by Lizz Lund
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Appletree spluttered, waving the forms at Jim and digging around in his desk drawer and pulling out a can of Air Fresh. “I gotta work here, ya know.” He whispered, “You have any idea what it’s like to work in a cube farm? You can’t even have a personal phone call without the whole force knowing what you’re supposed to pick up for dinner.”
“Yeah, I used to,” I commiserated. “When did you get promoted?” I figured Trixie should at least know that much.
“Just this morning!” Appletree beamed. “Good things come to those who wait, right?”
“Hey, Appletree, quit cutting the cheese over there,” a gruff male voice called over from another cube.
“See what I mean?” Appletree whispered. “Here, Mina, sign these before your eyes start to water.”
I looked at the papers with Helena’s name all over them. I looked down at Jim. Jim pooted – a silent and more deadly version this time. My eyes watered. Appletree hooked his hand around his face; Norman placed his baseball cap over his mouth.
“Look,” I said, holding my nose and covering my mouth with my hand, “I’d like to talk with her.”
“What?”
“I mean, how do you know she stole my bag?” I asked.
“Because we found her holding your bag,” Appletree answered.
“Right. But that doesn’t mean she took it from me,” I said.
“Or konked Mina on the noggin,” Norman said. “After all, that’s the main point, Detective.”
“How do you mean?” Appletree asked.
“Because whoever actually stole Mina’s bag has to be the one who knocked her out cold,” Bauser said, unwrapping a piece of gum and putting it in his mouth. Huh. No wonder he could drink Krumpthf’s. And didn’t mind Jim’s poots. Bauser had no nose-buds.
“Okay, okay, we know all that. And that makes sense. And as much as I shouldn’t do it, I’ll let you talk to her – with me present,” Appletree said.
“So we’re thinking like detectives then, huh?” Norman asked from behind his baseball cap.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t care. My cube is completely polluted – we gotta get out of here before Jim’s fumes reach the whole department.” Appletree waved the way toward the holding cells. “I’ll never hear the end of it. My first day as detective. Geesh.”
As we filed out of Appletree’s stinky cube, we began to hear little spots of verbal recognition about Jim’s freed fumes: “Pheeew!” “Who brought in the Amish fertilizer?” “Who got a nervy perp?” “Hey, where’s that can of Air Fresh?”
We picked up the pace and trotted down the hall toward an elevator. We got into the elevator and Appletree kneeled down to talk directly to Jim. “Look, elevators are very confined spaces. So just squeeze your cheeks together until we’re out, okay?” Jim smiled at Appletree and schlurrped him chin to forehead. Appletree pressed the letter ‘D’ (for dungeon?) and down we went.
When the elevator stopped, the doors opened onto a far less grand version of the front desk. It was still elevated, but instead of being covered in granite, this reception desk was just plain old Formica, surrounded by a clear kind of plexi-glass, which I guessed was bulletproof. Appletree stepped up to the desk and pressed a buzzer. The two officers manning the desk looked up from their monitors. Appletree took his ID and placed it in what looked like a drive-up ATM receptacle. One of the two officers retracted the shelf, opened it up, peered at Appletree and returned it back through the slot. “Who you here to see?” the reception officer asked.
“Helena Proz-crink…. Helena Proz-chink… Helena…” Appletree stumbled.
The other officer rolled his eyes. “You mean, Helena Pryzchntchynzcky. Man, I’ve been through half a dozen labels trying to get her file straight,” he said.
“Babe needs to buy a vowel,” the other officer grimaced. Appletree shook his head.
“Who you got with you?”
“Victim. Gal whose purse she stole,” Appletree answered. The reception officers looked at each other.
They shrugged. “It takes all kinds,” they said.
“ID please,” the second reception officer directed me through the plexi-glass.
“ID?” I asked. “I’m not a cop.”
Appletree hung his head. “Your driver’s license, Mina,” he said, rubbing his forehead.
“Oh,” I said, and went through my newly recovered handbag. Which was when I noticed how much neater my wallet was since my purse had been recovered. And re-organized. Even the coupons in my wallet were folded up, not crumbled and shoved in like I usually kept them. It was good to know the police treated victims nicely, too. But I guess they had to; it’s Lancaster, after all.
I found my driver’s license and gave it to Appletree. Appletree put it in the slot and the reception officer mechanically grabbed it. He looked at it, and then at me. He nodded at Appletree. “Okay, you can go in,” he said, putting my driver’s license in some kind of a receptacle beneath the counter. I looked at Appletree.
“You get it back after you come out,” Appletree explained.
I looked over at Norman and Bauser.
“We’ll wait here with Jim,” Norman said quietly.
I followed Appletree around the encased reception desk. A buzzer buzzed, unlocking the steel door in front of us. Appletree opened it and held it for me. For a lot of people, this probably seemed like pretty stringent police security. But it gave me a cozy feeling. It reminded me of when Ethel and I visited Gramma Maude and Grandpa Lester’s apartment in the Bronx.
We walked through the door and into yet another reception area. Instead of having an elevated reception desk, though, there was a normal counter with a fairly normal officer behind it. Behind him was an open hallway with a series of closed doors.
“Go ahead, we’ll bring her in,” the officer informed Appletree. “Room A2.”
We walked down the hallway, and Appletree opened another steel door – with a window in it – to the room labeled A2. It was small. One table that was about six feet long stood inside. On one of the long sides was a single chair. Opposite that were two more chairs. Appletree showed me into one of them. He sat in the other. We stared at the empty chair across from us.
He reached into his pocket. “Gum?” he asked.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks,” I said.
Appletree nodded. “PizzaNow! is pretty good. But sometimes you wind up leaving smelling like garlic. Or beer.” He winked. Great.
“It was sympathy beer. And it wasn’t that much,” I said.
“It’s okay. Sounds like you guys have had a pretty tough day.” I looked at him blankly. “Trixie,” he clarified. “She called you at work, and got Lee. And the news.”
Oh. Fantastic. Not only did I get my own unemployment news secondhand; now it was getting broadcasted to the police. Crap.
Appletree and I waited. Then came the sound of the tumblers unlocking on the other door. It swung open, and there stood a somber female police officer and a very weepy Helena Pryzchntchynzcky. The officer rolled her eyes, dug around in a pocket and handed Helena a tissue.
“You stole a handbag; you didn’t kill someone. Get over it,” she said kindly. Helena wailed a bit and nodded and gulped and blew her nose. The officer rolled her eyes again and rummaged for another tissue. “You keep on like this and they’re gonna accuse me of dehydration abuse. Hold on.” She darted away from the doorframe and returned with an economy size box of tissues, which she thrust at Helena. “Here. I’m not planning on having a cold or a boyfriend anytime soon.”
Helena Pryzchntchynzcky stood weepy and fragile with her newly bestowed box of tissues cradled in her right arm and several drippy used tissues clutched in her left hand. I looked her up and down and was grateful – for her sake – that she didn’t look a thing like her Uncle Vladimir. Vito. Whoever. Helena Pryzchntchynzcky looked like a porcelain doll: she was about five feet tall, probably weighed about 90 lbs. soaking wet and had wavy,
platinum blonde hair that hung down past her shoulders and incredibly huge, jade green eyes. If it weren’t for the fact I’d come to help her and her estranged uncle, I would have hated her. Nothing personal: just on principle. Helena was an exception to my usual rule of thumb of hating females who look perfect without even trying. That was because her huge jade green eyes were red rimmed and puffy from crying.
Appletree stood up. “Ms. Prochin… Ms. Prayzyn… Preztal…”
“Bless you,” Helena snuffled.
“Helena, please, sit down,” Appletree finally got out. He motioned to the chair opposite us.
Helena crept forward and slunk into the chair, hugging her box of tissues. I looked at her. She stared back and her face crumpled again. “I didn’t do it,” she wailed. “I just found the stupid handbag. I was just going through it to find some tissues,” she cried.
“Well, that’s understandable,” I said, grateful that Vito’s – Vladmir’s – niece came with a ready-made excuse because I had yet to concoct one on my own. Appletree kicked me under the table. “Ow!” I replied.
“Sorry,” he lied.
“Look, Ms…Helena,” I said, “why don’t you tell us what really happened?”
Helena sighed and blew. “I don’t know why. I’ve told these morons about a zillion times, to a zillion different people.”
“Erm… sorry. But at least we’re new morons to tell,” I said, and kicked Appletree back.
And that was when Helena Pryzchntchynzcky launched into the Bumville version of Alice’s Restaurant, complete with the 8 × 10 color glossies with notes on the back and having to be put in the holding cell with the mother lovers and litterbugs. “So you see, I just came across this handbag. I figured someone must have dropped it. Which I thought was lucky, because I was having a real allergy attack. I saw some tissues on the top, and helped myself. I was about to call the police, when I got surrounded and yelled at and thought I was gonna get shot,” she sniffed. “I was just trying to do the right thing.”
Lie or not, this rationale seemed reasonable enough to me. Besides which, if I didn’t get Helena out of jail, Vito might get sent on a one way ticket to Tampa. Or worse.
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” I said, getting up.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Appletree said. “We caught her with your purse.”
“And I believe she was honestly trying to return it to me, and was interrupted by very, very diligent police officers.” I smiled politely. “Besides which, look at her. She’s tiny. She couldn’t knock me out. She couldn’t be strong enough to lift anything that could knock me out,” I said.
“You got knocked out?” Helena asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“With your own purse?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Not sure.”
“Well, it is kind of heavy. You have a lot of stuff in there.”
Appletree looked at both of us like he was visiting inmates from the asylum. He shook his head.
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Appletree said, rubbing the back of his neck at what I guessed was going to be a whopper of migraine by the time his shift was over. “The victim is not going to press charges?”
“Right,” I said.
Appletree looked crestfallen. “This is going to be a long first day,” he said.
He stepped around the desk to the door Helena came in through and pressed a buzzer. The door opened, the kindly tissue matron greeting him. “The victim’s not filing charges. There’s plausible doubt. The department’s not pressing charges at this time,” he said.
“Well thank goodness. Any more tears and we’d be calling in the Army Corp of Engineers,” the female officer replied. “Bring her up to the front,” she said and closed the door.
Helena sniffed and blew into another tissue. The wad she had in her hands had now grown to the size of a volleyball.
“Here,” Appletree offered, and held up a wastebasket. Helena tossed the ball in. It landed with a thud. Appletree and I cringed.
“Thanks,” Helena sniffed.
“C’mon.”
We followed out the way we’d come in, but this time we took a detour to a back room with a table, chairs and a large mirror. I guessed this was an interrogation room. Appletree left Helena and I alone, disappearing after telling us he needed to get some forms.
For a few minutes there was just quiet, punctuated by her irregular sniffs.
“Thanks for believing me and not pressing charges,” Helena said at last. She took another tissue from her box and blew.
“No biggie.” I really didn’t want to have too much conversation with Helena while Appletree was watching from the other side of the ‘mirror’. If Helena started chatting about her Uncle Vlad – Vito – this would get a lot stickier, for both of us.
After several more minutes of non-productive quiet, Appletree came back in with a clipboard and some forms and a report with Helena’s statement about finding my purse at the corner of Prince and Orange Streets.
“Just outside the Lickety-Split Laundry,” Helena nodded helpfully.
“Mina, you sure?” Appletree asked. I nodded. He shook his head again. “Okay, you can go on out. I’ll process Helena out of here,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, wondering how I was going to hook up with Helena afterward without tipping off Appletree. I waved bye-bye to Helena, and went back to the reception area and rejoined Bauser and Norman and Jim.
“What now?” Bauser asked, while Jim slobbered my arm in greeting.
“Uh, well, I guess we go home,” I faked brightly.
Bauser looked at Norman. The officer behind the desk opened the drawer/chute thingy, and offered me back my driver’s license. I took it and tossed it in my purse.
“Yup. Let’s go. Our work here is done,” I sang, and led the parade toward the elevators. I pushed the button, the elevator arrived, and we got it.
“Mina, where’s Helena?” Norman asked.
“Shh.”
“Huh?”
I rolled my eyes and hissed, “The ears have walls.”
“Huh?”
I led us out of the elevator, into the hotel-style public lobby and outside. Bauser’s and Norman’s glasses fogged back up immediately. Jim led us lopsidedly up the street to Bauser’s car. We were almost legitimately handicapped for a few seconds. That probably explained why Jim was so happy.
“What’s the game plan?” Bauser asked.
“Well, first, we can’t let Appletree see we know Helena,” I said.
“Oh jeez, that’s right,” Norman agreed.
“But we can’t let her wander around Lancaster and maybe blow Vito’s cover,” Bauser said.
“Right. So maybe we wait for her and offer her a ride somewhere?” I asked.
“Right, and then what? Kidnap her? Escort her out of state?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “But maybe if we offer her a ride, she’ll tell us why she’s here. Maybe she’s just doing the tourist outlet thing?”
Bauser shrugged and pulled out his keys. His car sat waiting – with a ticket stuck to the windshield. He detached it with a sigh, and put it under his window screen visor. Norman let Jim and I in the back. Then he pulled the ticket out of the visor, opened his wallet and pulled out some cash, and placed it all back.
“Hey,” Bauser began.
Norman waved him off. “You’re unemployed, remember? When you’re gainfully employed again, you can buy me some Krumpthfs,” he said.
“Thanks, man,” Bauser said.
“No problem, dude.”
I hunched down in the back, grateful they didn’t break out into some, “I love you, man,” stuff, and also trying not to think of how many, many cases of Krumpthfs a traffic ticket’s fine would actually buy you.
We pulled away from the drive-up, drove around the block, then parked across from the police station. Norman got out to put some change in the parking meter.
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Bauser turned to me. “You know, I’m a little worried about Norman,” he said in a low, almost conspiratorial kind of voice. I nodded. All this spending, no matter how loaded he was, was pretty uncharacteristic. “I just hope he doesn’t go into shock or something.” I nodded again.
We waited. We sweated. We unrolled the windows and hung our heads out. Sitting with 3 people and a large doggie in an Aspire in August gets pretty close. Especially with a pooting pooch.
After a few thousand years, I saw Helena walking out the front entrance of the police station. “There she is,” I said.
“Right. Got it,” Bauser said, restarting the car and pulling away from the curb. He drove slowly behind Helena, following her, and made the left onto Queen.
I hung my head out. “Hey, Helena, need a ride?”
Helena looked startled. “Oh, well. That’s very nice of you. Especially since you thought I stole your purse,” she said. And she started to cry. Again.
“Oh jeez. I hate it when women cry,” Norman sighed. “I completely cave when my wife or the girls start.”
“Deal with it,” I muttered. “It’s not like she’s going to hit you up for an allowance.”
We shoved Jim over and Helena squeezed in.
“Sorry about Jim,” I apologized.
“Oh, what a cute doggie!” Helena gushed.
I looked across Jim at Helena while we sat sqooshed in the backseat, Jim panted, wagging his tail, and decided it was appropriate to lie flat on his back across both our laps for a belly rub. Luckily for Helena, she got Jim’s head and shoulder portions. Not so lucky for me, since I got the vice versa. “Uh, Jim, ya know,” I said, trying to shove him on his side.
“Oh, him is a nice doggie woggie, isn’t him?” Helena gushed some more, scratching Jim’s ears. I looked up and saw Bauser’s reflection in the rearview mirror. I was pretty sure Bauser was wishing he was a nice doggie woggie, too.
“So, where to?” Bauser asked.
“Uh, well, I don’t know. I’ve only been in Lancaster for a few hours. That’s when I found the purse and got arrested,” she said, starting a fresh brew of tears.