by Lisa Dyson
Ellen continued her rant. “You think I don’t know you’ve been going over there every chance you get?”
“Ellen. You know that’s not true.”
Her stepmother glared at Callie. “And you! Trying to snare my daughter’s husband, are you?” Her lip curled. “Just like you were in high school. Always stealing her boyfriends.”
Callie had no idea what Ellen was talking about. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“Nothing to say?” Ellen sneered. “Maybe you need some time alone to come up with a response.”
Callie shuddered, memories of her childhood haunting her. She fisted and relaxed her hands several times, keeping herself calm.
She was a grown woman and Ellen was an invalid. There was no way Ellen could hurt her, either with words or actions. She repeated it silently multiple times.
Ellen suddenly took a few awkward steps to the kitchen table. Her dad reached for Ellen, but he was too late. With unbelievable strength in her current condition, she upended the table. Dishes and food went flying onto the floor, splashing on all three of them.
“Ellen! Calm down!” Her dad’s volume rose. He reached for Ellen, but she had already moved the few steps to the kitchen sink. She picked up a glass and threw it at her dad, barely missing him.
“I’m going to call for help.” Callie took a few steps toward the kitchen doorway. She’d left her purse near the front door. She had no idea if they had a landline and now wasn’t the time to ask.
“No!” Her dad’s voice stopped her midstep. “Don’t call anyone. I can handle her.”
“But, Dad—”
“I said no.”
His attention was on Callie, his back to Ellen, who reached back and pulled a large knife from the block on the counter. She raised it over her head, her eyes trained on Callie.
Callie’s surprised expression must have served as a warning to her dad. As if in slow motion, he turned to see what Ellen was doing. “Look out!” he yelled to Callie, putting an arm out to block the blow. At the last second, Callie lurched to the side to avoid Ellen.
Due to his effort to protect Callie, her dad lost his balance and teetered to his right, grabbing for a chair to keep himself upright.
Meanwhile, Ellen had apparently expended her meager energy and leaned against the counter, using her cane for support.
Callie needed to do something before her stepmother reenergized.
Keeping an eye on Ellen, she told her dad, “We have to get help. I’ll be right back.” She gasped and froze. “You’re hurt!” There was a tear in the short sleeve of his gray shirt and blood was beginning to soak it.
Her dad glanced at the arm and said, “I’m fine, just a glancing blow. Why don’t you come back another time and let me handle this.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone with her.”
Ellen turned her head to glare at Callie. Her expression was one Callie was extremely familiar with. One she knew forecast what was to come. Ellen’s physical and verbal attack wasn’t over. She still held the knife at her side.
“Keep an eye on her and stay back,” Callie told her dad while backing into the doorway. “She still has the knife.”
“She’s going to put it down,” her dad said calmly, keeping eye contact with her stepmother. “Aren’t you, Ellen?”
Her stepmother sneered and echoed his question in a singsong tone. “Aren’t you, Ellen?”
Callie ran to the front door, grabbed her purse and dumped it on the floor to get to her phone. She hurried back to right outside the kitchen while at the same time punching in 9-1-1. She could hear what was going on in the kitchen without her stepmother seeing Callie.
A female dispatcher answered on the second ring. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
Callie slowed her breathing and kept her voice low. “We need help. My stepmother is having some kind of psychotic episode. She’s wielding a knife and she cut my father. Please send help to 438 Oleander Drive.”
Callie heard a series of clicks on the line and then the dispatcher spoke again. “Help is on the way. Please stay on the line and tell me what’s happening. How bad is your dad’s cut? Is he conscious?”
“Yes, he’s conscious. He was cut on the upper arm, but I don’t know how bad it is. His sleeve was sliced and blood is soaking it.” Callie’s heart raced. Not a life-and-death injury—yet. “My dad’s trying to get my stepmother to give up the knife, but she’s not cooperating.”
The 9-1-1 operator said, “Can you ask your dad to step back and wait for help to arrive?”
“I tried, but he didn’t even want me to call you.” She heard yelling in the kitchen. “Please hurry.” She peeked around the corner to see her dad and stepmother on opposite sides of the room.
“We have a squad car less than a minute away,” the dispatcher told her.
Police. She leaned back against the wall outside the kitchen and prayed that one of Tyler’s officers would arrive and not Tyler himself. She didn’t want him to observe this unpleasant side of her family. He’d inadvertently witnessed that incident between Callie and her stepmother when they were teenagers. Once was enough.
Just when she was beginning to feel welcomed back into the community, Ellen had to ruin it. As soon as the news got out about tonight, Callie would become a pariah once again.
There was a sudden loud crash, followed by a thud from around the corner in the kitchen. She immediately went on high alert and peered around the corner to see what had happened, berating herself for her concern about what others would think of her.
“Dad!” He was on the floor, facedown, and the toaster was next to his head. Ellen was nowhere to be found, but the kitchen door that led to the backyard was wide open.
Callie ran over to her dad, her phone in one hand, and she checked for a pulse at his neck with the other. His chest expanded and she let out a sigh. He was so still, but alive. Right now he was only unconscious.
“My dad’s unconscious but breathing,” she told the 911 operator.
“It shouldn’t be long now,” the woman said calmly.
Sirens screamed as help was on its way “I can hear the ambulance now,” she said into the phone.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” she whispered close to his ear, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “Help is coming.”
*
TYLER SLAMMED ON his brakes and his truck screeched to a halt in front of the Jameses’ house. Driving to Aunt Poppy’s for dinner, he’d heard the address come over the radio and recognized it immediately. He also knew Callie was probably still there. So he’d slapped his flashing light on his truck’s dashboard and sped to the scene.
The engine barely stopped before he was out of the vehicle and booking it to the front door. The sirens from an ambulance and a patrol car were getting closer. He couldn’t wait for backup. He needed to make sure Callie was okay.
His baton and Taser were secured on his belt and his gun was holstered. He hoped they wouldn’t be needed.
He got to the front door and pounded. “Police!” The door opened immediately.
His stomach lurched when he saw Callie.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not me. I’m okay.” Her quiet words were close to robotic.
“Are you sure?” He wanted to pull her close but now wasn’t the time.
She took his hand and quickly pulled him through the house to the kitchen. “It’s my dad. Please help him.”
The man was facedown on the kitchen floor, a cut in the back of his head that had bled onto his neck and face, as well as the floor. Tyler bent to check the man’s pulse. “EMTs are right behind me,” he said to Callie over his shoulder. As soon as he got the words out, a shout came from the front door. “Back here,” he called to the paramedics then moved out of their way.
“What’s the patient’s name and age?” one of the paramedics asked Callie.
“Bart—Bartholomew James.” She pause
d as if trying to remember his age. “Sixty-eight.”
“Does he take any medications or have any other health issues?”
Callie’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about his health.”
Tyler’s officer, Joe Mansfield, trailed behind the EMTs and Tyler guided Callie to him once she’d provided as much information about her dad as possible. “Can you tell us what happened?” he asked her gently, maneuvering her to a living room chair. He knelt next to her, his officer standing close by.
“It was Ellen. My stepmother.” Callie paused. “My dad and I were having dinner and she suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway. She’d been taking a nap, according to my dad.” Callie stared at the far wall as she spoke, obviously reliving the incident in her mind. “She was angry. About everything. Dinner. The neighbor. She even thought I was trying to steal Wendy’s husband. Nothing she said made sense. I’ve never even met Wendy’s husband.”
“Where is she now?” He looked around.
“I think she took off outside. The back door was open when I found my dad unconscious on the floor.”
“Can you tell us what she’s wearing, what she looks like?”
“She’s a few inches shorter than I am, probably five-four, with long gray hair. She was wearing a sleeveless blue nightgown and she was in her bare feet,” she said. “And she’s probably got her cane.” Callie stiffened. “She might still have the knife, too. I don’t remember seeing it in the kitchen.”
Tyler spoke to his officer. “Call for backup, then check the kitchen for the bloody knife. As soon as backup arrives, go out and look for her. Be careful, especially if you don’t find the knife.” Tyler turned to Callie. “How did your dad get hurt?”
“He…he was talking to Ellen calmly after she flipped the kitchen table over.” Callie turned her head and looked straight into Tyler’s eyes. “I don’t know how she had the strength to do that. She’s had several strokes and even walks with a cane. She can barely stand on her own.”
“What happened after she flipped the table? Is that how your dad got hurt?”
Callie shook her head. “No, she grabbed a knife from the counter. I yelled to warn him, but he blocked her to protect me. That’s when Ellen cut his arm.” She took an unsteady breath. “He said he could handle her, but when I saw him bleeding, I knew we needed help. That’s when I called 9-1-1.” She paused. “I was still on the line with the dispatcher when I heard a loud crash in the kitchen. So I went back in and…and found him unconscious on the floor with the toaster next to his head, and she was gone.”
Tyler nodded. “Anything else you can add?”
She shook her head, very calm for what she’d just been through. But then her eyes widened.
“Tyler!” Her tone was urgent.
“What is it?”
“You need to check the neighbor’s house. That might be where Ellen went. She spouted all this nonsense about my dad and the neighbor, just because the neighbor made lasagna for my dad and me. Ellen might have gone after her next.”
“Good idea. Do you know where she lives?” At Callie’s violent shake of her head, he called over his radio. “Joe, go door to door and make sure Ellen James isn’t there.” He paused. “And ask at each house if they made lasagna for Mr. James.”
Callie nodded her approval.
“Lasagna?” came over the radio from his officer.
“Correct. And if you find the right person, ask permission to search her place, and then be sure to have her secure her house until we find Mrs. James.”
“Right, Chief.”
Tyler turned his attention back to Callie. She was pale but holding her own. He took her hand. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
She nodded. “I’m sure.” She moved to get up and he stopped her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I need to check on my dad.”
He held her in place. “Let the EMTs do their job. I’m sure they’ll transport him to the hospital and we’ll know more when we get there.”
“We?”
“You don’t think I’m abandoning you, do you?”
“But you need to find Ellen.”
“Officer Mansfield is going door-to-door and backup has probably already arrived.”
The noise of a stretcher being wheeled in through the front door caught their attention. “We’ll be transporting Mr. James to Lewisburg Hospital,” the paramedic told Callie.
She nodded. “Thank you. How is he?”
“You’ll have to talk to the doctor about specifics, but he’ll need stitches on his head and his arm.”
“Is he conscious?” Callie asked.
“He’s in and out, probably a concussion, but tests will confirm or deny it.”
“May I talk to him?”
The paramedic seemed to consider her request. “For a minute. I want to transport him quickly since we have no prior medical information on him.”
Tyler squeezed her hand before letting go.
She had barely walked into the kitchen to speak with her father when his radio sounded.
“Chief, we found her. She’s holed up in a bathroom in the neighbor’s house, the one who made the lasagna. It’s two doors south of your location.”
“Is the neighbor okay?”
“She got out of the house uninjured. She’s safe in my patrol car right now.”
“Good work. I’ll be right there.” He ran into the kitchen to tell Callie what he was doing and then left the house.
He hurriedly jogged to the house in question where Joe met him at the front door. “Gary is trying to get her to open the bathroom door.”
“Is there a window?” Tyler asked.
“I was just about to go around to check.”
“I’ll go,” Tyler told him. “You stay here in case Gary needs you. Where’s the bathroom located?”
Joe pointed to Tyler’s right and he headed that way around the house. There were two identical windows on the side of the house and one smaller one. It was almost above his eye level, but he stood on tiptoes to see it was the bathroom window. At first, he didn’t see Callie’s stepmother. But then he saw her leg and realized she was sitting on the floor and leaning against the outside wall under the window.
“Go away and leave me alone,” Ellen yelled. “I don’t need to be harassed by some stinkin’ cops.”
Tyler couldn’t hear what his officer said through the door except for Ellen’s snicker. Then she began to talk to herself. He could barely understand her, but the phrases he heard in relation to Callie—like “lock her up in the basement” and “teach Callie a lesson”—were unnerving. Had Callie endured the same kind of treatment his daughters had? He pushed aside those thoughts. Right now he had to form a plan to subdue Ellen.
He went around to the front to talk to Joe and Gary. “I want one of you to pick the bathroom lock while I grab her attention at the window. When you have it unlocked, knock on the door three times and give her a chance to open it. If she doesn’t, then I’ll get her attention again and you come in and subdue her. Be sure to go after the knife first so no one gets hurt.”
Both officers reentered the house and Tyler grabbed a chair from the small, metal table-and-chair set on the neighbor’s front porch. Then he ran around to the bathroom window and positioned the chair so he could stand on it to see into the bathroom. Callie’s stepmother was still sitting on the floor under the window.
Tyler knocked on the closed window. “Mrs. James?” He yelled so she could hear him.
Her legs moved and now he couldn’t see her. “What the hell do you want?” she yelled back.
“It’s Tyler Garrett. You remember me, don’t you?”
Mrs. James slowly stood and faced the window. She leaned on her cane and the knife was on the edge of the sink. He could have radioed his officers its location, but he had her attention and didn’t want to break their contact.
“Tyler?” She squinted at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help you, ma’am.”
“I don’t need help.”
“You know this isn’t your house?”
Her face scrunched and her lips pursed. “I know. This house belongs to that whore of a neighbor who’s after my husband.” She switched the cane to her other hand and shifted her weight, looking as if she might topple over at any moment. “She’s just like that stepdaughter of mine. Goin’ after men that don’t belong to her.” Her eyebrows rose. “You were supposed to be Wendy’s boyfriend. That girl’s been in love with you forever.”
News to Tyler. He’d never had any interest in Callie’s stepsister.
“But Callie kept getting in her way.”
“Callie? How’s that?” he asked, wondering how long it would take his officers to pick the bathroom lock.
“Wendy knew Callie had the hots for you, always distracting you with one thing or the other.”
In Tyler’s mind, this was crazy talk. Yes, he’d had a crush on Callie when they were teenagers, but he’d never had any idea Callie had felt the same way. He also hadn’t known about Wendy’s feelings for him, but it did make Wendy’s nasty comments to Callie and her hatred of Callie much easier to understand.
There was a loud knock on the door. This was it.
“Go away. I’m not coming out,” she yelled.
The plan turned back to Tyler then. “I don’t blame you, Mrs. James. Why don’t you open this window so we can continue to talk about Wendy?” She couldn’t move quickly, so his officers would have the advantage if he timed this right.
She hesitated but he had her attention. She reached up and while she was fiddling with the window he said into his radio, “Now!”
His officers came rushing into the bathroom. Gary grabbed her around the waist and lifted her as she flailed her arms and legs and batted at him with her cane. Joe snatched the cane from her but not before being hit with it.
“The knife’s on the sink,” Tyler yelled through the window. Joe procured it and the three of them moved out of the bathroom. Tyler met them as they came out of the house, Mrs. James still kicking and screaming.
“Put her in the backseat of your squad car until another ambulance gets here to secure her and take her to the hospital for an eval.”