The Policeman's Daughter

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “Sarge,” the rookie called. “Guy here says the pants he’s wearing aren’t his.” He held up a crack cookie in a clear sandwich bag.

  “Ask him whose pants they are.”

  The handcuffed driver, without a license, shook his head. “Man, them’s some dude’s stayin’ in the house.”

  Sarge walked over, playing the game. “Dude have a name?” His tone of voice implied cynicism tinged with happiness.

  They riffed on the perps and on each other. Good riffs were valuable street coinage and could somewhat make up for a day of lost autonomy. They complained whenever forced to do anything structured, roadblocks being no exception. Making theater paid them off.

  As usual, Fuzzy and Blessing were crackin’ on Sarge. “You so old you knew Jesus as a corporal.”

  “He pees rust.”

  “And farts dust.”

  “Sarge, I think your name was mentioned in the Bible.”

  Finally Sarge tried to catch up. “You’re both so stupid you’d fail your blood tests.”

  “That’s lame.”

  “Yeah, he’s so lame . . .” They carried on.

  Salt would have felt safe but with the tricks her eyes were playing she worried she might somehow give herself away, that one of them would notice something was off with her.

  Nearby, a group of little girls watched the cops between turns at jump rope singing to the beat.

  “Sticks and stones can break my bones.

  But words can never hurt me.”

  A scrawny tan dog ran up and began barking at the jumpers. A huge flock of birds in the two big oaks and one failing poplar erupted with a cacophony of squawks and screeches. Somebody in an apartment close by dialed up the volume on a static-riddled radio and Salt’s vision responded, turning tricky and causing her to squeeze her eyes shut, then open them to see the jump rope blurring in double Dutch. The rope was fraying in the middle where it repeatedly hit the ground, and where a shadow image of the girl jumping appeared, a ghost girl, half a second shy of the real one.

  Stone materialized from between two buildings. He walked by the hard-packed dirt yard, where the girls stopped their game till he’d passed by, headed toward Sam’s, his eyes on the officers until he topped the hill and disappeared.

  They’d been at it for about half an hour when the last of the orange sunset sprang off the chrome of a metallic-blue car, its engine revving, coming over the hill from the direction of Sam’s. As they all turned toward the noise, the car’s tires skidded and squealed on the asphalt. Gray smoke plumed from the burned rubber as the front of the car went right and the rear went left. It came to a stop sideways in the road, a football field away. The car jerked back a few feet. Stopped. Jumped forward. Stopped again and went silent. Pepper and Blessing started for their cars. They were halfway there when the car began to drift toward the roadblock slowly, motor off as it reached the bottom and the waiting cops. Even in the late light the birthmark stood out. Lil D was the driver behind a dead engine.

  Stone was sitting high in the passenger seat. He turned away from Lil D and toward the cops outside his window as the sedan rolled to a silent stop, the flicker of a tightly held grin on his face.

  Pepper walked up to Lil D, whose arms were stretched rigid, grasping the steering wheel. They all knew the car, knew it would likely have no insurance since it never had, and knew Lil D’s license was likely still suspended.

  “Aw, come on, Lil D,” Pepper said. “Give me a break. Please. Your mama just died. Please don’t tell me this car is dirty. Man, I do not want to take you to jail.” Pepper was cuffing him as Salt walked over. “Let me talk to him,” she said. Blessing and Fuzzy got Stone out and cuffed him.

  They started the search of Lil D and the car. Lil D kept watch over his shoulder, toward the car, as Salt led him away to where the girls were jumping.

  “They’ll find it under the driver’s seat, won’t they?” said Salt. A quiet question to Lil D, not really asking, knowing.

  “Nothin’ to find,” he said. His voice was low and tight.

  The girls let the rope go slack in the dust. She turned toward them. “You know that guy over there?” The girls’ mouths were shut. “The other guy that was in the car.” Salt looked to the oldest child, maybe about eight years old.

  She dragged the rope between her hands. “That Stone,” she said. The girls were looking away from Lil D with his hands in cuffs behind his back.

  “Did you see Stone earlier?” Salt asked them again.

  “Why you axin’ that? You saw him yourself, right when you and them other poleeses started stoppin’ cars,” said another girl.

  Lil D sucked in his cheeks, his eyes going hard. Pepper was pulling a bag from under the driver’s seat. “Whoa.” He held it up for the rest of the cops to see.

  Stone was standing next to the car, cuffed, facing Salt and Lil D.

  Salt softly asked Lil D. “Why would he set you up?”

  There was no answer from D.

  “You gonna take this hit for him?” she asked.

  The muscles in his face hardened as he clenched his fists and strained at the handcuffs. He clamped his lips harder and didn’t say a word. She waited, holding his arm tight, then, determined, she led him back toward the others, where Stone was now leaning casually against the car, one foot propped on the front tire.

  So Stone would know, she asked Lil D again, “Tell us who put the dope in the car.”

  Stone gave Lil D a giddy, curious look, childlike. He grinned and jittered in place. Then he winked a watch-me wink, turned to her, and barked, “Rarff.”

  For a split second Salt was blinded by a wash of red. She was in his face, could see his jaw muscle jutting. “You saw this roadblock. You knew we were here, so you had Lil D drive. You had the crack. You set him up. You walked by just a half hour ago.” He turned his head, bunched his lips together twice, and barked again.

  Sarge and the others stopped whatever they were doing and were watching her closer than they were watching their arrestees. They had never seen her provoke anyone and had no idea what the barks meant to her.

  “Tell him, Lil D. Tell Pepper where the dope came from.” She spoke to Lil D while still chest to chest with Stone.

  “Salt. I need you to sign the ticket,” Pepper said, trying to distract her.

  “I’m not signing it.” She was still in Stone’s face.

  “Salt,” Pepper repeated, walking up to her with Lil D’s ticket to jail. She glanced at the ticket book he was holding out to her and took a step back from Stone, her awareness of his rotten breath sudden.

  Pepper faked a chuckle. “Big Fuzzy can sign it. He needs the case anyway. He’s always short on felonies.” Again trying to get back to their previous lightness, crackin’ on the big cop.

  It was too late. The last of the sun hit the corner of her eye. She looked over at Lil D. The sunset had washed over his skin and lightened his eyes, making him look more like his mother than ever.

  “Give me the ticket. My name will be the only one on it though. I’ll testify.” She took the ticket and signed her name on the bottom line. Sarge and the rest, uncomfortable, looked anywhere but at her. Even Pepper just looked at his hand, still outstretched to give her the ticket she had snatched and signed.

  She turned to Stone. “Your day will come, Curtis.” She hit hard on the Curt. “The car goes to impound. You can walk.” She grabbed his arm, spinning him, slamming him against the car. The key felt slippery as she searched for the tiny handcuff lock. Stone, free of the restraints, turned slowly and started up the hill toward the dope corner, barking and howling as he went.

  Pepper lifted his radio mic. “Dispatch, start the wagon to this location.”

  In the background the little girls started their jumping again.

  “One for the money.

  Two for the show.
/>   Three to make ready.

  And four to go.”

  27.

  THE THIN BLUE LINE AND THE CHAPLAIN

  The air conditioner in the precinct was stuck on too cold. An icy breeze blasted from a vent below the bulletin board. Salt rubbed her arms, warming them.

  Sarge was saying, “The blue line will be very thin tonight, people.”

  They were standing roll call and there were only five officers for the early call. There would be even fewer for the late group. The beginning and end of each shift were staggered by thirty minutes so that cars would still be available and on the street during shift change.

  Pepper was on Salt’s left. Flower, Big Fuzzy, and Blessing were on her right. Sarge called them to attention and then walked down the line for inspection. “Goddamn but you motherfuckers look like total bums,” he grumbled while he walked behind them. They all knew he wouldn’t write them up. This afternoon Flower had on the same uniform pants that he had worn the night before, with the same muddy knees. Blessing’s dark navy blue shirt was faded to the point that it no longer matched his navy pants. Big Fuzzy had on a winter shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Nobody’s uniform allotment stretched far enough to replace pants torn in chases, shirts ripped in fights, or shoes scuffed and scarred by kicking in doors and scraped in street fighting.

  He tapped her back, as he did each of the others’, making sure each was wearing the vest, his tap like a good luck gesture.

  The flyers, signs of desperation, held to the corkboard by pushpins, flapped in the cold blowing from the AC. One new flyer stood out: INFORMATION WANTED ON THE MURDER OF SHANNELL MCCLOUD.

  Sarge gave them their assignments. “Salt, you’ll be covering your regular and 305’s beat. Pepper, you’ve got 307 and 303. We have no backup cars so hump it, folks, but watch out for each other. Fall out.”

  They broke rank and started out for the cars in line, handed over from the previous shift. Salt stopped at the board to look at Shannell’s photo, probably the most recent, a blurry shot of her holding a beer can.

  Big Fuzzy came up from behind and grabbed Salt. In one last moment of revelry, he slung her up in his arms and carried her across the precinct threshold.

  “I’ve caught me a fair maiden, I think, but I better check.”

  “Fuzzy, put me down or I’ll stick my scepter up your ass.”

  They were all laughing: the not-so-diminutive Salt being swept up by the blond giant, leaving the precinct like kids, tussling, play fighting, Fuzz dropping her. Outside the precinct door Salt trying out new swears on Fuzz—Blue Goon, Sumo Ass—noticed the chaplain sitting on the ground beside the lined-up cruisers. He was sifting through a stack of brochures, some of which had begun blowing across the grass and under the patrol cars. He tried to rock his rotund body to a standing position, grabbing for the glossy tracts. One, with the words Post-Traumatic Stress in large red letters, blew against Salt’s boot.

  The chaplain, gathering some of his papers and dropping others, said, “I came to ride part of the shift with you.” He nodded at her.

  That sent the guys, in exaggerated hurrying, off to their assigned cars, leaving Salt with the chaplain following her to her car. The ever-cynical cops didn’t trust that his main allegiance was to God.

  Salt began to check the cruiser for new damage from the previous shifts. As she lifted the bottom of the backseat, a favorite place for perps on their way to jail to ditch contraband, the chaplain told her, “Due to budget cuts, chaplains do the follow-ups now. Protocol requires that contact must be made within six weeks after a traumatic incident involving officers. It’s been four months and you missed two appointments with the chaplaincy unit. I have to have documented follow-ups or the chief chaplain gets on our case.” She remembered balling up two pink message slips.

  The chaplain was wearing a suit coat, a clerical collar, and a vest, of the non-bulletproof variety. He carefully put one of the brochures inside the car on the dashboard and the rest he stuck inside his vest.

  “Those won’t save you if the bullets are flying,” Salt said.

  “I’m already saved.” He patted the center of his chest over his heart.

  “Yeah, but tonight, out here”—she looked toward the fading day—“you might have to be saved again, just a little, not the big salvation, I know, Chaplain. That’s your department. But I feel responsible for you.”

  He looked at her like he wanted to say something but didn’t. After an awkward minute she continued. “So you’re going to counsel me while we ride my beat and answer calls?”

  He pulled another sheet of paper from the pocket inside his jacket. “I have to be able to say I’ve observed you. I need to check off these questions and then after we’re finished you can drop me back here at the precinct.”

  “Kinda like making a regular seventeen,” she joked, referring to the standard crime report form.

  “Oh, no. I’m also going to give you some advice,” said the chaplain sincerely, opening the passenger door of the patrol car.

  “When was the last time you worked the street?”

  “Well, it’s been five years, or maybe more, but I haven’t lost touch.”

  “Where’s your weapon?”

  He blanched, then patted his pants pockets just in case he had remembered to carry his gun.

  “I’ll try to keep us out of trouble,” said Salt, pulling away from the precinct.

  * * *

  • • •

  As they drove the few miles to her beat, the chaplain smoothed the questionnaire on his knee and began to make check marks on the form.

  “Officer Salt . . . that’s not your real name. It’s here on the follow-up form, Sarah Diana Alt.” He was using his knee as a writing surface.

  “3306,” radio called.

  “3306,” she responded into the mic.

  “3306, respond to a woman in labor at 1441 Jonesboro Road.”

  “3306 copies, 1441 Jonesboro.”

  “Your date of birth?” he asked, making another mark on the debriefing form.

  “June 10th. We’ve gotta go deliver a baby, Chaplain.”

  “Couple of months ago, your birthday.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you celebrate?”

  “Is that question on the form?”

  “No, but I’d like to know.”

  “Let’s just stick to required information, okay?”

  They pulled up to a small tattered house with broken toys scattered around a bare-dirt yard bordered by a tiny fringe of grass. Two little girls in shorts but no shirts sat on concrete steps at the front door, centered on the middle of the house. Salt got out and started toward the entrance, then realized that the chaplain wasn’t getting out. She walked back and stood beside the passenger window. He was staring at the form. He rolled the window down. As the glass descended, a woman’s scream came from inside the house: “Jesus!”

  “You coming in?” she asked.

  Without looking up he said, “I faint if I see blood. Communion wine is as close as I come.”

  One of the little girls came running up and pulled at Salt’s forearm. “You go help my mommy.” She gave off a sharp tangy odor of urine and sour milk.

  Salt leaned down. “The ambulance is on the way, sweetie, and I’m going in to help her right now.”

  The chaplain opened the car door. “You and your sister can stay outside with me.”

  The little girl backed away a little.

  “Bears are in the trunk.” Salt handed him the keys.

  Inside the house, which was hotter than outside, a young woman wearing a loose green skirt sat on a soiled couch in the living room. Her legs were spread and her belly under an oversized T-shirt was huge. She was groaning. “Where’s the ambulance?” she cried.

  An even younger woman, hardly out of her teens, came from anoth
er room carrying a cloth dripping with water and began washing the pregnant woman’s face. “You gone be all right, Shuffie.” Close body smells hung in the air of the small room.

  “How far apart are the pains?”

  “Not no time,” answered the younger woman.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” moaned Shuffie, rolling to her side. Salt watched as amniotic fluid soaked her skirt. The odors intensified.

  Salt tugged at her shoulder mic and pressed the button to transmit. “3306 to radio. Can you give me an ETA on the ambulance?”

  “Stand by, 3306.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Salt mumbled without keying her mic.

  The woman scooted down to the floor with her back resting against the ratty sofa. She rolled her head from side to side and then there was a sudden sharp tangy smell.

  “The baby, the baby,” she cried and slid farther to the floor, raising her knees and spreading her legs.

  “Radio, advise on the ambulance,” Salt demanded from dispatch while she knelt beside the groaning mother.

  “ETA ten minutes,” answered radio.

  The younger woman had backed away to the wall of the room and was chewing on the cloth she had been using to wash Shuffie’s face. Salt turned to her. “Go get clean towels, clean clothes, anything clean. Now.” She moved around to a position at Shuffie’s feet. She’d delivered five babies during her time in The Homes. It seemed like not only did children have to grow up fast here but also they were often born too fast. The mother-to-be yelled, crunched her head to her chest, and pulled her skirt above her thighs. The top of the baby’s head, slick with fluids and shiny black hair, was emerging.

  Salt spread the fingers of her right hand. “I’m going to help your baby.” She cupped her hands under the baby’s head. The woman gave another cry and Salt was holding all but the feet of a squiggling baby girl. Salt’s eyes stretched wide; shaking her head to keep sweat from running and making her blink, she whispered, “Wow,” and touched the new skin of the baby’s cheek. The tiny girl gobbled her first breath.