Talking out Loud: The Casey Hoghupper Story

By d.e.gray

Casey Hoghupper, a six-year veteran police officer working LAPD’s Seventy-Seventh Division has a secret. She has a guardian angel that no one else can see or hear but her. The problem is the other officers in her division only see her “talking out loud” when no one else is present.

Question: Is the stress of the job causing her to lose her mind?

The captain of her division, along with city psychologist Althea Bianchi are tasked with finding out if she is still fit to “protect and to serve” the citizens of Los Angeles.

Evaluating Casey Hoghupper wouldn’t be easy for Dr. Bianchi since Casey herself has earned a BA degree in psychology from renowned Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The two would go head-to-head during their office visit, and later after spending only one night as an observer during Hoghupper’s Watch-3 shift. Dr. Bianchi becomes even more convinced that she should be relieved of her police powers and retired to civilian life.

Aside from several appearances by her guardian angel, Casey’s demeanor as a police officer has always been completely above board, professional, and by the book. And thanks to Seventy-Seventh Division captain Howard Carver, Dr. Bianchi would end up more or less falling on her own sword.

In an effort to escape some of the stigma given to her by her fellow police officers, Casey puts in for a transfer to another division, and soon finds herself working Hollywood Division. Hollywood is the place elitists like to refer to as the “entertainment capital of the world,” but to the Hollywood coppers who work there, it’s the land of “fruits and nuts.”

Casey realizes that whoever coined the phrase “being a cop in LA is like having a ringside seat to the greatest show on earth” was on point. But now, working Hollywood Division, it was time to “send in the clowns.”

After another visit from her guardian angel, Casey Hoghupper thwarts the mass murder of over twenty people who were staying at the Hollywood Gay Dream Motel on a chilly Christmas Eve. Her quick actions made it possible for all the guests to flee the motel just minutes before it is leveled and burned to the ground by a murderer’s homemade bomb.

Casey Hoghupper teams up with Det. Marrisa Ortega, and together they go on the hunt to track down the suspect who planted the bomb, if for no other reason than to hide the murder of the man named John Smith in room 12.

This story will have you crying, laughing, and rooting for cops who have to deal not only with the Hollywood eccentrics, but the streetwise criminals and those within the LAPD’s ivory tower.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664197374

Book preview

TALKING OUT LOUD:

The Casey Hoghupper Story

d.e.gray

Copyright © 2021 by d.e.gray.

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 Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/28/2021

:

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

835389

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1Talking Out Loud

Chapter 2A Meeting of the Minds

Chapter 3Dealing with Reality

Chapter 4The Domino Effect

Chapter 5Seeing is Believing

Chapter 6Where the Rubber

Chapter 7Karma: Destiny or fate, following as effect from cause

Chapter 8Fair Is Where You Find Cotton Candy

Chapter 9Send in the Clowns

Chapter 10It’s Not My Job

Chapter 11I’ll Be Back! Quote: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Chapter 12On a Wing and a Prayer

Chapter 13Last Call

Chapter 14I Did It My Way

Chapter 15One Big Happy Family

Chapter 16Silent Night, Not So Much!

Chapter 17Silent Night, Not Yet!

Chapter 18It’s the Little Things

Chapter 19Impatience Is a Hindrance

Chapter 20The Why

Epilogue: The song has ended, but the melody lingers on

News article

Foreword

B y Henry (Bud) Johnson Compton PD (ten years), Redondo Beach PD (twenty-one years)

I was blessed with reading a preview of Talking Out Loud: The Casey Hoghupper Story.

First, I would like to tell you a little about myself. I am a retired police officer from Southern California. I served as a police officer for Compton PD, for ten years. I subsequently finished my career with the Redondo Beach PD for an additional twenty-one years, thirty-one years of total service. My years of service were from 1979 until 2011. During that span of time, I had the opportunity to work many assignments, which were patrol, FTO (field training officer), investigations (detective, which included homicide investigations), and many more. I am not mentioning this to tell you how great I am, I only want to point out that I have had a lengthy career as a police officer.

I now have time to enjoy reading at night. I always loved to read and now have time to enjoy it, along with other hobbies.

I have to admit, police procedural thrillers, both fiction and nonfiction are my favorite choice of genre. Unfortunately, I have become very critical about these types of books.

I discovered David Gray’s books sometime around 2019. A friend of mine recommended Desperate Measures: The Chase Longmire Story (Gray’s fifth book). I never heard of David Gray; our paths have never crossed. One evening I decided to give this book a try. I sat down with a cup of coffee and the next thing I remember it was 2:00 a.m. and I read the entire book. This book was fantastic. Talk about a page turner. It should be noted that Desperate Measures: The Chase Longmire Story should be read first. Talking Out Loud is a sequel, and I can tell you, both books are a great read.

David Gray is a veteran police officer. He served twenty-eight years with the LAPD. He retired and then served another fourteen years with the Escondido Police Department. He is a true veteran.

I subsequently researched Gray’s website (www.booksbydegray.com). Talking Out Loud: The Casey Hoghupper Story will be Gray’s seventh book. I have read and enjoyed all his books. David Gray writes with unparalleled authenticity that can only come from those who have worn the badge.

From the Prologue to the very last page, the reader will be involved in his books. I actually found myself reliving my career vicariously in each of his books. For those that enjoy excellent police thrillers that are believable and have outstanding plots, I highly recommend reading David Gray’s great novels. I have Gray’s novels on the same bookshelf as Michael Connelly and Joseph Wambaugh. I also recommend going to his website and reading the reviews.

Acknowledgments

O nce this book started to go from a concept in my head to a manuscript, there are a few people who I need to acknowledge and thank.

First of all, my wife of fifty-four years, Suzanne, has been, and remains, a source of encouragement and forbearance through thick and thin. She also provided motivation, often by asking: When are you going to finish this #&! * book? From reading early drafts to correcting my spelling and giving me advice on the cover, Suzanne has endured the burdensome process one takes when publishing a manuscript.

This might be a good time to point out that there are stories within this book that are patterned after true events that I have experienced during my forty-two years as a street cop at the two agencies I have worked.

On rare occasions I will go outside my family unit to give thanks to a few of the people who in some way helped me bring this story to print. That being said, it is important to know that I retired from the Los Angeles Police Department twenty-six years ago and things have changed considerably since I worked there. For this reason, I want to thank those of you who belong to the private group of retired police officers that I belong to known as The LAPD Silver Foxes. They have answered many of my queries and kept me abreast on a lot of the changes to the department, and I might add, there are a lot since I left back in 1995.

Next, I would like to pay special thanks and appreciation to a good friend who reads all my books. Henry (Bud) Johnson is a thirty-one-year veteran of two police agencies. He spent his first ten years working for the Compton Police Department, and after ten years in Compton, he’s lucky he’s still alive. Next, Bud went to the Redondo Beach Police Department, where he spent twenty-one more years before finally retiring there. Bud was kind enough to write the Foreword for this book, and I’m grateful for his contribution.

Another person who has read a few of my books is John Arenz. Through our conversations, I would learn that John is a retired police officer from the Colleyville Police Department in northeast Tarrant County, Texas. He did ten years as a police officer at Mineral Wells PD, a small Texas oil town. He spent his last twenty-one years at Colleyville PD and then retired. I have learned through our chats that both Bud Johnson and John Arenz are true warriors and can easily relate to the stories that I write about in my books, and that’s because like myself, Bud and John were hardline street cops. Thank you both for your continued support and appreciated input.

Lastly, but not any less important, I would like to shoutout my appreciation to the one person who gave me the idea for this story. It was during one of our conversations that she expressed her sadness after one of the characters in my book Desperate Measures: The Chase Longmire Story, was killed off. So for you, Dannielle Mazzio, I dedicate this book to you.

Prologue

Sixteen Months Earlier

South Bureau, 77th Division, 10349 Grape St., Los Angeles

C asey peered into the open doorway unsure what was waiting on the other side. This wasn’t the first time she ever got a call here, and in fact, she had been here several times before. The house was one of those old two-story rundown abandoned homes that the bank foreclosed on years ago but made no attempt to fix it back up. The bank felt that the neighborhood was too much of a high crime area, and with its volatile past, no one in their right mind felt safe enough to take up the construction project and bring it back to life. The bank did post, No Trespassing signs around the outside of the house, but they were usually torn down by the Rollin’ 60s gang, who considered the house as part of their turf.

The idea that Casey would go inside, especially at night, sent chills up and down her spine just thinking of the rat, spider, and cockroach infestation that were now the permanent residents there. The call came out as an unknown trouble call, and that in itself could mean anything, including the local gangbangers using it once again as their party house when they were having one of those hell-raising gang initiations for their new wannabe members. As for tonight, the house seemed quiet, with no notable activity on the outside, and for that matter, no sounds coming from the inside either. That didn’t necessarily mean someone inside the house didn’t need the help of the police; after all, someone did call the police.

If you walked inside during the day, you would easily see broken windows, doors broken off hinges, and tons of gang graffiti on all the walls, floors, and even the ceilings. You could always find a few dirty old, stained mattresses lying on the floor in one or two of the rooms along with three or four old, rickety folding chairs used by the gangbangers to sit on when they weren’t playing grab-ass with one another. Everywhere you turned, you could see heaps of broken beer bottles, beer cans, and cigarette butts strewn about the house and around the property outside.

Not that it was anything new, but tonight was one of those crazy Friday nights where Communication Division couldn’t keep up with the call load. The calls for service in the entire South Bureau were stretched to the limits, and this was one call Casey Hoghupper and her partner were going to have to handle on their own. If it turned out they needed help, the nearest available unit was miles and a lifetime away.

Casey’s partner this night was Drake Parker, a four-year veteran officer who transferred in from Rampart Division six months ago. Parker was just getting back into his police mode after returning from his one-year deployment with his National Guard Reserve unit. He served two tours of duty with the 430th Ordnance Company in Afghanistan as a bomb disposal technician. Eventually, Parker’s plans were to apply for the LAPD Bomb Squad as a full-time bomb expert, but he was told he needed more time in patrol before the department would entertain such a proposal. Tonight, Casey and Parker were working 12-A-76, and this was their ninth call of the night.

After turning their portable radios to tac-2 to communicate with each other, Casey sent Parker around the back to cover the rear door and yard. She used her flashlight to illuminate the front doorway entrance and then voiced a warning before entering.

This is the police! Sound off and make yourself known! she demanded.

There was no reply, so she yelled her warning again. This is your last warning. LAPD, make yourself known now!

In Casey’s mind, she felt she pretty much took all the necessary safeguards and precautions needed to make entry into the house. She keyed the mic on her shoulder and let Drake Parker know she was going to make entry through the front door. Casey took a deep breath and then proceeded forward, when without warning, someone or something grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Don’t go in there, Casey, a strange voice rang out.

Hey! What the hell, let go! What are you doing? she snarled. I said let go!

She turned and pointed her flashlight in the direction she was being pulled back, and got the shock of her life.

Oh! My god! Chase, it’s you! she uttered out loud. Oh, Chase, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you. I just knew it was you that saved my life that night on 92nd Street and Broadway. But why? How?

That’s not important right now, Chase Longmire said. What is important is when you take those first two steps inside that door, they’re going to blow your head off.

What? How do you know? Why? she stammered.

There are three wannabe Rollin’ 60s gangbangers in there, Longmire said, Killing a couple of cops is part of their initiation.

Are you sure? Casey asked.

Look, Casey! Get your head out of your ass. Longmire began. "I thought I taught you better than that. You’re starting to take unnecessary chances. All this bullshit with the BLM and the politicians defunding the police, not to mention the local news media crucifying you guys every chance they get. Then the chickenshit brass in their ivory towers not backing you up. This is not the time for heroics.

I stopped you from this act of misfortune, but how you handle this call from here on out is up to you. I can tell you this much, those three scumbags in there aren’t ready to die for the hood, at least not yet. Two of them are fifteen and one is sixteen, and if they succeed in killing a cop, you can bet the city politicians and the news media will blame it on you and in particular on your training. On the other hand, if you kill one or all three of them, well, they’ll blame that on you too and then you can kiss your career goodbye. Oh! And one last thing, Casey, the answer on how to resolve this situation is right over there in the trunk of your shop, nodding in the direction of her parked patrol vehicle.

Casey looked over at the black and white parked at the curb two doors south of where she was standing. She then turned back toward Longmire, and just like that, he was gone. She went over to her vehicle and opened the trunk lid, looking inside. There were her and Parker’s war bags, their briefcases, and then she saw it. That’s when Casey decided to fight fire with fire . . . literally. She grabbed the box of Acme Road flares and returned to the front porch. A verbal threat to burn down the house with them in it using the box of flares was all it took. The three cowardly juvenile suspects were taken into custody and three guns were now off the street, and better yet, no one was hurt.

Chapter 1

1.jpg

Talking Out Loud

Wednesday, March 10, 10:23 a.m., 201 North Figueroa St., Suite 1821, Los Angeles City Psychologist

Casey Hoghupper:

I f you would have asked me eight years ago if I believed in ghosts, I would have laughed in your face and sent you on your way. Now, angels, well, that’s another story. What’s the difference, you ask? Well, ghosts are supposed to haunt you and angels are supposed to protect you.

Still, believing in angels has its problems. You see, right now, I’m sitting in Dr. Althea Bianchi’s outer office, waiting to meet with her. Dr. Bianchi is a licensed psychologist who graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California. At least, that is what it says on the large diploma hanging on the wall just outside her office door. She has several more awards and acknowledgments hanging on her wall, which I’m sure is supposed to impress me and anyone else who comes here in need of her services. I might add that Dr. Bianchi is employed by the city of Los Angeles, and today it’s her job to see if I’m fit to continue to work as a uniformed police officer on the streets of Los Angeles.

It wasn’t my idea to come here, and if I had my way, I wouldn’t be here at all. But I’ve been ordered by my captain, with the blessing of the chief, that I show up for this little powwow with the doctor, who will more than likely want to get down to who and why am I talking to someone who no one else can see but me.

It seems that several of my coworkers in the division where I work were concerned after they caught me talking out loud to myself on more than one occasion. What they didn’t know was that I was actually talking to my guardian angel, and of course, since it was my guardian angel, they can’t see or hear him. You might be surprised to know, my guardian angel doesn’t just float down from a fluffy cloud above with wings attached to his back and holding a gold harp in his arms. No, when he does show up, his sleeves are usually rolled up, he has a three-day-old beard, and he won’t sugarcoat anything, trying not to hurt my feelings.

To understand why I have a guardian angel, I will need to go back in time to around 1996.

My mother, Sandra Petri, was twenty-five at the time. She lived in Queens, a suburb of New York, and worked as a certified registered nurse at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Upper Manhattan. That’s where she met my father, Carl Hoghupper, who was a New York police officer assigned to the First Precinct in Lower Manhattan. The First Precinct covers one square mile, and is home to the World Trade Center, SOHO, Tribeca, and Wall Street. On any given day it wouldn’t be unusual for 250,000 people to crowd into that one square mile belonging to the First Precinct.

On a warm June evening in 1996, my father and three other police officers went to a tenement building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to serve a domestic violence arrest warrant on a suspect that they knew from past history was prone to violence. In the past, it had always been hands-on whenever the police tried to arrest him, and in that he was 6’ 4" and 280 pounds, it was decided that they would need four officers to make the arrest, believing they could control him enough to take him into custody without any serious injury. Of course, things don’t always go as planned, and after they knocked on the suspect’s door and it opened, the fight was on. What made it worse this time was the suspect was high on a combination of methamphetamine and cocaine, and was unsusceptible to pain. At some point in the fight, the suspect was able to get hold of one of the officers’ guns, and in an effort to wrestle it away from him, my father was shot twice, once in the leg and once in the hand.

My father was rushed to the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, where he underwent three hours of surgery and then was admitted to the sixteenth floor ward for observation, treatment, and recovery. That’s where he met my mom, who was the night nurse assigned to the sixteenth floor to take care of him and the other patients there.

To make a long story short, my mom and dad became quick friends, and after he was discharged, they began a dating relationship. After seven short months of dating, they tied the knot and were married in a small ceremony with a few family members and friends present. My mom moved in with my dad in his small one-bedroom apartment located in Brooklyn, and that’s were their life together began.

Five months later, my mom announced to my dad that she was pregnant with me, and a decision was made that they should move out of New York City to someplace more conducive to raising a family. The place they settled on was a three-story duplex unit on the 600 block of Bloomfield Street in Hoboken, New Jersey, just six blocks from the Hudson River and directly across from the Lower Manhattan skyline.

As much as I can remember until my third birthday, I was a happy child, with a loving mother and father and a fenced-in backyard to play in. It was on September 11, 2001, that my mother’s and my life would change forever.

My father, who worked the graveyard shift at the First Precinct, was working overtime, finishing up on an arrest he made earlier that evening. At 8:46 a.m., a Boeing 767 aircraft with a crew of eleven and seventy-six passengers flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., a second Boeing 767 aircraft with a crew of nine and fifty-one passengers flew into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Needless to say, my dad, after working all night, responded to the two buildings that were engulfed in flames, and began to evacuate people trapped inside.

I would later find out that my dad entered the building three times, escorting people to safety and out of harm’s way. One hour and forty-two minutes later, my dad was on his fourth trip into the building when the North Tower collapsed, and a few minutes later the South Tower did also. That was the last time anyone heard or saw my dad, and any trace of his remains would be lost forever.

The loss was unbearable for my mom. My dad had called her that morning before the attack and told her he was working overtime and would be home later. It wasn’t until a close friend called her and told her to turn on the news that she would see the carnage of the World Trade Center attack. The bellowing smoke from the attack could be seen above the Manhattan skyline from our house across the Hudson River. The worst part of the entire incident was my mother waiting for my father to come home and never showing up. It turned out that twenty-three New York police officers, thirty-seven Port Authority officers, and 343 firefighters would not be coming home to their loved ones that day.

I remember after my mother putting me to bed every night. She would then go to her room and I could hear talking to herself and crying, sometimes for hours. This went on for weeks until she finally cried herself out of tears and had to face fact that it was now just the two of us.

Looking back, I can only remember a few things about my dad, but that’s to be expected since I was only three years old when he was taken from my mom and me. I remember the three of us going to the zoo and my father would carry me on his shoulders. I remember around the Christmas holidays before he passed he would tuck me into bed at night before going to work and he would sing Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to me.

By the time I started school, life would throw another curveball my way. I found out just how cruel kids can be, and I was now stuck with the last name of Hoghupper and the kids at my school were now making fun of me and my last name. Over the years, I heard them all: hog-humper, hog-pen, hog-trough, hogan-doz, hog-n-bacon, just to name a few. By the time I got to middle school, it would start all over again, and then again with new kids in high school. I pleaded with my mother to let me change my last name to her maiden name, but she steadfastly refused. By the time I reached sixteen, my mother had reached her boiling point and she reluctantly gave in, but only on one condition, I accompany her on a day trip to New York City.

There were many times over the years that my mother and I would make the 13.8-mile trip to Manhattan, but that was usually on shopping excursions. This time, for some unknown reason, she packed a lunch, which meant it was going to be an all-day affair. The easiest way to get to New York from our house was by using the PATH (Path Authority Trans-Hudson) subway, using the Hoboken terminal. After only two stops, you arrive in Manhattan.

I should have known that we would be visiting the 9/11 Memorial located at the site of the World Trade Center complex. It was a beautiful sixteen-acre site and the memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size where they feature the largest man-made waterfalls in North America.

There are nearly 3,000 names of men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993, inscribed on bronze parapets surrounding the twin memorial pools, and my dad’s name would be found on one of those parapets at the North Pool.

I watched my mother as she gently ran her fingers over my dad’s name while she fought back her tears. She took out a rectangular piece of paper and placed it over his name, and then using a pencil, she raised the name of Carl Hoghupper, NYPD, to bleed through on the face of the paper. My mother reached inside the large bag that contained our lunch and pulled out a scrapbook, one I had never seen before.

She placed the paper keepsake with my father’s name on it inside the book, and then together we looked at the photos of my dad wearing his police uniform back when he was alive. There were several articles in the scrapbook about that tragic day. That’s when I learned of the bravery of my dad’s actions when he went into the North Tower four times to escort people out, only to lose his life on his fourth attempt. They were able to validate the heroics and facts of that day by an exhausting examination into the recorded radio traffic by all the officers and firemen during that fateful day.

My mother told me many stories about my father that I never knew. By the end of the day, I had made the decision that I would keep the name of Hoghupper, if for nothing else, to honor my father’s bravery.

I was able to graduate high school at the top of my class, and that was because I focused on my studies, leaving little time to do what teenagers usually like to do. The consequences of my father’s brave actions allowed me to receive a fully paid scholarship from the First Responders Children’s Foundation to attend the college of my choice. After copious scrutiny I chose Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and majored in psychology. Again, I immersed myself in my studies and was able to graduate with honors after only four years, receiving my BA degree. When I came back home, I decided to go back to the 9/11 Memorial and thank my father for the sacrifices he made. It was at that time I would make the next biggest decision of my life.

Although my mother was dead set against it, I decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a cop. Even though New York City was just across the Hudson River, I made the decision that I would apply for the Los Angeles Police Department, three-thousand miles away. The LAPD had a four-day expedited testing program especially for out-of-state candidates. I was able to stay with my aunt Kimberley and Uncle John, who lived in the City of Bell Gardens, while I did my testing. Kimberley was my mother’s younger sister. Seven months later, I was in my car making the long trip from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, California, hopefully to begin my career with the LAPD.

I graduated from the six-month police academy, and even if I do say so myself, I was quite proud of my academic and physical accomplishments at the time. I never missed one day of academy training, and I was able to finish in the top 10 percent of my class, the top 20 percent in physical fitness and shooting, along with the top 5 percent in report writing. My first