by Anne Hagan
“I didn’t kill nobody! You can’t pin that on me!”
“We’ll just see about that,” Janet said.
“You got it all wrong. It wasn’t me.”
“It was a Z Renegades hit Kenny,” I told him. “There are witnesses.” Not that will come forward but I know people saw it...
His eyes darted back and forth between me and Mason. “Look, maybe I did go into that bank but it’s not me you want for the hit.”
“Who Pinch? I need I name and the whole story.”
“I tell you, what’s in it for me?” he asked me.
“Depends on what you tell me. Right now, the DA wouldn’t sign off on anything but sending you up for a long time.”
He tapped his fingers on the government issued metal table and bounced one leg at the same time as he took several long seconds to think. I had all night, now that my evening was ruined so I waited patiently.
“What if I told you this was all part of a sort of contest, like?”
“Contest?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“Go on.”
“Chief says he’s retiring.”
“Chief?” Mason asked.
“The ‘Z’ Chief,” he told her, venom dripping from his voice.
I diverted his gaze away from Janet. “So, your leader is retiring and he’s looking for a replacement? Is that what you’re saying?”
Ungar nodded.
“So you guys are out there trying to prove yourselves worthy to lead the ‘Z’?”
Again, he nodded.
“What?” Mason asked. She looked confused.
“It’s simple,” I told her. “Their leader is leaving the fold. The man that proves his mettle the most steps into the leadership role.”
“So we’re having gang wars on the streets because these assholes all want to be boss?” She spread her hands and looked at Kenny Ungar in total disbelief.
I let it go. I had bigger fish to fry. “So, you want to be Chief so you decide to try and knock over a bank?”
He hung his head and wouldn’t look at me.
“Who were you trying to top? Who wanted it bad enough that they killed a rival gang banger?”
Still staring at the floor, Ungar whispered, “Rat Tail.”
“Rat Tail’s real name is Major Foote,” I told Janet later. “He’s another convicted felon that runs with the ‘Z’.”
“I can see why he’d prefer to be called ‘Rat Tail’.” She cracked a half smile.
“The ‘Z Chief’ is a guy named Victor Voll. Ungar is small time. He got nailed for a drug distribution crime that was enough to send him up for a few years. Having the gun will put him away for a lot longer. Nailing Voll and Foote is going to be a lot harder. Those two are slick.”
“We don’t have a witness that will place Foote at the scene of the shooting.”
“I know,” I nodded at her. “And, it’s a known felon’s word that all of this was set in motion by Voll too. Every cop in the county knows him. If he was seen anywhere in the entire melee the last few days have been, we’d already be after him.” I held my hands up and juggled them about. “He’s always been the lay back and give the orders sort though. He never seems to get directly in the mix. I’ve gone after him before and he manages to weasel out of anything but misdemeanor charges.”
“This time around, since the whole thing is to find his replacement Sheriff, don’t you think he’s purposely gonna stay out of the mix?”
“Yep. That makes it even harder.” I leaned back in my desk chair. “We’ve got to figure out how to get to him somehow.”
“He’s still running a street gang. If we tail him...”
I waved her off. “Tail him how? We have to find him first and, even if we do, there’s nothing illegal about hanging out with known criminals.”
“Where do they hang out now?”
“Damned if I know. I really hoped that we’d seen the last of them, like I told you before.” I looked at my watch. “It’s nearly 10:30,” I said aloud and then shook my head. Looking at Janet as I had looked at Holly earlier in the day, I said to her too, “You’ve put in enough time. Why don’t you go home?”
She sighed. “I’ll finish out the shift. It’s only another half hour and it’s not like I have a life.”
I eyed her critically. “How’s your mom doing?”
“Not so good. She seems to have taken a turn for the worst. She’s back to taking chemo drugs and she’s really struggling this time, even more so than before. She’s barely mobile and she can’t even string two coherent sentences together most days.”
“I feel awful for asking but even more awful to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need some time off?”
Janet was quick to respond, “Thank you, no; not now...not yet and no I don’t need any time off either. Not yet. The end is near though Mel...er, Sheriff. I can feel it coming.”
“It’s just you and me. You can call me Mel and, I understand. You just let me know if you need anything at all, okay?”
She nodded. “You seem a little, how should I put this...gruff...tonight yourself. Anything you want to talk about?”
“I’m just frustrated, is all. We’ve been so busy...it just never ends. I need a little down time.”
“Dana getting on you?”
I chuckled softly, flashing back to a time when Barb had hit on me thinking Dana was not important to me. “No, not Dana,” I said. “My mother-in-law on the other hand...she thinks I’m being very neglectful...to married to the job.”
“Isn’t one of her sons a cop?”
“Vince? Yeah. He’s got some sort of detail though. Out of the office at 5:00 every night and rarely works weekends.”
“Must be nice.”
“Just between you and me?” I raised my eyebrows at Janet and waited for her response.
“Yeah?” she nodded.
“Dana and I were supposed to be on a date tonight at Adornetto’s, the restaurant where I nailed Ungar. She was there to meet up with me.”
“Ouch! That’s truly messed up!”
“Tell me about it. I think this time I’m going to catch holy hell from her and not just her mama.”
“Ooo, I’m glad I’m not you! I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now.”
“How does Barb take you working all the time and being with your mom when you’re not working?”
“Barb?”
“Aren’t you two seeing each other? I thought...”
Janet shook her head no. “She’s a friend, more or less. I go around to the bar once in a while when I’m off if I’m not on mom duty and we talk a little if she’s not busy. She’s still hung up on losing Lisa and I just can’t focus on another thing besides mom and work right now. Neither one of us is ready for any sort of relationship.”
###
Mel
11:40 PM, Morelville, Ohio
I tiptoed into the house but Boo charged me and met me a couple of yards into the kitchen. I didn’t hear another sound in the house so I hooked her up to a leash and ran her outside before I did anything else. The unexpected diversion gave me time to think about what I would say to Dana when I woke her up getting into bed as I was likely to do.
When I got back inside, I realized the TV in the family room was on. Boo scampered that way and I followed behind sheepishly.
I was stopped in my tracks at the door. Dana had attempted to wait up for me. She was curled up on the couch, still in her blue dress but fast asleep. She had a heart shaped helium filled balloon, the ribbon grasped in one hand, that said 'I love you with all my heart' on it.
I didn’t have the heart to wake her. As gently as I could, I took the balloon from her and tied it to the leg of the coffee table. After I covered her with a blanket, I headed into the bathroom to get my night clothes on. I took my place in my leather recliner across from the couch and eventually drifted off to sleep. If she woke, I wanted her to know immediately that I was there.
Cha
pter 13 – Try, Try...
Dana
7:00 AM Thursday Morning, February 12th
Bacon was burning somewhere. The smell of it assaulted my nose. I rose from the sofa where I’d apparently spent the night and tried to stretch. My bad leg felt like it was on fire.
Looking around, I spied the balloon I’d gone and bought for Mel the day before after I’d convinced our mothers I was fine and ditched them. A throw blanket was in a ball on her chair.
Limping into the kitchen, I found my seriously overworked wife with one of Faye’s famous aprons on over her uniform, standing at the stove, attempting to flip pancakes.
She spied me when Boo yapped at me and began circling my ankles. Stopping what she was doing, she walked over to me and guided me to a chair. “Baby, I need to apologize to you. I’m so sorry about what happened last night and I want to make it up to you. Please, please forgive me.”
“That pancake is starting to burn.” I pointed back over my shoulder at the griddle. “You deal with that while I pee and get out of this dress and then we’ll see if we can’t rescue some of this food.”
A couple of minutes later, my favorite sweats on and my immediate needs taken care of, I returned to the kitchen to find Mel flipping a cake that looked somewhat more appetizing than the last one had.
She grinned at me. “I’m not hopeless in the kitchen, you know? I was trying to do something nice for you after...after...”
“Shhh; I know.” I wrapped her in a quick hug from behind. “Babe, your love is more than enough and, for the record, let me just state that I know that you’re even better with the grill but, that said, how about you let me take over at the stove for now and you get the syrup and such out? I’ve had a little more practice standing in front of this thing lately than you have.”
As we sat to eat a few minutes later, I quizzed Mel about her collar at the restaurant.
“I was on my way there to meet with you, I swear, and that knucklehead tried to rob a bank a few blocks south of the place. I just...I just...”
“Okay, you don’t have to tell me anymore. I know what happened. Your instincts kicked in and you were doing your job.”
“I feel so bad about ruining our date.” Her eyes glistened just a little at the corners.
I pretended not to notice and I tried to wave her off but she captured my hand and held it.
“I want to make it up to you Dana. I will make it up to you, I promise; this weekend.” She smiled at me. “I wish it could be today but when we finish here, I have to go do a senior center dedication and then I have to get to work. That loser will be arraigned today for the robbery attempt and, hoping to save his own ass, he gave us a lead on the murder that happened the other day.
“It’s okay. I understand. I do.”
“You’re sure?”
I leaned across the table and showed her with a kiss.
Chapter 14 – Boar’s Head
Mel
Late Morning, Thursday, February 12th
Morelville, Ohio
“Mel, dispatch just got a call from a security company. The silent alarm is going off at The Boar’s Head.”
Barb’s Bar...
“Rolling,” I told Holly.
“The arraignment?” she asked me as I strode toward the door.
“It’s not until 3:30. I’ll be back in plenty of time.”
On my way out the door, Mason was just coming in for duty. “You’re with me,” I told her. “Let’s go.” I filled her in on the little I knew as we made our way to my vehicle.
Barb’s cell number rang through on my personal cell as I was climbing in.
“I just got the call,” I told her without preamble. “I’m en-route. Where are you?”
“On my way there too. Almost there in fact; the alarm company called me.”
“Turn around and go home. It’s probably nothing,” I told her.
“No way, Mel.”
“I promise; I’ll call you as soon as I assess the situation.”
She hung up on me.
“Shit!”
We arrived at the scene 15 minutes later to find more than a dozen motorcycles tearing around in the parking lot in the cold and driving across the now broken up remnants of what had been the front entry porch. The door was standing wide open and the dark tinted glass front window was shattered. Inside we could see that there were more bikes and bikers.
Outside, one biker fired a shotgun into the air and hollered something but I couldn’t make out what he was saying above the roar of all of his marauding fellow gangbangers on Harleys.
Three of my cruisers were already on the scene, amassed across the road. Barb’s own SUV was over there too, several yards behind the three cruisers, but I couldn’t see her inside.
I pulled in alongside the car of my Patrol Sergeant, Joe Treadway and parked then I got on my two way and ordered traffic diversions to be set up immediately in both directions and coming North out of Morelville. I didn’t want any cars going by on the road and innocent people being fired upon.
Mason and I both dismounted. Using my door as shield, I worked my way around the back of my truck and up behind his cruiser. He was back behind it, keeping it between him and the bikers across the way. He had his shotgun at the ready and a look of pure determination in his eyes.
“What the hell, now?” I questioned him.
“Other than they’re all Z Renegades over there, no idea Sheriff. Been here about 10 minutes. Gates and McDonald both got here just before me. They said it was already like this when they got here.”
I tossed my head behind me. “That’s the owner’s SUV back there. Where’s she?”
“I told her to get back in it and get out of here. She’s in there; won’t leave.”
I moved back over to my SUV, popped the rear lift gate and got out my own shotgun and handed it to Mason. Then I took out a portable bullhorn and my binoculars. Moving back alongside Treadway where I could see more, I raised the optics to my eyes and peered across at the bar.
Focusing on the man with the shotgun, I waited for him to turn so I could get a look at his face. I didn’t have to wait long.
I didn’t recognize him but the man with the street name ‘Juice’ stitched across the back of his vest, mounted a bike, fired it up and, holding the shotgun aloft, drove to the edge of the lot where he faced us. He idled the bike and hollered something across the road. I couldn’t hear what he said.
Treadway raised his shotgun but I put out a hand to stay him as ‘Juice’ turned and, still holding the gun, waved his arms at the other men on bikes. In ones and twos, they pulled up alongside him and idled their bikes too.
When it was quieter, I got on the bullhorn. “You must cease and desist now!”
Laughter peeled from the other side of the road. ‘Juice’ waved a hand for quiet. When his posse quieted down, he screamed across the divide, “You’re outmanned and outgunned pigs; fall back! We’re taking back our old hang out. I rule this turf now!”
He fired his bike back up and the others followed suit then. Driving out onto the road, he circled back to the bar. The other men all pulled or backed their rides away too and resumed the craziness of just a couple of minutes before.
“He’s right,” I said to my men that were in earshot. “We are outmanned and outgunned, for now. We’re sitting ducks over here if they decide to rush us.
The driver’s side door to the SUV behind us swung open. I turned as Barb stepped down.
“Get back in your truck!” I yelled.
She didn’t listen to me. Marching right up to me, she screamed too, “My bar! Do something!” She grabbed me by the shoulders. Treadway and Mason both moved from opposite sides to pry her hands away from me.
“Don’t hurt her,” I cautioned them.
“Mel, you have to save my bar. My life...everything I have left...that’s all of it. Besides my house, there isn’t any more after fighting for Lisa’s life and battling that damn hospital!”
I fla
shed back to a conversation I’d had with Barb when she first returned to the county:
“I had a partner; a partner in life and in business. We actually bought little bars and pubs and whatnot that were failing and we rehabbed them and sold most of them for a profit. We flipped several over the last dozen years. A few, here and there, along the way, we kept. We put good management in and we let them run them and we just kept going with the profits from it all. At least, we did until she got sick.”
Barb swallowed hard and her shoulders shook. A few moments slid by but then she seemed to steel herself and then she continued, “She got sick and fought and fought and then, when we thought she was almost on the road to a full recovery, I lost her after a botched surgery.”
Her eyes rimmed with tears. “It was all so bad...such an incredible nightmare. I didn’t have her and, and...on top of that I had to sell everything we had to pay her medical bills and fight the hospital in court at the same time. It was devastating.”
I was in shock but I managed to squeak out a response, “Barb, I apologize.” I blew out a heavy breath. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Thank you. It means a lot.” She braced her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward again. “Look, Melissa, I know we didn’t end things...I didn’t end things with you well. It...it was actually...I was actually pretty horrible to you back then.”
“Water under the bridge.” I said it and I meant it.
She dabbed at her eyes. “Where was I?”
I didn’t even know how to respond to her but she picked back up on her own after a few beats of silence.
“Eventually, the hospital settled with me. Small consolation in the grand scheme of it all...” She sniffled but she drove on, “Lisa died in Colorado. I couldn’t stay there once it was all over. I packed up what little personal possessions I had left and came back here to be with my folks for a while, while I still have them, you know?”
I nodded and thought about my own obviously ailing father.
“I can’t just do nothing though and this,” she waved her hand in the air, “this is what I know. It’s what we’d done for nearly a decade. When the settlement money showed up, I took some of it and I bought this place when I heard it was available. Lord knows it needed my help...and...it helps me too...”