Puppy Love

We purchased a small three bedroom house, renovated it and moved in, preparing to start our family. We had agreed that we wanted to wait for about two years after I graduated but it did not seem to be a bad idea to at least practice getting her in the motherly way.

Then out of nowhere, five months after graduation, I was again blindsided...this time by a 1-ton delivery truck. Luckily for me, it hit the passenger side of my truck and I was just a little more than dazed but I was dazed enough to feel someone pulling me out of the truck and starting to work me over. Of course there were witnesses to the whole event and statements taken and names written down but something didn't add up. They had said I ran a stop sign but that intersection had a traffic light so someone was mistaken, also, someone had poured alcohol in my truck and down my throat and I was arrested immediately for DWI, failure to yield right-of-way and an assortment of other things. I did not get a phone call for the legal allotted time of 72 hours and when I did, I called my brother-in-law and explained the situation. He had other news for me that he knew I would not like very much.

Sherry had been raped, beaten and nearly killed during a home invasion. Of course DNA evidence did not really have a foothold in the legal system at this time so nothing could be proved as to who had committed such a crime against her and I. There were fingerprints but everything had been squashed as far as evidence was concerned. Further investigation showed the accident was written up at an intersection about a mile from the actual spot it had happened. Things were not adding up for me and it also looked as if Sherry's perpetrators would skate. I had to find out what was going on and find out fast. My brother-in-law, being a lawyer had some suspicions but could not find out anything, yet.

Chapter 2 - The Incident

The police investigation of the house invasion had also revealed some unique things. First of all, there was another whisky bottle, exactly the same brand as was found in my truck. The house smelled like whisky, it was a wreck and my wife had been raped, beaten and left for dead. Later, the only thing found to be missing was her wedding ring. There were entry marks on the back door that indicated forced entry as it was splintered. The police figured that she surprised them and they decided to take advantage of the situation. Of course, neither of us had ever considered purchasing and or even having a security system installed in the house. There did not seem to be a need for that sort of thing. After all, who were we that warranted such needs?

It was time to call in some old debts. I made a few phone calls to some former Navy Seals and a couple of Marine Recon troops that I was still in contact with. My brother-in-law was looking over the police report and found a few more discrepancies. The first being the brand of whisky found at both scenes were the same. The second being cigarettes butts lying on the ground in the driveway and since neither my wife nor I smoked, it looked suspicious. I had never been drunk at social gatherings and never went to work hung over or even smelling of alcohol. You could count on one hand how much I drank during any given month and had four fingers left over. I never got drunk.

Then there is the incident with the truck accident report. The empty bottle of booze found on the floor of my truck and in the house simply was not my brand. My brother-in-law had one question...how could one person even drink one bottle a whisky, much less two, and still be driving around? They had performed a blood alcohol level, at the hospital, and found that I did NOT have any alcohol in my blood stream at the time of the accident. That in itself, confirmed that I had not had a drink for, at least, three or possibly four days. A private firm confirmed that both bottles of whisky had different finger prints on them. The ones at the house belonged to, you guessed it, my nemesis. The bottle in the truck belonged to someone unknown to us at this time but had several finger prints, of a broken nature, which would be easily found and when we could find, we may have a possible suspect or two.

I decided it was time to call in the troops and start investigating things, too. Since the Navy Seals were a highly trained group of individuals, their talents were sought out by a lot of security firms, both private and governmental, and, the fact we had formed a bond of brothers, I knew I needed them at this point. The Marine Recon guys were also highly trained in many of the same tactics, though not quite as varied, and I had become friends also and the offer of brotherhood help was one I figured I could use. This totaled six guys to help me figure out what I needed and also to formulate a plan of action. One of the seals was a highly qualified FBI forensics expert and was able to determine that the two incidents were coordinated, sloppily but, never the less, coordinated.

We knew that I had to get the truck out of police impound so that is where we started, with the truck. It had only been there maybe six days and since the weather has not been rainy or wet, we figured there should be finger prints all over it. My seal friend, with the forensics background, dusted the entire truck and found the same finger prints on the truck door handle and the ones on the bottle to be the same. The only other prints in the truck were mine and my wife's. The prints in the house revealed a total set of three, as yet, unidentified fingerprints, along with the guy that had decided to take the wedding ring from Sherry's finger, so there were four people involved at the house. So adding all this up, we looked at the possibility of there being at least four guys in the house and one in my truck...a total of five different guys.

Since Sherry had still not regained consciousness, it had now been a full week and we could rely only on the police reports from the local police department at that particular time. Thankfully the hospital had given her the rape test and the morning after pill. They also checked for STD's and found none. There were many other discrepancies that were factored into our research. The forensics expert guy on my new team was starting to piece things together. He also had the FBI crime lab at his disposal and things started to fall rapidly into place. Our next step was to form a plan of action against those involved in this drama. My only concern was for Sherry. If she died, so would they. Otherwise they would have to pay for their crimes for the rest of their lives, one way or another.

As it turned out, the guy that had hit my truck, and planted the evidence, was the Chief of Police's nephew. One of the guys in the house is the Chief's son and, of course, the guy that had been blind-siding me from the beginning, had his prints in the house. OK, now we had three of the five individuals involved. The other two had turned out to friends of both the nephew and the guy that had kept attacking me.

Now we had names, addresses, types of vehicles they drove, their wives' names and all sorts of information. We know who they were, we only needed to figure out what to do and how to do it without being suspected. Since I had most to lose, it was agreed by all, I would always be where I where could have an alibi. The other team members would do all the dirty work and exact revenge. I insisted, that when the time came, I would be the one to extract my revenge on Billy (simply because I did not and have not been using very many names in this story, let's refer to the bad guys as Billy bad-ass wanna-be, the Chief, the Chief's nephew, the Chief's son, bad guy number five and bad guy number six).. Since no one, but I and the members of the team, knew they were there, it would be pretty easy to set everything into motion. Billy bad-ass wanna-be would suffer the worst. The Chief's son would be second and it would go on from there. Of course, since the Chief of Police had engineered the cover up, we just had to make sure he hung himself. This brought the number of cohorts up to six. We weren't sure if we wanted any of them to die but we just wanted them to suffer really badly. That is of course, depending upon the outcome of Sherry's condition. Again, if she dies, they die. It was time to implement the plan. Sherry had not regained consciousness, yet, it had taken us a week to gather the information we had plus I was spending as much time as I could with her at the hospital. Since she was a nurse there, she was receiving the very best of care the hospital could give. The good news was...her body was recovering. The less than good news was that her mind was still keeping her out of it, though medication was helping though. Her brainwaves were looking good.

Chapter 3 - The Discovery

Back to the beginning, what is Puppy Love? Well when we punish our pet puppy, it always comes back with those sad puppy dog eyes and wants to be loved. The puppy loves you so much it is just hard to believe that it will do anything to gain your love again. This is the way I felt about my Sherry, only she wasn't punished by me or anyone that loved her. She had been abused by a cruel individual, or individuals, who were seeking revenge of some sort, ON ME! I loved Sherry without limits. She is my puppy love. Most people would not put up with anyone hurting their pet puppy and I would not be any different. The big difference was, Sherry is not a puppy and I am not her master. We were partners...when she hurt, I hurt and vice-versa.

Step one...find out who these perpetrators were. Step two...eliminate the largest threat to known society...a corrupt and crooked cop, who had been the Chief of Police for twenty plus years and was a so-called pillar of society...had to hang himself. We started digging into his past to find out what we could. Step three...the Chief's son would be next since he was so closely connected to the Chief. Next would be the nephew, bad guy five, bad guy six and last but not least, Billy bad-ass wanna be...his would be the worse.

We had found a lot of misgivings about the Chief and his rise to power. There were actually some unsolved murders, corruption and downright bad stuff. His son, and his nephew were also connected with quite a few. Guys number four and five were only pawns in a lot of the plans the Chief had cooked up over the years. Billy bad-ass wanna-be was a known crook in the area but with his connections, he had merely been overlooked or, possibly, intentionally omitted throughout the years.

Where do we go from here is a question that some of us would ask and others would answer. The Chief of Police would become a subject of interest to the FBI about the unsolved murders and corruption issues. It appears that the Chief would stoop to no end to protect his son and nephew but the others were merely his pawns to complete whatever they were assigned to do just to keep out of harm's way. The Chief had eliminated some of his political enemies by setting them up to take falls with drugs, prostitution and other assorted crimes on the books in his area. Of course, the Chief took credit to their downfall and he merely kept riding that wave of popularity right on through his subsequent elections, a wave which kept getting him elected each time.

The son and the nephew had close ties to the Chief for obvious reasons. As it turned out, bad guys number five and number six were also indicated on criminal charges relating to the murders, local unsolved robberies, misdemeanor charges and a host of other charges. Their time the state prison system would not be easy on them. It seems that most prisoners do not like cops, much less corrupt cops. They dislike them more especially if the cop in the next cell is the one that put them in prison... most prisoners do not realize they put themselves in prison by breaking the law.

The freaky six, as they became known to us, would ultimately roll over on each other trying to get a better deal for themselves. Confessions came out like a tidal wave of epic proportions. Their stories all contained information the Feds could use against the Chief, his son and his nephew. Since there was a law enforcement official, an elected official at that, the Feds were to be called in so the stories could be well documented. As more information came out and people of the community could be interviewed, more and more horrific crimes and activities would come to light. Some of the members of the community were actually happy to volunteer information. It seems the Chief, his son and his nephew was also going to be fighting teenage prostitution charges. This is something, even today, most upright and even some not-so-upright citizens would not condone. It seems the trio had about sixteen different girls, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, who were being forced to work for them. They also had five young boys, between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, forced into male prostitution. Their clients included a few local politicians and more than a few business owners in the area. A large shit storm had been created for the misplaced givings of his son, his nephew and Billy bad-ass wanna-be because they wanted to hurt me and my wife.

The wives of the three married ones also confessed to knowing about many of the atrocities but were given immunity, at least by us, because of the children but that didn't really help matters in the town or with the law. It was determined, by the FBI, because the wives did have small children and the fact they also rolled over on their husbands, they would not face criminal prosecution but, in exchange for their testimonies, they would be given relocation deals. The main reason the wives were not prosecuted was because the wives felt that if they went public with any information before, they would be beaten or possibly killed. So, the authorities was adding coercion to the list of criminal charges being piled up against the freaky six. Heads were going to roll and very soon. The whole town looked as if it was going to literally come apart at the seams. To me, it looked like the only ones that were going to make out in this situation were the lawyers but even a couple of them looked like they, too, were going to be implemented in the cover up...and they were.

Chapter Four - Implementation

Since the Chief was the biggest of the group, we needed to nail him first. One of the Marine Recon guys knew some lesser known drug dealers from his home town and we agreed that setting the Chief up with drugs would help bring him down. Of course, the prostitution ring he ran would also help but we wanted him to suffer a lot once he was finally tried and convicted and sent to state prison. His time in the prison facility would be, at best, very difficult for him. We created a fake email address and bought a mobile air time device from the local Big Box Store, paying cash. Later, we also purchased some burn phones so there would be no records of anything on our personal phones. Since cell phones were just coming out, they were bulky and not really very portable but at least there would be no record of us being involved.

We sent an anonymous email to my friend at the FBI, forensics expert, so he could officially open a case into the very thing we were working on. This could help explain his absence from his office. It would also allow him to use the FBI crime lab to do a thorough examination of evidence which was going to pile up against the Chief, his son, his nephew and probably the other three guys involved. It seems the FBI takes criminal activities of an elected official very seriously. If we played our cards right, we would be listed only as informants.

Sherry's condition was improving daily and was expected to come out of her coma soon. It had now been five weeks since the accident and her beating and rape. When I was not with her, her sister or mother was almost always there. Someone would be there when she would wake up. I was really getting concerned for her safety, I did not know if the Chief had anyone at the hospital on his payroll but we needed to be sure she was OK at all times. The FBI had assigned an agent, undercover of course, to be with her. Since her family was kept in the dark about what I and the team were doing, they always seemed not to notice there was someone nearby to look after her well being. The agents covering her might look like a hospital orderly or an off duty nurse coming by to check on her. They would use the excuse that since she was employed by the hospital, they were concerned about her recovery. Of course her mom and her sister always felt comfortable knowing she was receiving so much special attention.

Now was the time to implement as much as we could before an official investigation began. We planted cocaine, meth and marijuana in the Chief's personal car, his wife's car, their home and in his office. There was enough to convince anyone looking in more than one place, there was intent to sale. This turned out to be an easier task than any of us thought. We also made sure things came up missing in the police evidence locker.

With the drugs planted in obscure places that the average person would not normally look, but were easily accessed, it was a charge that we figured could easily prove he was also dealing. Along with the possession of drugs, with the intent to sell, the teenage prostitution of the teenage girls and the male prostitution ring he was heading, it was not going to make it easy on the Chief. The Chief knew he was in trouble and he tried to start calling in his own favors from a couple of local politicians. Of course, the now-corrupt ones wanted nothing to do with him but he did have one ace up his sleeve, which backfired. The only other politician he had left to call was the guy running for Lt. Governor of the state. It seems this guy had used the services of the Chief's underage prostitutes, both female and male, and might succumb to the Chief's request but, by then, the phones of all those involved were under FBI surveillance and everything was recorded. I was really enjoying what was happening and it felt good knowing we were actually doing something good and right for the community.

His son was easier to set up. We merely watched him and his activities for about two weeks before we came up with a plan to take him down. He had a habit of using one of the teenage girls for his pleasure about three times a week, usually in the same area of the nearby lake after dark. One of the male prostitutes had fallen in love with the oldest female teenager working for the Chief so he was ready to help turn evidence over to the Feds in exchange for a new life but he wanted the seventeen year old girl to go with him. It seems the male escort had been keeping a notebook, of sorts, and had listed names, dates, locations and prices involved. Since the female escort was not eighteen, the Feds could not, and would not allow her to leave with him. They did guarantee her safety for the next four months until her eighteenth birthday and, if they still loved each other, they would then help out.

The nephew was into a whole lot of stuff that kept the Chief busy trying to keep him out of trouble. He had gotten drunk, had an accident, killing a family of four, and, of course, his uncle swept the information under the table. The people killed were from the wrong side of the tracks, were of low income and no one knew anything about them so there was no next of kin to be notified. Their deaths were listed as John Doe, Jane Doe and two unidentified Doe children. The accident had been recorded but did not list who or what caused the accident. No tickets were issued and the incident merely disappeared, but through the diligent diggings of the FBI, they were able to identify the vehicle and found it at the local junk yard being stripped of parts. The only thing they had left to go on was the VIN number plate and traced it to the nephew. Getting him to talk about it was simple...Get him drunk, have a pocket recorder in a shirt pocket and he would brag about how he got away with an intoxicated man slaughter charge. It seemed everyone in town knew about it but no one would talk for fear of repercussion from the Chief. After all, he was the Chief's nephew. There were other things the nephew was involved in, included local extortion from some of the smaller businesses and he seemed to be getting quite a bit of money from these businesses. This totaled to about five thousand dollars a month, all cash, all untraceable and tax free. With his uncle covering him, he could get away with just about anything he wanted, as long as he did some things for Uncle Chief from time to time. Since he did not have a job, the IRS became interested in his affairs, also.