AllFreeNovel
Share Us
More questions were asked.
“So . . . nothing to connect the driver to the murder?”
“No.”
Could have been self-defense, Greta thought. Toompas could have been trying to steal a diet Coke, and the driver was forced to defend the can.
“Why did the driver pull over at that spot?”
“To relieve himself.”
Or, Greta thought, to dump the body he had been carrying around in his truck the past week. The reek must have finally gotten to him. Come to think of it, why didn’t he just dump the body at any one of the bars on his route? It would have taken several days for anyone to check whether it wasn’t just a customer.
On and on the questions went, an almost intelligent one being asked occasionally.
Normally, Greta
would stay in the back and just listen. She disliked drawing direct attention to herself. Normally. She raised a hand. Connor appeared puzzled for a second at the tall woman in the back of the room, then recognized her and acknowledged the question. About a third of the room turned to see the questioner. Most didn’t recognize her, as evidenced by their expressions.
“You mentioned the blood and molar in the car. Anything else?”
Conners smiled. “Yes, quite a few items. All are still being cataloged and dusted for prints, and the county technician says they’ll be ready for closer examination in another hour or two.”
The questions continued without Greta. Her mind wandered off into reviewing how she’d gotten here, participating, even if from the back of the bus, in a murder case briefing. How had a girl from rural Missouri ended up as a deputy sheriff in Tillamook County, Oregon.
CHAPTER 4
Greta’s road from her hometown of Nixa, Missouri, to Oregon was more accidental than planned. After high school, she enrolled at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, fifteen miles from home. Springfield and Nixa sat on flat terrain just north of where the land rose into the Ozark highlands. The differences between her rural Missouri home and the coastal Oregon region went beyond inland versus ocean: roads that could run for miles without a single curve, compared to a place where straight sections of road were a rarity; flat countryside versus ubiquitous hills and mountains; open fields and pastures divided by scattered clumps and groves of deciduous trees, compared to evergreen forests; and hot, humid summers and cold winters with occasional blizzards, contrasted with moderate temperatures and general dampness, where seasons were differentiated only by how much rain and fog occurred.
One similarity was the small-town feeling and the rural setting apart from large populations, until Nixa transitioned into being a bedroom community for Springfield, the state capitol. That happened when Greta was about eight years old. Young Greta didn’t understand the culture shock that occurred within the previously insular, God-fearing, staunchly conservative community.
By the time she finished high school, even long-time residents considered Springfield “nearby,” and moving on to college at SWMS allowed her a compromise between the security of home and living away for the first time.
She discovered criminology in her sophomore year at Missouri State. When she registered for a course called “How to Solve a Crime,” she had no intention of studying criminology. The course was one of those that departments dreamed up to increase enrollment and justify their existence when funding depended on “student-years.”
The course satisfied a general education requirement, and Greta had heard rumors the course was easy. It proved to be a pivotal decision. The fresh young teacher taught the course as a vehicle to teach, not to satisfy a rote requirement. He gave the students the starting facts of cases, and they developed plans for how to solve the crimes. He gradually added more clues, and the students acted out interviews and team discussions on each case. Greta loved it. By the end of the semester, she’d aced the course and enthusiastically told the teacher she intended to change her major to Criminology and Criminal Justice. To his credit, the teacher cautioned her that the course had been designed to be fun, although real criminology was seldom fun and often tedious. Of course, she didn’t listen.
In retrospect, her predisposition to criminology had been foretold two years previously. During her senior year in high school, a “Career Days” event involved school visits by representatives of a myriad of professions. Students took a test for their aptitude and level of interest in a variety of subjects. When her test results came back, it suggested she might be suited for sports education, food preparation, nursing, the military, and law enforcement.
Sports and food preparation seemed plausible to Greta, though the others puzzled her. She didn’t see herself as nurturing, so why did nursing show up? As for the military and law enforcement, those she took as proof of the test’s unreliability.
After graduating college summa cum laude, she faced dealing with the real adult world, outside of family and schools. She decided she needed a job for at least the next two years. Coaching was a possibility. Then there was her major in criminology. Her father jokingly suggested the two were not necessarily incompatible, given the frequency of athletes in the news for committing various crimes and misdemeanors.
To her surprise, the placement center at the university proved extraordinarily helpful. Whether by chance or not, the staff member helping her was conscientious, and years later, they still kept in contact.
Greta had had no idea what kind of job to look for or where. All such thoughts she had assumed would be addressed “someday.” To her consternation, as she approached graduation, someday was now. She perused an endless list of job advertisements. The few coaching openings lacked appeal and paid poorly. However, there were so many openings in law enforcement that she could hardly narrow down her choices. Many of the jobs sounded like paper-pushing or were in larger cities, both of which she ruled out. She also eliminated Missouri and neighboring states, to her parents’ chagrin. She had had enough of the Midwest and flat land. It was time to spread her wings farther afield.
At the advisor’s suggestion, she sent out numerous applications, though he counseled her that many apparent openings already had candidates in mind, and the formal process was only a sham to satisfy hiring rules. There were also unknowable factors influencing the choice of candidates, even if she appeared qualified. Greta’s first naive thought was that her gender and size would work against her. To her shock, she was inundated with positive responses. The advisor explained that with so many government departments at all levels being pushed to hire more women, someone with her gender and grades was a hot commodity. This presented an unanticipated problem. Having her pick of jobs, she wasn’t sure which position to pursue.
One of the jobs farthest from Missouri was with the Sheriff’s Department in Tillamook County, Oregon. The county paid for her flight out for a screening panel interview. She also used the ticket to check on two other offers near Portland. She flew from Missouri, picked up a rental car, and made the drive down to Tillamook City as the first offer to investigate. Green forests that stretched on forever, covering hills and mountains, miles and miles of rocky Pacific coast and empty beaches, the air smelling of forest and sea . . . it was all so different from Missouri. She thought the interview went poorly. However, they immediately offered her the position after cautioning her that other candidates would be interviewed pro forma, but not to worry about that formality. The assurance, along with the college placement advisor’s similar warning, was a further introduction to how the real world operated.
The county also paid for her motel for two extra days, so she could tour the area. It took her only one day to drive through the county’s forests and shores, along with making a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, before she accepted the position. She hadn’t the slightest idea what the job actually involved.
“What do you think, Greta?”
Her reverie ended with Alex standing in front of her. People filed out of the room or milled around, going from conversation to conversation. At least half the people had already left. She didn’t know how much time had passed and glanced at her watch.
I must have been out a good twenty minutes or more, she thought.
