The Hitcher

More than eight years of service with the Alabama Army National Guard’s 20th Special Forces Group and five years of service with the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department had provided the training and experience to allow me to become a highly proficient officer of the law. By the age of twenty-six, I had completed my training as a weapons and demolitions specialist with the SF, and my training at the police academy as well as my four years of college to graduate with my Batchelor of Science degree in criminal justice. My developing the “street sense” and awareness that enabled me to recognize almost any irregularity on sight complemented my training.

My appearance was deceiving to most criminal type individuals. At 5’10” and 160lbs with my military cut brown hair and blue eyes, I did not possess the intimidating physique of some of the officers. However, my SF training made up for my lack of size.

Recently, I had been promoted to the rank of deputy corporal, which meant that I was the ranking officer of three deputies that worked the night watch. Our shift began at 19:00 and ended at 07:00 the next morning. It was a schedule that made the night seem very long. One deputy would patrol the south end of the county while the other patrolled in the northern end. I, being the ranking officer, would patrol the county according to my preference and respond when either of the other two deputies requested assistance.

On a particularly humid night in the heat of August in Alabama, I was patrolling southward on Highway 431 when I noticed a pedestrian walking on the shoulder of the northbound lane. As the distance closed, I witnessed that the individual attempted to thumb a ride on a passing tractor-trailer rig.

It’s not illegal to hitchhike in Alabama, but it is not exactly the safest undertaking for the midnight hour along a state highway. As I passed the location, I realized that the person was a young woman. This peaked my curiosity, mainly because I am a single man, and she appeared quite attractive from a fifty-yard range. I felt that this situation required investigation. “Who knows? She might be wanted,” I thought.

At the next intersection, I spun my patrol car around to speed back to her location. Switching on my blue strobe lights as I pulled up behind her caused her to walk back to my vehicle. She arrived just as I was stepping out onto the ground and placing my flashlight in duty-belt holder.

“Did I do something wrong officer?” Her voice sounded frightened as she spoke.

My first impression was, “God is she ever beautiful!” My second thought was, “Underage too.” Then I caught the faint smell of alcohol. This set the course of the beginning of our meeting. “Miss, it’s late for you to be walking up the highway. What is your name and do you have any identification?”

“Kelli,” She replied as she stuck her hand into the tightest pair of cutoff jeans that I believe I have ever seen. From her pocket, she produced an identification card issued by the state of Nebraska indicating that she had blonde hair, blue eyes, 5’00” and 90#, and a birth date showing that she was nineteen, which happens to be the age of emancipation in Alabama. The photo matched, so the ID appeared legitimate. However, an experienced officer always knows to run the license or ID card on the DMV system to verify the card and check for warrants.

“Would you please come around to sit in the patrol car while I check this?” I asked.

“Sure!” She exhibited enthusiasm in her reply and was at the passenger side door in an instant. She didn’t seem to have a fear of law enforcement.

I sat back in the car and popped the lock for her to sit in front. “Cool! How about carrying me to my hotel when you complete checking my ID? Like you said, it’s a bit late for a girl to be walking.”

After a few silent moments, dispatch transmitted back that the card was verified legit, and that there were no wants on a Kelli Steal of Nebraska.

“Well, you gonna carry me to my hotel?” She asked.

“If you blow through this pipe and don’t go over .08 then I will,” I replied as I displayed a PBT (preliminary breath test) device from the console between the seats. I had to test to see if she was intoxicated.

I held the PBT as she blew into it without hesitation. It read .07 on the meter. “That’s close, but you are not legally intoxicated. I guess you are good to go.”

“Well, carry me to my hotel. I just love policemen, and deputies! You’re not going to arrest me if I try to seduce you are you?” She taunted.

During the ten-minute drive to her hotel, she took out a long stick of candy and kept using her mouth in the most seductive manner possible as if she were performing fellatio. At one point, she looked in my direction with a very seductive smile before making a statement of, “I’m so hot!”

Admittedly, it was most difficult to remember that I was on duty when we reached her hotel room. I seriously contemplated calling 10-6, and then accompanying her into her room for a brief interlude. My sense of duty managed to preclude that event. “No Miss,” Was all I got out of my mouth before she spoke.

“Not Miss, call me Kelli.” She took a piece of paper and scribbled a number on it. “This is my number. Call me when you get off, and I’ll get you off. I’ll make it well worth your time!”

Kelli closed the door, and I drove away to finish my tour. I couldn’t get her off my mind for the remainder of the night. When 07:00 rolled around, I just couldn’t resist the temptation. I called my 10-42 time in to dispatch, and then dialed Kelli’s number on my cell-phone.

Kelli answered with a casual, “Hello.”

“Deputy Neumann here, do you still want me to come by this morning?” I was hopeful.

“I’m lying here wearing nothing but a smile, waiting. I’ll meet you at the door.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, keep it hot for me.” I answered and ended the call.

I arrived and walked up to be met at the door. She was telling the truth; she opened the door wearing nothing but a grin from ear to ear. Her exposed beauty struck me: blonde hair, blue eyes, pale white skin, very small breast, and a naturally blonde pubic area. She must have had her bra padded when I first met her.

“Well, don’t stand in the door; I’ll have to charge you with indecent exposure,” I teased.

“Get on in here and you can have me for no charge!” She countered.

We began our interlude by my undressing while she turned up a quart tequila bottle to drink at least three fingers as if she had twenty years of experience. She assumed the position on the bed and we were off and running. The session continued by a run, a drink, a run, and a drink until there was nothing left in the bottle or me. I was exhausted and she wanted more of both of her favorite things in life. Three hours had passed.

We remained in bed for an after sex cigarette and to talk of our future relationship. “It was good for me, Kelli. Was it good for you?”

“Oh yes, if you just take me home with you, your wish will be my command,” She stressed with a longing in her voice.

“We just met last night, Hun. Let me clean out my apartment before we make any plans.” I replied as if I would move her in with me, but the truth was that a girl who would sleep with a man she had just met was not exactly what I wanted for a girlfriend. She was obviously a very good one-night stand, but not exactly someone you would bring home to meet the family. Nonetheless, I did hope to date her again, so I did not want to anger her.

“I see.” Kelli said as she got up from the bed to walk into the kitchenette area of the room. She produced a can of soda, of which she took a long sip before offering me a drink as she walked back to the bed.

“I really like you Kelli, don’t get the wrong idea.” I continued, “I definitely want to see you again. How about dinner tomorrow before my watch begins at 18:00.”

“I’ve heard that one before. You don’t think I am too easy do you. That is what men like, but then they want to hold it against a girl. I was just showing you how much I can love you.” Kelli commented as I sipped on the soda she handed me.

“Well, I’m getting drowsy since we finished. Let’s sleep on it.” I suggested.

“If that is what you think is best.” Kelli sat naked beside me as I drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, Kelli was not in the room. My first thought was, “Damn, that bitch has robbed me!”

I sprang to my feet to check my uniform, wallet and ID, and my service weapon. I found everything in place. Although, everything had been moved. Every dime of my money was still there. I checked my Beretta 92FSS and it was just as I had left it. I found that to be a relief, but where was Kelli?

I searched the hotel room and made my first alarming discovery. Under the edge of the carpet there was a glass crack-pipe and another ID with the picture of the girl I had just slept with, only this one was from California with the name Ima Cherry showing age sixteen.

“Damn, is this some sort of a joke? That pipe looks like it has cocaine residue in it.” The thought ran through my head, “I could have a problem if the girl really is sixteen, but then giving false information and a false ID to an officer of the law is a chargeable offense. Damn, I knew she looked young!”

I glanced at my watch and immediately called in my 10-41 to dispatch via my walkie-talkie. It was ten minutes till six. I had ten minutes, so I showered, shaved, and donned my uniform in record time. I had kept my duty belt attached to my sheriff’s brown BDU pants. Small nylon fasteners called “keepers” loop around my garrison belt to secure them together. That made the process a bit quicker. It usually took a few minutes to fasten on the bulletproof vest, zip on my brown uniform shirt, and lace up my Bates Enforcer boots, so every shortcut helped to shorten the process.

When I walked out to my brown Crown Vic patrol car, I noticed that my laptop computer had been tilted slightly more towards the driver’s seat. I started the patrol car’s engine and checked my computer files. My activation record showed that someone had accessed my files and downloaded some of them, but the exact file names and download locations had been deleted by some unknown software program, probably by the host computer that had accessed my files via the department’s CAD system. “Wow, that’s pretty high-tech for a sixteen-year-old.” I thought as I exited my patrol car in order to return to the hotel office to check the registry.

The desk attendant allowed me to check the records without delay. To my surprise, there was no Kelli Steal listed in room B4. In fact, there was no occupant listed in that room.

I had confiscated the California ID and the crack-pipe, but it occurred on me that I should go back to the hotel room to retrieve that empty soda can to check for latent prints. The manager obligingly allowed my to use the access cardkey to unlock the door. With the soda can and crack-pipe placed properly in an evidence bag, I hurried to my office at the county jail facility. “Have I stumbled onto a wanted fugitive?” I thought.

Sonya at dispatch ran the California ID card and determined that there really was a person named Ima Cherry of age sixteen. The description matched, but I still ordered a photograph to be sent email. I wanted to see if the face matched. I repeated the order for Kelli Steal of Nebraska.

It would be at least an hour before the photos arrived in my office computer inbox, so I took the time to run the soda can and crack-pipe to our latent print scan computer. The technician could fume the can with mercury and take the prints electronically to transfer them directly to the FBI via the Internet. I should have my email reply from them within twenty-four hours.

Fifteen minutes later, I received a call from the print tech informing me that the soda can and pipe were clean. There was not a single print on either item. Whoever that girl was, she seemed to know what she was doing in more ways than just in the bedroom.

I immediately phoned the hotel to hold the room as is without cleaning until we arrived, and then I went back to the lab to pick up the tech and the latent print gear. There was something really suspicious going on. I wanted to know what it was.

At the hotel, the lab tech fumed the most utilized items in the room. He paid particular attention to items such as doorknobs, the toilet, the lavatory and bathtub faucets, and the refrigerator. Unfortunately, the only prints to be found belonged to me. I couldn’t help extrapolating, “Damn, for a young girl she really was good.”

I came away from the hotel with no more information than before I arrived. The trend continued when I reached my office to discover that the pictures emailed from California and Nebraska did not match the face of the girl from the hotel. Suddenly, I could feel the hair crawl on the back of my neck; I had slept with that girl in the room.

As a precaution, I checked my computer financial accounts. Not a dime had been withdrawn, so I changed the access codes before my blonde phantom took advantage of the situation.

With those details corrected, I began my tour for the night. I rode the county to make my final patrol around 05:00 to stop at the Waffle House for breakfast. As I sat at my regular end booth, I glanced toward my patrol car to see a blonde girl sitting on my vehicle’s hood. Then it dawned on me, “It’s Kelli!” I jumped to my feet and ran out the door with every customer in the place staring at me since they saw no emergency and did not hear a radio call.

I lost my view of the vehicle for less than ten seconds as I exited the building, but there was no one around my patrol car when I cleared the door. I walked around the parking lot searching; however, the phantom had vanished.

The desire to tour the area searching for hitchhikers prompted me to consume my meal rapidly in order for me to pay my bill and get out to my patrol car. The tour continued until 08:00. I worked an hour of overtime searching every street and alley possible, but Kelli was not to be found.

As I rode, I finally decided that I must have been mistaken in my belief that I had recognized the person sitting on my car. The person was just a small blonde girl; my imagination and my desire to locate Kelli had gotten the best of me. At 08:10 I called dispatch, “RSO, eleven, I’m 10-42.”

“Ten-four eleven,” crackled the response from RSO as I drove into the parking space in front of my apartment. My call number on the radio was eleven. So their transmission meant, “I acknowledge your transmission deputy number eleven.”

Exhaustion caused me to sleep like a log that day. It seemed as if I had just laid my head on my pillow when the alarm clock activated. It was time for a cold shower to wake me for the night. When I completed the shower, I shaved and donned a fresh clean uniform for my night on the road. Before leaving, I always checked my answering machine to ensure that I had not missed anything during the daylight hours. I had one message, “It’s not nice to trifle with a woman’s affections.” The machine had recorded the number the one-liner was called from, but a quick check revealed that it was a payphone in the city of Roanoke. At first my mind instantly went to Kelli, but then I thought about my ex-girlfriend, Samantha. It sounded more like her voice, and she lived in Roanoke. Apparently, she had not gotten over her anger by my breaking off our relationship.

My next three days at work were uneventful; however, at the conclusion of my fourth day I returned to discover that my apartment front door unlocked. Strange, I am a stickler about security; I never forget. “A burglar,” flashed through my mind, causing me to reflexively draw of my sidearm. Silently, I pushed open the door as I allowed my weapon to follow the path of my vision, and then my security alarm panel began its aggravated double beep with its panel LED flashing a red warning. The alarm was activated when I opened the front door. I had twenty seconds to deactivate the system before it dialed dispatch and sounded the audible alarm.

I rushed to the panel and entered my deactivation code while thinking, “Damn, I guess I did forget. If anyone had entered the door the alarm would have activated just as it did when I came in.” I holstered my weapon and began to look around the room. There was nothing out of its place.

I knew it was out of the ordinary, but I had to accept the possibility that I had left the door unlocked. With those thoughts, I walked over and locked the door before picking up my mail from the floor. It was my regular daily routine to make myself a cup of hot tea before turning on my television to watch the news on WNCB from New York and the Today show before my shower. I stripped down into my Army brown undershirt and briefs, and then sat down with my tea for a few minutes rest while I watched the tube. I lit a “cowboy killer” cigarette, and tried to relax. The reporter on the news was telling of a triple murder and robbery that had taken place in NYC during the night, so I half listened while thumbing through my mail. Then I noticed the envelope from the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division. Opening it revealed that I was being accepted for an interview as an enforcement officer. That made my day; I had always dreamt of being a state game warden. It was not certain that I would be accepted, but I was going to get an interim interview.

The phone rang; I answered to be informed that my German shepherd, Krupp, was ready to be brought home from the veterinarian’s office. Krupp had been in quarantine since being flown in from where I had purchased him in Germany.

I jumped up and dressed in jeans to drive to the vet’s office. It took less than an hour to make the trip and bring my new pet home. Krupp was my apprehension and drug dog. Not only could Krupp sniff out illegal drugs, but also he was well trained at tracking and takedown of a subject. Plus, he was an excellent guard dog and patrol partner. I needed a partner that would work for doggie biscuits; the county was not going to pay another person.

Krupp seemed right at home when I turned him loose in my apartment. Luckily, he was already housebroken. That fact made me feel a bit better as I finished my daily routine and bedded down for the day.

That afternoon, I carried my patrol car by the county maintenance shop in order for them to install an electric door opening system on the driver’s side backdoor. That device allowed me to use a modified remote control to open the door to release my dog, K9, as well as activate the car alarm and start the engine. The price for the automation was paid from my own pocket.

The shop completed the installation quickly, within two hours I was back on the road in my patrol car. My first stop was at the local pet supply shop to purchase dog food. When I popped the trunk of my vehicle to put in the two bags, I was startled to discover that my rifle was missing. I always carry an M1A1 version of the M14; it was gone.

I rushed back to the county shop to inquire as to whether they had noticed my rifle when they did the installation. They assured me that there was no rifle in the trunk when they began the installation. I knew that I had to file a report of the loss of a weapon, and I would need another certified officer to write the report. I decided to drop off the two fifty-pound bags of dog food at my apartment before continuing on to the county jail to report the loss.

When I carried the dog food into my apartment, I was dumbfounded to find my rifle standing in the kitchen closet where I intended to store the dog food. This was eerie; I never store weapons in the kitchen closet. With the dog in the apartment, it meant that the rifle had been placed in the closet when I found the door unlocked previously. Someone had managed to deactivate my alarm system, and then reactivate it as they departed. The door was left unlocked purposely.

Krupp remained to guard my apartment as I continued my patrol. The thought of who would be doing this was most prevalent in my mind as I drove. It had begun when I picked up that girl on the highway, but why would an individual risk doing this to a law enforcement officer. “Who have I arrested or angered lately? Who would have reason to cause to me grief?”

The remained of the week continued without another unusual event, other than a large number of junk emails being placed on both my office and home accounts. It was becoming a torrent that was making it difficult to discern between junk mail and mail with some relevance.

On the first day of the next week, I received a call from dispatch to answer a call in the northern portion of the county where a landowner requested a supervisor to check a mobile home trailer for a possible meth-lab. A meth-lab is a clandestine laboratory producing methamphetamine from ephedrine.

When the female subject led me to the trailer, I discovered that ever item required for a meth-lab was in the kitchen area. I used my walkie-talkie to call dispatch to send the hazardous material disposal team and the investigator. As I made the call, one thing caught my eye. There was a card lying on the table. When I took a closer look, I discovered that it was my business card. The person operating the lab had left my card on the table for someone to find. It was sheer accident that I responded to the call.

I waited at the jail the next morning in order to speak with the sheriff. I felt that it was time to inform him of the occurrences. He was pleased that I had come by his office because he had been receiving anonymous email informing him of impropriety on my part. In fact, someone had suggested that I was partner in the meth-lab. After a long consultation, he suggested that I go by the lab to have a computer composite drawing of Kelli generated by the technician. He also suggested that I be very careful in my actions and search my records for anyone who had made any threats towards me.

Within two hours the tech had produced an almost perfect likeness of Kelli. I made copies for everyone and placed a BOLO, be on the lookout, for her for questioning. I wanted her picked up and held until I could ask her what was happening.

A week passed before the lab report came back on the meth-lab. The only latent prints in the trailer were the ones I had left. They had also found a button from a sheriff’s brown uniform shirt.

On that same day, a letter arrived in the mail expressing how sorry the bank felt that I had decided to transfer my account to another bank. I was surprised, as I had made no such request.

When the morning came, I rushed to the bank to discover that the transfer was accomplished electronically. My account had been emptied and closed. I immediately had the bank place a trace on the origination of the transfer and where my money had gone. My immediate action was to call the department investigator to file an offense report. Even though I am a certified officer, there is a conflict of interest; so another officer must file the report.

It was a certainty that someone had gained access to all of my new account numbers. My computer was the only access point for all of them, meaning that a theft program had been installed in my home computer, most probably on the day that I discovered that my apartment door was left unlocked. It was logical to deduce that the action was delayed to give me a false sense of security in order for them to have time to perform their criminal activity. Kelli intended to rob me, but she knew I would change my account numbers after our encounter, so she waited until she could access the new numbers.

I rushed home to reformat my computer hard drive and reboot from my recovery disk. I knew within reason that all of my person information was now in the possession of whoever had installed the thief program. My next action was to change all of my credit card numbers again. To my surprise all of my cards had been charged to their maximum limit. I immediately contested the charges and requested the forms be sent to file the incident as credit card fraud. Once that was completed, I called the investigator for a second report. His reply was, “Damn Neumann, what did you do to this girl.”

On the same day, I had a message on my answering machine from Samantha informing me that if some girl named Kelli did not stop calling in the middle of the night that she was going to file a harassing communications complaint. It seemed that Kelli had called for the last two nights telling of her encounter with me at the hotel. According to Kelli, she was my new lover, and it was my idea to call to gloat over my quick rebound with a more attractive, younger woman.

Samantha was fuming; there was no longer a possibility that I might possibly salvage our relationship. Kelli had ensured that. It was probably over anyway, but Kelli had completed the end as well as causing harsh feeling. The question was how she had obtained the information, and why she was going to such extremes to complicate my life. The one night stand and jilted lover theory just did not fit unless the girl had mental problems.

I didn’t sleep very well that day. The thought of being financially destitute was not pleasant. I had filed the appropriate reports, so eventually my credit cards would be cleared, but my money might well be gone. If so, I had just lost $9,000.00. It was every dime I could scrimp and save for six years in today’s economy. I wanted to see someone spend time in jail. That someone appeared to be the Kelli subject.

My watch time seemed to arrive much too quickly due to my restless sleep. I did my regular routine to ready myself and stumbled to my vehicle still half asleep. When I sat in my patrol car, I noticed a slip of paper on my safety orange clipboard. It had not been there when I exited the vehicle.

“It’s not nice to trifle with a woman’s affections.” The note was type printed on someone’s computer.

Suddenly, I heard a rustling under my seat, and then the distinctive sound of a rattlesnake. It was not angered yet, but a wrong move on my part could cause the snake to strike. I was in an awkward position, I could not see under the seat; to look under the seat might cause the snake to strike. My boots were not snake-proof. I drew my Beretta and sat motionless. The problem was that a snake might lay motionless for days waiting for prey. It had its position under my seat. I could either use my radio to call for assistance or attempt to kill the serpent. Luckily, I always keep a mirror attached to the sun visor of my car, and in my BDU pants pocket I kept a few rounds of rodent type shot in a magazine for my 9mm pistol. I changed magazines and loaded the first round of shot into my weapon’s chamber before reaching up and detaching the mirror. I put my Kevlar gloves on my hands and moved both the mirror and pistol very slowly downward toward the bottom edge of my seat. Any swift movement might cause the serpent to strike. It seemed to be an eternity before I cleared the edge of the seat to allow me clear vision of what I was facing. There it was, a rattlesnake as large around as my arm. Once bite from a snake that size might well be fatal.

Careful calculation of the direction of my weapon in relation to my field of vision in the mirror was required for the shot. I had to correlate the two from a side angel. If the shots were too high, they would hit my seat and possibly my buttocks. If the shots were to the left or right and missed, the snake would strike at me. If the shots were too low, they might ricochet over the snake allowing it to strike.

I squeezed the trigger twice as rapidly as my fingers could move. BOOM. BOOM. The weapon report was deafening inside the closed vehicle. Before the weapon’s slide was completely forward, I dropped the mirror and clawed at opening my door to jump from the vehicle.

It must have been quite a scene for the manager of the apartments. I had not noticed her standing outside the building. I was still shaking and checking myself when she ran up yelling, “What has happened deputy? What are you shooting at?”

After a few moments, I regained my composure and simply said, “Snake! In my car!”

“A snake in your car?” She asked as if she was having a hard time believing such a story.

The hotel manager provided a clothes hanger when I asked. I think she wanted to see for herself whether or not there really was a snake under my car seat. She stood looking in disbelief as I raked around under my car seat until I pulled out a four-foot snake. My shots had ripped the snake’s head to shreds.

She stepped back while saying in awe, “How did a snake that size get inside your car?”

“It must have crawled in,” I answered. However, I knew that a snake could not have crawled into my car. It had to be put there by whoever left me the note. The manager did not believe the story either.

Someone had just stepped over the line from harassment and theft to attempted bodily harm. Plus, I hate snakes. Whoever put the snake in my car had made a serious mistake. This was an extreme case of POP (pissing off the police). Someone was going to jail, and Kelli was my prime suspect.

I did not file an incident report on the snake. Everyone was already questioning why someone would go so far to cause me trouble. The snake incident would only further their curiosity. There is a point where it begins to appear that the harassed person might be causing his or her own problems.

For the next three weeks, I checked every person with blonde hair on the street and every vehicle with a blonde driver or passenger. It was to no avail, and there was no incident. The three weeks were uncommonly serene.

It seemed that my nemesis had vacated the surrounding area after the failure of the serpent strike attempt. The surrounding counties were consulted, but there was no sign of a young blonde named Kelli or any blonde female hitchhiker.

The serenity continued until the first week of September. One morning, I had returned to my apartment and stripped down into my Army brown t-shirt and briefs. I was sitting sipping my hot tea while watching the Today show, as was my usual routine. The phone rang, so I answered. “Hi Stud Muffin, it’s Kelli. You missed me?”

“Kelli, I’ve been looking for you. Why don’t you drop by? We will talk. Maybe we can start over where we left off.” I had no intention of talking until I took her into custody for questioning, but I was not about to let her know that.

“I’ll think about it Hun. You do look so strong in your Army underwear. It is tempting, but I have heard that you are looking for me for reasons other than love. I just wanted you to know that I am still thinking about you.” Kelli said with a giggle at the end, and then she hung up.

“Is she remembering our only encounter, or is it that she can see me?” I thought as I sat there dressed only in my underwear. Was it possible that she had planted a concealed video camera in my apartment? It had been months, so that would mean that there had to be an AC power supply. Surely I had not missed a hidden camera for months.

I always kept a frequency meter in the trunk of my patrol car, so I arose from the sofa to slip on a pair of jeans. Once appropriately dressed, I walked out to my patrol car to retrieve the meter. Back inside the house, I turned on the meter to discover that something was emitting an 800Mhz signal. As I walked around the apartment, I discovered that the signal was strongest in the living area where I had been seated earlier. That was strange; there should not have been any equipment that emitted a carrier signal in the area. That thought prompted me to retract the meter’s antenna. I rolled aluminum foil around a cardboard roll from paper towels and taped the rolled foil to my meter. That allowed my meter to act more directionally in order to help me pinpoint the origin of the signal.

Holding the meter in front of me as I turned around a couple of times revealed a slight increase in the signal strength when I faced the television. That was unusual; a television does not operate at frequencies that high. It appeared that there might be a small transmitter inside my apartment television.

Now came the question, should I open the chassis of the television to search for a camera and transmitter or should I leave it and use it to my advantage to feed disinformation to Kelli? I pondered the question as I retook my seat on the sofa. If she were watching, she would assume that I had missed the device in my scan of the room. I decided to leave the device for the time being. I could always remove it at a later date if I so desired.

During my patrol that evening, I drove past the local convenience store in Roanoke. It is a part of the south end deputy’s duty to check the stores, but what caught my attention was a woman standing outside. It was Roxanne, a known drug user that I had arrested twice for prostitution. It was obvious that she was back out on the street plying her skills at the world’s oldest profession. I drove past thinking that I would just let her be for a while; she wasn’t hurting anyone. Then it occurred to me, what would make Kelli jealous enough to take action? What if she saw me on the sofa with another woman? Roxanne was a really hot looking redhead. It might just have an effect on Kelli.

I spun my patrol car around and switched on my blue strobe lights to stop in front of Roxanne. She had this really dejected look on her face as she walked over as I lowered my vehicle’s electric window. “Deputy, please don’t do this. I’m just trying to make a living. I’m not doing drugs; I swear,” she pleaded.

She really did look hot in her red mini-skirt and black sports bra. She was actually an attractive woman to be a prostitute in our little area. She could have moved to a city to make far more money as her preferred profession.

“Come around and get in the car Roxanne. You can ride in front this time.” I replied.

Tears began to well up in her eyes as she walked around the car. I popped the door lock switch for her to get in. She slid into the passenger’s seat saying, “Neumann, I just got my little girl back. If you arrest me, she will be taken away again. Please, don’t arrest me. Can’t we make a deal?” Then she propped up her leg and lifted her skirt to display that she was not wearing panties. “Come on Neumann, anything you want.”

I looked her over, and then replied, “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. Come home with me. We’ll start on my sofa with you naked and I’ll take you up to my bedroom.”

“Sounds like my kind of a deal Neumann. Lets go.”

“One last thing, you gotta find a place to work that is not out in plain view.” I insisted.

“Yeah, okay. Lets go to your place.” Roxanne was ready. She liked her job.

I drove Roxanne to my place and told her to stay until the end of my watch. I also insisted that she sit naked on the sofa until I returned. I wanted Kelli to have to sit and watch another naked woman in my apartment for a few hours. It should allow Kelli’s anger to build.

Four hours later my watch ended. When I entered my apartment, there was Roxanne lying naked and asleep on the sofa. I woke her by slapping her buttocks. She jumped up, startled. I went upstairs and undressed into my normal apparel for my morning routine. She made tea for both of us during that time.

We sat together on my sofa for my usual television program, and then we began to kiss. The kissing turned to petting, and then I took her by the hand to lead her upstairs just as I had planned. We were there for the remainder of the day. I had taken the liberty of unplugging the telephone.

That afternoon, I let Krupp into the apartment for the night and prepared to carry Roxanne back to her mobile home trailer. Roxanne was ready to move in with me, but I didn’t think it would be fitting. I told her I would consider it after I arrested Kelli. I was actually considering Roxanne’s safety. The snake incident had proven to me that Kelli was dangerous.

I drove Roxanne by the babysitter’s house to pick up her daughter, and then on to her trailer. It was the least I could do. When she got out of the car I reminded her, “Remember, not out in public view.”

“I gotcha chief,” She answered.

As I drove out of the trailer park, I radioed in, “RSO, Eleven, 10-41.”

“10-4, Eleven, have 10-18 on 10-77 at 23347 County Road 115,” Dispatch answered. The dispatcher meant that she had information that there was drug activity at house number 23347 on our road 115. Road 115 was in the very northwestern edge of Randolph County. The road was more of a forest trail than a road. House 23347 belonged to the Bass brothers; they were fitting for the movie Deliverance. I could hear banjo music playing in my head every time I had to go up there. The main problem was that getting to the house required that I drive over the top of a group of hills and down into a valley on the other side. Our CAD system would not operate in that area. If there was any atmospheric activity it ended our radio traffic as well. To my dismay, it was clouding up to rain.

The Bass brothers, Jed and Billy Joe, had a reputation for growing marijuana and running a still. It had also been suggested that they might believe that a bit of brotherly love was acceptable as well. They had never been known to be dangerous, but it was a normal occurrence to find them both liquored up sitting on the front porch with a double barrel shotgun and a redbone hound dog beside them.

It would not be prudent for me to go into the forest alone, so I instructed the dispatcher to phone the conservation enforcement officer, aka the game warden, to ride with me. The two certified deputies had their patrol to perform; that was more important than scouting a possible marijuana field. Plus, the game warden knew the forest and roads in that area better than anyone other than the Bass brothers.

The game warden in our county was Harry Bennett, a twenty-year officer with gray hair and moustache. He had gone through the academy when I was a six-year-old. He accepted the offer to ride with me, so I drove to my house to get Krupp, and then to his house. It would be overtime for Harry. We were going to sneak in using NVG’s (night vision goggles) and Krupp to lead us to the illegal crop.

“Son, you did bring a rifle?” Harry asked as we walked to his pickup truck.

“Yes sir, my M1A1 is in the trunk of my patrol car,” I replied.

“ Semi-automatic version of the M14. That’s a good choice. I’m impressed.” Harry said with an approving look. “You better bring it. We will need to take my four-wheel-drive pickup for those roads. Don’t forget to bring a jacket; it gets chilly in those hills at night.”

I did as Harry suggested. I retrieved my M1A1 and camouflaged M65 field jacket from my patrol car’s trunk. I took time to change the configuration of my duty belt as well. I removed my pepper spray holder and my baton holder. Those items were replaced with a magazine pouch containing two spare magazines for my M1A1 and a black Army-style canteen. I donned my jacket with my duty belt over it, and then I placed my camouflaged jungle hat on my head. Lastly, I let Krupp out of the backseat of my patrol car.

Krupp followed me to the back of Harry’s truck where I placed him in the dog-box. Harry was always picking up injured game or transporting tracking or hunting animals, so his truck had a steel animal containment unit on the back.

“You look like a half brown and half camouflaged mix of soldier and Deputy Dog ready to go bear hunting,” Harry mused as I crawled into his pickup. “How much ammo you got for that rifle?”

“Sixty rounds in magazines and forty more in boxes in my pockets,” I replied.

“Damn, you are ready for a long bear hunt!” Harry continued, “I doubt if you need more than twenty rounds, if any. That is how much I have. My rifle is the same caliber as yours.” He shifted the truck into drive, and away we drove toward the hills.

The roads became steadily narrower, rougher, and steeper as we rode deeper into the hills. Eventually, we had passed into an area that appeared to me that we were on an old logging road, but it was still numbered as a county road. We were on County Road 115 driving northwest. Our best speed was about thirty-five miles per hour due to the roads; any faster would have damaged the truck.

When we reached the top of the hill, Harry switched off the vehicle lights. In the moonless darkness, we could see the faint glow of the kerosene lamps and lanterns of the Bass house far away in the valley. There was no electrical power in the valley below. Harry stopped to key his truck radio on the sheriff’s department RSO frequency. “RSO, two twenty-six and eleven, 10-81 in the valley until further.” Harry’s transmission meant that both of us were in the vicinity of the valley until further notice.

“10-4 two twenty-six,” came the reply from dispatch. Harry’s truck did not have the CAD system, so all we had was our radios. Before we continued further, we both donned our NVG’s and checked our equipment. The green vision added an especially eerie sensation to the night.

Once we drove off the side of the hill into the valley, Harry tried to contact dispatch for a radio check. The hills blocked our transmission to a point where we were unable to key the repeater apparatus on the transmissions tower down in the center of the county. With the radio proven inoperative, I tried dialing the office number on my cell-phone; it too proved to be inoperative. We were on our own behind the iron ore laden hills.

Both of our walkie-talkies had a range of about five miles without the repeater assistance. That would allow us to remain in constant communications with each other, but we had no backup. It was fortunate that the Bass brothers were not violent men.

In the bottom of the valley lay a dense virgin forest. In the midst of the forest lay the only cleared land; this was the Bass farm. That family had resided as the only inhabitants of the valley since the American Civil War. In fact, there was an original Confederate flag hanging in their home. Their great grandfather had been a private of the 6th Alabama Infantry Regiment. He had been a very honorable man; it was regretful that his grand children did not inherit that same indomitable spirit.

Harry parked the truck off to the side of the road about one mile from the Bass brother’s cornfields. The house was another quarter mile across the field. Stealthily, we exited from the vehicle and prepared our gear and weapons. I let Krupp out of the animal control box and clipped the fifteen-foot leash to his collar to begin our search. Krupp was an excellent drug search dog because he did not bark. He had been trained to be silent.

The three of us, Harry, Krupp, and I, began our walk into the cornfields. It was like a green daylight in the middle of the night, but if I lifted my NVG’s the night was pitch black.

Within ten minutes, we were in the middle of the cornfield. Abruptly, Krupp lunged forward with his nose in the air. He had the scent of our quarry crop. Neither Harry nor I spoke a word; I simply used hand signals to give a thumb-up sign as we increased our pace. We also realized that Krupp was leading us directly towards the farmhouse.

We reached the edge of the grassy yard surrounding the farmhouse with Krupp still heaving at the leash. It had become obvious that he was leading us to the house. We could not cross the lawn undetected, so we circled around to come out of the field behind the old wooden barn. The tactic worked well until we entered the barn. Our presence did not alarm the mules or the milk cows, but the cackle of the Rhode Island Red chickens rang out to interrupt the silence of the night. Both Harry and I feared our position might have been compromised, so we brought our rifles to the ready position.

“Guard!” I commanded Krupp. He stopped heaving and stood his ground while I unclipped the leash. “Stay!” Krupp remained behind in the barn while Harry and I moved cautiously to the barn door facing the farmhouse.

We peered through the cracks in the weathered wooden door to see that the light still emanated from the farmhouse. Actually, this was unusual. Most of the old style farm families retired to bed shortly after dark. The time was a little after midnight, but there was still light emanating from the house.

“What do you think?” I asked Harry.

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s a late night pot party.” He replied as he pointed for us to move to the equipment shed closer to the house.

We both crept quickly but silently to the shed to discover the Bass brother’s blue 1959 model Chevy pickup truck sitting inside, but there was a surprise for us. Beside the old Chevy sat a new forest green Range Rover with Nebraska license plates.

“I don’t think this belongs to the Bass boys,” Harry commented.

“I doubt it,” I agreed as I moved past the vehicles to get a better look toward the farmhouse. “Okay Harry, I’m gonna run to the side of the house to get a look in the window, cover me.”

Harry moved up to the front fender of the old Chevy; the metal is twice as thick. It works better as cover rather than just concealment. When he was in place, I began my run across the open space. This brought me into position directly adjacent to the window from whence the light emanated. A few minutes of delay time allowed me to listen for any movement inside the house in case I had been spotted.

There was utter silence. Slowly, I rolled around to peer through the window with my NVG’s raised. “Harry, come on over. Use extreme caution! We have more here than we thought!”

Moving swiftly to the front porch, I lowered my NVG’s to enable me to give cover while Harry ran across the open space. Harry peered in the window and then exclaimed on the radio, “Damn Neumann, Who would have did this?”

Without answering, I stepped onto the front porch and crept to the front door. It was standing open. The old wooden boards of the porch made it impossible to move without the telltale creaking.

“Krupp,” I called only loud enough for the sensitive ears of a dog to hear. Within seconds Krupp came like a black streak from the barn to my location on the porch. I held his collar and pointed him inside the house.

“I’m gonna crash the party,” I informed Harry via our radios.

“Sheriff’s Department! Come out or I am sending in the dog!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. As that, Krupp sounded off with the most vicious barking possible for a German shepherd.

There was no sound from inside the house, so I released Krupp’s collar. “Strike!” I commanded.

Krupp did not bark again but bolted from room to room like lightening searching for a target. A few moments after his first run through the lighted room, he returned to it and began barking. It was a clear indication that the house was clear except for that one room.

“House is clear,” I radioed to Harry via my walkie-talkie. He moved in behind me as I entered the lighted room. Both of us had raised our NVG’s and stood mesmerized to the point of speechlessness for a few moments.

There were four large clear plastic bags filled with a green vegetable material that appeared to be marijuana. Beside the bags was another smaller bag of white powder. It was a sure bet that it was some narcotic.

What had both Harry and I mesmerized was that the two Bass boys were sitting side by side naked on an old torn sofa. Their genitals had been hacked off and there was a large pool of blood underneath each of them. It appeared that they had both sat there and bled to death. Beside them lay a large blood covered butcher’s knife. Both were sitting there with their eyes and mouths open and their heads tilted back against the back of the sofa. There was; however, two men’s severed genitals were not with the bodies. There was no evidence of a struggle, nor was there any evidence that they had been restrained.

It was obvious that they had been incapacitated by some means before the hideous act was perpetrated. Harry was the first to notice that a chair had been positioned in front of the table facing in the direction of the two corpses. Then, I noticed that a mirror and a razor blade had been left on the table beside the chair. There was a cloudy residue visible on the mirror where someone had obviously been cutting out lines of the white powder from the bag on the table.

“I believe this one is Jed. Look, there is a slip of paper in his hand,” Harry informed me as he reached to remove the paper form the grasp of the dead man.

“Don’t…” Was all I got out of my mouth before Harry pulled the paper from the hand of the corpse.

KABOOM! And then bright white light was all I remember before regaining consciousness after an undetermined length of time on the front porch where I had been blown by the force of an explosion. As my thought process returned, I began to realize what had happened. Flames were bellowing out the windows by that time. There was no possibility of attempting to save Harry.

I rolled off the porch with my rifle dragging behind me. It has hung on my arm by the shoulder sling. I began to crawl away from the house, unsure if I was injured. I did know that I was unable to climb to my feet, so crawl was all I could accomplish.

By the time I was able to get to my feet, the house was totally engulfed in flames. There was no sign of Harry or Krupp. By the yellow flicker of the flames I could see that the Range Rover was no longer in the shed.

My walkie-talkie crackled to life, “ That was so cool! But you are one lucky dog! In the window! You flew like a hockey puck off the screen!”

“Kelli? Is that you? Give it up Kelli! This is no game! This is murder!” I commanded into my keyed microphone. I pulled down my NVG’s and looked around the cornfields. The light given off by the flames gave a brilliant green glow to everything in the surrounding area, but there was no sign of Kelli or anyone else. However, I did see another brilliant glow in the direction where we had left Harry’s truck. It was a certainty that the truck was burning. That was where she had gone in the Range Rover while I lay unconscious on the porch. My question was why she didn’t just kill me while she had the chance. The only answer was that she desired to continue the game. She believed that she had the advantage.

The flames were licking towards the shed and the old Chevy truck, so I quickly ran to attempt straight wiring the vehicle. One extra piece of equipment I always carried was a non-regulation switchblade with a 4” blade. One click and it was open to cut the truck’s ignition wires. I touched together the bare ends of the voltage wire and the starter solenoid wire. Unfortunately, there was not a sound. The heat was becoming unbearable as I raced around to lift the vehicle’s hood to discover that there was not a battery in the vehicle.

I could not stand it any longer; I retreated away from the intense heat just in time to look back as the old Chevy burst into flames. As I ran towards the barn, I heard the Chevy’s gas tank explode. When I looked back from in front of the barn, the shed was also in flames. Unexpectedly, there was a clunk-clunk noise behind me. It was the highly distinguishable sound of a round being chambered into a pump shotgun.

Slowly I turned, to recognize Kelli. The shotgun was leveled directly at my gut. I was caught without a chance of getting either of my weapons into a position to fire.

“Drop the rifle and the pistol!” Kelli demanded, “Don’t try any thing stupid. My daddy was a Marine and taught me to use one of these when I was twelve.”

I cautiously dropped the rifle and removed my pistol to drop it to the ground.

“Hand behind your head and step back into the open,” Kelli commanded with a menacing motion of the shotgun.

“Why?” I asked as I backed into the open between the barn and the burning shed.

“My name isn’t Kelli. I’m sure you have discovered that, but I am from Nebraska. I am Cheryl Gayper. My daddy was Jim Gayper; do you remember that name?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“I figured as much. Three years ago, my daddy and I were driving through here in a tractor-trailer rig that he had just picked only an hour before in Opelika. You stopped us for speeding, but you had to bring out a dog to check for drugs. We did not know that there was a bag of cocaine hidden in the truck. He was just hired to drive the truck to Ohio and then pick up another one to drive back to Nebraska where my family lives. We were poor, and we did not have the money to get him out of jail. You arrested him and I was sent to a juvenile center. He died in jail, and they raped me at that place I was sent. I was fifteen years old. When I tried to tell what had happened, they said I was mentally ill and sent me to a psychiatric hospital where I was given drugs. All of this happened because of one man. You!”

“I remember now. Your dad was acting very nervous. He knew something was in that truck.” I tried to explain, “No one knew he had a heart condition.”

“Just shut up! It’s too late now!” The girl screamed.

Out of the blackness of the barn came a blurred object that collided into the girl knocking her to the side and causing the shotgun to fire. The shot flew passed me with the sound of a mad swarm of bees, but missed hitting me by a few inches. Then came the growling sounds of a dog mauling something. I lunged in that direction as my vision focused on the objects. The blurred object was Krupp and he had the girl by the arm. She was screaming while trying to shake off the dog and pump the shotgun.

Within seconds, I was in range to grab the shotgun to jerk it from her hands. Krupp was keeping her occupied. “Heel! Heel!” I yelled at him. That command ended Krupp’s attack. It did not stop the girl from attempting to use a martial arts kick against me.

I blocked her kick with my right arm and used a straight hand blow to her throat to knock the fight out of her and place her on her knees in order for me to grab her wrists to facilitate handcuffing her. It was all over in the blink of an eye.

Poor Krupp could be heard whining in pain as I grabbed my Beretta pistol from the ground and placed it back in my holster. The girl was scrambling around and cursing, so I stepped on the calf of her left leg and grabbed the handcuffs to pull up her wrists while ordering, “I am placing you under arrest for murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court…” I continued to state her Miranda rights while I patted her down for weapons. She had no other weapons, but the keys to the Land Rover and a bag of white powder were in her jacket pocket.

Both items were confiscated as evidence; besides, I would need the Range Rover to drive to the top of the hill to use my walkie-talkie to call for assistance.

I pulled the girl up by the handcuffs once I completed patting her down. When she reached her feet, she spat in my face and screamed, “I guess you are going to rape me too, now that I am in handcuffs!” She tried to knee my groin area, but I blocked that attempt as well.

“Settle down, you’re just adding the charge of assaulting an officer,” I tried to reason.

It took some time since she was struggling against me, but eventually I managed to get her in the front of the Range Rover. At that point, I really wished I had driven my patrol car with the cage in back.

My rifle, the shotgun, and Krupp were loaded in the back of the vehicle for the ride to the top of the hills overlooking the valley. It was a long, slow ride with the girl trying to kick, spit on, and head-butt me at every turn in the road. Eventually, I was forced to stop long enough to use my second set of handcuffs on her ankles in an attempt to stop some of the kicking and ensure that she did not jump from the vehicle to run.

It seemed to be an eternity before we reached the summit of the hills where my radio transmissions could be received by RSO dispatch.