Felicity Ch. 07

Chapter 7. Shawna

To others Shawna seemed to have had a difficult life. Her mother died of a heart attack when Shawna was fourteen. She had been tall, strong, and a renowned collegiate athlete. Her mother was just thirty-four years old when she died.

Her father never got over his wife's death. He turned to alcohol and died of liver failure the summer after Shawna graduated from high school. She had understood that her father was committing suicide and counseled him throughout. She got him to seek help but the pain of his loss always led him back to the bottle.

Her father managed to keep his job until his death so Shawna had acceptable levels of food, clothing and shelter while he lived. She had worked as a waitress since her sophomore year in high school and managed to keep half of her earnings in savings.

After her father died she sold their house and attended a community college forty-five minutes away from Felicity. She got her associate degree as a paralegal and returned home and was soon living with her best friend and occasional lover Jana. There were no jobs available for a paralegal so she returned to waitress work.

Shawna was the virtual fourth daughter to Ben and Janice Cartwright, Jana's parents.

Between them Ben and Janice were the wealthiest citizens of Felicity, a lot wealthier than their lifestyle would indicate. When Shawna had expressed interest in becoming a police officer they made certain that she got her wish.

They financed her enrollment in a private police academy that was a state approved school to train potential officers for towns too small to be able to finance their own academies.

Shawna was chosen as the best cadet in her class particularly impressing with her knowledge of the law and her physical training.

During her physical training class a particularly arrogant and racist instructor was rendered unconscious by Shawna's well-placed blows during a self-defense exercise. He had become so incensed with her ability to fend off his attacks during the training session that after the exercise was over he continued to attack her.

She warned him that if he came at her again she would not hold back. He shouted a racial slur at her and rushed in. Ten seconds later he was on the mat with a dislocated shoulder, a broken nose and two broken ribs.

While still on his hospital bed he found out he was also unemployed. By the time he was released from the hospital the video of his humiliation had somehow made its way into You Tube. He made himself disappear. Shawna became her academy's class hero.

About that time along with many in the town of Felicity Ben and Janice Cartwright had reached their limit of endurance on the city and county politicians. They had become entrenched in their positions thinking it was their birthright. Ben and Janice decided to change things.

They interviewed several people they knew to be intelligent and fair-minded and financially backed them for political office.

The incumbents were not prepared for a serious challenge and had ignored the amateurs running for public office against them. They were lazy, arrogant, and clueless.

If they noticed the strong volunteer campaign to register new voters they did not react to it.

They sneered at the county Judge candidate, Lydia Mendoza. They chuckled at the mayoral candidate Rhonda MacDuff. They were not worried, after all they were just women.

If they noticed that those two had visited with every single voter they did not react to it.

If they noticed that each town council candidate knew each of their future constituents by name they never noticed.

The incumbent's loss was so overwhelming, so stunning, that it never occurred to them to dispose of the thousands of documents that proved how corrupt they were, including bribery and extortion.

With the backing of the State Attorney General newly elected County Judge Mendoza issued warrants for the arrest of the former mayor, the police chief and nearly half of his officers. The un-indicted officers were allowed to resign. The head of the public works department disappeared as soon as he was indicted and was labeled a fugitive from justice. Mayor Rhonda fired most of the town's department heads.

For one week Felicity ceased to have a police department but the county also had a new sheriff and he saw to it that Felicity would remain protected. It was his home too.

The new city council appointed Shawna as the interim chief of police. All of the members of the city council had seen her grow up and knew how intelligent she was and how mentally tough she was. There was no dissent in the council and nearly none in the community as Felicity acquired the first woman and the first black police chief in its history in one striking package.

Shawna was charged with recruiting new members for the department. Two members of the city council assisted her during the interview process, Martha MacDuff and Juanita Alvarez. In fact Shawna allowed Martha to conduct most of the interviews because she was the best judge of character anyone knew.

Shawna's first two recruits were classmates at her academy, a married couple. The next ten came from police academy cadets that had washed out of big city classes.

All of them had been commended law officers in smaller towns before they applied for the big cities police academy and all had apparently been dismissed on whims. Two were lesbian, one was of Arabic descent, two were black, three Hispanic and two Asians. The ten were the first non-good-old-white boys to become permanent members of the Felicity police department.

The new officers each knew someone that they thought would fit in the town of Felicity and they interviewed many of those. They recruited bilingual dispatchers and office workers. The new Felicity Police Department was multi racial, multi lingual and multi gender.

In three weeks Shawna had a full force that reflected the town of Felicity. The town saw them as a major asset to the community. They placed their trust in them.

Shawna's first order for her officers was to go out of their way to meet every member of the community. She set up meetings for her officers at clubs, churches and civic centers. She ordered them to wear police department t-shirt and jeans to those meetings, she wanted the community to know them as people first.

Crime plummeted to the point that some of the officers got bored and left for other towns. Shawna though that the people of Felicity were afraid to disappoint her officers or the town in any way.

All the officers became entrenched members of the Felicity community and it was not rare for a citizen to walk up to a squad car and give the officer a soft drink or cookies or a kiss. It was not rare to see one in a store or shop just walking around and listening to gossip. It was not rare to see them at family gatherings.

After the first two years the police department turnover was zero.

The town itself was being rebuilt. Ben and Janice purchased the land from downtown to the resort and began to build offices and shops. The also bought the abandoned beach resort and updated it.

Ben's friend Jim had been coerced into becoming Chief of Public Works and soon had all systems working well and all streets and roads repaved, some for the first time since the hurricane.

Felicity itself was enjoying peace and prosperity.

So it was a shock to every resident of Felicity when the police chief suddenly resigned.

At first Shawna did not give the mayor or council a reason for her action so her resignation was denied on the grounds that it was in the best interest of the town.

Her next letter of resignation hinted at a flaw in character that could pose a threat to the citizens of Felicity. That was also denied.

She asked for a closed meeting with the council and mayor and that was granted. She resigned again and related the events that led to her decision.

They occurred as she was assisting the sheriff in a search for a missing young woman, the wife of a marine stationed in Afghanistan. Their leads led them to a wooded patch of ground just inside the northern boundary of the county. Shawna found the woman gagged and bound and a man crouching near her. He had a knife in his hand.

When the man saw Shawna he stood and took a step towards her. Shawna fired a shot between his legs and told him to drop the knife and get on the ground.

The man looked at her and then his hand and dropped the knife as if he did not know it was there. Shawna forced him to his knees and prepared to cuff him but the man moved his hands so she forced him down and pointed her gun right between his eyes.

Her shot and the commotion brought the sheriff over and as Shawna was talking herself into pulling the trigger the sheriff took the gag off the woman.

"Don't hurt him! She shouted at Shawna. "He came here to help me. It was his brother that kidnapped and attacked me. He was not disobeying you, he is deaf."

It took Shawna several seconds to process what she had just learned and finally put her weapon away. She helped the man up then stood aside as the victim related her story.

Before they got in their vehicles the attacker had been spotted and the state police was giving chase. By the time Shawna got home the attacker had been seriously wounded in a shoot-out with the troopers.

Shawna was not as happy over the turn of events as she should have been. She had almost killed the good guy.

She also knew she had really wanted to kill the guy. She had been overwhelmed by rage when she came upon the scene. The shot between his legs was intended to shoot his dick off. She had missed because in her anger she pulled the trigger too soon.

She concluded her story by saying to the mayor and council that, "I am too dangerous to be an officer of the peace".

They were stunned of course. They could not even come up with questions to ask her. They sent her home to wait for the results of their deliberations.

It took three days before she heard from them and was summoned to their chamber. She was suspended for two weeks and was to take an anger management course and attend traumatic stress counseling sessions at a nearby military base that had such sessions for personnel returning from the Middle East.

Her resignation however, had not been accepted. She was asked to name her two-week replacement and she chose Verna, the female half of the married couple.

As she left the chambers she suddenly found herself face to face with the man she almost castrated, almost killed. The sheriff and the young victim, Lillian, were with him.

His name was Sammy. He was an electrician and Shawna had seen his van often but had never looked at the man driving.

Sammy was nearly six feet four inches tall and somewhat wiry in build. He had been the result of an ill-advised fling between his redneck father and his Vietnamese lover. He had the best facial features of both races. Sammy was handsome.

Both of his parents had been ostracized so a great aunt had raised Sammy at her small farm. She had taught him to read, taught him sign language, and lip-reading. Sammy did not attend school and no one seemed to care whether he did or not. For the first twenty years of his life all but his great aunt thought he was retarded. She knew he had a brilliant mind.

Lillian was a visiting nurse and Sammy's great aunt was one of her patients. She made him her friend and talked an electrician uncle into taking him on as an apprentice. Sammy had excelled and was soon going out on some jobs by himself. Sammy was one of the men Felicity should have been celebrating.

The sheriff told Shawna; "We came to put in a good word for you. Sammy understands that the situation you walked into would lead to a misconception and a confrontation. He apologized for being deaf."

"Can you read lips?" she asked the man.

He nodded and signed yes.

"I apologize for loosing my temper. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt one of the good guys. I have learned that you are a good man. I promise you that every officer in the Felicity Police Department will learn some sign language and every work shift will have at least one officer proficient in sign language."

Shawna then signed, "I am sorry. You good person. Forgive me."

Sammy smiled broadly and extended his hand to her. She took it and gripped it with both hands. Lillian hugged her, as did Sheriff Ralph.

Shawna attacked her new tasks as she had done all of them in her life, full bore.

After her two weeks suspension, (the Council had officially termed it a forced vacation), she talked her family friends Yazmin and Maryanne into giving sign language lessons. They became so popular that they had to move the classes to a high school classroom and hold two classes per week.

Not only did her officers embrace the task more than half became experts and all became proficient. The mayor already knew sign language and she encouraged the council members to take the class. All of them did. They became so proficient that just for fun they conducted one city council meeting in sign language.

All seventeen deaf citizens of the town and county attended the session including the only one Shawna knew to be deaf before the incident, the daughter of city council member Juanita Alvarez, Janie, a friend.

Many more than seventeen of the citizens in the chamber knew sign language too the council learned after Martha threw in a PG 13 rated quip when the permit for an exotic dance club was tabled. Most of the audience laughed.

Unanimously the deaf citizens told the council that for the first time ever they felt that they truly were part of the community and thanked their police chief for that.

As for Shawna she became her own lovable self after a few weeks. Sammy became a good friend. They ate lunch together every week or so. Soon rumors that they had become more than friends began to circulate. They did their best to dispel the rumor but it would not go away.

Shawna decided that they needed to come up with a coherent plan to fight it and invited Sammy to her townhouse for dinner and a plan of attack. Three hours later their plans to deny a relationship became moot. Shawna was very, very grateful she had not shot his dick off.

Thirty-eight hours later the citizens of Felicity threw an impromptu party for them. Six months later Sammy and Shawna were married. Six months after that Shawna again resigned her position of chief of police. Her resignation was not accepted. She was 0 for four in that regard.

The council told her that if Fargo could have a pregnant chief of police Felicity could too.

She resigned twice more and was re-buffed twice more, the second time being right after her husband Sammy had been elected mayor of Felicity.

Sammy had argued to the council that the town could not afford to give up the distinction of having the most beautiful chief of police in the country. Shawna's resignation was unanimously denied.

Shawna was at last allowed to retire twenty-five years later when a competent replacement for her was found. The entire town was collectively stunned when they suddenly realized that Sammy and Shawna's oldest daughter Jana was perfect for the job.

At least that was what they said. Privately when she was still four years old they already knew that little Jana was going to be the chief of police one day.

Like her mother she never carried a gun.