Chapter 5: Plans

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Not much more happened with Reaper Security Consulting for the next two months. I got a few phone calls and did one small review deal with a force down in Tifton. It was a third-party audit of training records which took me two days including travel. I checked personnel records since the last audit, verified the courses had been attended with the Georgia Police Academy in Forsyth, and signed off on it. I didn’t get ten grand for the job, not hardly. I also went back to Bethel County once to meet with the county commission. Otherwise, not much.

That worked in some ways. The fall semester at UGA was starting in mid-August, and I was signed up for two colloquia. That was six credits. I was hoping to be able to do some of it online but that was very questionable. From my understanding of what was expected and my experience getting my Masters, there was a lot more reading and self-study but at least once a week I was going to need to show up on campus, a two hour drive each way. When I did my Masters, I was able to do a lot more online, and I could time my trips to Athens for my days off. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out.

Paying for a doctorate was also something I was going to have to work out. Six credits a semester worked out to between $3,200 and $3,400 a semester. There were going to be other costs involved in doing the dissertation. Where was the money coming from? For years I had suffered from an embarrassment of riches in paying for my college education. My first few credits, back when I was stationed at Fort Drum, had been paid for by the Army. Later, when I got home and got on the police force, I had three possible sources for payment. The MPD would pay for tuition at a state school. When Kelly began teaching at Matucket State, her benefits included paying for tuition for family members at Matucket State. Finally, my GI Bill benefits would pay for thirty-six academic months of tuition, the equivalent of a standard four-year degree, but I had to use my benefits within fifteen years of my leaving the Army.

I used my MPD benefits to finish paying for my associate’s at M-Triple-C. By the time I finished that, Kelly was teaching at Matucket State, so she paid for my bachelor’s there. After that I used my MPD benefits to pay for my master’s at the University of Georgia. Now things were changed. I was gone from the MPD, so there were no benefits there. In addition, her Matucket State benefits wouldn’t pay for me to go to grad school somewhere else. That left me with my GI Bill benefits. I left the Army in September 2007. I had until 2022 to finish my degree, which should be possible. It was currently the fall 2018 semester; five semesters would take me through the end of 2020. My benefits covered full cost at UGA and up to $1,000 for books and supplies. Granted, grad school in one of the humanities required a huge number of books, so that still might not cover the full load, but it sure covered a lot! They also paid me a housing allowance, even though we already owned our home. The downside? A vast amount of paperwork with the VA!

Our combined income was sufficient to cover our expenses. Kelly made a good salary as a full professor and department chair at Matucket State, had a second income source with her work for DARPA and the NSA, and some money coming in with her work with a couple of small startups. That was a bit more questionable; the real money from startups came when they went public and were sold. My income was less than hers and always had been. I had my Medal of Honor pension and a disability pension, calculated as 25% of my pay as a sergeant on the MPD based on my last three year’s total compensation. I’d have gotten a 50% pension if I’d lost the leg, but I hadn’t been that lucky. Ooops! I also had a small VA disability pension based on my hearing loss, evidenced by my need for VA-provided hearing aids. Any other income came from consulting, which hadn’t taken off yet, and teaching at the academy in Forsyth, which wasn’t much more than beer money.

With any luck, once I got my doctorate, I would be able to consult or teach full time. Hopefully I would have been able to make some contacts during that time to be able to pull it off. As long as I didn’t go back to being a police officer, that 25% disability pension was mine for life. That was for the future. I just needed to get through the next couple of years and get my degree.

I ran across Caroline Upgrove a week later while grocery shopping with Riley. We had been provided with a lengthy shopping list by Kelly, and Riley was ordered to ‘make sure Daddy behaves.’ I stuck my tongue out at my wife for that, and Riley promptly told on me. I swatted her on the butt, and she giggled as she ran out to my car. Seamus was staying with Kelly, since I refused to go shopping with both of them. I’d rather go through another firefight than shop with both my children!

Riley took charge, carrying the shopping list while I pushed the cart. Up and down the aisles we went, with Riley telling me what to get and what not to get based on secret ‘girl instructions’ given by her mother. Or not. I don’t think Kelly had specified the large bag of Starbursts, but I could see Kelly tweaking me by telling Riley not to let me buy the box of little chocolate doughnuts, especially after Riley told me she was going to tell on me. Little snitch!

That was where Caroline found us in the Piggly Wiggly, doing her own shopping. She was a cute blonde with a pixie face, about ten years older than Kelly and me, married to a sheriff’s deputy, and had a pair of teenage boys. She was the office manager of the MPD, the senior non-officer position in the department. “Hey, Grim, looking for cop food?”

I held the box up and said, “MPD tested, MPD approved!” Then I put the box in the cart and said, “Hey, Caroline, how you doing? Not sure if you’ve met yet but this is my daughter Riley. Riley, this is a friend, Mrs. Upgrove.”

Riley smiled and said, “Hello.”

“Hello, sweetheart. You can call me Miss Caroline if you want.” She looked at me and added. “I think we met once when Kelly came over one afternoon. Of course, we spent more time chasing your son around than anything else.”

I snorted at that. “Why do I think he is going to spend a lot of time in police stations and not as a cop, either?”

She laughed. “You think it’s bad now, wait ten years. Jim is going to put bunkbeds in a cell for our boys!”

“So, what’s up at the station?” I asked.

The smile left Caroline’s face. “Not good, Grim. You know about new brooms sweeping clean? The broom is sweeping. Abernathy is gone and Bullfinch is going next. He’s also looking at some new hires for lieutenants, though that hasn’t happened yet. My understanding is that I’ll be called in sometime after Labor Day for career counseling.”

I stared briefly and then glanced down at Riley to see if she had noticed. Fortunately, at seven-and-a-half, this was all going right over her head. “You’re serious?”

She nodded. “You need an office manager, Grim? I think I am going to be looking for something soon.”

“With what I’m doing? I can’t afford an office manager. I can’t even afford me!”

She shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

“You’re serious?”

That got me another shrug. “Don’t worry. We’ll be alright. Jim’s doing fine and I figure I can always find something. We won’t be out on the street.”

“Huh. I’ll mention it to Kelly. Maybe she knows about something over at the college.”

“Thanks.”

With that, we split apart and finished shopping. Later that afternoon I mentioned our meeting to Kelly. “Doesn’t sound good, hun,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t. From what Crowley told me before he left, the new guy is supposed to be all about being new and proactive and progressive and liberal. Sort of like a cop designed by your liberal arts department.” Matucket State’s School of Humanities was totally off the wall liberal, progressive, and politically correct. Kelly gave me a wry look and nodded. “I told her I’d mention it in case you knew anything available over at the college.”

She shook her head. “Nothing comes to mind, but it’s not something I’ve ever looked at. I can check, I suppose. You said she asked if you needed help?”

“Yeah, she asked me about it, but it was a joke.”

“Grim, maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

I laughed. “Kelly, I’ve had two jobs in two months. I think you were right when you said I wasn’t self-employed, I was unemployed. I can’t afford the employees I have, and that’s me!”

“I’ll call her. See how she’s doing.”

I just nodded and didn’t think twice about it. The next I heard was on Monday, when Kelly surprised me by saying, “Caroline is coming over Tuesday evening, so make sure you’re here. You don’t have class, right?”

“No class. Thursdays only this semester. Did you find something over at the college?”

“No, she’s here to talk to you.”

“About?”

“She’ll explain it.” That was all I could get out of her until after lunch. I just concentrated on helping her clean up after the kids.

Caroline came over after dinner. Riley greeted her at the door, and we invited her in. Kelly made coffee and sent Riley off to keep an eye on her brother. “So, what’s up?” I asked. “Kelly said you wanted to come over and see me.”

“I was wondering, Grim, how the consulting business is going?” she replied.

I gave her a wry shrug. “Not so hot. It might help if I knew what I was doing. So far, I’ve had one decent job that Mike Crowley set up for me and one minor audit gig down in Tifton. Not sure if I’m going to make it. I might just retire from consulting and get my doctorate full time.”

“When does that start?”

“Two weeks ago. I started this fall.”

“How long will that take?” she asked.

“I need thirty credits and I need to write a dissertation. I had the start of one for my Masters, but it will need to be expanded and rewritten and defended. So, thirty credits equals ten classes, most of which will require lots of reading and writing, but it’s not like I need to show up three days a week. Most of it is seminars and colloquia. Full time, two, three years. Part time, well, however long it takes. There’s just a huge amount of reading. The big thing is the dissertation. Why?”

She nodded towards my wife and said, “Kelly and I were talking. You know my situation. I’ll probably be out of the MPD by the end of the month. I’m wondering if you need an office manager or secretary or something.”

I stared at her a moment. “I don’t have enough work for one person - me! - let alone two!”

Kelly said, “Grim, I think you should listen to Caroline. I think the reason you don’t have work is that you don’t know how to go out and get more work. Talk to Caroline.”

I turned back to Caroline, who said, “Grim, you know a lot about police work, but not about how to market yourself to get these kinds of jobs. Tell me, how did you get the second job? Not the one you got through the Chief. The one in Tifton.”

I fumbled with that one. “Uhhh ... nothing, really, I answered the phone. They had seen my website and found me on LinkedIn.”

She nodded. “Very passive, Grim. You need to be a lot more proactive! You need to sell yourself. You need to build up your resume and your contacts. The way to get jobs is not by hoping somebody finds you. You need to make your name synonymous with police consulting and planning. You need to become a lot better known.”

“How?”

Caroline shrugged and smiled. “Here’s one way. You’ve been a guest lecturer down at Forsyth. Great, keep doing that, but when you’re down there, talk to some of the other instructors and cadre. Ask them if they know anybody who needs some help and ask them to recommend you. My brother is a salesman for Clayton. He’ll tell you flat out, if somebody recommends you to somebody else, it’s a lot more likely you’ll make the sale than if you just go knocking on a door.”

“Huh.”

“Here’s another idea. Start teaching over at M-Triple-C or Matucket State. Both schools have criminal justice programs. Tell me you couldn’t teach some basic classes at either school. Again, you network with some of the other instructors, get your name out there.”

“Huh.” I looked at my wife, who nodded back. I turned back to Caroline and asked, “It doesn’t sound like I’m a potential employer.”

“Don’t sweat it. You just happened to be the first person I talked to about it and Kelly called me. I heard Pilot’s looking for an office manager out at the truck stop. I’m checking that out tomorrow. Still, I know I can handle any paperwork and billing if you do have a need. Who’s doing your taxes?”

“I guess our regular accountant. Between Kelly’s work at the college and some other stuff, and my pensions, we have Bill Wandalman handle it.”

“Did you file your quarterly taxes yet?”

“Quarterly taxes? We pay April 15, like everybody else,” I replied.

“If you’re self-employed, or even partially self-employed, that portion of your income must be filed on a quarterly basis. Didn’t your accountant tell you this?” she asked.

“I never talked to him about it.”

“Now you know.”

“Huh.” Shit! I’m not making any money and I have to file taxes quarterly? This sounded like a disaster!

Caroline continued, “The same goes with any income from the academy or a college. You’d need to check to see if you were an employee getting a W-2 or an independent contractor getting paid on a 1099. Where do you do your work?”

“What, my paperwork?” I asked. Caroline nodded. “You’re looking at it. Right over there in my study.” We had done an expansion on the living room a few years ago, using some of the Medal pension checks to add onto the side of the living room and rebuild the deck to wrap around that side. That had doubled the size of the living room and given me an area I could use as a study, though it was still open to the rest of the room.

“You can use a portion of your living space as a tax-deductible office, though the IRS looks really close at that. If you get the business going, you’d need to get a real office somewhere outside of the house,” she said.

“This is getting complicated.”

She smiled. “It can. Maybe you need an office manager to handle that end of things.”

“Let me think about it, Caroline. Maybe I should call my accountant, first.”

“Fair enough.”

We chatted a bit more and then she took off, to go home and corral her sons before they burned down the house or started an afterschool party with their friends. I asked Kelly what she thought, but her response was to call Bill Wandalman, our accountant.

I called him the next morning and he agreed I needed to file quarterly, but that meant September 15, so we had the time to file. I promised to send him the info and stick some money in a savings account that I was dedicating to the business. Afterwards, I sat down and decided to think about what I wanted to do with Reaper Security Consulting.