Waiting to Heal Read online

  Mrs. Logan turned to the stove and lit the burner under the already filled tea pot , “We’ll have a spot of tea while we talk, ok?”

  For the next hour they talked and went over everything that had occurred shortly before Mr. Logan’s death to the week after Megan’s plunge down that fire escape. The main reason for reviewing this period was to determine where the rumor of Mr. Logan’s depression actually came from. Once she was satisfied that she had gleamed all she could she said goodbye but promised to come see her for a visit in the future.

  Megan had been allowed to read the interviews the police had conducted during their short investigation. It seemed like the only people who responded with any hint of this rumored depression was the three individuals on the fourth floor below the Logan’s.

  In her opinion now, after this what she hoped was the final interview with Mrs. Logan, the three individuals on the fourth floor had an ulterior motive for spreading that rumor. Her and JJ’s task now was to find those individuals.

  The next day found Megan going from shop to shop near Mrs. Logan’s apartment. Her intent was to gain as much information on the three individual as possible from neighbors and local businesses. Unknown to her, she was again watched from that same white van.

  It didn’t take long for the van operator to be satisfied with his suspicions. That skirt wearing PI was not going to quietly fade into the background. They were going to have to take some action on her.

  Megan called JJ and asked if he still had that ladder and if so would he meet her at Mrs. Logan’s apartment. She wanted to go up on the roof and sweep the area to see if they could get some clue as to the previous activity going on up there.

  The van operator followed Megan back to the apartment, keeping his distance so he wouldn’t be spotted. It looked to him like she had some delivery guy bring her a ladder and he could only guess that she was headed to the roof to look around. He hoped his quick clearing of that roof top was sufficient to leave no clues for this broad. He thought about waiting for the delivery guy to leave and then ask him some question but on further thought he dismissed the idea. Now assured of her intent, he started the van and left the vicinity. As he drove away he was running a thought through his mind. Maybe there is a way to test out our product and get rid of the pest at the same time. He would have to discuss it with his partner before he could decide something like this.

  Megan and JJ stopped by the manager’s office and, for a bit of luck, found him there. Megan told him her plans and asked if he had a broom and dust pan they could use to sweep the roof for evidence. He was reluctant but came through with a wide bristled broom he used on the sidewalks and a dust pan they could use. Megan led the way and for the next hour they swept and picked up everything that was left on the floor of that flat roof.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flying High

  “Hey Megan, how is Mrs. Logan doing? I failed to ask you when we were sweeping up that roof,” JJ asked as he went into his office.

  Megan walked over to the doorway and leaned against the door frame of JJ’s office and answered, “She seems to be on the right path and she is looking really good.”

  “Update time I believe,” JJ said as he rose, came out of his office and led Megan into the conference room.

  JJ started as soon as they were seated in their normal position, “Mr. Johnson’s case is closed satisfactorily.”

  JJ went on to explain to Megan what the case entailed. She seemed really pleased that it was that easy and that there wasn’t really a crime involved just an oversight.

  “Enough case to give it a name?”

  “Not sure, didn’t take much time and there wasn’t a real crime, just a filing error that should be cleared up by now. Shady Elms said they would pick up the tab for our time relieving Mr. Johnson of that burden.”

  “Well think about a name for that case at your leisure, I like it when all our cases have a name.”

  “Can do, I’ll come up with something satisfactory,” JJ promised.

  “Hey wait, how about, The Case of the Shady Social Matter?” hang on one more, “The Case of Security at the Shady Social. Huh, good? What do you think?”

  “Ha, ha, those are not bad. So choose one or think on it a little more, maybe something else will pop but I do like that last one and it covers all the parts.”

  JJ called Darrel and told him he would pick him up for the ride to the ranch. He met Darrel outside his apartment waiting on the sidewalk. JJ read the box as Darrel loaded his equipment into the trunk of JJ’s car. Teal remote controlled drone was prominently displayed on the front of the one and a half foot square box. “This looks new,” JJ said.

  “Brand new, just needs a few minutes of assembly and it will be ready to fly.”

  “New? Ok but, I want to see this new bird in operation before we start flying over occupied buildings. Do you have time to take a ride with me out in the country so I can see you do your thing?” JJ asked Darrel.

  “Lead on brother, I got some time.”

  JJ called Paul and Sophia to see if it would be ok to come up to the ranch and test out his friend’s flying model. Paul relayed their concern about the horses reaction to a noisy model airplane’s loud gas engine but JJ assured them it was just a drone with battery powered motors and should be relatively quiet. JJ promise to test it near the horses before he did any flying above them. They agreed to let them test it out and then go from there with the reaction of the horses the major concern.

  It was an hour and a half later JJ and Darrel enter the front gate of the Haley’s ranch. Darrel was taken aback by the postcard beauty of the open pastures on both sides of the quarter mile drive. He was also amazed at the picturesque setting of the two story house tucked back into the hill that ran across the back of their property.

  “After those twist and turns coming around that lake and the other properties leading up to this one, I can’t believe how level and nice this property is. I had pictures in my mind of a hilly, rock strewn, barely usable piece of land, man was I wrong.”

  “I fell in love with this place the first day I came here and that is why I keep coming back,” JJ put in.

  “Are those race horses, you know, thoroughbreds I mean?”

  “Yep, born and bred right here.”

  “You didn’t mention that, now I am concerned about flying as I think they may be more sensitive to their surroundings than normal farm animals,” Darrel said as JJ drove slowly up the drive.

  “We will get the chance to test that before we do any of the serious flying stuff. They are comfortable with mowers and tractors moving and cutting around them so, maybe it will be ok. Give me the highlights on this new bird of yours,” JJ said.

  “Ok, you might think I memorized this but I studied this particular unit on line for some time before I purchased it. The ads say it is ready to race right out of the box but racing would require a bulky remote control to handle its ability. I’m not racing it so I stuck with my own hobby remote control as it has a four and one half star rating with a two mile range. I added the monitor capability so I could actually see from the camera on the drone as it flew. This Teal bird is stable and will stay on course through 40 mph winds. It’s only 10 inches in width weighting 1.6 pounds and will fit in most back packs, so it is completely mobile. It has a built in camera for capturing 4K video and 13-megapixel stills. This should fit your suggested requirements and oh, I upgraded to the 20 minute battery so we can video record longer.”

  “Dam Sam, that is a load and I presume it cost more than a $1.98?”

  “You got that right, just a few bucks more.”

  JJ and Darrel drove up to the house and spent a little time with Paul and Sophia. After Darrel told them how much he liked the looks of the place. Paul followed the two guys down to the big empty pasture. He had moved the horses around to give them a clear field for their drone testing.

  Paul had watched closely as Darrel prepared the drone for flight. “Wow, it’s a lot smaller t
han I expected. I would worry about losing it out here if it went down inadvertently. I helped my granddaughter fly her little helicopter out here. We lost control and it got away and went down, we’re still looking for the crash scene.”

  “I’m really hoping that doesn’t happen but this unit has a lot of safeguards that your helicopter didn’t have. This one has a very smart well protected computer on board. It has a locator beacon to assist locating it and it has a GPS guidance system that keeps it advised where it is. There is one other very important addition. It is like a boomerang, if control is lost, flying battery is low or any of several other problems that would interfere with flight, it will return to launch location, right here beside us,” Darrel explained.

  “Must be some computer on board, amazing,” Paul said.

  “I’m with you Paul, I wasn’t aware of its capability or the safeguards,” JJ added.

  The launch was almost anticlimactic as Darrel kept the prop speed at just enough to create flight. The little unit rose and Darrel pushed the direction lever and the little unit slowly floated away across the pasture. Darrel kept the drone at a slow speed and flew it, on the way back, about 25 feet over the tops of several horses.

  All three watched the action in the small screen that was part of the remote control. There was no reaction from the horses as the unit flew overhead. The unit was very quiet as it flew by. Darrel increased the speed and the whine of the unit was more apparent. He flew the little drone down to about 15 feet over the horses and it seemed they completely ignored it.

  They all heard the honking that caused them to look up together.

  “Flight of geese coming in,” Paul told them.

  “Let’s have some fun if it is ok with you?” Darrel asked.

  “You mean with the geese?” Paul asked.

  “Yep, I think I can fly with them.”

  “Ok, no harm to the birds please.

  “I promise.”

  All of a sudden the little drone rose at an amazing pace then fled across the field out of sight in no time. The little screen showed the flight of geese in the distance and Darrel hit a control and locked on to the flying birds. The birds rapidly increase in size as they filled the tiny screen. Darrel took the lock off the birds as they went by the little unit.

  Paul and JJ looked at each other as the small screen showed only an empty sky. They assumed the unit had lost the birds and would soon return to their location. Suddenly the back of the trailing bird in the flight of geese swung into view on the small screen. The large bird moved from right to left then finally stayed in the middle. They watched as the small drone closed in on the flight isolating on that particular bird.

  Darrel kept the small drone at a respectable distance from the birds but followed them as they flew over. The drone was dwarfed by the geese, it was like a period at the end of a sentence. The drone followed the birds as they flew over and it was barely visible due its size.

  As Paul had expected, the birds turned and made a large circle in preparation for landing in the large field. Darrel kept the drone on their six as they came down to land. It was amazing to watch the backs of those birds as they flared their wings and slowed for landing. The monitor showed the action of the bird’s muscles necessary for these large travelers to maintain speed, altitude during flight and fly the distance they did.

  “Well, what do you think?” Darrel asked.

  “I’m sold, the viewing of those building will be a piece of cake,” JJ said.

  “If possible and if you have them, I want copies of the videos you took during your test here. I am totally impressed, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Paul put in.

  “I will download them for you, no problem.”

  They packed things up, had a glass of ice tea with Sophia and Paul but begged off on any food. They said there goodbyes and Darrel said he would give the videos to JJ and JJ promised to get them to Paul on his next visit. Everything satisfactorily completed, they reluctantly headed back to the city.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Take the Nosey Bitch Out

  John Strong looked at his partner and said, “Well, I believe we have come to that point where we have to take action against this nuisance. I saw her down the street, in our new neighborhood, talking to that guy who brought her the ladder she used back at our old apartment.”

  “What the hell she doing here?” Clyde Salworth jumped to his feet and rhetorically asked then answered his own question, “She somehow tracked us down to this neighborhood, how unfortunate for her.”

  “I was thinking maybe we should use one of our completed units as a test. We could literally kill two birds with one stone so to speak,” John then continued, “complete a real time test and get rid of this PI nag.”

  “Do you think the boss and cell would approve of that?”

  “Best not to ask, easier to get forgiveness than to get permission on most operations like this.”

  “Let’s monitor them for a couple of days and see what they are up too.”

  What were they up too, they were totally committed to video taping the tops of all the surrounding building with Darrel and his super operating drone. Megan was still visible on the streets while JJ and Darrel had relocated to a more secure location where they could operate the drone without being observed by the locals.

  Once Megan was comfortable with the location of her associates, she made her way to a nearby restaurants where she took some time to have lunch.

  JJ and Darrel had video taped all the buildings that met the criteria anywhere close to the Logan’s apartment. The total exercise was a bust. There was zero activity on any of the roofs and the roofs were there for the taking if someone wanted. JJ thanked Darrel for his efforts and told him how much he enjoyed watching him fly that fantastic machine. He told Darrel that with his ability he should be flying drones for the military. Darrel assured him that he had thought about it but rejected it on many points.

  It was two days later John Strong and Clyde Salworth sat again in there apartment and John listened while Clyde told him what he had seen.

  “They were flying one of those remote controlled drones along the roof tops of all these buildings around here and I think they were looking for us. I couldn’t see where the operators were but I am sure it is the same guy she hired to bring her that ladder,” Clyde said.

  “You are sure it was them and they are connected to that sneaky PI bitch?”

  “Oh, it was her, I saw her in that restaurant down the street, she was just biding her time while the roofs were taped. Besides, who else could it be and why would anyone else fly a drone just above the roofs of these building? They were right on top of this building right here for some minutes as I watched from one street over. They had to be video taping the rooftops, yes they were looking for us glad we moved our work into the basement here.”

  “Had to do it as our previous exposure revealed our vulnerability, besides the next part of our task can’t be done on a rooftop,” John put in.

  “Well as far as I am concerned this drone shit tears it and we have to shut that sneaky bitch down. I think your idea of using one of our finished vehicles for a test run is a valid solution and she should be the current target for that operation,” Clyde said then slamming his hand twice on the table he shouted, “take her out, take that nosey bitch out!”

  Meanwhile Megan, her ears probably burning, was driving up to see her favorite doctor/coroner. Dr. Jan Su Yang had agreed to see Megan when she called him and they had set up this appointment.

  She parked in the same slot she had parked in before when she and JJ had been investigating Paul Haley’s arrest for murder. She, due to some paranoia, checked her surroundings before she left the parking area and crossed the street to the county morgue.

  “Yes?” came from the small speaker beside the Morgue’s entrance.

  “Hi, It;s Patricia right?” Megan asked.

  “That’s right, is this Ms Morgan?”

  “Yes and rememb
er it is just Megan, ok?”

  “Ok, I’ll buzz you in.”

  Megan heard the buzzer and the lock retracted so she opened the door and headed in toward Patricia’s desk.

  “Oooo, I love your hair like that, it is so modern but also reflects of the past. Who did it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Special one time cut. I don’t believe you would want to have yours done at the same place,” Megan said with a secretive smile on her face.

  “Now you got me, not going to let you go until you spill the beans,” Patricia said as she crossed her arms and put on a very stubborn face.

  “Alright, alright, I give. It was done by a brain surgeon and his two nurses.”

  “Seriously, you are not serious, you’re pulling my leg, right?”

  “Got the scars to prove it,” Megan said as she leaned forward and brushed her hair back from the almost 3 inch long lighting bolt scar that adorned one side of her upper forehead.

  “Oh my God,” Patricia said as she stood and took a closer look at the scar, “Wow, shades of Harry Potter, hey do you do magic?”

  Going with the flow, Megan turned her back, opened her fanny pack, took out her dark rimmed glasses and slid them on before she turned back to face Patricia. “I do and I just returned from Hogwarts so get me in to see the doc or I will curse you.”

  “Amazing, simply amazing,” Patricia sat back down and pushed the intercom button for Dr. Yang.

  “Yes Patricia?” came from the speaker.

  “Harry Potter here to see you.”

  “Harry Potter? Ok, send him in I guess. Has Ms Morgan arrived yet?” Dr. Yang asked.

  “I’ll check and see,” then Patricia smiled at Megan as she ushered her in to see the corner.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Potter at the Morgue