THE HOOKER
THE HANDYMAN
AND
WHAT THE PARROT SAW
Patricia Harman
Published by Waldorf Publishing
2140 Hall Johnson Road
#102-345
Grapevine, Texas 76051
www.WaldorfPublishing.com
The Hooker,
The Handyman and What the Parrot Saw
ISBN: 978-1-64316-637-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018943874
Copyright © 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher.
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to the people in my life who have shown me more love and support than I had any right to deserve or expect; my son Sam who gives meaning to my life, my Aunt Pat from whom I inherited my spirit of adventure, my family, The Breakfast Club, my law enforcement family, and to the people of AH & PWC for whom it was my privilege to serve as a law enforcement officer.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Let’s Just Call It Fiction
Chapter 2: Mary Jane Klasky
Chapter 3: Carneys—Small Hands
Chapter 4: AJ
Chapter 5 Closer
Chapter 6: Fucking Fed
Chapter 7: Terminal Bliss
Chapter 8: Grecko
Chapter 9: Are There Maggots on My Phone?
Chapter 10: The Anchor
Chapter 11: My Cousin Vinny
Chapter 12: The Stakeout
Chapter 13: The Train
Chapter 14: Losing Your Virginity is Overrated
Chapter 15: Louise
Chapter 16: The Ride-Along
Chapter 17: Daley Spanking
Chapter 18: Focus Charlie
Chapter 19: I Did It for You
Chapter 20: Breathe, Sarge
Chapter 21: Charlie Has Left the Building
Chapter 22: Are You Drunk?
Chapter 23: Cellular Memory
Chapter 24: Robbery Code One
Chapter 25: Flash
Chapter 26: Gus
Chapter 27: I Confuse You? Don’t I?
Chapter 28: The Accusation
Chapter 29: Pull the Trigger
Chapter 30: He’s Got a Knife
Chapter 31: Pierced
Chapter 32: The Train Has Left the Station
Chapter 33: Shots Fired Officer Down
Chapter 34: Move the Dash
Author Bio
Chapter 1
Let’s Just Call It Fiction
Sergeant Charlotte “Charlie” Cavanaugh of the Landon City, Virginia, Police Department busily tapped away on her laptop. She had just returned home from her shift, but a police investigator’s work was never really done. That was especially true after she made the rank of sergeant.
Home was her one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Landon, Virginia only twenty minutes from her beloved ocean in the off season. During the hot summer months, it could take forty minutes to an hour to get to the beach and she cursed every beach bag toting, sun screen wearing, ice-cream eating tourist along the way for the delay. Charlie’s apartment wasn’t especially upscale but on a cop’s salary and still reeling from the financial devastation that comes from a middle-class divorce, it was the best she could do. The furnishings were warm and comfortable and the art and accents spoke of her love for the sea, the only true constant in her life. The sea, movies, and her work. It was all she had. All she was. A faded sign over her bedroom door read TAKE ME TO THE OCEAN. One day she would spend eternity there. On her loneliest nights she longed for it. She was tired. Tired of surviving. Tired of the inhumanity she watched people inflict on one another, especially on those they “loved.” She prayed no one would ever love her that much again. She had had enough of that to last ten lifetimes. I love you and goodbye were synonymous her world.
The last few months had been particularly challenging for Charlie. Two homicides had rocked her sleepy town. Even more disturbing was that the fact that the two murders had been linked to two of her old cases when she was assigned as a detective to the “kiddy crimes.” Pedophile cases.
Before making sergeant, she worked kiddy crimes for two long, heart breaking years. The two recently dead pedophiles appeared to have no apparent connection to each other than the depravity of their souls and the fact that she had been the detective that worked both of the cases. Charlie fretted as she studied the reports stored on her issued laptop. There has to be some kind of a connection. The molesters’ crimes connected them, that was clear; but how were they tied to each other?
She asked her mentor, Officer Mike Thompson for some insight but all she got was his usual retort: “So, the suits can’t connect the dots huh? What a shocker.”
It was his typical response to anything involving detectives. Officer Mike Thompson a.k.a. “Thompson” was a life-long patrol officer and a street cop’s street cop. He despised all police officers who sold out to specialty units like detective, motor officer or K9 or, God forbid and most offensive of all, supervisor.
“Worthless as tits on a boar hog,” he would mutter. A lot of cops felt the same way he did, that only patrol officers were “real cops.” He was right though. Patrol was the best time she ever had on the job. It was where the rubber met the road. Roll call. Pursuits. Talking car to car at two in the morning. That was the good stuff. But every family has a price and patrol duty came with a hefty bill. There are some things you cannot un-see. These traumas stay with an officer forever. Like all patrol officers sometimes Charlie’s number would come up and one of these calls would be hers. It was the price she had to pay to be a part of this family. Three in particular fell into the “things she wished she had never seen” category.
Two brothers were drag racing each other side by side southbound on the main drag of Landon at 80 mph. Charlie was driving northbound in her police cruiser. It was a nice day and she had her window down and her arm hanging out. The brother in the outside lane saw the police cruiser first and hit the brakes causing him to swerve and tap the other vehicle sending the old Plymouth Fury careening into the oncoming lane. It was headed straight for Charlie’s cruiser. She instinctively swerved, avoiding the missile by inches as it hurtled past her and hit the Chevy behind her head-on. The Chevy’s driver, Diane Lagento, never saw it coming and never felt a thing. That’s what Charlie would tell Diane’s mother and she prayed it was true. Diane was single, like Charlie. She was Charlie’s age, build, hair color, and height. She loved her mother and her cat. She was going to school to be a physical therapist and on that day she died instantly and all her dreams died with her. All Charlie could do was helplessly watch in the rearview mirror as the two vehicles exploded ag
ainst each other and went airborne. Charlie never heard the impact of the collision, but she should have. The head-on was a combined speed of 120 mph according to the telltale tap of the speedometer needles on their respective dials. Diane’s speedometer tapped at 45 mph, the other car at 75 mph but Charlie didn’t hear a thing even though her window was open, and she was only a few yards away when they hit. The mind’s capacity to manage trauma is truly remarkable and that was her first taste of it. Even all these years later Charlie couldn’t drive through that stretch of road without whispering her name, and recalling how she looked upside down in her Chevy, suspended by her useless seatbelt. Her index finger had been ripped off and lay on the roof lining of the inverted car but there was surprisingly little blood. She just imploded and there was no sound.
The second “thing she wished she had never seen” happened when a small plane went down in front of her. Charlie was sitting in her police cruiser writing a report in an empty parking lot when she heard a very low flying private plane overhead. She watched in disbelief as it clipped the trees of a wooded area adjacent to the shopping center, caught on fire and tore into pieces. She saw the smoke rising from the woods and reported it to dispatch and headed into the woods on foot. She couldn’t wait for the heroes, the fire department; she had to search for survivors. As she trekked to the site, dispatch reported to her by radio that a nearby private airport tower was reporting a MAY DAY of a small aircraft occupied by four adults and a baby. Oh God please don’t let me find the baby, she prayed. Additional officers and the fire department arrived and she could hear them in the distance when she came upon a charred man sitting by a stream. At least she thought it was a man. All of his skin was gone. He was charred and pink and veiny and conscious. He didn’t appear to be in any pain.
“Have you found the baby?” he asked, his skeletal eyeballs wide with concern.
“No. Not yet. Help is on the way.”
“Am I going to die?” he asked as he continued to penetrate her with his wide eyes.
“Yes Sir. Make your peace.” He died before the last word left her mouth. When her backup officer got to her, Charlie was praying. “Come on kid,” her backup said. “The heroes will deal with him. Come away.”
But the worst . . . the worst of the worst was the Mary Jane Klasky case.
These were the scars that were assigned to her for eternity. The price she paid to belong to something important. She couldn’t drive through the site of the accident without whispering Diane’s name or smelling anti-freeze. She couldn’t see a small plane without hearing his words. “Did you find the baby? Am I going to die?”. And Mary Jane Klasky . . . she would never recover from. Ever.
Chapter 2
Mary Jane Klasky
As Charlie closed her laptop and stood up to stretch, she tried desperately to block out thoughts of the FBI agent that had been thrust upon her this morning. As she started the unloading process, she could not shake him. Shoes, handcuffs, firearm, cuffs, pants, shirt—she felt ten pounds lighter. She sat down on the bed and closed her eyes. Determined to block him out she let her thoughts wander to Mary Jane Klasky, as she often did when she was stressed. Just last week about a half-hour into her morning pile of paperwork, the bouncy blond teen had appeared in Charlie’s office and plopped into the chair popping her gum.
“Hey Officer Cavanaugh,” she said chewing like a cow. “What’s shakin’?”
“Ms. Mary Jane Klasky,” Charlie smiled. “Hey sweetie. How did you get up here? I’m really swamped, kiddo, and you know I’m not Officer Cavanaugh anymore. You can call me Charlie or Sergeant but my title isn’t Officer. That’s for the real police.” She winked at the teen. “Now I’m mostly just a paper-pusher.” Charlie sighed and motioned to the mess on her desk.
Mary Jane was the victim in Charlie’s very first child molestation case. Charlie wasn’t a sergeant at the time, or even a detective; she was a patrol officer, a road dog, and she had only been on the street a short time. She had responded as backup to a call for a domestic dispute at the Klasky house. Mary Jane’s house. It was violent and a neighbor had called after hearing the commotion. Mrs. Klasky was sporting the early signs of what was going to be a nasty black eye and Mr. Klasky was drunk and belligerent. The wife refused to say what he had done to her, saying that she fell. Without the wife’s statement or a witness, they would not be able to make an arrest. Charlie was the back-up officer so she let the primary officer, Fred Miller, who was many years her senior, take the lead. Charlie stood watch over the drunken Mr. Klasky while Officer Miller took the wife into another room and tried to get her to talk. Miller returned with the wife and shook his head ‘no’ at Charlie.
“Okay Mr. and Mrs. Klasky, we’ll be going then. Let’s try to keep it down okay?” Officer Miller said as he nodded toward the door at Charlie. Charlie knew she should keep her mouth shut and follow Miller out but something churning in her gut was keeping her feet glued to the floor.
“Is there anyone else at home?” she blurted impulsively at Mrs. Klasky. The parents shot each other a look. “Don’t look at him! Look at me! I asked you a question! Who else is home?” Charlie was as surprised by her assertiveness as was Officer Miller.
“Our daughter. M-Mary Jane . . . she’s twelve . . .” she said with a stutter, glancing up the stairs and then looking nervously at her husband. Miller made a jerking motion with his head up the stairs and Charlie lit up the stairs while Miller waited with the punchee and the puncher, who was raising slurred objections about needing a warrant to be in his house.
“Mary Jane?” Charlie called as she opened the door to the only room with a light on. Inside sat a frail blond angel clutching a pillow, her eyes red from crying. “Hi there, Sweetie,” Charlie said softly and got down on one knee. The girl looked so much younger than twelve. “My name is Charlotte and I’m a police officer. Are you okay?” The girl nodded but didn’t speak. “Is it okay if I sit down with you for a minute?” Mary Jane nodded again and moved over to make room on her small bed. “Scary night, huh?” And again the girl nodded. “Hey, don’t you talk? You do have teeth, don’t you? Oh no, were you born without teeth? That’s terrible!” The girl giggled a little. “Oh wait! You do have teeth! Oh, thank goodness!” Charlie smiled.
“Do you know why I am here tonight Mary Jane?”
“My parents?”
Charlie nodded and tightened her lips.
“Sometimes parents argue and that’s okay. All parents argue once in a while, but if they hit, then it’s not okay. Right?” Mary Jane nodded in agreement. “I need to know if that happened tonight. Did someone get hit tonight?” Mary Jane shrugged and looked at the floor. “This is really important sweetie. Did someone hit someone else tonight?” The girl shrugged again. Charlie decided to try a different approach. “Do you know what your parents were fighting about, Mary Jane?” The girl shot a quick look to the nightstand and then looked at the floor and shrugged again. Charlie looked at the nightstand and the blood began to leave her head.
A bottle of KY Jelly was laying in the open nightstand drawer.
KY Jelly? What the hell was sexual lubricant doing in a twelve-year-old’s nightstand? The nightstand drawer was opened enough that Charlie could see the partial cover of an adult magazine inside the drawer. Charlie felt her chest tighten and she struggled to breathe. She closed her eyes and willed herself to stay calm for the child’s sake. When she opened her eyes the girl was staring at her, wide-eyed. Charlie took a breath. She had no idea what she was going to say—she just started talking.
“Do you know why I became a police officer Mary Jane? To protect people who were being hurt by other people. To save them Mary Jane, so that they couldn’t be hurt anymore.” The girl’s tears started to pool. “You don’t have to say anything Mary Jane, just nod okay? Is someone hurting you?” The child nodded ‘yes.’ “Is your father hurting you?” The child nodded again and started to sob.
&nbs
p; “I can stop him, Mary Jane.” Charlie hugged the girl. “I will stop him,” Charlie said, her own tears starting to fall. Charlie got her game face back on and called Officer Miller to the top of the stairs, gave him a quick briefing and asked him to call CPS and keep the parents downstairs while she waited with the girl.
Child Protective Services arrived with an active file on the Klasky family started by Mary Jane’s school. All the signs of potential abuse were there but neither the mother nor the victim would break their silence for fear of the wrath it would bring. Following the CPS preliminary evaluation, Paul Klasky was arrested for domestic assault to get him out of the house. It would never stick without the wife’s cooperation but it got him out of there for the night and gave them a shot. Once he was gone, Charlie went to work on the wife and got a consensual search of Mary Jane’s room in under thirty minutes, in spite of Officer Miller’s suggestion that they wait for the detectives and a search warrant.
Mrs. Klasky spun a woe-is-me tale of mental and physical abuse, a one-income household and true love, until the alcohol “got ahold” of her husband. She said she only suspected her husband was raping their preteen daughter; she wasn’t positive, and she did stop him tonight and had the black eye to prove it.
Well wasn’t she the fucking hero? Charlie wanted to throw up. She wanted to kill Mary Jane’s mother almost as much as she wanted to kill the drunken molesting father.
By the time the suits arrived, Charlie had completed the search of Mary Jane’s room which included numerous adult magazines which her father used as visual aids to show his daughter what he wanted her to do. The bottle of KY Charlie spotted on the nightstand was one of many. The other discarded bottles of KY were located behind the bed. She also found a stash of airline bottles of alcohol Paul Klasky used to impair his child. The worst discovery of all was found under the girl’s mattress—a diary detailing a year and a half of sexual abuse at the hands of her father in heartbreaking detail.
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