Chapter 6

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" When no one said anything to her, Rogen repeated herself. "Hello, what's your emergency?"

"He's in the house." She found herself whispering back to the quiet voice on the phone, asking him his address. After giving it to her, the voice told her again that he was in the house. "He's looking for me, but I don't want him to find me."

"All right. What's your name?" He said that his name was Harlin Sharp. "All right, Harlin, who is it that is in your house, and why is he trying to find you?"

Rogen dispatched the police to the address and verified that the call was coming from the address that Harlin had given her. Waiting for him to speak again, she brought up the cameras that were in his area and tried to look at the house. All she could see was a black blob of some kind of car outside the home.

"He killed my mom a week ago. I've been trying my best to make sure that he can't come back but I think he's worried on account of the police not showing up." That was confusing to her, and she asked him what he meant. "Listen to me." His voice was sharp with her. "I said that the police didn't show up after he killed my mom, and that has him worried. About me telling on him. Are you paying attention to what I'm saying?"

"Yes. And I know that you're scared or nervous, so I'm going to let it slide about how you're speaking to me." She could almost hear him rolling his eyes when he answered her back with whatever . Putting him on mute, she told the police that the child, if he was one, was being too snarky to be extra careful. They told her to ask for details. "Where is your mother's body? Is it in the house with you?"

"Yes. Where else would it be? Are the police coming or not?" Not liking this at all, she told two more cruisers to go to the house. The kid was acting funny. And usually her instincts were correct on that. And most of the cops knew her well enough to know that she wasn't one to jerk them around, too. "Is. The. Police. Coming? Should I hang up and try someone else."

"Go ahead, and I'll cancel the police. Now, tell me where your mother's body is?" He said that she was in the basement and that since she started smelling the place up, he thought she'd be better down there. "Okay. Why didn't you call the police? Is it because you were afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of anything, you stupid bitch. Who are you?" Again, the sharp voice, almost like she'd hit a nerve with him. She told him her first name was Rogen. "Rogen? What sort of name is that? Can I speak to your supervisor?"

Alarm bells were going off in her head now. The kid was nearly screaming at her about her supervisor. Calling for one, she let him know what was going on and the issues that she was having with the caller.

"He's loud, for one thing. If there was someone in the house, he would have tipped them off by now. Also, he's not helping himself by threatening me that he's planning to hang up. I told him that I'd stop the police from coming, and that set him off again." Scott told her to turn on the mike again. "My supervisor is here. His name is Scott."

"She's a bitch." While not agreeing with the caller, Scott did laugh a little. "And are the police coming here? I've been waiting for them for what seems like forever. The alarm went off about an hour ago and there hasn't been anyone showing up of authority."

"The police are nearly there. Tell me why you think that this man is looking for you? You believe that, or he's said that?" The man sitting next to her took off his headset and stared at her for a moment before speaking to her.

"I know that address. There isn't a woman in the house that I've ever seen. Just an elderly man that is in a wheelchair." Rogen asked Scott how he knew that. "I'm boarding in the house across the street and I've been talking to the elderly man named Gross for the last few weeks. He said that his wife was dead and that he had no other children. He plays a good game of chess."

Relaying the information to the cops, she waited until they pulled onto the street before she told them to be careful again. Scott asked if he could see the house, just to make sure it was the same one when she nodded. It was, he told her and went back to work at his own cameras.

Scott hadn't been there for long before everyone was saying how he was all right. He didn't speak much. Made notes all the time about calls and the people around them. Never once had he said anything to her or the others but when asked, he was polite with his answers. Someone told her that he was coming from an abusive place and was truly afraid that someone was coming for him.

Rogen had heard it was his mom but didn't know if she believed that or not. He didn't strike her as a momma's boy, and figured maybe that was the point. He wasn't, and she wanted him to be. When the kid on the phone started getting louder again, she had contact with the officer first on the scene.

"He said that her body was in the basement, and he put her there when she started to smell the place up. It could be just as we were told, but one of the other dispatchers said that the house didn't have a female in it." Roger told her that he didn't think a woman was living there either, as there were no flowers in the front yard, and the trash can was filthy. "I'm not even going to ask you why you'd assume a woman would be planting flowers and cleaning trash cans."

"My mom. She keeps hers clean by rinsing it out after pick-up day. It's dead summer, and those suckers get really nasty. As for the flowers, every other house on the street has them planted. This house looks like it's not had any kind of touch to it in months to years." She didn't care for Roger's take on what was going on but she let him speak. For all she knew, there wasn't anyone planting his flowers. But it made her nervous for the police to be going into the house.

The police, as it turned out, were a bit more cautious than she could have hoped for. After going into the house from the front and back, they were greeted with gunfire that blasted into her headset like she was right there with them. It wasn't until the smoke, whatever that meant to them, was cleared before they were able to answer her questions about how they had faired.

"We'll need the wagon." She dispatched the coroner to the scene and then asked about the kid. "He's not a kid, Rog. I'd say from looking at him, he's between twenty-five and thirty years old. You were right in that this was something eerie going on. He was set up with enough shit to take out the city block. Also, he had a list of things that he was going to fulfill. After killing as many cops as he could, he was going to head to the grocery store on Eleventh to kill kids. You did right in warning us, honey."

Their town was small, so hearing someone call her by her nickname wasn't unusual. But it was frightening to know this person was out to kill a lot of people. Everyone knew everyone's business here. Even if you didn't have any business for them to get into, they weren't above making shit up about you. That was why she'd been so surprised that a man like Scott had moved here and set himself up in a boarding house. Like this was the spot where he was going to be living out the rest of his life.

"Are you all right?" She asked Scott what he meant when they both went on break at the same time. "That call? Did it rattle you? I think that it would have me. And I've not been doing this as long as you have."

"It did, thanks for asking. I think that since we rarely get any calls that involve the police, mostly it's missing cats or something, this one got on my last nerve. In a way that had me second-guessing myself." Nodding, he sat down beside her in the small cafeteria and smiled. "You're new around here."

"I am. I've lived here for about a month now. And this is my first job that I'm enjoying. I thought that I liked the job I had before coming here, but this is my own, and I love it." She didn't understand that but didn't comment. "You're not at all like anyone else that lives around here. You seem, I don't know, more resigned to the fact that you live here. Is it that bad?"

"No, not really. I used to live in a bigger city but I kept losing myself there and decided to come home for a change. My sister and her husband live not far from this building, and I can hang out with them when I'm off." They spoke about the town and the residents that were there. "I was thinking earlier about how I've not heard a great deal about you. You must be keeping to yourself pretty well."

He stood up and sat down when Roger came into the room with them. He'd come by to check on her like she was some sort of delicate rose or something, and it seemed to spook Scott a bit. After telling them what had gone down at the house, Mr. Sharp being killed, and the elderly man that had lived there was dead as well. He didn't know for sure, Roger told her but he thought that the elderly man was gone long before tonight and that the suspect had taken advantage of the situation.

After he left, Rogen looked at Scott. "You're on the run, aren't you? Or you're some kind of weirdo that I need to avoid. Listen up, buddy, I don't take kindly to a stranger marking me as some kind of trip that they want to play with." He laughed.

Rogen didn't know why but she thought that it had surprised the man as much as it had her. He also looked rusty at having a sense of humor. Leaning back in her chair, she asked him point blank what he was doing there.

"I want to tell you. However, I'd hate for that to make it so that you don't want to see me or talk to me again. I like you." She snorted, and he laughed again. "I've run away from home and my mother to start my life over here. I was helped by some really nice people to not only leave my mother behind but to also go someplace where no one cares where I'm from or what I do so long as it doesn't bother them. I think I got that by coming here."

"You're serious." He nodded and told her how he'd been given money for a ticket and decided that he didn't want to go far. Not because he wanted to return home but so that his mother would think that he had, and staying close seemed a better idea. She stared at him for a full two minutes. "Why? I mean, why did these nice people help you? Not that it's really any of my business, but I was just wondering."

"I ask myself that very question everyday since. It's not like I was nice to them. I was a pest, as a matter of fact. And was set to marry a woman I didn't love or wanted in my life simply because my mother told me to do it. She thought that she'd be a good person to have around since she was a doctor and had strong arms. I kid you not. I thought it was as good a reason to marry as any, I suppose, and became a pain in the ass to this other woman and her soon-to-be husband. For all I know, they're probably married by now." When she asked him where he was from, she immediately told him that she didn't want to know. "Thank you for that. I would tell you if you asked but I'm a little shy around all that many people knowing where I'm from. I'm…well, I'm terrified that my mother will find me and drag me back to her level. I'm enjoying being my own boss—that was another thing that I did all wrong. I was a terrible employer to those that answered to me. Now I can see that I wasn't even as nice as I thought I might well have been. I was just a pain in the ass all the way around."

"Do you feel like you've changed all that much?" He nodded telling her that he was living in the boarding home that Ms. Archer owned and he was enjoying all the other people that came and went. "Ms. Archer was my teacher in grade school. Even back then, I thought her odd and old."

She talked to him during their lunch hour. Also, when they got back to their stations between calls. Scott Landry, she remembered his name now, was a nice person. While she didn't know him before coming here, she would bet too that he had to work extra hard on breaking some of the habits that he used to have. Like him calling his mom his momma was a biggy to him. A habit that he was trying hard to break.

After work, they walked to her sister's house. She wasn't staying there but would watch their kids for an hour or so nightly. It helped Lily get dinner on the table and Mark when he got home to unwind without the kids wanting him to play with them when he only just walked in the door.

She didn't do it every night, she loved her nieces and nephew but they were even a bit much for her at times. Not wanting to think about their nights when she didn't come over, Rogen was glad to be able to help them out. Besides, she got herself a good home-cooked meal out of it.

Lily invited them to stay for dinner which was fine by her. They just accepted Scott like he'd been around forever, and it felt like it. By the time she was ready to get herself home, not far from her sister's home, she thought that the two of them were friends. Not good ones, but friends all the same. It made her feel good when he told her that he trusted her with the information as to where he'd come from. It really wasn't far, only about fifty miles from where they were right now.

Scott didn't pressure her into anything on their way back to her house. He did take her hand into his when there were people coming toward them. She liked that. While she had no intentions of falling in love with the man, she found herself looking forward to tomorrow so that they could get to know one another more. Rogen didn't know if that was nutty or not and figured she'd not look too deeply into things right now.

~*~

There was a great deal of speculation going around as to where Scott had gone. She supposed that she could have looked for him but didn't want to mess with him anymore. Shipley decided that he might well have been a different person than he ended up being if not for his mother. Christ, she was a nightmare.

Alma was now in jail. She was going to be there until her court hearing was taken care of next week. Having little to no money kept her in jail without anyone paying her bond, and Shipley thought that it was funny that she actually was still going on about how she was going to be her daughter-in-law soon, and the least that she could do was to bail her out. Not only had she told her no, but she told her hell no she wasn't going to do that. Then there were the things that she was spreading around about them kidnapping her son and forcing him into hard labor. Like they had a camp someplace that had him in chains and balls working on the railroad line or something. Idiot.

Today was her first full day without having a job to go to. Even when she was on her little vacation to help out her sister, she knew on some level that she was going to have to go to work eventually. But this, staying home because she could, was boring as fuck.

She needed something to do. Not a job that she was going to go to daily but something that made it so that she had something to look forward to a couple of days a week. It wasn't as if she needed the money; Dusty had put her name on all the accounts that he had and she was a very wealthy woman. It was heady to know that she could spend as much as she wanted and not worry about it. She didn't, of course. That would be just stupid. She was picking up her phone when it rang, and she wasn't surprised to see that it was Dusty. He started the conversation out by telling her how much he loved her.

"That's the perfect way to start out a conversation. What's up?" He told her that he was going to go to the school after he got his work finished up and would like for her to meet him there. "What's going on?"

"They're needing their field redone. While I will say that it's in need of a good workover, I'm not sure as a family that we should be responsible for the entire thing. I'd like for you to have some input on it." She told him what she thought. "That's brilliant. If they don't raise enough with us matching it, we'll just not have to worry about it. Thanks. I knew that you were a good idea person."

"Matching them dollar for dollar is how the schools where we went were able to raise enough money for the football field when I was going to college. Not only did they exceed in the amount, there was enough money to have the bleachers redone as well. Also, they dedicated the field to all the fallen soldiers that had lost their lives during wartime." He told her again that she was brilliant. "Not so much. Just know that if you pay for whatever they want, they'll be hounding you to death for everything. This way, if they don't raise enough to make it work, then it's all on them."

"How about you meet me in town for lunch? I have one more meeting today with the board of directors at the hospital. Also, the police. They want to make sure that Scott hasn't been killed or something equally nefarious. I told them what happened, but they want it on record. I'm not so sure about that part. It might come back to bite me in the ass. Or worse yet, his mother to get wind of what happened. I honestly don't have any idea where he went, and that's all I'm going to say to them." She told him that she'd love to meet him for lunch and that she was leaving the house now to pick up the things that they'd ordered. "Oh, I forgot about that. The post office has several boxes there that they'd rather we pick up. Bring my truck."

After getting off the phone with him, she decided that it was as good a time as ever to go and see Alma. She'd been calling there nonstop for the past several days, and she wanted her to stop. It had been a month since she was ordered by the courts to stay away from her. Shipley didn't understand why calling all the time wasn't included in that. As soon as she was in the station house, she knew that something had happened.

"What is it?" She was ushered into an office and then asked to have a seat. "I don't want to sit down. I want information. Either give it to me, or I'll find it. Either way, I'm going to have the information."

"She's gone. I mean, she's dead. She died." She rolled her eyes at the officer and asked him what had happened. "I don't know, honestly. I mean, she might well have died in her sleep. But it's…she's going to the medical examiner's office now. I mean, they have to pick her up. Not pick her up like physically but—" She slapped him. Hard too.

"Now. Take a breath and tell me. I got that she's dead and that the medical examiner is coming to get her. When did you find her?" He told her right after breakfast. "I take it that she didn't eat then."

"No. That's what alerted us. She didn't bitch about her meal." He looked at her hard. "You hit me."

"Yes, and I'll do it again if you fucking don't get to the story. So she didn't bitch about her meal, and you decided to check on her. What did you find?" He nodded as if he was understanding that she was going to hit him again if he didn't answer her questions. "Donald. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I've never seen a dead person before." She told him that they don't tend to hurt the living. "You think not? I have a feeling that she's going to be haunting these cells for a good long time. All she did was complain about everything that we did for her."

"Focus." He nodded again. "Let me give you a word or two of advice. Don't talk to families that have lost a loved one. You really suck at it. So she's dead, and you don't know much more than that."

"She left a note. I think that has me freaked out, too. Like she knew that she was going to—please don't hit me again. I'm better now. But she left a note about her son." He looked at her hard. "You didn't kill him off, did you? I mean, I'd not blame you for all the crap that he pulled on you, but you didn't, did you?"

"No. I sent him on a trip away from his mother so he could get his life together." He nodded and told her that was what Dusty had said. "Then why are you asking me about him? Christ, it's a wonder that anyone around here uses you guys. You all must have a common brain cell that you share. What else happened that has you so freaked the fuck out? Is it the note? Who did she write it to?"

"You. She…want to read it? I did. I didn't think that you were the one she was talking about until I told my boss what had happened. He said that you were supposed to marry her son or some bullshit like that." She said she was never going to marry him. "No, I know that, too. You married Dusty. Congratulations on that, by the way."

"Thank you. Can I have the letter?" He said that it was in evidence and that the police, other than him, were holding onto it for now. "Then tell me what it said so that I can deny whatever she had to say about me."

"Just what I said. That you were an ungrateful person for not bailing her out with you being her future daughter-in-law and all. I don't know that she ever really believed that part. I don't think that she had a very high opinion of either you or Scott. Is he still alive?" She told him again that he was, but she didn't know where he was. "You said that. I'm just testing you now. I'm not as nervous anymore. But I'm betting that you've not seen a dead person either, have you?"

"I have. Probably more than you and every member of this force will see in their lifetimes. Now, who is the M.E.?" He had to explain what the medical examiner was. "What do you mean you don't have one. You just told me that someone was coming to pick her up."

Donald started nodding but told her that the office was picking her up. But they didn't have one here that they could use. They had to wait for someone from another county could get around to doing the…he called it work up on her. The man wasn't going to last that long if he kept talking like he was. Donald might have been better suited to a job in a grocery store. Then she mentally told herself that he'd not be good at that. Too much blood and dead things around.

"You can do it." She asked him what he was talking about. "The work on her. I don't remember what—autopsy. You can do that, can't you? I mean, I could ask the hospital if it's all right with them, but you could do it, right?"

"I can't do it, not if she is blaming me for her death." He said that he'd never thought of that. "I could assist if you can find a doctor willing to do it. But as far as me being alone with the body, that's not going to work for a great many people."

"I'm going to call the hospital now. That's where they usually take the bodies. Let me see what I can find out." She sat down in the chair and waited for the man to return. She was going to suggest to whoever was in charge that Donald be given a desk job. The man didn't know what he was doing and it was going to cost the station a lot of grief if someone didn't sue them first. While she waited, she called Dusty.

After telling him what she'd been told, as well as her opinion of Donald, he said that he was sorry. Telling her to call Locke. He might know someone in that field who could assist in the autopsy. If not, then she'd have to wait on the results.

"I don't know what she might have died from, but I'm betting it was her heart. She had to be at least a hundred or so pounds overweight. I remember Scott telling me that the doctor was forever putting her on a diet, but she didn't follow it. But I won't know until someone confirms it." He asked her if she'd done that sort of work before. "Yes. There were so many men and women who would die, and someone had to take charge of the outgoing work. There would have been bodies lining the walls if we didn't have people there to do the work."

"I can imagine." He asked her to hold on. That his brother was there. He didn't say which brother, but she would bet that any and all of them would help out if they were asked. "All right. Locke is making a phone call. He told me that he'd get back to you in a few minutes. In the meantime, I'm going to be finishing up here with the campaign that I'm working on to raise the funds for the school. Thanks for that."

When the phone beside her rang, she didn't answer it. It wasn't her phone, and it could have been someone having an emergency. It was about two minutes after the phone stopped ringing that Donald returned to tell her that the call was for her. She picked it up on the first ring.

"Sergeant Shipley." The person on the other end of the call laughed. "If you called me for a chuckle, then you're going to be sadly disappointed. I'm busy here."

"It's David Hathaway." It took her a few seconds to know who that was. "Locke called me and asked me if I could make it so that you're the county medical examiner. I whole heartly agree with him on you being the best man for the job. I'm sending through—"

"Hold on there, Buster. I didn't say I wanted the job. And in the event no one told you, Alma blamed me for her death." He said that he trusted her to be fair. "Well, I don't know that I want the job."

"Did you know that that county alone is backed up in examines by forty percent? The work they need done needs to be done by someone who can be trusted. And since I trust you more than most doctors I know, I'm going to make sure that the county knows to piss you off is to piss me off. Do this for them, and I'll owe you a big favor. I don't say that to many people, so you know." She told him that she just got out of working for him. "Yes, you did. And I'm glad to have done it. But you might want to remember that you're a small county, and there are fewer than ten unexplained deaths a year there. Not a lot to keep you out of your new home if you were to take the job."

"I don't want…don't I have to be voted in or something? I mean, that's the way it works around here, doesn't it?" he laughed and asked her if she was looking for someone to vote her in or was she discrediting his being able to tell her she had the job. "Both, I guess. I'll do it, but I'm sure that people are going to bitch."

"Doubtful. With you doing the work, that means that people will have their death certificates to be able to open accounts that might otherwise be closed to them. I'm thinking that, too. If you never say anything to anyone, no one will ever know." She told him she liked that idea. "I do as well. So can I count on you to work for me again?"

"No. But I'll work for the county, and that's all I'm going to say about it." She made her way to the hospital and asked where she was to be stationed. The board was there, too, welcoming her to the job and telling her what an asset she was going to be. She'd see, she thought to herself, if she was going to be an asset or not.