To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com


Title: Long Arms
Author: Jay P. Hailey (jayphailey{at}tic1.net) and K.A. Strickland Series:
Vista City/Four Corners
Part: 10/13
Rating [PG] (Some Violence)

 Crenfield, Karla and Mosley left to take Marlene back to the undertakers.

 Karla handed the detectives a card with the Four Corners Sheriff department
number on it and her home phone number written on it.  "I am going
home to see if my son is still alive and to get some sleep in my own bed. 
Shall we begin bright and early tomorrow?"

 Scott nodded.  "Sounds good."

 Marcy came over.  "Good evening.  Welcome to Four Corners.  What can I get
you this evening?"  Her accent was enchanting.  Her upper pair of arms
made a welcome gesture while her lower set held a pad and a pencil.

 "Whatever that is I smell cooking will do just fine." Scott said.

 "Fine.  I like people who recognize quality."  Marcy grinned.

 "What if it's possum stew or something?" Angelo commented quietly.

 "Then it will be the best possum I have ever eaten."  Sonja said.

 "Oh."

-*-

 From Karla's reception she would have guessed that she was gone for weeks
and months.  She didn't mind.  After Danny was unwrapped from her neck he
regained his senses.  "What did you bring me?"

 Karla didn't realize that she had forgotten a souvenir for the boy until
that very moment.  "I'm sorry Danny.  I was working so hard that I
plum forgot."

 Danny's face started to fall.

 "So that means we'll have to arrange a special trip into town later, just
for you and me." Karla said.

 Danny tried manfully to overcome his disappointment.  "O-okay."

 Karla looked around and saw fifteen year old Julie, her usual baby sitter.
"Where's Jake?"

 Julie looked embarrassed.  "He's out with Elizabeth."

 Karla gave two thumbs up with her upper hands while pumping both lowers.
"Yes! Danny, Julie this definitely calls for ice cream."

 "Really?"  Danny said

 Julie grinned happily "Yep!"

 "All right!" Danny yelled.

 "Get in the car!"  Karla called.

-*-

 The next morning came about three hours too soon for Angelo. He woke up
anyway.  Something deep and dark inside of him called him to wakefulness
with the rising of the sun.  Angelo got ready for a day at work.  Brush
teeth, hair, wash, dry.  Lay out clothing, dress carefully.  Business like,
definitely.  Tan slacks, light blue shirt, and blue sports jacket.  Shoes
carefully shined.  Check the weapon. Nylon shoulder rig with three full
clips. Cell phone fully charged and in its case on his belt.  Angelo felt
ready to investigate the world.

 First he had to collar his partners.

-*-

 "God damned ungrateful..."  Matthew Summers griped.  It was ten in the
morning but he was already halfway through his first fifth of gin.  It made
him surly.  His eyes were red.  He smelled of the years and years of bad
booze that saturated his body.  "I gave her a home!  I kept her alive
after... after..." A big swig.  "Anyway.  She was never quite
right.  Always goin' off t' do things her own way."

 "Do you know anyone who might want her dead?"  Angelo asked.

 "Huh?  Want her dead?  WANT HER DEAD!?!"  Matthew shouted he stood up
uncertainly and pointed with his bottle for emphasis.  "Only you God
Damned SHORTS!  Marlene was a God damned ANGEL!  Who'd want to kill her? 
She was a sweet girl.  Only you fuckin' shorts!  You'll get us all in the
end won't cha!?"

 "Shorts?"  Sonja asked Karla quietly.

 "Explain later." Karla whispered.

 "I tol' Marlene not to go.  I tol' her to stay here with me..."  Another
big slurp.  "I didn't want her to go."

 "You knew Marlene was leaving Four Corners?"  Angelo asked.

 "Marlene was going to leave Four Corners?"  Matthew swayed
drunkenly trying
to take in the data.

 "Yes, Sir."  Angelo said.

 "Marlene's left us?"  Matthew's face began to crumple. Tears started to
flow.  "Why?  Why would Marlene leave us?  Why would she leave the
place where people loved her?"  He began to cry, sobbing bitterly. 
"God damned ungrateful bitch!  Could never do things right!  Always
had to go and do things her own way! Who's going to t'  take care of me
now?"

 "Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Summers."  Angelo said. He stood
up.  "I think we have enough information for now."

 "Yeah!" Summers said.  "You have enough now!  Jus' my life and my
daughter!" He waved his bottle around.  "You c'n get the rest
when you come t' cart me away t' the concen... centen...con... Those God
damned places!"

 "Yes, Sir.  Thank you, Sir" Angelo said, backing away.

 Taking the cue Sonja started to back away too.

 Karla stepped forward.  "Matt?  Take it easy, Okay?"

 "Huh? Karla?  Y' going to arrest these damned shorts?  Hee hee.  I didn'
know it was Halloween yet." Matthew swayed.  Then he became serious.
"Karla, get out of here!  They'll git ya!  I'll hold 'em off. Run
girl!!" he staggered off into the shack.

 "Oh hell."  Sonja said.

 "Is he armed?"  Angelo asked

 "Maybe you should get to the car now." Karla said.

 "Good idea."  Sonja said.

 They two Vista City detectives turned and began to leave.  Just outside the
door they turned to see Matthew Summers in the main room of the shack
fighting with a recalcitrant shotgun.

 "Matthew, you give me that gun!" Karla said in a tone the brooked no
defiance.  Karla wasn't aware that she had learned this particular voice
from being Danny's mother for ten years.

 Matthew Summer's stared at her in shock for a few moments before giving her
the gun.

 "Whatever works..."  Angelo commented.

-*-

 The office was cool after the hot, muggy Georgia day outside.

 "The Agency didn't used to have mailing addresses."  Scott commented.

 "Times change.  These days we see ourselves as providing a vital public
service.  Hard to do when the public can't see you."  Taylor said.

 "Not being seen was part of our vital public service, once upon a time."
Scott griped.  "What can I help you with, today?"

 "I am sorry to pull you off the immediate case in hand.  Our files suggest
that detectives Mancuso and Traveler are competent to handle things right
now."  Taylor said.  "I have been asked by my superiors to pull
you in for a good, old fashioned debriefing."

 Scott sighed.  Taylor was right.  This particular case was right up Angelo
and Sonja's alley.  "All of the files and sensitive data relating to
my activities are in Vista City."

 "And they're on an isolated system."  Taylor said.

 "I cut the old radio modem out of the thing myself.  The frequencies and
codes are all old."  Scott said.  "If you want copies of my files
you'll have to send an agent by to pick them up by hand."

 Taylor nodded.  "Okay.  We'll arrange that.  Now, onto business."

 Scott sighed.  "Right.  What's first up on your list?"

 "We'll need a full report on the Father O'Callahan incident." 
Taylor said.
"I'm sure that it took some tap dancing to explain shooting a naked
priest with silver bullets."

 "You don't know the half of it."  Scott could feel a headache coming on.

 "That's why we're here."  Taylor replied.

-*-

 "Shorts?"  Sonja asked Karla.

 Karla looked grim.  "It's a pejorative term for people like you."

 "A pejorative term?"  Sonja pressed.

 Karla sighed.  "You're short by two arms."

 Sonja giggled.  "I like it.  It's cute."

 Karla shook her head and said firmly.  "No.  It's not."

-*-

 Merlyn Carter said "We were close all through High School.  Poor Marlene.
She had such a rough time growing up."

 "How so?"  Angelo asked.

 "Well, have you met Marlene's Dad?"

 Angelo and Sonja nodded.

 "Then you know what he's like."  Merlyn said.   "Some days
he'd be an angry
drunk and abuse Marlene, physically and emotionally.  Other days he'd be a
weepy drunk and wrap Marlene around his fingers."

 "Sounds rough."  Sonja said, sympathetically.

 "Worse was the money situation.  For most of us here in town money isn't a
big problem.  We work in for the Waste Disposal planet or in the sciences
or in some support role, and because the waste disposal plant is one of so
very few, it's a money machine.  That engine drives the rest of the town.
Marlene's dad was too drunk too often to contribute to the town and so very
little of the money rolled down to him.  And Marlene's the one who suffered
for that."  Merlyn explained.

 "Really?  How?"  Angelo asked.

 "High School is really a very cruel and shallow place.  All the kids are
interested primarily in appearances and fads.  Marlene came to school in
ragged, patched clothing that was generally hand me downs.  Being
fashionable was not a consideration.  And I am ashamed to say that a number
of kids teased her and rode her about it pretty heavily." Merlyn said.

 "What happened?" Sonja asked.  "Everyone seems to have a
different opinion
about her now."

 "Well, Marlene started to sing.  She joined the choir early on, but in High
School she really began to bloom.  By her sophomore year she was being
asked to sing at church, at social functions and at school events.  Then
she got a boy friend and things began to really pick up for Marlene.  By
her junior year, she'd abandoned her dad and was mostly living with Kyle.
It seemed as though things were really looking up for Marlene.  The few of
us who knew her well were very happy for her."  Merlyn looked sad at
the memories.

 "Tell me about Kyle."  Angelo said.

 "Well, we like to say that underneath he's just a good ol' boy.  He likes
cars.  He works as a mechanic here in town.  He wears an old cowboy hat and
drinks beer.  He listens to country music and occasionally gets into brawls
down at Axel's.  He loved Marlene and was occasionally jealous of
her." Merlyn said.

 "And how was their relationship?"  Angelo asked.

 "By the end of high school it looked like Marlene and Kyle were going to
get married.  Marlene had a couple of CD's in local circulation and
everyone knew that if a machine was broken then probably Kyle could repair
it.  They looked like they were on their way up in the world. Then all the
chaos happened.  We were too busy worrying about defending the town to pay
much mind to poor Marlene."  Merlyn said.

 "What does that mean?"  Angelo probed.

 "Well, you know there was a good deal of fear and paranoia happening when
The Secret came out.  We were basically convinced that at any times an army
of sh... two armed people were going to march into town and burn it to the
ground.  We were afraid that we'd all be hunted down and killed. A lot of
us hunkered down inside or took long camping trips about that time.  I have
two children and a husband who works at the Waste Disposal plant.  He was
afraid that if that was damaged we'd have our own little Chernobyl down
here.  So I hunkered down with the kids and he went to the plant and we
prayed, a lot. Kyle said that Marlene wasn't handling it well and that she
needed some time alone to work it through."

 "And afterwards..."  Angelo prompted.

 Merlyn shook her head.  "I tried to call a couple of times.  Either he
answered the phone or no one did.  He wouldn't let me speak to her. 
Frankly I think he was a little jealous of the way Marlene and I got
along."

 "Do you know anything about Marlene's decision to leave Four Corners?"
Angelo asked.

 Merlyn sighed.  "Nope.  The first we heard about it was Kyle staggering
around town dead drunk, crying that she was gone."

 "Did you ever hear anything from Marlene after she left?" Sonja asked.

 "Well, yes, actually.  She wrote me twice."  Merlyn went to a desk in her
living room and opened a drawer.  "She wrote one postcard from
Hollywood and one letter from someplace called Vista City.  But that's
where you're from, isn't it?"

 "How long ago was the letter from Vista City?"

 "About two months.  I answered it immediately.  She never wrote again."

 "May I read it?"  Angelo asked.

 Merlyn looked at him oddly.  "Why?"

 "It may contain clues."

 Merlyn handed him the letter.  It was a short letter. About two thirds of a
page, printed by a computer somewhere.  Angelo would have bet that it was
the business computer at "The Soul Attraction".

 Marlene wrote of how much better she felt and how her time away from Four
Corners was helping her straighten things out.  She wrote of how it felt to
sing in front of an audience every weekend.  She wrote a little bit about
meeting the people of Vista City and being pleasantly surprised at how
supportive and open they were.

 Marlene even hinted that she might come back to Four Corners and visit
Merlyn.  Marlene asked Merlyn not to mention anything to Kyle especially
not where she was writing from.

 "It sounds like a happy letter."  Angelo said.

 Merlyn nodded.  "It sounded that way to me too.  I was happy when I got it,
and let Marlene know it."

 "Hmmm.  Did you let Kyle know where Marlene was?"

 Merlyn looked embarrassed.  "I... I had too.  Marlene's leaving him hurt
Kyle so bad.  I just wanted to let him know that she was okay."

 "Do you know where Kyle is right now?"  Sonja asked.

 "No.  You don't think he had anything to do with Marlene's death, do you?"
Merlyn said.  "I mean that happened all the way across the country. 
Kyle was here in Four Corners the entire time."

 "When was the last time you spoke saw Kyle?"  Sonja asked.

 "No.  I will not sit here and listen to this."  Merlyn's eyes flashed.
"Hasn't he lost enough?  He'll never be able to get things worked out
between him and Marlene now, will he?  And now you want to start grilling
him?"

 "We're trying to establish the truth, Mrs. Carter.  Sometimes that means we
have to ask uncomfortable questions." Angelo said.

 "Not in my house you don't."  Merlyn's voice cracked.  "Get
out.  You're
just trying to frame Kyle and get some two armed person off the hook.
Wasn't getting Marlene killed enough for you people?!"

 "Thank you for your help Mrs. Carter."  Sonja said, pulling Angelo to his
feet.

 "Karla, how could you bring those people into my house asking those sorts
of questions?" Merlyn demanded.  "I want them out!"

 Karla said.  Mer, we're just getting to bottom of this.  That's all.  You
can trust me, Can't you?"

 "I thought I could!"

-*-

 On the way out to the car, Sonja said to Angelo.  "Definitely time to speak
to Kyle."

 Angelo nodded.  "I agree.  What do you think, Sheriff?"

 Karla looked at them for a moment.  "I think I agree with Merlyn.  I still
like Freddie for it.  And I think you're trying to prove that it wasn't a
two armed person."

 "I am not trying to prove anything."  Angelo said.  "I just
want to speak
with Kyle Warner."

 "I'll see what I can do."


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