The next morning brought about a resumption of our normal routines. It was nice to talk with Clemens and potentially open an avenue that I could use to deal with my temper, which didn’t involve either potentially illegal or environmentally destructive behavior. The meeting with Patten and Clemens was appreciated for the same reasons we first ate with the unknown man during the civil lawsuit for the legalization of the Animatrix Serum. Outside of a few forays, Molly and I were fairly isolated at Bandhavgarh Cabin.
Now, we weren’t in danger of going insane from being “alone”. Both Molly and I guessed that a tiger’s solitary instincts served as protection against that. But, we weren’t mundane animals, and it felt good every now and then to actually interact with people every now and then outside of our times at work or running errands.
“Uncle Frank’s written a letter to the editor,” Molly commented as I set out the meat we would eat for breakfast.
I looked up to see Molly holding our morning’s newspaper… or at least the Columbia Falls Paper. We got a larger paper too, which came from Helena. The Helena paper covered more of the national level issues, though we had only recently gotten that subscription. The Helena paper also had a nice sports page that Molly and I followed… but my White Sox and her Cubs didn’t look any better then the year before. And at the moment, though, the local race for the School District Superintendent overshadowed things like sports.
“What does he say?” I asked.
“I think he’s making some appeal to the ranching communities,” Molly spoke, “many of them have kids in the school district. He writes that Hireman’s actions are a continuation of Beauregard’s “war” as it were. The lying and misrepresentation is not important. The important part is the fact that he his fighting for the same goal Beauregard had set a year ago when “I” refused to massage the man’s ego.”
“Given the divisiveness that Beauregard’s methods brought among the local ranchers that might help them in the election,” I shrugged, “it probably won’t work with the in town people who aren’t ranchers and thus weren’t affected as much by Beauregard…”
“Maybe,” Molly shrugged as she set the paper down while I set our meat in the oven, “but if it help’s Tabby, I don’t think we should complain.”
She then moved to the fridge to collect the eggs for the morning’s breakfast.
“I don’t intend to,” I replied and held the fridge door open for her.
Molly nodded and set about cooking what would be a large serving of eggs for the both of us. As the sound of eggs cooking reached my ears and the scent of cooking meat filled my nose, I still hung around the kitchen in case there was anything Molly needed me to do to help.
“Does the paper say anything the current poll standings?” I asked.
“They make a brief mention of them,” Molly nodded, “Tabby’s taken a slight lead with 51% favoring her to 49% favoring Hireman.”
“So, trying to simply hammer the lie like a nail came back to bite him,” I commented, feeling very satisfied, “and not just in the debate.”
Molly nodded, “true, but it’s a slim lead and they’ve focused a lot on my presence in the schools for the first two debates. While Tabby will likely carry the day easily on that issue, there are still others that she will have to confront.”
I nodded in agreement. That was part of my worries that Hireman’s skill as an experienced local politician overcoming the enthusiasm Tabby brought to the campaign. Especially since her enthusiasm was behind one issue.
“Hopefully she wins,” I nodded.
Molly nodded.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our breakfast went by well and quietly. Once finished I headed out to go in to work. I arrived on time and rapidly went into the station. Repair work from Bill Williams’ attack on the station was still ongoing. Much of the work was seemingly done now that the summer had officially come. There was still a bit of indoor and wiring type of work that was left to do, but even that work was being done quickly. Officer Jenkins would have a brand new desk to use soon… and the station would begin to return to normal after the attack on it.
“Morning, Officer Wayne,” Officer Barnes greeted me as I clocked in, “have a good night?”
“Yep,” I nodded, “had a little bit of an excursion, but it was a pleasant evening overall… though I learned of some rather shocking things…”
“Like what?” Officer Barnes wondered.
“An incident in Florida with venomous snakes and a group of school kids at a zoo,” I told him.
“Oh…” Officer Barnes sighed, “you just now learned of that?”
“Molly and I managed to miss the broadcasts on it,” I told him, “either with work or other things.”
“Ouch…” Officer Barnes sighed, “yeah that was all nasty. Hopefully the morons who pulled the stunt spend a very long time in jail.”
I nodded.
“I can’t say any more, George,” Officer Barnes then commented, “to be honest, I didn’t get to see all of it, either… but I also knew there was nothing we could do. Florida is several states away and outside our jurisdiction. And I thought you already knew about it and didn’t want to rehash how wrong they were.”
I nodded, “Yeah… and the guys that did the dirty dead were arrested and were given long prison sentences. Nothing more that can be done with them, really.”
To this Officer Barnes nodded as we reached our police cruiser and prepared for the morning patrol.
++++++++++++++++++++++
The morning’s patrol went quietly with no real disturbances. There were the occasional routine calls in the morning, but for the most part things were quiet. That quietness, however, only lasted into the afternoon. Shortly after lunch and when Officer Barnes and I began our afternoon patrol, we got a call about a potential domestic disturbance.
“Come again, dispatch,” Officer Barnes spoke into the radio, “what is going on?”
“We’ve gotten several calls,” the dispatch officer answered, “all report a lot of shouting and what sounds like stuff being smashed coming from inside a trailer. That’s about all the details I got on what is happening.”
“Officer Wayne and I are in route,” Officer Barnes answered, “can I get the address?”
The dispatch officer gave us the address. It was from a trailer park on the northeastern edge of the town. It wasn’t a clean looking place as there seemed to be as many junked cars parked on lawns as there were working cars on driveways. And there were other pieces of trash laying about.
“Can you tell us if they’re armed or not?” Officer Barnes asked, “or what is being said?”
“The callers didn’t seem to bother finding out what was being said,” the dispatch officer replied, “they merely said that they were angry… as for weapons… I would advise caution. They might be unarmed, but then again, they might not. The callers didn’t know and weren’t about to go looking to find out.”
I nodded and Officer Barnes nodded in the front seat.
“Roger,” he spoke, “send call for backup. We’ll be there shortly.”
We then continued on into the trailer park. We passed the ill kept trailers and the almost worse looking lawns around them. As Officer Barnes made his way toward the address we were given, I noticed we were headed in the right direction by people out on their steps and looking in the same direction we were headed.
Officer Barnes quietly pulled up and then got out. He had the car positioned so that it operated as a shield. As he let me out, I found the area strangely quiet. I couldn’t hear any shouting or any other loud noises.
“Do you think they stopped?” I asked.
Before Officer Barnes could even answer, I got my answer, but not in the way I expected. It was a loud shout from inside the trailer in question.
“Get out of there, Bitch!” a male voice bellowed, followed by three successive bangs against something made of wood or something like wood.
“No,” Officer Barnes then spoke as our backup arrived.
Our backup was one additional officer who reported to Officer Barnes.
“Okay,” Officer Barnes spoke, “Officer Wayne and I will go in first. I want you to bring up the rear and cover us. Be careful, the guy may be armed with something more then a baseball bat.”
Our backup nodded as we slowly approached the door. We entered the trailer to find what essentially looked like a war zone. Things were knocked over and there was junk all over the floor. On top of it, the banging of something against a wooden door continued. As we approached the trailer’s central hallway, we found a lone male swinging a wooden baseball bat against a shut door. As we reached it, the man finally managed to break a portion of the door in. We didn’t let him get any further.
“FREEZE!” Officer Barnes commanded, “Police!”
The man stopped and turned to face the drawn weapons of two officers. Though when he saw me, I was privately sure that it wasn’t the specially built gun he was afraid of.
“Hands up!” I commanded.
The bat was dropped and he turned an ran for a different room. He never made it as I dove at him and caught him by the legs.
“Where are you going?” I questioned as I then wrestled him into a position where he wasn’t going to go anywhere, holding back as much strength as possible to make sure I didn’t break any bones.
“Don’t eat me!” he cried out.
“You’ve wrecked the place and you’re worried about being eaten?” I asked sarcastically.
“That was the bitch’s work! Not me!” he denied it.
“Then why were you trying to beat down a door with a bat?” Officer Barnes asked.
“She took my stuff!” he answered, which was an odd thing to say.
The guy’s scent was all over the house, as well as a woman’s scent. This seemed to indicate that they had been living together. Which would make it very difficult to steal things from the other. I also caught a few odd scents that were coming from another room that had its door shut.
“What stuff?” I asked, “is this your house or her house?”
“We both live here,” he answered.
“So how could she take your stuff?” I asked, “wouldn’t you be here to share it? Or know that she was using it?”
The woman was yet to open the door, and for the moment we were focused on the man, because that was all we had at that moment. He didn’t answer that question.
“What stuff was it?” Officer Barnes asked, “You flip out over a pair of shorts or something?”
“It was MY stuff.”
“Yes, we know that,” Officer Barnes grumbled, “what was the stuff?”
“I think it’s drug related,” the backup officer spoke.
He had looked through the house while Officer Barnes and I were questioning the man. As we glanced back, we found him holding what looked like a marijuana pipe.
“She stole your dope?” I asked him as I stood him up to cuff him.
He didn’t answer.
“Fine…” I sighed, “You’re under arrest for aggravated assault and causing a domestic disturbance. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“Stupid, bitch,” the man grumbled as he was cuffed.
I then began to move him out.
“I’ll take him to your car,” I said to the backup officer.
“We’ll see what we can do for the girl,” the dispatch Officer replied with a nod.
“And find any other drug related evidence,” Officer Barnes added.
I quietly moved him out of the trailer home. He seemed to comply a bit now that he was cuffed.
“You can’t do this to me,” he spoke as he was moved toward the backup officer’s car.
“You were chasing after a woman with a baseball bat, and I can’t arrest you?” I asked him.
“She stole my stuff,” he said in response to that.
“I hate to tell you this, but Marijuana is illegal too,” I told him, “be glad that for the moment you aren’t up on drug charges in addition to the domestic disturbance charges.”
The man didn’t answer as I placed him in the backseat of the backup officer’s car. I then stood out there for a good five to ten minutes trading glances between the suspect in the car and the trailer. About ten minutes later, Officer Barnes and the backup officer came out with the woman. She looked a little beat-up, but it also looked like she was suffering from some kind of substance abuse. She was also in cuffs.
“I’ll be back for the other one,” the backup officer spoke, and then got back into his car and drove off.
“Something wrong?” I asked to Officer Barnes.
“I think we got the two that had that Meth Lab outside of town,” Officer Barnes answered, “the woman here admitted it and being run off by the land owner or what they thought was the land owner…”
“I smelled something strange coming from one of the rooms,” I mused.
“Their replacement,” Officer Barnes commented, “our backup checked the rest of the house while I was talking with her. They’ve been dealing it to kids and teens to augment their income.”
“They must blow a lot of it on drugs,” I commented, making the woman lower her head. I didn’t know if it was in shame or not.
“That’s apparently what this fight was about,” Officer Barnes spoke, “he had some morning work and went out to do it. She took his last bit of Marijuana and smoked it about mid-morning. He came home and was about to light up himself when he found it was gone… and he flipped out because of that.”
“Did she say where they got the pot from?”
“No,” Officer Barnes shook his head, “on that much she was silent.”
“We’ll need to collect the drug paraphernalia they have,” I commented.
“That can wait until our backup car gets back to take this one in,” Officer Barnes nodded.