‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ she said to him.
His expression did not falter. ‘Enjoy what? I was searching you, ma’am. That’s all.’
‘You felt me up. We both know it.’
‘That’s not what happened. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. I hear there’s a lot of that going around.’
Sydney now knew for certain what she had previously only guessed at. The roadside stop had not come about by either accident or coincidence. This entire situation was manufactured – with the exception of the grope, she assumed. This was Sonora PD’s way of letting her know they were unhappy with her investigation.
‘You humiliated yourself, not me,’ Sydney told the cop.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, officer..?’
‘Peavey, ma’am. And I have nothing to be ashamed of. I apologise if my hands slipped during the pat down. It’s not easy for a male officer to search a female. Things can be misconstrued. But we have to check everywhere for weapons, if you know what I mean.’
‘You are a disgrace to the uniform,’ Sydney told him in a hushed voice.
‘Be careful what you say, ma’am,’ he replied, putting his lips to her ear and lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Or I might not go so easy on you next time. Hell, I’d demand a full strip search if I didn’t think you’d enjoy it.’
Sydney pulled her head back, but maintained eye contact. ‘They sure picked the right man for this job, Peavey. But you took it too far. You better believe that you picked on the wrong woman at the wrong time.’
To which he grinned and said, ‘And yet you’re the one in cuffs having your ass hauled down to the station.’
Thirteen
Peavey sneered as he stuffed Sydney into the back of his cruiser. On this occasion she submitted without a fight, waiting for the right moment to respond. The word was out on her. Sydney Merlot was sniffing around, poking her nose into places they did not want her to be anywhere near. Sonora PD were unhappy with her for siding with Muller. The cop had been tasked with giving her a hard time, leaning on her enough to make her think twice about persevering any further. And the patrol officer was playing his part to the letter. With his own perverted sickness thrown in for good measure.
Neither spoke again as the cruiser headed back down the mountain all the way to Sonora, and the single-storey grey clapboard police station on Green Street adjacent to the Rodeway Inn. Sydney said nothing until she was standing in the charging area. By the time Peavey had rattled off a one-sided account of what took place on the roadside to a bleary-eyed sergeant who was portly and nudging retirement age, Sydney had made up her mind about what to do next.
‘I want to make a call to Hank Stevensen,’ she said when asked to answer the charges against her. Sydney recognised the three-striper sitting behind his desk as Andrew Weekes, a man who’d lived his entire life in the town, around thirty years of which he’d spent in a Sonora PD uniform. His reaction to the mere mention of the name she’d uttered was noticeably guarded, but he tried to ride it out.
‘Ms Merlot, do you have anything to say in your own defence?’
Sydney shook off Peavey’s grip on her upper arm. ‘Why are you acting as if we don’t know each other, Andy? You and my father were friendly, and the three of us spent an evening together talking about the academy when I was thinking of joining up. So what, I’m nothing more than a piece of criminal meat to you?’
He raised a hand, both cheeks reddening. ‘Now, hold on there a moment, Sydney. Of course I know you, and I’m as surprised as heck to see you standing here before me. But we still have our processes to work through, and you know that better than most. So how about we get them over with quickly, and then we can talk about what happened here tonight. That sound okay to you?’
‘Not at all. But sure, go for it.’
‘Fair enough. So, speak to me. What do you have to say for yourself?’
‘I told you. Before I say a word, I want to place a call to Hank Stevensen. If you uncuff me, I can provide you with his business card.’
‘Sydney, you realise we have three hours to comply with your request after we book you?’
‘I do, yes. Because, as you well know, I was also a cop. And to be more accurate, you have no longer than three hours to comply, not precisely three hours. So book me if you’re going to, and let’s get the clock started.’
‘Oh, we’re going to, sweetheart,’ Peavey said, offering the same little smirk he had flashed her when being confronted about his wandering hands. The jerk was puffed up and full of himself.
‘Shut the hell up, Bobby!’ Weekes grunted.
‘Yeah, shut the hell up… Bobby,’ Sydney echoed.
‘That’s enough out of you, too,’ the older cop said. ‘Listen up, you want me to book you, Sydney?’
She gave a deep sigh. ‘What I want is for this idiot to remove these cuffs, to apologise to me for his sickening and unlawful behaviour, and then for someone else to drive me back to my truck.’
‘Your father’s truck,’ officer Peavey pointed out. He reeled back at the fierce look Sydney threw at him.
‘Hey, hold on a minute,’ the sergeant said amiably, but shooting his colleague a tight glare. ‘I’m sure we can figure something out without resorting to booking you. I think officer Peavey here would be willing to overlook the charges this time, provided you were to apologise for your attitude when he pulled you over. After all, he was only doing his job.’
‘I doubt that his job is to roar up behind me with his cruiser’s headlights blinding me. I doubt that his job is to scare me shitless by tailgating me, to light me up without probable cause, or attempt to intimidate me. And I am absolutely certain that his job does not entail him feeling me up as he searches me. If that is indeed his job, then I want to be booked and I want Hank Stevensen here as soon as he can make it.’
Weekes pulled back, blowing out his cheeks. He put both hands on his hips, hitching his belt subconsciously. ‘Now, now. I don’t think there’s any need to involve Mr Stevensen at this stage.’
‘Who the heck is Hank Stevensen?’ Peavey asked.
That told Sydney how new the officer was to Sonora. Which was probably why he had been selected for the job in stopping her on the road.
‘Hank Stevensen was the best defence attorney in the county. Still is when he’s not investigating. Hank is driven by one purpose: to make life miserable for bad cops as often as humanly possible. He rips them to shreds in the courtroom. And he loves every moment of it because there is nothing he despises more than a cop who is either lazy, ignorant of the law, disrespectful, a bully, or on the take. Everyone in these parts refers to Hank as the Cop Slayer. What’s more, he was my father’s closest friend, and he will devote every minute of every day to making sure the next ticket you attempt to write up is somewhere deep into North Dakota where you can do the least harm.’
Weekes looked over at Peavey and shook his head helplessly. ‘You had to ask.’
Peavey shrugged, but he wasn’t smiling any longer.
Sydney took a breath. Her day in court would wait. All she wanted to do was get home, kick off her boots, sidle out of her bra, open up a cold beer or a bottle of Chardonnay, and put her feet up. The routine was a familiar one, but it was something she craved and drew strength from. She cleared her throat before speaking next.
‘Look, officers – and in your case Peavey, I use the term loosely. Allow me to help you out here, save us all a bit of time and a lot of inconvenience. I know what’s going on. I know why officer Peavey was told to stop me and go hard on me. I even understand it to a certain degree. But I’m doing nothing wrong by investigating Dexter Muller’s claims. In fact, I think what I am doing is very much the right thing. It may embarrass a few people, and one or two may get shit-canned for their part, but it’s certainly nothing you need worry yourselves about unduly. Because however it came about, what happened to Kevin Muller was a tra
gic misunderstanding. Anyhow, my looking into the matter is not enough to justify you behaving in this way. So how about you do nothing more, and I say nothing more. Get me out of these cuffs and let me go. I’ll even make my own way back to my truck and we’ll all forget about what took place here tonight. How does that sound?’
Peavey looked bewildered. Weekes said nothing.
‘Either that, or I tell Hank in minute detail how your officer’s hands were all over me during the search after he lit me up. So much so, it amounts to sexual abuse. I’ll also be certain to linger over the details when I make Hank aware of the threats made against me by officer Buttmunch here. Ultimately it may be that Buttmunch is the only one charged for what took place, but if I were the person responsible for sending him after me, I might also be fearing for my own job.’
Weekes at least had the decency to look abashed, as much as admitting that he had issued the instruction to the officer. He glanced sidelong at Peavey. ‘You asshole. What the hell were you thinking?’
‘Nothing.’ Peavey shrugged like a scolded child.
‘Yeah. And that’s your Goddamned problem, that lack of thinking.’
‘So, are you letting me go or am I calling Hank?’ Sydney asked, anger beginning to stir again.
Sergeant Weekes raised both hands in apology. ‘You win, Sydney. You win. Peavey, you stick around here and man the desk until I get back. I’m going to run Ms Merlot here back up to her vehicle.’
Before the officer managed to protest, Sydney’s hands were free, and she was being escorted out of the door. As Weekes opened it for her, Sydney pirouetted on her heels, strode briskly back towards the arresting officer. His hands were hooked around his gun belt, but she saw only the imperious leer on his face lacking any kind of remorse for his earlier actions. He raised his eyebrows by way of a question.
Sydney’s reply was to pull back her right arm and deliver a punch to Peavey’s crooked thin gash of a mouth. It landed firmly, the two predominant knuckles splitting the lower lip. The officer’s legs buckled and he staggered backwards a couple of steps, a hand coming up to cup his mouth which was bleeding.
‘You want to charge me for that, better make sure you call Hank first,’ Sydney said, jabbing a finger at Peavey who stood there like the cowed bully he was. ‘Though I don’t believe your sergeant here witnessed what happened.’
‘Witnessed what?’ Weekes said from the doorway. ‘I was looking out along the street.’
Nodding to herself, Sydney turned again and this time walked out through the open door. ‘I didn’t think so,’ she said, grinning despite her ordeal.
‘You are so much your father’s daughter it’s scary,’ Weekes muttered to her as she walked by him and out onto the sidewalk.
‘Thanks,’ Sydney said, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘So now you know the fight you’re in for.’
Fourteen
After a long and hot shower, during which she scrubbed herself virtually raw in order to rid herself of the invasive touch of officer Peavey, Sydney spoke to Jordan while she reclined barefoot on the larger of the living room sofas. Two empty beer bottles stood on the coffee table, alcohol steadying both her nerves and the shakes that had come on as she watched the taillights of sergeant Weekes’s patrol vehicle heading back down the hill after dropping her off by the truck.
‘Is it true what you said about Peavey?’ he’d asked her before she got out of the car. ‘That he put his hands on you?’
‘Yes. All over me.’
Weekes shook his head, biting down on his bottom lip. ‘I’ll speak with him,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll make sure he knows what’s what.’
‘There are lines you don’t cross, Andy. Peavey is a dangerous man to have out on the street alone if he thinks molesting women is acceptable behaviour. Worse still if that woman is an FBI agent and he doesn’t give a damn. You have to wonder if he’s a broken part in need of fixing or replacing.’
‘Yeah. I need to give that some thought. Believe me, I’m sorry for what he did.’
‘But not about stopping me for no good reason, right? I’m fair game at the moment.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. And sure, I apologise for that as well. But you know how the blue line defends itself, Sydney. It is what it is.’
‘Sure.’ She nodded. ‘And it’s shameful.’
Alone in the darkness of the truck’s cab, Weekes’ hollow apology ringing in her ears, Sydney had felt vulnerable for the first time in a long while. Perhaps since her early days at the academy, away from home and missing Moon Falls terribly. Whoever had issued the order to harass her would never have done so had her father still been around. The authorities had been justifiably wary of tangling with Sidney Merlot, but his friendship with Hank Stevensen marked him down as a man not to be trifled with. That they were feeling secure enough to toy with her confirmed the gaping hole in Sydney’s life that she was incapable of filling. The crushing weight of this observation had made her feel so helpless and lonely that she wept for ten straight minutes until her eyes burned and thin trails of mucus hung like strands of twine from her nostrils.
Emotionally wrung-out and with a bottle of local Indian Rock Chardonnay cracked open, Sydney was desperate to clear her head. Back in San Diego, when she wasn’t working or seeing Jordan, she spent much of her spare time playing First-Person Shooter Role-Playing Games. Doom and Quake had drawn her into that world after the hectic fun of Sonic and Mario waned and she sought fresh challenges for her deft controller skills, but these days she preferred Call Of Duty and Wolfenstein. Time spent with the Xbox took her out of herself, while also increasing dopamine levels two-fold, the pleasure of which had the dual effect of making her feel both more comfortable in her own skin, as well as incredibly relaxed. She had a copy of Fortnite loaded onto her laptop, but playing a game in the midst of all she had going on didn’t feel right. Instead, she called her boyfriend in the hope that shifting gear back to the more mundane aspects of life would rid her of the black cloud hanging overhead. Against expectations, it was working a treat.
‘How’s my darling boy?’ Sydney asked, curling her legs up and tucking both feet beneath her. She wore threadbare Marvel PJs, their age a comfort to her.
‘Don’t start that again,’ Jordan said. ‘He’s warm, he’s safe, he’s fed, and he’s asleep. It’s a great life, and he’s making the most of it.’
Sydney smiled and breathed a soft sigh. She tended towards indulgence where her cat was concerned, whispering sweet nothings into either of Bruce’s twitching ears while she stroked his silky fur. If Bruce was feeling in the right mood, he nuzzled her back and gently bumped his head against hers, though to be fair, most of the time he tried batting her away with his paws. His expression was often one of lofty disdain, but she did so love him. Having claimed Bruce from an animal shelter close to home in San Diego, Sydney doted on him as if he were her firstborn child. A true house cat aside from the occasional venture into the back yard under strict supervision and the watchful gaze of his proud human mother, he filled a void in her life when she was at her most vulnerable. Introducing her cat to Jordan had been the ultimate deal breaker.
‘Tell me about your day instead,’ Sydney said, the remnants of her own still clogging her thoughts. Unsure how she felt about Jordan in respect of a long-term relationship, she liked that he was able to both read her mood and respond to it without delving deeper into them. With him she was secure enough to open up when the release valve needed turning, or keep it contained if she preferred. It felt like a real bonus compared to her failed marriage.
He laughed. ‘You think much has changed in my working life since the last time you asked?’
An accountant with a large company located at the heart of the San Diego Business Park in the Otay Mesa district, Jordan often joked about the stark differences between the sedate environment he experienced daily compared to hers. There was no bitterness in his humour, and he possessed the attractive aura of a guy who did not feel his masculinity
to be in danger of being threatened. He was a strong, fit and positive man with nothing to prove to either her or himself. Sydney liked that about him right from the beginning.
‘Well, I bet my day was way more boring than yours,’ she lied. There was little to gain from telling him about the predicament she had placed herself in. ‘Daddy’s business had become hum-drum. Though he never said as much, I think he was pulling back from it. Chances are he would have retired within a year.’
‘But I never got to,’ her father’s voice whispered in her ear.
Sydney gasped and swivelled her head, heart thumping behind her ribs. The room was empty. Of course there was nobody there. The words spoken in her father’s gravelly monotone had come from a source buried deep inside her subconscious.
‘Syd?’ Jordan said, hesitantly. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, hon. Having one of those moments. You know how it is, everything is still relatively fresh and sometimes when I talk about him it comes as a shock to realise he’s no longer with us. I keep expecting to see him traipse in off the deck.’
Jordan understood. He had lost his own father to a terrible muscle-wasting illness which, while giving him and the rest of his family time to prepare, did not make the ultimate loss any easier to deal with. This personal tragedy occurred a year before she and Jordan had even met, but on occasion she caught the deep ache passing slowly across his face as he waded into the choppy waters of melancholy.
‘Syd, would you like me to come up there sooner than the back end of next week? I can probably reschedule my vacation days and head on up to you at the weekend.’
For a few seconds, Sydney actually considered taking him up on the offer. But the investigation she had embarked upon would be far from over by Saturday or Sunday, and bringing Jordan into the mess she had already stirred up was a non-starter. Sydney hated to push him away, but this was not his battle.
‘You know what,’ she said. ‘I still have a stack of things to take care of. You’ll be restless and stir-crazy if you fly up here only to sit around doing nothing. Thanks for offering, hon, but I think I have to deal with my father’s estate and business before you join me. That way we can focus solely on putting the house on the market and packing up his belongings.’
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