Chapter 88: 88 What Did You Say?

The foreman offered to walk Annie, Arnold and Kelly around the house, and they declined. Everything had been thrown out and the place was practically empty, except for anything that was metal. Annie knew that there wasn't a lot of metal things that they owned, so walking around practically empty rooms would only make her feel worse about the whole thing. The three of them left and climbed into the car and Annie pulled away from the curb.

“Kelly and I planned to take you anywhere you wanted to go today.” Annie said to Arnold. “Is there anywhere you would like to go?”

“Where can I go to have some fun with Kelly?” Arnold asked.

“Well, there are a few places I know of.” Annie said and thought about it. “Kelly? Any ideas?”

Kelly thought about it. “Maybe the museum? I haven't been there in a while.”

Annie didn't let the surprise show on her face. Of all the places for your first date, you pick a museum? She asked herself and smiled. “Okay. First stop, the museum.”

Annie drove the car around several streets to get to the main road that most of the traffic in the town used at some point during the day and the car easily merged with the flow of traffic. They travelled pretty fast along the pavement and passed a work truck. Annie slowed down because she saw several people working near the road.

Kelly gasped when she saw who it was. “That's Brad!” She said and pointed and Annie and Arnold looked. “Why isn't he in jail?” She asked and let her anger show. “Wait a minute! Why haven't we heard about this?”

Annie couldn't help it and her anger showed as well. She didn't slam on the brakes and try to run the bastard over like she wanted to, though. It wasn't because she had witnesses in the car, either. It was because Brad wasn't alone and the woman looked like she was keeping a close eye on him as he worked.

“He's picking up trash?!?” Kelly nearly yelled. “He wrecked your home and all he's doing is trash collecting? What a rip-off!”

“Kelly, calm down.” Annie said, even though she didn't want to calm down, either. She took the car back up to full speed after they passed the work area. “When we park, I'll give that officer a call.”

“That's a great idea.” Kelly said. “Maybe he can explain this travesty of justice.”

Annie nodded and drove over to the museum. She parked in the parking lot and they climbed out of the car and stood beside it. Kelly handed over her cell phone and Annie took out the business card that the officer had given her and she dialed the number on it.

“I hope he's working today.” Annie said. “Otherwise...”

The phone rang and there was a series of clicks, then a man's voice spoke when the ringing stopped.

“Officer Hallman.”

“Officer Hallman, this is Annie Strickland.”

“Annie!” He said, a little excitedly. “It's so nice to hear from you.”

“You might not think that when I ask you what the hell is going on with my case.” Annie said and anger was clear in her voice.

“What do you mean?” Officer Hallman asked.

“I just drove by the main road and saw two of the bastards that wrecked my house are doing community service and aren't in jail.”

Officer Hallman sighed. “They assigned them to that already?”

“What do you mean already? How long have you known they were out of jail?” Annie asked.

“Their court case was on Monday. The prosecutor sent out notices to us on Tuesday about the judge's decision.”

Annie was quiet and stared at the ground as she tried to compose herself. “Well, Mr. Asshat, why didn't you call me and tell me the criminals that assaulted my house, and might have assaulted me, were out and roaming free?”

“I drove by your house every day since then to keep an eye on it.” Officer Hallman said.

“I don't give a f... fig... what you did! Why didn't you tell me? I'm standing here in the middle of town with my son, who they had actually come to assault, and I had NO CLUE that Brad and his friends are all out and around the town! How in the world is that SAFE for me and MY SON?” Annie yelled. “TELL ME HOW THAT'S SAFE FOR MY SON!!!”

“Annie, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you in person. I kept checking to see if you were home and I only saw your car at the house a little while ago.” Officer Hallman said. “I'm actually still on patrol and couldn't call.”

“Have you been on patrol twenty-four hours a day since Tuesday?” Annie asked and did her best to not yell. “You could have called at any time to meet me 'in person' and then tell me that my life was in danger. You could have at least warned me about letting my son come back here and putting his life in danger, too!”

“Where are you now?” Officer Hallman asked. “I'll come over and...”

“You stay the fuck away from me, you ignorant asshole!” Annie spat. “I'm tearing up your card and I hope I never see your smug face ever again.” She said. “I'm also calling the station to complain about your lack of professionalism in protecting the witnesses in what used to be your case. I assume the case is closed, which you also never told me, and I believe I'll be having a nice long conversation with the police chief about you.”

“Annie, wait-” *CLICK*

Annie hung up the phone and dialed the station number on the card and waited. “The police chief, please.” “Yes, it's very important and involves one of his officers and a potential assault.” “Annie Strickland.” “Of course I have no problem waiting on hold, thank you.”

“Wow, Annie.” Kelly stared at her friend, who just happened to be Arnold's mom.

“No one messes with my Arnold.” Annie said and the three of them stood there while they waited for the police chief to pick up his phone.

*

“Oh, damn.” Officer Charlie Hallman said as the call ended. He was only about halfway through his patrol route and he couldn't stop it to go and try to find Annie in the middle of town. He picked up his radio and called the dispatcher, then asked to be transferred to the police chief.

“Hey, boss. I screwed up.” Charlie said and started to explain what happened.

As the police chief listened, he became less happy at each successive word, especially because he had Annie Strickland waiting on hold to hear what he had to say about the whole thing.

*

Annie, Arnold, and Kelly stood there for almost fifteen minutes before Annie jerked a little when the cellphone clicked and the 'on hold' music stopped.

It's about goddamn time! Annie thought and tried to reign in her anger. She didn't want to sound like a raving lunatic while she talked, because that was not how she wanted to be perceived.

“Miss Strickland, this is Police Chief Morris.” The police chief said. “What can I do for you today?”

“You can file a formal report against Officer Hallman for conduct unbecoming an officer of the law and for public endangerment.” Annie said.

“I'm sure that we can discuss...”

“I wasn't discussing it, Chief Morris. I was telling you. Your officer has intentionally put my son, and by extension myself, in imminent danger for the last five days. In fact, the danger was more prevalent during the week, because we didn't know that our assailants were out and roaming free.”

Chief Morris sighed. “Miss Strickland, it's not normal policy to disclose case specifics with...”

“I've been roaming about my home town all week, and the large group of men that came to my house and destroyed it, have been out roaming free the entire time. I could literally run into them anywhere. In fact, I passed the main instigator when I came into town and that told me all I needed to know about how little your officer regarded my son's and my own personal safety.”

“Miss Strickland, there's no need to overreact...”

“Chief Morris, you better start writing that report, because the next call I'm making is to a reporter I know.” Annie said. “Either you reprimand Officer Hallman right now for letting his personal feelings interfere with his job and endangering my son and myself, not to mention my son's girlfriend that the perpetrators all know, or you can reprimand him after the front page story appears in the paper. The choice is up to you.”

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“Miss Strickland...”

“I'd like to know how the felony charges were reduced to only community service.” Annie said. “I'd also like to know why I wasn't called in to testify at the hearing, since I was the victim of their crime.”

“Miss Strickland, it's not normal policy to disclose case specifics with...”

“Now that I have you on the phone, I have another important question.” Annie said and cut him off.

The police chief managed to stop his sigh this time. “Go ahead.”

“WHERE IS MY HUSBAND'S BODY?!?” Annie yelled.

“Excuse me?” Chief Morris asked, surprised.

“I've been waiting several weeks for the funeral parlour to call and let me know when the funeral arrangements will come into effect. When I called them to see what the hold up was, they told me that the police haven't released his body yet.”

Chief Morris couldn't stop his sigh this time. “Miss Strickland, I'm terribly sorry for causing you such distress. I'll do my best to rectify the situation... both of them... as soon as possible.”

“I certainly hope that's true for your sake, because everyone will be reading about it tomorrow, and I suspect you will be getting a lot of interesting calls.” Annie said with a smile and hung up the phone.

“Oh. My. God.” Kelly said and took Annie into a hug. “That was scarily awesome!”

Annie had to chuckle at that. “Don't make me laugh. This isn't funny.”

“You just kicked the chief of police in the balls and told him to like it!” Kelly said with a grin. “Why can't that be funny?”

Annie laughed and pushed her away. “Stop that. I need to make a call.”

Kelly nodded and Annie called the woman from the company her husband used to work at. After a quick talk with her, Annie got the number for the reporter that had shown up that day to report on the life insurance story. After another quick talk, the reporter begged for her to give her the exclusive story. She also told Annie to stay right where she was because she would be there as soon as possible to talk to her.

“You two can go inside.” Annie said. “I think I'm going to be busy for a while.”

“You don't want us to stay and help?” Kelly asked.

Annie shook her head and then smiled. “You two go have some fun while I conspire to take down the slightly corrupted police force.”

“It's too bad you couldn't take down the prosecutor and the judge, too.” Kelly said with a laugh. “You know they took it easy on Brad and his friends because of bribes and favors.”

Annie nodded. “I knew as soon as the chief of police said that he couldn't discuss the case that some kind of backroom deal had to be made.”

Kelly sighed and put a hand on her arm. “We're going to get through this, okay?”

“Yes, we are.” Annie said and pat her hand. “Now get going and enjoy yourselves.”

Kelly took Arnold's hand and led him up the stairs and into the large museum building. There was no fee to get in; but, there was a donation box and Kelly put a couple of dollars in it and led Arnold through the lobby.

“Most people like the paleontology display.” Kelly said and pointed to the room where that was. “Not me, though. I wasn't as fussy on dinosaurs like a lot of people.”

“I know.” Arnold said. “I also know what you really like.”

“Oh? Do you really remember what I said on the school bus going to my house so long ago?”

“I always remember important things.” Arnold said and she blushed a little. “The map in the lobby said it's over there.” He said and pointed.

Kelly turned her head and looked. “You really did remember.” She said and blushed fully as Arnold led her over to the Egyptian Artifacts display hall. “I don't know why I find it all so fascinating.” She said and they stopped at the first glass case with a broken golden sceptre and half of a faded golden mask that looked like an eagle. “An almost completely different civilization. Different social rules, dynasties, a ruling class that did their best... most of the time... to keep their people fed and working, and they were worshipped like gods and goddesses.”

They moved on and stopped at a scale model display of the Giza Pyramids.

“The engineering feats they performed were nothing short of astonishing.” Kelly said and touched the glass. “Imagine making the Great Pyramid, over seven hundred and fifty feet on each side and four hundred and eighty feet tall, and all you had was a long slow incline, wooden logs and water, and thousands of people working on it.”

Arnold looked at it and tried to see it how she saw it. All he could see was a pyramid, however.

Kelly pointed at a small block off to the side. “Each one was about two and a half tons and the Egyptians moved millions of them to build all of the pyramids.” She said. “No cars or machines to help. It was all basic manpower and they accomplished so much with so little.”

“Slave manpower.” A man's voice said as he walked over. “Thousands of slaves did the work.”

“That's not entirely true.” Kelly responded. “Lots of Egyptians worked on all of the different wonders they created and it wasn't all done by slaves.”

The man started to frown and Kelly shook her head.

“I'm not saying what they did was good or the end justifies the subjugation of an entire caste of people. It was a different time and we can all look back and judge them with our own values now. I'm just saying that they used the resources they had available and accomplished amazing things.”

The man couldn't counter that argument, so he gave her a slight nod and walked on.

“I think you're going to like this next part.” Kelly said and led Arnold by the hand and went into a small side room and it was filled with small display cases. In the center of the room was the jewel of the collection.

A real mummy.

It was behind glass and couldn't be touched. Even so, some of the wrappings had fallen off its face and revealed its dried out eye sockets and the teeth were exposed because the lips had receded.

“It looks like she would have had a nice smile.” Kelly said.

Arnold looked at the teeth and most of them were intact.

“When I was young, I sometimes imagined that I was an Egyptian princess. I wore the big headdress thing and a nice long white dress, and I even had suitors come from all over the known world to beg me for my hand in marriage.” Kelly said with a laugh. “I guess that's one reason why I like this so much. I had a lot of fun pretending to be a princess.”

Arnold nodded and looked around to see that they were alone. “Do you want to have some fun now?”

Kelly smiled and nodded, so Arnold took her around the mummy's display case. Before she could stop him or even say that they shouldn't, Arnold had her jeans and panties down to her knees and knelt.

“Princess Kelly.” Arnold said and looked up at her to see her bright red face. “May I be your suitor?”

“Y-yes, please.” Kelly said with a shaky voice.

Arnold kissed her there and Kelly was very glad that no one was in the display room with them, because she had a hard time being quiet. A very hard time. She was surrounded by the golden remnants of her fantasy land and she had the man she loved on his knees in front of her.

Kelly couldn't have come up with a better fantasy if she tried.

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