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 then again, I have all the detectives in the big city of Tracy reporting to me.  Even so, I HELP them when they need help, but I WORK homicide.

Our morning staff meeting was the least informative that I had since I became detective of all detective disciplines.  No one had any new cases, and most of their present cases were prepared for trial.  Everyone was assigned cold cases.

As we were getting ready to adjourn the meeting, Jim said, “I remember lulls in the past.  You never get bored.  Something is going to happen.”

Poached groaned, “And there it goes.  I know I shouldn’t believe in jinxes, but Jim, you just jinxed us.”

They filed out of the room, half laughing about the jinx remark, half groaning.  The younger half and the older half as it turned out.

As the door closed, my cellphone rang.

It was Nelly Jefferson.  She simply said, “Dev, I need you…”

Then the door opened and Sophia and Gigi came into the office.

Gigi said, “Daddy, I’m pregnant!”

Sophia put her hands over her mouth, “No, Gigi!”

I cut off Nelly, “I’ll call you right back.”  I heard her cry, “No!” but my brain was telling my finger to hang up, and I could not stop my finger.  I immediately felt like a jerk.  Nelly was like a second Mom to me.

I asked, “Sophia, why is Gigi pregnant?”

Sophia said, “She’s not, Dad.  We had doctor appointments this morning, and Dr. Mel says, ‘Hi’.  I have a little sinus thing going, but I am okay.  Gigi is better than okay.  So, I am taking her back to preschool and then going to school myself.  Gigi suggested an ice cream cone at Standish on the way, and I said that she had just gotten a pregnant idea.  You know, an idea that portends a pleasant outcome.  And Gigi went the wrong way with it, as usual.  I am going to have to learn how to use two different lexicons, one for school and one for Gigi.”

Gigi said, “We learned about lexicons last month in pee school.  They are tiny men with pots of gold, and they live at the end of the rainbow.”

Sophia moaned, “Dad, just wanted to give you a health report.  And Gigi, those were leprechauns and you halfway learned that in preschool.  Gotta go, Dad.”

I said ‘goodbye’ and then hit redial.

Without saying ‘hello’ Nelly said, “I said I need you, Dev, and you hung up.  It better be a good reason.”

I shrugged, “Not really, Nelly.  My little girl who is almost three years old said that she was pregnant, but all she had was an idea of playing hooky from preschool long enough to have an ice cream sundae.”

Nelly mused, “That reminds me of why I took early retirement.  I knew they’d never promote a woman to lieutenant, and I frankly did not want to miss playing hooky with my kids to have an ice cream sundae.  I could really use one right now, but I will settle on you getting here as soon as possible.  I have been doing a little detective work this morning.”

I asked, “And what have you been detecting?”

Nelly sighed, “Ready Teddy, murdered, hanging by a rope in my barn, hanging from the top step of the stairs that he built to the hayloft.”

I would have been all over Poached for making a statement like that, but I knew Nelly.  She had studied the body carefully.  I am sure that we will find the ligature marks to not line up with the noose.  Strangled and then hung.  Hanging makes angular marks and most strangling makes straight marks perpendicular to the spine.

I said, “Nelly, why call me?  We need to mobilize our entire crew.”

Nelly was crying, “Dev, I wanted to talk to you, in private first.  Once everyone gets here, it will be a zoo, a zoo that I used to be part of and no matter how you try to show concern, you can’t ever pull it off satisfactorily.  You have been through it, but the person finding the body and the family have never had that happen before.  I need you to give me one of your bear hugs.  And as soon as possible.”

I said, “I’m getting Jim and Poached.  They can start the initial investigation.  On the way out, I will tell Sgt. Weiss, the desk sergeant, to wait fifteen minutes and then slowly make the calls to mobilize crime scene.  It’s up to Wise Guy whether we get Ruthie and Dieter or Polly and Francine.”

Nelly said, “I have heard about Polly.  I want her, if you have any pull at all.  I heard she is a lot like I was.  And, Dev, this is Ready Teddy Harwood, the retired Tracy running back.  Celebrity protocol, no messing this one up.”

I had placed it on speaker to get my things, badge, service weapon, notebook, and ready case filled with tiny tools of the trade.  When I opened the door, Gisele gave me a hug.  Captain Hart said he would go along as the shadow whether the Commissioner liked it or not, but he would wait the fifteen minutes so I had some quality time with Nell first – nothing on record.  And Jim and Poached came out of their offices at the same time, ready to go.

Poached grumbled, “I called it, Jim.  You jinxed us.  Not just a homicide, but a high-profile homicide.  And I was looking forward to a day of studying Cold Cases.”

Jim snickered, “One, I said something would happen, and you were the one that brought up the word ‘jinx.’  And two, you love these cases, and you hate working cold cases.”

Gisele, who always seems to be snooping into the conversations in my office, decided that she would tell Wise Guy in fifteen minutes.  It would seem more natural.  Her husband, our captain, would slide out of the office after the sirens died down and he would not use his siren, giving me more time.  And as far as anyone else knew, the Homicide Trio was making a donut run, lights, siren and a mad dash for a Danish, not that I had ever done that before.  And after Guy Wise had everyone on the move, she would explain to the Commissioner that a lieutenant was in charge of a high profile homicide, and it needed to be a captain who had been a detective to be the shadow.  The shadow detective that made sure that the primary detective followed the book and did not cut any corner or jump to any conclusions.

Theodore Harwood had been the running back for a couple of NFL teams and ended his career in Tracy.  He went from star running back to charity front man for a few charities.  We even had him talk at one of our Feeding the Homeless At Tracy (FHAT) events.  One of those guys that had no enemies at all, and a lot of fans.  This was going to get very messy, but first, I had to deal with Nelly, and why Teddy was hung in her barn.

When I arrived, Nelly was on the front porch.  There were two old wooden rocking chairs on the porch.

I walked up and we hugged for a little while.  Then she showed me to one of the rockers.

She said, “The deceased is still hanging from the top step of the external stairs of the apartment that Teddy had made for me in the barn.  He was cold when I saw him there.  The area on the steps and leading to the side entrance of the barn have been obviously swept, but there are footprints outside the barn on the far side.  They do not match my feet, Teddy’s feet, nor anyone else who has been at the house that I know of.  I have the footprints marked using a measuring stick, ready for your photographs.  You might assume they are the footprints of the killer.  I want to talk to Dev alone at first.  Jim, it is wonderful seeing you again.  Paddy tells me how you have been teaching him a lot lately.  And this must be Poached.  Oh, yes, I could just eat you up.  Please, Poached, forget your wife and children for the weekend and you will never regret it.”

Poached found his voice, “Nice to meet you, Nelly.  I have heard a lot about you, including the way you proposition most young men that you meet.”

She snickered, “Only the ones that I find attractive, young man.”

She sat down in the other rocking chair.  Jim and Poached disappeared into the barn.

I asked, “Can we start with how you found the body?”

Nelly smiled, “Are you not going to make this formal?  From the moment you got out of bed, what events took place up to the point of finding the body, Mrs. Jefferson?”

I smiled, “Nelly, we go way back.  You know the drill, but you also know what I want to hear.”

Nelly smiled, “Dev, I loved you from the moment you made detective and I took you under my wing, but have you ever loosened the tie once?  …  Okay, you do not wish to play.  I went through my morning ablutions.  Teddy was expected.  He has been making modifications to the apartment where the hayloft had been in the barn for nearly ten years.  It is a masterpiece, but Teddy … was someone who never saw anything as finished.  He kept adding something or replacing something. … Oh, relevance.  I said Teddy was expected, and he was a creature of habit.  Whether the sun was up or not, he was here by 7:00am on the days when he was expected, usually earlier.  He would not do anything noisy until 8:00am in case I had been partying too late and needed my sleep.”

I groaned, “For decades, you tell the tale of a wild woman, but really?  Do you party until the wee hours?  At your age?”

Nelly sighed, “I can dream.  And Teddy respected my dreams.  What might happen is that I was unable to go to sleep until late.  But when I heard nothing and looked to see lights on in the upstairs windows, and I came out to see if he had been hurt.  I got a ladder and checked the body.  It was cold.  He has been dead for hours.  Strangulation marks differ from the noose, even to the point of being different materials. But the lividity shows he died on his back and then was placed where he is now.”

I nodded, “So, we are talking about an amateur or someone who was more interested in putting you into this investigation, maybe even as the suspect.”  She nodded. I asked, “How did you know Theodore Harwood?”

Nelly waved a hand as if to dismiss the question.  “I sold him his property, and he had his house built to his specifications rather than taking one of the mini mansions that I had built.”

I nodded, “I knew that much, but not the part about him having his house built.  I am interested in how he has been designing an apartment for you in the barn for nearly ten years.  To what extent did the deceased know you?”

Nelly said, “If you are talking about in the biblical sense, I am offended.”

I sighed, “Nelly, you talk like you would go to bed with half the men in Tracy if you had a bed big enough.  Now, you want to claim chastity when a man is working on an apartment that has been finished for years.  He seems to have a reason to keep coming here.”

Nelly growled, “It has nothing to do with the investigation.  We have been old friends for a long time.”

I sighed, “You have not answered my question.  You taught me to bite into the fleshy part of their leg, figuratively and chew until you get an answer.  Claiming offense and information not pertinent meant that the unspoken information was pertinent and they had something to hide.”

Nelly said, “But I taught you the business side of being a detective.  That should count for a little discretion.”

I looked her in the eyes, which was hard as she rocked back and forth.  “We can do this here or at the precinct.  Nelly, I love you like you were a second mother to me, but I would be asking my own mother these same questions in this circumstance.”

She stopped rocking, “Okay!”  She looked at the horizon for a moment, “Dev, Stan was always troubled by his ghost impersonations and sleeping with the haughty girls at the small high school.  The ones that turned out good were helped by us.  The rotten ones were bailed out of jail.  Always anonymous.  But I think Holly Danville has known since nearly the beginning.  Absolutely since she was given the pharmacy.  But ten years ago, Stan developed a heart condition.  He was unable to satisfy me in bed.  He said I should cheat on him.  He knew that I desired that kind of thing.  But I loved him.  It hurt me to think that he would give me away to someone else.  So, I refused.  Then, Teddy showed up.  Stan had asked him if he would turn the hayloft into an apartment.  All Teddy did at first was to put flooring down, and then he put a bed up there to see what was unusable space due to ceiling height.  Teddy was up there measuring the floor space to design where a kitchenette could go and the restroom.  He wanted to install a spiral staircase.  But early on as he was making his measurements and adjusting the flooring, Stan asked me to take him some food.  Before I go further, Teddy had volunteered to help, and this was after his wife had left him.  She went back to Florida and a few months later rethought the situation and came back.  This was in that gap, and Teddy had time on his hands in the off season.  It was maybe a year before he retired.”

I got her back on track, “You took him something to eat.  In a basket?  Like a picnic?”

Nelly groaned, “Do not make this harder than it has to be, Dev.  Yes, in a picnic basket.  I tied a rope to the handle of the basket and I climbed the ladder, before any stairs had been installed, and when I got my waste about the level of the floor, I called for him to come get the rope and hoist up his lunch.  It was an unusually hot Spring day, and Teddy had stripped to his boxer briefs.  Without thinking, he turned to face me, and I was eye level with a bulge in his pants.  I wondered if he had an elephant’s trunk in his drawers.  I know it was Satan tempting me, but I said something about needing to see something and I pulled his drawers down.  I never made it back to the house that day.  Teddy and I gave the bed a workout.  He had been abandoned by his wife, and I had a husband nearly begging me to sleep with someone else.  While we were like two ravenous wolves that afternoon into the evening, we awoke the next morning with so much self-loathing that we hardly said a word to each other.  We said ‘sorry’ a lot.  He kept making improvements to his eventual design of the apartment to keep reminding me that he was sorry.  But after that next morning, Teddy and I can, umm, could make eye contact.  I will never forget that night, but it was one night, Dev, ten years ago.”

I smiled, “Just a tryst.  Any others?” I paused.  “I see your face.  Now tell me.”

Nell sighed, “Not what you think.  Let me fill you in on some football history.  You do not follow the sport, but Tracy has never been to the Super Bowl, but the year that Ready Teddy ran for over 2000 yards and caught passes for another 800 yards was the only time the team made it to the conference championship game.  There was so much demand on Teddy’s time that his wife took the children and moved back to Florida.  But when you need one piece to the puzzle, or so you think, you spend money unwisely.  The team picked up Boone Mooney, the wide receiver.  Something to put them over the top.  Some wide receivers often have a bad reputation for not being a team player, but Boone deserved any nasty comments that came his way.  He did not exactly buy one of my mansions in the neighborhood.  The bank set it up as a rent to own arrangement due to Boone having a reputation for not paying his bills.  That way the remodeling and reselling became my headache instead of the bank’s problem.  Boone’s business manager only paid the utility bills when they threatened to turn off said utilities.  When I talked to the business manager about being six months late in house payments, Tracy had missed the playoffs and were refusing to extend Boone’s contract.  Boone had disrupted the team, but then there were the typical injuries, one being Teddy who decided to retire.”

I asked, “What happened to Boone?”

Nell shrugged, “The first thing that he did, knowing that his income had been curtailed was to come to the house and rape me.  Yes, I should have turned him in.  I said ‘no’ and ‘stop’, but due to my tryst with Teddy the previous year, I felt it was God punishing me.”

I straightened, “Nell, we would have rallied around you.  He needed to go to prison.  You just let him get away?”

Nell nodded, “I said for him not to do what he did, but I did not put up much of a fight.  I thought of my self-defense training, but I hesitated.  Like I said, I felt guilty for the tryst with Teddy.  An examination might not have been conclusive of forcible entry.  Maybe, maybe not.  I just gave up.  I did not help him along, but I did not claw, fight, kick, none of that.  But that was nine years ago.  I think a Canadian team gave him a chance, but he was out of football a year or so later.  I have never seen any sign of him since.”

I summarized, “So, you had a tryst with Teddy, a one-night thing.  About the same time, Boone shows up and he notices Teddy coming over here helping you out, working on a project in the barn.  Who knows what he was thinking as the reason. Thinking that Teddy had promised and was a man of his word would be something Boone never understood.  But then, right when it was obvious that he was going to be cut from the team, he rapes you for having the audacity to ask for six months of mortgage payments.  Then, since he was the type to do bad things and have a business manager cover his tracks, he moves to Canada.

“Nell, in his demented mind, he had a reason to hate both you and Teddy.  He may have thought the two of you were lovers since Teddy was over here working on the barn.  Work being something Boone would never understand.  If we can track down Boone or his business manager and find out that one of them has been in Tracy recently, we might have the one person who did not like Teddy.  Teddy got injured.  Boone did not make a difference with Teddy out of the lineup.  And Boone got cut.  If you are arrogant enough, that would all be Teddy’s fault.”

Nell sighed, “I thought of that, but Dev that was nine years ago.  Why would he hold a grudge that long?”

I shrugged, “I am not much of a sports fan, although I have been following Flintheart softball for a few years.  But I have heard about ex-ball players going from making millions of dollars to making nothing and being broke within a year or two.”

Nell smiled, “Boone was probably broke much quicker.  I think he thought his business manager was paying the bills and such.  I think the business manager was moving the money around and eventually into his own pocket.  I just had a feeling, and Boone was such an unlikable person, I never mentioned it to Captain Hart.”

Captain Hart emerged from around the corner of the porch, “And you thought I was unlikable about that time too.”

Nell huffed, “Excuse me for being a justice system unto myself.  I was twice the detective you were, and you made lieutenant, and then captain.  All because you put Ashmead Apple behind bars.  What did it get you?  Red Delicious had to do his own dirty work and he was sloppy.   Then a young whipper snapper, over here, nailed Red Delicious, and Red’s wife took over the Rotten Apples.  I will admit that once Gala was killed, the Rotten Apples are not at the strength they once were, but you knew who should have gotten the lieutenant’s job.”

Cpt. Hart nodded, “Yeah Nell, you don’t have to remind me.  You taught all the detectives how to be good detectives.  Everybody in the precinct loved you, and I was a holy terror when things did not go my way.  Your only problem was that you would grind your groin against any guy’s leg if he was halfway good looking.”

I cleared my throat, “And that character flaw may have caused all this if Boone is our guy.  You joke about it, but the untrained ear, or the arrogant person who thinks you are serious, hears you being easy.  So, sure, he never stops when you tell him to.  He would think that was the joke.  Your failing to resist physically confirmed his suspicions.  Now, if he is penniless with no job skills, and his entourage stole his millions, he wants to get even.  He strangles Teddy and has the body hung at your barn, probably thinking that the apartment in the barn was your love nest.”

Cpt. Hart moaned, “And that is why I am here as his shadow.  Nell, your prize student here preaches not getting tunnel vision, and he has solved the crime without the first bit of evidence.  Lt. Yeggs, you better track every angle on this case.”

I nodded, “Yeah, the statute of limitations would be up on embezzlement, but maybe Don Cahn can do his magic.  If the business manager was embezzling, he’ll find the trail.  I can have Det. Junko talk to the charities.  We need someone to talk to Mrs. Harwood.  Nick is getting good at interviews.  Georges has always been good at interviews.  I can have them talk to the football team, execs, ex-players, staff that might have kept in touch.  Jim and Poached have been working the physical data.”

Jim walked up from the barn.  “The crime scene guys are here.  Poached must be part tracker or bloodhound.  He found some more tracks in the woods.  Same shoes, better footprints for casting than the one Nelly found.  And the shoe had a noticeable scar and wear pattern.  The right leg makes a different impression than the left.  I think the owner of the shoes walks with a limp.  We have no neighbors to speak of.  Stan Jefferson maintained a buffer around this farmhouse.  What do you want us to do next?”

I said, “Jim, you and I are going to visit Mrs. Harwood.  Maybe Captain Hart can talk to the press after we confirm the next of kin has been informed.  Poached can help keep a lid on everything here.  I guess that Polly and Francine are here?”

Jim nodded, “Ruthie and Dieter too.  And the Commissioner is here.  He wants to be here ready to address the media personally.”

Captain Hart said, “Yeggs, you have the entire department working this case.  What are you doing?”

I shrugged, “Supervising, Captain.  They were all assigned Cold Cases today anyway.  We will build some teamwork.”

With that, Poached came onto the porch and introduced himself to Nelly.  I am sure it would be more Nelly entertaining him than Poached going over the same territory.  And Captain Hart, who assigned himself to be my shadow went with Jim and I.  Yes, I know it is supposed to be Jim and me, but until Poached showed up, Jim and I were the Homicide Twins, Tracy’s own version of Gemini.

Polly, Nick, and Georges went through the rich adjacent neighborhoods and found a couple of retired football players who had seen Boone Mooney lately.  They got a description of his car and called in a BOLO (Be on the Lookout).  But then they found the car on the next block.  Boone Mooney put up resistance, but Georges and Polly put him in cuffs without Polly using her non-death, non-grip thing.

The shoes he was wearing matched the footprints.  His hands were scarred due to tightening the ligature around Teddy’s neck, although he made up a lame excuse.  The ligature was a leather bull whip that he found in the guy’s garage.  He put it back where he found it.  His DNA was found on the body, since there was a struggle, and Teddy’s blood was in the braids of the whip.  And he walked with a limp, a limp that matched the anomaly in his footprints.  Talking to a sports reporter the next day, he had been injured badly his second year in Canada, and the limp came from that.

Less than a week later, Nelly was led into my office by an offensive lineman for Tracy who had retired a few years before.  Those guys do the heavy lifting and here in retirement, only Captain Hart, Jim Wednesday, and I recognized him.

The case was solved, and Nelly came by for a special visit.

I went through the blunders that Boone Mooney made.  Half the time, Nelly laughed, the rest of the time she cried.  It seemed the only thing in Boone Mooney’s plan that he did the way he had planned it was to kill Ready Teddy Harwood and hang him from the steps of what he thought was their love nest.  Otherwise, why build a room that was fit for a palace in a barn?  Nelly had talked like she enjoyed bedding down athletes, but somehow she did not like it when he bed her down. Not admitting that he raped her.  And then he stole her house away from him, forgetting the part about how it was never his house and he never made a house payment.  But that completed his motive for killing Teddy and leaving the body for Nelly to find.

His plan might have worked if he had swept his footprints all the way back into the neighborhood that Stan Jefferson and his wife Nelly had built for the athletes – not exclusively athletes, but for those people that were not considered worthy to be in the “rich” part of town.  As Carla keeps saying, the rich-adjacent.

In fact, our next best suspect was Nelly, and she knew how the system works.  She could have easily framed Boone Mooney.

He had taken a bull whip from his friend’s garage, the only guy in the old community that would let him sleep on the couch.  He had used the whip to wrap around Teddy’s neck and squeeze the life out of him, and he left his fingerprints on the whip handle when he returned it to his friend’s locker in the garage.  Boone’s DNA was in the rope, as he scraped his hands in the strangling and then in the handling of the rope.  He had strangled him outside the barn and left the body on its back while he figured out how to tie off the rope.  Lividity had already set in when he relocated the body to the top of the stairs, slipped the noose around his neck (or what was used as a noose in that Boone had no idea how to tie knots).  And then he hung him over the side, all before the sun came up.  Teddy wanted to surprise Nelly with his progress that day so he got an early start.  And Boone had been waiting since the middle of the night.

The neighborhood interviews led to no one hinting that Teddy had any enemies, but as for unusual things…  Three people said they had been asked by Boone Mooney if he could sleep on their couch for a few days.  Even the guy who let him sleep there broke down in interrogation, with a few people saying someone’s car was parked at that house – another unusual thing.  Finding the victims blood on the whip with the braiding of the whip matching the marks of the ligature.  The guy who helped him was not about to go down as an accessory.  He was helping a friend, and he did not know Boone’s intentions.

Then Boone changed his alibi three times.  He kept thinking of people he was with that night, like any of them would be near the barn three hours before the sun came up. Lividity can take as much as four hours, but in this case, less than two hours was enough.  Well within the proper range.  So, he was unclear who he was with, unclear as to the time he was with them, and even a rookie detective could tell he was making it up as he went.  Only after he had incriminated himself thoroughly did he ask for a lawyer.  I don’t think I had ever heard an interviewer repeat the Miranda rights, but he got the rights read to him three times during the interviews, each time, he would say that he understood his rights and he had done nothing wrong.

The only thing that made sense was that he had always had money and the money bought people who would lie for him to get away without paying for the things he did wrong.  For example, they lost the game because the quarterback did not throw him the ball.  When the other team intercepted the pass because Boone ran the wrong route, it was the quarterback that was confused about which way he was going to turn.  Boone never ever did anything that Boone thought was wrong.  And Boone never had to pay for the consequences.  So, he talked without a lawyer, thinking this was like all the other times.  It was almost like he wanted to get put in prison.  He had no job skills.  He had no money.  He had no prospect of ever playing the game he loved with his bad leg.  And in returning to Tracy, he had no friends.  In prison, he’d get free medical care, a place with a roof, and three meals a day.

Seeing Nelly in the office, I told her how it went down, and I started to get sick to my stomach.

Then Nelly thanked me for rebuking her.  She was a beautiful young cop.  They loved using her as the vice decoy, but they never thought of her as a detective until one of the streetwalkers that she had befriended was murdered.  No one investigated.  The girl was a criminal.  No one cared, but Nelly cared.  She worked the case on personal time and turned it into the lieutenant.  She got a conviction.  But all that got her was permission to look at Cold Case files when things were running slow.  She made enemies when she found what the male detectives had missed, but she got her detective shield.  But the enemies did not want to work with her.  That’s when Al Hart put Ashmead Apple away and made Lieutenant.  Al put Nelly in charge of teaching the new detectives the ropes.  Al says the precinct loved Nelly, but that’s looking back on it.  Half the detectives hated her while the other half relied on her to keep them straight, at least to keep the paperwork straight.

Nelly started to cry, “I started flirting with the guys.  Stan and I were married, but my willingness to go to bed with anybody was all talk.  Tough talk to make it sound like I fit in, but I did not fit at all.  Please, prevent that from happening to Polly.  She’s good.  And I hear that your Sophia is almost ready to graduate and she wants to be a detective.”

I laughed, “No, Nell, she wants to be my boss.  And even Al thinks she is smart enough to pull it off, but will the city bureaucracy allow it?  You have the seniority system on one side and the need for diversity on the other.”

There was a bump at the door.  Then a voice said, “No, Gigi, we do not just barge into your Daddy’s office.  We knock and ask if we can go in.”  There was a faint knock at the door.

I asked, “Who is it?”  Nelly was starting to laugh.  Gigi said, “Aunt Jemima and Ssss-Tormie and me, Daddy.”

I said, “You may enter.  Thank you for knocking.”

Nelly said, “Who is going to break it to Gloria Grace that she is Stormie’s aunt and you are her sister-in-law?”

Jemi smiled and shrugged, “One bridge at a time.  The children at Lily the Pink call me Aunt Jemima out of respect since my storm chasing codename is Stinker.  It’s good to see you, Nelly.”

I interrupted, “But why are you here?”

Jemi said, “I had a free afternoon, so I was with Stormie and Gigi at preschool.  Gigi got agitated and she would not settle down during the nap time.  I had gotten there at lunch, so I have no clue what she really wants.  They do not have to sleep, but Gigi kept fidgeting, and she wanted to come to see her Dad and officer Polly.”

A voice over the voice box said, “She is not out on patrol.  I’ll bring her in.”  In less than a minute, Polly and Gisele came into my office.

Gigi started jumping up and down.  “Polly, we sang about you in class today.”

Polly asked, “You did?  I didn’t know someone had written a song about me.  How does it go?”

Gigi said, “Sing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day!  And Aunt Gisele, you are in the song, too.  My Lady Fair with laminar hair.”

The room was quiet for a second.  Then everyone burst out laughing.  Jemi was nodding and saying she now understood what Gigi was saying, but she got the line about “my lady fair” wrong.

Gisele shook her head, “Yes, Gigi, I have lavender hair among the various shades of purple, but my hair is like the curves of my body.  It is wavy.  So, I don’t think it’s quite laminar.  That might count if it was straight hair.”

Polly picked up Gigi and gave her a hug.  “Yes, Gigi, my name is Polly Pulice Handel, but that can wait until I get home tonight.  Just for you, I am Polly Wolly Doodle!  But who is Fairy Fey?  And who is Suzannah?”

Jemi and Nelly both said, “Don’t look at me!”

Gigi made a face, “I haven’t figured that out yet.  I hoped you would know.”

Polly nodded, “Okay, if I am going to make detective, I am going to have to investigate.  Can I be excused to do that, Gigi?”  Gigi kissed Polly on the cheek and she was excused.  Gisele and Polly laughed as they left.  Gigi had made their day.

Nelly smiled and nodded, “Jemima, this is a personal question, but did you sleep with your husband before you got married?”

Jemi gasped, “Can you clarify that, Nelly?”

Nelly waved her hands, “You know, made love, had S-E-X?”

Jemi smiled and leaned down to Stormie, “Go give Granddaddy a kiss.”  Stormie came around the desk and stretched out her arms for me to pick her up.  Jemi answered, “No, but my hesitation was that on our first storm chase, the university announced a policy that the professors shared a hotel room, and the students shared another room.  They had made no arrangements for different genders in the same room.  They knew we were engaged, and they made a false assumption.  They even booked us in the honeymoon suite.  One night with a heart-shaped bed.  I think Easy said that he took four or five cold showers that night.  Mom Yeggs threw a fit when we told her.”

Nelly shrugged, “Our second daughter married a PK, like you, but a boy, and they were sleeping together from practically the first date.  All my children failed to wait, but then, I guess you heard the ghost story.  Stella was conceived in the Gargoyle House.  I was just telling Dev, your father-in-law, that I made such a mess out of being a good Mom.  And it inadvertently led to Teddy’s murder.  I accepted Christ, but there was one part of my life that I did not surrender.  The murderer is behind bars, but I do not know if I can forgive myself.”

Jemi asked, “How many grandchildren do you have, Nelly?”

Nelly sighed, “I have to do the math.  Stella has five, Martha two, Stan Junior has five, Patsy three, and the twin maker is Jane with the least amount of time to do it, but two sets of twins and one extra.  Jane has five.  That makes twenty grandchildren.  And half of them are already showing signs of being athletes like their grandfathers on the other side of the family.”

Jemi nodded, “My Dad has said in sermons that not forgiving yourself is selfish and silly, since God forgave and has forgotten those sins.  But you have twenty reasons to forgive yourself and repent and change the lifestyle that created that shame.  Lay it all at the foot of the cross.”

Nelly smiled.  She walked over and gave Jemima a big hug, “Child, when are you preaching?  I want to come and hear that sermon.”

Jemi said, “I got the codename Stinker by leading people to Christ who thought their life was okay until they met Easy and me.  That’s about it.  I love people, and I let those actions talk for me.  And not having sex before we got married was Easy’s idea.  He says that a policeman’s kid can be worse than being a preacher’s kid.  With this guy over here, I’m not sure.”

They both looked over as I started making Bronx cheers with Stormie’s belly and Stormie squealed with delight.

Jim and Poached came into the room laughing.  We were back to no active cases, and they were looking for anything to divert their attention.

Nelly said, “Poached and Jim, I want to apologize for hitting on you.”

Poached turned red, but Jim said, “Nell, you never hit on me, not on this case or back when I was working patrol or just starting as a detective.”

Nell shrugged, “Then, I apologize for not hitting on you.  I have met Tuesday a few times, and she is a wonderful woman.”

Don Cahn walked in to put some paperwork on my desk.

Nelly sighed, “What a time to repent of my hitting on cops!  He’s gorgeous!”

Credits

Stella was simply a name, but Martha Jefferson was Thomas Jefferson’s wife, but she was nicknamed Patsy.  And Jane Jefferson was Thomas Jefferson’s mother.

No football player was in mind when creating the totally fictional characters of Teddy Harwood and Boone Mooney, but there are quite a few wide receivers over the years who felt privileged to get away with things, on and off the field, and if caught, they read a carefully prepared apology, and the entire incident was swept under the rug.  Those past stories in the media gave me the idea for this fictional tale.  All that I started with was Nelly coming out of retirement for one case, and then I asked, “Why would she do that?”

I wanted Nelly’s bravado with the men at the precinct, that developed into a habit to make things hard on her decades later.  We never know who is watching and how they will interpret our words and actions.  So, being a light that shines the love of Jesus is the best way.

Here is Polly Wolly Doodle sung by Burl Ives, with the Ray Charles Singers backing him.