“Right people, listen up,” I said as I addressed my small team of Deputies.

“I don’t have to tell your that it is Halloween Tomorrow. As usual we need to have a visible presence on all roads into town. Record the license plate of every vehicle that comes into town from 3pm until 8pm. Ma will be manning the phones and will call any incidents in over the radio.”

“Why the change in plan Boss?” asked Tom.

“The State Police have seen some suspicious SUV’s in a few places at various locations up and down the Interstate. Typically loitering outside schools. With almost every child in the county out and about tonight… well it is an ideal time to kidnap or worse.”

“What about the kids who live outside town?”

“Most of them will be transported to their ‘Trick or Treat’ venues by an adult. It is inside town that we have to on the lookout. A lot of the kids will be on foot and that makes snatching them a whole lot easier.”

“What sort of car should we be on the lookout for?” asked Sue-Ellen.

“All cars and that includes local plates but pay particular attention to Panel Vans and SUV’s with blacked out windows.”

I need not have worried. Halloween passed off without serious incident unless you call some teens shoving potatoes up the exhaust pipes of cars that were parked at the School during a PTA meeting serious.

Thanksgiving was next and I hoped that it didn’t snow just before everyone manages to get home and eat some Turkey.

---

Three days before Thanksgiving, Kelly and Tom were checking vehicles at the Truck Stop next to the Freeway. Only a week before, they’d intercepted two stolen Trucks. Their cargoes frozen Turkey what was worth almost a Hundred Thousand Dollars.
I wasn’t sure that they’d find any more booty but it was worth a try.

I was sitting in my car on the other side of the county watching a repair gang finish repairing a culvert. It had gotten blocked and caused a lot of flooding in the area. I was determined to make sure that we would not get a repeat this winter.

The gang was just clearing up and all that remained was for the inspector to arrive and for us to agree that the work was complete when my radio crackled into life.

“Sheriff here,” I said in response to the call from Sue-Ellen.
n
“Sheriff, Tommy Burke just called. He said that a plane was circling over the old Cummings place and that something had been thrown out of the plane.”

I sighed. That place was a thorn in our side. Since he’d been arrested the place had been cleared and all the contents sold off. The place was as far as I knew, still up for sale. The trouble was that it was basically a fugly huge McMansion that would have not looked out of place in Beverly Hills but here? I had a mental bet with myself that anyone buying it would simply knock the thing down and start again it was that bad, if it didn’t fall down before it was sold. The County Engineer had already tried to condemn it but the State Bean Counters wouldn’t allow it. If the state condemned it then the state would have to pay for the demolition and carry the charge until such time as a buyer for the place was found and then the lien would have to be settled. Spending money like this was not on the agenda for the State.

“Understood Sue-Ellen. Can you get Kelly and Tom to investigate? I’m at Silver Creek and it will take me more than an hour to get there.”

“Has the Culvert been fixed?”

“I’m waiting for the County Inspector right now. He needs to give it the once over.”

Sue Ellen laughed.

“I can see his truck from here. It has been parked outside the bank for the best part of an hour. I don’t think that the inspection will be happening any time soon.”

“It looks like it. I’ll make sure the guys here finish up and I’ll make my way to the Cummings Place but get Kelly and Tom to investigate. It might be nothing but we have to be sure.”

“Ok Sheriff. I’ll get onto Kelly right away. Out.”

“Sheriff Out.”

I sat back in the car and sighed.

“That Cummings place. Sometimes I wish that it would just disappear into the earth and never come back.”

---

Half an hour later, I left the culvert work site. The repairs looked pretty good but we’d have to wait until the real winter rains or even the spring thaw to find out for sure. The Inspection would have to wait for another day…

I was halfway back to town when the radio came to life.

“Sheriff, Kelly here,”

“Hello Kelly, are you at the Cummings place?”

“We have just arrived. It looks like the chain lock on the main gate has been shot off.”

My heart sank. That place was living up to its reputation.

“Understood. Proceed with Caution.”
Then I added,
“No, make that extreme caution. We have no idea if the people who broke in are still inside.”
“Understood Sheriff.”

After getting Sue-Ellen to go off in support of Kelly and Tom, I put my foot down and headed for the ‘Old Cummings place’.

I was close to the place when I saw two Police SUV’s parked in the middle of a field along with another truck.

I hurried through the main gate and into the large field where the vehicles were parked.

“Hiya Team. What have you found?”

The smile disappeared from my face when I saw a small parachute and what looked like flour on the ground.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes boss. It’s Cocaine.”

“Fuck!”

“Eh?”

“This means getting the DEA Involved. You remember that edict that came out of the State House last month? Any large-scale drug finds are to be referred to the DEA.”

“Oh yeah, I remember it now. I never thought that… Drugs especially hard drugs are just not an issue here.”

“Pot is a bit of a problem with it being legal in Colorado but yes hard drugs are not a problem here… until now that is.”

“Why here? Well apart from the obvious that no one lives here?”

“My guess is the Interstate. You can be in Denver in a few hours and there is next to no civil traffic below twenty thousand feet in the county. From memory, anyone flying below about three thousand feet will be off the Radar.”

“How do you know that?” asked Kelly.

I thought for a moment.

“About six months before you came here, I attended a DEA seminar over in Fort Collins on the subject of drug trafficking. They’d recently busted a Mexican gang that was flying drugs into North Texas and Oklahoma. This has all the signs of being the same modus operandi. In that case, they hauled the shipments out on Trucks using I-40.”

“Thanks Boss. I get you now. We are in a similar situation here with the Interstate and all that.”

“Got that it in one.”

I thought for a moment and then said,
“I’m going back to the office to call the Feds.”

Kelly smiled.

“Will you be done by Dinner?”

“That my dear is the question I’d like answering before I made the call.”

I smiled.

“There is rain forecast for tonight. Can you cover the evidence up with a tarp and dig the edges in so that no rain can contaminate the evidence? I don’t want the DEA calling us ignorant country folk or worse…”

My team laughed.

---

Back in the office, I fixed myself a large cup of coffee before I sat down and made the call to the DEA. Of all the Federal Agencies we came into contact with, these were the worst and the most territorial of them all apart from Homeland. They were just awful to deal with. As I saw it, their training consisted entirely of learning how to be a ‘bull in a china shop’.

“Agent Webster please,” I said when the call was answered.

“Sheriff Matt Beecher of Custer County.”

“I’ll hold.”

Some thirty seconds later I was put through to the Agent.

“Agent Webster? This is Sheriff Matt Beecher from Custer County. I want to report a suspect landing point for some drugs.”

“We found a used parachute and a load of white powder on the ground. One of my Officers tasted it and it is high quality Cocaine.”

“Yes, there is an Interstate close by. Around five miles with a truckstop and motel.”

“I’ll send you some pictures but we have preserved the scene.”

“Oh… I would have thought that you would want to investigate the scene?”

“I understand. I’ll write everything up and bag the evidence. If you need it, you know where it is.”

“Thanks…”

I hung up and sat wondering what the hell had just happened. They didn’t want to know about the crime scene or the evidence. Still, we or more importantly, I had to cover my ass in case things went pear shaped.

---

When Kelly and Tom returned to the Office I updated them on my call to the DEA.

“Why don’t they want to know?”

“I honestly don’t know. Perhaps they have something big going on and can’t spare the resource? We will make sure that our backsides are covered. We bag the evidence and write everything up. Then I send a copy to our friends at the FBI and also to the State Police. We know how the FBI love getting one over on the DEA if the opportunity arises. Keeping the State boys in on the loop might help connect a few dots if there are other cases like this that we don’t know about. We have to keep the chain of evidence intact just in case. Any questions?”

“You seem to have got it covered Boss,” said Tom.

“Kelly?”

“I’m still not sure why the DEA basically couldn’t be bothered to investigate this incident?”

“Ours is not to reason why; Ours is but to do or die…” I replied.

“Eh?” said Tom.

I laughed.

“I quoted a line from the Poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It is about the folly of following orders blindly. In this case we do the right thing and let them stew. We are not privy to why they are so disinterested in our little county. There is a chance that they might change their minds so we need to be squeaky clean if they do.”

“I get you Boss. CYA?”

“Indeed and lets’ make that covering gold plated. So, lets’ get on with it?

---

An hour or so later, all our ‘I’s had been dotted and the ‘t’s crossed. Kelly collated all the information and made sure that we had four copies of everything.

“I’ve put one copy into an envelope for the FBI. The second copy is for the State Police and the third are for our records but what is the last one for?”

I smiled.

“Insurance. If the DEA come barging in and seize our records we won’t have any evidence of our own to take them to task if they get the wrong end of the stick. That copy is for Ma. She has somewhere where she hides all sort of things. I’ll give it to her tonight.”

Then I thought for a moment.

“On second thoughts, why don’t you give it to her?”

Kelly looked at me and smiled.

“I take it that you want me to as Ma to let me in on where she hides things?”

“Me? No chance,” I replied with a grin on my face.

Kelly gathered up the evidence and disappeared with two copies. She would drop the copies for the FBI and State Police off at the local FedEx Collection Point and then head home.

I filed the final copy and sighed. It had been a long day.

---

A week later, I was at the Truck stop with Tom inspecting a Pickup and the huge trailer that it was towing. The driver was in trouble because the weight of the trailer was well over the limit for the truck he was driving and his Colorado licence had expired.

I was sitting in the car having just issued the tickets to the driver and told him that we were impounding his truck and trailer. The driver was not a happy bunny to say the least.

I had called Barney SWA on the Radio and he was on his way to tow the trailer back to our ‘impound yard’ and then return for the Pickup.

“What about me?” said the driver who was protesting his innocence.

“There is a motel over there and they have a phone. I suggest that you call someone over in Colorado and get them to come and pick you up. We don’t run a taxi service unless you do something that would make me arrest you?”

“No… No, I don’t want that. What will happen to my truck and trailer?”

“They will be towed to the county impound. The address is on your tickets. If… if by some chance you do not return with a valid license or with someone who does in thirty days we will sell your vehicles at auction in the state capital. Do you understand this?”

“Yeah, I get you.”

“Good. Now the keys please?”

“Eh?”

“As I am impounding your truck and the trailer, I need the keys.”

“No way sunshine. The keys stay with me.”

“Mr Phelps, I will give you one more opportunity. Please hand over the keys to both vehicles or I will be forced to arrest you for obstruction. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Yeah but I’m not letting you have the keys.”

I sighed. Tom was standing right behind the suspect. He nodded. He was ready to act when required.

“Art Phelps, I am arresting you on a charge of obstruction of Justice. You have the right to remain silent.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know my rights. I did pre-law at Stanford.”

Tom moved in and cuffed Mr Phelps.

He frisked him and produced two sets of keys.

“This what you want Boss?”

I smiled.

“Why don’t you go and give them the once over. We’ll watch. We obviously do not want Mr Phelps here accusing us of planting evidence now do we?”

Phelps gave me a dirty look. That told me that he did have something to hide.

“Sir? Is there anything that we should be careful of in the trailer?”

He didn’t answer.

“Tom, can you start with the trailer but be careful. We don’t know what is inside. The paperwork might say one thing but the reality could be another thing entirely”

“Sure, thing Boss.”

Tom went to the back of the trailer. I marched the suspect to a position where we could see what was going on inside.

“Ok Tom, open her up.”

Tom opened the two large doors.

“Well, well… What do we have here?”

Inside the trailer, there were two Ferrari’s. Both had California license plates.

“Are they yours Mr Phelps?”

He didn’t answer.

“I suspect they have been stolen but that is just a suspicion. At this point in time, I don’t have any proof but... you do understand Mr Phelps that I have to assume until proven that they are indeed stolen. Do you understand that?”

He didn’t answer but I saw his body stiffen a bit.

“Tom, can you see if there are any papers or a bill of lading in the truck?”

“Shall I close this up?”

“Please. We will do a thorough search back at the impound yard.”

Tom closed up the trailer and then searched the truck.

“There is no documentation in the truck, boss. Just a load of fast food trash. This might be of interest though.”

He came over and presented me with a fast food bag.

“See the address.”

I smiled when I read it.

“Ventura?”

I turned to the suspect.

“You are a long way from home. Been on the road for what two if not three days then?”

He didn’t answer.

I knew that there was a lot more to this than there appeared. There was a lot of value inside that trailer.

---

I made sure that the trailer was parked in our impound yard in such a way so that anyone trying to steal it back would have to move a complete Semi rig out of the way first. It was also surrounded by other vehicles so getting to it would not be just a matter of cutting the chain link fence and hitching up the trailer and driving off into the sunset.

While I put a couple of very large ‘Denver Boots’ on the wheels, I had Tom go over the cars in fine detail. He found the VIN numbers and for once, the engine and chassis numbers tallied. He took a lot of photos for evidence purposes. We just finished when it started to rain. By the look of the clouds, the newly repaired culvert was going to get a good test in the next few hours which was ideal if… it held up.

Back in the Office Tom and I set about tracking down the cars. It didn’t take us long to find that both Ferrari’s had been reported stolen from Malibu four days ago. The classic Red Dino was worth around half a million and the 458 was worth about the same simply because it had only one hundred miles on the clock.
As much as I’d love to keep them… I had to make a call to the local PD in California.

“Hi, this is Sheriff Matt Beecher from Custer County. I’d like to speak to the officer involved with the case of the two stolen Ferrari’s.”

“Yes… I’ll hold.”

Muzak played.

And played. Eventually, it was answered.

“Hi… This is Sheriff Matt Beecher from …” I was interrupted.

“I can assure you that this is NOT a hoax. A trailer with both cars inside is sitting in my impound yard.”

“I was not aware of the reward but as an officer of the law, I cannot accept one.”

I was getting nowhere.

“Look, this is not a hoax. Put me through to the Sheriff. I you don’t then I’ll go to the Highway Patrol.”

I knew that a local PD would not want the State ‘solving’ their case.

Fifteen Seconds later, another voice came on the line.

“Hello Sheriff. As I was explaining to the other person on the phone just now, I am ninety-nine percent sure that those two stolen Ferrari’s are inside a trailer that is in my impound yard right now.”

“Yes, we have the driver in Custody. He got a bit shirty when we decided to impound his truck and trailer because the trailer was overweight.”

“His name is Samuel John Phelps. His driving license gives and address in Durango, Colorado. The licence has expired which was why we were originally going to impound the rig.”

“Yes, we have a set of photos. I can email them to you within the hour. What’s your email address?”

I wrote down the address and repeated it back to him.

“Thanks Sheriff. I’ll get my Officer to send them off right away.”

“Mr Phelps? At the moment he’s looking at charges of obstruction of Justice, driving with an expired license and an overweight trailer.”

“Normally, we’d take him to Clark County which is next door to us. That’s where the nearest Courthouse is. It is too late to get him there today so we are going to have to keep him in the cells until tomorrow.”

“No, he has not asked for a lawyer yet but we have not begun to question him. If he does then that is going to have to wait because we don’t have any lawyers in the county. We are pretty law abiding around here.”

“Oh! I see. I’ll make sure that we hold off for a couple of hours.”

I glanced at the clock. It showed 6:04pm.

“It will soon be time to get him some dinner anyway.”

“Thanks Sheriff. I’ll be here waiting for your call. My numbers will be in the email.”

I put the phone down. I was glad that eventually I’d gotten through to someone with at least two brain cells. I wondered if the PD in Malibu had been receiving a lot of hoax calls? A fifty grand reward could very well cause that sort of thing.

I went in search of Tom who was finishing up his report.

“I’ve just spoken to the Chief of Police in Malibu. Can you send the relevant pictures to this email address? If you include my contract details as well then you can get off home. I’ll stay here for the first shift tonight. Kelly can take over from me at Midnight.”

“Our guest will be staying over then?”

“He will. I’ll draw up the charge sheet for tomorrow. Sue Ellen and I can take him over to Court in Clark County.”

Tom groaned.

“I know that means desk duty tomorrow but it is your turn is it not?”
I pointed at the rota that was on the noticeboard.

Tom didn’t answer. Like most officers he hated desk duty. In reality that meant doing the filing, cleaning out the cells if they’d been occupied and generally doing housework around the station. We needed someone here between 8:00am and 6:00pm which are the advertised opening hours of the office.

I left Tom and went to the back of the Office where our three cells were located.

Mr Phelps gave me a dirty look as I came towards his cell.

“Lawyer!” he said.

“Ok, your request is noted. We don’t have any lawyers in town so it won’t be until we go over to Clark County tomorrow to see the judge that you will be able to converse with one. We will make time available to do that before you see the judge. Do you understand this?”

He nodded his head.

“Now that you have asked for a lawyer, I am not allowed to question you regarding the case or the charges that you might face. However, I do have to ask you what you would like for Dinner. We have a Diner close by that we use when we have guests overnight.”

A small smile appeared on his face and then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“Steak? Is that ok?”

“With all the trimmings?”

“Yes. Rare.”

“Good. I’ll get it sent over in about an hour. I’ll be here until Midnight when one of my deputies will take over until the morning.”

I left him to stew. He seemed resigned to spending the night as our guest. I did wonder what he’d say to Judge Horowitz in the morning. I shrugged my shoulders. That wasn’t my problem.

I was surprised to see Tom still sitting at his desk.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way home?”

“Yes but…”

I knew that look of old.

“On the off chance, I called the Colorado DMV. There was still someone there and they were able to do a search. His license is fake. The address in Durango is fake as well. It is the address of the local Home Depot store.”

I sighed. More charges inevitably meant a lot more work for us.

Then Tom dropped another bombshell.

“This this just arrived back from California,” he said as he turned his display so that I could read it.

I read the email with increasing credulity. The owner of the two Ferrari’s was declining to press charges and was not pursuing an insurance claim for their theft.

As far as vehicle theft and transportation goes, Mr Phelps did not have a crime to answer for.

“Thanks Tom. I’ll get confirmation of this from the Malibu Chief of Police before letting Mr Phelps know the good news and the bad news. You get off home now ok!”

He didn’t need anymore hints and left me alone in the Office.

I phoned over the order of Steak to Harry’s Bar and added some Meat Loaf for myself. While I waited, I phoned Kelly and let her know the bad news about coming in after Midnight. Ma was not best pleased as she’d prepared a meal for me at home but knew that this was all part of the job I did.

“Here you are Mr Phelps. Steak as you ordered. Sorry about the plastic knife. That’s a state rule after a prisoner tried to take his own life a few years back.”

He didn’t look pleased but accepted the situation.

I left him to eat alone while I had my own meal.

---

The town was silent as midnight approached. Folks in these parts don’t stay up late during the week. There was a cool breeze coming up from the south now that the earlier rain had passed through. I heard Kelly’s truck a couple of minutes before she pulled up outside the Office.

We didn’t say much during the handover as the door to the cells was open. When it was done, I took her outside and gave her a goodnight kiss.

“Any problems, don’t go into his cell. Call me, Tom and Doc Robinson in that order.”

“I know the rules.”

I gave her another kiss to stop any more complaints.
We had rules about women officers and male prisoners. The same applied to female prisoners and male officers. No opening of cell doors except in the case of a fire until at least one other officer or the doctor was present.

---

There was an email from California waiting for me when I arrived at the office. As I read it, a smile broke out on my face. It answered a whole raft of questions that had been bothering me all night.

I was just about to give the bad news to Mr Phelps when another email arrived. This one from Denver office of the FBI. This one was even more of a surprise to me than the one from Malibu. I had to read it three times before it even began to sink in.
With a wry smile on my face, I went to check on our prisoner.

“Mr Phelps, We will be taking you over to Clark County in an hour. We will arrange for a lawyer to be waiting for you but the good news is that the owner of the Ferrari’s in California has declined to press charges. He just wants them back. In my estimation, you will be facing a few misdemeanour charges so expect a fine of a few hundred dollars and you can be on your way. But… your truck remains impounded until you return with a valid driving license or your appointed representative does it for you. May I also remind you that there is a twenty-five dollar a day storage fee to be paid upon release. Failure to remove your vehicle within twenty-eight days will mean that the county will sell your truck at auction in order to recover those storage fees. Do you understand this?”

He glared at but eventually he said,

“Yes.”

“How do I get out of this shit hole?”

I smiled.
“There is a Taxi company in Clark County who will take you to Denver should you so wish. Their office is just around the corner from the courthouse. It may cost in the region of eighty dollars. There is a bank just across from the courthouse that has an ATM again, should you so need it.”

He returned another glare. As he did so, I thought of the saying, ‘if you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime’. In his case, ‘if you can’t pay the fine then don’t do the crime’.

Then I dropped a bombshell.
"It turns out that the Malibu PD were unhappy at the owner not wanting to press charges so they did some more digging and found that he didn't have proper title to the cars. Ferrari's have an owners register and his name was not on it for these two cars. The real owner is in Florida and wants his cars back. They were stolen almost three years ago. That means you will be facing extra charges relating to you being in possession of stolen property and transporting them across state lines. I fully expect that given the other problems we have had validating your address that you will be remanded without bail as a potential flight risk.”

That got me another glare.
“The shipping manifest you provided was forwarded to the FBI by the Malibu PD. They have taken the ball and scored a big touchdown. The person you were going to deliver them to in Chicago is a person of interest to them. Both they and the IRS raided his home and offices last night. He was arrested on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion. It will be all over the news later as he is a former pro-footballer who declared himself bankrupt three months ago. Good one that. My take is that even if he didn’t put up the money himself, someone is out of pocket to the tune of one million dollars and all because they didn’t put that container on the train. Makes you wonder don’t it eh?”

He just glared at me.
“I know, you were paid a pittance to deliver something that you could only dream about.”

This time, he grunted back at me.

He just glared back at me.

"Use that time you have with the Public Defender wisely."
Then I left him to stew for a bit until it was time for him to be taken to Clark County for his court appearance.

The Judge Horowitz took a dim view of people coming over from Colorado and committing crimes in our state so he fined Mr Phelps a total of Four Hundred Dollars. Then he was ordered to be held on charges relating to interstate transportation of stolen vehicles. When he was asked if he had anything to say, Mr Phelps cried out, 'This whole place is a shit hole'. The judge added another hundred dollars to his fine for contempt.
The place was to many ‘townies’ a veritable shit hole but to us it was home and you would have to pay us a heck of a lot of money to go and live in a crowded city. I smiled as I realised how quickly Kelly had adjusted to life in this rural backwater after being brought up in New York, the city that never sleeps.

[Postscript]
The proper owner of the two Ferrari’s sent a Miami based vehicle recovery company to collect his cars a few days after the court case. It was only then that we found the real details about the case. It turned out that the cars had been stolen from Florida a few years before. The Malibu PD arrested the person who had declined to press charges for their theft. He got two years jail time and a huge fine for his troubles.

Mr Phelps did a deal over the stolen car transportation and got a two-year sentence suspended for one year. Now a free man, he re-appeared twenty-six days after his arrest to claim his Truck. This time he had a valid New Mexico Driver’s License with him. We did check with their DMV just in case. He paid the storage charge and left town just before another rainstorm hit us.

By all reports, the newly repaired culvert did its job very well despite it never receiving an official seal of approval and so far, there has not been any further sightings of aircraft flying low over the county but we are keeping an eye open just in case.

Such is the life of a County Sheriff.
[The End]