I stood at the edge of the lake and was taken in by the absolute silence. It was mid September and the tourists had retreated to their regular homes. After several minutes I came to the realization that I was decompressing. It was then that Larry walked up and said "I thought you'd like it out here."
I had interviewed with Nolan, the chief of the department, and Larry's Captain at the fire station that they worked at, just before talking to Larry. Nolan impressed me, making me realize why he was a Fire Captain, being sharp and to the point.
In the main office where I was to work out of, the main (three extension) phone was perched on an old banquet table and a worn metal folding chair awaited whatever dispatcher would be working. Speaking of dispatchers, Susan was the daytime dispatcher. She didn't have the chops for the job as she came across as a helpless grandmother, but since daytime dispatch only had to deal with 2 or 3 emergencies a week. The main evening shift dispatcher was Pam, and Pam was a piece of work.
Pam had been a stripper with really big tits before taking this job. Pam actually had the chops for the job, but she had a recent trauma that she just couldn't get past, that was her high school boyfriend, and love of her life, permanently breaking it off with her. Still, being a stripper, she had learned to manipulate men without actually putting out and that led to her getting away with a lot of crap, which I'll cover later.
Our equipment was a 1936 Buffalo fire truck and a former state police car, which was in surprisingly good shape. Our new department had in our jurisdiction a massive lakeside resort with a HUGE conference center (our offices were in a tiny corner of this facility), a 24 story hotel tower, full service spa, restaurants (both in and out of the conference center), bungalows, golf course and a marina. Our jurisdiction also covered two subdivisions with very pricey homes, three quarters of a 21,000 acre lake and an unincorporated area with ramshackle homes inhabited by rednecks and hillbillies (who would come to us for free medical care because they couldn't afford a regular doctor's office visit).
The firefighter/EMT's of Nolan's fire station would be our EMT's and shift supervisors. There were two Sams (both of whom were slimeballs) and a second Larry (the other Larry was also the chief of security at a very pricey resort in the big city. I liked him, he was very smart and his wife was the personal secretary to the CEO of Compaq-now Hewlett/Packard). Speaking of Compaq, they started a renovation a month after I started this job. Two of Nolan's guys brought us desks, chairs and cubicles that had been discarded. Now, we were beginning to look like a real public safety department.
The officers of our department were local yokels, real backwoods boys that barely survived high school and then got their peace officer licenses at local junior colleges. They despised me for having an education and spread misinformation, often, about me. The head of patrol was Ernie.
Ernie spoke with a real backwoods accent and his blackened teeth were the result of never having consumed fluoridated water. Don't let his accent and appearance fool you, Ernie is one of the smartest and wisest men I have ever met. At first, Ernie was on the side of the yokels that despised me, but that would come to change after an incident in a restaurant on the resort.
A man who recently had throat surgery had sneezed and was now bleeding out. I sent the two Larrys and dispatched an ambulance from a local hospital (ETA 15 minutes-we were way out in the boonies). Then the second Larry called on the radio and said "Go ahead and get Life Flight out here, we'll see if we can keep him alive until then."
I called Life Flight dispatch. This was the second time in my life that I had to call Life Flight and I was prepared, as Life Flight asks A LOT of questions as they are sending a helicopter. After talking to Life Flight I called the two yokels on the scene and told them to prep a landing zone and how to prep it (there was a massive and empty parking lot across the street from the restaurant).
Forty five minutes later, the pilot of the Life Flight helicopter called me on the phone, upset that a landing zone had not been prepped for them. I got on the radio and ordered the two yokels to go outside (they were watching the (now) four EMT's work). One of them tried to weakly say that they had prepped the (insufficiently small) side lot of the restaurant and I heard one of the Larrys scream at them "DO AS HE SAYS AND GET YOUR ASSES OUTSIDE!!"
When Ernie came in at 6 AM, the two Larrys gave him an earful of what had his boys had not done. When I came in at 2, those two yokels were also coming in. Ernie started in on them "YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS!!" and over the next fifteen minutes he just ripped them to shreds. A couple of times the yokels pointed at me, but that only made Ernie angrier as he screamed and tore apart the two dumb asses. Ernie finally shook his head and stomped off.
A couple of days later, I was working an 11 to 7 shift. It was a slow day and Ernie said "Come with me, I want you to witness something."
We went to the hotel tower. Ernie found a bellman with a master set of keys for the building. We entered an elevator and rode to the top floor. Ernie told the bellman to open a supply closet. The bellman started to give Ernie static, but Ernie delivered a veiled threat. The bellman opened the closet, which had a 15 foot high ceiling. Ernie braced himself, using shelves, sort of as a stepladder, took out his night stick and poked at a ceiling access door. A shitload of purses then rained down from this, now open door. Ernie collected the purses and had the bellman go get a giant size garbage bag.
Ernie spent the next day going through the purses and making phone calls all over the country. In all, Ernie contacted 25 former owners of these purses. Ernie was able to identify a former hotel employee as the thief. Ernie also wrote a lengthy incident report and he was able to not only get an arrest warrant for the thief, he had him extradited to face charges for some of the thefts (which went back 15 years). This wasn't the only time I witnessed the brilliance of Ernie.
Another time, I went with him to take a report on a stolen boat. Prior to the existence of the marina, there was a parking lot set aside for boats on trailers. A man had parked his boat and trailer on the lot, went home to Minnesota, and now, ten years later, came to claim his boat and trailer. Ernie asked the man for the title of the boat and then copied down the information.
It only took Ernie 24 hours to find the boat and trailer, it was at a boat supplies and service location. Ernie called the owner of the business. The owner tried (unsuccessfully) to claim that the boat was abandoned property. The owner refused to meet with the boat's owner. I heard Ernie tell the owner, "You want to play hardball? I can play hardball."
Ernie went to the sheriff's office and talked to the sheriff. A week later, state police and the sheriff's department executed a search warrant on the business. In total, twelve stolen boats were found on the premises. The owner and his son were arrested and subsequently indicted.
Note: We had a plethora of people come and go as night shift 911 dispatchers. A few had drug problems. One, in her early 30's had early onset dementia, and we let her go after spectacularly blowing a call.
Pam began to perceive me as a threat when I began compiling an SOP manual. She'd had her eyes on the chief of dispatch position and when I began to put together the manual, that meant that she wasn't going to be able to put her forever stamp on the department. Pam began making up stories about me and this became a daily (I'm not kidding) practice with her. She had the assistant chief (Ronnie) wrapped around her little finger and even though story after story after story was debunked, she was taken at her word.
The three restaurants and one bar (as well as the hotel) had a drop box in our office. They'd drop their money pouches and an armored service tended to the drop box daily. I had struck up a friendship with the head waitress from one of the restaurants. She was young, attractive and engaged. Every night, when she made her drop, she'd update me on her wedding arrangements. One night, after work, she came in with her blouse open. The next day when I came into work, Nolan was pissed. He angrily said "You're going to jail today."
"For what?"
"What's this I hear about you sexually assaulting a waitress last night?"
"What?"
"Pam told me all about it. She came in an you ripped her blouse open."
"First, Pam wasn't here last night when Diane came in. And second, Pam is a proven liar. Bring Diane in and ask her what happened."
"Oh, I intend to."
An hour later, Diane came in and gave me a WTF look as she was ushered into Nolan's office. A half hour later, Diane came out and she was pissed, beyond livid. She started to say something, then spotted Pam in a cubicle.
Diane screamed "YOU FUCKING BITCH!! DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT ME AGAIN!!"
Diane raised a fist but was artfully ushered out of the office by one of the EMT's. I got up and walked into Nolan's office. "Why aren't you out there firing her?" I asked.
Nolan shrugged. "We have to take all allegations seriously" he replied.
Pam's campaign went on for fourteen months. Besides wanting my job, there was another motive-Pam had been stealing from the EMT (drug) cabinet, the good stuff. Usually, the assistant chief (Ronnie) or one of the Sams was in the office when she did it (and let her do it). It finally came to an end when the chief paramedic caught her in the act. First, he told her to put back the drugs and when she refused, he threatened to have her arrested. She put back the drugs and then he noticed that she had a key for the cabinet on her personal key chain. When he asked where she got it, she refused to answer. He asked for the key. She refused to give it. The chief paramedic then called Ernie on the radio. Pam took the key off her personal key chain and threw it at him. He told her that she was fired and when Ernie got to the office, he had her escorted off of the property.
The next day, Nolan audited the cabinet. Ronnie went from 40 hours a week to only 8. He was also an assistant chief in name only after that as he was stripped of most of his responsibilities.
NOTE: Cops play pranks on each other, but the pranks firefighters play on each other are ten times worse. With that said, Larry had impregnated a girl when he was only 16. Him and the girl gave the baby up for adoption. Larry is just 17 years older than I am and there was a resemblance between us. Add in, that I had called the fire station a number of times on hotel business and Nolan's guys had all talked to me at some point. Finally, add in that I had a good solid friendship with Larry. This made the guys I was working with sincerely ask me, "Are you sure you're not Larry's kid?" I had to be careful answering the question as the wrong answer would lead to endless needling and pranks. This question will come up in a subsequent story.
I had been to Larry's house and I met his kids on two occasions. Likewise, I had met Nolan's wife and she had picked up the vibe that I was a loyal and trusted employee, but soon after Pam was gone, Nolan started an affair with a red head that worked at the marina. Nolan's wife would call, asking for him and I would lie my ass off, telling her that he was in a meeting, out of patrol, or just out of touch. Nolan appreciated that I lied for him, but it made me feel uneasy. Finally, Nolan started floating the idea of bringing her in as a dispatcher. I told him it was a bad idea. Ernie told him it was a bad idea and even that slimeball Ronnie told him it was a bad idea. Finally, he pulled the trigger and hired her. On her first day, she walks in the office, points at me and seriously said "The first thing I'm going to do is have Nolan get rid of you."
It was a Tuesday. I got up from my seat, walked into Nolan's office and said "I'm done. I'm giving you three days notice. Friday is my last day."
Nolan hit the ceiling. He screamed and ranted for five minutes. I walked out of the office and he slammed the door. Five minutes later, the head of HR walked in the office and begged me to reconsider. I wouldn't budge and eventually Nolan calmed down. My last day ended with a whimper as the last thing anyone there said to me, and it was Ernie "I understand why you're leaving, good luck."