Part 2 - If Only I Knew Then What I Know Now

If I only knew then what I know Now. How many times had I heard that? How many times have I said it myself?...


After I hung up the phone, I got into my van. Alone in the dark, I drove to the police station. Which is really and old doctors office converted into a small police station. Right in town, 2 to 3 miles down the road from our home.



When I got there, there was no one around. The small parking lot was practically empty, accept for a couple of police cruisers. It was now after 1:30 in the morning. I went to the door and found it locked. I looked inside, the supposed crowded room was totally empty. There wasn't even an officer at the front desk. I pounded on the door several times. Nothing. Then I saw a sign on the wall next to the door and it gave the phone number to the station. I remembered I had my cell phone in my pocket and pulled it out. By this time I had called the station so many times I didn't need to look at the sign to put the number in. It rang and rang. Then I heard the phone at the front desk inside ringing and I realized it was me calling the station. My heart sank. Was this some cruel joke? Finally someone answered the phone. So I looked inside and there still was no one at the front desk.



The person on the other end of the phone was the officer I had spoken to all night. He asked me what I wanted. I told him I was outside the New Baltimore Police station, that the door was locked and I wanted in to see my son. He asked me "Where exactly are you?"...Again I told him outside The New Baltimore Police Station. I told him I'm right outside the door pounding on the it. Can't he hear me? I asked him where everyone was that he had said was in the station making it so crowded? Because I'm looking in the door and the Room is empty as well as the parking lot? I told him I wanted in to see my son right this minute. And I also asked him if he had told my son I was calling and trying to see him? He said of course they had, and he told me to calm down. That he send an officer outside to speak to me. And then he hung up. That was two of many lies I was to be told threw out the next few months. Two lies of many.



By this time I was so emotionally drained that my knees felt weak. There was a picnic table right outside the door. So I sat and waited for the officer to come out and get me. I waited there for what seemed to be an eternity. It was now probably after 2:00am. And here I sat alone in the cold night darkness, confused and scared, and I started to cry. After a bit, a couple of officers came out of the station. I thought this must be the officer who was supposed to come get me. It wasn't. They asked me why I was sitting there alone in the middle of the night, in the dark crying. I was stunned. It took only a moment to compose myself. I told them who I was and that I wanted to see my son Jon, right now. They then told me they had no idea what I was talking about. They said they were just getting ready to start their shift.



They brought me into the station and made a phone call. The one officer spoke to whoever was on the other line for a few minutes. Then hung up and said that my son wasn't at their station. That when they take someone in custody after 9:00pm they take them to the Chesterfield Police Station, in the next town. That their station closed after 9:00pm. And that was where my son was at. They told me I should just go home and wait. That my son would be done soon. Then they took me outside and left.



I stood there just totally unbelieving this was happening. I was standing there, alone again in the darkness of the night, no farther then I had been two hours ago. I was so tired and so confused. I got in my van and started to drive. I was going to go to the Chesterfield Station when I realized I had no idea where it was. I stopped and just cried. I called my husband and told him what had happened. He said they had just built the Chesterfield station and he wasn't sure where it was. He told me to calm down and come home and we would figure something out then.



All I thought about driving home, was my son, and how scared he must be and that he was alone. And then it hit me that this officer I had been speaking to all night. Never told me that they we at the Chesterfield station and not the New Baltimore Station. That he had let me believe Jon was at the New Baltimore station on purpose. And he let me sit outside the New Baltimore Station alone in the middle of the night. Hoping maybe I'd Just go away? Now I was angry. I drove home more awake and angrier then I ever thought possible.



Now as I look back, I think that was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. If only I would've tried to find the Chesterfield Station. If only I would've went there, I should of been there.

But here's where you say..."If I only knew then what I know now"...What a truly powerful phrase.