Top of The Edge - Johnnys at Rockville

Since his wrecker was diesel, Johnny was able to make a few modifications to the engine that enabled it to run on used cooking oil that he acquired from restaurants all around the Charleston area. Consequently, long after his competitors ran out of fuel, Johnny was still fully operational. Suddenly he heard more noise coming from around back. He shook his head smiling as he retrieved his 12-gauge shotgun from beneath the counter. "I hate that I might have to kill one of the varmints but left unchecked they can cause a lot of problems and damage."

Nadean Wycliffe had convinced Cherry to drop her off at the Mills House Hotel so she could retrieve her bike and ride it back to the dormitory. However, instead of going straight back to her dorm room, she proceeded to the Charleston City Police station first, where she was currently arguing with the officer on duty at the front desk, Officer Mike Rodgers.

"I keep telling you I'm here to give my statement."

"And my answer to you is still the same as it was 5 minutes ago. There is currently no one here that can take it."

"Well at least you can tell me if you still have Professor Michaels in custody."

"No, I can't."

"Well how about Officer Fadden, is he around?"

"His shift just ended about 10 minutes ago. He may still be around. I haven't seen him leave, but then again, he could have gotten by without me noticing. You're welcome to have a seat and wait for a while." Officer Rodgers pointed to a row of 8 folding chairs lined up along the wall adjacent to the front door.

Nadean was tired and really just wanted to go back to her room and get some rest, but she couldn't shake the feeling of urgency she had. She just knew that it was imperative for her statement concerning Professor Michaels' rape of Susie and attempted rape of herself to go on record as soon as possible.

There was one other person seated in the chairs Officer Rodgers had pointed out to Nadean. She was somewhat disheveled and appeared to be in her mid to late thirties.

"So, you're the one I have to thank for having to come down here to the police station in the wee hours of the morning. This is a far cry from how I had intended to spend my Saturday morning."

Nadean suddenly realized, this must be Professor Michaels' wife as she sat in a chair as far from the woman as possible.

The woman stared at Nadean frowning, and her mouth twisted as she snarled. "He has told me about your kind, always offering him favors in exchange for a better grade. What are you anyway? At first glance with your red hair and all, I thought you might be an Irish gypsy Mick. But you're not fair enough skinned to be one of them... You're an Italian WOP, aren't you? I'll bet you have an uncle named Guido."

The woman continued her pejorative diatribe as Nadean remained quiet and began to wish she was anywhere but right here right now. She could feel an intense fury begin to rise up from the depths of her being. Just as she opened her mouth to unload the full wrath of her insuperable growing anger, Officer Fadden emerged from around the corner with several of his colleagues. As the group passed and exited through the front door, Officer Fadden appeared to be completely oblivious to the two women seated and waiting in the row of chairs. Nadean abruptly and without saying a word quickly bound from her chair and exited the building right behind them. She took a quick look around to see if Professor Michael's wife had followed her. She hadn't.

Then she called out, "Officer Fadden", and inadvertently caused the entire group to stop and turn to face her, which initially made her want to crawl under the closest rock and hide. When Fadden saw who it was, he said to those around him. "I should take care of this. I'll see you gents later."

His partner, Jody Kline responded, "Give me a call over the radio when you're done here and come back around and pick you up."

As Officer Fadden changed directions to join Nadean, the rest of the group headed to their squad cars and readied themselves for the second half of their double shift.

"So, Red have you broken anymore noses lately?"

"I came very close just a short while ago." Nadean said, referring to the hospital orderly's disparaging treatment of Maryanne.

"I'll bet you did." Fadden replied smiling and shaking his head.

"So, what brings you here on this early Saturday morning?"

Nadean reached in her purse and retrieved her written statements. "These are my signed statements, one for each incident."

"Each incident?"

"Yes, my first-hand account of Professor Michael's attempt to rape me, and my eye-witness account of his involvement with the assault and rape of Susie Altman."

"Let me see that second one."

She unfolded the second statement and handed it over to Officer Fadden. It was three full pages handwritten. "Please excuse my penmanship. I wrote most of it while seated in the back seat of a wildly speeding car."

Officer Fadden quickly skimmed over the document, and then took his time to thoughtfully peruse the more significant details. Without looking up he replied to Nadean. "Your penmanship is fine." Several seconds later he handed the document back to Nadean and said, "The judge will be hearing several cases this morning from arrest that were made within the last 24 hours. He'll be setting bail for most, if not all of them... Come on, I'll introduce you to the District Attorney."

Upon receiving the news about the McDaniel Farm cabin that was evidently utilized by the Nazi fugitives, Charleston County Sherriff Poulnot had dispatch extend the APB (All Points Bulletin) for the three fugitives and their vehicle to include Charleston City Police and SC Highway Patrol. Then he ordered all Charleston County Patrols to converge on what he was currently referring to as the three-island area, which was comprised of James Island, Johns Island, and Wadmalaw Island. He reinforced the current roadblocks and ordered the rest of his patrols to stop every vehicle traveling on the roads within the three-island area.

After returning the Army Jeep back to J.J. at Fort Moultrie, Smith joined Chief Barnes at the roadblock located at the intersection of Folly Road and Hwy 700. Tuttle decided to focus on areas that might have been overlooked, like Seabrook Island and Rockville. He knew Rockville was a bit of a stretch since they would've had to travel through the intersection at Inland Road and Highway 700 to get there. That was highly unlikely - a roadblock had been set up at that intersection immediately after Charleston County Officers Mueller and Williams spotted the Nazi get-away car turning off inland Road.

Several small cabins existed on Seabrook Island for the attendees of the Episcopal Church camp. Since it was off season, the only folks on the entire island were the camp's caretakers. They were happy to cooperate and gave Tuttle the keys to all the cabins. After a thorough search and complete tour of the island by the camp's caretakers, Tuttle concluded that even though this had been a nice visit, it yielded not a single clue as to the whereabouts of the Nazi fugitives. Next stop, Rockville.

The Raccoons had been startled by the presence of two people crouched down behind the auto shop just as Louise and Billy had been startled by their sudden presence. The largest Raccoon immediately went on the offense and jumped toward Louise's face. She bent over and covered her face, the result of which was that the raccoon jumped on her head and started pulling her hair and biting at her scalp. The smaller raccoons scurried off in every other direction, knocking things over and causing all kinds of commotion as they went. There was a large heavy tarp on the ground next to Billy that he grabbed up to assist in the removal of the large raccoon from Louise's back and head. He hadn't noticed that an empty barrel was sitting on the edge of the tarp. So, when he grabbed it up, he inadvertently knocked the barrel over, which also caused quite the racket. He got his hands on the large raccoon through the tarp but, removing it from Louise's head was a bit more difficult than he had anticipated. Once he finally got it free, clumps of Louise's hair were in the raccoon's mouth and all four paws. Billy threw the animal and the tarp as far from them as he could, which because of the pain from the burn across his mid-section was not very far at all. He knew that raccoons could be vindictive, so he picked up an old axe handle that had been leaning against the wall and prepared to defend Louise and himself from another attack. Fortunately, upon considering his prospects of victory over the humans who were now wielding an axe handle, the raccoon decided that it would be in his best interest to simply vacate the premises.