Final Operation Read online

  FINAL OPERATION

  Third Logland Mystery

  Elaine L. Orr

  All Rights Reserved

  Final Operation is a work of fiction. No character or activity is based on real people.

  Jolie Gentil Cozy Series

  River's Edge Mystery Series

  Logland Mystery Series

  www.elaineorr.com

  www.elaineorr.blogpspot.com

  Lifelong Dreams Publishing

  ISBN: 9781948070232

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BOOKS BY ELAINE L. ORR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE BRIGHT daffodils and crocuses in the Bully Pulpit’s window boxes looked peaceful, but a debate raged inside. Mayor Sharon Humphrey barely contained her temper as she addressed City Councilman Adrian Gangle. "That's ridiculous. Logland, Illinois may be a small city, but we need a police station."

  Gangle leaned across the booth. "Listen Sharon, we'd save almost three quarters of a million in rent, salaries and equipment…"

  "Rubbish. The line item last year was a little more than $600,000."

  "Pension contributions are in another part of the budget. They're huge." Gangle sat back, a smirk on his lips.

  Mayor Humphrey took the fork from her Cobb salad and gestured at Gangle. "You've been drinking Donald Dingle's Kool-Aid. You can't look at simply one side of a ledger. You have to consider the benefits."

  "Madam Mayor, we've had two murders in the past year. How effective are the members of our police department?"

  "You can't stop people from killing each other. What matters is that the local police took the killers off the street."

  A man's shadow interrupted the two combatants. "Ma'am, sir? Maybe you don't know how loud you're talking?"

  Mayor Humphrey flushed as she looked at him. "I'm sorry, Nick."

  Gangle seemed unperturbed. "It'll all be out in the open at the council meeting tonight."

  Marti Kerkoff came up behind Nick Hume, though she was so short no one noticed her until she spoke. "The council meeting would be a good place to have this discussion."

  Gangle looked from the two Bully Pulpit owners to the college students two booths away, and then to a family with two young children in a corner booth. All stared at him. He shrugged. "I have to get back to work." He slid out of the booth, easily reaching Nick's height of almost six feet. He handed Nick a ten-dollar bill and left through the diner's glass front door.

  "Marti, Nick…" Mayor Humphrey began.

  Marti waved a hand. "No worries. He was the loud one, not you."

  A man about nineteen in a Sweathog Agricultural College sweatshirt laughed. "That guy puts the bully in Bully Pulpit."

  WITH ALL THE TALK about abolishing the Police Department, Marti left Nick in charge of the diner that evening and went to the City Council meeting to find out what all the uproar was about. The spring air grew cold after sunset, so she wore a lightweight jacket and hid her disorganized brown hair under a brown felt beret.

  The courthouse was only two blocks from the diner, and Marti walked quickly. She didn't want to stand for a long meeting.

  She passed City Hall, a small building off the town square, and headed for the large county courthouse in the middle of the square. The mayor and council used one of its formal courtrooms for larger meetings, and from what Marti had heard, half the town would be there tonight.

  Several people greeted her as she hurried into the courthouse. Less than a year ago, she was finishing at Illinois Agricultural College, which Nick and his friends gleefully called Sweathog College, planning to leave Logland for good.

  Bully Pulpit owner Ben's death changed everything. She and Nick would inherit the diner if they operated it for five years. She'd never imagined herself a business owner attending meetings with important people.

  She hurried into the courtroom and sat next to the bookstore owner, Alice, in one of the last available seats in the wood-paneled courtroom. Alice had her long hair in a French braid, and Marti noticed her white roots. Lately, Alice had been going longer between colorings at Ramona's Ringlets Hair Salon. Marti had begun to suspect bookstore business had slowed.

  She took in the room. The five-council members faced the audience from one side of a large wooden conference table. Two tables had been put together, so those who signed the list to speak sat about ten feet from the city officials, backs to the attendees.

  Alice leaned toward Marti. "Did you ever see so many charts and graphs hung around a room?"

  "Not since a college economics class. What are all those easels for?"

  Alice lowered her voice to a whisper. "They have information about what the city spent and what the mayor wants the council to approve for next fiscal year. I think Mr. Dingle thinks all those numbers make him look smart."

  "They're his charts?" Marti didn't think Dingle talented enough to do all the calculations behind the graphs.

  "I suppose he thinks that if the city budget people prepare them they become his personal property," Alice murmured.

  Mayor Humphrey entered from a side door near the front of the large room and took her place among the City Council members, with City Clerk Donald Dingle on her right.

  "Mayor loves to make an entrance," Alice whispered. “Looks like that navy blue suit is new.”

  Marti nodded. As usual, the mayor’s severely cut style of clothes made her look more like sixty than fifty. She contrasted with Donald Dingle’s rumpled brown suit that Marti guessed he bought twenty years ago. Or maybe thirty.

  The mayor tapped a gavel lightly, and Marti looked around the room. Given conversations she'd overheard in the diner the last few days, she expected to see most of the downtown business owners. She wasn't disappointed.

  Gene, owner of Man-Up Tattoos, had squeezed his muscled bulk into a white dress shirt. Next to him sat the ever-nervous Squeaky Miller, whose dry cleaners and laundromat were next to the tattoo parlor, across from the diner.

  Cookie shop owner Doris Minx sat next to salon owner Ramona, who hardly came to any town events. Behind the two women were Police Chief Elizabeth Friedman and Officer Tony Calderone. He was most often the person who interviewed people after a crime of any sort.

  The audience rustled into silence as the mayor began to speak. "It's good to see so many residents at our annual budget hearing. To have meaningful discussions, we need input from…"

  Gene called from his seat in the third row. "How soon can we tell you what we think about this bunk about getting rid of the cops?"

  Muttered comments throughout the room repeated the question. Marti thought it was the college president who added, "Busy schedules. We've read the advance materials."

  Marti hadn't, but didn't care to. She just knew that when anything happened in the diner, she wanted to pick up the phone and know that Tony or one of the other guys would be at the diner in two minutes.

  Mayor Humphrey again tapped her gavel lightly. "First we're going to discuss additional funds for the community health center, then we'll move to law enforcement."

  Marti had a hard time keeping her chin off her chest as Mr. Dingle and the city budget director discussed grants that Logland had applied for to keep the clinic afloat. From conversations in the diner, Marti knew no one opposed providing free care when someone couldn't pay. They wanted the funds to come from someplace besides the city budget. Everyone thought taxes were too high.

  When the boring money discussion drew to a close, three people – two women who looked to be in their forties and a man about fifty – stood from various parts of the room and walked toward the mayor and council.

  Mayor Humphrey consulted papers in front of her. "Yes. We have representatives of the Care Center's Client Advocacy Group."

  The politicians sat straighter in their chairs and a couple of them smiled. Donald Dingle opened a large binder and flipped pages. Marti had the impression he wanted the people across from him to think he didn't care about what they would say.

  When the Mayor asked the three to identify themselves, Marti learned they were Samuel Franklin, Margaret Turner, and Dorothy Washington. Everyone in town knew Mrs. Washington's name. She headed the historical society and led her family's lumber yard business. She was also the wealthiest black woman in the county.

  Samuel Franklin gave an impassioned plea to be sure the health center continued a "robust staffing level." Without them, he didn't think he would have survived a heart attack long enough to be transferred to the local hospital and then air-lifted to Springfield.

  Margaret Turner and Dorothy Washington had less positive comments.

  Turner believed the long wait for an appointment contributed to her husband, who had diabetes, having to have his foot amputated.

  Marti glanced around the room. No way to tell if anyone had a prosthetic foot. Maybe in the summer, when everyone wore shorts.

  Turner picked up ste
am. "What you people don't realize is that small amounts of money can make a big difference at the health center. You talk about your fiscal years. You need to let the center have the money you agree to when you decide to give it. I've heard sometimes you delay and then you lose money. Some sort of matching money thing."

  "Matching grant money," the mayor said. "We did lose a grant one time because the application didn't get in on time. It's regrettable."

  "Regrettable to you, maybe. But could be a hundred people can't get an appointment, that's what it is. My husband, he'll never play basketball with Jordan again…" Turner stopped, put two fingers on her lips to keep from crying, and waved a hand. "I've said what I had to say. You need to put your priorities where it counts."

  Dorothy Washington's voice filled the room. "I want to address my comments to Mr. Donald Dingle."

  Muttering moved through the room. Dingle shut the binder he'd been leafing through, and scowled. It made him look older than his mid-seventies. Marti had heard several lunch conversations from people who wished he'd retire. Mostly city employees he'd chewed out. She couldn't figure out why anyone that old would keep working.

  "Mr. Dingle," Washington's voice rose, "I want to know what the hold-up is in spending budget money to hire a pediatric nurse practitioner."

  Mayor Humphrey began to respond, but Washington shook a finger in her direction. "It's Donald Dingle who said he had to delay giving the Community Health Center that money. You let him tell it."

  Dingle smiled in what Marti thought was a patronizing manner.

  "The Logland Community Health Center has never had a nurse practitioner," he said. "I wasn't sure all the budget numbers were practical."

  "I'm well aware we haven't had one," Washington said. "Despite having needed one for many years. You told the Health Center Client Advocacy Group the city had not received the grant money expected for the position."

  Humphrey raised her voice. "Grant money? Those funds were from the city's contribution to the health center budget. No grant money was involved."

  Before Dingle could respond, Medical Examiner Skelly rose from his seat in the audience. "I also checked before this meeting. The nurse position is to come from tax-funded money. If the health center had a pediatric nurse practitioner there'd be a lot fewer ER visits."

  Dingle almost snarled, "No one asked you, Dr. Hutton."

  Doris Minx spoke from her seat. "He would know."

  Marti added her voice to a bunch of others that said things like, "Yes he does," and "A lot better than you."

  The mayor banged her gavel and looked directly at Dorothy Washington. "I will personally see that those funds are released tomorrow so the hiring process can begin."

  Scattered applause turned into steady clapping. Dingle reddened, and Mayor Humphrey said, "Next we'll turn to the law enforcement budget."

  The three people who had spoken about the health center budget returned to their seats.

  Mayor Humphrey turned the microphone over to the loud-mouthed Adrian Gangle, who sat on the other side of Mr. Dingle. Marti had noticed the two men occasionally whisper to each other. She figured they agreed on a lot of money issues.

  Gangle gave a broad smile that Marti thought looked more condescending than friendly. "Now folks, we all want a safe city."

  Gene raised his voice, "Some of us want to know the people keeping us safe."

  As a few other people voiced agreement, Marti glanced over her shoulder at Chief Friedman and Tony. They stared ahead, saying nothing.

  "As I was saying," Gangle continued, "the Police Department budget for rent, salaries, and equipment is $622,000 per year. Add the city's contribution to the pension system and it's more than $800,000."

  Dingle leaned to the mic. "Pretty nice pensions, huh?"

  Gangle frowned, as if he didn’t want to share his time with the mic.

  Mayor Humphrey pulled a mic toward her. "As many of you know, the city is forced to contribute more than what we need now to make up for underfunded contributions in the past. Underfunding that occurred before I became mayor, in part because of mistaken budget estimates. That's why we now have a budget director."

  "Just sayin'," Dingle said.

  Gangle spoke more loudly. "The point is that we have the option of contracting with the county sheriff for protective services. For a fee, of course, but it would end up a lot less than we're paying now." He gestured to the large graph with the most lines, and Marti tuned him out for a minute.

  The voice that interrupted her wandering mind was Skelly's. "Most of us are here to give you people our opinion, not hear yours. The paper printed all your graphs and positions."

  The mayor glanced at a piece of paper in front of her. "Dr. Hutton, I believed you signed the comment request sheet first. Why don't you come to the table?"

  Marti never thought of Skelly as Dr. Hutton. She didn't even remember his first name. As Skelly made his way to the table, her phone vibrated.

  Nick's text asked, "Are the blowhards finished yet?"

  Marti almost giggled as she typed, "Far from it." Not that she thought Skelly was a blowhard.

  Tony Calderone stood from his seat and walked toward the front of the room. Marti knew the tall officer had been with the department more than twenty years. He sat next to Skelly, who had unfolded a piece of paper as big as the charts. He clipped it to one of the easels in the front of the room.

  Marti squinted. At the top of Skelly's graph were the words "Response Time Versus Distance." Skelly sat and placed a paper on the table in front of him.

  "Officer Calderone?" the Mayor asked.

  Tony nodded. "Dr. Hutton asked me to sit beside him, in case you have questions that require my expertise rather than his."

  "I see," she said.

  Skelly acted as if he had paid no attention to either of them. "Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members."

  Mr. Dingle sat up straighter, but said nothing.

  "As you know, I serve as the county coroner, an elected position, the person who certifies the cause of death in certain circumstances. I also work part time in the hospital ER and serve as its medical examiner. In the latter capacity, I examine many of those who die or are brought to the hospital after death, to find the information needed to determine the cause of death."

  Dingle leaned forward. "So, two paychecks, then?"

  "Since you aren't a county official, Mr. Dingle, you may not be aware that the coroner does not receive a salary unless he or she spends more than ten hours per month on the duties of the office. That amount of time is rare."

  Gene again raised his voice. “Afraid you’re getting short-changed, Dingle?”

  Several people tittered.

  Even Marti knew the long-serving city clerk never liked being corrected. About anything.

  Skelly continued. "When I'm called to the scene of an accident or crime, I'm one of the first on the scene. Logland police officers, and maybe EMTs, have preceded me."

  "Now the sheriff…" Dingle began.

  Mayor Humphrey spoke sharply. "Let the man speak."

  "Minutes matter in examining the deceased," Skelly said, "and I cannot do more than look at someone until the police have inspected the victim and said it's okay for me to disturb a crime scene. Most people in this county live in Logland, and most crimes are committed here. The sheriff and his deputies cover almost 800 hundred square miles. At night – I know because I asked – there are usually two or three sheriff deputies on patrol."

  A female council member – Marti thought she was a retired school teacher – said, “I don’t think it’s more than two unless the weather’s really bad.”

  “Could be,” Skelly said.

  Gangle leaned forward and Skelly held up a hand. "Given the size of our county, a deputy could easily be thirty or forty miles away. If they are responding to another call, they can't leave that scene immediately. That means the EMTs and I will arrive first. If they cannot render aid, they will leave and the corpse and I will await a sheriff deputy."

  Alice said, "Ugh," really loudly.

  Dingle smiled broadly, but without humor. "Are you afraid of the dark, Dr. Hutton?"

  No one laughed.

  "I'm afraid of losing the kind of time that would enable law enforcement to catch a killer, among other factors. If a body warms or cools, it's harder to establish the time of death. I can provide more examples if need be."