The Strange Tale of the Maraca Train Case
A couple of blogs ago I mentioned letting you know why the Minnesota visit! There are no relatives living there and my arm was not permanently twisted behind my back. It seems the appropriate time to fill you in on the details that have a lot to do with a search warrant. No, I was not put in the witness protection program in Frost, Minnesota with a new identity and authentic documentation, although I think the idea interesting after a long day of phone calls, disaster aversion in my current day job or writing this particular post for the blog.
The Land of 10,000 lakes, the Bread and Butter State, the Wheat State, the Gopher State or New England of the West, all aliases for Minnesota, houses one of the finest medical institutions, the Mayo Clinic. The Clinic, founded by the family Mayo in 1864, is ranked number 1 in the U.S. News and World Report list of “Best Hospitals”, and has been near the top for more than 20 years. It is widely regarded as one of the world’s premier medical practices.
That is why we were there.
After living five years with a blood cancer diagnosis, my husband took a turn for the worse in the last year. Our proactive approach created a dynamic facilitating a major life change and a few search warrants.
The search warrant was actually executed in Hilo, Hawaii. There were three search warrants, numbers 294, 295 and 296, filed in the District Court of the third circuit State of Hawaii on July 31, 2014 at 2:28 pm. Never having been a party to a search warrant, I felt pretty special having three!
The United States Postal Service saw a spike in sales during the months of June and July as I shipped box after box to the Big Island farm we had purchased in 2005 at the height of the market, thank you very much. The last three suitcases were shipped UPS. Arriving in Hilo, the airport drug sniffing dogs had a conniption surrounding my shipment. The search warrant was obtained and the story unfolds.
On the mainland, I had daily contact with a friend helping with post office retrieval of packages and UPS pickup of pieces of our lives. Phoning Glenn to make sure the suitcases had arrived on the appointed day, I was told nothing had been forthcoming. After many phone calls to the Hilo UPS store as well as the original shipping store, I was given the cell phone of the detective in the Hilo Vice Squad. Vice Squad, really? I don’t even lock my suitcases. I was sweating with implication.
What did I put in there? Being somewhat anal about my life, I thought it was a great idea to put “like” articles together in boxes for shipping, but what had I packed in the three impounded cases? My mind raced and went blank. Had I shipped $10,000 in the small bag? I couldn’t remember at the thought of Vice Squad…. Well, I probably would have remembered money as I could have used $10 K with the cost of moving to Hawaii, but alas, no money.
Drugs… lots of drugs in one case. That must be it! I had dumped pain MEDs, chemo, anti this and “pro b” that in one small train case. That is what my Mother would have called the bag, a train case. I assume it was the size used by our forebears whilst crossing the plains on the B & O Line, Capitol Limited sleeper, before the Great Depression rocked their world.
I remember laughing when shaking the case as it sounded a lot like a maraca night in Tijuana.
I was not laughing now.
Vice was looking for marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine in its various forms or paraphernalia and currency packed near aforementioned drugs. I did remember I had my Hawaiian Airlines “Premier Club” luggage tags affixed, certainly that would help?!
Meanwhile, back at the Volcano Store where the bags were to be picked up by Glenn, the police had arrived with my bags and Glenn had been called to be arrested. I felt like vomiting. What an entrance into a new community! The witness protection program was looking better with each passing moment. As a local police car cruised past, I felt guilty sitting in Carmel while Glenn, in an attempt to help us move, was going to the clink. Alan was working in Geneva, Switzerland and would be arrested upon his entry in the U.S. You see where my guilty mind was going with this? Even though we are talking about Chemo, it was noon and I needed a tequila shot.
The Hilo Vice delivered the suitcases, didn’t arrest Glenn, apologized for the disruption and everyone had a good laugh. I was panting.
This really does circle around to the Gopher State. They took my husband off the chemo, “anti this and pro b that” during his four days of exams. Had he not gone to the Land of 10,000 Lakes, he would have had all of the drugs with him and I wouldn’t have needed a Tres Cuatro Y Cinco shot. At $400.00 a bottle and only 1,000 bottles ever produced, I needed the phantom $10,000 suitcase money for a toast to my non existent moral crime.
Welcome to Hilo!