Gun Shy

by Lori L. Lake

  The lieutenant shook his head. “You’ve always got the dangdest rationale for things, Reilly, but go ahead. And thanks.” He looked back down at his paperwork, and she turned to leave. “Reilly!”

  She glanced back. “Yes, sir?”

  “Not a word about this, okay? I’ll have all the assignments made, your choices included.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She headed off down the hall with her sheaf of papers, thinking that she had a difficult task ahead of her, and no doubt it would be a giant pain in the ass.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jaylynn dressed in the required clothes for the night’s work: black oxfords, black jeans, a black T-shirt with POLICE emblazoned on the back in orange, and a dark blue patrol jacket with no insignia sewn on yet. Sergeant Slade provided each of them with a black baseball cap, also bearing bright yellow letters spelling out POLICE. She looked at herself in the mirror and the first thought that came to mind was Cat Burglar. She strapped a bulging, but compact, fanny pack around her waist and got in Tim’s beater to drive down to the police department.

  She was amazed at everything she’d learned so far. They learned to march, stand at attention, salute, and perform like a well-organized military unit. She knew First Aid and CPR, and she’d been trained for how to deal with all sorts of catastrophes: gas leaks, explosions, live wires, broken water mains, radioactive materials, and toxic chemicals. She knew how to shoot, use a baton, search suspects, put on cuffs one-handed, and subdue someone much bigger than she was using the rudiments of judo, boxing, and karate. She memorized so many procedures and policies, statutes and ordinances that her head felt packed full of data.

  She was ready for the street.

  At the end of the first six weeks in Police Academy, Jaylynn was aware of two indisputable facts. One: John Mahoney was a nearly perfect cadet and would undoubtedly be first in the class. And two: Dwayne Neilsen hated her guts.

  She was nervous about the next stage of the training, but she was more bothered about being around Neilsen. She had now handily surpassed him in every classroom topic and nearly every physical fitness category. He could lift much more and carry heavier loads, but pound for pound, ounce for ounce, she was just as strong and fit. For her audacity of seeking to excel, he never stopped picking at her. He and his friends made sport of her every moment they were away from the instructors. She was relieved to get a change of scenery, even if she was still likely to have to deal with him in the classroom three days a week.

  From mid-October to mid-November, in addition to the classroom training three days per week, she’d have field observation on three weekdays with only Sundays off. After that, if she made the grade, she’d go into six weeks of Tour Rotations for more observation and a gradual shift into taking on responsibilities. In January, the course work would be over, and she’d become a full-time Saint Paul police officer on probation.

  Her first two weeks of observation were on Tour I, the graveyard shift—also known as Dog Watch. She didn’t look forward to staying up all night. She’d never been able to stay awake much past two a.m. in her life, and during the entire five years she attended the University she’d never pulled an all-nighter to study. She didn’t have a lot of time to adjust to the odd hours, so the first night when she showed up at the main stationhouse, she’d managed to sleep only two hours in the early evening. She wondered if she could stay energized from nine p.m. to six a.m.

  She arrived at the main station forty-five minutes early, considerably before Vell, Chin, and Sprague appeared. Entering through the front door, she found the place brimming with cops and citizens coming and going, everyone talking at once. The entrance led into a large room with a high ceiling. A thirty-foot-long counter spread out directly ahead. At one end on the far right was a gate with an officer posted nearby, seated on a tall stool. In front of him was a plastic sign: “Information and Complaints.” The entire area was painted in two tones of blue with several framed landscape prints hanging on the walls. To the right and to the left of the entryway were long benches, resembling pews, upon which a variety of people sat waiting. Despite the obvious effort at creating a restful, pleasant environment, the station smelled as musty as a damp cave.

  Jaylynn strode toward the counter and caught the eye of the officer at the complaint desk. He stared impassively as he watched her approach. His crew-cut hair and lack of a neck made her think he must have been a football player in his earlier days. She held up a plastic card. With a toss of his head, he directed her to the gate at the end and pressed a button somewhere under the desk to release the latch. Jaylynn pushed through and let the wooden gate slap shut behind her.

  “Here, I’ll take that card,” the desk sergeant said. He opened a drawer behind the counter, fished around a moment, and came up with a blue card. “Don’t lose this,” he said. “This mag card works out back at the staff entrance. If you do lose it, report it right away and we have to re-key everything. The brass does not take kindly to that.” He watched as she tucked the card into her fanny pack. “This your first night?”

  She smiled and said, “Yes,” and stuck out her hand. “Jaylynn Savage.”

  He took her hand into his crushing grip. “Finch. Bob Finch. Nice to meet ya.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a broad smile.

  “Head on back to the briefing room—you know where that is?”

  She nodded. Sergeant Slade had given them all the nickel tour earlier in the week, so she knew her way around. He pointed back over his shoulder and turned his attention to the desk where an elderly woman was now standing, demanding his immediate attention.

  Jaylynn took her first walk alone down the hall, past the comm center, past the watch commander’s office, and to the stairs leading down to the briefing room, also called the roll call room. Beyond it lay stairs down to the department gym, outfitted with scads of excellent weight equipment she looked forward to using. Beyond the first set of stairs lay another smaller flight of steps that led down to the men’s and women’s locker rooms which were also connected to the gym. She moved slowly down the small flight of stairs to the locker rooms. She wouldn’t be assigned a locker until the middle of November when she went on rotation. Still, she went in to look around.

  When she entered the large gray room, she saw the rest rooms were to the left and around a corner. Five bright blue stalls sat in a row across from four sinks and an entire mirrored wall. Through a glass and metal door there were also two enclosed showers and a small sauna. The rest of the locker room was large and square with a main aisle running down the middle from the door to the far wall. On either side of the aisle, four sets of oversized bright blue lockers jutted, the only color in the otherwise gunmetal gray room, and there were backless wooden benches, embedded into the concrete, sitting in front of each of the locker rows.

  The room was unnaturally brightened by multiple rows of fluorescent lights. There were no windows whatsoever. At present, no one was in the room, and all Jaylynn heard was a quiet drip-drip-drip echoing from the bathrooms. She went into one of the stalls to use the facilities, and when she was done washing up, she went back upstairs to the roll call room and sat down. Seconds later, Vell walked in dressed identically to her.

  “Hey, Vell,” Jaylynn said with a rakish grin on her face. “How’s it feel being dressed like a cat burglar?”

  The first two weeks of Tour I graveyard observation went well, though Jaylynn was exhausted by the third day. Despite sleeping from the moment she hit the bed in the morning until late afternoon, she could not get used to Dog Watch’s late night hours. If she had to work that shift, she’d never make it—so much for her police career. She hoped to go on Tour III swing shift once her training was over.

  Jaylynn also kept watch for Reilly, but the veteran officer hit the streets before Tour III ended, and Jaylynn’s shift ended hours after all of swing shift had gone home. Not until she started riding days with Officer Culpepper, also known as Cowboy, did she run into Desiree Reilly—literally. After
she and Cowboy ended their tour early one day, they returned to the station. She pushed open the door to the police entrance only to find six feet of scowling electricity staring down upon her. Jaylynn came to an abrupt halt, stock-still and tongue-tied.

  “You’re in an awful hurry,” Dez Reilly said. Her police cap was tucked under one arm, and she carried a paper sack in one hand and a quart-size bottle of water in the other.

  Cowboy pushed the door open and squeezed past the two of them. He said, “Dez, honey, how’re you doing?”

  She gave him an amused glance, but instead of answering said, “This rookie giving you any trouble, Cowboy?”

  He stopped and smiled, running his thick hand through his short white-blond hair. “Nope. She’s picking it all up nicely.” He moved away. “See ya tomorrow, Savage.”

  “Bye, Cowboy,” Jaylynn managed to squeak out, but he probably didn’t hear her. She turned her attention back to the piercing blue eyes inspecting her face.

  Dez said, “Guess I’ll be seeing you week after next.”

  “Oh?” Jaylynn asked, a surprised look furrowing her brow.

  “Yeah. You drew the short straw and got me for Tour III observation and field training. Didn’t the lieutenant tell you?”

  “No, I think we’re getting information on a need-to-know basis. Are you sure?”

  “Yup.”

  The cop slid a foot forward, and Jaylynn became aware of the fact that she was blocking the door. She stepped aside to let Dez Reilly pass. “Hope you have a good night,” Jaylynn said.

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  Jaylynn watched as the long-legged officer ambled out toward the parking lot full of police cruisers, reached a vehicle, and disappeared into it. Jaylynn let the door swing shut and restrained herself from running down the hall, screaming maniacally, but she did allow herself a happy grin as she went to sign off shift. Only a few more days with Cowboy, and then she’d do the two weeks of Tour III observation in the company of Desiree Reilly. And if she heard the policewoman right, she was planning on being Jaylynn’s FTO, too. Now she could hardly wait to get home and tell Sara.

  The first thing Jaylynn noticed once she got in the passenger seat of the squad car was that Officer Reilly wore silver reflective sunglasses, and she kept them on until the sun had been down so long that the streetlamps clicked on in the dimness. Only then, almost as an afterthought, did Reilly slip the glasses off and tuck them into her shirt pocket. Out of the corner of her eye, Jaylynn noticed how the veteran cop’s eyes constantly scanned the area, intently examining every passing person, every car, every movement.

  Jaylynn watched the early evening gradually shade from gray to darkness. The nightlife emerged like moles creeping out of deep holes. A lot of people were out in the cool, crisp air. At present no snow was on the ground and, though only twenty-eight degrees out, the wind had stopped. With just a warm jacket, any seasoned Minnesotan out on the street would be comfortable tonight.

  Jaylynn wracked her brain for something to say to the taciturn woman beside her, but her earlier attempts at conversation met a brick wall. The quiet FTO didn’t offer comments, and she answered any questions in the sparest of language. They’d been in the car for over two hours, getting out only three times so far to check on an underage smoking call and two reports of possible domestic disputes, both of which were unfounded.

  Despite the calm demeanor, Jaylynn thought Reilly was like a tightly coiled spring, with waves of tension radiating from her. She was silent, though it was anything but silent in the car. In addition to the regular dispatch noise on the radio, the car’s AM/ FM radio quietly played a Top Forty station. The cell phone rang. Reilly picked it up and listened. Her eyes narrowed, punctuating periods of silence with terse statements: “Yes, sir. Mmhmm. Okay, thanks.” When she hung up, she said, “Savage, our meal break isn’t until nine. Can you last that long?”

  “Sure. I brought a couple snacks here.” She pointed to her fanny pack.

  “Me, too,” Dez said, gesturing to the paper sack she’d set on the seat between them.

  Dispatch came over the radio, and Reilly picked it up to respond. Jaylynn frowned. How had Reilly known to answer the call? She was too embarrassed to ask. Already she had relegated the two radios to background noise, but she realized she shouldn’t do that—at least not the dispatch radio anyway. She needed to listen to it all the time, but how would she manage while conversing—if you could call what they’d just had a conversation. She also didn’t know what dispatch was asking their unit to do, but it didn’t cause Reilly to speed off to any call. They continued to drive down University Avenue, occasionally taking a side street and then coming back to the busy thoroughfare.

  Jaylynn asked, “How long have you been on the force?”

  “Eight and a half years.”

  “And you like the job?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dez turned off Snelling Avenue onto Thomas, slowing as they came upon a glut of cars parked and double-parked in front of a ramshackle house scattering streams of light from all windows. Small knots of people stood on the front porch and on the lawn, tiny points of orange light giving evidence to all the cigarettes being smoked. Other partygoers made their way through the gathering and up the stairs to enter the house. Reilly wheeled the car past, rolled down her window, and meandered on around the block casually. She approached the house again and parked across the street.

  From the passenger seat Jaylynn heard the loud pounding of the bass. Looks like a fun party going on—probably a bunch of Hamline University students.

  Dez said, “Follow me in and don’t say anything.” She got out of the car and Jaylynn hastened to open her door and get out. She put her hands in her pants pockets and cut across the street, literally following the officer’s long strides. Every step brought them closer to the shrieking, pounding sound of Metallica. The crowd quieted and parted when they caught sight of them. Three men in the front yard backed off and sidled away. By the time Dez hit the top of the stairs, most of the occupants of the porch and yard had miraculously disappeared, leaving three women and a man who came up the stairs behind the officer and the cadet.

  Before Reilly could ring the bell, one of the three women, a perilously thin person who was really no more than a girl, shouted over the musical din, “Can I help you, officer?”

  “Yeah, you can either turn the noise down or break up this party. Are you the owner of the house?”

  She nodded. “I rent this place, yes.” The woman dropped her lit cigarette on the cement stair of the porch and ground it out with her foot. She pulled at the screen door to the house and stepped in, holding it open so Reilly and Savage could enter. Letting loose of the door, she moved over to the stereo system and clicked the power off.

  The woman smiled brightly. “Would you like something to drink, officers?” She raised her eyebrows and leaned toward the kitchen. Meanwhile, behind them, Jaylynn heard the screen door open and close, open and close, as partygoers quietly departed. Still, dozens of young men and women remained in the kitchen, on the staircase, and on the couch and chairs.

  Dez narrowed her gaze and gave her a withering look. “No, thank you, ma’am.” She raised her voice and said, “This is your one and only warning, people. If I get one call from dispatch, I’ll be checking IDs and arresting you.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at the owner. “You, miss, will be the one to get the violation tag, the fine, and the report to the college that you disturbed the peace.” She paused a moment and breathed in, her eyes glancing over every square inch of the room. “And that better not be anything more than cigarettes burning in here. Got it?”

  The house occupant nodded solemnly.

  “We’re outta here then.” Dez ushered her rookie toward the door. Jaylynn grabbed the cool metal of the screen doorknob and burst out into the crisp air. She bounded down the stairs and over to the car. When they got in, she was surprised when Reilly said, “We’ll be back before the evening’s through. Just wait and s
ee.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  The car roared to a start and Reilly eased away from the curb. In a thoughtful voice she said, “Because she’s not the only occupant of the house. I don’t think she can control all those people. If it’s that loud this early, it’ll only get louder. Plus there’re too many kids coming and going. So she’ll probably end up getting tagged.”

  It was the most information Jaylynn had gotten out of her all night, and she jumped on it. “How many calls like this do you generally get?”

  “Anywhere from two to twenty, depends on the time of year.”

  “Because of the weather?”

  “Nah, more the status of the students. Weekends, holidays, certain school events. There’s a lot of colleges around here.” She steered the car back onto University Avenue. “Hamline kids aren’t so bad. Saint Kate’s girls are pretty rowdy, but the worst by far are the spoiled rich kids all around Saint Thomas. Bunch of rotten troublemakers. Got plenty of money for drugs and alcohol, not to mention supersonic stereos, and a lot of them think they own the world.”

  She followed a dented gray Chevy Nova into an Amoco convenience store/gas station. The Nova parked on the side of the store in the regular parking spaces, while Reilly parked at one of the four gas pumps.

  “We need gas?” Jaylynn asked.

  “Nope. Get out.”

  The occupants of the gray Nova hadn’t noticed the police car. They opened their car doors and staggered into the store. The veteran and the cadet strolled behind. Reilly moved up behind the young man and woman as they stood in front of the soda pop case. The man wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a red and brown plaid shirt under a jean jacket. The woman was dressed just the same, except her plaid shirt was green and blue. Both of them were close to Jaylynn’s height. The young woman opened the refrigerator case and took out a liter-sized Mountain Dew. The door slammed shut, and the pair turned and halted, looking up at Dez with fear on their faces.