Ecuperating - Chapter 3

Jayne knew most of the law enforcement officers in the Upper Peninsula. A lot of the expertise for her books came from them. She had cultivated their friendships over the past five years for that purpose. She always had a ready source for the answers to technical questions she may have concerning police procedure from one or another.

The police across the entire Upper Peninsula looked upon her as their own Jessica Fletcher. Fred Marino was the chief of police in Newberry. She knew him well. He had been the chief for thirty years. She checked the time. Only 8:30. He should be home, she thought, reaching for the phone and her address book.

“This is Chief Marino! What can I do for ya?” His voice was gruff. He always sounded in a bad mood. One would almost hang up rather than ask a favor of him. But Jayne knew he was nothing but a big pussy cat. She had asked him about procedure several times in the past, and he was always more than cooperative. She suspected he wanted to get into her pants, but what the hell, as long as she got along well with him it really didn’t matter. She had found early in life that most men wanted to get there too.

“Hey there, Fred! How the hell are ya?” Jayne asked. “Janie! My favorite author! My beautiful wet

dream! What can I do for ya?” he asked again, this time with a smile in his voice.

“Well, Fred, I was watching TV just now…..” she began.

“I know! I know! You saw the pitch on the unsolved murder of that damn child molester way back when! Why the hell they had that on I’ll never know! They must be hard up for material”

Jayne made a little laugh. “That was my first reaction too, Fred. But it got me thinking about a new book. You think I could get the file on that case from you? Especially a copy of the fingerprint?”

“It’s an old case”, Fred said. “But if I’ve got it, I’ll send it along. It was before my time, but the last chief was pretty good at keeping records. And lately they have scanned all our past cases on the computer. I don’t think there was anything done in that case after the first couple of weeks, though. What kind of book you writing that would include that asshole?”

“Well”, Jayne offered. “That wasn’t the only case I was interested in. It seems you had only a partial thumbprint as a clue in that case, and I was surfing through another program and found there was a massacre in New York City in 1983 where the only clue was a partial thumbprint too.

I immediately thought it would make a great story if both of the partials made a whole print and I was able to find out who it was. I think it would make a great story. So, anyway, I thought I’d give you a holler to see if I could get a copy of your file. And I’m not really sure how to go about getting the file on the New York City massacre. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

“You have come to the right person at the right time and the right place!” Fred said happily. “Ever since 9/11 we have had a whole new ball game out there. A lot of law enforcement people are being downright cooperative these days. And I happen to know a guy in NYPD who owes me a favor. I’ll give him a holler and see if he’ll email it to you.”

“Great!” Jayne said with enthusiasm. “I’ll look forward to getting it. I owe you dinner!”

“Oh, My God! A tryst with a beautiful author! Be still, my heart, be still! I’ll hold you to that!” Fred chided. Fred was single, his wife of 32 years having died two years before. He claimed he would never live long enough to train another one the way he had the first one trained, so he felt he would never marry again.

Actually, he had been devoted to his wife in a way not often seen these days. “Thanks, Fred! Bye!” Jayne spent the next few days packing. While she always felt one couldn’t beat the Upper Peninsula as a place to live from May to November, it wasn’t hard to beat it from then on. The cold and snow is all rightbut only in small doses. Her winter home was just on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

A short drive north on I-15 brought her to her second favorite pastimePoker. Real live poker. Head to head at Texas Hold-’em. She loved the game. Now that she had the money, she could play as often as she liked. She didn’t like the high stakes game. Way too much stress and she was there to relax. She was newly rich, and could still remember when the loss of a hundred bucks was a major disaster.

Generally she would play in a 5-10 game at the highest. Her latest interest was in a $2 no limit game at the Excalibur Hotel. The buy in was only $100 and she enjoyed that action.

Jayne had bought her home in Vegas two years ago. The value of it had already almost doubled since she bought it. She did so well she decided to invest in housing in the city, and presently owned several others.

A real estate firm handled them for her. She would have one built, and they would either rent it out or put it up for sale for her. She was making as much on that venture as she was writing. But writing was her first passion since her husband died.

Jayne roughed out some possible scenarios over the next few days, waiting for word from Fred and the Feds about the two cases she had an interest in. She thought about bringing in the recent popular craze about stories concerning terrorists, but realized that the two cases were pretty well before that time. There had been some terrorist attacks about then, but nothing one could write a story about.

What kind of story could one write about acts of murder so far apart in time? 27 years was a long time between murders, Jayne thought, but then, how do we know that was all there was? Perhaps there had been many more. Maybe he was just very careful. Maybe he’s a serial killer. Naw! One murder, and then murdering a whole Mafia family?

I’ll have to work on a connection between those two acts. Maybe he’s a vigilante. That would work all right! Here’s a guy pissed off at the inefficiency of law enforcement and courts to handle obvious criminals. That particular theme has been overworked, I think. We can take just so much of Dirty Harry.