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.

I had a small intimate group that morning.  Jim and Poached were in my office, and as usual, Gisele was listening in since she was the only one with a “mute” button, and she liked our little group the best.  But I think she says that to all the teams.

Jim started us off, “I have something to get off my chest.”

Poached asked, “The pancake syrup from your pancakes this morning?”

Jim snarled, “Hey, kid!  I was putting away bad guys when you were in diapers.”

I added, “That’s not saying anything.  Callie told me the other day that Poached has only been out of diapers a couple of months.”

Poached yelled, “Hey!  She said Ibie is out of diapers!”

Jim shrugged, “Well, Poached, if Ibie is out of diapers, you should go by the wholesale warehouse store and stock up!”

Poached groaned, “No, Jim, Ibie is wearing the pull up kind of diapers now and she is getting good at going to the bathroom on her own.  She is getting to the point when she won’t have to wear diapers.”

Gisele buzzed in, “And now you know why I like listening in on your meetings.  You three sure talk a lot, but I am amazed that you rarely communicate.  But Poached, how many months has it been since you last wore diapers?”

I laughed, but Poached got up and patted the intercom really hard.  I guess he was trying to make the speaker pop on Gisele’s end.  He was being brave today.

I asked, “Jim, other than pancake syrup, what do you wish to get off your chest?”

Jim puffed out his chest, “My request is that the next dead body we investigate should have their clothes on.  The last one that I had was stark naked, head bashed in by a frying pan, wife standing there holding the frying pan, saying, ‘He pushed me too far this time.’  I told her she got things backwards, but she’d have to put the frying pan down.  Then I could charge her with something.  Then I could Mirandize her.  And then she could confess.  She kind of got it backwards, but we straightened it out.  But my point is that the guy didn’t have a stitch of clothes on.  If the next guy is naked, I am taking a vacation day.”

The phone rang.  It was Gisele.  “Jim can ask officer Ruthie Toody.  Patching you in now”

Over the phone, “Oo!  Oo! Ask me what?”

I said, “Does the corpse have clothing on?”

Ruthie said, “I haven’t seen the body.  Polly just wanted me to give you the address.  Oo!  Oo! Polly!  Is the corpse dressed?”

Polly, from a distance away, “Of course!  What kind of a question is that?  Oh, I know!  Jim Wednesday is going down another rabbit hole.  Ruthie, just tell the lieutenant where we are.”

Ruthie said, “Lieutenant, Sir, Detective Yeggs, Sir, the body has clothes on.  Do you want us to take off his clothes?”

I said firmly, “Ruthie, you know procedure.  Do not disturb the crime scene.  Now where is this crime scene?  You and Polly have both said that was important.”

Ruthie said, “Oo!  Oo!  You’re right!  We are at 11 Lizz Grove.”

I groaned, “And where might that be, Ruthie?”

Ruthie sighed, “That’s what I have been trying to say.  The mailbox is on the side street, mostly an alley.  The front of the house is on Pat Patton Boulevard.”

I absent-mindedly hung up on Ruthie.  I later heard that she yelled at Polly saying that I hung up before she could say who lived next door.

But on my end, I shouted, “Jim, Poached, all hands-on deck.  This can become political really fast.”

Jim said, “I remember when Lizz Grove was Police Chief, but I can’t put a street with her name in my brain’s map.”

While getting badge, weapon, and vest, I instructed the others to do the same.  “Consider this an inspection, but don’t worry about shining your shoes.  We have to roll.”

Gisele asked over the intercom, “But where are you going?  I cannot remember a Lizz Grove Street or Lane either.”

I asked, “Who lives in a huge house on Pat Patton Boulevard, with just one house between him and an alley that leads to a nature preservation, a grove of trees if you will?”

Gisele squeaked, “The Police Commissioner?  Dev, should Captain Hart come along?”

I replied as we were heading for the door.  “I will call him in if the media shows up or the evidence points in the wrong direction.  Not as a suspect, but an assailant going to the wrong house.  This could be a simple case, but it could turn into a media circus.”

Gisele said, “I’ll make sure he can still fit in his vest.  He likes my food too much.”

With that we were gone.

Jim asked as we were speeding toward the rich part of town, almost headed past Lily the Pink, “So, what is it?  Lizz Grove Street or Lane or Alley?”

I replied, “I remember the argument.  The developer wanted to keep the area that would have been a cul de sac as a nature preserve.  They named the street after Lizz Grove and since it led to a grove of trees, they left the street name ‘Lizz Grove’.  There are only four houses, if you count the two on Pat Patton, and then a wilderness.  The rich folk like their trees, and the peace and quiet of fewer neighbors.  Since Lizz had about the shortest tenure as Police Chief, they gave her name to the shortest street in the big city of Tracy.”

Poached, who was driving, asked Jim, who was in the back seat, “I don’t know why you are complaining about a naked corpse.  Didn’t you say the woman made a pass at you?”

Jim groaned, “Poached, that was the problem.  I kept seeing this naked body and you are not supposed to disturb the crime scene.  She kept looking at his naked body.  She kept saying she was glad he was gone, but his naked body gave her ideas, you know, romantic ideas.  I’m a married man, Poached.  Besides, that woman was crazy as a loon.”

Poached snickered, “Be careful with your expressions, Jim, or we’ll have a crazy animal loving group protesting the misrepresentation of loons.  And for your information, Callie has met a lot of loons.  The Everglades is along their migration route, and she thinks they are crazy, too.”

Once we cleared the downtown congestion, we were on Chief Brandon Pike.  Funny how the rich folk ignore the police and call for pay cuts for the police department, but they name their streets after former police chiefs and such.  I suppose they want the names to scare the criminals away.  It took us no time at all to reach Lizz Grove.  A few blocks short, Poached slowed down and turned off the lights.  People would think he was late for a free donut somewhere.  And no, that kind of thing gets you a severe reprimand, suspension if you do it again.

But thinking of donuts…

Poached and Jim both flipped a coin, and somehow both coins ended on the edge.  That meant I went to the Commissioner’s house to give him an interview.  Next time, I am going to observe their coin flip.  I suspect collusion and conspiracy.  We had called his office, and he was working from home this morning.  Easy for an interview, but him being next door when the event occurred muddied the waters.

I pressed the doorbell, and I thought I heard a familiar tune.  When the Commissioner answered the door, he saw the confused look on my face. 

I asked, “Hill Street Blues?”

The Commissioner laughed, “Yeah, Lieutenant, that was the theme for the television show, Hill Street Blues.  I used to have the theme for NYPD Blue, but it was mostly a drum solo, and no one recognized it.  Wait!  You eat, drink, and sleep the job.  Why watch it on television?”

I smiled, “I used to watch all the police procedurals, but the more that I watched, the more nitpicking I got about what they did wrong.  Now, some of the detective mysteries are better, but even then, lack of evidence, some idea out of left field.  Now that we have a little one, we watch a lot of VeggieTales.”

The Commissioner nodded.  “I got the same way, but I came away from Hill Street Blues with one thing.  ‘Be careful out there.’  Now, to business, tell Polly and Ruthie that I appreciate them turning off the siren and lights when they realize how close they were to my house.  They have been quiet, but then again Lizz Grove is a quiet part of town.  I called in to see why they were here.  It seems Mrs. McDonald went to the front porch to see why her husband was taking too long in getting the newspaper.  She saw him lying there and called 911 without checking to see if he was breathing.  Polly was close by.  I think she may have dropped by Lily the Pink for one reason or another.  If it was for donuts at the bakery, I will forgive her, if she drops one by here.  Make that two.  My wife isn’t feeling well, so I stayed home.  Other than attending meetings at City Hall, I can do the rest from here.  But back to the case, Polly noticed he was dead, probable cause is strangulation.  No pool of blood. Bruise around his neck.  The M.E. should be here soon.  Polly called off the ambulance and called the M.E. instead.”  I was about to ask who the victim was, when he gasped.  “Oh, I forgot, the victim’s name is Roald McDonald.  He had a farm…”

I was taking notes as the Police Commissioner was giving his statement.  I had my recorder on, so I could not deny any slip of the tongue.  I could not afford to not be professional, but temptation was stronger than all of that.  I said, “E, I, E, I, O.”

The Commissioner smiled, “I will give you brownie points for fighting temptation before you said it.  But he is one of many in Stout County to get close to retirement, none of the kids wanted to farm the land, so he subdivided the land and made a fortune.  He had enough to move here and live in luxury.  We were friends.  I invited him here, but other than being chatty with his neighbors and a really nice guy, he and his wife stayed to themselves, rarely getting out of the house, other than their monster garden in the backyard.  The four houses on Lizz Grove and us, we all benefit from the garden in that they produce more than you’d think the garden could produce.  Then again, he was a farmer. E, I, E, I, O.  I thought I would end with that.  Roald enjoyed people singing his name.  He would add the letters at the end.”

I asked the usual questions, and the Commissioner was laughing the entire time, knowing what I would ask next, but he cooperated by letting me go through procedure.  He was tending his wife, checking his e-mail, calling the office.  He never looked outside.  Even his newspaper is delivered to the office.  He and “Old” McDonald were probably the only ones in the neighborhood who read the newspaper in print form.  The “Daily” only came out three days each week these days, Sunday, of course, Tuesday, with the store and fast-food coupons, and Friday with the analysis on the weekend sports being the big section.  They need to change the name of their newspaper, seriously!

Poached started going house to house to see if anyone saw anything.  A couple of people got a vague glimpse of a pickup truck with the grill dented severely parked in the hiker’s parking area to the grove, but there were cars parked there all the time.  They thought nothing of it, and they saw no person in the truck or near it.  I called Captain Hart to come out.  One of the people Poached talked to would call the television stations, or at least one of them.  Most of the people had not even awakened by the time Polly and Ruthie pulled onto Lizz Grove.

Jim checked the area from the front porch to the mailbox.  The newspaper was in the newspaper box, mounted next to the mailbox.  The assailant must have surprised him.  Probably leaning against the wall behind the door.  The shrubbery was not a good hiding place.  The crime scene people arrived, and confirmed Jim’s ideas as much as they could from the almost total lack of evidence.

But then, as the M.E. was working on the body, Dr. Quincy Isles, the M.E., shouted for Jim to bring an evidence bag.  With tweezers, the M.E. produced a green leaf from the victim’s chest, underneath his pajama top.

Jim said, “I’ll have to call Tuesday.  When the Leafy Greens do a hit that they want to send a message with, they place a green leaf on the body.  Someone is either copying them to start a gang war, or we have a rogue member of the Leafy Greens getting outside his territory, or we really have the start of a gang war.”

About that time, I walked up, having finished a pleasant conversation with the Commissioner.  I called Tony Tagliolini.  He would send Georges out to get a good look at the scene and see if there was anything that looked like an Apple or a Leafy Green had been there.  With Poached not producing anyone who saw anything, we did not need the mugshot books.

And now, as if you were not confused enough, I am turning over the reporting to my daughter-in-law, Jemima Yeggs.  It was about the time Tuesday Wednesday, Jim’s wife, showed up with the Stout County organized crime detective that Jemima called.  But she needs to catch you up on the other scene.  Trust me, they are sadly related.  I have redacted her report to mostly cover the facts.

Hi, everyone, Jemima, aka Stinker, here.  Jim Kaiser got a call from the Daltons.  They came out to check on the llamas and the goats, milking the goats that needed milking.  The culvert under county line road had a gate, electrified, that separated the pasture on the Tracy side of the county line from the pasture on the Stout County side of the line.  The gate had been smashed.  It looked like someone in a pickup truck drove into it.

Jim Kaiser called Easy since Easy has a weird schedule this semester.  He drives the Turtle, but if there are no storms to chase that are nearby, he helps Jim Kaiser.  If Jim finds a mechanical problem that might need to be redesigned, the project is approved through the university professors and Easy gets college credits depending on his redesign approval, showing all the necessary calculations and such.  I had no classes today, so I went along in the Lily the Pink king cab pickup.  The welding equipment and all kinds of tools and metal thingies – sorry, I am not an engineer, but the stuff you might make a new gate out of or a patch to get the old gate working.  The Daltons had said to bring a sump pump.  We had no idea why.

When we arrived, the gate was half submerged with water.  It was obviously smashed enough to break the hasp on the lock.  The lower ground was on the Stout County side, so Jim Kaiser set up the sump pump.  Sally Dalton explained how there was a storm drain under the road in the culvert, but it must be clogged.  They had a record rainstorm along the county line this morning but there was no rain just miles away in Tracy.  The water from the road on all four corners of the culvert drained into the culvert so they only needed one underground pipe to divert all the water away from the road and down the slope into what was now the Dalton’s lower pasture where the goats were being kept.  Sally had stayed behind to hitch a ride back with us while Cole Dalton had taken the milk back to Lily the Pink.  He would return later, especially if the truck did not have enough room.

Jim Kaiser said, “Before we can do anything, the water in the culvert must be pumped out.  It would be too dangerous for Easy to weld anything waist deep in a pond.  Can we reach the entrance on the Stout County side?”

Sally Dalton nodded, “We put in the electrified gate on this side to separate the goats from the llamas.  All the llamas are in the barn and attached corral.  I will have to count the goats in case some slipped past the fence now that we have the power turned off.  Goats love to escape, but they cannot get over to this pasture except through the culvert.  And they cannot get through the culvert until the water level goes down.”

The stench was horrible.  I had been around farms before, but this was beyond sour.

Easy volunteered to go into the culvert.  I stayed on the Tracy side.  Jim Kaiser drove the truck over to the other side.  He cranked up the generator, plugged in the sump pump, and ran a two-inch fire hose over the rise to where the ground went downhill.  All Easy had to do was to keep the suction of the pump below the surface of the water.

After about an hour, I started throwing up, the stench was so bad.  About that time, Easy yelled, “Stinker, call my Dad.  I found what is clogging the drain.  From this point on, this is a job for homicide.”

It took me a while to call.  I was throwing up again.  I suppose it was the smell of a dead body.

I called, “Hey, Dad, can you come to the Dalton’s farm?  Bring crime scene.  We have a dead body clogging the drain.  The pink truck is parked just off the road on the Stout County side.  We aren’t sure where the drain is.  The body might be on the Stout County side.  Should I call Tuesday Wednesday?”

Now, I, Deviled Yeggs, will take back over with the narrative.  Tuesday and I drove out to the farm with her Organized Crime detective and Jim.  We left Poached to work with Captain Hart.  I wished I had a camera with those two working together, but it was mostly wrapping up.  We hoped crime scene could work with Dr. Quincy Isles to find some trace evidence on the body.  Everything was clean.  The assailant had used the concrete walk, no evidence of any footprints except for the police who responded to the crime.

Sally Dalton was worried about the goats.  None had escaped thus far, but she needed the power back on for the fence as soon as possible.  We suggested that she herd the goats into the carrier.  It was not a full load when the goats were brought to Tracy.  Jim Kaiser unhooked the trailer with the welders and the generator.  He hooked up the livestock trailer and Jemima, Easy, Sally, and Jim Kaiser started rounding up goats.  That would keep the civilians and the goats out of the crime scene.  That also took the ranching time factor off our heads.  This was going to be a nasty crime investigation.

Tuesday said that the drain was clearly in Stout County, but it should be a joint investigation.  The body could have been dumped from either side into the culvert.  Then when the torrential rains hit, the body floated toward the drain where it not only got stuck, but it clogged the drain.

But as the Tracy M.E. arrived, looked at the body in situ, he asked for us to look at the body.  There were a couple of interesting tattoos that might confirm the identity.

Tuesday needed little time to identify the body.  It was Arugula, of the Leafy Greens.  He was thought to be the new enforcer.  Rumor had it that he added a hash mark to his chest tattoo with each new murder.  She asked, “Could he have killed Roald McDonald?”

I shrugged, “The timing is all wrong, but he might have come this far.  It would be bold for him to go into Rotten Apples territory to kill someone.  But if he met someone in no man’s land, he could have done a handoff to someone neutral or someone in the Rotten Apples to do the job.  Then, they killed him.  One of the crime scene guys caught a torn bit of cloth that matches what our body is wearing.  It was hung up on the gate.  I’m thinking that it was dark, and they thought there was a gate on both sides.  They grabbed the gate.  It shocked them.   They backed off and thought ramming the gate would kill the electricity and give them entrance.  I wonder how they felt when the headlights of their truck showed no gate on the other side?  If we can find it, we have the grill of a truck that is messed up pretty bad, otherwise, we don’t have a clue.”

Sally Dalton had already called about someone vandalizing the gate.  We were checking with all the body shops in a few counties.  Now, we reissued the BOLO with more urgency.

A highway patrolmen pulled over a pickup with the type damage we speculated east of Doyle County.  It turned out that a couple of hired goons from the East Coast had been hired to do the killings.  Trace found some fibers on Roald McDonald, and Arugula had bitten one of his assailants, and we had DNA between his cheek and gum.  How it did not get dislodged is anyone’s guess.

But I still had questions.  Tuesday’s associate from Stout County organized crime, Stan Smith, which I am sure wasn’t his name, enlightened us on the changes in Stout County.  “Stout County was always predominantly rural, a lot of farms, a lot of forests.  The favorite past times were hunting and fishing.  But if anyone said we were a bedroom community of Tracy, the locals might punch you in the nose.  But there has been a movement toward strictly being an extension of the Tracy expansion.  The small farms have been failing.  The farmer’s markets are drying up.  The small farmers used to sell out to the large farmers, and then find a factory job in Tracy, but these days, if they have enough land, especially land on some hills with trees, they sell out to a developer.  While the politicians in Stout County see what is going on and they work to get their cut of the profits, the Leafy Greens see it too.  A farmer starts to make inquiries about subdividing, goes to the courthouse to check out the legalities, whatever gives Turnip Greens and his bunch a hint, the farmer is visited by the extorsion and protection folks from the Leafy Greens.  The farmer is told that he must use the Leafy Greens approved contractors for the roads, utilities, and houses.  These contractors are legitimate businesses, but the Leafy Greens get a cut through the unions, through the company itself, and through the hardware suppliers that provide everything from the concrete and brick, to the wood and steel, to the roofing tile.  The farmer still makes a profit, not as much as he would have, and the farmer does not get beaten up in an alley somewhere.  We know what is going on, but nobody is willing to give evidence.”

Tuesday asked, “And what about our friend, Roald McDonald, who had a farm?”

Stan shrugged, “E, I, E, I, O.  He thought outside the box.  He went to Tracy to find his contractors.  The contractors even modified the house on Lizz Grove to his liking.  The work was well underway with ironclad contracts before the Leafy Greens got wind of it.  He was not in violation of skipping out on taxes until he started selling lots.  In so doing, Turnip Greens must have sent Arugula to send a message to all farmers wanting to sell out and skip the Leafy Greens middleman.  Arugula was scared of entering Rotten Apple Territory, but he had to send the message.  We have no idea where he was killed.  He may not have willingly entered No Man’s Land.  Entering No Man’s Land is the same as declaring war against the other crime family.”

I asked, “We have had a couple of strange pranks, if you will.  Laws were violated in each case.  Whoever did the crimes used hired guns from other states.  This is similar, but we have a logical connection to the Leafy Greens and a fear of a gang war with the Rotten Apples, but it involves the use of hired guns from somewhere else.  Could there be a connection?”

Tuesday sighed, “I see the similarity.  If the unknown person behind the pranks, as you call them, has a connection to the Leafy Greens, the idea of hired guns instead of keeping it inhouse might have been suggested.  And something that seems to be organized and both the Leafy Greens and Rotten Apples know nothing about it, the aim might have never been the people at the Levy’s party or the Hoity Toity golf club.  The bottom line might be a gang war, and then the unknown puppet master arises to pick up the pieces of both crime families.  It was tried once before and Jemima overheard a conversation, but this time, we don’t have a clue who the puppet master is.”

I groaned, “Thank you for expressing what I was thinking.  Now, who will calm my nerves so I can sleep tonight?”

Meanwhile at the farm, Jim Kaiser and Easy worked into the night to make a lot of measurements.  They were able to weld the pieces of that gate and a patch across the opening.  They restored the wiring to all the fences, but they eliminated the gate.  They would wire the gate back into the circuit once the new gate was designed by Easy and approved by Jim Kaiser and the university.  It was just a simple gate, but Easy had to show the calculations to determine the load on each hinge, and also considering the electrical insulation to prevent the gate from being grounded.  But getting the power back onto the fencing, the llamas and goats were allowed to roam free within their enclosures.

Credits

Lizz Grove, police officer in the Dick Tracy comic strip, married officer Groovy Grove on his deathbed in order to obtain spousal death benefits.  They were engaged before Groovy got shot.  She became police chief for a short time, filling in when Police Chief Pat Patton retired, but then Pat Patton came out of retirement. Thus her name was given to an alley off the long boulevard.  Pat Patton had been Dick Tracy’s partner, but when he was promoted, Sam Catchem became Tracy’s partner.  And Chief Brandon was the Police Chief before Pat Patton.

Raold Dahl was the author of some very interesting books.  Raold Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole and explored both arctic regions.

It tied in well with the song, Old McDonald.

Here is the Hill Street Blues Theme.  And the desk sergeant would tell them “Be careful out there.”  Sometimes modifying it a little.

Here is the NYPD Blue Theme.