Chapter 16
It couldn’t be helped. They had to get unpacked and settled as much as possible over the weekend. They had to get the renovations started if they were to have any chance of getting the majority of it finished before Shana went back to school. In retrospect, perhaps she shouldn’t have taken them on that ride Friday. At least, she shouldn’t have put in so much effort chasing down her daughter. However her wisdom of hindsight figured it, she was going to start her first day as the new sheriff of Dominion stiff from her shoulders down to her calves.
She slid out of bed after a third straight restless night and limped into her bathroom to shower. Shana, as selfish as any teenage daughter could be, always respected her mother’s need to get up and get on with it; she’d shower after her mother was gone. Her neck almost turned to stone when she washed her hair. Her left shoulder creaked and clicked when the comb got stuck in a knot. Her right calf formed a hard lump just above the Achilles tendon when she rose up on her toes to reach her make-up case, which she had stupidly placed on an old shelf above the rusty medicine chest that was on the list of things to be replaced.
She struggled through putting on her make-up and getting into her sheriff’s uniform. Madsen had made sure the three tailor-made outfits and two hats were delivered to her before she left Portland. She liked the light-blue color of the blouse. It went well with the darker blue of the tunic and trousers. The emblem patch on the uniform and hat contained three evergreen trees standing in front of a mountain peak and behind a stream. All of that rested inside a triangle of yellow, curved sides that spelled out: Dominion Sheriff Department.
Shana mercifully had coffee and toast ready once she had hobbled down the stairs and into the kitchen. There were two coffee cups waiting for the beverage.
“Just a half cup for you.”
Shana deserved a reward for preparing this little miracle of nutrition.
“The golem has risen.” Shana poured the coffee.
Mom got her standard full cup of strong, black serum to start the day. Shana’s portion was a homemade mocha concoction of mostly cream, chocolate and sugar, with only a bit of that dark, addictive substance in the form of breakfast blend.
“Slay all of my enemies, golem, and I will let you die.” Shana peered at her over her ersatz mocha potion. “You will finally know the bliss of oblivion if only you do as I command.”
She said through a yawn that made her jaw ache, “One day, you will start having mornings like this.” She sat down at the rickety table in the nook convinced it was sturdier than she was. Its legs would surely bend easier than hers would.
“One day, I’m going to be rich enough to pay other people to have mornings like this for me.”
Teenagers always had smug, arrogant, intensely annoying answers ready. The sun comes up in the east, teenagers are SNERT’s. Both were immutable constants of existence on earth. It was hard to imagine an earth in any alternate universe where teenagers would be any other way.
“Clean up the kitchen and put that shelf liner stuff in the cupboards. Don’t put your ear buds in because I will be calling to check in with you. You can play the stereo, but I don’t want to hear complaints from our neighbors of it being too loud when I get home.”
“I was going to do the third bedroom and the upstairs hallway. We go from top to bottom, remember? And we’re getting a new kitchen anyway, right?”
She nodded. Her neck punished her for that with a painful burst of heat up to her temples. “We need at least two of the cupboards for dishes and groceries for now. Do that before you go back to painting. And thank you for everything you’re doing.”
“Mom, you have to stop getting up two and three times a night to check the house. You are going to exhaust yourself over nothing.”
“I know, I know.”
She finished her toast and coffee, kissed Shana good-bye, made it to the Mazda and then to the Sheriff’s Office. She checked to make sure no one was watching her arrival before using her hands as pry bars to swing her legs out the door and exit the CX-5.
Holding on tight to the wrought iron railing, she got up the four steps leading to the front door and opened it to find a half-dozen men working on cabling and setting up computers for the updated network. She held on to the knob for support and surveyed the office. The part she had just entered had an open waiting area that was defined by a three-foot-high wooden barrier to the common area for the deputies and staff. A gate to her right, beside the reception counter, let people through.
Two men closest to the barrier turned away from her. One was a short block of muscles with a thick neck. The other one was just over six feet tall and leaner, but still with a solid, muscular frame. Turning their backs to her the moment she looked at them was probably just coincidental. They were laying cable under the floor panels. The short one was feeding the cable; the taller one was pulling it to the other end of the room. They both wore gloves. The one feeding the cable wore gloves with open fingers, like riding gloves. Why not cover his fingers? Did he need more flexibility to feed the cable than his partner did pulling it? Were his gloves approved for use by workers compensation?
She took a deep breath, braced herself, let go of the door knob and opened her mouth to call to him.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Kelly said as she came in behind her.
The knot in her calf bulged and tightened. A slice of pain cut down to her heel when she turned around. She grimaced and nodded “good morning” back.
“Don’t mind them,” Kelly said. “They’re almost finished.” She took off her hat. “Your office is this way.”
Kelly led her through the gate, past the men, across the common area and to her office to the left of that.
The office walls had frosted glass for the top half except for one clear pane beside the door that looked out onto the common area and another in the top third of the door. Both of those windows had blinds that could be closed for privacy.
“Isn’t this great?” Kelly pointed to the computer on the desk as if it was the best gift anyone could ever get.
It was identical to the one she had in Portland, which confirmed Kelly’s assessment that the Dominion Sheriff’s Office badly needed to catch up to this century.
“You also get a laptop to take with you.”
Kelly walked over to a cabinet that went from floor to ceiling, inserted her key into the lock for the top half and opened both doors to display a cache of rifles and handguns secured behind locked, wire-reinforced, tempered-glass doors. The rifles were fixed with a locking bar and a locked length of chain that went through the triggers. The four handguns had their own special locks that kept them fastened to the back of the cabinet. On a shelf below the weapons, Kelly pointed out the laptop. It was identical to the one she had in Portland.
With the flourish of a game show host, her smile just as wide, bright and artificial, Kelly said, “And you also get these wonderful toys.” She picked up an iPod, an iPad and an iPhone. “You keep at least one of these with you at all times, like your gun. They’re all set up and ready to go. You’ll always be connected no matter where you are. I’m told every app needed for law enforcement is on that phone. It might even have a Taser as well. Maybe it shoots a little spritz of pepper spray.”
She retrieved all portable items and brought them to her desk. “Thanks.” She stared down at the chair, unable to decide whether or not to take the risk in front of Kelly of sitting down. What would the deputy who one day wanted that chair think if the new sheriff became a screaming, wretched stiff the moment she landed in it?
“Want a quick tour of the place before we get you signed on to the new network?”
A walk would stretch out some of the stiffness. “Lead the way.”
There wasn’t much to the tour. Kelly took her through a heavy metal door to the six cells at the back of the office. A door from there led to a storage room for office, cleaning and maintenance supplies. An area of shelves behind a set of bars and a locked d
oor held any evidence collected during investigations. The area was about the size of a standard bathroom and the shelves were nearly empty. She wasn’t going to find anything in there about Wiley or Nguyen.
They returned through all the doors, which Kelly dutifully confirmed were locked behind them, back to what she had labeled the common area. A door to a hallway between her office and the cells in the back led past the washroom to a small kitchen and eating area, which had a set of lockers along one wall for the sheriff, deputies and staff to store their things. Her locker was half again as wide as all the others.
The common area behind the barrier contained the back section of the reception desk, Kelly’s desk, which had a picture of her with her shepherd-collie cross on it, plus two new desks.
“Those are for the two new deputies when we get them,” Kelly said when she noticed where Joan was looking. “Our part-timers, Rob Doyle and Jacob Peabody, use them on their weekend and relief shifts.”
Only the two men who had been laying cable were left of the six present when she arrived. They were connecting the desktop computers on the three deputy’s desks.
“Time to get reconnected with your law enforcement family, wouldn’t you say, Sheriff?”
Her heart blipped. “You’re the first one to officially call me Sheriff.”
Kelly frowned. “Shit, I’m so stupid.” She stood at attention and saluted. “Welcome to Dominion, Sheriff Joan McGowan.” She sagged and slapped her forehead. “I practiced that all last night. I wanted your arrival to be special. Then I go and forget it first thing. Dammit.”
Joan could hug her. “Just promise me you’re not going to keep doing that. This isn’t the military.”
Kelly started to salute again then burst out laughing at herself and led her boss back to her office. Kelly was going to be an excellent deputy to work with.
The tour did help ease some of her stiffness. She settled into her chair with less difficulty and pain than she had anticipated. After first making a few adjustments to height and tilt, she was, she believed, able to hide most of her discomfort from Deputy Strickland. Once settled, she glanced out through the clear pane of glass at the two men who were now making sure the three computers were all booting up correctly.
Kelly showed her how to get onto the system and how to navigate to the areas she would use for research or to contact other departments of state and federal law enforcement. Most of it was familiar to her because it was similar to what she had used in Portland. There were a few minor differences in navigation because the system and equipment were updated versions.
“It’s the new police work,” Kelly said. “You’re going to be attached at the fingertips to these things, at least until it’s all controlled by voice commands to some cockamamie thing permanently jammed into your ear.”
“I believe those get installed next Wednesday.”
“No more walking the beat. No more clandestine meetings in seedy, backstreet restaurants with your greasy, grubby contact.”
“You’re a film noir buff, aren’t you?”
“Got the whole collection; the grittier the better. You should come over one night. We’ll put on Sam Spade or Phil Marlowe.”
“What about Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray?”
“God, yes, or Dial M or Anatomy of a Murder? Very adult for their time, don’t you think?”
“You’ve got a date.”
“Now it’s all texting. Even Ratso Rizzo has a smartphone these days.”
“Why are they still here if it’s all up and running?”
“I’m not sure. I asked one of them Friday.” She pointed. “That short, thick one said they were hardening the system.”
“Hardening? Are they expecting someone to set off a nuclear bomb nearby?”
“He told me it was required now because we’re linked to federal networks. They’re just reinforcing our system with redundancies and protection, shielding, hard casings, stuff like that. The whole thing is called Titan, he said. I just hope it has spellcheck so we don’t get kooks’ names wrong anymore.”
Portland had the same hardening installed in its system last year. “Prosaic but appropriate, I suppose.”
Kelly pointed to a pile of papers on her desk. “Harry says that’s all the stuff you need to know where the sheriff’s office is at and where it needs to go; that is, his opinion of where it needs to go. He says to feel free to disregard whatever you don’t agree with and put in your own ideas. His exact words were: ‘it’s her baby now.’”
It would have been nice to talk to Madsen directly, not his deputy sheriff messenger service.
“I can help you with all that. I know what’s there, mostly, and this is going to be my desk one day.”
“I wish I were as wise when I was your age. Instead, I thought the world should just recognize how great I was and hand over everything I wanted.”
“What changed that attitude?”
“Having Shana went a long way to setting me straight.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“She scares the crap out of me some days. She’s full of courage, but overconfident for her experience level.” She had also developed one very disturbing hobby that she seemed content to leave alone for now.
“I’ll watch out for her.” Kelly went to the door. “We tall chicks gotta stick together.” She left.
Joan familiarized herself with their network set-up and the updated ways to get access to what she wanted. After Kelly brought her a cup of coffee and two Tylenol for back pain—she was absolutely going to be a fantastic deputy—she started on the paperwork Madsen had left for her.
Madsen had an excellent grasp of Dominion crime statistics, including the sudden, inexplicable increase in drug dealing and related crimes. His workforce requests were in line with expectations for Dominion’s projected population growth. Aside from two more deputies, Madsen proposed increasing support and administrative staff to five from the two that were there now, one of them being only part-time. He also recommended that Dominion transition from a Sheriff’s Department to its own police force. She could end up Chief of Police.
She had met neither of the admin staff yet. No one had even mentioned them to her and she hadn’t thought to ask.
In all the paperwork Madsen left behind, however, there was no mention of the Wiley and Nguyen cases. If the cases were significant enough for Madsen to keep his hand in, there should be something for her to read. Billions of dollars that forensic accountants at the FBI still couldn’t find, but there was no information on it to review. Had that been hidden, too?
The phone on her desk rang. The button at the right end of a line of seven blinked with each ring.
Kelly ducked her head in. “That’s your private line, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” She picked up the receiver, which had been cleaned. “Sheriff Joan McGowan, how can I help you?”
“That was very professional,” Madsen said, “which is as expected. I must admit, though, that from my point of view, it’s also a little disconcerting.”
“Good morning, Harry. What can I do for you?”
“I thought maybe it should go in the other direction your first day on the job. Can I take you to lunch, Sheriff?”
The honorific sounded just right. “When and where?”
“The Nite-Lite pub at noon.”
“That’s Kate’s place.”
“It serves one of the best beef dip lunches on the planet.”
“How do I get there?”
“Turn left once you’re out front and go three blocks. It’s on the same side of the street.”
“See you at noon. I have a lot of questions.”
“I’ll answer as many as I can.”
She spent the next three hours arranging her office and her desk the way she wanted them, including a two-picture stand with a picture of Michael, Shana and her taken a month before Michael’s accident, and on the other side a picture of Shana posing beside her Cannondale before her first race. S
he finished fourteenth against much older competition.
She went back onto the network and sent her first email to Colin Foster in the Portland FBI office to let him know what it had been like so far in Dominion. She also asked what more he’d heard about the Crowley farm investigation, and requested any info he had on Wiley and Nguyen.
Kelly came in at eleven o’clock to introduce Mrs. Amelia Truman, fifty-six, who was their part-time receptionist and switchboard operator. Mrs. Amelia Truman, with make-up judiciously applied for presentation to the public, her short, straight brown hair combed and parted in the middle, her cheaters hanging on a black, nylon lanyard with DOMINION printed in white over and over along it, was neither intimidated by nor impressed with the new sheriff. She could best be described as skeptical of the new sheriff’s professional capabilities and concerned that any new procedures the neophyte introduced to the station were only going to make her job that much harder.
Now was not the time to ask if Mrs. Amelia Truman would consider working fulltime.
Once Truman was gone, Kelly said, “Not too many frivolous complaints get past her.”
Deputy Strickland had just succinctly described Mrs. Amelia Truman’s one indispensable contribution to running a sheriff’s office.
Feeling a bit fuzzy from the Tylenol, she sat staring at the desktop monitor once Strickland left and let whatever momentum she’d established her first day as the sheriff ebb away. Colin hadn’t responded by the time she left for lunch.
Wear Something Red Page 16