Beyond a Shadow

The Feebies were hidden behind the Farm Supply store, 300 yards from the access road; poised for me to give the word. I was communicating with Barnestaple via a tactical headset. Things were wrapping up at Leptis, and I had just said, "Go," when I saw Big Jim's King Ranch F150 pull in from the access road.

The thought of catching Big Jim holding a smoking gun was an opportunity I wasn't going to pass up.

I said urgently, "Wait, one."

Only an arrogant douchebag like Big Jim would drive a truck with Sheriff's Department shields, to a drug drop. There was a passenger with him. But I couldn't make out who he was. Big Jim got out. He gave the assembled offenders a jovial, good-old-boy, back slapping and hand shaking. He was obviously there to inspire the troops.

I had everything we needed to send the asshole away for a very long time. So, I whispered urgently into the headset, "Go!! Go!! Go!!" I heard Barnestaple's voice say, "Twenty seconds!!!" I glanced in the direction of the access road and saw a series of headlights starting to turn in at high speed.

At the same time, the passenger got out of Big Jim's truck. I focused the camera to capture the image of the final soon-to-be inmate.

It was Janet!!!!

My brain went into mortal lock. You know how you get when you see something that couldn't possibly be true. Your eyes and your brain start a knock-down-drag-out fight about what you're seeing; and there isn't any processing power left to consider what that implies.

My wife definitely had some 'splainin to do and it had better be persuasive. Still, everybody out there was armed. So, it would be hazardous to just storm up and yell, "What the fuck are YOU doing here bitch??!!" Even if there was a strike team 15 seconds out.

All hell broke loose when they arrived. The Feds came screeching to a stop cowboy style. Their big Suburbans disgorged Feebs in black tactical gear; like they were coming out of a clown car. A helicopter appeared overhead, with one of those Spectro Lab SX 16, 50 million candle power lights. The whole world erupted in blinding white light and everybody just froze.

The strike-team was yelling, "Get down on the ground!! Face down on the Ground!!" Most of the crowd complied. The light and the noise were super intimidating.

It looked like Big Jim wanted to argue. So, a man in black, butt-stroked him to the ground. He plopped face-first. Janet was yelling, "Do you know who I am?" as they zip-tied her hands behind her back and led her toward the Federal Paddy-wagons.

Those big vans had appeared like clockwork, right behind the strike team. It was clear that the Feebies knew how to throw a good drug bust. I just stood there in the dark, with my heart in my throat, watching. This was beyond imagining. My wife was in Federal custody, caught in the act.

I stepped out into the bright light. The strike team all knew who I was. They went about their business without acknowledging me. I handed the camera with the evidence to Barnestaple. He accepted it with a nod. Then I walked up to Janet.

She was on her feet sobbing and crying, protesting her innocence. Then, she saw me. She stopped her caterwauling and said accusatorially, "I thought you were in Eau Claire?" That, was perhaps the most ironically inappropriate statement ever uttered by a handcuffed felon. It was like I had just been caught where I shouldn't have been.

I got it. It was an unbearably sudden shift in perspective, and she was in shock. It had all happened so fast and Janet still didn't understand how much shit she was in. For my part, I was devastated. I walked up to her and said sadly, "Maybe I can work a deal."

She wailed, "Noooo!!" It was finally dawning on her that her situation was real and there was no walking away from it.

*****

That was four and a half years ago. Big Jim and the other "criminal masterminds" got 25 years for intent to distribute. Most of the rest got 3 to 10, depending on priors.

The Canadians were even more medieval. They REALLY didn't appreciate a drug cartel operating on their side of the border.

I was the clear choice to replace Big Jim. I had garnered a lot of good press as the hero detective who had sniffed out the bad guys, even if I had done the detecting by meeting one Feeb at the Hot Spot. Plus, after the indictments were handed down, there were only four of us left in the Sheriff's Office.

My subsequent landslide victory was pretty-much a given; even though a small group of voters still treated me like a cross between Benedict Arnold and Judas. Those were the diehard Big Jim fans.

There are always a few in any election. Since, you can fool some of the morons all of the time. Nevertheless, I wasn't going anywhere, and Big Jim wasn't coming back; at least any sooner than twenty years with good behavior. So I began to settle into my new role as County Sheriff.

I got Janet out on recognizance. She copped a plea. I arranged it. Janet was the star witness; both at the proceedings here and in Canada. She said that she wanted to make it up to everybody she'd wronged. Primarily, that was me.

Naturally, her testimony didn't set well with the shadowy people who had funded the operation. So, Janet also got witness protection.

I divorced her. There was no alternative. It was an agonizing decision. But, life is a nothing but hard choices. Sometimes you know they're important; like deciding to get married or have kids. Sometimes they seem trivial; like deciding to ride along to a drug deal in the middle of the night. Nonetheless, they ALL have consequences.

I loved Janet. But, Janet had made her choice without considering how it would impact me. Now I had to make mine. I didn't want to give up my life and my identity because my wife hadn't chosen wisely.

We had many long, heart-to-heart talks. I needed to know why? It turned out that her downfall was the old slippery-slope, combined with the adage about strange bedfellows. Jim and Holmes had needed an easement and Janet had some funding priorities. So, she traded migrating geese for a minor change in zoning requirements. She had even told me about that.

Then, the next time Jim came calling whole wet-lands got preserved. The problem with deals with the Devil is that they're like quicksand. One "deal" follows another, until you're in so deep you can't get out. Why would a smart woman do something that stupid? Well - power corrupts. It's a fact. You might come into office with all kinds of altruistic motives. But, the adulation of the masses will eventually convince you that you know best. Especially if you're put in office by a clear majority of your fellow citizens.

Janet was a shining star, a woman who led. More important, she was fighting for just causes. So, in her mind the ends justified the means. That kind of self-aggrandizing rationalization is pretty-much standard operating procedure in all forms of government; from rural County Boards, to the Halls of Power in DC.

To Janet's credit, she never took a penny of her ill-gotten gains. It all went for conservation efforts. But, she knew exactly what was happening out there in the Wisconsin woods and that knowledge made her culpable; no matter what bogus logic she'd cooked up to justify her actions.

At least I finally knew why she was drinking so much. Guilty consciences require a lot of anesthetic.

The ironic thing is that she might have skated, if I hadn't used the pretext of going to Eau Claire. She agreed to join Big Jim, just for that night's exchange, because I wasn't home.

Jim was no-doubt trying to set the hook, by bringing Janet to the scene of the crime. That way she could never claim she didn't know what was going on.

And yes - perhaps Big Jim also planned to use Janet's exposure to leverage some other demands. But I am certain that he hadn't touched her at that point. In fact, I never got a hint of even an emotional connection. It was just business for both.

We fucked a lot before she left. I sincerely believe that, if Big Jim had never been born we would have died in each other's arms. But he had been, and I had to admit that I had tears in my eyes, as I turned Janet over to the Marshalls. If you disregarded her sidelight as the queen of Schedule Two substances; she was a perfect wife, loving, smart and sexy.

I kissed her goodbye on the last day of a snowy February. The agonizing months of regret and loneliness that followed, put me permanently off women.

*****

So here I was, driving through a rainy Wisconsin night with a nutcase in the front seat. The Doc, the one who I had met at Janet's last hurrah, was going to be my first stop. It was 3AM when we arrived at his clinic.

I had called ahead. Most people would have told me to get lost. But the Doc and his wife are dedicated to the community, and they just lived a few streets over. So, they walked through a downpour to their clinic. The doors were unlocked, the lights were on and the coffee was brewing. That's how things work in small towns.

The Doc was in jeans and an old sweatshirt. It said, "Operation Enduring Freedom - Bagram Air Base." It had the sun, star and thunderbolt of the 75th Rangers. I had guessed that the Doc was a snake eater, the moment I met him.

The wife was in scrubs. They had clearly prepared to receive a female patient. It was a toss-up whether the Doc's wife looked more gorgeous, than she looked competent, or vice-versa.

I escorted my little fruitcake into the clinic. She gazed around the room approvingly and said, "This is Doc Morton's place." Then she looked at the Doc and said, "Who're you?"

The Doc's wife, whose name was Eve, said, "We're the new staff sweetheart. We are here to help you."

My little friend sounded confused as she said, "But where's the Doc? I just talked to him yesterday."

That was puzzling. Doc Morton had died almost twenty years ago.

Eve gave her a friendly smile, one totally lacking in the judgment that you might normally give a crazy person, and said, "He isn't here. But we are. Can I ask you your name?"

My beautiful little nut said, "Sure -- Mavis."

That was progress. At least she knew her name. Eve said, "What's your last name sugar?"

My new responsibility said, "Pritchett," like we all ought to know who she was.

Eve wrote both first and last names down on a clipboard. She walked over to where the receptionist sits, opened a fresh medical record on the computer and began to type.

Mavis turned to me and said bewildered, "Is that another one of those newfangled radios like you have in your car?"

Eve looked up and said, still perfectly normal, "It's not a radio dear. It's called a computer. We can write down the things that you tell us, and we can store it for future reference."

Mavis said, "I used to do that. Only we called it a typewriter and a filing cabinet."

The Doc chuckled, and said amused, "Same general concept."

Eve said, "So, can you tell me where you live Mavis?"

Mavis looked suspicious and said, "Across the street. I live in the apartment above the Hardware Store. You'd know that if you REALLY worked here."

That was interesting. The hardware store had been in the same location since the 1930s and it DID have a small apartment above it. But Mavis wasn't the occupant. Old lady Schmidt had lived there since at least the 1980s.

Eve ran through the other admitting questions while the Doc and I just sat there observing the patient.

The Doc was forming a medical opinion. I was trying to decide what to do with her.

Mavis was clearly disturbed. I could put her in the lockup until I could get her transported down to the clinic in Madison. But that just didn't seem right. She was no threat to herself, or anybody else.

I could put her up for the night in a motel. But I didn't trust her to NOT wander off.

I was certainly not going to take her back to my place. I could see the headlines now, "County Sheriff Shacks-Up with Local Nutter."

I said to The Doc, "Can you put her up, while I figure out what to do with her? It'll only be overnight. The County will reimburse you."

He said, "Sure, we have plenty of room since Brookie got married." His daughter was a smoking hot twenty-two-year-old. She had married some big-time star with the Red Wings and moved to Detroit.

Well, that settled the custody problem. Now, all I had to do was figure out who Mavis Pritchett was.

She was a gorgeous creature, in a black haired, blue eyed way; with porcelain skin, and lovely, perfectly formed, even features. She also had a very leggy, five-foot two body.

She was nubile, full and lithe, with a faultlessly formed pair of round tits on top. But, her butt was her real glory. She had a way of putting one hand on a hip and cocking it so that it emphasized how curvy it was. I thought to myself, "Whoa boy!!" The last thing I needed were carnal thoughts about a crazy person.

I was listening to Eve go through the standard protocol for patients who present with mental concerns. Eve said, "So what is the last thing you remember before the Sheriff picked you up."

Mavis wrinkled her beautiful nose in concentration and said, "I was having a drink with Jimmy Rawlins at the Crescent in Cadott. They've got some good times in that place."

That sort-of made sense. At least the bar was on Wisconsin-27 in the general direction of where I had found her. Eve said, "Just to be clear, you were having drink with somebody over in Cadott. What happened after that?"

Mavis paused, like she was trying to recall. She said, "Well, I remember it was hot and I started to feel kind-of funny. It was like Jimmy'd slipped me a Mickey."

I hadn't heard anybody in this Century refer to drugged drinks as Mickey Finns. I know it was a popular term back in the 1930s. But now that date-rape is almost a college sport, there are so many chemical names for those types of drugs that you have to be a pharmacist to keep track.

Mavis looked anguished for a second and said, "That's all I remember until this guy nearly ran me over." She gestured in my direction.

I said, "My name is Erik and I'm the local Sheriff. You wandered out of a forest in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how you got out there?"

She said baffled, "I have no idea. I took the bus up to Cadott last night, to drink with some of my friends. It was Tommy Williams's party. He just got back from the war you know. We were all really worried about him. He was a waist gunner on a B-17."

I looked at the Doc questioningly. He said kindly, "That war has been over for 70 years Mavis."

If you want to see a picture of gobsmacked, you need look no further than Mavis Pritchett. She wailed, "No way!! That's impossible!! The Japs just surrendered."

*****

The rain stopped after I went to sleep. The next morning, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and it was back into the 70s.

That's the problem with Wisconsin in the fall. Most of the time the light is golden, the temperatures are pleasant, and the wildlife hasn't settled in for the godawful month of January. But, Old Man Winter still likes to show his hand once-in-a-while, just to keep the residents from getting too complacent.

The first thing I did after morning coffee was phone the Doc. Mavis had gone off the deep end after we told her it was NOT 1946. He'd sedated her, and she was sleeping it off in their spare bedroom. The Doc and his wife had taken turns keeping an eye on her.

I said, "I'll be around to pick her up. But I want to do a little background investigation first. Can you hold on to her for another hour or two?"

The Doc said, "Sure." He and his wife both understood service. She was an ex-marine nurse, who had done tours in the Sandbox. And my guess was that Doc had done a lot more than that.

Our Post is a one-story building with a reception desk and work area for the Deputies and a little office in the back for me. I closed my door and fired up the computer.

First, I did a deepweb scan looking for any Mavis Pritchetts living in Wisconsin. It came up empty. Mavis isn't a popular name for woman under the age of 80. So, I checked the CIB data base for any Mavis Pritchetts. There was only one person by that name. The problem was that she had been missing since the 1940s!!

The circumstances of her disappearance were unknown. The cops up in Chippewa County had done their due diligence. But, it was a different era back then. They turned up nothing. Nobody seemed to know what had happened. The case went cold while Harry S Truman was still President.

I sat back in my chair and took a big sip of coffee. I was trying to think this through. I'm a hardheaded Wisconsin cop. I didn't believe in ghosts. This woman was a hot-as-hell, twenty-something, living human being. So, I had to figure out why she was trying to pass herself off as a missing person; one who had disappeared seventy years ago.

I got a call from Charlene, while I was on my way to the clinic to pick up Mavis. Char is our dispatcher. She reported a public disturbance at the hardware on main street. I didn't need to ask who was causing it. I said tersely, "Responding!!"

Lights flashing; I screeched to a stop in front of the hardware building, bailed out, and ran up the steps to the second-floor. My nut case was on the landing banging loudly on the door and yelling, "Open up, you old bitch!! I need my clothes!!"

I came up the stairs behind her and said sternly, "Mavis, you have to stop this."

She turned and said delighted, "Oh, you're here. I need you to arrest this lady. She's squatting in my apartment."

I tapped on the door and said, "Open the door Mrs. Schmidt. It's Sheriff Schwartzwalder."

The door slowly opened, and an elderly lady timorously appeared. She said, "This woman has been banging on my door for the past fifteen minutes. That's why I called you."

I said, "It's okay Mrs. Schmidt. I apologize. Mavis here is a little disoriented. We are working to get her some help."

Mavis yelled, "Disoriented!! I'll be just fine, once you get this old bitch out of my place."

I turned to Mrs. Schmidt and said, "How long have you been living here Alice?"

She said, "I moved in after my divorce in '76. That's coming up on 40 years now. My ex-husband Tom, he liked the ladies."

Mavis shrieked, "That's bullshit. I've been living here since I started work. That was two years ago!!"

Mavis tried to push past poor Mrs. Schmidt. I grabbed her by the arm and dosey-doed her around on the landing. Then I proceeded down the steps with her trying to yank her arm free. I tossed her in the back of the cruiser, that's the place where we keep the suspects, and motored back to my house.

I knew how it might look, having a woman in Mavis's situation under my roof. But she was my responsibility, and it just didn't seem right to keep presuming on the Doc's kindheartedness. Mavis needed to stay someplace, and I didn't have the heart to put her in the County lock-up. The only other option was to put her up myself.

Janet and I were DINKS. So, we had a nice house. The uplift for the mortgage came courtesy of Uncle Sam and our GI-Bills. I had been rattling around in it for almost five years, which, NOT coincidentally, was also the point-in-time when Janet became a nameless face.

We had a couple of acres and a big, roomy one-story custom-built log-house. It had vaulted ceilings and a huge deck overlooking the Millpond. It had four bedrooms, in anticipation of children. It was isolated and scenic. But, it was still easily accessible to town via 27.

It was a sad reminder of a future I thought I had. I had been busy in the first couple of years, shaping up the Department. So, the isolation didn't bother me much. But, I had lived the unhappy life of the solitary man for the last couple of years; wake up, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed; rinse and repeat. It was hopelessly depressing.