you do it? You had a short sentence. You had already served most of what you were probably going to serve. Why the elaborate ruse and the escape plan?”

  Sheila sighed. “For Jennifer…Jennifer and the kids.”

  “You were arrested in Tennessee, hiding out on Stephen Ford’s property. How was that for Jennifer? You left her and her family behind.” Dana knew Jennifer had been picked up too in the well synced morning sting operation, but Sheila had no way of knowing she had been. She was going to use that leverage to get as much out of her as she could.

  “No,” Ford said. “I didn’t. I mean, I did leave them behind, but I was doing them a favor. “Jennifer’s husband Brad has a great job. Jennifer doesn’t need the con, but she’s addicted to it. She still run scams in Ohio, here and there. It gave the ring another foothold, somewhere else when it felt like things were getting a little too close for comfort in Tennessee. I wanted her to go straight…go clean. I hated to leave her and my only…I think, my only grandchildren behind, but I figured if I left her alone, she’d walk the line. I was her conduit for information, most of the time. That, and there was nothing left there for me back in Morelville, no ties there. What would I have done there when I did ge
t out of jail? Rot away in that house?”

  “So, you convinced her to spring you? Help you escape?”

  “No.” Sheila’s eyes started to glisten, but she held the tears back. “No, I actually convinced her that I was physically incapacitated and wanted to be moved. She convinced the Warden to have me reassigned to Muskingum County.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t answer that. The expense of dealing with an invalid prisoner, maybe?”

  “Be honest with me.”

  “I am.”

  “We both know you’re not. What do you two have on the warden?”

  “I’ve got nothing.”

  “You realize you’re going back down, right? You’ll probably get to serve out the rest of your original sentence, plus a couple of more years for the escape. You might want to think about that, before your arraignment.”

  Dana knew it was useless. She knew that any additional information Sheila had, she was going to save and let Jennifer use if she ever got picked up and needed a get out of jail free card.

  Chapter 31 - 2nd Home

  Tuesday Afternoon, December 1st

  Nashville, Tennessee

  As Dana was finishing her packing, her phone rang. The number looked vaguely familiar, so she answered it.

  “Mrs. Crane? It’s Bonnie from Sunshine Realty. We’re all set on this end. When would you like to come back down here and close?”

  “I happen to be in Tennessee today.” Because I actually never left. “I’m in Nashville, right now. I was planning on flying out tonight, but I can get a car and make a detour, then fly out of Knoxville later this evening or tomorrow.”

  “Oh, we wouldn’t want you to have to change your flight. That’s such a pain.”

  “I didn’t have one booked yet.”

  “Erm…okay.”

  “It’s fine,” Dana said and then chuckled. “It’s a really long story. Is the closing paperwork ready to the point that I could come in and do it today?”

  “Well yes, since you’re not mortgaging the property. We’d just need a cashier’s check for the full amount from your bank. Can you do that from down here?”

  “I’ll figure that out. What’s the latest appointment you can give me today?”

  “With no mortgage documents to go through, say 4:45?”

  “Done. I’ll be there…where am I going?”

  “The title company is right here next to our offices.”

  How convenient.

  Dana called Mel’s office and told her what was going on. Her wife sounded like she was completely exhausted. She told her she should take the rest of the day off and go home and rest.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Shuttle service!”

  Dana jerked it open and made a face at Yvonne. “Very funny!”

  “Did you book that flight?”

  “As a matter of fact, no. I’m not flying back to Ohio just yet. Change in plans.”

  “Oh?”

  “Can you take me to the airport car rental area instead? Not Enterprise. They hate me over there.”

  “Because you totaled one of their cars, Dana!”

  “It wasn’t my fault, Yvonne! ”They both had a laugh at their banter.

  As she pulled her replacement suitcase off the bed, Dana told the woman who was fast becoming her friend about the cabin closing. “So, I need to get over to Gatlinburg, but first, I need to find a bank that can work with mine in Ohio to get funds wired down here. That will probably be easier here in Nashville than in Gatlinburg.”

  “I can take you to a bank and then run you to Gatlinburg.”

  “That’s crazy. That’s more than 200 miles, one way.”

  “Let’s just say I’m taking a few days off.”

  “Well deserved ones.”

  “I think so,” Yvonne said.

  “Let’s talk about it in the car. I can think of a million other things to do with time off down here than to spend seven hours or so driving round trip.”

  “In my line of work, I do that a lot.”

  As they exited Dana’s room and walked down the hall, Yvonne said, “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

  Dana pushed the button for the elevator.

  “Joining me.”

  “Joining you for what?”

  “My company. I told you, I freelance with my own company for a couple of specific companies all the time and from time to time I contract with many. There have been lots of times I could have used several sets of eyes and ears, more researchers, especially when I take on bigger assignments like the one you’ve just seen firsthand. I need help.”

  The elevator showed up and they both got on.

  Dana didn’t give it any thought. “I don’t really need a job. Besides, I have Mel and a life in Morelville.”

  “But you’re buying property here, right? What’s the harm in picking up a little ‘desk’ work once in a while…keeping your mind occupied? A lot of what I do, you could do from anywhere.”

  They reached the ground floor and got off. Dana stopped and looked at Yvonne. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll think about it, but no promises.” As they walked to the fraud investigator’s car, she said, “Mel is going to think I’m crazy when I tell her this.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just, I’ve been shifting around, trying different things, ever since customs retired me medically. I love investigations, I really do, but I just can’t do the leg work. Literally, I can’t. I thought I wanted to write and…I do enjoy it, but I don’t have the discipline to do it. Hell,” she ran a hand through her hair, “maybe I don’t have the discipline to do what you have in mind either.”

  “I think you do. What’s more, I think you love it.”

  Chapter 32 - Decisions

  Todd Bell rapped on Mel’s door frame. She motioned him in.

  “Sorry, your bodyguard isn’t at her desk.”

  Mel had to laugh at his characterization of Holly. Sometimes it felt that way. “What brings you by, Todd?”

  “You pulled it out Crane. Not only that, you helped to crack open an even bigger case that made what could have been,” he raised a hand to stay her from saying anything, “what could have turned out to be a very bad decision on your part into something good.”

  “I wouldn’t call it good. A young man was murdered in all of that melee. That’s unsolved. The FBI picked up a couple of pistols in this morning’s raids in Tennessee, according to Dana. It will be days yet before they can tell if any of them produces a slug that matches the one found in the victim.”

  “Point taken, but I maintain that there was still a lot of good, old fashioned, boots on the ground police work going on there.”

  “I do agree with that. And that brings me to something else.”

  “I know that tone, Mel. No. Don’t say it.”

  “You know I never wanted to run and be the elected Sheriff of this county. That’s not me. I just want to be a cop, do my job, boots on the ground, like you said, and go home at night, period. All of the politics of this, it isn’t me. I’m not running for re-election in three years, so get used to that idea right now. And, I’m seriously considering grooming a potential successor and stepping down or starting a search for one.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “I know you hoped the next election cycle would roll around, no one would run and I’d win by default. Put that out of your head too. It’s not happening. Finding someone to step in? That process may start tomorrow.”

  The End…or is it?

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  About the Author

  Anne Hagan is an East Central Ohio based government employee by day
and author by night. She and her wife live in a tiny town that's even smaller than the Morelville of her Mystery fiction novels and they wouldn't have it any other way. Anne's wife grew up there and has always considered it home. Though it's an ultra-conservative rural community, they're surrounded there by family, longtime friends and many other wonderful people with open hearts and minds. They enjoy spending time with Anne's son wife, with their nieces and nephews and doing many of the things you've read about in her books or that will be 'fictitiously' incorporated into future Morelville Mysteries and Cozies series books. If you've read about a hobby or a sport in either series, they probably enjoy doing it themselves or someone very close to them does.

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  Also Written by the Author

  The books of the Morelville Mysteries series; Anne’s lesfic themed mystery/romance series:

  Relic: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 1 – The first Dana and Sheriff Mel mystery and the first book in the Morelville saga. Please click the link above which will take you to Anne’s site where you can obtain links to get this book.