Elaine Investigates, Eight: Hello

1.
Hello, I'm Detective Elaine.

I just noticed a date coming up on the calendar.
In a week or so, it will be two years since I left the office to drive a county employee out to listen to some voices from some forgotten people along a railway near Riverhead.
And it was then that I began recording this log of what I did and how I did it. Now, two years later, what started being unusual cases for a Sheriff's Detective, has become almost routine for me.
So I have taken the occasion of it being two years to do something of an overview of me, my job, and a couple of cases that for one reason or another didn't get an actual log entry.

I have spent my entire adult career working for the county law enforcement, taking classes, working multiple positions, including a stint with Corrections. But I enjoyed working in the field, and, as it turned out, I was good at it. So I went back to the uniform division, and there I stayed until I finished a few more college classes, and then became a detective.

The same thing happened with both my involvement with Muay Thai and Judo. There were built in goals that I knew I could attain, and higher goals that I could go after later, but I knew, at least in my case, the prospect of diminishing returns on the effort required to attain the higher ranks.
Did I need to achieve an advanced belt in either martial art to be a Detective in the Sheriff's Department? No. But it certainly didn't hurt. And in the training academy, it was a definite advantage because instead of just being another "tackling dummy" in the Police Academy, I was a volunteer instructor in the self defense class.
And, as I recorded in the entry about the police impostor, it has come in handy more than I wish to admit.

I have another example that was part of what used to be my routine assignments.

There was a personnel case I had been looking into where a married couple were suspected of covering for each other in a county department where they both worked. Between the two of them they had recorded over a thousand hours of overtime the previous year.
It had taken some, I'm sorry for the pun, but I don't know of another word for it... It had taken some detective work to go through the records and the available incontrovertible evidence of the fraud before I was comfortable with meeting them and asking some rather pointed questions.
Some of the evidence I had involved one or the other of them being, in one case, twenty miles away, while, according to the payroll document, they were signed in at work and being paid overtime with their spouse.
The problem was that there was a third party that was evidently directly involved with the fraud who was attesting to their time on the job.
If what I had uncovered was true, all three would face criminal and civil penalties, as well as the loss of their jobs.
I had requested somebody else to be with me when I spoke to the couple together in the conference room at their work site. But the person their senior supervisor sent was scarcely the backup I would have otherwise wished for. She was a very friendly woman who was probably six months from the county's mandatory retirement age.
But it was too late to request anybody else because the couple under investigation came in. And, as per request, they had no idea what it was about.
They walked in, and I asked them to take a seat.
They evidently suspected something because when I introduced myself as being from the Sheriff's Office, both of them reacted violently and tried to get out the door.
I stopped the husband and the wife tried to grab me as he backhanded me across the face.
Later, according to the testimony of the elderly lady from their personnel office, she'd never seen anybody move as fast as I did. Which was backed up by the surveillance video from the facility's CCTV monitor in the far corner of the conference room.
I do remember throwing the wife over my shoulder onto the floor behind me. But I do not have any conscious memory of hitting the husband on the point of his chin with what is called a Power Cross in Muay Thai.
Neither of them offered any further physical resistance, and both later admitted to the fraud. And the husband needed some dental intervention to put some of his teeth back where they belonged.

Another aspect of my personal drive to become the best Detective I can be is to not be afraid of technology.
One of the Old Timers that was part of the Detective's office when I first started was quite proud of the fact that he had never directly sent or received an email. He always had one of the office admins print incoming emails out for him and he'd then write his answer on the paper and she'd send the reply for him.
That wasn't me. That was never me.
While I did not run out to buy the latest and greatest of anything, once advanced cellular phones became a proven useful technology, I got one and learned how to use it.
I've mentioned my all spectrum camera, and I finally did get a metal detector with some advanced discrimination features that has now proven its usefulness in a case where a current employee said that she kept being told that a former owner had buried some evidence of a crime from years ago on the property she had purchased.
She had spoken to a handful of others, but since it was related to what could be an open criminal case, it got pointed our way.
Or rather, my way.

2.
Miss Leondra from what everybody still called the County Tourism Bureau came into the office with a story to tell.

Years ago, just after World War Two in fact, there had been a bit of a scandal in the world of New York banking. A significant amount of silver and copper bullion, which was supposed to be used to make coins in the US Mint had come up missing.
It was downplayed as a post war paper snafu, but there were always rumors that somebody with quick wits and the right opportunity had redirected at least part of what was unaccounted for into a hole behind a home in a section of older houses near Port Jefferson, not far from the North Shore.
Some of the other Detectives wanted to assist Miss Leondra with her case, but the Sheriff pointed out my experience with both metal detectors and ground penetrating radar in the line of duty.
The reason the other Detectives were so eager to assist her with the case was that Miss Leondra was a remarkably attractive middle-aged woman who spoke with some sort of European accent in spite of her originally being from the Bronx, and for her job, she spent a lot of time dressed very nicely in front of cameras telling people about everything to do in Suffolk County that didn't involve a beach or a boat.
The Sheriff gave me the case, I listened to the lady, and read the history of her property, then I packed up my metal detector and a couple of printouts of some old survey maps and drove out to her Victorian home that was in the process of being restored.
According to the survey maps, there had been an out building along the southern boundary of the property that wasn't there now. By the way I looked at it, that ga rden shed would have concealed anybody doing anything around there from view from the road, and even at least partially from the other houses that were there then. And with the plot map saying the area around it was vegetable garden, any disturbed earth would be easy to explain away.
My metal detector found a lot of old nails from the out building which apparently had been larger than it was on the map. And then I got a series of a good solid hits that was almost at the limit of what it could reliably detect and identify.
Before I went digging in her back yard I called for the GPR unit.

It was the same crew that had been out with me on the beach. This time I told them that I hoped we didn't find any graves.
They said they were in favor of that and got to work.
The first thing they found was the house's old septic tank and the pipes leading to and from it. But it was nowhere near the footprint of the old garden shed.
"Detective Elaine. This must be what you detected." The operator called over to me and pointed to his screen. "It's about half a meter down."
Miss Leondra and I walked over and looked at the picture.
He showed us the disturbed area and the solid return from inside it. "There's something there, and it's probably metallic, and it looks rectangular, maybe about fifteen centimeters on the long side."

He scanned some more, and got two more solid returns, as well as a couple of areas where something had been, the ground showed clear disturbance, but whatever was there was gone.

With that information in hand Miss Leondra asked if I could supervise a dig to find out what was there before somebody came in while she was at work and dug up her whole back yard.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll do better than that. Have you got a shovel?"

We took turns digging and checking the hole, then the tip of the shovel hit something solid. She pulled the shovel out of the hole and I got on my knees and played in the dirt for a minute.
"There is something here, it feels like metal." I brushed dirt off the top of it and found the edge. "I think it's an ammunition can."
Now Miss Leondra joined me on the ground digging with her hands.
"You'll ruin your nails," I said to her with a laugh.
"And Keesha will tell me all about it the next time I'm there. But if this is the bullion it'd be worth it."
I stopped digging, "you know that the treasury department will want it back if it is."
"I know. It's from a crime and all that, but it's still in my yard, so maybe there's a reward."
"I'll make a strong suggestion that they show their appreciation for your doing the right thing."
"Thank you," she looked down into the hole, "I've got a corner and I think a handle."

It took most of the day, we dug up four rusty World War Two ammo cans. One of which opened while it was still half in the ground and we were treated to the sight, and smell, of some seriously corroded small copper ingots.
"Well, I'd say that is conclusive evidence that it is the bullion from the treasury," I said as we worked to get the can out of the ground in one piece.
"Maybe you should call somebody."

Two hours later a car from the Melville FBI office arrived and two special agents stood and looked at where we'd been digging, then at the ammo cans and the silver and copper in them, and agreed that this was probably bullion from the old case.
"Yes, ma'am, I'd heard about it. But I always thought it was a tall tale," the one agent said.
"We'll verify this with... I don't who would be able to tell if it is from that long ago, but they may be able to test it," the other one added putting one of the discolored blocks of silver back in its can.
"There will either be a reward for finding it and turning it in, or you may get to keep it." The first agent said.
"Either is good." Miss Leondra answered.

In the end, an expert from the mint decided that it was test blanks from years ago. And they allowed Miss Leondra to keep a couple of pieces of each, and two of the cans, the rest went into their museum with some photos and other documentation of the crime, and she got a nice reward for, doing the right thing.

3.
But there have recently been times that have reminded me that while I am a very good detective, and have solved all sorts of cases over the last few years, I'm still subject to the same troubles and nonsense that everybody else is.

I've been driving a department owned hybrid car for several years now. It has served me well, and been quite reliable all things considered. There's been times when I've even forgotten it was a gasoline-battery-electric hybrid until it reminded me that I needed to put fuel in it. Which, most of the time, was about every other week.
Until one day when I was working an County Personnel issue and I had to drive out to an area that I seldom visited, and didn't know my way around very well, North Haven.
Maybe you've heard of it. It is an island in the bays between the northern and southern peninsulas at the eastern end of Long Island. It has two claims to fame, one being that it was the shortcut between the two shores so its main road was quite busy when the ferry is running. The other was that it has one of the highest median home prices for any community in the country. If somebody says there was a place in Suffolk County that was just listed for sale over thirteen million dollars, it was an odds on bet that it would be in North Haven.
I had just turned off Ferry Road onto Shelter Island when the back passenger window rolled down about half way and stopped.
I thought that was odd and tried to roll it back up with the control switch on the driver's armrest. It wouldn't go. I didn't think any more about it until I found the address of the parents of the employee whose issue I was looking into. Then I parked and walked around the car and rolled the window up with the switch on that door. Then I went in and did the interview.

Two days later the front passenger window rolled part way down, and stayed there until I reached over and used the control on that door to raise it.
I thought about it and while I was sitting at a traffic light and used all four switches on the driver's door to raise and lower all four windows. They all worked fine.
But then a day or so later as soon as I got in the car to go somewhere, the back passenger window rolled down again, and I couldn't raise it.
Enough was enough, so I stopped by the dealership that maintained our hybrids and asked them about the window.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry ma'am, that's a known issue after a firmware update. It seems the central computer and the window controls don't communicate reliably. They're working on it. The best thing we've been able to do is to unplug the window motor in the worst cases. There's been a couple of cars when every time they turn it on a couple of the windows roll down."
"This one isn't that bad yet. If it gets worse I'll bring it in."

Now it happens about once or twice a week. And it is seldom the same window twice in a row. For awhile I kept track to see if there was a pattern, but there wasn't. And it never happened to the driver's window, only one of the other three with their own control, and turning on the 'child safety switch' to keep kids in the back from opening their window made no difference at all.
I made a deal with the service manager at the dealership. When they had a fix to let me know and I'd take him out to lunch.
It's now been two months and I still haven't had to pay for his lunch.

4.
Once in awhile somebody in my family, or one of the office ladies, or somebody else will ask me if I'm "getting serious" with anybody.
Usually I don't answer. But sometimes I do, and the answer is always, "not really."

Once Upon A Time I was in a long term relationship with a local businessman.
One time, to make a point, he picked me up in his helicopter for a date.
Which resulted in an interesting exchange with one of the guys in the apartment complex I was living in at the time.
"What's he got that I haven't got?" He asked me.
"Well, to start with. A helicopter." And I showed him the photos I'd taken from our tour of the waterfront of the Island.
The relationship cooled when the economy took a dive and he had to relocate to keep working for the company that paid for his 'second car' that could fly.

Another on again / off again relationship I have is with a slightly older man, who cannot fly, but who does enjoy finding and trying some of the most obscure restaurants with some of the most exotic cuisine ever. He's taken me to places that serve octopus that is still moving, and vegan things that I can neither pronounce or describe.
Lately our relationship has been more off than on, but we are still in touch, and the last I heard he was looking to downsize his condo because the maintenance fee had doubled.

That's probably the biggest downside to living on the Island. Although I do get paid quite a lot by law enforcement standards, the cost of living here is outrageous. Everything is expensive, and everybody knows it. About every other election a local politician runs on a campaign platform of working to lower the cost of living, or the tax load, or something, and that's as far as that goes.

The other downside is that if you're smart, you keep a weather radio handy.
I was here when Hurricane Irene came ashore on the western end of the Island. Way out here in Suffolk County, we had rain, and floods, and wind damage, and ... nobody ever knew it because the eye had come ashore in Brooklyn. We were essentially on our own.
And we were pretty much OK with that.
But it taught me a lesson that I still remember and live by. If ANYTHING in the Atlantic looks like it is going to come this way, I check my emergency kit, make sure my car is gassed up, and that I have everything I need to live for about three days in my carry on bag sitting in my living room.
That paid off when Sandy came through the following year. And then when Gert flooded us out and I was trapped in my apartment for a couple of days because there was two feet of water, and then a foot of mud, in the parking lot.
So besides the high cost of living out here, you get to deal with storms about once a year, and tourists.

I don't hate those from the City or even the Mainland that come over to spend weekends and holidays here. I'm smart enough to know that it is that outside cash coming in that keeps about half of our businesses open.
During the Summer of Covid everything, or almost everything, was closed, and some of them didn't reopen because even while tourism had dropped to almost nothing, they still had to pay their property taxes and utilities.
It took a long time for some areas along the coast to come back to what they had been, and in a few places, there's still empty buildings looking for a new business to move in.
There's always a transition of businesses in the touristy areas of the Island. Some of them close up for the winter, and when it reopens in the spring they'll have a new name, even if it is the same people running it. Something changed somewhere and the place that was "Barb's Sun and Swim Ware" is now an outlet for a different brand of swimsuits or something and it reopens as "The Beachgoer's Rack". And most of the people that stop there for whatever they forgot to bring to take to the beach in Brookhaven or out toward the Point never noticed the difference.
My department seldom has any interactions with the tourists, which I'm fine with. I talk to them when I have to, or when I'm going somewhere and come across one that is stopped along the highway and looks like they need help. But then usually all I do is call for assistance, or an ambulance, and that's the end of my involvement.
And yes, that last has happened three times so far. Once for an older gentleman that was having chest pain. Another was a woman who seemed to be in labor. And the last was a couple whose child had been injured at the beach and were trying to get him to a hospital, but they didn't know where one was. I didn't take any of them to either Long Island Community or to Southampton, I called for EMS and let them decide who needed what.

So, all in all, yes, I like being a Detective in the Sheriff's Office at the far end of Long Island, and all that that means.
And I have also come to like handling the more unusual cases that now make up about half of my caseload.
Like this one that just came up in Nassau county, which is the county in the middle of the Island between us and New York City.
But that is another story, which I'll get to in a moment.

-end hello-

[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the geographical features of Suffolk County exist, including some Victorian houses, the rest of the setting is fictional.
Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]

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