Living on West Tulsa Time

I love having creative dreams

It's nice when I can right wrongs, solve crimes or create masterpieces in my dreams. Last night I did all three. I hope that the creators of NCIS will forgive me for using their show as the premise for my dream but I just Love that show. I think the executives of CBS are the greatest in the Entertainment field.

On with the show. I'm sitting in my dreary office in the Federal Courthouse staring at the cell phone in my hand. On my desk is a file describing the murder of a woman I went to Highschool with. I had been in awe of her Naval career since my short stint in the Army had only given me the means to pay for my law degree and an opportunity to work as a JAG in Tulsa. I'm hearing an officer from the Osage County Sherrif's office say "'mam, 'mam" but my head is spinning. The Sherriff there was on the line but he handed the phone to his deputy. His deputy says he coming to get me cause my mother is in danger and she needs me. He says my sister is at the hospital somewhere... I didn't catch it. I'm dumbfounded did he just say that my sister is dead? My door bursts open and there stands a ghost from my past. The newly elected Sherriff is an officer from the town where my sister lives. He must have worn a jet pack to get here so fast. In reality he took the helicopter that should have brought my sister to a trauma center. They landed in the construction zone of the new convention center and came right to the building across the street.

He leads me across another street and to my truck. All the way he's giving me the details of my family emergency and the names of other people that have been contacted. One of them is my husband. Sherriff Don tells me that my son's, all three of them, and their fathers were being rounded up and moved to a safe location. We speed down the road headed to a small remote town in the biggest county in Oklahoma. Sherriff Don is driving. I normally would be upset but I'm in shock and don't have the energy to tell him to slow down. I know his urgency. My mother. She is barely mentally stable on her good days. Today and everyday after would be very hard on her. My cell phone is ringing again. Washington is sending a team of special agents out to help me find Chandra's murderer. I am so relieved since I'll have to be away from the office seeing after my mother and *gulp* my dead sister. Spec Agent Gibbs and his team will arrive tonight at 6. I hang up and look at the time on my cellphone display. It's only 10 in the morning.

Don goes on... Carla didn't show up to pick up the kids. My mother wasn't answering her cellphone. Mike knew they were together. The kids were with him when he found my mother duct taped in the trunk of her car with my sister dismembered in the house. My mother was screaming when Don left the scene and according to his last contact with Mike she was still screaming. I knew she would calm down when I arrived. I was the rock in her life. I didn't like to be but that was the man she molded me into. My husband allowed me to be the soft vulneralble woman that my job and my mother did not. I loved that man for it. Don and I plotted our next moves. My mother would be hospitalized and medicated until the hysteria subsided. Once her medications were stabilized the officers would come back to question her. They had a few good leads already. Carla has been, had been having trouble with her exes all of them would be tracked down and questioned. We pulled up at the house where my sister had lived and my mother spent most weekends. I got out wrapped my mother in my arms and watched her face crumble. She agreed to take the ride to the hospital and was finally given the adivan from her purse. I made sure the emt's had her emergency medications, medical cards and drivers license, I would look after the rest and follow them in about an hour. Things moved quickly from there. I walked through the crime scene after the investigators had cleared it. I found my sister's datebook and address list. She was supposed to pick someone up from the airport. There was a sign with my father's name on it and a flight number/arrival time on the back. I asked that someone check with the Airport to see if my father was indeed coming into Tulsa today. Exiting out the back I found Mike and Carla's kids strangling my mother's dog. The dog was loving every minute of it as the kids clung to his neck. They release him and ran to me. They started crying again. Their dad was begging me to let him go home. I assured him that he and the kids were not going to go home anytime soon. He looked unhappy about that but too bad. Within a few minutes they were lead away the dog was in my truck cab belted in with the harness I kept for my own dog. His head was resting on the arm of my baby's car seat in the back and he was asleep. I got the news that my father was due in at 6 and thought great I don't have to make 2 trips through security tonight. I checked on my boys and mother. I went to my house and exchanged the truck for a van that held 8. I prayed that my father was alone and the NCIS agents were forgiving. I went back to the office to tidy up and realized that the scene I just left and the photos in Chandra's file on my desk were strikingly similar. I called Don at that point and told him. We'd compare notes over supper at my home. Gibbs and his team would need to hear it all and I could guarantee that we would not be overheard there. My father was another story.

I met both flights at the airport. My father arrived first. I told him why Carla wasn't there and begged his indulgence when we had to wait. Agent Gibbs and the team including a doctor and lab technician greeted my father well and agreed to wait for discussions until he was squared away. We left him at the hotel near my home arranged for their quarters there and left to drive to my place. Then we started discussing my case. We were still discussing it as I finished cooking and set the table for 6 strangers/collegues. After we said all we could I told them about my sister. They agreed that the two could be linked. My father called me. He was at the hospital visiting my mother and there was something I needed to know it was about another murder and a teenager, someone I knew. He wanted to come to my home.

The car service he used while in town brought him to my house and after he was settled in he explained to me and my guests the details of a murder he had witnessed in California when my mother was pregnant with me. My mother had driven out there to say goodbye before he left for NAM. They were sight seeing when they came across this boy cutting up some meat. The next morning they heard the news, a woman had been dismembered and left at the tourist attraction. My mother testified against the teen. My mother never remembered the name of the boy, repressed the whole thing until she saw my sister done the same way. He gave us the name of my 2nd husband. My world imploded. I had married a murderer, he'd accidentally shot an uncle as a teen but he had also been convicted of murder and his parents had fled the state to keep him out of prison. I had just shunned this man again, was this retaliation? Did he ever know my old highschool friend? Not through me I was sure. It was now up to Gibbs and his crew. They took over my house, cars and office. I went to stay with my boys. It was there I learned the connection between Chandra and my sister. She and my oldest son's father were dating. Jeff had encountered my 2nd husband at a bar and they exchanged words. Chaundra was there. This was the week my 2nd husband contacted me.

In my home the agents tracked down emails and letters to me from the killer. Jeff had been the target and Chandra had been the one home. Tracking the killer would be up to the team. I was staying safe and keeping the boys out of harms way. Since I wasn't part of the action I just got to know the others in the team and my father. Dr. Mallard was the greatest help with my mother. He was able to keep her distracted and entertained. They fell in love. When things wrapped up they married. Ducky's mother would be surprised but my mother knew how to handle alzhiemer patients since she's fed and cared for my grandmother. My father and I reconnected and he was able to enjoy all 5 of his Oklahoma grandkids. He did have to go home to his wife and business. I learned about other siblings. I had become an only child and a sister to 7 all in the time it took to catch a murderer and marry off my mother.

That was fun despite the sadness and fear.

posted by Debbysewn @ 8:06 AM