At the Post …
Maggie and Aurora sniffed and poked around the post all morning. Constables Hansen and Wilder were as helpful as Maggie wished they weren't. It would been a lot easier to read through personnel files, stored in the cabinets behind Meg's desk, without one or the other of them looking over her shoulder.
"I wonder what's taking Inspector Thatcher so long to get back to the post?" Hansen said as Maggie tried to fill out the daily report in the dispatch room. They were standing in the main room.
"I don't know, maybe she and that consulate jockey found a cabin in the woods." Wilder cracked sarcastically. Maggie listened to them, her blood boiling. Aurora sensed the tension in her owner and raised her head.
"I know, girl, I can't help it." She pounded her fist against the desk. She was seething when her cell phone rang in her pocket.
"Hello." Maggie hoped it was Ray but she heard Inspector Thatcher's voice instead.
"Constable Kowalski, Fraser and I are half a mile from the Post. We were ambushed." Meg went on to give her directions. "Have Hansen send for a roll-back to come with you." It puzzled the younger Fraser but she complied without question. She also wondered why Inspector Thatcher hadn't called the main number for the post.
"Are you both alright?" Was the only question Maggie asked.
"Nothing to report, Constable." Her voice was strong and calm. Maggie's nerves eased, a bit.
Twenty Minutes Later ….
Fraser and Thatcher sat beneath the hatch of the Jeep Liberty, the door swung out on Fraser's left. They were seated as far from each other as possible. Meg felt like a heel for jumping onto Fraser.
"Benton, Inspector Thatcher, is everything alright?" Maggie asked when she laid eyes on the pair. Fraser stood up, a smile on his face. Thatcher looked a little more shook up.
"We're fine, Maggie, we were ambushed a few miles from the post as we were headed back here. A homemade spike strip was laid across the road. When we stopped to investigate a sniper opened fire." Fraser summed it up.
"Where do you want me to take this, Inspector?" The rollback driver shouted as he hooked up the Jeep. The hydraulic winch dragged the disabled vehicle onto it's back slowly.
"Take it to the post, Charlie, the forensics team will take delivery." Meg answered. It was the third vehicle she'd had yanked out from under her in the last three months.
"We should get back to the crime scene while the shooter may still be in the vicinity." Maggie suggested, ready to get the investigation underway.
"Not without backup." The Inspector said, her voice brooked no argument. Maggie looked to Benton for more information but he said nothing.
"I'll call the post." Fraser volunteered. Meg simply nodded.
It didn't take long for Constable Wilder to report. The RCMP Jeep was loaded for bear. For the next three hours Thatcher, Fraser, Maggie and Wilder searched for cartridge casings and foot prints along a grid pattern. Aurora used her sensitive nose to help out. It was the she-wolf that found the first shell casing.
"Inspector Thatcher, Fraser, we have something." Maggie called out several yards from the ambush site. She knelt down and slipped Aurora a biscuit while she scratched her in her favorite spot. The other Mounties came rushing over the uneven ground quickly. They were careful not to taint the scene. Wilder held up a digital camera, snapping a picture of the casings and foot prints. Maggie and Fraser studied the prints, their keen eyes picking up subtle nuances, details that most people couldn't imagine.
"What do you make of it, Fraser?" Meg asked, knowing that he had already analyzed the information.
"The sniper is right handed, approximately my height, from the prints I can tell he was waiting for us for some time. His shoes are well worn, a work boot perhaps, from the tread." There was more to it, Meg could tell from his tone. He'd tell her later, when there weren't witnesses to overhear.
"Hopefully ballistics can pull fingerprints off the casings." The Inspector sighed, knowing in her gut that they wouldn't and that it was a shorter list of who didn't wear work boots in Spencer Falls. They didn't have much to go on.
"The homemade spike strip is a telling piece of evidence." Maggie added, Aurora sitting beside her, listening intently. Meg gave her a strange look a moment then turned back to looking at the casings Wilder was photographing and collecting.
"Inspector Thatcher, the post called, Mr. McConaughey called asking for you, there was an equipment theft last night at the mine." Hansen interrupted the conversation. The young officer didn't appreciate fielding the snotty, mining tycoon's calls. He saw his boss' eyes go from chocolate brown to nearly obsidian.
"Tell McConaughey that one of my officers will be there as soon as possible." Meg struggled to keep her temper in check. It was the morning from hell and she felt like snapping.
Fraser heard the tone change in Meg's voice. She was nearly shaking when she turned back to the group of subordinate officers.
"Inspector, I think Constable Wilder can handle this if you'd like to go back to the post." Fraser tried to sound reassuring, his eyes studying her intently.
"Yes, that's a good idea, Constable Fraser, it has been a long while since breakfast." Meg took a deep breath and pasted on her best face. The way he looked at her, she knew she wasn't fooling him. The Mounties gathered up and took one of the RCMP Jeeps back to the post. No one spoke on the way back, each lost in their thoughts. Fraser tried to get an idea of the kind of person who might want Meg dead. She said she'd made enemies during her time with the CSIS. It would take something very personal for someone to hold such a long and deadly grudge. It occurred to him that he didn't know Margaret 'Meg' Thatcher as well as he once had. The old Thatcher would never have said anything about the pattern they'd gotten into in Chicago. Her behavior was as much a mystery as the identity of the person responsible for the ambush.
Maggie wondered about the odd expression on Meg's face when she'd mentioned the homemade spike strip. Something more was afoot than the inspector was telling them. Maggie just hoped it wasn't something that would prove fatal for them.
Aurora wondered when lunch was coming. She'd seen rabbit tracks in the field and was sorely tempted to follow them. A young, succulent rabbit was better than dry dog kibble or a biscuit any day.
McConaughey Mining …
Ambrose McConaughey was a man used to getting what he wanted in life. As the biggest fish in Spencer Fall's little pond, he employed more of the citizens than any other employer or trade in the area. The second generation mining man had tried to get Inspector Thatcher in his hip pocket as soon as she'd been assigned Spencer Falls. She wouldn't budge. Her officers were always making trouble for his company, pulling over his equipment trucks, helping the citizens that wouldn't sell their land to McConaughey Mining Company. It was a cat and mouse game between them.
A cement block building sat surrounded by heavy, Caterpillar equipment. When Maggie and Constable Hansen pulled up they saw the gravel filled flat sat scattered with pickup trucks, four wheel drives and a few ATV' s.
"Watch out for McConaughey, he can be," Hansen paused, searching for the word. "abrasive, some would say." The young officer had overheard a few of the conversations between McConaughey and the Inspector. Her 'Ice Queen' routine didn't phase him, the mining man just tried harder.
"I'll remember that, thank you kindly." Maggie adjusted her Stetson and pulled her jacket's zipper up a little higher. Aurora bounded out of the Jeep behind her.
"Be on your best behavior, okay?" Maggie stroked her companion's ears before stepping up onto the porch of the bland building. Aurora looked up at her with an angelic expression. Maggie frowned back at her.
"Hello there." A man's voice called out from the shadows inside the building.
"Mr. McConaughey, the Inspector sent us to investigate your equipment theft." Hansen called as he topped the wide, wooden steps. A broad shouldered, handsome man somewhere in his forties stepped into the afternoon light. He looked past Hansen to Maggie. Hansen recognized the sly, leering grin that twisted the mining magnate's face. He'd seen it a few times when Inspector Thatcher had met with him.
"Who have we here, Constable Hansen, I see you've got new blood in Spencer Falls." McConaughey leaned on a support post, his dress shirt's sleeves rolled up to show his muscular forearms.
"Constable Maggie Kowalski, hello." Maggie stepped up and extended her hand. McConaughey clasped it in both of his. He noted the lady Mountie's sky blue eyes and thick, blonde hair briefly before taking her measurements elsewhere. Aurora whined at her human's feet.
"Pleased to meet you, Maggie." McConaughey ushered them into the office.
"Please, call me Constable Kowalski." The lady Mountie set him straight immediately. Aurora positioned herself between Maggie and the stranger.
"As you wish, Constable." McConaughey took his seat behind a nominal sized desk strewn with paperwork, a computer and telephone.
"What was taken last night, Mr. McConaughey?" Hansen drew the man's attention back to the purpose of their visit.
"Someone broke into the garage and stole the catalytic converters on my work trucks, they hit five of my Ford Superduty trucks." Each converter was worth half a month's pay for most people.
"Has this been a problem in the past?" Maggie asked to no one in particular.
"There have been a few break-ins over the years, this is the second time in three months though." McConaughey answered, leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his head.
"Have you reviewed the security footage yet?" Hansen asked, pulling McConaughey's gaze away from Maggie.
"Nope, that's why I called you all, I can't make heads or tails from it anyway." Hansen took the cassette from him when McConaughey pulled it from the top drawer of his desk.
"I'd like to see the area, Mr. McConaughey." Maggie's eyes surveyed the surrounding office. She didn't know how anyone found anything in the helter skelter atmosphere.
"Sure, no problem, Constable Kowalski, anything to help." Ambrose stood up quickly, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Follow me." The Mounties and the she-wolf exited the block building and headed around back to a gravel and mud lot surrounded by chain link fence topped by barbed wire. Someone had cut the log chain securing the ten foot gate span. Both gates hung open, the lock and part of the chain hanging from one side. A security light adorned each corner of the half acre lot between the block office and the garage.
"Were all of the security lights working last night?" Maggie asked, taking note of the dozen or so cameras covering the inside and outside of the fencing.
"I'm not certain, Constable Kowalski, my foreman, Doug Ward, called me this morning around seven to tell me there had been a break-in. It was light by the time I got here at around eight." Ambrose looked around at just one aspect of the mining kingdom he'd inherited upon his father's death, and not a minute before.
"I'd like to speak to him if possible." Maggie requested as she studied one of the lights near the garage.
"He's at the mining site, up the mountain, I'll send him as soon as his shift is finished." Ambrose hoped he got to see the lady Mountie again. She was a breath of fresh air compared to that shrew, Meg Thatcher. Aurora stuck to Maggie's heels like bubble gum on her shoes. The she-wolf didn't like the slick looking stranger.
"I'm satisfied if you are, Constable Kowalski." Hansen said low, trying not to be overheard.
"I think we've gleaned as much as we can here, take photos of the trucks, cameras, lights and the cut chain." Maggie saw annoyance and anger in the younger officer's demeanor. It puzzled her. She planned on asking him about it later.
"We have to get a few photographs before we leave, we'll watch the surveillance footage at the post, Mr. McConaughey." Maggie spoke to the mine owner who'd been watching her the whole time they'd been on the property.
"Let me give you my home number, in case you have questions." McConaughey offered, pulling a business card out of his wallet and an ink pen from his slacks pocket.
"I'm certain it's in the phone book, Mr. McConaughey." Maggie declined, her blue eyes icy.
"I see, Constable Kowalski, you know where to reach me." He turned and left the garage lot with a shrug. Turning, Maggie almost ran her nose into Hansen's chest.
"My apologies, Constable Kowalski, I was on my way to the vehicle for a camera." Hansen backed off before veering off to his right. His jaw was clenched and the tension rolled off of him in waves.
"What is your problem with McConaughey, Constable Hansen?" Maggie jogged a few steps to catch up to his longer, faster stride.
"I should act more professional, I'm sorry, it's just that this guy walks around Spencer Falls like he owns it, which he might as well. Ambrose McConaughey is a snake, and the way he talks to women, all innuendo and trickery. I don't know why Inspector Thatcher puts up with him." Hansen ran his hands through his sandy hair as his opinion spewed out.
"What do you mean, has he said something to the Inspector that's inappropriate?" Maggie stopped him in his tracks.
"Not in so many, open words, but he's tried to have her removed from command of the Spencer Falls Post. I think it's because she won't turn a blind eye to his underhanded ways." Hansen shook his head. He was an animated talker when he got underway.
"I see," Maggie digested the information slowly. "How long has Mr. McConaughey and the Inspector been locked in this, this battle of wills?"
"Almost from the first day she arrived here and took command. I'm from here, I was a teenager when she arrived. Since Inspector Thatcher arrived, this community has been a better place. She helps out at the camp and is always there for people, answering questions and making phone calls for them to government officials and programs if they need something. Inspector Thatcher goes above and beyond her job description." Hansen calmed down as he extolled Meg's virtues. Maggie sensed a bit of a crush or perhaps hero worship coming from the young man.
"All Ambrose McConaughey wants is to get rich and he doesn't care how that happens."
It was a lot to process as they finished up their photographs and drove back to the post. The Meg Thatcher Hansen described wasn't the one Maggie had met for the first time in Chicago.
Author's Note: I have no idea if the RCMP drive Jeep brand vehicle, it just seemed the most logical choice considering the terrain. Plus, I used to drive one, so I know what they're like.