Mel
I watched as Mason headed toward the bar again, not long after our chat. I hope she has enough sense to not actually be drinking on duty... A local politician cornered me and, by the time I could extricate myself from that conversation and go to the bar for a drink refill too, she’d disappeared.
While I was waiting for my diet cola, two women positioned themselves behind me to wait. Slightly inebriated, one was a little loud as she complimented the other on her dress.
“That’s to die for!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, this?” came the response. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Are you going to the party at the Club tomorrow night?”
“You’re kidding right? We wouldn’t miss it!”
“Well just you wait to see what I’ve got in store for that one!”
The server brought my drink and, as I moved away, I looked back at the two women. Real socialites those two...but, they gave me a good lead.
I knew the party for the Zanesville Country Club members would be quite the swanky affair that would be heavily attended by all of the local movers and shakers who were still in town at this time of year. Entire upper class enclaves would be devoid of their residents and prime picking for our burglar.
As I worked my way back to Dana, I was thinking about what I could organize on a Saturday night for the community around the club without making our overtime situation even more dire than it already was.
I was pleased to see that Dana was still speaking with Aiden Quinn and that his father, Aiden Sr., had joined them. The Quinn’s were a Morelville founding family and wealthy but people well grounded in reality and certainly worth it for her to get to know better. I was almost close enough to greet the senior Quinn myself when Joe Treadway appeared out of nowhere and stopped me in my tracks.
“We got a call boss; there’s been a shooting.”
I gave him my full attention.
“Someone tried to break into another home in this area. The housekeeper was there. They shot her and bolted. One patrol car is already headed to the scene.”
“Any idea whose house?”
“Dispatch says the name is Powers, David Powers.”
“They’re here Joe; I've seen them. I’ll go find them. You grab another deputy and see if you can round up Janet Mason; she’s here somewhere too. That's it for now though; we can’t leave the Mayor without security. Meet me outside in two.”
Treadway nodded and moved away as quickly as he’d appeared.
Dana and the Quinns were watching me intently. “You heard?” I asked them.
Both Quinn men nodded and my wife put a hand on my arm, saying, “Be careful Mel.”
“I don’t know that I’ll be back here...I can call Kris or dad to come and get you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Aiden Sr. put in. “We’ll see this lovely woman home.”
###
Lorene Jarvis, the Power’s live in housekeeper was dead by the time we arrived on the scene a few minutes later. She’d taken a bullet just below the left shoulder. My patrol deputy, who'd beat the ambulance to the scene by seconds, was the first to find her, already expired.
“Poor woman,” I said to Janet. “She must have heard someone at the door and she came up front to answer it. It’s a wonder she was even able to make it to the phone and call us.” Mason just nodded. “Someone didn't realize she'd be here.” Again there was no response from my newest detective.
We moved out of the front sitting room where Lorene lay, not far from the room’s phone, back toward the entry hall and the bloody mess there.
“Sheriff, the Powers’ are outside. They want to come in,” my deputy Garcia told me as he approached from the back part of the house where we were staging everything.
“Sorry, no can do. This went from an attempted burglary and a shooting to a murder investigation. The coroner is on the way and we’re going to be on scene a little while.”
“That’s not all.” He hesitated to speak again but I was patient with him. Finally he spat it out, “Zanesville PD is here too, claiming jurisdiction.”
“Well, technically it is their beat but I think once I chat with whoever’s taking lead on their team, they’ll gladly pass it off.”
“What should I tell them?”
“PD or the Powers?”
“Um...well, both.”
I looked Garcia up and down. He was young; only a year or so removed from his year as a jailer. “Please tell the Powers’ that I’ll be out to speak with them in just a couple of minutes and please, whatever you have to do, don’t let them come into this house. Tell PD to send their lead in. I’ll deal with that now.”
“Should I go with him Sheriff?” Mason asked me in a tone that seemed quite detached.
Inwardly I thought, maybe this is how she handles violent crimes. To her, I said, “No. I need you here. We’ll have to do the evidence collection ourselves. It will take hours to get someone from the Columbus crime lab out here on a Friday night. Even if PD were to take this, they’d be in the same boat.”
I paused and then thought of something else, “What you can do is get a hold of Shane and get him out here. It’s been you and me so far but now we’re going to need all hands on deck.”
“Garcia,” I called out to him as he retreated back down the hall. When he turned back to me, I told him, “No press. None. It can't get out yet that there's been a fatality.”