Ate Gets Her Man

Once again thanks to Vickie for her help

Kate sometimes wondered how her life would have turned out if she had never married. She had a promising career as a New York City Police officer before her disastrous marriage had forced her to abandon life in the big city. Few people realize how rural most of New York State is. Reach into its northern mountains and lakes and you find wilderness, poverty, and a highly unsophisticated way of life. Gone is the cosmopolitan to be replaced by an insular hostility to strangers and racial prejudice.

Life as a single mother was difficult in a city if you had resources, but impossible without them. She did not regret her marriage or her choices because they provided the one gift that made life worthy while, Tommy. To Kate, her son was the reason she got out of bed each day. He was why she smiled through each adversity.

All she needed to make her life complete was that rarest of all things, a truly good man. She longed to be a mother again, to come home to a happy family. To have a father for her son and an unspecified number of siblings to keep him company. The most annoying thing in her life at the moment was the fact that every time her fantasy turned to the perfect man she thought of Dennis Morgan.

She spent Sunday night with her silver vibrating friend. She was a believer in building your pelvic muscles with kegel exercises. It was a wonderful excuse for pleasuring yourself and exercising at the same time. She could pull the vibrator into herself without the use of her hands. She spent an hour pulling the vibrator in and pushing it out.

Using her fingers on her clit while moving the vibrator in and out with her pelvic muscles she drove herself to six orgasms. Afterward, she felt ashamed not because she pleasured herself, but because Dennis had invaded her thoughts. He was an intruder she could not keep out. She remembered how it felt to be helpless in his arms in the pool, the warm passion of his lips in his good night kiss, and his sensuous dark almost black eyes. He was a powerful, seductive presence, but one she must resist.

Summers, Tommy spends his days at the Y's day camp. Kate would drop him off before her shift began at eight and try to pick him up as soon after four as she could. When she worked nights, she had to arrange for a sitter. Tommy was good about her night work. Ann Driscola, the elderly widow who lived up the road with her sister, needed to supplement her social security checks. Minding Tommy was a lot better than working at McDonald's as far as Ann was concerned. However, Ann didn't like working overnights. Seventeen- year-old Sophie was a good backup for Ann, but unavailable to sleep over alone.

Kate would swap out her graveyard shifts, midnight to eight a.m. for the four to midnights that were the least desirable. Ann knew that the second shift would most often result in overtime for Kate and a resulting late night for Ann or Sophie. It was a situation that worked well for all of them.

Normally Tommy was ready and waiting when Kate appeared at the Y's entrance, but not today. The girl at the desk informed her he was still in the pool, and so he was. He and Dennis Morgan were in the water together at the far end of the pool. There were half a dozen other young swimmers all getting instruction from Morgan.

"Mom! Mom! Come see what I can do," Tommy called.

Kate came to the pool edge as Tommy took off racing down the pool. Some of the other swimmers took off in pursuit. There was no doubt her son's swimming was improving. Reaching her, Tommy pulled himself expertly from the water.

"Did you see?" He said.

"Yes, you have gotten very good. I doubt I could catch you."

"Denny's been teaching us. Did you know he was a champion swimmer?"

"Yes, I did know that. He almost went to the Olympics I heard. Now it's time to go."

She sent Tommy off to the locker room as Denny came up.

"So now you're a swim instructor," she said.

"They needed someone to fill in between the basic and the advanced class," he said.

"Let me guess, they figured this out when you volunteered today," she said.

"Something like that," he said.

"Well thank you. Tommy can use the instruction. He likes to swim as you apparently noticed, but his mother isn't much in the water," she said.

"Doing anything for dinner tonight? I was going to grab a pizza," he said.

"Sorry, you have most of the town believing that we are a couple. I would prefer not to add to the rumor."

Denny laughed, "Ok, Kate, deny it all you want, but when I want something I don't stop until the buzzer sounds," he said.

Tommy was not as accepting of her refusal.

"Why can't we go for pizza with Denny?" Tommy demanded.

"Because we don't need to see Mr. Morgan every day."

"We don't, we didn't see him yesterday."

"It was Sunday, but we saw him both Friday night and all day Saturday."

"It's not fair, he's my friend and you don't like him."

There is no reasoning with an eight-year-old. Dennis Morgan sure knew her Achilles heel, but she was determined that Morgan would not use her son against her. Though as the saying goes, the best-laid plans of mice and road patrol sergeants....

________________________________________________________

"Sorry Kate," Jack Ferguson said.

"Look, please, can't you pick someone else?" Kate said.

"It's not till August. That gives you two weeks to find a sitter. We need a senior officer to be watch supervisor. With all the vacations in August, we are short. But be happy the Sheriff himself suggested you. He's got great confidence in you, and frankly so have I since you put all that Denny Morgan nonsense behind you."

There was no use arguing with Jack either about the assignment or about Morgan's guilt. But what was she to do about Tommy? Ann didn't like sleeping over and Kate was none too sure the older woman could handle the job. Sophie was too young to cover late nights like that. She was pondering her predicament as she reached her desk.

"Congratulations, lieutenant," Jim Lefave said.

"What?" she said.

"Acting third watch commander, Next step is Lieutenant. It will make you the first female in that job. Bet you get the bars by year end," Jim said.

"Slow down partner and remember I'm an outsider and a single parent with a young child. Got any idea who I can get to provide overnight care?"

"I would assume your boyfriend would. He's been spending every day at the Y in the pool with your son."

"Firstly he is not my boyfriend and second he is a violent criminal. How could I leave my son with him?"

"You got to be kidding me. You been on the job almost four years and he's the only guy you've ever been out with. Last five weeks you been seen with him at least a dozen times. I hear he's been to your house. People say he's crazy about you and your kid. If you're not his girl what's going on?" Jim said.

It was true enough. Dennis was like catnip to her. Try as she might she could not leave him alone. He would ask her out three or four times and she would resist, only to give in the four or fifth time he tried. And he never stopped asking or slacked off his assault, not one bit. They had stopped running separately in the mornings, and now ran together whenever possible. She wouldn't swim with him because he took advantage. When they were together in the water, she couldn't keep his hands off her. The worst part was, she knew she wanted his hands on her body and his lips touching hers.

If Tommy had his way, his friend Denny would spend every night with them. The two were good together. They played video games together and planned their next day's activities. But it wasn't just Kate keeping them apart. Morgan had a bar to run. Whatever else he did or didn't do, Morgan ran the Montague from seven at night to 2 a.m. in the morning. Tuesday through Sunday Dennis was in a Montague back booth, with only the occasional night off when he dated Kate.

"Who fills in for you when we go out?" she asked.

"Dan Dupree, of course, the best friend I ever had."

"I heard it the other way around that you pulled him from the gutter."

"You know you are not a very forgiving woman. We all have our problems, it's what we do to solve them makes us who we are. Helping others is the best way to solve your own problems. Don't look at what I did for Dan. Think of what helping Dan did for me."

"You are the strangest man I ever met, Dennis," Kate said.

"Why can't you call me Denny like everyone else?"

"Because Denny is the mask you wear. I want the man behind the front."

She kissed her Dennis then. It wasn't planned, she just did not stop herself.

--------------------------------------

"I don't know Jim. I have feelings for Dennis it's true, but how do you trust a man whose whole existence is a lie," she said.

Jim LeLave could only shake his head. If there was a more unlikely couple than Keenan and Morgan he had never heard of them, but something you could not quite explain existed in both of them. It was as if something larger than romance was at work. Something in their stars perhaps.

Kate fought it for ten days before she gave up and called Denny.

"I need a favor," she said.

They were at the Lakeside Dinner. It was lunch time she had invited him for once. As usual she could feel every eye in the place on them when they came in. However, attentions soon waned now that everyone seemed to regard them as a couple.

"Anything I can do for you," he said.

"I need to work the third shift the month of August that's the midnight to eight a.m. shift, but I don't have anyone to watch Tommy."

"Yes you do, me," he said.

"I can arrange coverage until you get off at 2 a.m.," she said.

"Why I'll be at you place every night by 11:30," he said.

"But the bar?"

He reached across the table looked her hard in the eyes.

"If it is a choice between the Montague and Tommy or you what do you think wins?" he said.

Kate looked down She couldn't speak for a moment, her heart felt like it was in her throat.

"I don't know what to say but thank you," she said tears touching the corner of her eyes.

________________________________________________________

By the end of her first week as watch supervisor Kate was exhausted. She'd had only the one bad accident on the Thruway and it had involved no death. She'd been required to kick the State Police off the accident scene -- the most corrupt and useless police force in the United States had been blocking traffic and the emergency vehicles with their patrol cars. Other than that incident she'd had a quiet sit down job. The only burden of the job was the astonishing amount of paperwork.

On her first night, she had expected the usual good-natured hazing. She'd gone near the whole shift before she needed to use the ladies room only to find it locked with no key to be found. If this was the best they could do, they were in for a shock. She walked right into the men's room, locking the door behind her. But all the stalls were latched from the inside. It took her a good ten minutes to get one open.

When she emerged, she got a bucket of ice water over her head before they all shared a celebratory cake with 'Miss Kitty' written in big letters. She'd been accepted as the new watch commander by the good old boys. When she kicked the State Police butts, she earned both their respect and their loyalty.

Returning home, she found Tommy up and dressed for camp and breakfast prepared for her. The beds were all made and sundry other chores performed. She tried to tell Dennis he did not have to do this, but he refused to listen. She knew her resolve, where Dennis Morgan was concerned, was slipping. She began to consider the possibility that you had to accept the facts as you knew them rationally. This man was no rapist and it seemed impossible he could have committed the crime. Maybe things between them could go somewhere.

Kate was in the watch commander's office when she saw Don Walker trying to sneak in. She caught him before he could reach the men's locker room.

"Hold it! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the Interstate!" she said.

When he turned, she saw the reason for his early return to the station.

"Jesus, please tell me you ran into a bear," she said.

There were four long deep scratches from his mid-right cheek down over his jaw line to his neck. All he could do was look guilty as she led him toward her office and the emergency medical kit.

When she had him seated, she began cleaning his wound.

"Alright, Who, When, Where, and Why, and it better be good," she said.

He hesitated partly in fear, but mostly embarrassment.

"I stopped Claire Trudeau for a broken tail light and, well, one thing led to another," he said.

"One more chance to tell me on your own," she said.

"Ok, Ok. Claire and I go back to high school when she was plain old Claire Morgan living in a trailer with her Mohawk father and her black mother. We dated. I was on the football team and she was a cheerleader. So I stopped her tonight and I made a suggestion that we get together again," he said.

"In other words, you made a sexual proposition to a married woman while on duty," she said.

He gave her a pleading look just before he flinched as she began coating the wound with iodine.

"All right, give me the exact words you used," she said.

"I can't remember exactly. You have to understand, before she was some big ass ski center manager and restaurateur she was just another dark skinned slut. So maybe I said something like why not meet me behind the Wal-Mart like old times—I'm way better than that fat husband of yours. And she does this and gives me a kick in the chins."

"OMG, you realize the complaint she's going to file," Kate said.

"Never gonna happen, not with you here," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"She's Denny's cousin. He built that restaurant for her husband and the Ski Center for her, but that's just by the way. The Morgans all stick together. Black, white, and mostly red, no Morgan hurts another and if you fight one, you better look over your shoulder to see if the others are coming."

He wasn't just a macho asshole. He was an idiot good only for manning a radar gun.

"Ok get out of here. You got mauled by a bear if anyone asks. But be aware, one more sexual advance to anyone while on duty and I will personally cut your balls off and stuff them down your throat," she said. She stood, and he got out of her office.

She sat down again and hammered her fist on the desk. Just when she was beginning to convince herself that Morgan was innocent, this comes up. They must all have known that Scott Tillman, Desdemona's lover, worked for Dennis' cousin, but no one had said a word. Claire was one of the missing pieces. She must have learned from Tillman where the couple would be on a night that Dennis could reach out and strike. Plotting what looked like an impulsive act. How long had they planned, and how many were ultimately involved? Don Walker had said the Morgans stick together.

_________________________________________________________

The young black woman was bawling orders to big coarse looking workmen in backhoes and bulldozers. She had a line of men working with shovels and others with crowbars shifting boulders. The mountain looked as if it was bleeding from a series of scars. The iron-rich rock was being leveled and shaped into the base for the snow that would be coming soon, both manmade and natural.

It had been three weeks since Kate had learned the connection between Claire Trudeau and Dennis Morgan. They had been hard weeks with her torn between what she saw as her duty, and the love she knew she felt for this man who had come into her life. Through gentle persuasion, Dennis Morgan had convinced her that she could have a meaningful life with a man.

These had been weeks of financial researching, and calls to an old police academy friend who now specialized in financial crimes. Those had been interesting conversations about the true state of the economy and how America's corrupt banking system actually works. A surprising number of financially sound small banks had failed while the large insolvent institutions that had caused the financial crisis survived with infusions of taxpayer money. The big banks were even allowed to enrich themselves further at the expense of the small banks.

The Tyler County Bank and Trust survived, but Alan Dodge refused to say why. He wouldn't lie, he just would not talk. It was anything you want Ms. Keenan, except the truth.

"For a special friend of Denny Morgan whatever we can do, but the bank finances and Mr. Morgan's relationship with the bank we discuss only with the regulators."

Claire saw Kate approach and she didn't smile. This was a tough, determined woman, Kate decided. She knew what Claire could do to a man, but she was undeterred. This had to be done.

"I'm—" Kate began

"I know who you are Sergeant, and why you have come," Claire said.

"People think this is a seasonal business and we have off when it isn't snowing, but we're constantly fighting to maintain it. It takes a lot of sweat and effort to keep people happy and relatively safe on these slopes," Claire said, turning to Kate.

"I'm not here to trap you or cause you trouble—" Kate said.

"No, you just want the truth, which is the one thing that will destroy us all. So why don't we walk down to the lodge building? We have hot and cold drinks and food for the crews down there," Claire said. She turned without waiting for a reply.

They found seats in the empty lodge building and Claire served coffee and Danish.

"It's already getting cold up here. Could be a good year," Claire said.

"Are you very profitable?" Kate asked.

"We do better than most thanks to Denny. He knew to put most of the money into the amenities. You never make money off the actual skiing. It's in all those extras. The food, drink, equipment you can sell," Claire said.

"I imagine your husband is a great help with the food and drink," Kate said.

"Charlie knows his business and that happens to be a kitchen, but you have to watch his expenses like a hawk."

"Especially since you're all broke," Kate said taking a sip of coffee but never taking her eyes off Claire.

"So you know. Denny said you would eventually get on to us. You certainly are no Desdemona," Claire said.

"She never caught on?"

"That stupid bitch. If she knew there was no money how long do you think she would have stayed? She is only good on her back and she thinks with what is between her legs," Claire said as her lips twisted and her eyebrows raised in disgust.

"But she would have known as soon as they got to the actually financial discovery. The minute they got past the assets into the liabilities and saw how all of this was pledged against the liabilities of the Tyler County Bank," Kate said motioning to the buildings and grounds around her.

Claire shrugged, "It wasn't expected to go on this long. The recovery has been exceptionally slow. Denny had no choice as he saw it. He could have saved himself, but only at the expense of all the rest of us. Allen was a wreck, I think he was contemplating suicide. None of us did anything wrong. A bunch of guys on Wall Street cheated, stole, and misjudge. My Mohawk grandmother was right, you can't trust Americans, only your own people."

"So everything Dennis Morgan owns and all the income is propping up a failing bank?"

"Not failing just undercapitalized. We couldn't let the regulators come in and take over. The FDIC would pay the small depositors by calling every loan the Bank had. The ski lodge, the Water Park, Belle Claire, Mama Lupe's and more than half the home mortgages in the county. We all would be back living in trailers."