by Anne Hagan
“Over the years, we just kept moving from place to place rehabbing bars. We sold most of them but kept a few others for income. Everything was good until Lisa got sick...”
Barb grew quiet. Her eyes became unfocused as she seemed lost in her thoughts. I felt bad about leading her down that track but I didn’t know how to pull back now that she was on it.
A sob escaped from her throat and her arm shook as she raised her hand to her face and covered her eyes.
I stood and moved to the sofa where I took a seat beside her. Gently, I placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to lean against me as she sobbed.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out several long minutes later. “I think I’ve finally gotten a grip on it all and then it just comes back in a wave.”
“It’s okay Barb, really.”
“I came back here because I realized I’d already lost everything but my parents that meant anything to me. I just can’t bear to lose any more, you know? Them, this house and that bar are all I have left.” She looked at me intently.
My thoughts were a jumble as I nodded silently and then sucked in a deep breath. I knew I should get back to the scene and try and lend whatever help I could but I certainly didn’t want to leave Barb alone in her current state.
I took my arm from around her and started to put a little distance between us on the sofa but she put a hand on my leg and stopped me cold.
“Thank you,” she said simply, her eyes still rimmed with tears. “It’s hard for me to open up about all of that.”
“You’re welcome,” I responded back. It was all I could think of to say.
Barb held my gaze for several seconds and then leaned toward me, closing the distance between us. She brushed my lips with hers in a soft kiss that was completely unexpected. I froze. I didn’t know how to take it or if I should respond. Taking advantage of a woman in a weak moment wasn’t my style.
Barb’s cell buzzing on the side table where she’d dropped it when we came in saved me.
She twisted around to grab it and said, “It’s Dana,” before she answered it.
I stood and stepped away to a window to look out and to give her a little privacy so I only got one side of the conversation but I heard her tell Dana that I was with her and that, yes, it was the bar.
She hung up after a minute or so and beckoned me back toward her. I moved back toward the center of the room but remained standing and kept a little distance between us.
“Dana said the local radio stations are all reporting about the bar. She called to see if I was all right. Morelville’s on lockdown and they’re all sitting around at Kris’s house, Mel’s sisters.”
“Lockdown? Mel just wanted the roads blocked so nobody made it up to the intersection near the bar and got hurt. That’s got to have people all freaked out.”
Barb looked at me strangely.
“What?” I asked, when I finally noticed her watching me.
“You’re antsy all of a sudden. Did I make you uncomfortable?”
I hadn’t realized that I was bouncing from foot to foot. Self-consciously, I stopped. “No; it’s not you. I’m just really thinking I should be up there helping them do whatever they’re going to do to save your place but there’s no way I’m leaving you by yourself.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, “but you need to do what you need to do. I’m a big girl.”
“Nope; I’m not leaving you. I have my orders.”
Barb nodded and appeared thoughtful. After a pause, she said to me, “How about you run me over to Kris’s place? I know all of them. I’ll just hang there and do whatever they’re doing. You can take my truck back up to the bar.”
###
Mel
Thursday Evening, February 12th
The Boar’s Head
Morelville, Ohio
We were maintaining a visible presence across the State Route from the bar. I didn’t want the ‘Z’ to think we’d just given up and get too comfortable. Meanwhile, my roadblocks were still in place and, out of their view, on down Salt Creek Drive, I was amassing a takedown team made up of the county’s Strategic Response Team augmented with as many of my own troops as I could spare.
“Report, Sheriff...” Mason held my two way mike out the window of my SUV to me. I leaned in so I could hear my deputy that was currently on the scene. The SRT squad leader leaned in from the other side.
“Go six,” I commanded him over the secure channel.
“Down to one sentry in front. Shotgun. Back is reporting an intermittent sentry. Shotgun.”
“They’re getting cold,” the squad leader looked across and said to me.
“They’ve got the front window covered now but it sounds like quite a party going on inside.”
“Roger, copy.”
“Out.” The deputy cleared the channel.
I handed the mike back to Mason. “We’ve evened the numbers up and it sounds like they’re almost all inside now. When do you want to move?”
“In about 15, it’ll be pretty dark. We’ll mount up now and start moving then.”
My mind flashed quickly to Dana. I hadn’t spoken to her all day but Janet had briefly when she dropped Barb off at my twin’s house. She sent her love and a prayer for the safety of us all.
I sent some thoughts into the airwaves; I want to be home, in your arms, tonight. Wait up for me.
Tactical shooters worked their way into position to take out the sentries at the front and back. The bar had an open lot all the way around but there were woods behind the back lot and plenty of cover across the street to one end of the front of the building.
The two shooters worked in communication with each other. They’d be the ones to give the all clear for the rest of the SRT team to move in.
I was on pins and needles, waiting for the word from the snipers. The plan was for me to go in right behind the SRT squad. Dana would kill me herself if she knew what I was about to do but I took the position that I couldn’t ask my deputies to do anything I wouldn’t do myself and I defend that stance no matter what.
Several minutes passed of total radio silence while we sat staged, just out of view of the sentry at the front of the bar, waiting for the signal. I was in my own SUV right behind the SRT tactical van with Mason and Gates who, like me, were now in riot gear and chemical masks.
Suddenly the call rang out “Go!”
The running tactical van in front of me pulled off the berm and sped a couple of hundred yards up Salt Creek toward the intersection with 146 and the bar. I followed all of two truck lengths behind it. Several of my cruisers followed me.
SRT’s vehicle driver navigated the dogleg from Salt Creek into The Boar’s Head lot quickly and expertly and slid to a stop. I stopped 20 feet behind him as planned. From where I was, I could see the dead sentry laying out front.
The eight man SRT team jumped out of their transport, divided in two, and moved quickly toward the building. I felt like I was watching them in slow motion but, within seconds, The front side team had reached the front door, paused to give the other team time to reach the back door, then they opened the front and tossed in flash bangs and tear gas.
Out of sheer force of will from years of training, I was on the move, my deputies following behind me or moving toward the back as soon as SRT breeched the structure and started pushing inside.
People were screaming and lying all over the floor. The flash bangs were enough to make most of them hit the deck thinking they were being shot at and the tear gas was enough to keep them there.
A single shot rang out from somewhere to my left. The SRT officer in front of me jerked backwards slightly and I almost plowed into him in my forward progress. He stumbled then regained his balance but staggered a little before grabbing the edge of a chair and holding himself up.
I scanned left for the shooter but I needn’t have bothered. Two of my deputies who’d entered behind me were already standing over the gunman with their semi-automatic rifles trained
on him.
As the smoke started to clear and our inside team of nearly 20 officers gained control, I tried to take stock of the situation. The SRT troop who’d been shot would be a sore puppy for several days but his body armor had stopped the bullet he took.
I spotted a couple of women in the room. One was giving Gates a real fight but an SRT officer offered lent an assist that got her cuffed and back on the floor. They must have been in here all along, I thought. No women got through our roadblocks to join their men in the men only club.
Victor Voll wasn’t present and neither was Rat Tail. I spun around in a slow circle as SRT and my deputies started hauling the coughing, cursing bikers to their feet and dragging them outside. I didn’t see the self-appointed leader of the failed takeover, ‘Juice’, anywhere.
I moved quickly into the empty kitchen and checked the walk-in and Barbs little office. Everything was trashed but Juice wasn’t to be found. The bathrooms...
Back out of the kitchen I went and turned to the bathroom entrances in a flash. They had entrances right off the back wall not far from the swinging door to the kitchen. One of my deputies was posted right between both doors, rifle at the ready.
“Anyone in either one?”
“No Sheriff. One was pulled out of the men’s room.” He pointed to a guy on the floor that was flex cuffed.
“Any way out of either one?” I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever used the facilities in the bar.
Not waiting for his answer, I pushed open the ladies room door first. It was empty, of course. The only window was tiny and set high on the wall with no way to reach it for even a very tall person, without help.
The men’s room was different. A window was set high in there too but it was quite a bit larger than the one on the ladies room. It was the kind that swung inward and up and latched to a catch mounted on the ceiling. A pole used to latch and unlatch it stood in a corner near the sinks. It was closed but, from where I was standing, I could see that the bolt lock used to secure it was open. Juice had probably gone out the window with the help of the man my deputy indicated.
I walked back into the bar and called out, “Mason!”
Janet appeared at my side.
“Help me get this one into the back of my SUV.” Now I pointed at the man that had been indicated to me moments earlier. “We question him first.”
Chapter 17 – Freaky Friday
Mel
Friday Morning, February 13th
“Has the world gone stark raving mad?” I called out loudly to no one in particular.
We were all out pounding the pavement, actively looking for the man called ‘Juice’, aka Francisco Berrio. His real name was all I’d been able to get out of his escape accomplice. I could have found that in any criminal database with even less work so I wasn’t inclined to give the squealer any brownie points with the DA for the info.
There were roadblocks everywhere and an APB went out for him as soon as we had a name. So far, nothing. There’d been no sightings of him.
Zanesville PD and my department had both spent a long night booking and interrogating all of the biker minions that were caught alive. They were all charged with trespassing and most with weapons violations. A few got drug paraphernalia and drug possession charges as well. Outstanding arrest warrants, coupled with all of the new charges, were going to be the death knell to prison for a lot of them but, for now, they remained loyal to Juice and to Victor Voll and they weren’t talking.
I climbed back in my truck and headed further south from the South Zanesville neighborhoods I’d been scouring for the missing link with help from their small department. Juice was running scared. If I could nail him, I figured, I might get a line on the two men I really wanted, Voll and Foote.
###
Late Friday Morning, February 13th
Morelville, Ohio
I was starting to smell a little ripe. In all the craziness the week had been, I’d run through the couple of changes of fresh uniforms I kept in the office.
After working my way across country in the Southern part of the county to Philo and checking in with one of my patrol deputies that worked that area, I decided to run home for a shower and a clean uniform.
When I got there, Dana and Boo weren’t in the house. She must be out in her writing shed, since Boo is with her... I doubted she’d take the dog to the store if she was helping out there.
I’d been in contact with her, apologizing for not being able to make it home overnight. She’d sounded both forgiving and distracted. She said she was just glad to know we’d nailed everyone and that I was safe.
I so owe her... That thought was what jogged my memory and reminded me that Saturday was Valentine’s Day.
Once I was showered and dressed, I took a quick look around. Still no Dana. I went into my den. If I really wanted to try and rescue my love life for tomorrow, I knew I needed help.
My laptop was half open on the desk. When I touched the keypad it sprang to life and the screen opened to a news article in the web browser. Curious, I glanced through it.
Young International...isn’t that the company Dana worked for back in the day? She must have been looking at this.
I clicked the article closed and started looking for ideas for places to go. After a half hour visiting websites and making calls, I had nothing. Everything was booked solid. I’d waited too long.
Oh boy, am I going to pay for this...
###
Dana
Early Friday Afternoon, February 13th
Morelville, Ohio
“Russ, hi.”
“Hey, how’s it going out there?”
“I’m working the Brietland case. I spent yesterday tailing around a future heiress gone awry. Warren Breitland wants a report out of me tomorrow and I’ve got most of the information he needs but there are some loose ends that I’m trying to tie up.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
I leaned back in my swivel chair and looked out the little window of my writing shack that faced toward the house. Taking a deep breath I plunged in, “I’m absolutely stymied trying to pinpoint one of her associates. I have a name, Conal Floyd, and a plate number. My contact downstairs there ran the plate for me and got me an address near here but it’s no good...an empty lot. His background check didn’t turn up anything at all in Ohio other than the same address. This guy’s gang, Russ. He has to have a record somewhere.”
“Did you run a nationwide search?”
“Certainly but no response yet. I have a short window.”
“You haven’t established any local police contacts yet, I take it that might be able to speed the process for you?”
I hesitated while I framed my response to him but I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. “Yes, I have but, unfortunately, they’re bogged down right now with a big case and they don’t have the resources to help me.”
I felt bad about lying to Russ but I just wasn’t ready yet to tell Mel what I’d gotten myself up to. I had a strong gut feeling, after overhearing Floyd and Erin Voll talking, that my investigation and her gang war were interrelated in more ways than one. I wanted to have all my ducks in a row before I hit her with what I’d been doing and what I knew.
“Whatever resources we have here are yours to use Dana but, I need something from you too.” His tone changed. It became a little less friendly and a little more direct.
“What’s that?” I asked and then held my breath in anticipation of his response.
“You need to be straight with me. Look, I’m aware you’re just getting started out being on your own. I checked you out too; I didn’t just throw in with you because I know you. The notion of doing something like that goes against everything I’ve built up here. We’ll send work your way for as long as you’re honest with us and you, in turn, can use any assets at our disposal.”
I covered the receiver and let my breath out.
“Thank you Russ. I’m sorry. Just so you know, I do have accounts
established and I have requested a check but it’s a twenty-four to forty-eight turn around and I need it faster than that.”
“I understand.”
“There’s more. In the interest of honesty and full disclosure, I should tell you, if you’re not already aware; my wife Mel is actually the Sheriff in this county.” It felt good to come clean with him.
“That came up in our check of you but I appreciate you being straight with me.”
“Russ, I know for a fact that the Brietland heiress I’m investigating, Erin Voll, is married to a man that’s probably a player in a case Mel is working and I’m 90% sure that she’s in cahoots with this gang banger to take her husband out but I don’t know anything about him or what he gets out of offing Victor Voll besides his girl. He may well be the link that Mel needs to blow her case wide open for her.”
“I’ve got,” I continued, “the information Warren Brietland needs to make whatever decisions he needs to make. My concerns are over the major crime wave that’s been going on here in the past week that I think his granddaughter and her spouse and lover are responsible for and...”
He finished for me, “The hit on her husband.”
“Yes.”
I heard a truck start. I rolled over to the little window on the house side and pressed my face to it. I just caught the taillights of Mel’s department vehicle as it turned out of the driveway. I wasn’t even aware she’d been home.
“Dana?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking; you were saying?”
“You certainly have a dilemma there but I know you’ll get it all sorted out. Just promise me that you’ll keep yourself out of harm’s way?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Now, let’s see if we can’t get you some better data on this Conal fellow.”
Chapter 18 – The Big Day
Mel
Early Saturday morning, February 14th