Chapter 18

The night ended finally after several hours of pure boredom. I hated nights like that. I would rather walk through a dark empty building, than do nothing but wait for the shift to change. On the way home from the motor pool, I stopped for a cup of bad coffee and a two day old roll.

"You are not going to charge me for this roll are you?" I asked after one bite. I threw the remainder into the trash as I said it. If he insisted of course I would pay, but I just knew that it wasn't right. He saw my uniform and knew that it was a bad idea.

"No charge," he said.

"Get this straight. It is not because I'm a cop. It's because that roll is not fit for human consumption and the coffee is only barely drinkable. I will pay for the coffee and never come here again but that roll is toxic." I said it quite seriously.

"No, no charge for coffee for police," he said quickly.

I put the coffee cup down on the counter and walked away. When I arrived home, I reheated a cup of day old coffee in my microwave. It was still better than the convenience store coffee I had been drinking all night. I sat the coffee down and crawled under the covers. I never even went back to the coffee.

The next thing I knew it was 9AM. I looked out at the gray looking parking lot and wanted to go back to sleep. It was one of those cold misty rains that Warren County had now and then. I had never seen anything like it. Mist hung in the air for a couple of days at a time. It was spooky at night. Of course I was on night shift, so I had that staring me in the face. With two more nights before the rotation, I would most likely be either wet or almost wet and definitely cold till the rotation ended.

It was the perfect excuse to skip the day's run and God knows I loved any excuse to skip the run. I just couldn't bring myself to do it that morning. I had eaten too much crap, since I left on the trip to Florida, So like it or not I put on my dirty fleece running pants. I would have worn the clean ones, but since the weather was shit, why bother. They were at least dry, I thought.

Yes I even wore the stinky tee and sweat shirt from the day before. I was tempted to put on my bright yellow poncho, but it made running almost impossible, so it was run wet and miserable. I had heard that they were going to build an indoor track at the community college over in Dobson, but it was just a rumor as far as I could tell.

I took off in the rain and knew for sure I would be running harder, faster, andfor a shorter amount of time that particular morning. I got to the downtown and almost to the courthouse before a sheriff's car pulled me over.

"Hey there chick, you know running alone is dangerous," Simpson asked.

"What are you doing in a marked car?' I asked.

"They took my caddy away. My regular car is in the shop getting it's physical," he said trying to be cute.

"So what can I do for you. In case you didn't notice it's raining out here." I said.

"Technically this is just a mist. I did know that it was falling though. Webster has an investigator from the SBI here today to talk to us about Gypsy's charges. Just thought I would give you a heads up. I am sure when you come in for the evening tour, the woman from the SBI will be waiting for you."

"Thanks Eddie, but I'm just going to tell the truth. We did nothing wrong out there, so let her chew on that. If we try to sound all heroic and super cop, we are just going to sound guilty of trying to cover up something." I gave him the same advice I had been given during more than one military hearing for one thing or another. The advice was simple, 'Never try to spin a story'.

"Well good luck, now get moving you are too smart to stand out in the rain," he said rolling up his window then driving away.

"Asshole," I mumbled under my breath. Then I took off for the last ten minutes of my run. Back in my room I had time to check my email and phone messages before I showered. Since my morning run didn't end at the cafe on the square, I began to think about food.

For lunch I decided to treat myself to a salad from the 50 item salad bar at one of the family steak houses in Dobson. Dobson isn't a huge town, but it does sit in a crossroads kind of thing. Lots of trucking and that kind of thing going on there. Of course there is also the dog food businesses. I mention this only to explain why they have more people and more shopping and restaurants.

Technically Dobson isn't in Warren County, which explains why we never eat there on duty. The closest we can get is the highway plaza which is just inside Warren county but mostly has business from Dobson which cater to those who stop in from the highway. I expect they have more local radio and billboard ads than any other entity in the area. I'm not sure how much good it does most of the customers who don't wander in are from the rural areas around the county seat where I live.

Anyway on the drive back from Dobson I had time to think about the SBI investigation. It shouldn't be hard to defuse it, if Simpson just told the truth rather than try to be all macho. Gypsy outsmarted him. It was that simple. It could have gotten nasty, but we got lucky. Some vague thought kept wandering around inside my brain but it wouldn't surface. I knew that it had nothing to do with my story, so I forgot about it.