Sunday Morning, December, 14th, 2014
The Crane Family Farm
“Please tell me you're not working today?” Dana stuck her bottom lip out in a mock pout.
“Not on your life! Not if I can help it; that's for sure.” I pulled her in close and nibbled on the lip she'd curled just moments before.
Boo, who'd been relegated to her actual dog bed on the floor for the night – the one she almost never used – now looked up at us and whined.
“Oh, I suppose you think you need to go outside right this very minute?” I asked, leaning back and looking over my shoulder at her. At the word 'outside' she bounded up and circled by the open bedroom door.
I looked back at my wife, her lip starting to curl again. Hold that thought,” I told her as I tapped my finger lightly against it. “I'll be right back.”
“I'll take her.” She started to rise but I put my hand back out to stop her.
“No, no; you stay right there all nice and toasty warm. I'll be back before you know it.”
Outside, it was shaping up to be a pretty nice day for mid-December. The air was cool but not cold and the sun was peeking through the bare tree branches as it rose in the eastern sky. I was comfortable in the light jacket I'd grabbed while I waited for Boo who seemed to feel the need to sniff the entire yard to find a place to do her thing.
Finally settling over a patch of grass that was a little higher than the rest, she took care of business and then scampered for the door. As I climbed the steps behind her and swung the kitchen door open, I told her, “I'm going to get you fed and then your mama and I have an appointment to keep.”
“Only if it's an appointment at the farm,” Dana said from half way across the room, as she waved the phone handset in the air.
I could feel my face fall. “No...”
“Oh yes, it's ‘Family Fun Day’. Your dad phoned it in.”
Groaning, I repeated the phrase my twin sister, her kids and I had used so many times in the past, “There's nothing fun about Family Fun Day!”
###
Sunday afternoon, December 14th, 2014
Crane Family Farm
Mom and dad had commissioned their Amish carpenter friend John Gingrich to tear down their old barn and haul away the wood and tin. Since the weather had been fairly mild for an Ohio December, John, using nothing more than hand tools and his trusty draft horse, had been able to get the job done fairly quickly, before the first snow flew.
Dad, never one to waste a nice day, decided that Sunday afternoon Family Fun Day festivities didn't have to stop when the leaves were down after all as had always been the cutoff point in the past. He saw a sunny December day with a temperature in the mid-forties as a prime opportunity to clear the land where the barn had been of the scattered bits and pieces of debris left over.
Dana, given her somewhat limited mobility, took up a position that was becoming familiar to her with my mom and her mama: cooking up a storm for a big family dinner while all of the rest of us, including Dana’s dad who'd made it in for the weekend, worked ourselves silly clearing the ground. We all knew it would just need cleared again and then leveled in preparation for the new barn, come spring but that didn’t faze dad in the least.
“Dinner! Dinner! Come and get it!” mom called down to us in the field from the front porch. “Get on in here and wash up, the lot of you.”
Beth and Cole, my niece and nephew who, at 13 and 15, are far younger than the rest of us, dropped what they were doing immediately and sprinted from the pasture to the house. My twin Kris and I followed her kids a little more slowly, stiff from a few straight hours of stooping, picking and scooping.
When we reached the porch, I looked back to find that my dad, Kris’s husband Lance and my father-in-law all still standing in the spot where the barn had been, staring at a piece of re-bar as if, by their very wills, they could get it uprooted from where it stood and out of their way. Kris looked back to see what had my attention.
“Come on guys,” she yelled, “Leave that for now. Mom's gonna be mad.”
We hustled into the house ourselves rather than face her wrath. The delicious smell that hit my nose as we entered the kitchen made my stomach leap, my hunger growing instantly. “What on earth are we having?” I asked grasping my wife around the waist and looking over her shoulder at the dish she was dipping a knife into on the counter.
“It's the famous Rossi lasagna, of course.”
“Oh boy...you know I love that. But, um...”
“But what?” Mama Rossi asked as she passed by me and swatted my shoulder.
“Well it's Sunday and we always...”
She didn't bother to let me finish. “Jesse always has to have chicken on Sunday out here at the farm. I know that baby doll,” Chloe said. “I've been around long enough and I've got it covered, literally.” She picked the lid up off a covered crock sitting on the stove.
I peered inside, but, looking at the steaming sauce and cheese, I was at a total loss.
“That's chicken Parmigiana in there, silly,” my wife took pity on me and clued me in while her mama smiled smugly.
“You two are amazing.” I gathered them both in for a quick squeeze.
“Hey, don't leave me out of that,” my own mother jumped in briefly too. “Now scoot. Go wash up and get back out here and get a plate before those men get in here and eat everything in sight.”
“So sorry, my apologies...I've got to take this,” Marco said to us all as he checked his buzzing cell. “Chloe?” He got his wife's attention, “it’s Ross.” He pushed his chair away from the dinner table and headed for the front porch and better reception with Chloe trailing right behind him.
Around the table, we were all silent except for my nervous spouse, “That's good, right?” she asked to no one in particular. “I mean, when an agent calls you on Sunday after a couple of scheduled showings, it must be good...”
“I think so, babe” I told her as I dropped a hand and patted her leg. She fell silent and kept a watchful eye on the two figures on the porch.
“We did it!” Marco said as he burst back through the door. He moved straight to Dana and grasped his daughter's shoulders. “We did it kiddo! Not one, but two offers today, one all cash for more than the asking price.”
“Mama, dad, that's great!” Dana jumped up from her seat and hugged them both in turn.
“Everybody be on the lookout for houses,” Chloe told us all as she pointed a finger around the table. “The Rossi's now need a place to move to in Morelville!”
“I think this calls for cake,” my own mother said as she too jumped up from her seat. She and Chloe had become fast friends. She was as happy as anyone that their plans were moving right along.
My duty cell rang as we lounged around the sitting room, enjoying the Christmas tree and downing cake and coffee over top of bellies already full of homemade Italian food. “Now it's my turn, it's Shane.”
“Oh that lovely young man, you have to invite him to Christmas, Melissa,” mom begged.
My reception was okay in the house so I just waved her off, stepped into the next room and took his call right there.
“Hey Shane, please tell me you're not calling with something I have to run out to right now.”
“Well, I don't know Sheriff; it's just that we got another one of those sheep painting incidents. Dispatch was going to send patrol out but this guy's irate. He says these are 'heritage sheep'...some kind of long wool deals. What do you want me to do?”
“Is Treadway in?”
“No, he's off today.”
Drat! “Okay, I'm sorry but you'll have to go take his statement. Let him know I'll follow up personally in the morning.” I smiled back through the doorway at Dana, who was listening in, as I said that last bit.
“Okay Sheriff.”
“I'm sorry Shane.” I hung up the phone and walked back into the sitting room, my head hung too.
“What is it babe?” Dana asked.
With everyone else looking on, waiting to hear my response, I briefly sketched for them what was happening as I resumed my seat. I caught my mother and mother-in-law shooting looks at each other. “Oh no, no,” I cautioned them, “don't you two even think about it! This is all kids playing harmless pranks. It doesn't require the Faye and Chloe investigative team to get involved.”
“We're thinking no such thing dear,” mom said unconvincingly. Chloe picked a spot on the floor to stare at while she tried to hide her grin. Mom went on, “And Melissa, I didn't hear you invite Shane for Christmas.”
“He's my employee mom and he has a mother in town.”
“But it's Christmas...”
I blew a breath out and tried to hold my tongue. The holidays were a big deal to my mom and her absolute favorite time of the year. I didn't want to upset her. My dad, always a man of few words but observant to a tee, saw right through me.
“So what else is going on? This isn't just about painted sheep. You've been on edge all week.”
I couldn't lie to him, even by omission. “It's just rough right now dad. Our caseload is really heavy...there have been some robberies and some other stuff.”
“That murder, you mean,” my twin threw in.
“How did you know about that?”
Kris looked at me through a tight squint. “I'm talking about that Stiers' woman that was seeing J.D. and that Harper boy too. Who are you talking about?”
Trying to gloss over my slip, I went on, “We still have older cases working through the courts, the robberies, the Stiers case, now sheep...there's been dog-nappings...it's just never ending.”
Dad shook his head and clucked his tongue. “What’s happening in this county, happening in this country for that matter?” Everything’s going straight to hell!”
I was taken aback by the severity in the way he said it.
Before any of us could say anything, he continued, “I’ll tell you what’s going on; drugs, that’s what! All this killing and robbing and stealing, it’s all about drugs! It's so sad to see that kind of thing coming to this county now. They can keep that crap in the city; we don’t want it out here!”
I had no words. I didn’t even know where to go with that. I mean, dad was right in some respects and wrong in others; I'd been battling drugs and the problems they caused my entire career with the department, but his rant really had nothing to do with my current backlog of unsolved cases. I was grateful when Dana changed the subject.
“Hey, sorry to change the subject,” she said as if she’d read my mind, “but I just thought of something.” She looked first at her mama and then at my mom. “We've never really talked about who's doing what and where for Christmas.”
Oh, here we go! Mom will be all over this... She didn't disappoint. She forgot all about my problems and was off and running.
“Well now, how about that?” she asked but it was rhetorical. She didn't give anyone else a chance to speak. “We certainly have our traditions here that, since Beth and Cole were small, revolve around church on Christmas Eve with a little close family gathering out here after and then an all day party Christmas day where you never know who'll walk through the door. I imagine we'll do much the same this year. The kids are both participating in the Christmas Eve service and my brother Brian and his family will be here Christmas Day. They aren't going to her mom's this year.”
Lance cleared his throat and spoke up for the first time in over an hour, “My family likes to do a big Christmas Eve get-together after church. It's been our tradition for years now and,” he looked at my sister, “since this is the first Christmas with Kris and the kids, I was hoping we could spend a little time with them.”
“Church here is at 7:00,” Kris told him. “It will be over a little after 8:00, I imagine.”
Lance grinned. “That should work fine. It's just...I don't know how many more years their health will be strong enough to pull it off. I'm really worried about dad; his heart problems this past year have us all scared.”
I eyeballed my own father. He’d been on shaky ground recently too and he’s a good ten years or so younger than Lance’s dad.
“It sounds like it's all going to work out just fine for you two to spend a little time with everyone,” Chloe nodded approvingly nipping in the bud anything my own mother was trying to concoct to derail what sounded like a fair trade off to me.
“Well what about you and Marco and the boys,” I gratefully asked her in response. What will you be doing? Would you want to come here?”
“That's a good question,” Marco said.
Chloe shook her head, “We usually do Christmas Eve too, like Lance's family, but the house is practically empty since it's been staged to sell and we told the boys we probably wouldn't do anything this year. Vince and his wife are actually talking about going skiing since he's got some time off over the holidays. We'd like to join you here, if that's okay?” Marco nodded his agreement with the idea.
“Of course it's okay,” dad answered for everyone.
Mom added, “The more the merrier!”
Somehow, I got the eerie sense she might come to regret that.