Chapter 5: Anonymous Call

The Chief

Hi, I’m Jennifer Bauer, Chief of Police in the Rome township. The Spring Festival is always a big thing for us, and we even get a bit of tourism for a few days, enough to flush some money into our anemic town coffers. What with a competing event a few miles to the east, we held the festival on the weekend of March 31 to April 2 that year, to avoid competition. Of course, with the big Saturday celebrations on April 1, we expected a few silly pranks, but what I heard that evening from two young people was rather malicious in my eyes.

When I was still a young Statie, I had been on the scene of a double homicide. Two youngsters, runaways, had been sleeping on the rough, in a wooden shelter by the side of State Route 47, and we found them, the boy with a bashed-in head, and the girl raped and throttled to death. The sights still haunt me. You can guess now why that stupid prank ticked me off something fierce.

I will not elaborate, since Lupe and Terry told their tales already, but it grated on me how a bunch of self-entitled trust fund kids treated two classmates, just because they were not as snooty as the rest of them. Both were really good kids. I even found out later that they pulled very good grades and were headed for respectable colleges. Plus, they were friendly and respectful, even to the female chief of police in a two-horse township.

I had already found them decent lodgings at my parents’ house. Mom and Dad have room enough, and they would sleep comfortably and safely.

Carol, my wife, questions my motives. She maintains that I’m just a softie for strays. She may be right, too. After all, when we first met eleven years ago, she was a stray, too, barely of age and on the lam from her abusive mother. With my parents chipping in, we helped her finish high school, and then attend a four year college. With her criminal justice degree, she found a scholarship to attend a cheap law school, and two years ago, she added her shingle to Roger Markman’s and took the state bar exam. I had been a closeted lesbian ever since college, a confirmed spinster as the older people had started calling me, but with Carol gunning for me unashamedly, I had no choice but to come out and marry her. Since then, I was re-elected once already, and nobody seems to give a shit about their Chief of Police having a wife.

Anyway, I was bent on helping the two stranded kids. We had a bit more to eat at the festival — Terry insisted on paying the tab — before I drove them out to my parents’ farm and into my Mom’s care. On the way back to town, Ellen, our radio operator, called me. An anonymous caller had reported seeing two people trespassing on the empty lot along Chrysanthemum Drive. I had already primed Ellen, and she had taken care to record the call and caller ID for posterity. Somebody’s goose was ready to get cooked.

A half hour later, Judge Garland had signed the subpoena for the phone records — having a buzz going and wearing pajamas — and another half hour later, it was sent to the phone company by fax. Traces usually take a few hours, especially on a Saturday evening, and I called it a day.