Always a bit of a night owl also means I'm not exactly an early morning person. Last night I wound up on my phone until about 5 or so before I finally forgot what time it was last time I looked.
D got up sometime this morning & left out for work between then & 6 or so I guess. He's supposed to be in Lone Star at 7 & unlike me is almost never late for anything...so I'm pretty sure he was gone a little before 6.
After a couple hours of sleep there in the recliner, it was time to get up & get the kids some breakfast in their starving (yeah...) little (...right) tummies. Oddly enough, they love Malt-O-Meal so that was their choice this morning. I got it all cooked up, their bowls filled & back to the recliner I went for a while so I could work on my own breakfast of champions - Dr. Pepper.
It would have been nice to have gone back to sleep for a while, but with 2 wild kids, 3 Chihuahuas & a 120+ pound Lab/Great Pyrenees mix all here in the house & all knowing that I wasn't completely asleep anymore...that wasn't gonna happen. The kids were playing Connect 4 & Chess. I watched a cartoon with the Madagascar Penguins that they had on & finished about 2 cans of breakfast caffeine.
I don't know what time it was when I finally decided to get up & move around, but it was 10-ish. I did some stretching & my first 50 sit-ups...figured since I hadn't been down the dirt road in a while, I'd start back up. I got my shoes on & figured I'd get at least a 1/2 mile lap done. I went on out to the truck, grabbed the Oregon & heart rate monitor & sat down on the swing to finish off another DP while I got the monitor on & new batteries in the GPS.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something that did not belong. There was a Suburban parked out at the edge of the backyard by my burn hole! Between the house and there is the driveway, a "little house" aka building & some yard...about 70 yards.
Just a little startled at first, I started figuring in my head why it could be there. Geocachers? Maybe, but if so they really sucked at it because they were a pretty good ways from any of the 3 caches that were within logical walking distance. Na...surely not...we're smarter than that. Maybe somebody rode to work with D? As much as I hate calling (anybody), I did. "Did anybody ride to work with you today? Is there any reason a Suburban would be parked out in the yard?" Uhh...nope, that wasn't it either. Next idea was...well...something just ain't right.
I looked down there & couldn't see anybody anywhere. Couldn't see anybody inside or outside of the truck. What to do now? The kids were inside on the computer playing a game oblivious to the drama about to unfold outside. That was a plus because I definitely didn't want them out there with me "trying" to help. I went back to the truck & traded the Oregon for my S&W 9mm.
I'm not a scaredy cat but I'm not stupid either. I knew better than to walk down there & explore what was going on by myself. There could be anything down there as far as I knew at this point.
I locked all the doors here in the house & told the kids just to stay inside not opening the doors for any other reason other than me knocking. Think they still thought I was just going down the road & they were caught up in their game, so they were okay with that.
I tried calling Billy across the road. No answer & I'm pretty sure that the message I left didn't make a lot of sense. I think I said something about for him to either call me back or come over & that if he just came on over that he should come over the fence ladder & in the front door rather than coming around the back because there was a strange vehicle parked back there. I'm not real sure what I said exactly because by this point I was starting to feel a little freaked out.
Finally got some assistance when Kenny drove up. I seem to be on a roll so far this year because I had him out here yesterday too as part of the "unstuck my truck" crew. That's another "whole-day adventure" - lol. Anyways...he drove down next to the Suburban & I followed on foot. When I met up with him down there, he was talking to somebody right in the edge of the woods. Gun cocked & ready in my back pocket I slowly made my way on around the truck.
There was this woman, who my guess was 40-something-ish, sitting out there, legs straight out in front of her, back against a little tree, on the ground in the woods by my burn hole. Her hands were covered in blood & mud. There was a cut on her face. Some of the blood, but no way all, could have came from that...where the rest came from ??? She had long dark hair pulled back into a series of rubber bands down to about her mid-back. She had on a lightweight, long-sleeved, black t-shirt & blue jeans with one pants leg all scrunched up almost to her knee. I couldn't help but notice the pink camo-ed fat baby boots (lol).
She was in the middle of telling Kenny that she had been out there talking to her friend when all of a sudden, her friend just took off running into the woods. Uhh...ummm...o k a y...I don't know what I was thinking then.
To answer the question: "I" let the dogs out. I had the back door locked, but still cracked open a bit while I was standing there waiting for Kenny...the little 3 aren't very big & managed to slip out...the big one is big enough where if the door isn't latched he gets out if he wants out. Of course, they were where I was & when they noticed the "new" stuff out there, they were right in the middle of things barking at the invaders of their territory. They were barking all around her & out into the woods. They didn't take off into the woods but just that they were barking out into them & hearing that her friend ran off out there made me wonder.
She rambled on, then informing us that she was just there with her friend who was at the beauty shop right around the corner...pointing first to the house & then the other direction toward to dirt road. When we pointed out to her that there wasn't a beauty shop anywhere around here she told us that it was possible that she had made a wrong turn since she was sorta new to the area & not really familiar with Longview because she had spent the past several years in New Mexico or Colorado. ??? By now I was pretty much thinking that this lady was a wack-job!
When we asked her about the blood, she told us that she had been in an argument with the dog. My dogs were all there, but none were bloody which is a very good thing for her. BB is very protective but only stays within a couple feet of me & no way I had been that close to this nut. Sassy has a temper that can flare up pretty quick, but as long as she's not provoked she loves everybody - & I don't think this woman was livid enough to provoke anything (the entire time we were down there talking to her she never even moved). Cosmo is definitely big enough to do some damage if he wanted to, but then again, this is the dog that won't even chase a rabbit in the yard...yeah, he's lazy - no argument. I'm not even sure if he "can" growl. Pedro is the only one that would have possibly bitten her & since he's white it was pretty easy to tell that he had no blood on him. Was thinking to myself that maybe the friend of hers that was at the beauty shop had the dog with her getting it's hair done as well...hell, at this point nothing she said was gonna be much of a surprise (or make sense).
After letting her know that she was 35+ miles & at least 45 minutes from Longview, she tried to explain that she would call her friend to see how much longer she was going to be (there...at the beauty shop!) but the problem was that her cell battery was dead. This friend was one of those people that just was overly attached to calling other people's phones & that had drained the battery. She told us that if we'd let her borrow our phone for a minute that she'd give the friend a call. Kenny quickly pointed out that he didn't have a phone on him & I must have had one of those temporary lapses in memory because I didn't even think of offering mine.
I started taking a few steps back & Kenny followed suit. Didn't even bother thinking about walking back to the house...I was in the truck. When he got in as well, I just looked over at him & said "I think I need to make a phone call." There wasn't any disagreement & a few seconds later I amazingly regained my memory & found my phone in my pocket.
Before we were even back at the patio, I had the dispatcher on the line. I had already used the binoculars to get & write the license plate number down. Learning from previous confusion when the last crack-head I came across ran into & totaled my truck, my first question was if I had Cass or Marion County on the line. The stars were aligned (once in a blue moon thing I guess) & luckily I had managed to get Marion County on the line. I told him that there was a Suburban parked in my yard & a woman sitting out in the woods that was out of her mind crazy! ...that I needed a car out here now, if not sooner. He let me know that they were on the way.
Kenny left out to go back home...he had his daughter, so really couldn't stay. That was fine. I'm a tough cookie, she didn't really look like she was gonna get up & go anywhere, the kids were locked up inside the house & I had a 9mm in my back pocket with about 14 rounds in the clip. From the patio I had a pretty good view of the whole back hill, so all I had to worry about was getting my dogs back in the house. The way I saw it, she already had an argument & apparently got into a fight with one dog, mine weren't gonna be next on the list! Lol
BB was easy...I walk & she follows. Pedro wasn't all that tough, he actually comes when I call him. Sassy: The Afflicted, well...we just call her retarded. I called she ran in circles between the building & the burn hole - maybe she was chasing the invisible "thing" that she stares at in the house? I have no idea. So I gave up on her for a little bit & started looking around to see where Cosmo went (he's the big one). All around the house - no Cosmo??? Went through the house & looked out front - there he was across the road at Billy's...okay, that's fine. Back to Sassy. I went back out back & tried calling the little re-re again. This time I even got a response...from the nut-job out in the woods...she hollered out to let me know that Sassy was down there with her. Well, duhh...I could hear & see that Sassy was dancing around her barking again. A shake of the food bowl & she was on her way back up the hill. In the house she went.
D called back from Lone Star & I let him know what she had told us & that the calvary was on the way. He mentioned that if somebody was possibly out there in the woods that the neighbors might need to be let in on what was going on. Easier said than done. I wasn't leaving the house & definitely not taking the kids out of the house to go over there. I don't even know their names so looking up a number wasn't really gonna happen. I still hadn't gotten in touch with Billy across the road, so couldn't ask him to go over there. I called down the road to the Game Warden's house. Asked Terri if Ricky was home & gave her a brief run-down on what was going on & asked her to have Ricky go check in at the new neighbors house.
The cavalry arrived with a K-9 unit & an additional car. I again gave a brief run-down of what we had found out thus far & they took off down the hill. She rattled off a big long list of meds that she had taken (possibly) & they decided that an ambulance was her best ticket out of my yard. They searched the Suburban & recovered some marijuana, a pharmacy of prescriptions & a dog.
Maybe this was the vicious man-eating dog she had argued with? Let me just say that this thing was the baddest looking little weenie dog I think I have ever laid eyes on. Just watching it wag that fear-inspiring tail as it ran circles around the deputy's made me shiver in my boots at their bravery. (I'm being sarcastic here in case you were wondering.)
The re-enforcements finally arrived (aka: ambulance) & they too went down the hill to see this spectacle. She didn't really want to leave Holly (this was the friend) there at the beauty shop (which now, was right there in the woods) but the medics & deputy's convinced her that Holly would be fine. With a medic on each side, they hoisted this lady up off the ground. She tried helping by trying to walk but after about 5 or 6 partial dragging steps she decided it was better for her to crumple to the ground. That dog she had been arguing with really must have done a number on her to leave her so incapacitated! The medics at first decided that maybe they could again hoist her back up & just sorta drag her up the hill to the ambulance but that didn't pan out too well so at last they resorted to just driving the ambulance down there & using a gurney. (I thought this was a brilliant idea, somebody should have suggested that when they first got there...wait...I think somebody did...yep, pretty sure I suggested that from the start.)
After brilliantly loading this ridiculous character into the ambulance, everybody gets to stand around & wait for her boyfriend to show up. Now I was just hoping that we called the right guy. This could be even more interesting if the wrong one showed up to get her!
According to la-la-lady, Steve was her boyfriend, Frank was her ex-husband & Holly was her friend out there at the beauty shop in the woods getting her hair done.
When narrating while we had all been waiting on the ambulance she said that this morning she told Frank something… (I don’t remember what she thinks she told him, but that wasn’t the point anyways…). One of the Deputy’s then asked, well, who’s Frank? She quickly corrected that she had meant to say that she told Steve something this morning.
Once Steve (& yes he was the right one to have been called) got there a few more gaps in the history finally got “unfilled” in – nothing had made sense so far. She left his house (in the upscale & distinguished Crime Harbor community) the day before yesterday going to her mother’s house – not upset or after a fight or anything like that – she had just left to go visit her mother. Her mother never saw her, hadn’t heard from her & didn’t know that she was supposed to have been there. So with the additional info, we now had a solid 24-hour block that was unaccounted for – but – on the positive side, he assured everybody that Holly wasn’t with her…at least the woods are supposedly safe now. Lovely
The front of the Suburban was covered with mud, dirt & grass. There wasn’t any “stuck” spots there in my yard other than the gigantuous ruts in the front yard from yesterday’s adventure & the dirt road between the black top & the house was all free of anything that looked like she could have ran off the road here. Skipping ahead a little bit…the Suburban was also locked into 4WD. Just what went on before she crashed through the yard & landed her spaceship here?
The ambulance finally leaves taking ET-etta away. Steve & his friend attempt to get her Suburban out of my yard. The Deputy asks me…if they can’t get it started (they were trying to jump-start it) do you want me to get a wrecker out here? I think he already knew it was a no-brainer question but I told him anyways – I didn’t care how it got out of my yard, it just needed to be gone – that I didn’t want them to have any reason to come back out here. Of course, I was just thinking of them & the fuel cost of driving between here & Crime Harbor again & again – I had their best interests at heart, you know. Luckily, they get the thing started.
That’s when they found out that she had the thing locked into 4WD.
Me & the Deputy guys speculated a little while Steve & his buddy were out there getting the truck started…Maybe she never intended to go to her mother’s & instead went to see Frank, the ex-husband? Would explain why she had the slip up of saying his name instead of Steve’s when she was telling about what she had “told him” that morning – especially since Steve said she had left the day before. Maybe the fight was with Frank or his dog? It was just a theory – I don’t think any of us even think that she actually knows what was or had gone on for a while. The lady was pretty effed up!
Now, since she wasn't really with any of us on this planet nobody knew for sure what parts of what she had said were or were not half way real (I'd say true, but I think true makes a lot more sense in her case). Still wondering if somebody else could possibly be out in the woods somewhere the dogs turn was up.
this apparently is a beauty shop!
Starting there at the Suburban & her seat there in the waiting room at the beauty shop in the woods the dogs were turned loose to see what they could find. Luckily after a leisurely stroll through the woods all they came up with were some startled doves. I think that pleased everybody involved considering that Holly may, but most likely wasn't with her, & that we were all still a little unsure about the unexplained amount of blood she had on her hands.
When everybody finally cleared out it was almost 3:00! So much for my mile, mid-day set of 50 & belly dancin’ for the day (lol). I didn’t get the washing machine fixed either – not even the destructive part of getting it taken apart! All my sawmill boards & 2x6’s from the “unstuck-ing” are still down the hill in the front…didn’t get them picked up either. By the time I got the living room half way put back together from the kids being locked inside all day it was time to get supper together…which I went all out on by reheating the peas, cabbage & sausage from yesterday to cover (ha ha).
But I guess the state of the hill has finally been restored to as close to normal as usual.
Just to be safe though I've decided that sleeping with 2 guys might be best for tonight. After spending most of the day on my ass, I don't think staying with me for the rest of the night will be a problem. Sweet dreams Smith & Wesson & me...
