Policewoman

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  Looking at these girls, I could guess what their arguments had been: “But mother, I don’t want to be the only one left out!”

  One of the girls, a short, slightly plump dumpling with dark horn-rimmed glasses, stiffened suddenly and held her head very still. Her voice was low and a perfect imitation of a television actress noticing her next door neighbor using the wrong detergent. “He’s coming! I just saw his car turn the corner.”

  The girl with the black hair pushed her bangs from her forehead and peeked out. “I can’t stand it!” she said flatly.

  “Now look, girls, that’s what we’re here for. My partner has spotted him, too. Now please, let’s just relax.”

  There was a tightening sensation in my throat, as though that long tube inside my neck was shrinking. Bill, across the street, leaning languidly against a street lamp, had his face in his newspaper. I wasn’t sure that he had seen my signal.

  My own annoyance at the sudden fidgeting and dramatics of the teenagers, who were living their own excitement at top pitch, held the flash of panic deep inside me and gave me something to concentrate on—something to distract me from my own tenseness.

  In a few moments, the man came along the street toward us. I had memorized the descriptions the girls had given and had formed my own mental image of him, and I was certain I would be able to pick him out of a crowd. He would be seedy and sly, and the degeneracy of his acts would affect his whole physical appearance. He would walk with a certain slouch, a certain sidling, lurching, unwholesome step. It would be all about him, covering him like an unmistakable cloak. His actual appearance was a valuable lesson. He was, as they had told us, a redheaded man. He was not, as they had told us, or as I had imagined, some stereotyped caricature monster. He was just a slightly built, youngish redhead, of medium height, with glasses. He was neatly dressed in a gray jacket and gray trousers. He could come to your door each morning with milk or bread, or sell you watches behind a counter or drive your bus or be your cousin’s husband. His appearance came as a shock. He was living proof of what they had tried to teach the recruits at the Academy: John Doe is an ordinary looking man capable of murder, arson, theft, sodomy or any of the other crimes specified in the Penal Code.

  “Are any of you going to the dance Saturday night?” They all stared at me as though I had gone mad. “I have a dream of a date, a boy named Tony. Did I tell you about Tony?”

  The short blonde made some kind of moaning noise, and I spoke directly to her, holding onto her with my voice, warning her. “He is the sweetest boy I’ve ever known, sort of blondish, and that’s funny because I always thought I liked dark men better.”

  “I used to go with a blond boy,” said the girl with the long bangs. She nodded her head and spoke quickly, her voice high-pitched. I was grateful to her, and she continued speaking. “I forget his name though, I just can’t remember.” She broke off with a giggle.

  I kept talking, holding us all together, fully aware of their feelings, fully sharing them.

  The redheaded man was leaning against the fence, about fifteen feet away from us.

  “Oh, God,” said the blonde, her eyes wild. “I can’t stand it!”

  “Tony isn’t very tall, but he has blue eyes and high cheek, bones and one of those soft, deep voices and ...”

  The blonde moaned again. “He’s suspicious,” she said in a loud whisper. “We always move away when he comes. He knows something’s funny, he knows.”

  “Keep still. You just stand there and keep quiet and don’t move.”

  One of the girls standing next to me jabbed me with her elbow and I almost dropped the armload of school-books. “He’s doing it,” she said, “he’s exposing himself.”

  Before I could say anything, the girls all turned and looked at him, and then at me, and they began making the laughing-crying sounds, and my voice was firmer and more certain than I was. “Turn around and look at me and keep talking.” They reacted, grateful for a command, and I brushed my hand over my hair and did not look past their faces, for the man was directly in my line of vision. “My partner is walking across the street. No, turn and look at me, face me, you dope, or he’ll run. You just stand here and don’t do a thing.” I saw Bill’s approach, saw him spin the man toward him, holding his arm. “Okay, kids, that’s it. I just want you to come over with me now and identify him to his face.”

  I held the blonde’s arm, and the others trailed along reluctantly. Bill had the redhead up against the fence and was leaning against him slightly. His clothes had been zipped and the girls, one by one, glanced at him quickly, murmured “Yes,” then moved away.

  “We’re going to book him at the precinct for indecent exposure now, and I’ll call you all tonight and let you know when you and your mothers are to come to court. All right?” They all nodded at me and, relieved and anxious to get away, they moved off in a group. Silent at first, they finally burst into hysterical chattering, turning to watch us over their shoulders as they hurried on, eager to spread the excitement to other classmates across the street.

  My hand shook as I lit a cigarette and went up to the prisoner. His face was without expression, and his eyes blinked steadily behind the dirty, finger-smudged, rimless glasses. He had a small, round nose and ruddy cheeks; the skin around his eyes and mouth was a network of delicate wrinkles, the kind of skin a midget has, smooth yet crumpled at the same time. His hands hung limply at his sides, and he seemed neither nervous nor arrogant nor upset. He seemed to be in a kind of trance, to have removed himself from the situation, with his eyes focused on another time or place. Bill was questioning him, and he was answering in monosyllables, flatly, just audibly.

  “This young lady is a police officer. Did you know that when you exposed yourself to her and the other girls?”

  The man blinked a few more times, rhythmically. “No. I didn’t expose myself.”

  “We’re arresting you for indecent exposure,” I said, not too sure if I should say anything at all.

  “No,” he said, without emotion.

  “You’ve been hanging around this school a lot, haven’t you?”

  He regarded Bill blankly. “No.”

  “You’ve been saying some pretty bad things to those girls, haven’t you? And doing some pretty nasty things to them?”

  He was facing Bill, but seemed to be studying something beyond him. “No,” he said, without protest. It was just a meaningless word in his mouth.

  “Well, they say you have. They say you’ve been grabbing them and feeling them, and doing all kinds of things to them.”

  The man was silent for a moment and then, “My brother’s a cop,” he said, the way a child would say it, with pride.

  Bill stiffened for a moment, stopped by this announcement. His eyes screwed up, and he spoke with the cigarette sticking to his lips. “Yeah? Where’s he work?”

  The man looked surprised. “In New York City.”

  “Yeah, sure. In New York City. What precinct.”

  “My brother’s a cop,” the man said, insistently.

  “Great,” Bill said. “Now you just show me your identification, and we’re going to take a ride to the police station.”

  “Will we see my brother? He’s a cop.”

  At the precinct, we wrote up the arrest cards. Our prisoner’s name was Phillip Rettick; he was thirty-one years old, unmarried, a clerk, living with his mother.

  And, he said, his brother was a cop.

  Bill spoke to the lieutenant at the desk. “I don’t care if his uncle is the mayor,” said Lieutenant Schwartz, “the bum gets locked up.” And then he lowered his voice. “Particularly with all those complainants. One of those kids’ father is a lawyer, and he was raising hell on the phone yesterday.”

  The redhead was a cooperative, orderly prisoner, speaking only when asked something, shaking his head when asked about the charges against him, looking puzzled and lost. When we were getting into the patrol wagon which was to take us to police headquarters for photos, then on t
o court, he stopped, looked at his watch.

  “I’ll be late,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For work. Gotta be there by four o’clock.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Bill, pushing him along into the wagon.

  At Felony Court, Rettick was arraigned, and Bill spoke to the assistant district attorney, a short, sandy-haired man with tan-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

  “We’ve got five other complainants. Teen-age girls. I want to rearrest him tomorrow: indecent exposure, simple assault. This bum’s been hanging around the school for weeks. The kids finally got around to telling their parents about it.”

  “Okay,” the D.A. said, his head lowered into his chest as he studied papers for the next arraignment. “Sure, we’ll ask for an adjournment until tomorrow. You have those girls here.”

  Bail was set at $1,000, and Rettick, looking vacantly around, said nothing. He walked where Bill led him, and then went with the court attendant, who led him out of sight to the detention cells. Bill brought the commitment papers back, and the judge signed them. Bill signaled for me to meet him in the back of the court, then disappeared into the detention room again.

  I sat on the last bench in the courtroom, looking at the high ceiling and dark paneling of the walls. It was like a huge, hollow cavern, and it wasn’t difficult to understand the worried faces of the friends and relatives awaiting the appearance of various prisoners. There was a cold anonymity to the official readings of the offenses being charged. Only the name had any meaning, and then only to those directly involved. The clerk’s voice was muffled and unclear, and the words didn’t carry beyond the first row or two. The prisoner would stand before the judge. His relative would be straining to make some sense out of the words being read or pulling on the prisoner’s arm, or glaring at him, or whispering to him, or weeping quietly, or sobbing noisily—it was all the same—and the reading would go on in the steady sing-song voice that had called out every possible horror in the same even tone. The district attorney would look up from his papers, say something. Words would be exchanged between the bench and the stenographer. An attorney would speak or Legal Aid would be assigned. The relative, usually a wife, would stand, staring, searching for a face to turn to, and her attorney would take her arm or the court attendant would tell her to step back. Her whole world at this instant would be this big, endless grotto of a room, filled with strangers holding their own troubles against their bodies with their arms, avoiding the eyes of anyone else, not willing to share other tragedies or bewilderments or fears. I dropped my eyes as an elderly woman, some mother, wearing a dirty, too-large blue coat and a thick bright kerchief, walked uncertainly down the wide aisle, looking from face to face, searching for direction.

  When Bill finally emerged from the wire mesh cage leading to the detention quarters, his face was creased and his lips were taut. “Come on outside, we’ll talk there.”

  We walked to the wide marble chamber of a hallway, where conferences were being held in small, worried groups. Lawyers were insistently instructing destroyed looking relatives, who were hanging hopefully on every word and gesture.

  “Jesus,” Bill said, “now he tells me his brother is a police captain.”

  “Is he?”

  “Who knows? The guy’s a real nut. He acts like he’s not with it; you have to watch out for that type. He can snap at any minute. I’ve had a few like that; I’m glad he’s off our hands.”

  We returned to the precinct to give the desk officer the details of the arraignment, and I dialed the first number on my list of the girls’ names. It was the home of the doctor’s daughter, since that was where the parents had gathered the previous night.

  Mrs. Small’s voice was smooth and well-modulated, with a certain warmth and charm that carefully spelled out her position as the wife of a doctor. I remembered her from the night before: she was sharp-featured, a birdlike woman, small-boned with clean dark hair swept back from her narrow face into a sleek, intricately twisted bun, and bright eyes and clear skin.

  “Yes, Mrs. Uhnak, Joanne told us about it, and I can’t tell you how completely relieved we are. You people certainly did a marvelous job, and I can’t tell you how much we appreciate the way you handled it. Protecting our girls, I mean.”

  “Well, that’s our job. Now, I’d like Joanne and the other girls, and you mothers, to meet us in the Complaint Room tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. That’s at 100 Centre Street, the Criminal Courts Building, on the second floor and ...”

  The careful voice interrupted. “Of course, our main concern in all of this, quite naturally, is the protection of our girls. If is such a relief to know that this man is behind bars. You realize, of course, my dear, that the girls are at such an impressionable age.”

  “Yes, of course. Now, we’ll be in the Complaint Room before nine-thirty waiting for you, and the procedure is very simple. We’ll ...”

  “They are our main concern,” the voice reiterated in my ear, “and that is why we’re so very grateful and I know that you will understand.”

  There was a momentary silence. “Understand what, Mrs. Small?” I asked softly, not wanting to admit that I knew, had known from the moment her voice sounded elegantly in my ear.

  “Well, of course, we don’t want to subject the girls to anything that may harm them, you see. We feel, the other parents and Dr. Small and myself, that the girls have been exposed to enough sordidness. We really feel that to subject them to a courtroom procedure now ...”

  The lightly positive flow of her words weighed me down with a weariness. I hadn’t realized how drained and tired I was, not just physically but emotionally, too. It was in an attempt to stimulate myself, to awaken myself, that I tried to fight her. “What do you mean, Mrs. Small? I don’t understand.”

  My voice was louder, cold. Bill stopped writing in his memo book and squinted through the smoke of his cigarette, following my part of the conversation, reading the rest from my face and tapping fingers.

  The voice at the other end became a little sharper, edged with some vague hint, some warning. “I am sure you can understand that we will not allow the girls to appear in court as complainants. We feel quite satisfied now that this man has been apprehended and you police officers have taken him into custody. As far as we are concerned, we are very pleased with the results. In fact, Dr. Small is going to write a letter to the police commissioner,” she said brightly, “and all the other parents are going to sign it, commending you and your partner for your splendid cooperation and quick action. I’m sure that will be of help to you.”

  “Mrs. Small, this matter isn’t ended yet.” Bill was rubbing his long hand over his face, messing up his eyebrows. “We arrested this man for indecent exposure today, but without the other complaints, it might not stand up.”

  Mrs. Small was very firm now. “Yes, I understand that. But he exposed himself to you. None of the children saw it today.”

  “They were standing with me, of course they saw it. They all saw it.”

  And now Mrs. Small’s voice was final, not open to argument. “No, my dear, they did not. We feel, all the parents feel—and I should tell you that three of the other mothers are right here with me”—she paused momentarily, and I could see the three other mothers nodding their heads up and down righteously—“that this is quite an adequate action. We are satisfied with this man’s arrest on your charges.”

  “Mrs. Small ...”

  “As I said, we do not want this to have too much of an effect on our young daughters. We feel that pursuing this any further will be detrimental to their psychological well-being, because they are so impressionable.”

  “Don’t you think it might make a very strong and very good impression on them to come into court and see for themselves that a man who has been molesting them and exposing himself to them for weeks was arrested the first time they reported it to the police, and that they have police officers to turn to when something like this happens?” I ignor
ed Bill’s wordless message, his look of resignation and disgust. “Don’t you think they are old enough to be reassured that we have police and courts of law for their protection?”

  The voice was crisp and brittle now. “I have no intention of arguing with you, Mrs. Uhnak.”

  “Mrs. Small, last night, when Detective Bayreuth and I spoke with you parents ...”

  “After you and Detective Bayreuth left, we discussed it further. Dr. Small” (she intoned the holy name with the pride of the wife of an expert before an audience of the wives of lesser men) “pointed out the possible harm it might cause the girls to be involved in a courtroom case, and we all decided to let the police handle the matter. After all,” the sharp little voice told me, “it is your job!”

  “Yes. It is our job.”

  “Well,” the voice, triumphant, flashed cheerfully again, “we want to thank you again. Believe me, someday when you’re a parent yourself, my dear, you’ll understand our feelings.”

  “Yes,” I said, not responding to the wise words which preceded the gentle, final click in my ear.

  “Damn it. Damn it. ‘Dr. Small says, and Dr. Small thinks.’” I imitated the cool, superior voice.

  “And I think I knew it all the time, and we should have hustled those kids right over to the precinct with us.” Bill stamped out his juicy cigarette and immediately lit another one. His face was impassive, and he observed my anger without comment.

  Bill Bayreuth telephoned me at home after ten that night, and I was surprised to hear his voice. “Listen, Dot, Rettick does have a brother who’s a cop.”