Prophetic Redemption

It all started on a cold October morning in small town Harrison, Michigan. I was waiting at the local twenty-four hour restaurant for Charlie to join me for our normal lunch meal at 2am. My patrol area took me within a fifteen square mile radius south of the Clare County Sheriff ’s Department in Harrison. Although Charlie and I worked the same graveyard shift, his patrol started where mine ended and went north. It wasn’t like Charlie to be late without calling me on the radio with his status. I’d heard dispatch contact Charlie about an incident earlier in the evening but not within the last hour. It was a Wednesday morning with little action to speak of, and I liked it that way. There’s criminal activity in every town, but the severity and frequency were far less in this rural area.