It is cold at Refuge Farm, or at least cold for the depth of what passes for winter in the Old Dominion. There is an inch or so of fine dry snow out on the deck, and across the fields.

I do not expect it is going to last long, and I have an errand over in Hampton, on the edge of the Tidewater on Virginia’s Middle Neck. I will be on the dreaded slab of I-95 for much of the day, and the entire Virginia Patrol has been mobilized to crack down on Superbowl merrymakers.

It did strike me that there were a lot of blue lights on the way down here, fewer and fewer as I got distance between me and prosperous self-satisfied Arlington and Fairfax Counties.

I will watch my speed on the way back north later.

I pulled into the farmyard late yesterday afternoon, behind as always. I snagged the Clarion-Bugle from the mailbox and placed it out on the coffee table to digest the news of the week, in which the city’s criminal activity was well displayed. I lit a fire, and puttered around with the local food I bought for dinner at Croftburn Farms.

It is cold comfort for justice. I told you last week of the trial of the Culpeper beat cop, accused of the murder on an unarmed woman sitting in her car. They convicted him of voluntary manslaughter after some tearful testimony. He changed two lives that evening last summer: one ended, and his transformed into something he could not have imagined, pulling on his uniform shirt that morning.

But as they say, there could be more. Apparently the officer’s family was involved in the Good Old Person’s network that is still very much alive and well in this old Colonial town.

Coincidently, the City Manager was fired two days before her report on the misconduct of the chief of police was due. The article did not specify the nature of the police perfidy, only that four of eight members of the City Council took advantage of a special meeting to can the Manager before she could drop the dime on the Top Cop.

Her investigation would have been complete in short order, and some folks apparently did not want to see it completed. The special session was called to head it off. There were two council members who could not make the meeting- or rather, wished to deflect blame in the shit-storm that will follow dropping the investigation.

Two members who voted in opposition to her removal were quoted extensively in the article summing the whole sordid mess up. They claimed there was a peculiar odor surrounding the proceedings.

I don’t know what it means- the whispers over the last year were that the Chief was tipping off local drug dealers before state and DEA drug task force people could raid them.

And that would seem to account for the fact that there are a lot of folks around here whose bad dental conditions are not due to failure to see the dentist.

I fell asleep after reading the paper- it did not take long, after all. I woke in time to go to bed, the cheery fire guttering out, and stumbled around the great room tidying up. Projects to work on in the morning, I thought, but the snow was quite lovely, dancing flakes shimmering through the blue-white light of the mercury vapor security light.

I had quite forgotten to lock the front door. It is starting to feel like a real refuge here. I will keep a weather eye out for blue lights on the county road, though. I mean, if you can’t trust the cops, who are you going to?

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com