Here I Am. Send Me.--Chapter Twenty-Six

Evelyn returns to the police to find their attitude has changed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

         Murfreesboro Pike was quiet at 9:00 AM on Sunday morning. Evelyn pulled into the parking lot of the Police Headquarters for the second time in five days. This time, she walked past the front door and out on the sidewalk to look at the monument in front of the building. She stood and read the words again.
         “I HEARD A VOICE OF THE LORD. SAYING, WHOM SHALL I SEND, AND WHO WILL GO FOR US? THEN I SAID, HERE I AM, SEND ME.” ISAIAH 6.8
         Since she was dating a preacher, she figured that she ought to start paying more attention to Bible stuff. She looked at the front door of the building and spoke under her breath.
         “Well, God, if you exist, here I am, I guess, send me.”
         As she walked toward the door, she didn’t realize that she had just prayed for the first time in her life.
         She bumped into the locked door. Apparently, things were different on Sunday mornings. There was a sign next to the door which gave an after-hours number, and she called it.
         The phone rang five times before being answered by a female voice. “Metro Police. How can I help you?”
         “My name is Evelyn Dunham. I was asked to come in for an interview.”
         “What is your location, please?”
         This question took a moment to process. The number must be a central switchboard. “I’m at the main police station on Murfreesboro Road.”
         “The headquarters?”
         “Yeah. The headquarters.”
         “Your name again, please?”
         She repeated it.
         “I’ll let them know you’re waiting.”
         The call ended, and she waited another five minutes before Sergeant Wilson opened the door. This time, she remembered his name without having to read the nametag on his shirt.
         He opened the door. “Ms. Dunham, it’s good to see you again. Follow me, please.” She followed him to the elevator and to the same office in which he had briefly spoken to her the previous Wednesday.
         “Coffee?” He offered.
         “Is it any good?”
         “No.”
         “Then I’m fine.”
         “Good call. Have a seat.”
         She sat in the same chair.
         There was an open folder on his desk, and he glanced from it to his computer screen which was facing away from her.
         “Thank you for sending over the video footage from yesterday’s incident. From reviewing it, I would preliminarily agree that it was premeditated and targeted your vehicle. Explain to me why you believe that it is involved with Josephine Marshall.”
         Josephine? She had always referred to her as ‘Josey’. But it made sense.
         “The most direct relationship between the attack and Ms. Marshall was that we had just been visiting her at the medical facility in Carthage.”
         “We?” He never looked up and continued to type.
         “I was riding with Chris Leighton, the chaplain at PHI.”
         “Is it normal for a chaplain to be involved in a visit like this?”
         That seemed like an odd question. “The client originally requested that a chaplain be involved in her case.”
         “Is Mr. Leighton married?”
         Now that was a weird question. “Why is that important?”
         The sergeant looked up. “Because there are a lot of reasons that someone might want to hurt you and Mr. Leighton. We must rule them out to get focus.”
         She pushed down her annoyance. “No. He isn’t married, and neither am I.”
         “Any boyfriends or girlfriends?”
         “None that I know of.” She assumed that Chris, being her boyfriend, didn’t count for the question.
         “For either of you?”
         “Same answer.”
         That made him smile slightly, but it was instantly back to business. “Can you think of any reason other than a relationship to Ms. Marshall that someone might want to hurt you?”
         They were wasting time. “No. None that I know of.”
         “Please repeat what you told me at John Toland’s funeral.”
         She took a moment to compose her memory. “It started with the call that John Toland and I took on Sunday that involved Josey Marshall and her daughter, Leyla. That was followed, on Tuesday, by the school shooting where John was killed. As Chris and I told you, the shooters called out Leyla’s name. Chris and I then spent Wednesday night and Thursday talking to people who were acquainted with her. Thursday evening, two men came to my door and questioned my roommate about me. And then later that night, Chris was attacked.”
         Reciting the week’s events in order made her realize that she had only known Chris Leighton for six days. They were moving fast. But that wasn’t germane to the question. She continued talking.
         “You and I spoke on Friday, and then Chris and I were attacked coming back from visiting Josey Marshall yesterday.”
         “Do you normally work on Saturdays?”
         “When I would have a shift with John, I could work any day of the week. Just like you.”
         He didn’t react to her saying that she was like him. She probably shouldn’t have added the little shot, but always being treated like a second-class citizen by police officers rankled.
         “Do you normally make client visits on Saturdays?”
         “No. I was doing more follow-up than usual due to the mounting number of ‘coincidences’ that you didn’t believe were important.” Sarcasm was not the best tool in her toolbox today, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
         “A video of an obviously planned attack changes my perspective.” His voice was flat in the face of her sarcasm.
         “Okay. What do we do now?”
         “You give us everything that you’ve found out, and we take it from here.”
         She pictured Chris limping out of the Emergency Room, covered in bandages. She thought about men with ill intent standing at her apartment door, talking to Beth. And she remembered the terror of being chased down by the pick-up truck just the day before.
         Turning it over to the police and moving on with her life and with her new relationship with Chris was appealing.
         “I can’t do that. I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know and keep you up to date. But there is a child involved, and I’m a clinical social worker. It’s just as much my duty to do everything in my power to protect her as it is yours.”
         “What about the chaplain?”
         “That will be up to him.”
          He didn’t pause. “Since it seems that these people are focused on you right now, we’ll put an unmarked car on you for a day or two and see if we can catch them in the act.”
         That reminded her of something she had seen in multiple cop shows. “Are you using me as bait?”
         He shook his head. “No, you’re making yourself bait. We’re just taking advantage of it.” The line sounded rehearsed.
         She spent the next hour going through everything she had seen and done for the last week.