Highland County Heroes Collection

Chapter 5

Warren went home after one of the longest shifts he’d pulled since he’d started with BPD and sat on the sofa, dropping the take out he’d picked up on the drive onto the coffee table in front of him.

“Leave it,” he said to Jake as the black lab leaned forward with a wagging tail to sniff the bag. Without hesitation, Jake sat and left the bag alone, watching Warren with eager eyes. Warren heaved a big sigh and pushed himself to his feet again. Jake followed, leaving the bag of food behind as they went into the kitchen where Warren grabbed a paper plate, a fork, a couple paper towels and a can of soda. He should have grabbed all this before sitting down, but he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. He took everything back in the living room, Jake still right behind him, tail wagging and thumping against everything. Warren glanced down at his companion, the only one who’d lasted more than a few months in years. “Do you need to go outside?”

The dog bounced on his front feet and raced to the door. He stared at the door knob for several seconds then back at Warren.

“I’m coming. Give me a second.” He opened the door and let the dog out into the fenced yard. Standing in the open doorway, he popped the top on the soda and took a long drink while he waited for the dog. Jake was well trained and knew that if he didn’t get his business taken care of and come back inside quickly, then he’d have to wait a while, at least until Warren got up again, and that might be an hour. After not more than three or four minutes, Jake came back and slipped past Warren into the house. Satisfied, Warren turned back inside and closed the door. Jake sat next to the sofa now, his attention on the bag on the low table. Warren went back to the couch and sat again. He turned on the TV and tuned the channel to the History Channel while he opened the bag. He wanted something to take his mind off work, and the local news would only bring it back. No matter what History Channel was showing that at least would be old news.

One by one, Warren pulled the boxes from the bag. It was more than he’d eat tonight, but he’d wanted more than one thing. It would keep so he hadn’t hesitated to make a bigger order. As he served some of the cashew chicken, and a bit of the Beijing beef onto the plate he’d grabbed he thought about Sergeant Moreno. Hayley. He wondered what she would order and if she would use a fork or chopsticks to eat it. Did she even like Chinese? He shook his head and turned his attention to the TV as he leaned back and started eating. Jake laid down and watched him carefully, but didn’t beg. He just waited. He knew if he was good, he’d get the plate when Warren was finished.

After dinner, Warren put the left overs in the fridge, gave his plate to Jake to lick clean, then put it in the trash before going back to the couch. This time, Jake came close and set his head on Warren’s knee. He laid his hand on the dog’s head and scratched his ears absently as he wondered if Hayley liked dogs. Warren had dated a girl once who swore she liked them, but treated Jake like crap, yet her own pair of cats were coddled and babied. The cats should have been a hint, but Warren had been temporarily distracted by her pretty face. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the pretty face only did so much to disguise her less than stellar personality. The relationship hadn’t lasted long. Only until she’d started to make noises about Warren getting rid of Jake, maybe a month or two after they’d started dating. Faced with a choice, Warren had made it… Jake. He rubbed the dog’s ears and let the tension from the day drain. A lot of sources said that pets help reduce stress levels, Warren knew from experience, it was true. No matter how bad the day, he came home to Jake and the dog seemed to know how he was feeling. Whether he needed to be left alone a bit or whether he needed to have his feet licked. That was one thing that still weirded Warren out a bit, but he knew it was a comfort thing for the dog, so he let him lick him on occasion. Until he couldn’t take anymore, then he’d tell Jake to stop, and he would.

It might not seem like it to some, but Jake was a good companion. He helped Warren through the rough days, like today, and what more could you ask for?

The next day, Warren went into work as usual, Johnny seemed a little quiet, but not enough to comment on, and they went about their day. He was half-way through the shift, and this third trip back to the station house, this time with a teenager who’d been caught vandalizing the tables at a public park, when Sergeant Moreno came stalking thought the squad room. She looked pissed and at the moment, he was just glad it wasn’t aimed at him. He couldn’t help but watch her walk away though.

“Man, you let her catch you looking at her like that and she’ll hand you your ass on a silver platter,” Johnny’s voice beside him pulled him back to what he was supposed to be doing. “And don’t let the L T see it either. He catches you eying a supervisor like that you may find yourself out of the department.”

Warren felt his face heat as he turned back to what he was doing but he didn’t say anything. What use would it be to deny it? He’d been caught. He just had to be careful not to let it happen again. The last thing he needed was for Lieutenant Watterson to think there was something going on between Warren and Sergeant Moreno. It would cost Warren his job, and possibly even Hayley. He wouldn’t do that to her, even if he wanted her in his bed so bad he could taste it. He wanted to glance back, get one last look at her but forced himself to turn away. Instead, he walked the kid to a desk and made him call his parents to come pick him up. While they waited, Warren was going to talk to him about his crime, and why he’d done it. He hated having to book a kid with no prior record, he wanted to give them all a second chance, if he could. This time, the crime was petty, but if Warren could either scare him straight or get his parents to come down hard enough he never had to be picked up again, it was worth it.

Monday morning, Warren sat bolt upright in bed, startled awake by his phone ringing. It was his day off and he’d planned to sleep in an hour or two before heading to the gym, then over to his sister’s to check on her and the kids later in the afternoon, after they would be home.

“Hathaway.” He’d long ago quit saying hello, especially if he didn’t know who was on the other end.

“Officer Hathaway, this is Detective Howard. What time are you supposed to go in this morning?”

Warren blinked as he tried to make the other man’s words make sense in his sleep befuddled brain. “Um. I’m not, sir. I’m off today.”

“Can you come in? I just read the report you turned in at the end of shift Saturday and I’d like to talk to you a bit more.”

“Sure, but you’ll have to give me a bit. I’m afraid you woke me.”

“No problem. How long do you think until you can be in?” Howard didn’t seem to care that Warren couldn’t be there in the next ten minutes.

He glanced at the clock, 8:15 a.m. “That depends, you want me in uniform or street clothes?”

“Better go for uniform. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get paid if this takes more than a few minutes.”

“I’m not worried about that, sir.” He did a little figuring in his head, how long it would take him to get dressed and down to the station house. “I can be there by about nine-thirty, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine. I’ll see you then. Oh and, Officer?”

“Yes?”

“Come on up to the third floor, we’ll be waiting for you.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be there soon.”

The detective hung up without saying goodbye. That didn’t surprise Warren, a lot of cops were that way when dealing with business or an investigation, he’d done it himself a time or ten. With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He’d have to get his work out in later, no time now.

On his second day assisting the detective with the homicide investigation, Warren realized how much he missed this part of the job. Not the murder or the bodies part, but the deeper thinking. The digging for more information, the working out possible suspects and motives. He hadn’t been a detective in Albuquerque, but on the vice team he’d done more in-depth work than a patrolman, either there or here in Blackjack.

It felt good to do more than issue tickets and respond to domestic violence and disturbing the peace calls. Okay, okay. Occasionally there was a theft or robbery in progress call to break up the monotony, but not often. Warren had dealt with more run-away teenagers, most of whom came home after a few days, than anything more than a misdemeanor, in the year he’d been with the Blackjack Police Department.

Not that he hadn’t liked what he was doing in vice. He did. He’d also desperately needed the break. After three years on vice, working on child prostitution and s*x slave rings, he’d been on the verge of burn out. It had been a big part of why he’d walked away and started over. Well, that and Nancy needing help.

His sister, Nancy had been a new widow, her husband Thomas having been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, leaving her with four kids under six. Thomas’s parents lived in New York state, where he’d been from. The distance made them limited help. Plus, Nancy hadn’t said it, but Warren got the impression they blamed her for Thomas’s death, at least in part, and she didn’t talk to them often.

Warren and Nancy had three other siblings, one sister and two brothers, but he was the closest to her, both in their relationship and geographically. Sometimes that happened with larger families.

Either way, Nancy was doing better now and while Warren still helped, she didn’t need him as much. That left Warren both thrilled and depressed. Thrilled that she was doing better. Losing Thomas had left her a shadow of her former self and it was great to see her back on her feet, at least mostly. She wasn’t ready to start dating, or even considering it yet, but she could handle the kids, her job and day to day life. Which led to why her doing better left him depressed — He’d spend most of the last year with his nieces and nephews and now that Nancy didn’t need him as much, he missed them, and her too. He still visited frequently but he let them have their time, their space. It gave him more free time, time he could use to date a little.

If only the one person who haunted his thoughts, and occasionally, his dreams, would agree to go out with him. He knew why Sergeant Hayley Moreno had turned him down. She was his boss and she’d worked hard to get there. He respected that. Maybe it was time for a change, one that would remove the problem? Maybe he should look at leaving the beat, maybe moving up a little.

He shook his head and pushed wishful thinking away. He had a case he needed to focus on, and this wasn’t getting that done.

Warren had been surprised when he’d sat down with Detective Howard after the detective had called him in the day before. The other man had questioned him for over an hour about the report he’d turned in. Not just what it said, but why he’d put different things in. Why had Warren included this or that? They hadn’t been chewing him out or threatening in anyway and had in fact, asked him to assist them. That alone had surprised the s**t out of him, but he’d readily agreed. While at the time, he’d not thought about leaving patrol, he was eager to help find whoever had done that to the girl. He had a name for her now, Tanalynn Snyder. Tanalynn, he looked at the name again and thought, not for the first time, that it was an odd name. He had to admit though, she was probably the only one in her class. He shook his head and flipped through the pages he’d spread out in front of him. He’d interviewed a dozen people over the last few days and this was the only way he’d remember it all, just read it all over and over until something clicked. He knew something would. It had to.