Joey Warnecki: Eight Days

Joey Warnecki

Eight Days

John E. Dahlborg

1st Edition

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 John E. Dahlborg

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Cover photo by Elizabeth Kaminski

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 1

November 2000, Tuesday

The first shot shattered the home's rear window and storm glass, plowed a furrow along the man's scalp and buried itself in the opposite wall. The second, without any obstruction to slow its velocity, tore through the wall and ended up in the bathroom medicine chest, where it nested between a bottle of aspirin and a toothbrush. The tall, thin man crumpled to the floor, unconscious, cold November air pouring over him like a waterfall through the broken window. It was a few minutes into a new day, two days before Thanksgiving.

His chair, an old oak Craftsman- style rocker with a colorfully knitted afghan draped over the back, rocked itself to a stop. After a few minutes, the furnace clicked on, trying in a losing battle to overcome the invading cold. The warm air blowing from the register on the floor, and the fall of air through the shattered window became the only movement in the house, save for the slight rise and fall of Joey's chest, the faint beating of his heart, and the slow sweep of the wall clock's second hand.

The room he lay in had been his bedroom as a child, when his aunt and uncle had still been alive, and when he had grown, and they had passed away, it had become his sitting room. The furniture was elderly, inexpensive, 30's and 40's vintage, but well cared for. Two large bookcases were filled mostly with paperback novels. Framed photographs of his aunt and uncle and his parents sat atop one of them, the colors somewhat faded from the light. A textured print of Van Gogh's sunflowers hung on the wall between the bookcases, framed in the same dark oak as the rocker. The wall adjacent to the broken window contained another window that faced the driveway, and below it sat a sprawling Christmas cactus upon an oak plant stand, a plastic doily between pot and wood. The other chair in the room was a small armchair, upholstered in a pale pattern of flowers and leaves. It sat in the corner between the two windows and had a knitted doily across the top back edge. It was accompanied by a small footstool, covered in the same material. The floor was varnished oak, covered in large part by a circular braided rug, in black, red, and green — old neckties, socks, and other castaway clothing.

It was upon this rug that the man yet breathed and bled. Shards of glass littered the room and his body. A news magazine was crumpled beneath his knee. Half asleep, reading this magazine, it had slid from his lap. Lurching awake to grab it, his movement, simultaneous with the first shot, had prevented the bullet from killing him outright . Now the blood coagulated with the glass and his hair and in the rug, and the furnace worked to keep him from freezing to death this cold November evening.

The house, a single-story frame house, had a low-pitched gable roof. It sat in a densely packed neighborhood of similar houses on quarter acre lots. This house, however, had the advantage of being backed by a forested state park, so the small picket-fenced yard behind it offered an expansive, leafy background and more than minimal privacy. The grass was neatly trimmed, as were the various bushes planted tightly alongside the house foundation. A graveled driveway to the left of the house ran up to a single-car garage with swinging doors. This structure, sided in white-painted shingles like the house, had been converted to a workshop. Backed up to it was a blue ten-year-old Ford pickup truck, its bed haphazardly piled high with rotted wooden boards with protruding rusty nails. To the left of, and parallel to the driveway, on the neighbor's lot, a line of mellon-sized, white-painted stones were laid out to separate the two properties.

In the mid-morning of the next day, a man crossed this line of stones and the driveway to mount the two concrete steps of his neighbor's back stoop. Noting the broken window, he paused, fist raised to knock, and leaned to the right to look through.

Joey?, he said in a moderate voice. He repeated, Joey?, more loudly. Hey, Joey, you all right? He waited. still and tense for several heartbeats and then rushed through the unlocked (seldom locked) back door. Through the cold kitchen, around the corner to the right, and into the colder room where he stopped short of the pooled blood, his shoes crunching on glass, and his hands raised before him as though to hold back the scene before him.

Fifteen minutes later an ambulance braked to a stop on the street in front of the house. And ten minutes after that, a police patrol car in black and white disgorged a uniformed officer. He entered through the back door, noting the shattered window, now having what looked like a patchwork quilt hung over it inside. He stood in the doorway to the sitting room where the two paramedics were scissoring Joey's hair to separate his head from the rug, drying blood having glued the two together. A blue blanket covered him to his shoulders and a collapsed stretcher lay on the floor next to him. A vacuum cleaner sat nearby. The officer stepped around the activity to stand in the room's center. After nodding to the next-door neighbor who now was sitting on the footstool, he looked up on the wall opposite the damaged window, seeing the two bullet holes, four inches between them. He was a tall and heavy man and he hiked up his pants with its ponderous equipment belt before squatting on his haunches to face the paramedics and the object of their activity.

How dead is he? he asked, scratching under his cap. One of the paramedics, a slightly built young man with prematurely thinning blond hair, looked up from where he was supporting Joey's head so the other could get scissors between it and the carpet.

Dunno, he said. It looks like more blood than it really is, but he's apparently been lying here unconscious all night. He's gotten real cold. Soon's we get him unstuck, we'll rush him in so's they can warm him up and check for internal damage to his head. He's concussed for sure.

You check for a wallet? the officer asked.

None on him, the paramedic replied. The other paramedic looked up. Done, she said. Let's get him loaded and go. You two, indicating the neighbor and the officer, give a hand with his legs. She looked like a twin to her partner, except for the thinning hair. She supported Joey's head and they lifted him to the stretcher. Two minutes later the ambulance rolled away, siren on. Neighbors up and down the street looked out of windows or stood on their front porches. It was a blustery Tuesday morning.

You called it in? The officer and the neighbor were standing. The neighbor was a sixty-ish, black man, stocky and strong looking, a fringe of gray hair cut close to his scalp. He wore pressed khakis, a short-sleeved white t-shirt, and brown leather loafers without socks. Hands in his pockets, jingling coins, or keys.

Yeah, he replied. I came over about nine or so to complain about the dust and‐

Wait a minute. The officer pulled a notebook and pencil from a chest pocket. The name tag over the pocket read 'Sims'. Now, your name is?

Louis Armstrong. I live next door, driveway side. Louis pronounced the 's'.

Address? Officer Sims licked his pencil point and wrote.

Two-twenty two Fourth Street. Louis, having taken some shit from cops in the past, appreciated the lack of commentary on his name.

What dust? The question wouldn't naturally be next in line at this point, but the officer was curious.

I got roses planted next to the garage and Joey had a fan in the window yesterday blowing sawdust all over my new cedar bark mulch. I came over to bitch at him about it and saw him through the broken window, lying there, blood and glass all over.

Sawdust is just more mulch, isn't it? Officer Sims pointed at Louis with his pencil.

Louis crossed his arms over his chest. I prefer things neat. Nice, clean, new red mulch with yellow dust all over it don't make it.

Sims glanced through the side window and took in the row of white-painted stones. They were singularly uniform in size. He scratched under the side of his cap with the point of his pencil, licked it again and poised it over his pad. You hang up that bedspread? Is that a bedspread?

Yeah, I took it from the bedroom, pointing through the wall with the bullet holes. The bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom.

What else did you touch here this morning?

Well, I checked the pulse in his neck to see if he was alive and covered him up with the blanket off the bed. Then I went in the kitchen and called 911 for the ambulance. Then, while I was waiting for them, I got the vacuum cleaner with the brush attachment out of the hall closet and vacuumed the glass specks off his eyelids, so's he wouldn't get glass in his eyes, if he woke up, you know, and opened them. Louis rubbed the back of his neck.

You prefer things neat. This was stated matter-of-factly. Louis listened for sarcasm but didn't hear any. Still, he didn't respond to the question or comment, whichever it was.

Hear anything last night, this morning? The officer took off his cap, so he could scratch on top, and replaced it. He had about as much hair as Louis, though it was brown, and there were some strands on top.

No, nothing out of the ordinary. Least ways no gunshots. Anyway, I had the stereo going about all evening, and fell asleep in my chair. Woke up and went to bed about midnight. Didn't hear anything that I remember. He paused. Can't think why anybody'd shoot Joey, unless maybe someone was poaching deer back in the woods there, and shot this way. They both turned to look at the bullet holes, six feet high on the wall. The grouping and the angle, even if Joey had been standing, seemed unlikely to have originated back in the woods, where the ground was higher.

Don't seem likely, though, does it? , Louis said.

No, maybe not. Sims turned to look at the dark spot on the rug. It was the size of a dinner plate and appeared to him like a silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head. Mickey had a scraggly brown beard of genuine human hair. He turned back to Louis, narrowing his eyes a little, as though considering Louis for the crime. Louis met his gaze with a narrowing of his own eyes.

What's the victim's name? Sims returned his attention to his notebook.

Joey Warnecki.

That's Joseph, right?

Yeah, haven't heard him called that since his aunt died, though.

What about family, somebody to inform about the victim.

Louis put his hands back in his pockets. Far as I know, Joey doesn't have any family. Both his parents died when he was a little kid and his aunt and uncle raised him. They've both been gone for several years now, left him this place. Joey never mentioned anybody else.

No wife, ex-wife?

Nobody.

Sims stopped to consider his surroundings in light of this information. The furnishings, even the wallpaper, did not appear to be the selection of a single young man. How old is Joseph Warnecki?

Joey is thirty-one years old. He was a Woodstock baby, born right there at the music festival, in a tent. Parents were hippies. I didn't know his dad, really, but his mom was a nice girl. She grew up here, too, with the aunt. Actually, Helen, the aunt, was Joey's great aunt. Louis wondered why he was being so expansive, decided the whole situation felt just too unreal. He shook his head and looked down at his feet, to ground himself.

What did he, does he, do for work?

Joey's a carpenter, handyman. Small stuff, mostly. Fix a rotten porch, hang a new door. Takes care of some summer places down by the shore in the off season. Stuff like that, you know.

"He into drugs?'

At this, Louis looked back up at the officer and cocked his head to the side.

After a pause, Noooo, I don't believe so. Shit, this look like a drug dealer's house to you? His answer sounded defensive to the officer, who stepped back a half pace, giving Louis some more personal space. It worked and Louis continued. Joey's a regular working guy. Never got into anything bad, never hurt anybody, got along with everybody. He's even nice to that asshole on the other side."

Well, he may have had at least one enemy. Who on the other side?

Ah, I didn't mean to pick out Old Joe as a suspect, even if he is a miserable son of a bitch. He's just a crank. I'm talking about Joe Soucup, neighbor on the other side of the house. Joey's the only one in the neighborhood that'll even talk to him, that's why I say he doesn't have any enemies. He's too nice to have any. This thing is too crazy.

This neighborhood. This neighborhood is full of mostly old folks who kept their houses when the cannery closed down. Quiet place, hardly any kids. Nothing this strange happens here. Sometimes someone has a heart attack and the ambulance comes. That's about it. Louis was illustrating how odd this occurrence of crime was.

Sims knew about the neighborhood. He'd responded to several ambulance calls and very few criminal complaints here. The neighborhood consisted of mostly single-family, small homes packed together closely on property that had been owned by the Adams' family, who had also owned and operated a cannery located three-quarters of a mile away, on on the north side of this Maine coastal town's harbor. The Adams' family sold the lots and held the mortgages for cannery workers, creating a stable work force and increasing their own wealth at the same time. The housing construction was done by a company owned by the same family. The cannery closed down with the depletion of the fishing grounds, just about the time most of the thirty-year mortgages had been paid off. The jobs had gone and the people had stayed.

Sims reviewed the jottings in his notebook and returned it to his vest pocket. Mr. Armstrong, he said, I'm going to call this in. Later, I or another officer will want to talk to you again. Can you plan to hang around for a while?

Sure, I don't have any plans for the moment. I want to call the hospital to see how Joey is, maybe go up there later, but I'll stay around. I'd like to clean up the glass and stuff, you know, put some cardboard in the window before dark. He looked around as though he would begin cleaning right away.

I think you're going to have to wait on the cleaning, Mr. Armstrong. We'll want to preserve the scene for a while, not disturb anything else. Sims looked pointedly at the vacuum cleaner. Would you please step around the mess and wait at home, sir?

Yeah, okay, I understand. I'll, ah, wait at home. And with that, Louis walked around and out, crossing outside to his rear porch. There he paused, looking back to see Officer Sims looking through the side window at him. Louis opened the door and went inside.

In the sitting room, Sims stood in the center of the room, turning in a slow circle, committing details to memory. He noted the pattern of broken glass, some of which sprinkled the rug beneath where the body had lain. The crumpled magazine, the rocking chair, the position of the body — these led him to the conclusion that Joey had been reading in the chair, and had been shot without warning.

Leaving the room, he entered a hallway. The first door on his right led to the small bathroom, which was clean and orderly, fixtures all polished, towels hung neatly. The mirror of the medicine cabinet over the sink was cracked, craze lines radiating outward from a central point. A bedroom lay at the end of the hall, orderly except where bedspread and blanket had been hastily torn from the bed, pulling a pillow to the floor. The bureau top was overlaid with a cutwork linen doily. On it lay a hairbrush and comb, a wallet and a loose-leaf ring binder; all laid out straight and square to each other. He did not handle any of these, but left the room and turned to the right through a doorless entry into a twelve by twenty foot space divided into dining and living room areas by their furniture groupings. The furnishings here were in character with the rest of the house: older, inexpensive pieces, somewhat worn but well cared for. Clearly, the original furnisher of the home was a devotee of the needle arts. Doilies and anti-massacars were in abundance. Cutwork and embroidery, pieces knitted, tatted, and crocheted, overlaid every table and upholstered piece of furniture in the space. And two large, circular, braided rugs covered the centers of the floor areas. Sheer curtains bordered the room's windows, two on the wall facing the street and two on the wall facing the neighboring house, separated from this one by twenty feet or so. The front door was in a small alcove on the bedroom side.

The kitchen, behind the dining area, looked to have been renovated in the sixties, with its plastic-laminated counters, birch-veneered cabinets, and stainless steel sink. A small, round oak table with four oak chairs in the Craftsman style occupied the center of the linoleum floor. No dishes or flatware were on the counters or in the sink. All in all, the house spoke little of the individual who lived there, save that he was neater than the average male, not terribly acquisitive, and didn't own a television set.

Sims thought about that as he exited the back door to stand on the concrete stoop outside. He had noticed a radio in the kitchen, and one in the sitting room, but had seen no stereo equipment, no CD's or cassette tapes. Think of that, he said to himself, a thirty-year-old man without even a boom box. He turned to face the broken window, thinking that if the gunman had shot from there, he would have had to hold on to the doorframe to lean far enough out to the right to shoot. Don't touch the doorframe, he thought. Two steps down and two to the right would have been a good position for a tall shooter. This area was paved with brick. No cartridge casings were evident. Sims returned to his car to call in his initial report.

Using a cell phone, he called direct to the sergeant's office, by-passing the switchboard. Sarge, this is Sims. The 911 call was correct, there was a shooting. The victim was alive but unconscious when I got here. The EMT's took him to Regional Hospital and I'm parked in front of the house right now.

There was a pause, and the sergeant replied. Tell me more. He sat at a gray metal desk spread with budget reports. This was the time of year when the department's financial reports were pulled together to make a case for the next year's budget. If the department waited for the end of the year to prepare, the money the town raised by taxes would go to non-essential services, like the library or the schools. So reasoned the sergeant, who fiercely desired to replace aging and outmoded equipment and increase his operating budget.

Apparently, two shots were fired from outside, through the window, and creased the skull of a thirty-one year old male, one Joseph Warnecki. I've talked to one of the neighbors, so far, but nothing obvious presents itself as an explanation. I'm going to need some help here.

The sergeant, whose name was Clarkson, swiveled his chair away from his desk and its paperwork to concentrate on this non-budgetary matter. He tried to banish dollars and cents from his mind. Okay, let's see. He took a minute to think. How secure is the scene?

Well, like I said, I'm sitting out in front. The neighborhood is quiet, nobody walking around, though some neighbors are looking out their windows. No reporters or anything.

The vultures will be around soon. They're probably monitoring this call. The sergeant had unsuccessfully petitioned for an encrypted cell phone system for two years and was not a great fan for the rights of a free press. Is the place locked up?

No. I didn't look for any keys. The place was open when I got here.

Listen. Run some tape across the front of the place and run back here to pick up Mary and the evidence kit. There aren't any cars in the yard right now. I'll get Knowles down there to keep the press out. He's north of the cannery somewhere. Should be able to get there in ten minutes or so. Use the siren and lights. Go.

Roger, replied Sims, who hurriedly strung fluorescent yellow crime-scene tape from the white picket fence in front of Armstrong's house to the rusty farm fence that fronted the property on the other side of Warnecki's house. In doing so, he had to string it across the neighbor's driveway. A wizened, bald, hook-nosed figure scowled at him from inside that house. He looked back at him for a moment. I'll be back in a few minutes and change it, he thought. He waved to the figure and jogged to the car, holding on to his flopping equipment belt. A few seconds later he was away, flashing lights and siren on.

.

U.S. Coastal Route One ran northeast through the mid-coast town of Rock Harbor, Maine, effectively dividing most of its population from the sea. Three of the town's four traffic lights allowed residents and tourists to cross it along its length, here denominated Main Street, through the commercial district. The craze for urban renewal that had swept much of downtown America in the 'fifties and 'sixties had not touched Rock Harbor. Neither had the town given way to the later trend of hiding historic (some said outmoded) detail with lath and stucco, nor of updating a crenelated brick roof line by covering it with a false sheet-metal gambrel roof. The district retained the original nineteenth-century character of its construction, not because of foresight on the part of the citizenry, but rather because of their frugality, and in part, down-east poverty. The lately-recognized charm of the downtown had recently been locked in by naming it an official historic district and zoning out the architecture of fast-food culture. Thus the area had become, in the nineties, a magnet for tourists fleeing the modernized blight of their own urban landscapes. A new prosperity turned empty storefronts and failed banks into trendy shops and upscale restaurants. Antique shops vied with art galleries for tourist dollars. And real estate values soared.

The new prosperity, though, like the canada geese that dug up the grass in the town park, was largely migratory, flying south when summer ended. Fully half of the shops, and most of the restaurants, closed up with the summer cottages and the departure of pleasure craft from the harbor. Restaurant wait staff returned to college or competed with out-of-work shop clerks for jobs in year-round businesses. With the closing of the cannery and the export overseas of manufactory enterprise, these jobs were few. Some locally-owned shops, those that did not do well enough in the summer, would not open again in the following year. So was reinforced traditional yankee thrift. The old values of 'waste not, want not', and 'a penny saved is a penny earned' remained viable in the place of their origin.

A few narrow streets and alleys ran southeast off Main Street to the harbor. Extending a half-mile from Rock Harbor Lighthouse and Harbor Town Park in the southwest to the defunct cannery in the northeast, it was protected from the open ocean by a narrow, conifer-studded barrier island. Deep water channels entered the harbor at each end, though by tradition, traffic entered by the northeast and exited the other. This practice originated when boats laden with their catch would enter at the northeast to reach the cannery and the commercial docks clustered at that end. Flouting this rule, non-local pleasure craft endured the sneers of local lobstermen, purse-seiners, and draggers.

The lobstermen were a sub-set of the local economy that had not seen a diminishment of numbers in recent years. While other fish stocks had declined, the numbers of lobsters taken had increased. After the cannery shut down, Charles Adams, heir to that failed business, had driven piles and enclosed a two-acre lobster pound. Not a fisherman's cooperative, he bought the catch outright at a set price and sold or held the lobsters according to the market price. Not all the lobstermen sold to him and not all who did were happy with his policies. And those that left him to deal independently wouldn't be welcomed back. This was a continual subject of discussion at Molly's , a hangout for fishermen and other working class heroes, located on the northernmost alley running from Main Street to the docks.

The harbormaster's shack was crowded between the two commercial docks and the marina. Boat yards jostled for space with the Rock Harbor Yacht Club and a few waterside restaurants. During the summer, the harbor teemed with activity, a noisy bouillabaisse both rank and sweet: smells of diesel fuel and fried seafood, low-tide and cocoa butter; sounds of engine and seagull, laughter and salty imprecation; light flashing from varnished brightwork, deep shadow where hull met water. This November, the chill, damp wind seemed to have blown most of all that busy cacophony away. It was still a nice, fishy stew, but not one to linger by in shorts and a tee shirt.

The town's business district was a scant two blocks wide, merging into municipal buildings and then residential areas. The southern end of town melded into farmland, alluvial plain. To the north, scarcely a mile from the sea rose Frenchman's Hill State Park, donated by Charles Adams' father shortly after the second world war. Matthew Adams divested himself of this land in an attempt to ensure a fond and grateful memory of him in the hearts of the local population and, only incidentally, to reduce his property tax liability. (He had wanted it named Matthew Adams State Park, but the trustees, influenced by the not-grateful-enough locals, had named it after its first white resident, a hermit of French-Canadian extraction.) The lavish estate at its peak, and the sole right of way to it, was left to his daughter Meredith, and was to revert to the state upon her death. She was now seventy-four years old and used the place summers and holidays with her children and their families. None of them were willing to invest any capital in a house that would soon belong to the state, and as a result it was slowly subsiding into decay. Still, it was an impressive piece of brick, Federalist-style architecture, with a magnificent view of the town, its harbor, and a great expanse of Penobscot Bay. The grandchildren of Matthew Adams resented him greatly for his gift to the state. Almost as much as the townspeople resented him for his local greed and his arrogant management of his businesses. A new generation might someday come to revere his memory, but the one now residing in Rock Harbor would never do so.

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Joey Warnecki awoke to unfamiliar surroundings in mid-afternoon of the day he was brought to Mid-Coast Regional Hospital. His head was throbbing and his vision was blurred. The beginnings of panic caused him to start to sit up but the increased pain put his head back down on the pillow and a low groan issued from his throat. A matronly nurse tucking in the sheets on the empty bed to his left turned to the sound. Her eyes went first to the monitors above him and then came to rest on his face. At his startled expression she consciously brought a consoling smile to her face and said, You're in the hospital, dear. They brought you in this morning with a head wound. Don't fret now, just relax there and I'll get the resident. He'll explain what's going on. Just relax now. And she patted his hand where it lay atop the tight blanket and walked away. He tried to follow her with his eyes, not moving his head. When they travelled as far as was possible, the strain brought a new stab of pain and he closed them, too upset to articulate questions in his own mind.

Lying there, he resembled nothing so much as a large, scraggly, puppy dog. Outsized, callused hands lay at the ends of long, thin, corded arms. Beneath the sheet he stretched the length of the bed and his size-twelve feet splayed to the sides, held that way by the taut bedding. He was tucked in as though to keep him from escaping. Indeed, the hospital staff weren't sure how to regard him, being the victim of a gunshot wound. He certainly did not appear dangerous, except for his hair, which was wild. Even without the shaved and stitched area to the right and rear of his head, his hair was savage. Three cowlicks vied for supremacy and he was at least a month overdue for a haircut. And remnants of dried blood matted swatches to his scalp. Hair aside, he wasn't an unattractive man. Though his facial features were, like hands and feet, slightly outsized, they formed a harmonious and expressive whole: eyes brown and large, but not protuberant; nose with character overhanging a generous mouth; jug handle ears that promised to listen to your problems. His face appeared engineered to disarm fear, and invoke trust.

The nurse reappeared, hauling in tow a chubby, pink-faced resident. Mr. Warnecki? She patted his hand. Mr. warnecki, I've brought the doctor. Joey opened his eyes and the doctor stepped to the fore.

I'm Dr. Wickman. I'm sure you're confused, but I'll try to set your mind at ease. As he spoke, he leaned forward with a small penlight to peer into Joey's eyes. You were brought in this morning, unconscious. The police say you were shot from outside your house. Probably a hunting accident, or something. A bullet clipped the side of your head, causing a hairline fracture to the skull. We took an MRI when you were brought in and it doesn't show any apparent internal damage. Meanwhile, we've got you on some meds. You may feel thirsty. Joey's mouth felt dry. We want to keep an eye on you here for a while, maybe a few days, just to watch, you know. He straightened up and regarded Joey.

Joey licked his lips. Head hurts, he allowed.

The doctor nodded. Is your vision blurred? Or double?

Blurry, a bit.

The doctor held out his penlight like a candle before Joey. Can you touch this? Joey raised his left hand and touched the penlight with an index finger. Good. Do you know where you are?

In a hospital, Joey replied.

Right. The doctor paused and said, The police want to talk to you but we're keeping them away for now. You need quiet and rest. Don't get up to pee without calling the nurse. He held up the call button at Joey's side for him to see. Okay?

Okay.

The doctor made some notations on the chart at the foot of the bed, nodded to the nurse, and left. The nurse tucked in the sheets even more firmly, patted Joey's hand for the third time and said, You'll be fine, dear. I'll be back in a little while. She left Joey with his thoughts and his headache.

.

Thirty minutes after Joey was taken away in the ambulance, Officer Sims with Officer Mary Hartz arrived back at the house to find three other vehicles parked along the curb in front. Two were black and white police cars, the other was a white van emblazoned with the Channel 26 Television News logo. Shit, they beat us. And what's the chief's car doing here? Sims scraped the curb with the tires in his hurry to park. The crime scene tape lay on the ground, detached from one end where he had tied it to the wire fence. Officer Knowles, an Archie Bunker look-alike, stood with his arms crossed at the end of the driveway, barring entrance to a young, blond, blue-suited news reporter. Not being allowed to enter the property, she was trusting a microphone before his face and attempting to interview him. Knowles shared more with Archie Bunker than his appearance. He had nothing to say but, I got nothing to say to you. Seeing that her winning smile was not winning any cooperation, she turned to confer with the cameraman and, catching sight of Sims, tried to intercept him. He strode past her and hustled down the driveway. She trotted to where Mary Hartz stood bent over, pulling two aluminum cases from the trunk of the car. The cases, stenciled in yellow 'RHPD', might just as well have had Mary's initials instead, as she jealously guarded them from any and all who would meddle with them. She, among other duties required in small, underfunded police departments, was the department's evidence technician.

Close that for me, would you? Mary straightened, a case in either hand. Her way to the curb was blocked by the reporter. Thanks. Tina, I've got to get by. I just got here, I don't know anything yet, and I couldn't say anything to you now, anyway.

Oh, come on, Mary, give me something. Anything. The reporter stamped her little foot. A slight-framed woman, Tina Bronki had a thin face and a sharp nose. She wore her jaw-length hair in a manner to make her face appear rounder. To the same end, she presented a three-quarter profile when appearing on camera.

Okay: All comment to the press is handled by the department press officer. That would be Sergeant Clarkson. Sorry Tina, you know how he is about speaking with reporters. Officer Mary Hartz, mid-thirties, tall and sturdy, with short brown hair, stood in contrast to the birdlike reporter. As a teenager, she had been the reporter's babysitter and they had remained friends through the several years since then.

He hates me! He'll never talk to me. A shooting in town was an extremely rare news-reporting opportunity. Tina Bronki sensed a possible boost to her career.

He hates everybody, Tina. C'mon, let me by.

Tina stepped aside. Hey, maybe I'll call you later, off the record, she said hopefully, as Mary walked by without reply. Tina returned to the van with the cameraman to escape the gusty November wind and called the police department on her cell phone.

Sergeant Clarkson was not happy to be hearing so soon from the press. How did you hear about this? You know, it's illegal to intercept cellular calls. He made a mental note to press harder for an encrypted system.

Tina brushed by his remark. Sergeant Clarkson, can you comment on the shooting? Was it a hunting accident or was Mr. Warnecki shot intentionally? In her mind she said, Give me a break, you son of a bitch.

The sergeant was a stone wall. The investigation is ongoing. The department has no comment at this time. We will make every effort to keep the press properly informed, at the proper time. Which, if he had the choice, would be never. He was drumming his fingers on the desk.

Tina tried sweetness. Will you comment off the record?

Clarkson used gruffness. There's no such thing.

Tina tried threat. A good relationship with the press can be good for the department.

Clarkson stuck with gruffness. There's no such thing as a good relationship with the press. And