The Morelville Mysteries Collection

Chapter 4 - Mel

Chapter 4 - MelCurse Dana Rossi! “Stick to catching runaway livestock...” Just who the hell does she think she is? I’m not letting a city girl Customs Agent tell me what to do!

I was in an interrogation room having my fourth confrontation of the year with Eddie Pierce, a twenty-something, unemployed, hill jack who leaned toward shoplifting and petty theft when the work and the unemployment checks ran out. He was small time but I knew that he knew some of the bigger local players.

Pierce sat across from me in the small room. His clothes were practically threadbare and he looked like he hadn't had a bath or shower in a few days, at least.

“Have you been branching out these days? The crime rate is on the rise in the county. I have lots of burglary and vandalism cases going on. What else have you been up to lately?”

He looked scared. “Sheriff, I swear all I done is a little shoplifting and maybe a smash and grab. I got laid off several months back. The checks weren't enough and now they stopped comin' too. My lady is pregnant. She ain't eatin' right cause we ain't got the money and the doc at the clinic is getting on her.”

“Drop your pride and cut this petty theft crap out. Get her signed up for WIC so you can get food in the house the honest way. Charity is better than jail. She needs to go to their building over on Putnam.”

“I'll take her to do it tomorrow Sheriff, I swear, if I don't have to go to jail. I can't afford no bail. There ain't nobody else to take her if I ain't there. She don't drive.”

“How about an exchange? I asked him. “You give me information and I talk to the judge about no jail time and community service.”

“What kind of information?”

“What do you know about the mini crime wave we've got going on around here that you say you're not a part of?”

“I don't know nothin' 'bout that. It's the truth! I don't know what I can tell you.”

“If you can't tell me anything useful, I'm going to have to take you down to holding for the night.” He hung his head. I had really thought I could get somewhere with him.

“Come on. Get up. I’ll walk you down there.”

We walked out of interrogation and headed down the hall to booking. He was shaking visibly. I thought he might be scared but, really, I knew better. He wasn’t a first timer. I looked at his sunken cheeks and his gaunt frame and I realized he must be hungry. He was stealing for his girl and their unborn child but he wasn't eating himself.

I wheeled him into the break room. “Look. How about a soda? It's on me.”

“That's kind of you ma'am.” His eyes grew wide as he looked at the vending machines. “If it's all right with you, I see some juice in that machine over there. I'd like to have me one of those.”

I watched him out of the corner of my eye while I put money in the machine for his juice. He was eying the candy machine hungrily.

“I've been so busy today, I didn't get to eat lunch,” I told him. “I'm going to grab a Snicker's bar. Do you want one?”

He lit up at that and nodded. I wasn't sure how it was going to go with his juice but the gesture brought him to my side.

“Thank you ma'am. I ain't had lunch neither”, he said as he gulped his first bite. “It's sure nice of you to do this.”

He followed me out of the break room. I played my next card.

“I know you would prefer to work if you could. I'm not here to torture you and take advantage of you. I have a job to do but that doesn't give me the right to treat people who are just trying to get by like crap.” I was laying it on a little thick and I knew it, but I could see the wheels turning in his head.

He started to speak and then paused and looked around. I figured that he was about to finger someone for one of my very real burglary or vandalism crimes. Instead, he leaned close to me and he said, “I know something about that funny money they were talkin’ about on TV the other day.”

Jackpot! I could barely believe my ears.

“You don't say? Let's take this conversation into my office and keep it between us.”

I hustled him inside and closed the door.

He started to pace.

“Please, sit down.”

He perched on the edge of his chair. “I probably shouldn't have said anything. If anyone finds out I snitched...”

“No one will find out from me. You have my word.”

He looked around like he was trying to make sure we were completely alone. “I was hangin' out with Travis last week, helpin' him work on his truck.”

“Travis who?”

“Stearman. Lives over in the Burg”

I knew Travis Stearman quite well. He has a misdemeanor rap sheet as long as my arm. In our last run in, one of my deputies had busted him for possession with intent to distribute after stopping him for a moving violation. His attorney got him off when we failed to prove probable cause to search his vehicle. He wasn't high on the list of my favorite people. “How do you know he's passing fake money?”

“I don't know for sure that he is but somethin' ain't right. We was putting a lift kit on his truck. I'd had a few beers and I needed to take a leak. While I was in the bathroom, a guy showed up. I heard them come in the house. They was talkin' real quiet.”

“I couldn't hear what they was sayin’ but then I saw the other guy give Travis a stack of what looked like a hundred brand new twenties. Travis didn't give him nothin' in return.”

“I didn't say nothin' to them and I acted like I didn't see nothin'. I figured if he was still dealin', I didn't want no part of it. I didn't think about it again until I saw the funny money thing on the news. Them looked like brand new twenties...” He trailed off.

“Did you know the other guy?”

“Never seen him before.”

“What did he look like?”

“Black but real light. Maybe six foot tall. Lots of tattoos. Was wearin' a ball cap and sun glasses.”

“Let's look at some pictures.” I had him pull his chair around to my side of the desk while I booted up my computer. We looked at hundreds of mug shots but, in the end, we had no luck. We couldn't finger the money man. At least I had a lead.

I walked Eddie through processing and got him released on his own recognizance for the time being. By the time I wrapped everything up with him, it was late. I wanted to pay a visit to Travis Stearman but I was drained. That would have to wait until morning.

I headed home. My sister was working second shift at the station. The kids would want dinner. I smiled at the thought of a little domestic bliss after a long day in crime's clutches.

When I pulled in, Beth, Kris's daughter, hung out over the near side of the back deck rail and waved me over. “Aunt Mel! Come see!”

###

I've been a cop for 14 years. Nothing, in all that time, prepared me for the things my sister's teenagers could hit me with that I never saw coming. I sucked in a breath, blew it out and walked around to the back of the house. There, I found Cole, my nephew, Kris's oldest, sitting astride an oil drum that he'd rigged up on ropes not meant for the purpose between a tree and one of the decorative side rail spindles on our deck that wasn't made for the abuse it was getting. Two of his friends were jerking the ropes up and down as he “pretended” to be a professional bull rider, his latest obsession.

Cole was 15 going on five. There was no reasoning with him when he got one of his crazy ideas. He had to learn the hard way, Every. Single. Time.

The clothesline style rope Cole’s buddy on the tree side, Ben, was jerking was about 3/8ths inch thick woven cotton. Under the weight and stress, it was stretching. The barrel Cole was “riding” plummeted toward the ground. The boy was unceremoniously dumped backwards on his head. To add insult to injury, the force of his fall, loosened the deck railing and it snapped the spindle the rope on the other end was tied to, sending shards of wood flying.

His buddies both jumped back, stunned. Beth rushed off the deck, to his side. I whipped out my cell phone, completely prepared to call for a squad.

Beth screamed, “Cole! Cole! Are you okay?”

I moved fast toward him yelling at her not to touch him.

He lay stationary on his back on the cool, damp ground for several seconds, eyes closed. As I was kneeling down beside him, he opened his eyes and groaned.

“Don't move buddy.”

He ignored me. He lifted his head and then he struggled to sit up. He shook his head like he was shaking out dust and then, despite my efforts to hold him down, he got up.

“That was so cool!” he crowed, as he staggered to his feet. Only then did he realize that his little stunt had damaged the deck and he got real quiet.

His two buddies, once seeing that he was okay, split like firewood leaving him hanging in my glare. I ordered both he and Beth into the house and to their rooms. Beth stomped off muttering that she had only been watching and that punishing her wasn’t fair. I hated to be the bad guy at home but it had been a long day, my head was pounding and I was just in no mood for any more of their crazy antics.

After a few minutes of trying to clear my own head, I realized that Cole might have a concussion, even though he seemed fine. I called him back to the kitchen. Relying on my limited First Aid training and 15 years of his bumps and spills, I was asking him questions and checking his eyes. We were standing near the sink. Through the window over it, movement out in the yard caught my eye. Someone was in the back yard.

It might be my stalker out there or it might be one of Cole’s buddies coming back to retrieve something. I couldn’t be sure. For the safety of my family, I needed to find out.

I called out to Beth and she came to the kitchen. “I’m worried that Cole may have a concussion. I think we might need to run him to the ER. I want you to sit with him in the living room for a few minutes while I run up the street to the gas station and tell your mom what’s happened.

Cole made a face. He knew his mother would be first concerned and then, after that, upset with him. Her displeasure would turn to ire when she saw the damage to the deck. He slumped off to the living room with his sister trailing him.