Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.

Editor’s Note: Before anyone gets nervous, this has nothing to do with anyone stealing Christmas.  This is about a less-known December Holiday.  Okay, to be honest, I had never heard of it.

We had been called to the Stegall farm near where the flood had wiped out the Dalton Farm on the southeast side of the big city of Tracy.

Stella Stegall, an eighteen-year-old graduate of Diet Smith High School had been struck on the head by a blunt object.  Not as much a crushing blow as it was the right force in just the right spot.  She was left behind by her parents to load llamas into a trailer and drive them to Olmsted Park in the city center where elementary students were waiting to feed and pet the llamas on National Llama Day, educating all of us that there really was such a holiday.

We had at least three people at the scene other than the deceased.  There was Polly Pulice’s father, Paul Pulice.  He walked the neighborhood every morning before work and had been seen talking to Stella.  There was Al Packer who had organized the Llama Day festivities.  And there was person or persons unknown who stole the truck loaded with llamas.  Al Packer seemed to be the least likely suspect, but Paul Pulice had lied to us during the initial interview.

But we know that the most likely suspect was the wearer of some athletic shoes with some identifying wear marks on the soles.  Casts at the scene and at the location where the llamas were released near the Stout County line match.  But so far, the truck and its driver are still at large with no idea who the driver is.

Paul Pulice sat in the interrogation room while we watched him from the observation room.  We were coaching Polly on how she could approach certain subjects.  Polly said she wanted to start with misdirection.  Her father was condemning her for the calendar shoot, which might have been sexy, but not distasteful.  He thought his daughter was sleeping around, which she was not, and having sex with the photographer for the calendar photo shoot.  And her father thought she was lying about being in the mayor’s wedding party.  If she could get him condemning her for all that and then have people call on the phone…  At that moment, Jemima walked in.

Jemima said, “Oops!  Maybe I should wait outside, Dad.”  Nice, Jemima had not married Easter yet and she was calling me ‘Dad’.

Polly said, “No, you are fine until I need you in the interrogation room.  Do you want to help?”

Jemima said, “Sure!  Am I getting in on the action while Sophie is on the sidelines?!”

Polly shook her head, “No, just be truthful and play along.”  Jemima agreed.  And Polly saw what Jemima had in her folder and asked for her to bring that in too, at the appropriate time.

This will be in dialogue form.  She spent about fifteen seconds sorting the papers on the desk and finding a pen and paper to take notes.

Polly: For the record, this is an interview connected with the official homicide investigation of Stella Stegall.  This interview is being recorded.  This is Polly Pulice, police officer, conducting the interview.  Please state your full name, sir, for the record.
Paul: Polly, this is absurd!  Cut the crap!  I am your father!  You should be taking classes to do some legitimate trade.  Your grades were good enough, but no, you wanted to come here instead of going to college.  Let’s both leave here.  You know and I know this is a farce.
Polly: Sir, this interview cannot start until you state your full name.  We can get to your hang-ups about calendar photos later, but this is a murder investigation.  State your full name.
Paul: So, that’s it.  This is all about the calendar photo, Miss June.  You were traipsing around the park outside the entrance to City Hall, half naked.  Giving everyone a free look at you.  They probably saw the full view when you were changing clothes.  And I am positive you were having sex with the cameraman.  There is no way you could have that kind of look on your face without doing, you know, something adulterous.
[The door burst open, and Jemima came in.] Jemima: Polly, you asked for the untouched photos.  I have a set of four.  Here is the photo of you in the studio.  Here is the photo of the background outside City Hall.  Here is where I photoshopped you into the scene.  And the last one is a copy of what is in the calendar with the blemishes airbrushed out, and for you, not many.  You are truly gorgeous, girlfriend!  You were so professional, but November?  She was so much trouble!
Polly: The EMT woman from the central fire hall?  I thought she was nice.
Jemima (laughing): She is, but she insisted on being the sexiest shot and things started falling out and falling off.  One wardrobe malfunction after another.  I nearly had to airbrush her uniform onto her body, what little of it she wore. I volunteered my time as long as I had all the original photos to prove to my professor how I got the final shots for the calendar.  The charity is too important to make a money grab.  Thank you so much.  You were professional.  You wore that undersized uniform shirt so that enough showed, but not too much to make it risqué.  Are you going to be there tonight?
Polly: Of course, I would not miss it!  All the ladies in the wedding party except Cassandra, right?
Jemima: You got it.  Cassandra and Boaz have a big, and very public, soiree to attend.  Our little thing is going to be loads of fun.  And what I said about you not being risqué?  Tonight, it is very risqué, just us girls.
Polly: Oh, I forgot.  This is being recorded.  Jemima, state your name and why you are here.
Jemima: Jemima Lucado.  Meteorology Major and Photography Major.  Volunteer photographer for the calendar for Victims and Affected Families of Crimes of Violence.  But if you don’t solve this homicide fast.  I will be Jemima Yeggs, at the same time Cassandra becomes the mayor’s wife.  Is that good enough for your record?  I’ve got to go show my soon-to-be father-in-law some videos I took at the wedding shower.  I need his approval and a few others before I give them to our television channel.
[With that, Jemima left.  Since I was tied up on the other side of the mirror, watching the videos would take a while, but Jemima handed me a flash drive and left.]
Paul: Nice try.  You get the photographer to go along with you on this wedding party farce.  And I have never heard of that charity.  It’s a scam, Polly, and you have been played.
Polly: Dad, when there is a crime against persons, someone might be killed, but there are loved ones left behind.  Someone might have their things stolen and those things cannot be recovered.  Just the stress from the trauma is bad enough to need therapy that might not be covered by their insurance.  And what of the family of the criminal?  If you do not help the criminal’s children, you are driving them toward a life of crime in that vacuum of a parent being in prison.  We fix an immediate need, but then we show that we care.  Every first responder donates their money and their time.  We want to show the community that we care about them, not just about investigating the crime.
[The phone in the interrogation room rang]
Gisele: Polly, Mayor Boaz Yeggs, on line 1.  It’s set-up, just hit the speaker button.
Polly: Hello, Mr. mayor?
Boaz: Polly, you are part of the wedding party.  Call me Boaz, unless there is a crowd.  I was calling to see if you and your handsome boyfriend, Randy, could help Guy Weiss and Minnie Others with their dance moves.  You would think that her being a P.E. teacher, she would have the moves down.  The guys are going to visit Father Jerome at the monastery while you ladies have your party.  Then, they will come by the Crystal Mountain to work on the reception dinner dance, okay?
Polly: Anything for you, Mr. May…, ummm, Boaz.
Boaz: Thanks, you have been a big help to me.
Paul: Okay, that was the mayor’s voice.  The rest of those clowns could be actors.  And what’s this about a television channel?
Polly: It is called The Storm Chasing Channel.  For the most part, they are selling reality television segments to News and Weather feeds around the world, but they act as a local weather source for small markets.  A recorded voice giving the weather now and the forecast for the next few days.  Our local television channels have not picked up much other than Jemima’s time-lapsed photography work.  Now, you know I am not lying, that I was not traipsing around town half naked, and I was not having sex with the cameraman.  State your name before I lose my temper and just have you sent to the holding cell until you are ready to cooperate.
Paul: Paul Sandecker Pulice
Polly:  Sandecker?
Paul: Cut the crap, Polly.  You know my mother’s maiden name was Sandecker.
Polly: And now the record knows.  Do you know why you have been brought in?
Paul: It has to do with the death of a nice girl, Stella Stegall, but I have no other information.  I answered all the detective’s questions yesterday.  Who was it?  Poached something?  And that Lieutenant.
Polly:  That is Poached Yeggs and the Lieutenant who runs homicide, Deviled Yeggs.  Jemima is marrying Deviled’s eldest son, Easter, in a very short while.  But why you have been brought back is that your statement is inconsistent with information that we have gathered during the past 24 hours.  You said that you rarely came by, but you enjoyed talking with Stella.  You said she knew everything there was to know about llamas, and it was nice seeing a teenager that has a great work ethic and is eager to learn.  What we have learned is that you at least visit her three times every week, and you have been caught by nosy neighbors giving her a more-than-a friendly embrace.  So, this person, Paul Pulice, who wants me to come to church and light candles for the fictitious sexual activity that I have, how many candles and how many Hail Marys does it take to pay for you having sex with an underaged girl, and you a married man?  Hmmm?!
[I have to interject that this was not how we discussed it, and my heart skipped a few beats before Paul Pulice quit stammering.]
Paul: I did nothing of the kind.  I was just interested in her work she did with llamas.
Polly: Dad, I called Mom.  She says that three mornings each week for over six months you have added thirty minutes to your walking.  The medical examiner’s report is here.  We have evidence of male and female excretions.  All we need is a DNA sample from you to prove it was someone else.  Will you willingly give a sample?
Paul: Absolutely not.  You are railroading me because you left the Catholic church, and you refuse to come back.  You will go to hell for what you are doing, young lady.  As your father, I love you and want you to come back home.  Now, unlock these cuffs so I can get out of here!
Polly: So, you refuse to the DNA test?  That is quite damning, Dad.  I have a feeling that Lt. Yeggs could have the warrant by now.  Mom has already given us all your athletic shoes.  She gave those up freely.  I casually asked her about your sex life, and she said that she had no sexual drive anymore, some kind of illness about two years ago.  You took it hard at first, but you accepted the fact that your relationship had changed.  You moped until about six months ago when you started taking thirty minutes extra in your walks.  She thought you might be seeing someone else because your time in the confessional was longer too.  You know, the church lets you talk directly to Jesus now.
Paul:  I’m old school, and if I were having something on the side, your mother gave me her okay.  She said that the store was closed and if I got any, I would have to find someone else.  That sure sounds like her giving me permission!
Polly: That was her telling you that you made a vow to her and if you found something else, you broke that vow, regardless of my mother’s medical conditions.  Now, after you had sex with her yesterday morning, obvious since you won’t allow us to take a sample of your DNA, why did you kill her?
Paul: I did not kill Stella.  I loved her.  As we were getting our clothes back on yesterday morning, I think I saw Tommy Taylor in the shadows.  I’m not sure.
Polly: So, you admit to having sex with Stella yesterday.
Paul: Yes, yes, yes!  But not six months.  At first I just wanted to know about llamas.  Then we saw two llamas trying to make a baby, and Stella started talking about having graduated high school and she had not done that yet.  I kissed her and said that there was still time.  That broke the ice.  Our conversations got more explicit and instead of just a kiss, there was some petting.  We have only been having sex for the past two months, but she has been careful.  But when I left, she was starting to load the llamas into the trailer.  She was very much alive.

On our end of the mirror, I was giving orders to Poached and Georges, who was still hanging around.  Organized Crime gave him the rest of the week to help us.  We had a name for the young teenager, Tommy Taylor.  His parents had said nothing.  They may suspect him.

I then ran into the interrogation room and gave Polly my best bear hug.  She started crying as soon as her father admitted he was having an affair with Stella.

While Polly continued to cry, I said, “Polly, you did a good job.  You got through the lies and the smoke screens.  You are going to be a good detective someday.  Hang in there.  It is going to be a long ride, but you are one of the best I have seen coming up.”

Polly shook her head.  At least it felt that way as I held her.  “You don’t understand.  While I was challenging him, poking his hot buttons, I wanted him to take the DNA test because he knew he had never been intimate with her.  He’s my Dad, Lieutenant.  He taught me right from wrong.  How could this happen?  It seems my whole world is swirling in the toilet and is about to vanish beneath me.  You just don’t understand.”

I whispered, “I do understand, but your Dad didn’t rob a bank to save your mother’s bakery and within a couple of months, your Dad was in prison and your mother went to work at the bakery that she used to own, working for a wage that could not support the three of us.  In a sick kind of way, your Dad may not have done anything illegal.  She was over sixteen and legally able to give consent.”

It took Polly a long time to slow down the sobs.  She finally gathered herself and said, “With Randy’s massages and your bear hugs, I could live like this forever.”

I laughed, “Polly, I’m taken.  You are going to have to get Randy to give you the bear hugs.  Each time I hug someone, Glyce finds out.  I preemptively give her a hug report as soon as I get home.  No hesitation or she’ll think something is wrong.”

We got a warrant for the Taylor residence, and Poached and Georges went back to their home, across the field from the barn where Stella died.  If the parents were watching at that moment, they may have seen the murder, but if their son did the crime, they had a reason to not say anything.

Poached and Georges got a lot of dance moves from the Taylors.  They had not seen Tommy since the morning of the murder when he left to help Stella load the llamas.  They said that he liked helping her, and Mrs. Taylor slipped by saying he was infatuated with Stella, but she was about two and a half years older.  No way they could be a romantic couple.  But if Tommy had not been seen in over 24 hours, he only had a few dollars in his pocket.  He knew how to drive a truck, but he had no license.  He couldn’t be that far away.  They came back with the latest school photos of Tommy.

We sent that photo specifically to a small town in Colorado.  The truck had been found, out of gas, on the edge of town.  The sheriff had picked up on the BOLO and called it in for us, soon after Poached and Georges had left to interview the Taylors.  Within a few hours, the Colorado sheriff called back and said they found Tommy huddled under a bridge with some homeless people.

When we got him back in Tracy, we confirmed his shoes matched.  The fight was out of him.  He confessed to getting to the barn a little early.  Stella had promised him that on his sixteenth birthday, she was going to have sex with him.  If she did so before then, it would be statutory rape in the state.  Tommy had thought she would wait too, but then she was on a tarp covering the hay having sex with Mr. Pulice from down the road.  When Mr. Pulice left, Tommy confronted her and she laughed at him, saying he was a pathetic little kid.  No way would she wait for him for them both to be virgins together.  She said Tommy should be thankful because she then knew what she was doing when she would give him the agreed payment for him helping her with the llamas.  Tommy had a prybar that they needed sometimes when the back gate of the trailer did not want to lock shut.  As they argued, he said that he wanted a good look at her naked body now.  They wrestled and she fought him off.  He didn’t mean to hit her.  He didn’t have a conscious thought that the pry bar was in his hand.  There was a thud to the back of her head, and then she wasn’t breathing.  Tommy got in the truck and drove to the county line.  He realized the trailer was slowing him down, so he drove into this field that had a gate, but no livestock.  He let the llamas go, unhitched the trailer, and then he kept going west.  He used his last few dollars for more gas and a candy bar.  He really had no idea what he was doing.  He just knew he had to run away.

He would not be tried as an adult.  They would seal the record, but the jury could possibly consider it accidental.  We had a case, but no one really wanted to send it to trial.  As for Mr. Pulice, Polly wanted something done, but it was consensual for all we knew, and Mrs. Pulice wanted her husband back home.  If her mother changed her mind, Polly had room in her apartment.  She would take her mother in, but she never wanted to see her father again.  He was the major bread winner.  Mrs. Pulice was disgusted by what happened, but she forgave him and took him back.

And for the llamas, there was no National Llama Day petting zoo, but they planned one in January to make up for it.  The Stegalls did not want anything to do with the llamas.  Those were strictly Stella’s thing.  They bought the farm with the barn and pasture to someday develop the land into more houses for Stella and her family and to sell off as they did further development.  But now that T.R.U.S.T. was giving a good price and they did not have to do the neighborhood development work, they were leaning toward selling out.  They could not look at the barn without thinking of Stella.  The llamas were already on the Dalton pasture, so the Daltons bought them.  Now, the county line neighbors who were prepared to tend the Dalton’s cattle, once they bought a few, were having to learn how to deal with llamas.

But then Polly softened.  She invited her parents to church.  They got to meet Randy, and my family, and the Wednesdays, and Scrambled and his extended family.  Paul Pulice said that he only came because he thought he’d never see his daughter otherwise.  If for only one reason, he needed to apologize.  He had not killed Stella, but his actions had led to her death.  He had confessed that to his priest and while the priest was talking, he walked out of the church.  It simply did not make sense anymore.  Maybe Polly was right.  Maybe he needed a relationship with God.  He needed to discover the real thing.

Credits

Here is a video that contains part of the la-llamas sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Al Packer – or Alpaca.  The alpaca is similar to a llama, and they can be crossbred, but it is not the same species.  Alpacas were bred for their wool fiber, rather than being a beast of burden.

I grew up in an area with a lot of farms owned and run by various Stegall families.

Olmsted Park – Central Park in New York City was designed by landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted.  He preached the need for city people to have parks with trees and ponds and such.  He tried to keep his name from being attached to the parks, like Central Park in Manhattan, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and Cadwalader Park in Trenton, New Jersey, but in a small park outside the growing town of Augusta, GA, the city named the lake that is the central part of this little park, Lake Olmsted.  I should know, I was a member of the Lakemont Presbyterian Church, just up the hill from the lake.  And if you want to know where the water comes from that feeds Lake Olmsted, well, you may have never heard of it, but there is a creek that runs through “amen corner” at the Augusta National Golf Course.  It is called Rae’s Creek.  The golf course is upstream of Lake Olmsted.

The Angel Tree Project is designed to bring presents and cheer to children of those in prison.  They probably support that project in Tracy, but this local charity goes beyond that point for the local victims and others associated with the crime.

Sandecker – Dirk Pitt’s boss, an admiral, in the Dirk Pitt series of adventure novels by Clive Cussler.