The Last Whisper By Bruce Cashbaugh

Chapter 1 Big, black, boxy

The burning car doesn’t need me any more than I need the burning car. I’m in my truck, on my way to have breakfast at Susie’s, the tiny little place stuffed into a corner of a 40-year-old, semi-remodeled, cement block building which used to be the garage portion of an old Shell gas station on the corner of 5th and Pine. But I turn left anyway, as I convince myself I need to check out the billowing black smoke off to the northwest.

I’m still riding the high of being elected Butler County Sheriff last week. Of course, I’ll retain the responsibilities, title and salary of Butler City Fire Chief, a position I’ve held for almost 12 years now. And I know I’ll have to take the required basic training test for a certified peace officer, because I’ve never been a police officer of any kind. But I have a year to do that. Showing up at this fire scene might be a good way to show my Fire Department crew that I still have an active role with them, and that they’ll need to continue to check their rearview mirrors from time to time. I’m still in charge of the FD.

The burner had been a small car and when I get to it, it’s a small fire. Jimmy and Crew 3 have Engines 7 and 9 on the scene, traffic control is deployed correctly and two of the crew are still pouring water on the car chassis. I try to identify the two crew members actually on the hoses, but can’t, due to everyone wearing the same equipment and being more or less the same height. I drive slowly past the burning car, pull onto the verge on the right side of Monroe Street and walk right up to Jimmy.

He's busy, he knows what he’s doing and I’m hungry. So I pretend to stare at the vehicle instead of Jimmy for just a few seconds. It was completely engulfed by the flames, but now, the black smoke is diminishing rapidly, yet still starkly darkening and polluting the blue mid-November sky. Hell if I know what kind of a car it used to be, a small sedan, possibly a dark color, maybe black, maybe brown, could have been a Ford, or maybe an import, and I can’t even get a hint of the nameplate. Doesn’t matter the slightest.

I nod once in Jimmy’s direction, walk in a wide arc around to the far side of the fire, and climb back into my new truck.

I love my pickup. I’ve always loved pickups. Back when I first got a job with the Butler City FD, I put damn near all my first paycheck into a downstroke on a 7-year-old Ford F-150. When I became Fire Chief, I switched to GMCs every three years. Now I’m doing a new one every year, top of the line, every extra that Jeff can find from the factory. White. Always white, tan interior. I’m not much of a music fan, hate listening to the news, the Royals season is over, and the Chiefs lost yesterday. Again. I leave the radio off most of the time.

Since it’s a Monday, I’m heading to Susie’s rather than the Sunrise, my even-longer-term breakfast joint of choice. A few months ago, I heard about Susie’s, had a fling with it, liked it, and decided to spread my breakfast business around a bit more. Came in handy when I decided at the last minute to run for County Sheriff, as my new habit of having two habitual breakfast spots means I see twice as many people and have twice as many conversations each week. Handy when you’re asking folks to vote for you.

Susie’s and the Shell station is a small building, with just two sets of two gasoline pumps each in the front, parking on the side. A corner location makes ingress and egress easy no matter where you’re coming from or going to. Easy to get to and get out of, convenient for the folks on this, the north side of Butler; since the Sunrise is on the south side, I’ve got the whole city covered. I pull into the parking slot at the side of the building, duck under the awning that covers the walkway.

“Hey ya, Chief Chief.” It’s . . . well, I don’t know his name, but he’s been behind the front counter of the Shell station convenience store for as long as I’ve been coming here, which has to be nearly 20 years. “Congrats on winning that big election to Sheriff, now you’re Chief twice over, so I call you Chief Chief.”

I’m not embarrassed by this, I’m hard to embarrass, but it seems rather juvenile to me. On fourth thought, I’ll take it. I’m happy, too.

“Thanks, my man,” I wave to him as I walk back to the far right-hand corner of the building to peruse the hand-lettered menu board at Susie’s.

“Bacon, egg and Asiago on an Everything. Largest coffee you got.” It took me years to get used to bagels, now I can’t get enough of the things.

“Sure, Chief,” Susie replies. “I tried to keep table 2 clean for you, just give me a sec to get out there and wipe it up. Happy Monday.”

Table 2, Susie says. As if. There is a total of five tables in her place, each too small to accommodate more than two people, and that only if they’re petite and good friends. I sit at one of them, look around to find the table number. She does a brisk take-out business, since the atmosphere inside is as non-existent as the table space.

No matter. Susie comes out from behind the counter, wipes the tabletop and returns a few seconds later with a quart-size Styrofoam cup of java.

“About four,” she says, holding up the four fingers on her left hand. I assume that means four minutes, and sip away. I flip through my phone until she brings out my sandwich, on a paper plate with two napkins. Like I’ve been here before.

I finish in six bites, decide to head on over to where my new Sheriff’s office will be located. It’s in the City/County Building in downtown Butler, which also houses the Butler City Police and City Mayor and all the County offices as well. Everything is pretty close to every other thing here in Butler; with a population of 7,129, give or take, there aren’t so many things to begin with.

I climb into my truck, head up the street to the City/County Building, wondering if there’s a reserved parking spot for the County Sheriff, with a large sign to keep the riffraff out of it. I’m turning the steering wheel, pointing into the lot when I spot a vehicle almost as big as my Denali Ultimate. Only it’s a flat black color, no chrome, no flash, just size. Big, black, boxy. I stop, put my tranny into Park. The size of the vehicle alone stops me. I’m not used to seeing other new, clean, shiny vehicles nearly the size of my truck in Butler. But here’s this one.

No, here’s two. Three. As I hit the brake and start to shift into Drive, I see a man in a black suit, wearing a bright white shirt and a dark tie, carrying two bankers’ boxes out of the City/County building directly to the waiting black boxy SUV. The rear lift gate opens as if by magic, he places his two boxes into the back, and as the gate closes, he turns and walks back into the building.

I pause for a fraction. Put it into Reverse, back into the street, and head three blocks east to my own turf, my Central Fire Department, where I know I have a reserved parking spot. It’s the same two-story, dark red brick building that’s been the base of my professional life for a dozen years, surrounded on three sides by concrete and on the fourth side by Barnes Hardware, one of the oldest businesses in the County. I drive slowly along the street, up to the driveway, slow, no turn, just observe the parking lot.

I know from long experience there should be four or five vehicles in the parking lot, all but one of them pickups, and an empty, reserved space for me. My space is empty alright, except on both sides of my parking slot is another big, black, boxy SUV, damn near as big as my truck. I don’t see anyone carrying boxes out of my fire station, so that’s good.

But I drive past, on my way to my home.

I live in a house I inherited. It’s not far, but my pulse rate tells me I have many more heart beats per minute than I’d normally have driving from the Main Fire Station to my home. Seven minutes is my standard drive; today it seems an hour and a half. In my jumbled mind.

There’s a big black boxy SUV parked on the street in front of my house. I drive past at 4mph under the speed limit, marking it at 26mph, and just slide on by, twisting my neck to see if there’s a guy on the front porch acting like he’s waiting for an answer to his doorbell ring. There’s no panic quite like fresh panic, in a head and a gut that hasn’t felt panic since maybe third grade when I couldn’t remember the last three lines of the poem the class had been assigned to memorize the night before.

While I’m trying to drive calmly away, to keep moving, wondering if the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, soon to be my employees, the Butler City Police or the FBI have a warrant for this search and seizure. Or a warrant for my arrest.

Now, I have done some things. Still do some things. Professional things. I have a few side responsibilities that provide more than gas money, I sit on a couple of paid boards locally, don’t mess with the volunteer stuff, and I provide some sales consulting on a commission basis for a few businesses around the county and beyond. I used to own some real estate here and there and had financial interests in a couple of businesses, but I simplified that up a couple of years ago, streamlined my portfolio and in general reorganized, scrubbed and swept clear anything that could be mis-construed. I think I’m damn clean right now, don’t see how a single thing I have going could be viewed as illegal, let alone be proven to be illegal. County contracts get moved, pricing adjustments are made, bid specifications are updated, these things happen in the daily course of business. Of course.

If I left anything on paper, I could be . . .

Did I ever put anything illegal on paper? I have Non-Disclosure Agreements on all my board positions. My consulting agreements are mostly ad hoc arrangements, handshakes. The commissions that I get year-end information for tax records, those get recorded and I pay income tax. They’re not going to get me like they got Al Capone, on income tax evasion.

If the FBI was at the County or the City offices only, I feel comfortable that they can’t find anything. At the Fire Department, well, two years ago, yes, that would have been a problem. Today, no.

At my house? Yeah, that’s an issue. There’s some stuff there, all stashed neatly and orderly in a safe with a big combination lock. Which is below the floorboards in the kitchen pantry, underneath the beer and miscellaneous canned goods that have been there since right after the pandemic, and probably out of date and spoiled now.

But what’s scary is that they are at City/County, Main Fire, and my house. It’s me they’re after.

I’m driving slowly, straight along Wheems Road, when my phone rings. I almost smack my head on the roof liner of my truck. It’s Rebecca, so I tap the button.

“Where are you?” she asks abruptly.              

“I’m in the middle of panic,” I reply.

“You should be, because I’m close to it myself. The FBI is here, in the city side and the county side of this building, not in my office because we do things by the book here.”

“What are they doing?” I ask pleadingly, hoping that it doesn’t involve me.

“I saw the search warrant. Judge Delaney issued it. It’s proper and legal and a hell of a pain in the ass for probably every one of the City and County departments. They are cleaning out the files over there, I mean taking all of both the City and County files, labeling them, putting them in boxes and taking them out of here.”

“What are they looking for specifically?”

“Everything. Meeting minutes to bank statements, all the contracts and expense records for both the City and the County. The Board of Supervisors are all coming in, Joan’s on her way. They are scared.”

“Rebecca, should I be scared?”

“Only if you did something illegal.”

“Is anyone arrested?”

“No, the warrant I saw didn’t mention any arrests or names, but your specific offices and your home are on there and you can bet your ass they will be looking everywhere for everything.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“I called you because I know you seem to live above your professional situation. No other Fire Chief has the, let’s say investment portfolio you’ve mentioned to me. I didn’t call you to warn you, either. Just to tell you that your home and the two fire stations are going to be searched and searched well.”

“What should I do, Rebecca?”

“I have a trial that starts in eight minutes. If you have something somewhere that you don’t want the FBI to see, it may be too late. I gotta run, talk later.”

She hangs up. I pull a u-ey without looking and head, at four mph under, to the new fire station. Although I’ve been to the newer station five, four, then two and if I’m honest, maybe one day a week since we built it a few years ago, it still looks and feels strange. Built on land I used to own, then sold to my Aunt Emma. And there it is.

‘It” being a single big, black, boxy SUV parked in the lot, in my spot, the one with the Reserved for Fire Chief sign. It’s an effort not to pull in, park them in and raise hell, find out what the fuck is going on. But I don’t. I accelerate to the 30mph allowed and keep on driving. Two rights take me down Phillip Lane, where I pull into an old, disused driveway. It used to be my driveway, before I sold the mobile home that I grew up in for junk.

Nothing is safe. Nowhere is safe.

 Read The Last Whisper and other books by Bruce Cashbaugh by visiting ideas-happen.com.