Eleven Days: An Unexpected Love (60 page)

"Thank you sir," Mike said as he glanced over the list of names to see if he recognized any of them and any he could trust. There were a couple of names.

*****

Mike picked up two of the ten big boxes and walked into
his
office where Raymond and Joe were waiting. He sat the box on
his
desk and Raymond asked. "Well?" Through the years of working together he knew the answer before Mike spoke. He could read
his
face. Mike didn't have a poker face
with
Raymond.

"The three of us and Gopher get the case and all the boxes are in the director's office. T
his
is the first two. I also get one more person to help and I thought of some
one, but I wanted to ask you both
first.
Her
name is Jacque Real and
she
is a FBI agent.
She
has been following t
his
guy for awhile. I know we probably won't need
her
, but
she
might prove to be valuable. What do you guys think?"

Raymond and Joe looked at each other and Raymond
shook
his
head no. "You know Mike, we have worked
with
the FBI before and it's hard to cross paths. There are too many alpha males or in
her
case moody females. I say no."

Joe spoke next and said. "I have never worked
with
the FBI so I'm going to stay neutral."

"Well how about we give
her
a week and if it doesn't work, we send
her
packing." Both men shook their heads yes. "Good, so let's go get the boxes," Mike said.

Raymond grinned and said. "Let's go get them."

Mike paused. "One more thing guys, I think I want everything set up at the beach house," Mike said looking at the guys to evaluate their reaction.

Joe looked confused he thought Mike
would
not ever want to go back to the house.

Mike answered their doubting glares. "I think the reminder of
Lana
will help us work harder and help us remember why we have to solve t
his
case
. There is one more thing."

Both Raymond and Joe asked simultaneously. "What?"

"We only have thirty days to solve t
his
or it goes back to the FBI."

They all three smiled and Raymond said. "
That
's fifteen days longer than we need."

Mike's phone rang. "Hey Sara what do you have for us?"

She
was
so upset
she
could hardly talk. "Mike it's not good news. Not good at all."

- The End -

My next book is call
ed
The Party Line and it's for all ages and will be published by November 1st. The story is about a precocious little girl who visits her grandmother for a week in June 1971. She listens in on the party line telephone. Then she repeats what she hears, and then the trouble begins. Be sure to
look for the book to read more…. Enjoy!

'Prologue
'

Dear Readers,

You will be shocked by the story you are about to read. You will be even more shocked when you find out the story is about a ten year old girl named Gerty, and that's short for Gertrude. Her name is Gertrude Connor. This story takes place in a small town called Spiro Oklahoma during one week in June 1971.

Gerty is a precocious little girl with mousy brown hair that is as straight as a board that flows half way down her back. She is fifty-six and one quarter inches tall. The reason I know this is because she measures her height every week. She thinks a miracle will happen and her height will jump up to five-nine, the same height as her beautiful cousin Becca. Gerty is as skinny as a pencil and weighs a mere seventy pounds. Her puppy dog brown eyes could melt most little boy's hearts, but she could care less about the boys. She is more interested in music, and her favorites are The Jackson Five, Beatles, and the Osmond's. The Osmond's just came out with their new song
Sweet and Innocent.
Gerty saved her allowance and bought the 45 record, upset she paid an outrageous price of .59 cents. She has played the song at least one hundred times the past week.

Her birthday is in eleven days, four hours, and sixteen minutes and since she's almost eleven, why not go ahead and tell everyone she is eleven. Gerty hopes she gets an eight track player for her birthday, but deep down she truly wants a boombox.

I will be honest, you will laugh and be shocked by what I'm about to tell you. As you read this story some of you will call Gerty a brat, and some of you will say she needs more supervision, and most of you will say both. But the main premise of this story is about Gerty, a
party line
, and unsuspecting neighbors.

I'm sure many of you are wondering,
what is a party line
? A party line has to do with a telephone, better known today as just phone. People usually don't say the word telephone anymore. Maybe it's because we are in such a rush we have learned to abbreviate as many words as possible. But anyway, before I get into the definition of a party line, let me tell you a little bit about telephone history. Most people know the invention of the telephone happened in the late 1800's. Now that we know that, let's start with the 1900's. In 1928 Herbert Hoover was the first president who installed and used the first telephone in the White House. I bet you didn't know for him to make a telephone call, he had to use a telephone booth outside the executive office. In 1940 over 180 million telephone calls were made per day. By 1950 seventy-five percent of homes had party lines. But we'll get to that in a minute.

In 1962, the first year telephone numbers were given to customers. Before that, you had to ask the operator to connect you to the person you wanted to call. And guess what, the operator could listen in on your calls. Here's some more information about telephone operators. The secret service conducted a background check on all operators before they could start work. The government wanted to make sure they didn't hire any spies. In 1963 the first touchtone telephones were introduced. I imagine you have asked yourself, what is a touchtone telephone? The answer is -- your cell phone, it's touchtone. Before touchtone we had a rotary dial. Instead of pushing buttons, you had to turn a dial to make a call. They are similar to the children's play phones we have now. If you don't know what a rotary dial is ask your mother or grandmother. When you ask her she will smile, I promise. She will recall many great memories with that question. While you chat with her about it, ask her about the princess telephone introduced in 1959, especially the pink ones. In 1968, the 911emergency number was introduced and everyone knows all about 911.

Finally, a trivia question I want to ask you. What year was the first cell phone call made? You will
find out the answer at the end of the story. I bet most of you will be shocked by the answer.

Now let's get to the definition of
party line
. It is also called a shared line. It's a telephone number several
homes
share. That's right
homes or houses
. The most common were two, four, and eight party lines. Simply, it means two homes shared the same telephone number, or four homes shared the same telephone number or eight homes shared the same telephone number. If you have a four home party line, three of your neighbors have the same telephone number as yourself. Just think how crazy it would be if you were on an eight home party line, you would have seven neighbors with your telephone number. For example, let's say your telephone number is 555-5555, seven neighbors also had the same telephone number 555-5555. That's crazy, and it get's crazier. If your telephone rang, so did all you neighbors who shared the same party line. I bet now you're wondering how did the houses know which call was for them? You would know by the number of rings. The first house got one short ring. The second house got two short rings and ….
you
get the meaning. So if you were the eighth house on that party line you had to count eight short rings. If you're still confused, I think it will become clear once you read the story.

If you have any other questions about party lines, ask your grandmother, and I'm sure she can tell you all about it. She might even tell you more than you want to know.

             
             
             
             
             
             
Lora Lindy

One Short Ring
:
Cary and Hazel Carter. Cary was named after the actor Cary Grant and Hazel was named after her great grandmother. They were a couple in their early forties and he worked as a supervisor at a cannery in Fort Smith Arkansas twenty miles from Spiro Oklahoma. He had been with the company since he turned sixteen years old and quickly moved up the career ladder. One of the reasons for his rapid ascent in the chain of command was because of his laid back happy-go-lucky personality. He had to be a great guy to put up with Hazel's illnesses. Cary had brown hair and stands about six feet tall with an average build. He had what most women called
dreamy eyes
, just like Paul Newman. Every woman Cary ever met commented on his dreamy eyes. When people found out he was named after Cary Grant, they laughed. They said he should have been named Paul Newman Carter. The irony of it all, Cary and Hazel named their son Paul Newman Carter. When Hazel saw those beautiful blue eyes the minute he was born, she couldn't resist, poor little fellow.

Hazel was a housewife who loved to read, especially love stories. She couldn't get enough of love stories and soap operas. Everyone loved the soaps especially the wife's who stayed home. In 1971 soaps were the number shows women watched during the day. If they talked about a new recipe, Hazel tried to cook it. If they showed a new hairdo, she tried to fix her hair the exact same way. If one of the stars got ill, she got sick even if the illness was a figment of their imagination. Hazel dyed her hair a medium brown, and she swears up and down she has never put any liquid color on it. She stood at five-feet-eight and squeezes into a size ten dress. Nobody could even begin to count how many times this
woman let the buttons out of her dresses. Everyone smiles when she tells them she had been in a size ten dress since before she married over twenty three years ago. According to her, even though she gave birth to three children, she never lost her girly figure. But everyone loved Hazel, mostly for her drama. 

Two Short Rings
:
Dustin and Patty Berry. Dustin was the chief of police and held that title for over twenty years. Everyone in the community loved Chief Berry and that was one of the reasons for his long tenure. He had sandy blonde hair and green eyes. His height towered over many people with his six-foot-six large frame. His stature and deep voice intimidated many criminals and small children. Once a little six year old girl lost her puppy and she went door to door in search of her beloved Oscar. When she walked up the chief's house and knocked, she had to lean her head way back to look at his face.

He asked with his scruffy deep voice. "Can I help you?"

Tears ran down her cheek and after sniffling for a few seconds she gathered the courage to answer him. "I lost my puppy, and you're scary." Then the little girl ran to her daddy. She cried her eyes out as she glanced back at the chief. She wanted to make sure this mean man didn't chase her.

The chief felt bad for her and drove around for two hours in search for a cute little puppy, then finally found a miniature Lassie. He found the puppy bouncing around as he barked at a squirrel he had run up a tree. Then he drove house to house in his neighborhood to find the little girl. At the end of the day the puppy and owner were reunited. Maybe that was the reason why everyone loved him so much.

His wife loved life. Patty had beautiful light brown hair that fell nearly to her waist. Her gorgeous hazel eyes melted her husband's heart. She was tall for a woman, six feet, and she towered over most men. But her stature was small and she weighed only one-hundred-thirty pounds. When she was young, she dreamed of pursuing a modeling career like Cheryl Tiegs, but it never worked out for her.

Patty met the chief just after she turned nineteen and they've been together for over twenty five years. One day he stopped her for a traffic violation and asked for her telephone number. Patty told this handsome policeman she would give it to him if he didn't give her a ticket. He didn't. The cute young lady wrote her number on the palm of his hand. From that moment on, they fell in love.