The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 17 Miles Madigan
- 3 years ago
- 25
- 0
I went into the station the next morning at 0730. I figured I would go in early and see the shift changes and roll calls for a bit to get a feel for things from the bottom up. After roll call, I headed back to my office, only to get stopped by Mindy Hollis. She dragged me back outside to the department parking lot and over to the corner it shared with the impound yard.
“This is where we should build a storage annex,” she said.
“Why here? In this corner?”
“It’s the best choice. It’s inside the secure perimeter and it’s also at the high spot in the parking lot. In case Pendler’s Creek were to flood, this would be the last place to flood.”
“Yeah, but we don’t want any storage to ever flood,” I countered.
“I looked at the building plans for the station. This location is at the same height as the station. It won’t flood unless the station floods, and that’s never happened. We’re too high.”
“Huh. You found the prints for the station?” This lady was detail oriented!
“You’d be amazed at the stuff we keep around here. Anyway, depending on how much of the impound yard you want to chew up, we could build a big annex. We could even build it with a door on both ends, so that we could bring things directly in from the impound yard.”
I scratched my head at that. “Not sure we want to do that, but it’s an idea.” I nodded towards the station and turned in that direction. “It’s as good a place as any, but this is something the council is going to have to weigh in on. I’ve got some latitude on emergency funds, but not enough to cover a new warehouse. We’re going to need, what, an RFP?”
She nodded. An RFP was a Request For Proposal, a start to the bidding process to build a new structure. “An RFP would be the start. We’ll need an architect to draw something up. I don’t know if we’ll need a second RFP for the annex itself.”
I had a sudden idea. “Call my father. Ask him. He used to be the Chief Engineer for the county. He just retired but he still has his license. He’ll at least know the procedure.”
“Probably a conflict of interest if he’s your father,” she said.
I shrugged. “Not if we don’t pay him. I’ll call him and ask about the procedure. At least he’ll know who we have to talk to for real.”
“Okay.” She smiled and said, “The sooner we can do that, the sooner we get the conference room back.”
“And start figuring out how we’re going to clean up the station.”
“Already done. We have a budget for emergency maintenance and repairs. We just call it an emergency and then hope we don’t have a real emergency afterwards.”
I rolled my eyes. “I hope the cells at Reidsville are coed.” We went back inside, and I sent Mindy back to work.
Meanwhile I went to the armory to sign out a vest. From there I went to the main desk. Crenshaw was standing there, and I asked, “Who do we have available? I want to do a ride-along, see a few things from inside a cruiser for a bit.”
The watch commander shrugged and nodded. “Carruthers just rolled back in. He’ll be free in a few minutes.”
“Works for me. Call me when he’s available. Thanks.” I headed back to my office. My suit coat I hung in my closet, then I pulled on the vest and secured it. Finally, I pulled on my old MPD windbreaker. That was when my phone rang, and Crenshaw told me that Willy Carruthers was waiting for me in the parking lot. I thanked him and hustled back down the stairs.
“Morning, Chief,” he said as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Morning, Willy. What has you in the parking lot at 0930?”
“Just got back from a prisoner run over to the county jail.” I looked at him curiously and he added, “A couple of drunk-and-disorderlies getting off a bender. On the plus side, they didn’t puke in the back seat. On the downside, they already puked on each other.”
I snorted. “It’s the sheriff’s problem now.”
“Roger that, sir. Where to?”
“Just do your regular patrol. I just want to get a feel for things again. It probably won’t be all day. I need to make some calls this afternoon.”
He nodded and headed out on patrol. Dispatch ordered us towards East Matucket, and we ran radar for a few minutes, catching a speeder on Kensington about fifteen minutes later. Willy kept an eye on me as we got out of the patrol cruiser and I assumed the proper backup position on the right rear quarter, able to cover him while keeping him out of the line of fire if I had to respond. Afterwards, we drove off to a different location.
“So, Chief, I read your Wikipedia page last night. I’ve never actually met anybody who has a Wikipedia page before,” he said. I just nodded and kept an eye on the road. It was surprisingly easy to pick up the old habits of watchful wariness. “You really won the Medal of Honor?”
“Nobody wins medals, Willy. They are awarded.”
“You know what I mean, sir. What was it like? Over there, I mean.”
I didn’t answer for a moment, and then replied, “Imagine your worst nightmare, you know the kind where you wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, puking your guts out and shitting your pants, only ten times worse. And then imagine going through that every time somebody asks you about it.”
“Uhmm ... uh ... yes, sir,” he said. I could hear an audible gulp.
“I don’t talk about it, Willy. Very few of us do. It was just something we had to do. Almost all of us end up with problems afterwards. Talking doesn’t necessarily help.”
“Problems? Like PTSD?”
“It doesn’t affect my job, Senior Patrolman. It’s under control, has been for years, but yeah, it’s there,” I responded.
“Huh.” We drove around silently for a few minutes and Willy said, “I was talking to Madison last night.” I looked at him and he continued, “Madison, that’s my wife. I met her in Macon when I was on the Bibb County Sheriffs. We had a little girl in Columbus.” I nodded in understanding. I was curious where he was going with this. He said, “So, last night, well, she did one of those pregnancy tests, you know, where she had to pee on the stick. Well, guess what?”
I snorted out a laugh. “Congratulations, Willy. Or condolences. Your pick. I assume it’s too soon to tell if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Thanks, Chief, I think. No, it’s too soon. We won’t know for a few more months.”
“Well, make sure to let Crenshaw know you’re up for some overtime. Unless babies have changed radically in the last few years, you’re going to need some money.”
“Thanks, Chief, I wasn’t aware of that,” he replied drily. “Overtime? We can get overtime? Chief Babcock banned all overtime.”
“Overtime is available. I told you I was making some changes. The budget’s been increased. We’re going to fix up the station, increase training, hire some new officers, all that stuff.”
“Huh.” A moment later he said, “I was talking to Madison last night. She’s not interested in moving again. She wants to stay in Matucket. I didn’t say anything to her about what you said yesterday, but she wants to stay here. We just bought a small place over in West Springs.”
“It’s called nesting, Willy. Women want a place to nest. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”
‘Yeah, well, that means I don’t want to move either.”
“Then you’re planning to make the changes necessary?”
Willy didn’t look at me, but his jaw clenched for a moment. Then he sighed and nodded. He still didn’t look at me but said, “Yes, sir.”
“Okay, that’s something we can work on.”
Before we could discuss the subject further, the radio rang out. “Dispatch to all supervisors. Supervisor is required at Kennedy Elementary.”
I looked at Willy and raised an eyebrow. We were only a hundred yards away from John F. Kennedy Elementary and he looked back at me. I grabbed the mike off the dashboard and said, “One-Six-Three to Dispatch, I’m on Cherokee near Kennedy. I’ll respond.”
“Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say identification?” That was shorthand for ‘ Who the hell is One-Six-Three?’
“One-Six-Three to Dispatch, this is Chief Reaper, Robert-Edward-Adam-Paul-Edward-Robert.”
“Sorry, Chief.”
“One-Six-Three to Dispatch. On scene in one minute with...” I looked over at Willy.
“Four-Eight-Seven.”
“ ... Four-Eight-Seven in...”
“Paul Three-Seven,” said Willy.
“ ... Paul Three-Seven. Say nature of complaint.”
“Not sure, One-Six-Three. Two-Two-Nine is on scene.”
“One-Six-Three to Dispatch, we’ll be there in one minute.”
“Dispatch to One-Six-Three, show you in command at Kennedy Elementary. Out.”
I looked over at Willy. We had driven a couple hundred yards past the school during the radio call. I hooked a thumb back behind us and said, “Turn it around. Who’s Two-Two-Nine?”
Willy did a quick three-point turn and we turned around. “Not a hundred percent sure, but I think it’s Gina Bossonte.”
We pulled up to the front of the school and parked behind another cruiser. We went inside and headed towards the office. My own children had gone to JFK, so I knew the direction. Inside we found a police officer in her early thirties sitting on a couch with two young children. She gave me a worried smile and stood up. The children looked up at us and smiled. They both said, “Hi!” at the same time.
“Hi! Who are you?”
“My name’s Holly,” said a little blonde girl with curly hair.
“I’m Jimmy,” said a little boy who looked to be biracial.
“Nice to meet you.” I stepped back and Officer Bossonte followed me. I kept my voice low and asked, “What’s going on?”
“I got sent over here to respond to a sexual assault and an assault and battery. When I got here, the principal ordered me to arrest these two and take them away!”
I stared at Gina for a bit and then looked over at Willy, who seemed as amazed as I was. I looked over at the two children sitting on the couch and talking to each other. “You’re kidding me, right? Who assaulted whom?”
“This is nuts, Gina!” said Willy.
“Are you a juvenile officer, Officer Bossonte?” I asked. Juvenile arrests required officers specifically trained to deal with underage offenders.
“No, sir, they disbanded the special squad. I’m Patrol. Sir, I’m not arresting six-year-olds. I mean, you can fire me, but I’m not arresting six-year-olds!”
“Trust me, that won’t be an issue. You go arresting six-year-olds, you won’t have to quit, I’ll fire you!” I looked at both her and Willy. “Pass the word, arresting six-year-olds looks bad on the six o’clock news.” I looked at the kids. “Did somebody call their parents?”
Gina nodded towards the secretary who was watching all this. She came around her desk and came over. “I called them, sir. Their moms should be here in a few minutes.”
“Well, we’ll wait until then.”
I sat down with the two children but almost immediately stood back up when a worried looking woman came rushing in. “Jimmy!”
The little boy smiled and said, “Hi, Mommy! We’re being arrested!”
The little girl said, “Hi, Mrs. Maynard! This is so cool!”
Mrs. Maynard whirled on us and demanded to know what was going on. Before I could answer, another young woman came hustling in. She looked a lot like a grown-up version of her daughter. “Holly! What happened?” She rounded on us and demanded what was going on.
I held up my hands to ward them off. “Ladies, ladies, calm down. Nobody’s being arrested. We just got here, too. I’m the Chief of Police. I don’t know anything more than you do.” I looked over at the secretary and said, “We can see Mrs. Houston now.”
She shook her head. “Mrs. Houston is out on maternity leave. Vice Principal Rawlings is in charge.” She went down the hallway and knocked on his door.
I was wondering what caused this mess. Mrs. Houston had been principal at JFK for several years and was very popular with both the students and their parents and could certainly have sorted out whatever was going on. Rawlings, I didn’t know.
I quickly figured out that Rawlings was a little tinpot dictator in the making. The secretary came down and said he was making a few minutes for us and ushered us into his office. We immediately sat down in the armchairs and the couch, while Bossonte and Carruthers stayed standing. “I’m Acting Principal Rawlings. How can I help you?”
2024 I was meeting with the staff at the academy in Forsyth when I got the call. It was Wednesday, January 17. We were talking about scheduling lectures on PTSD, mental illness, and use of force, and developing dates for the next few months. I had my phone on vibrate out of courtesy; my business line routed to my cell phone, and I didn’t want to be taking a call from one client while talking to another. The phone was in my shirt pocket and began vibrating. I ignored it and kept working, but...
Monday, May 24, 2010 I busted my ass that winter getting back into shape. As the doctors had told me, my problems mostly related to muscle and tissue damage, but my joints were in good shape. My biggest problems were in stretching and rebuilding the muscles in my left arm and side. I spent a lot of time in rehab and therapy, and then even more time in the gym rebuilding myself. Kelly and I didn’t have a gym in the house, but it was another one of those benefits of being a cop. The MPD had an...
Fall 2023 to Spring 2024 After the press conference I had a chance to call home and say hello to the kids. They already had heard I was a supercriminal and in prison for the rest of my life, so I had to tell them I had broken out and would be home later that night. They both promised to stay up to see me, which seemed unlikely to me. We didn’t leave Conover until almost eight. Both Delahoye and Ruskin had run out of things to ask me and agreed that they knew how to find me if they had any...
2025 There was a nice lounge in the hotel, and we ran an open bar for an hour where quite a few people stopped for a drink or two, swapping stories about Jack, and then heading home. We were flying to Matucket on Saturday, and Teresa chartered a private jet to fly us direct. Saturday morning the funeral director brought back the photos and the video remembrance they had created, all boxed up so that we could load them on the plane. I had suggested to her that Holliman’s was a good place to...
Monday, Kelly told me that she was going with me to the lawyer’s office, and the way she said it indicated I had better not argue. I still wasn’t sure what Brockport could do for me that Stillwell couldn’t. Everything I had heard from the guys the other day showed that no matter how I got out of this, the County Attorney and the County Council would still demand they get rid of a killer, and I was still probationary. “Grim, just listen to what he has to say. Daddy says the guy is a magician....
December 21, 2007 The rest of the year I simply prepped for the academy, worked at the police station, and ‘assisted’ Kelly with wedding planning. Assistance basically consisted of doing whatever I was told I was doing, regardless of my personal opinions. White and rose orchids? Whatever you say, babe, they look wonderful! The fact that I couldn’t tell an orchid from a dandelion meant nothing. White cake, yellow cake, or chocolate cake? They all tasted delicious, but even if they tasted like...
It was almost midnight by the time I got back to the apartment. Rather than being able to drink a beer or go to bed, however, the lights were on in both the apartment and in my grandparents’ house and the driveway was filled with my family’s cars. A bad afternoon and evening were about to get worse. I climbed the stairs up to the apartment, but by the time I got to the top, the door was open, and Kelly was standing there waiting for me. “How you doing, Grim?” “I’m good, babe.” She gave me...
Things got very strange from that point on. It wasn’t like I could just fly off to Washington so the President could slap on the Medal of Honor. Everything had to be coordinated. I was informed of the Medal of Honor on May 24, which was a Monday. My keepers, which is what the two light birds turned out to be, returned on Tuesday, June 1, to let me know the latest. The Army, by that time, had publicly confirmed that I was to receive the Medal of Honor, but that the ceremony was to be held at...
For the last few days President Trump had been on a Twitter rampage, demanding that the NFL players stand during the anthem, demanding the team owners and coaches fire them if they didn’t, and promising dire actions otherwise. Both Jack and I were getting slammed left and right, me for not complaining about the football players’ protests and Jack for not doing more. He was also bitching about Puerto Rico, primary elections, and fake news. No wonder he wasn’t doing his job - he was spending...
Things moved along through the summer. At times it seemed as if for every step we took forward we were taking two steps back. Still, some good things happened. Our new Auto Theft Division made a major arrest mid-June. They grabbed a few cars out of the impound yard and fitted them with GPS trackers and allowed them to be stolen. That generated enough information to get warrants on a pair of ‘chop shops’, garages where stolen cars could be taken and stripped for parts. Lieutenant Dupree of...
Kelly and I watched the news Monday night for about an hour, but it was getting repetitious, and we turned it off. By then Kelly was beginning to get some emails and tweets from people she was friends with, mostly asking what was going on. Most seemed confused, but several were rather vile. A few people wanted me to immediately fly to California and butcher my brother on the fifty-yard line, followed by ritually committing suicide. We went to bed, where Kelly tried to take my mind off...
Summer 2025 Kelly’s desire that I limit my time with travel and consulting led me to review my finances and priorities. I was doing a week every month in downstate Georgia and the equivalent amount of time teaching at various police academies. I was currently making between $1,000 and $2,000 a month from each of five different police and sheriff’s departments for consulting services and as a retainer. Special projects cost extra. In effect, that worked out to about $85,000 to $90,000 a year...
Fall 2023 The summer progressed nicely. I spent a fair bit of time down in Sullivan County and the nearby environs, first analyzing what they had and then developing the options everybody needed to consider. One thing I stressed with them was that by standardizing on similar doctrine, training, and hardware, the SWAT teams created would be suitable for any eventual regional coordination. How the politics would work out was questionable, but it would be easier if the local units had similar...
2026 Riley’s incarceration proved to be as much of a pain in the ass for us as it was for her. One of us had to be her jailer at all times. I told Kelly that I should have taken the Basic Jail Officer course at Athens back when I was taking the Basic Law Enforcement Officer course. On the days I was home I drove her to school and back home. Sometimes it was Kelly who did the duty. When I was away teaching or consulting, and Kelly had classes, either her mother or mine had to take the detail....
That was basically the end of the craziness. From Chicago we flew home for a long weekend. Monday, we flew back to New York, and I went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which proved interesting. Stewart was on the liberal side of the spectrum, but he always showed a lot of respect to the soldiers even as he crucified the politicians who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the interview was the standard questions, but at the end he asked me something nobody else had asked. Stewart:...
March 30, 2005 - April 2005 As soon as we were dismissed, the place broke into sheer pandemonium, as everybody tried to find their family members. I wasn’t even sure my family was there, so I ended up wandering around looking for a familiar face. I think the people who had it the worst were the spectators, since there were about a thousand of us all dressed alike and with the same haircut. Fortunately, I was a few inches taller than most and that made it a little easier. I slowly circulated,...
It looked like almost the entire platoon had arrived, led by Lieutenant Southerland. They rolled up to the front gate, actually driving over various body parts as they did so and stopped. The crashed Apache blocked the way in. The first guys to come inside the compound simply stood there and stared at the carnage, though a couple of guys tossed their cookies. Eventually somebody noticed I was standing there and Southerland and another couple of guys ran over to me. “Sergeant Reaper! Sergeant...
1996 to 1999 In August, football started up again. Matucket Middle School didn’t have a real football team, only flag football, so I was still playing Pop Warner football. I turned twelve on March 1, so I changed to the Midget League team, the Spartans. At twelve I had jumped over the Junior Midget team, which was ages ten, eleven, and twelve. The Midget team was ages twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, so I could probably play there until I got to high school. I knew Matucket High played real...
September 2022 “How was your trip?” asked Kelly once I sorted out Seamus and Riley bickering about something. “Pretty good. Straightforward, anyway. Just not successful, so to speak.” Kelly gave me an odd look, but before I could answer, the kids started up again. Seamus was teasing his older sister about something. I reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck and asked, “Do I need to give you a lesson in barnacle clearance?” He grinned at me. “Think you can catch me? I’m not the...
Sunday & Monday, February 18 & 19, 2001 I came to slowly. I was surprised that I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I would, but I couldn’t really move all that well, and things seemed weird. It was warmer than I remembered it being, and brighter, and my sweatshirt and windbreaker were missing. I groaned and tried to move some more. That did hurt, quite a bit, and I tried to find a position it didn’t hurt, and I realized I hurt all over. I blinked my eyes, but only my left eye was...
I knew what the citation said; whether I believed it was a different question. It didn’t matter much. I stood there, kept my mouth shut, and looked straight ahead. The President put the ribbon around my neck, and everybody saluted and applauded. He gave me a whispered, ‘At ease.’, and I was able to break position and shake his hand in thanks. That was the end of the official ceremony, and it was time for a meet-and-greet. Mister and Mrs. Obama escorted me down off the stage and over to where...
I never really passed out, but I wasn’t in a mood to keep talking. The immediate threat was contained, and since I was trapped under a tree and wounded, I wasn’t going to wander around the battlefield. After a few minutes I began to hear sirens, both police and fire department; I wouldn’t be alone for long. I twisted my head to the left but couldn’t see to the end of the driveway out on Lakeside Drive. I did see flashing lights approaching, and the sirens went silent. Moments later I heard a...
Chief Crowley called the meeting to an end. He told Captain Abernathy to light a fire under the detectives and see if anybody had seen any African-American strangers recently. At best we had maybe a day or two before something might happen. Captain Bullfinch and Lieutenant Roscoe were told to give whatever support possible, including moving watch schedules around. Hank was told to assist me and dial up TRT. As far as I was concerned, Priority One was taking care of my family. What was even...
Tuesday, January 7, 2019 The rest of the semester was a bitch, a stone-cold cast-iron bitch. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it was just unrelenting work. Maybe it was because I had taken a lot of time on the two consulting jobs or maybe it was because of the time taken up with Tolley’s book project. More likely it was because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing trying to get a doctorate in history. I mean, I knew there was a lot of reading that was going to be involved....
Fall 2022 to Spring 2023 I was beat when I got home Sunday night. I’d been living out of a suitcase and eating fast food while traveling in a taxi for almost two weeks. I just wanted to decompress and get to know my wife and kids again. When I got home, Kelly waved the pink canoe at me and told me it was my turn to paddle, and that I had fallen behind and needed to catch up. I snorted out a laugh, which made Riley and Seamus curious. I dumped them on their mother, who just told them it was a...
Monday, September 26, 2022 Monday was a busy day. I bundled the kids off to school and then called Matucket State. While I didn’t go into details, I had to let her Department Vice-Chair know she was going to be away from work for a week or two. I didn’t know who to call at DARPA or the NSA, but Kelly didn’t talk to them daily anyway; she could handle that chore. Then I drove over to the hospital. By all accounts, I would be able to bring her home that day. First, though, she needed to be...
April 2005 - May 2005 A few days later I had to leave. I was due back at Fort Drum on Thursday, so Tuesday Kelly and I loaded up the back of the Outback with all my stuff. This time we added all my personal stuff that I had shipped home when I first deployed to Iraq in 2003. Jack was none too amused when I took the television set with me, since he had set it up in the bedroom, but I wasn’t impressed. “You want to keep it? Fine with me. Just buy me a new one,” I told him. “I don’t have the...
Sunday, September 23, 2018 We had a quiet Labor Day weekend. The weather had been warm, dry, and sunny the entire weekend and we spent it goofing off with the kids and taking them out on the pontoon boat. My parents put their boat in the water and came over as well. The amusing part was that rather than go home at night, they just tied up to the dock and slept on the boat a couple of nights. Well, if the boat is rocking, don’t come knocking. Kelly and I had been known to do the same sort of...
So, it went with the rest of the semester. I also did classes on Use of Force and Autism/Mental Health. In each lecture my PowerPoint presentation included examples and videos of recent incidents where police officers had been videoed going way beyond what was needed. Is it necessary to shoot criminals? Sure! It happens all the time! Is it necessary to stand over the body of a dying criminal and put an entire magazine into their body? Is it necessary to shoot an unarmed teenager in the back...
Captain Crowley simply congratulated me on making it through SWAT and then told me that I needed to call CBS in New York. He gave me a phone number and told me to let him know what was going on. For my mind, I was basically done with publicity. The Army had mustered me out a second time, so they couldn’t order me back to New York, and if 60 Minutes wanted to do something on the MPD, they had to come to us in any case. The call went smoothly. Now that I was home from the Academy, CBS felt...
Tuesday morning it was back to the salt mines, building the brand name of Reaper Security Consulting and solving law enforcement problems throughout the Old South. Something like that, anyway. What I did was contact Dom Ballantine and confirm that I was making a presentation to the county council of Sullivan County Thursday evening. The meeting was at seven and it was far enough away I needed to stay the night. I made a reservation at the Best Western and let Kelly know I’d drive down...
It seemed late when we finished dinner. There was a Welcome Aboard talk in the ship’s theater and after that we did a bit more exploring. There were all sorts of stuff on the boat, including a shopping center with incredibly overpriced stuff, a casino, and a bunch more bars, restaurants, and lounges. We walked around the deck and then went back to our cabin, where we discovered it had been made up, the bed turned down, and an odd animal formed out of some folded towels. Kelly decided she...
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 I got out of bed at 0600, but I hadn’t been asleep. I had slept fitfully at best all night, and I just gave in and got up. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, so the water would warm up, and then started brushing my teeth. “Can’t sleep?” asked Kelly, from our bed. “I need to get to the station early,” I told her. Any further discussion was ended when we heard a cry from the hallway. Kelly groaned and got out of bed. I smiled and shook my head and...
Friday, September 5, 2008 I had to do a lot of yard work at that resort. Kelly was very insistent that the lawn needed to be mowed as often as possible. I also had to ‘clear the weeds’, ‘trim the shrubs’, ‘edge the lawn’, and perform every other possible type of yard maintenance. On the other hand, I considered it critical to provide the best customer service possible. It’s just the kind of guy I am. Still, we did have to get out of the room on occasion, if simply to gas up the mower....
Saturday, October 20, 2018 There were a number of interesting results from the show. The Matucket County Council protested that nobody was forced out and then began threatening to sue anybody who said so. Nobody listened to them, and they didn’t sue anybody. The FBI issued another statement that Matucket had been an essential part of the elimination of the terrorist threat and that they had never really lost track of anybody. Bo got a couple of interviews where he pushed the law-and-order...
Thursday proved to be about as hectic as I expected it to be. By the time the detectives came to see me, I would be the last guy they would be talking to. By that time, they would have already interviewed everybody except the three dead guys, and they would have been autopsied. The crime scene crew would have been all over the last car they had been in, as well as all over the Quiki-Stop. The security videos from the Quiki-Stop would have been obtained, as well as any from any of the...
Fall 2018 to Spring 2019 Thanksgiving was at my parents’ house. Last year it was supposed to be there, but Kelly had inherited it when Dad had his heart attack that week. Another way of looking at it was that Mom gave him a heart attack, considering what the two of them were up to when the event occurred. With all the mayhem I’d been around in my life I’d prefer to check out the way he almost did. Regardless, this year it was at Mom and Dad’s, and it would give us a chance to tease them some...
2024 Sunday, I helped Jack get home. He had chartered a plane to fly from California to Matucket (“ Can you imagine flying commercial through Atlanta with a wheelchair?”) so I simply drove over to their house Sunday morning and helped him out of the house and down to his rental. None of our homes had ramps and I asked whether we should build some for their next visit. “Grim, I’m not sure you should bother. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here any time soon.” “Jack...” “Grim, I just...
June 2005-March 2006 The next morning, we were back to the Army in earnest. Most everybody had filtered back, and we began with PT, physical training, including calisthenics and a four-mile conditioning run. I was hurting as bad as any of the other troops. Leave had left me soft. It didn’t matter, since I knew I would be back in shape in a few weeks, tops. Montoya and Gonzalez, the fuzzies just out of Benning, were in decent shape. Riley was coming off leave and was in about the same...
Nothing job-related came to my attention by Friday afternoon. I speculated what the perfect job ad would look like - “Wanted! Matucket Firearms Corporation has an immediate opening for product design and testing in their Machine Gun Division! Iraqi war veterans with PTSD desired! Call now, operators are standing by!” I remembered that the AK-47 was invented by a busted-up Russian sergeant during World War II. Too bad there really wasn’t a Matucket Firearms Corporation, either with or without...
Monday, March 19, 2018 “Dispatch to One-Six-Three.” “One-Six-Three to Dispatch, go ahead.” Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say location.” I was curious as to why Dispatch wanted to know where I was, since they had sent me to supervise an accident at Pinetree and Glen Aubrey. There was a three-car pileup on Glen Aubrey after the first car, a silver Nissan sedan had suddenly braked for a squirrel. The next car, a red Ford Fusion had slammed into the Nissan from behind and had then been...
Spring 2019 to May 2022 Saturday morning things started getting silly. I was home when it started, sacked out while Kelly got up to tend to the offspring, when she came in and said, “You’d better get up.” “What’s up?” “The President is complaining about you again.” I looked at her curiously. “Trump?” She nodded. “What’s wrong now? Jack tweeting again?” “I don’t know, but something set him off. He’s tweeting that the Army needs to yank your medals again,” she replied. I rolled my eyes...
Mom got a text from Kelly that she and the kids would fly home early Saturday. Seamus was acting fussy, and it would be very late by the time they arrived on the East Coast. She told me she would call back when she got the kids fed and settled down. I was going to have to con my mother into loaning me her phone, so that she wasn’t listening in while we talked. It was late enough in the afternoon that it was time to watch the press conference on television. I turned it on and dialed through...
June to August 2002 The following week we had finals, and that was it. Seniors had to go through graduation, but the rest of us were out for a couple of months for the summer. For me that meant I had about a week of goof-off time before I had to go back to the mill full time. That would take me through all of June and into July, at which time it was back to practice for the football season, running twice-a-days and sweating off about ten pounds under the July sun. Somewhere during that...
Holden looked at me curiously. “How can I help you, sir?” “Tell me about the department. How did you get the acting chief slot, for one thing? Seniority?” He nodded. “Basically. I was hired by Chief Babcock back when he was first hired. Shawn Warren was hired about a year later. He has Patrol.” “So, you’ve been a captain about two years, and he’s only been a captain one year.” Again, he nodded. “We weren’t even considered for the chief’s slot, at least not permanently. Besides, Chief...
I was glad I had asked for a brunch meeting and not a breakfast meeting. Kelly not only thanked me for being a hero when we got back to the room, she insisted on thanking me again the next morning! It’s too bad that the Herndons were flying back with us, because I would have bet a significant portion of my net worth that Kelly could have been talked into joining the mile-high club otherwise. Ah well... Mike Forrester and Bob Jenkins met us at ten in the cafe for the breakfast buffet. They...
May 2019 The spring moved along, slowly at times, quick and harried at others. February saw Chris Balvin sending out advanced copies of his final draft for everybody involved to do a final edit. We were supposed to review it for any technical or factual errors; it was sent not just to Tolley and me, but also to Jose and Bob. The deal we all had was that any proceeds from the book would be split three ways. Chris was paid a flat $150k up front to write the book, and then he got a percentage...
October 2007 - December 2007 Mid-October, about when it became obvious that I was going to stick it out and go to the academy, Tim Hungerford showed up at the rickety-bench-with-delusions-of-grandeur that I called my desk. He had a packet of paperwork with him. “Take a break,” he ordered. “You need to look this stuff over.” I looked at him. “Why? What is it?” “It’s the packet from the academy.” “Ah!” I nodded at that. “Let’s take a look. You’ve been through this, right?” Tim nodded....
Monday, May 26, 2008 Certain things worked out for me. The bullshit out of the CORB had gotten pretty extreme, and the Justice Department planned to investigate them and not me. The Review Board wasn’t helped when Pendergast was caught saying that he was hoping for the dissolution of the entire Matucket Police Department and its replacement by a federally supervised police force. That was considered more than a bit nutty, even for hard-core Democrats. In any case, it got me off the hook with...
June 2004 - August 2004 Word came down from Battalion that the rest of Second Brigade would be deploying to Iraq soon. It was expected that they would show up sometime in July, but no dates were available. What they would do then was not known, or at least not known to us down at Camp Custer. Where exactly they would be positioned wasn’t known or might change before they got here. However, one interesting tidbit came out. Fourth of the Fourth was going to get some leave. Over the next few...
I told my family to stay there, and I would get my gear and catch up to them. Kelly offered to follow me, but I had to explain that women were not allowed in the barracks, no way, no how! Luckily there was a parking lot near the barracks that would allow me to load my gear up. Dad had driven down in the F-150, so we could toss my stuff in the back and then ride home. The ride home was mostly taken up with my parents and Kelly asking me about the Army and my training. What did I do, what did...
January 2007 Mom was very upset that I wasn’t going to come home on my leave. She just wasn’t buying my explanation about losing my squad. She wanted me to come home, squad or no squad. I think Dad understood, and he told me that his father understood, but Mom was very unhappy. I had been in the Army now for four Christmases, and three had been spent in Iraq. I didn’t even bother telling her about the incident at Yankee North. One of her latest kicks was, “Are you the only soldier in Iraq?...
I stared at Jerry for a second, and then ran over and knelt next to him. His upper right arm was mangled and bloody, and his face was covered in blood. “Oh, Jesus, Jerry!” I wailed, and then I grabbed the mike on my shoulder. ‘OFFICER DOWN! OFFICER DOWN! OH JESUS! OFFICER DOWN AT MATUCKET AND ELM! ONE-SIX-THREE TO DISPATCH! I NEED BACKUP AND AN AMBULANCE ... ROLL EVERYTHING! OFFICER DOWN!” Dispatch was saying something, but I didn’t pay any attention. “Oh, shit, Jerry, don’t you die on me!”...
I couldn’t take any more days off that summer. My time with Kelly was restricted to evenings and weekends, which was probably a good thing, at least as regards to my health. Keeping up with her appetite for sin was tiring! She might kill me, but I’d die with a smile on my face. I did speak to Dad about a temporary dock, and he nixed it, at least for this year. “One, it’s not as easy as you think, or as cheap, or as quick. You won’t get it done, at least not done right, until the end of the...
I had a problem with the academy in Athens related to graduation. Specifically, I would graduate with my doctorate mid-May, but the current Basic Law Enforcement class ran from the end of March through mid-July. I couldn’t stay in my apartment after graduating and we couldn’t justify my moving to a new apartment for just a month. I had been keeping Rich caught up with my schedule and plans over at UGA, but as May moved along, it was obvious my time in Athens was ending. Some of my lectures...
Seamus turned fourteen on May 8. Like every year before then, Kelly and I wondered whether he would live long enough to see another birthday. The eternal question was which one of us would kill him first. On the other hand, he could consistently manage to take my mind off the ongoing crisis in the Matucket Police Department. Over dinner that night he asked, “Dad, a mistress is a girlfriend, right?” I looked across the table at Kelly and she looked as confused as I did. I turned my head...
September 2003 - December 2003 Dad drove me over to Hartsfield International in Atlanta Thursday morning, sometime around the crack of dawn. Mom stayed at home, which was a good thing, because she spent most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning crying. She was a total basket case, even though I was only going to New York. I didn’t want to be around her when I ended up going overseas. I had to be there early, because I was on a very cheap Delta flight, and you had to be there two hours...
2026 to 2027 We spent about a week cleaning up from the remodeling. There was dust on everything, even the ceiling, and everything needed to be wiped down and washed. Dust even got into all the clothing that hadn’t been boxed up and left in the closets, since the closet doors had to be open so the flooring in the closets could be replaced. We were doing wash nonstop for a week, and Custom Clean Dry Cleaning made a small fortune off us when we took all our good clothes over. The most amusing...