Clarkston Files: Horsing Around

By Mari Rose

Life in a small town can be quiet, unless you are a lab tech for a crime lab. What was supposed to be a normal day at work for Forensic Scientist Mariette Heavener and her team of lab techs turned into a couple of days none of them will soon forget. Follow the story of their adventures as told in the perspective of different characters in the story. What happens when a murderer threatens to take apart the glue that holds them together? Will they survive it? Will they lose one of their own?

Will the relationship of Kevin and Mariette Heavener survive their tough work schedule?
Will Lauren and Captain Gower learn to trust God again?
Will the community of Clarkston survive when all seems lost?
Will the murders bring the lab closer together or tear them apart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499082746

Mari Rose

Mari Rose is a painter, poet, and intuitive healer who brings her love for the Goddess into this book to illuminate the nurturing love the Divine Feminine has for all who seek her blessings. She is also the author of The Goddess and the Grail; A Tale of Avalon and Deep Blue, a book of art and poetry.

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Copyright © 2014 by Mari Rose.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/14/2014

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The day began like any other as I, Mariette Heavener went into work. After we prayed together as a family we dropped our daughter Abigail off at my mother’s home for the day. My husband and I drove onto the highway toward the Clarkston exit. It was only six thirty and the day had begun in full force. He would drop me off to work and go to work himself.

I am mother to a beautiful six year old named Abigail. I love to cook bake and have family time and Kevin is a wonderful daddy who loves to read play ball, fish and bike, but we are more than that. We did not have normal jobs.

He is a homicide detective with West Virginia state police, and I am lucky enough to be a supervisor with the rank of Lieutenant for our state police’s local Clarkston CSI unit. We operated out of Monroe county West Virginia. Our jurisdiction covers all fifty five counties located in the state of West Virginia. We also provide our services free of charge to all law-enforcement agencies in the state and are the only full service lab in the state so that keeps us quite busy.

We are not a small one horse town, but not a huge metropolis either. We have a good balance of farm life, stables and country located on the outskirts of town, but further in town we have offices, big name stores and the likes for those of us who do not want to live out of town and like our conveniences.

The state police campus is located in, what the locals called in town. It was like a small community in itself. There is a small convenient store and even a restaurant right across from our campus. This is convenient when we are working hard and did not have time to go home for lunch.

The campus has six buildings. One building housed the offices of the patrol officers and detectives, in which Kevin works and they have their own boss. Captain Micah Williamson. This is the hub of the campus which is what most people saw on a regular basis. This is also where tickets are paid, classes are held and other things are done for the community. In this building is the offices of the senior officers of the state police. The man who kept all the offices running smooth here is Colonel James Jay Smithington. He is over all the operations and makes sure we are all doing our jobs.

One building houses a garage in which patrol cars and company cars were worked on and even has a gas pump.

One building is a records division and it holds files and archives from cases past and present and is very neatly organized by the clerks who work there.

Next we have a dispatch switchboard and it is ran by a group of wonderful men and woman who take all the calls that came into the campus. We also have a building which houses a small gym and overall workout center for those of us who want it to either maintain weight or blow off steam after work. I suspected that the ladder of the two was the main use of the building but either way it is nice to have.

The last building on campus is our building. It is the largest building. It houses our lab, which is broken up into sections by what we handle. The departments are toxicology, trace evidence, firearms and tool marks, latent prints, and questioned documents. We also have an area for evidence received and processing, which makes sure evidence gets to the right area of the lab most of the time. Also we have an autopsy department, computer area, and a large ramp which led to a garage where cars and other vehicles from crime scenes could be brought and examined more closely out of the elements. We even have a teleconferencing room where we can hold video conferences from all over the state country and even worldwide.

We have two shifts that occupy the building. Day shift which is my crew and night shift which was ran by none other than Hamilton Caine. His office is next to mine on the third floor. He drives me crazy. I am sure I will introduce you to him before it is all said and done.

So, back to the home life. Is the job stressful, oh you can bet? We have a few rules we established in our home because of these jobs. Work stays at work and home at home. Does this always work? No, because even on weekends I get phone calls asking me questions about cases, as does Kevin but the second rule is a must. God is the center of our home. Without His leading in our lives there is no way we could deal with the day to day murder and mayhem we both see.

Enough about us. What will follow is the story of our lives.

As I stepped into the building when my phone rang. It was my boss, Captain Martin Gower. Martin Gower made up for in passion for his job what he lacks in height. He is very abrupt but sensitive when he needs to be. He is loyal to a fault to his team leaders and their teams. He has short cropped salt and pepper hair with a moustache to match, and steely grey eyes. They could be soft when comforting, hard as nails when needed to be or he was angry at someone or something. He is always in a suit and tie even on his days off, as few as they are.

He is like a father figure to many of us as he has been at the lab longer than any of us. Given The nature of our work we tend to change hands more than we like to admit even though we now have a long time team of CSI’s and detectives. We stick together like a family.

As I tapped on the heavy wooden door of his office his deep bass voice yelled, Yeah?

I said, It is Mariette, you wanted to see me?

He yelled for me to come in and wanted to know what took me so long. I chuckled to myself as I opened the door and walked in. I was of medium height with medium length dark brown curly hair and dark brown eyes. I needed to lose a few pounds. Hey, don’t we all? My team and I worked well together and worked together as a well-oiled machine. I loved the way we worked together and tossed the bad guys behind bars. As I walked into the room, he tossed a file my way and told me to get a team together because we had a body to investigate at the horse stable. He said,

According to the caller it was one of a child.

He told me the rest of the details I would need to know and told me get to it. I nodded I understood, threw my hand up in a wave and walked out.