Chapter 7. Shawna
To others Shawna seemed to have had a difficult life. Her mother died of a heart attack when Shawna was fourteen. She had been tall, strong, and a renowned collegiate athlete. Her mother was just thirty-four years old when she died.
Her father never got over his wife's death. He turned to alcohol and died of liver failure the summer after Shawna graduated from high school. She had understood that her father was committing suicide and counseled him throughout. She got him to seek help but the pain of his loss always led him back to the bottle.
Her father managed to keep his job until his death so Shawna had acceptable levels of food, clothing and shelter while he lived. She had worked as a waitress since her sophomore year in high school and managed to keep half of her earnings in savings.
After her father died she sold their house and attended a community college forty-five minutes away from Felicity. She got her associate degree as a paralegal and returned home and was soon living with her best friend and occasional lover Jana. There were no jobs available for a paralegal so she returned to waitress work.
Shawna was the virtual fourth daughter to Ben and Janice Cartwright, Jana's parents.
Between them Ben and Janice were the wealthiest citizens of Felicity, a lot wealthier than their lifestyle would indicate. When Shawna had expressed interest in becoming a police officer they made certain that she got her wish.
They financed her enrollment in a private police academy that was a state approved school to train potential officers for towns too small to be able to finance their own academies.
Shawna was chosen as the best cadet in her class particularly impressing with her knowledge of the law and her physical training.
During her physical training class a particularly arrogant and racist instructor was rendered unconscious by Shawna's well-placed blows during a self-defense exercise. He had become so incensed with her ability to fend off his attacks during the training session that after the exercise was over he continued to attack her.
She warned him that if he came at her again she would not hold back. He shouted a racial slur at her and rushed in. Ten seconds later he was on the mat with a dislocated shoulder, a broken nose and two broken ribs.
While still on his hospital bed he found out he was also unemployed. By the time he was released from the hospital the video of his humiliation had somehow made its way into You Tube. He made himself disappear. Shawna became her academy's class hero.
About that time along with many in the town of Felicity Ben and Janice Cartwright had reached their limit of endurance on the city and county politicians. They had become entrenched in their positions thinking it was their birthright. Ben and Janice decided to change things.
They interviewed several people they knew to be intelligent and fair-minded and financially backed them for political office.
The incumbents were not prepared for a serious challenge and had ignored the amateurs running for public office against them. They were lazy, arrogant, and clueless.
If they noticed the strong volunteer campaign to register new voters they did not react to it.
They sneered at the county Judge candidate, Lydia Mendoza. They chuckled at the mayoral candidate Rhonda MacDuff. They were not worried, after all they were just women.
If they noticed that those two had visited with every single voter they did not react to it.
If they noticed that each town council candidate knew each of their future constituents by name they never noticed.
The incumbent's loss was so overwhelming, so stunning, that it never occurred to them to dispose of the thousands of documents that proved how corrupt they were, including bribery and extortion.
With the backing of the State Attorney General newly elected County Judge Mendoza issued warrants for the arrest of the former mayor, the police chief and nearly half of his officers. The un-indicted officers were allowed to resign. The head of the public works department disappeared as soon as he was indicted and was labeled a fugitive from justice. Mayor Rhonda fired most of the town's department heads.
For one week Felicity ceased to have a police department but the county also had a new sheriff and he saw to it that Felicity would remain protected. It was his home too.
The new city council appointed Shawna as the interim chief of police. All of the members of the city council had seen her grow up and knew how intelligent she was and how mentally tough she was. There was no dissent in the council and nearly none in the community as Felicity acquired the first woman and the first black police chief in its history in one striking package.
Shawna was charged with recruiting new members for the department. Two members of the city council assisted her during the interview process, Martha MacDuff and Juanita Alvarez. In fact Shawna allowed Martha to conduct most of the interviews because she was the best judge of character anyone knew.
Shawna's first two recruits were classmates at her academy, a married couple. The next ten came from police academy cadets that had washed out of big city classes.
All of them had been commended law officers in smaller towns before they applied for the big cities police academy and all had apparently been dismissed on whims. Two were lesbian, one was of Arabic descent, two were black, three Hispanic and two Asians. The ten were the first non-good-old-white boys to become permanent members of the Felicity police department.
