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.

But maybe the best detective is my daughter, Sophia.  I am recording this report, because this will lead to adult assets doing more investigations.  This is a first-person report by Sophia Yeggs.

I was bored.  My brother was tinkering with a few new inventions and half were not working yet.  He had no idea what shape the device would be.  The other half were things for which I gave my input.

So, I did all my homework.  I even read the next chapters in each of the textbooks, maybe I could get brownie points with my teachers.  After all, each year of high school had gotten harder.  I had to stay a step ahead of the game.  As for softball, I was already working out at the gym three days each week, and today was an off day.

I was in the Crystal Mountain, staring at my Em who was about 6-7 floors up in the exotic African section of the hydroponic gardens.

My neck started to hurt, so I straightened my posture and looked around at ground level.  That’s when I saw a very impressive uniform that I recognized walking up from the base of the waterfall.  It was Tuesday Wednesday in her uniform as Undersheriff of Detectives in Stout County.  That meant that her maternity leave was up, and she was back on the job.

Tuesday said, “Julia said that you might be at the waterfall.  She says that most of the teenagers use the waterfall to overcome anxiety or anger.  Neither of those sounded like you, but I went there after your brother and Margie said you were bored and in the Mountain somewhere.”

My detective senses were tingling.  “Aunt Tuesday, if you are looking for me, do you have something that I can sink my teeth into?  A puzzle?  A coded message?  I am all yours, even into the weekend.  Emmett says he has to go to the farm to work on the fencing near the creek.”

Tuesday brightened, “Oh, good.  That works out fine.  Volunteer to go help him.  I can act as a babysitter for Stormie, and then Jemima can join you.  Be sure to dress similar to Emmett and whoever he has with him.  Probably Michael Rowe Casey and Arabella will be there too.  Absolutely no pink coveralls.  Do not draw attention to yourselves.”

I asked, “Aunt Tuesday, did Dad put you up to this to get me to do some physical work?  I am bored, but I want something that a detective can chew on, not repairing a fence.”

Tuesday smiled, “I like how Mommie Pinkie has you older children referring to the adults as ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle.’  That’s cute, but this is a paid gig.  I can offer you minimal pay, but I have something that needs investigating.  Michael and Arabella saw something interesting.  It might tie to other strange reports that I have heard, almost urban legend type things or fairy tales.  This may lead to no criminal activity, maybe tax evasion, but then again, there could be a sinister element.  Let’s go to Mommie Pinkie’s office.  We can start to assemble our team of long-distance spies.  I want no one getting on the wrong side of the creek.”

I almost floated to Mommie Pinkie’s office.  Aunt Pink had taken the children to the nursery, and she was going to tour the cider operation.  She used to do that 2-3 times each day, but with Gwen as the president, she spends most of her time counseling employees and mission people while Gwen checked things out each day.  She walked through the operation enough to maintain her exercise and let everyone know that they were loved by the CEO.

Jemima was in the office playing with Stormie and Wednesday Wednesday, the Wednesday’s little girl who would be three months old in a few days.  Since I had not had a chance to play with Wednesday, I went to the nursery side of the office until everyone had assembled in the office.

Tuesday had gotten a message to Arabella and Emmett.  They had descended from the exotic African area – the area of the elevated hydroponic garden where it was maintained hot enough for exotic herbs and plants to grow, ingredients of Jochebed’s “witchdoctor potions” that the T.R.U.S.T. pharmacy department was trying to turn into medications.  Emmett, when the Daltons, flood victims, first arrived at Lily the Pink, charted which plants performed best in direct sunlight and which needed shade.  And they have finetuned the temperature and humidity since then.

My big brother, Easter, came in next.  He was followed by Michael Rowe Casey, Menzie MacDougall, and Samuel Farquharson.  Then my Dad came in.  He explained that he just wanted to make sure this was set up the way Tuesday wanted it and no heroics, absolutely no one crosses the creek.

Tuesday thanked everyone for coming.  She said that Arabella had called her.  She and Michael had been beyond the creek retrieving a couple of goats that had wandered too far.  This led to Emmett having to repair the fence this weekend, but when they got to the far side of the creek, they heard female voices, laughing, and from what they knew, the field had been abandoned for decades.  She let Arabella tell what they saw.

Arabella stood and curtsied.  Only she could turn a witness statement into performance art.  Tuesday snickered.  My Dad just shook his head.

Arabella smiled, “We now have two guys that had been among the homeless that Lt. Yeggs feeds at FHAT, Feeding Homeless At Tracy.  They sleep in the haylofts in the new barn, and they milk the goats, once a day when they have a kid to feed and twice a day the rest of the year.  Whoever goes out to check on the livestock brings them sack lunches and they have a fridge where they can keep some food, but the fridge is primarily for the milk.  The fridge and the electric fence run off solar panels mostly.  But then Clyde and Barry told us that a couple of the goats were missing.  We went down to the creek and Michael found where the creek had washed out some soil and the goats had crossed over into the abandoned field on the other side of the creek.  Goats are afraid of water, but the erosion from the little flood caused a sand bar to form.  The goats crossed over to the other side, jumping from one strip of land to another.  With no animals to graze on that side of the creek, there was a lot of grass and wildflowers to munch on.  When we caught up with the escaped goats, we heard children playing.  Way off to the southwest, there were girls in light blue and light brown dresses dancing around and laughing.  They looked to be teenagers.  We went back to the barn.  Clyde and I milked the last two goats while Barry helped Michael get sticks and rocks to fill in the eroded area.  They did something temporary.  We need to go back with a shovel and maybe a fence post and wire.  But I remembered that Mom and Dad keep binoculars in the barn.  Michael and I took turns to watch the girls playing.  It seemed some of the girls were pregnant.  We called Aunt Tuesday when we got back here.  She seemed excited with our discovery.”

Tuesday nodded, “For about twenty-five years, we have heard stories of young men who disappeared for the weekend along County Line Road.  Most of them never talk about what happened.  They went into the woods.  They found berries and caught a rabbit to eat.  They stayed in the woods for about 48 hours and then came home.  End of story.  But then, the stories of fantasy started filtering through.  They gave the police no clear answer, but they told their friends that there was a magic land in the woods where young girls were eager to seduce a guy passing by.  But the obscure language and no details made it sound like a fairy tale.  But with what Arabella and Michael are saying, this magical land may be reality instead of fairy tales.  And if teen pregnancies are the norm, I do not want another Grandma Collins routine.  I do not want human traffickers moving their operation into Stout County now that Dev has gained a couple of victories in Tracy.  I see confused looks.  Dev and his detectives are responsible for: shutting down the Collins operation, rescuing some girls when you rescued Samuel and then the warehouse raid earlier this year caught another load.”

Dad nodded.

Tuesday continued, “Sophia, I want you to create another organization.  Let’s call it the Stout County Irregulars.”

I asked, “I thought they had something like that in Doyle County?”  Stout County is to the west while Doyle County is to the east of Tracy.

Tuesday snickered, “Detective Holmes has some non-gang members who give him information for a few dollars in exchange, nothing official.  I want this official.  Everyone else here will work for you, even the fence fixers.  They will be the distraction in case anyone looks in your direction.  Aunt Jemima has assured me that she has very good telephoto lenses.  She will get as many photographs as possible.  She will set up a timelapse, maybe two.  Sophia, with your experience at setting up start-up companies, you will get paid by the Stout County Sheriff’s office and then you pay each person.”

I groaned, “That’s a lot of work for one little bit of long-distance observation.”

Easy laughed, “Yeah, hard work.  You tell Tommie Tat the name of the company, who the employees are and then you input the hours worked.  One or two fingers might break into a sweat.”

I growled, “Listen, Bro, I have to sign all those checks, and your check might get lost in the mail.”

Easy said, “But I live right here.  Why would it ever need to arrive by mail?”

I said, with clenched teeth, “Exactly!”

Aunt Jemima, although she is my sister-in-law, said, “Yes, if we have storm clouds forming in the right direction, I have used that area to do time lapse photography.  The valley is fairly wide, and it must have been cleared for planting at one point.  There is a barn and an old house to the south.

Tuesday nodded, “According to our latest aerial photography, the barn is still there and there are three houses.  Then there is a cluster of houses further south, before you get to the Mennonite settlement.  All the land supposedly belongs to the Mennonite community.  Your team is doing surveillance photographs.  In general, the Mennonites will pose for photographs.  The Amish will not give you permission to photograph them.  I want as many photos as possible, but if they learn that you are photographing them and they are Amish, they will be offended.  And if they are criminals, it could get nasty in a hurry.  What was that you said about a drone, Jemima?  You know, before the others arrived.  I do not want these people knowing we are spying on them for a variety of reasons.”

Jemima said, “I have the weather downloaded on my tablet.  We can take instruments to have the latest wind data.  I can approach the area at fairly high altitude from downwind.  If the wind isn’t very strong, the wind will carry away any sound of a little buzz.  If these are Amish or Mennonite, they may not associate the buzz with a drone, but I will be careful.  Too much wind then the drone photography is out.  But if I am flying the drone, others will have to take the photographs, or I can enlist Mary.  She is a great drone pilot, better than me.”

Tuesday nodded.  Now one more to the party.

Tuesday said, “Everyone dresses in drab clothing.  You are there to fix a fence.  You took your gear along to take pictures of clouds.  If this is human trafficking, they may be very wary.  If this is an offshoot of the Amish or Mennonites, they may not have a guard up at all.  But you keep your distance regardless.  I do not want you captured.  The area is owned by the Mennonites.  The barn and one house are registered as abandoned, but they look far from abandoned and there are three houses.  Then, halfway between there and the Mennonite community is another community that seems to grow each time we get aerial photos.  The tax assessor is afraid of the Mennonites to a certain degree.  As for now, they are paying taxes on about half the houses in their community, but with no improved roads, few sneaking cell phones into their homes, very few with electricity, the loss of taxes is not adding a burden on the infrastructure.  But if this is something illegal, that changes everything.  That puts the sheriff department assets working on an area where people are not paying taxes.”

That Saturday morning, we made it an all-day fence repair job, with weather watching and picnicking out in the country on our “day off from school.”

On Sunday afternoon, we regathered in Aunt Pink’s office.  This time she was there.  Dad was there. And, of course, the Wednesdays were there.

For my report:

I did not supervise as much as I gave assignments.  Easy and Emmett did the fence repair, but we rotated personnel so that no one got overworked.  It was a lot of work, but I will let East give his report.

Easter (East or Easy) said, “I discussed the conditions at the gap in the fence with my professors and they even talked to their civil engineer counterparts at the university.  They approved of what I suggested.  The fence had to be fixed, but due to the goats being afraid to step into water, no matter how shallow, I felt the sand bar had to be removed.  We would make sure that there were no dry steppingstones across the creek.  But to hold the sand in the washed-out area where the fence failed…  Excuse me, Emmett keeps giving me the evil eye.  The fence posts got washed out, but the fence did not technically fail.  The ground eroded underneath the fence, and since the goats were small, they simply walked under the fence. And then jumped to the sandbar and then onto the far side.  Anyway, Emmett knew where some large stones were in the creek, further upstream.  We relocated those to form a line where the bank once had been.  Then we wedged medium sized rocks, trying to chock the larger rocks in place.  We bought a hundred pounds of pea gravel to pour into the cracks between all the rocks.  We shoveled out the sand and filled the bank back up.  We made sure there were no dry places for the goats to cross.  Two new fenceposts, a little wire stretching, and the job was complete.  But I think the hardest job was shoveling all the wet sand.  Wet sand is heavy and everyone got a workout, even the softball players who were afraid of getting blisters.”

I stuck out my tongue.  “Yes, Bro, I know it would heal before the first game, but you do not know how much a blister like that can affect your throwing hand.  But thank you for your report.  With the swapping of assignments, if anyone was watching, they would have thought we were sharing the load.  But now I will start the report.  Thanks to B.B.’s drone videos, I used the freeze frame feature with the two groups that spent time getting exercise in the area near the corral.  There were about 40 children of elementary age, as it seemed.  This was a mixture of boys and girls.  Then in the older group of those exercising, there was about twenty girls, no boys at all.  About one third of these girls seemed to be pregnant.  Menzie will report more on that later.  I am just saying that the children seem to be K-10 grades, maybe 11 and 12 grades.  Sixty-five total, but some may have stayed inside.  When they went back inside, the older children entered the barn and the younger children went to the nearest house.  We saw two older women in the shadows.  We think they may be the school marms.”

Samuel came up.  “I will show photographs that document my findings.  I looked for skin color.  It was an odd blend.  Maybe half Caucasian, a third negroid color and features, and the rest Hispanic.  No one was purely one set of features, all mixtures, except maybe some of the Caucasians.  That comes from my observations and then reviewing the photos and videos.”

Menzie came up. “I had clothing.  I have had to do some research, but the youngest children wore nightshirts.  Boys and girls wore the identical night shirts.  I am guessing the genders, but there was a strong difference in hair length.  But maybe third graders and older were in clothing that looked like Amish or Mennonite attire.  The children did not wear anything on their heads.  But then, when the older girls and young women came out, they wore solid colored dresses and either white or black kapps, what we might call a bonnet.  Very few had no kapp.  Mennonites might wear a printed fabric, but the Amish always wear solid colors.  The colors varied, but mostly light blue and light brown, practical colors.  Very few other solid colors.  All the ladies that might be adults had white kapps.  All the pregnant women or girls had white kapps.  The younger girls mostly had black kapps, but a few had white ones.  Since a white kapp is significant of being married in Amish tradition, meaning submissive and modest, could it be that once you were pregnant the first time, you switched to the white kapp?  I mean, no men around, but they would then take over a motherly role.  This may be premature, but it is my observation.  If my guess is right, the young girls with white kapps could be pregnant, but they are not showing yet.”

Arabella said, “I think this was a setup to keep me from talking, but I had the directional microphone.  When the children were outside playing, the conversation was either in English or what might be German.  I don’t know German, but I heard nothing about tacos or nachos.  It didn’t sound like Aunt Jochebed, so probably not French.  And there was some Gritzen and Fritzen.”

Tuesday Wednesday, undersheriff of detectives in Stout County, Aunt Tuesday out of respect, interrupted.  “Wait!  Gritzen and Fritzen sounds culturally offensive.  If this gets into a report, we need to know the language.”

B.B. said, “We recorded what Arabella heard.  She stayed on the English speakers for the most part since she had no idea what the other people were saying.  She asked me to listen a bit, and I said that the language sounded Germanic, not necessarily German.  If the origins of this community is Amish, they read from a German Bible.  But I think we have enough recorded to determine the language.”

I nodded for Arabella to continue, “Okay, you can sort that out from the files, but mostly what I heard was the normal talk during recess.  The younger children were talking about who was safe on the base.  That kind of thing.  The older children were talking about which boy they liked or which girl they liked.  When the older girls and women came out, they were talking about one baby’s due date or another, about milking the cows or gathering eggs.  And a few spoke of going to the county line to work the night shift.  All normal talk.  They talked about teachers, and they all talked about someone named Grand Oma.  Maybe if you listen to the hours of files, you might find something that makes sense, but it sounded like school children talking about school things, including teenaged pregnancies.”

B.B. got up next.  “I had the drone cameras from our weather observation equipment.  The community is laid out in a cross.  That may be accidental, but the three houses are in a cluster.  Two face each other.  The third faces the barn.  The two side houses have attached coops and chickens walking around.  There is a field behind the house that faces the barn, a lot of cows.  There were some donkeys, I think, but a lot of farmers use donkeys to chase off the coyotes.  I saw the other community south of the one we were surveilling.  Regular dirt streets with houses on either side and a church.  Where we were observing, there was no church.”

Tuesday added, “The Mennonites have churches, but the Amish have their worship in their homes.  They do not even have a church building to double as a school.  The school in the barn is sometimes the option.”

I asked, ‘Does this point to the community being Amish?’

Tuesday groaned, “No men in sight?  That would not happen in a standard Amish community.  They are highly traditional.  Were there any signs of weapons or people looking out windows in the hayloft?”

I shrugged, “I have asked everyone on the team, even those without a subject to report, and none of them saw that kind of thing, and our working there did not attract any attention at all, but the winds were to the north or toward us.  We occasionally heard them without Arabella’s microphone.  I agree that it sounds Germanic when it was not English.”

Tuesday moaned, “It sure sounds like a setup similar to Menzie’s grandmother, but on a much larger scale.  Where do all these women go once they have birthed children?”

I mentioned, “In their conversations, we heard about teachers.  We heard about night shift on the County Line road.  Maybe the others work the dayshift.”

Tuesday nodded, “Some people could be inside the houses.  There could be infants that need tending.  There could be men, but it is very strange that if there were men, none of you saw any adult male in a full day of observations.  We have roughly three generations of women, but the men disappear about the time they become teenagers.”

Tuesday thanked everyone.  Everyone left except for Dad, Aunt Pink, Tuesday, and me.

Dad asked, “Tuesday, what do these fairy tales say about these boys or men that disappear for the weekend?”

Tuesday sighed, “The common factors are that the older boys and men that have had these lost weekends are sexually active along County Line Road.  I have no information beyond that.  All of them live in the area.  So, somehow, there are watchers that see what is going on and whoever is behind this is very careful as to whom they select.”

Aunt Pink asked, “Dev, are you thinking of setting up someone undercover?”

Tuesday said, “I think we have to do that.  If this is some odd cult or an offshoot of the Amish, then we cannot really do much about it unless they are doing something illegal, especially if they have children who are being born and then sold.  Human trafficking scares me with this one.  We need to learn more, but I have no deputies nor detectives who are not known on County Line Road.  Since Stout County has become more and more of a bedroom community of Tracy, the population center has shifted more toward Tracy and that takes the petty crime with it.  And do not let anyone in Stout County know that I said they were a bedroom community of Tracy.  To them, they are people who prefer the commute from a relatively low crime area to the sprawling metropolis of Tracy.”

Dad said, “Yeah, that second description sounds so much better.  But I think I have someone.  He’s young, eager and green.  What if we up the ante a bit.  Let’s have him visit with Jochebed.  Jochebed gives him a potion of some sort.  Then he moves into a house on County Line Road.  He romances with a couple of ladies, and the word gets out that this guy has ‘special abilities’.  The guy I have in mind has not been a detective for long.  He has not worked any cases beyond the city center.  When he was a patrolman, he worked the eastern side of Tracy only.  It might work.”

Tuesday asked, “Who is this young detective?”

Dad nodded, “Paddy McCreary.”

Tuesday huffed, “He’s a mere boy by comparison.”

Dad shrugged, “Isn’t that what we want?  There are a couple of abandoned houses that the city has taken over.  We set up a back story of a young guy wanting to settle down, but for now works construction in the city center.  That way, he could come to the office.”

I asked, “We do not know their watchers.  What if they put a tail on him?”

Dad said, “I know a few construction outfits in town.  He comes onto the construction site. He changes clothes, and then someone leaves the tool room area in clothes like he wore, a construction guy that looks close enough.  Then, Paddy leaves by a back exit, wearing clothing that might look like a management employee.  Hardhat, earmuffs instead of earplugs, goggles instead of safety glasses.  He might walk right past the watchers and never be spotted.  Even gets in a different car, as long as it is not a pink one.”

Aunt Pink laughed, “Amy likes to do some cloak and dagger things.  She has construction crews that owe her favors.  And she has several barely legal cars with dented vendors.  She and Ralph E. are like me, they live in their own building where they also work, but the easiest way for them to disappear is to leave their building in an unmarked wreck.  I think they own several.  They also have a limo with a driver to drive to a different part of town in case Amy suspects paparazzi or competitors.  Like I said, she likes cloak and dagger.”

Dad had to add, “They are not exactly like you, Pink.  Amy and Ralph E. have driver’s licenses.”

Credits

I have tried to match the descriptions as much as possible with Amish and/or Mennonite communities.  If I got something wrong, I mean no offense.

This entire story, which will be in three parts – sort of, is something that has been percolating in my brain ever since the Daltons bought the property on County Line Road.  Then you have a little young teen romance between Michael and Arabella.  Then while they are innocently talking and maybe kissing, they hear something from a location where there was supposed to be an abandoned farm.  This story has had a life of its own, but for the most part, it has been on life support from time to time, coming back to life on rare occasions when I ask myself, what’s next?

Otherwise, it is all fictional.

But I have known several women who never got a driver’s license.