by Fred Rosen
In the listening post, the DNR clicked on as Mary received an incoming call. The caller was a gang wannabe named Mark Darling.
“Hello?” Mary answered.
“Who is this?” Mark Darling asked.
“Hello?” Mary repeated.
“Mary?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Beau there?”
“No.”
“Hey, what color is the Suburban they got?”
“Blue.”
“They’re chasing it down Eighteenth.”
“Huh?”
“I said they’re chasing it down Eighteenth.”
“He’s in it!”
“Who is?”
“Beau.”
“The cops are chasing it down Eighteenth. It’s on the scanner right now. He was sitting there when he saw it pass. He just now ran the plate number and it came up stolen.”
“It should come up a different plate. Damn!”
Beau had replaced the car’s plates with others, so it wouldn’t show up stolen.
“He’s in it,” Darling repeated.
“He is, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Which way they coming down?” Mary asked, her voice rising in alarm.
“They didn’t say.”
“Have they caught it yet?”
“No, he was just calling in.”
“Can they outrun him?”
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes. I’m gonna see what they say.”
“Okay, honey, thank you.”
“Bye.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that accidents could happen in a high-speed chase, and that Beau had a loaded revolver, if it wasn’t for those things, Michaud would have been on the floor rolling in laughter. How bizarre! The cops chasing Beau, and Mary following the whole thing on Darling’s scanner.
Outside on the streets of Eugene, Beau was racing from one side of the city to the other. With the cops in pursuit, the Suburban soon got up to 100 miles an hour.
The DNR clicked on. Michaud picked up the phones. It was Darling again.
“Hello?”
“Mary?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s it,” Darling confirmed.
This guy has a way with brevity, Michaud thought.
“They catch ’em?” Mary sounded worried.
“It’s an emerald-green car, right?”
“Did they catch him?” Mary asked again, ignoring Mark’s question.
“They’re right behind it,” Darling announced.
“Oh, my God! What’ll I do?”
You? Michaud thought. What about your son?
“They’re on Twentieth and Tyler,” Darling continued. “They lost it. He went down an alley. He’s running from ’em.”
“Oh, God.”
“No, they’re, they’re hauling ass,” said Darling, listening intently to his police scanner.
“Oh, God.”
Michaud had to admit that this was the first time he’d seen—or, anyway, heard—Mary lose her composure.
“Wow!” Darling repeated. “It’s a high-speed chase. They’re headed back toward your house.”
Now Michaud had to laugh. He just had to. Mary must be leaking anxiety at the thought that her son was leading the cops to her!
“I don’t know what I can do to help him. I can’t help him. That f—in’ car is sitting out here,” she continued referring to a car stolen by the gang and parked outside her house.
“Yeah, ’cause they changed the plates.”
“Damn!”
“The only reason they knew where it was, Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Is ’cause it was a cop’s Suburban. Oh, mutherf—er! The cop left his keys in it.”
“Yeah?”
“Get out of it, Beau,” Mary screamed, as though Beau could hear her. “Get out of it, Beau!”
“Talk to you later.”
“Mark, let me know what’s happening.”
“I will, Mary. Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Outside on the street, residents knew something was wrong because you could hear the sirens wailing from one end of Eugene to the other. The last thing cops want in such a circumstance is for civilians to get in the way and, so far, nothing like that had happened. But the longer the chase kept up, the longer there continued the chance that someone would get seriously hurt.
Inside the Suburban, Beau’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He was on the adventure of a lifetime and enjoying it immensely.
Across town, inside her house, Mary couldn’t stand the suspense. She reached for the phone.
“Hello?” Michaud heard her say. “Is Mark there?”
“This is him.”
“Mark, it’s Mary, did they catch him?”
There was a pause, probably Darling listening to his scanner.
“No, they’re on Eighteenth and Polk now.”
“They got … it’s got that thing?”
“What thing?”
“That stolen thing.”
“Oh, the …”
“Bang bang.”
“Oh, really?” Darling responded, realizing that “bang bang” meant there was a handgun in the car with Beau.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, they’re on Twelfth and Polk now.”
“Oh, my God …”
“They’ve got … they’re putting a car in front of him to block him off.”
“He’s in there!”
“I only have one channel, so I probably won’t hear the whole conversation.”
“F—! Get out of it, Beau, get out of it, Beau,” Mary pleaded, as if her wayward son could hear her.
“The only way he’s gonna get away is to plow them f—ers.”
“How is Beau gonna get out of it?”
“He might as well just plow it! He’ll just run the f—ing cops over with it. Ha ha ha ha.”
“They gonna send him away.” Mary began to cry.
“Yeah, Craig got sent to MacLaren this morning.”
“When they sending him up?”
“In a little while.”
“Oh, f—,” Mary keened, like any concerned mother with the vocabulary of a street thug, “there’s not a f—ing thing I can do to help him.”
Nope, Michaud thought and smiled again.
“Wait, I think the cops lost them.”
“Oh, good,” Mary said, sounding joyous, hopeful.
“They better jump out and run, ’cause there’re cops waiting on every corner for the f—er.”
Michaud could hear the scanner in the background.
“One Adam twelve to units, suspect car is a dark green or teal color.”
“Yep, teal,” Darling confirmed to no one in particular.
“I hope they know to pull in somebody’s driveway and get the f—out of it,” Mary suggested. “And run.”
Run, that’s a good thing to do, and Michaud sipped his coffee.
“Two charles ten, has the vehicle parked on Almaden north of Twenty-eighth?”
“The lights are on. I’m gonna stand by here. I can’t see if anybody’s in it.”
“He jumped out and ran,” Mark advised Mary. “The car, he parked it and took off. He just …”
“You got a car?” Mary interrupted.
“Huh?”
“You have a car?”
“No.”
“I gotta get to him. I gotta get to him …”
“The headlights and everything are on, Mary. They’re trying to see if somebody’s in it.”
“They’ll have a problem. It’s got tinted windows.”
“Well, hold on a minute.”
The scanner again.
“On station, uh, correction, station one two x-ray twenty-three, assign four quadrant cars to that immediate area.”
“They’re sending four cars to look for him,” Darling translated.
“Hang on, Beau, hang on. Mark?”
“Yes, Mary?”
“Hang
on a minute.”
“Yeah, you hold on, I’m gonna listen.” The line went dead. Not two seconds later the phone rang again.
“Mom!”
Michaud sat bolt upright. It was Beau Flynn.
“Mom, she set us up!”
“Hey! Hey! Where are you?”
“I’m, I’m safe.”
“See if you can trace this,” Michaud shouted to Rainey, who began to frantically call the phone company to see if they could put a trace on the incoming call.
“The cops are after your ass, son.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I’m hearing it on the scanner. I got Mark listening for me.”
“Beau Flynn, huh?” Beau asked. He was hoping that maybe the cops didn’t know it was him. No one ever said criminals were the brightest people in the world.
“The cops are after whoever was in the Suburban.”
“They don’t know who was in it?”
“No.”
“All right. What do you want me to do?”
“Where are you?”
Michaud leaned forward, pen at the ready, even though the conversation was being taped.
“Well, I’ll get home!”
Damn, Michaud thought. He’s not telling us where he is.
“Don’t—”
“Don’t worry,” Beau continued to reassure his mother. “F—, we got rid of the Suburban.”
“They’re getting dogs out after you.”
Michaud looked at Rainey. “We are?” Michaud asked.
“I’m coming home,” Beau screamed.
“Come home!” Mary wailed, like her son was a Boy Scout lost in the wilderness.
Seconds later, Mary called Mark Darling.
“Mark, he’s on his way home.”
“They’re after him,” said Mark, listening. “He’s running down the street. Running on Almaden.”
“He said Lisa set him up.”
“Okay, now they have an ID on him. They’re gonna stop ’im.”
“Beau said he’ll get home,” Mary answered hopefully.
“Subject is seventeen years old, about six-one, not wearing a hat.”
“He had a hat on,” Mary corrected.
“He probably took it off,” Mark answered.
“Two Sam ten, two x-ray twenty-three,” continued the scanner voice, “We have information that the suspect is Beau Flynn …”
“Yep, they said his name,” said Mark.
“We have a picture …”
“They have a picture of Beau in their car, Mary.”
“Flynn dropped off a girl in front of South Eugene High School.”
“That’d be Lisa,” Mark answered.
“Yep,” said Mary. “But she said it was Beau Flynn, huh?”
Now that was good news to Michaud. That meant Mary still didn’t suspect the wiretap.
“No, they, the cops have a picture of him. Some lady cop. And she goes, ‘Yeah, I believe it’s Beau Flynn. I have a picture of him right here.’”
“Okay, let me call you right back.”
“Okay, bye.”
And Mary was true to her word. She called Mark back in minutes.
“They know it was Beau Flynn,” said Mark.
“They know for sure?” Mary asked, sounding very worried now that her son had been positively identified. “How do they know for sure?”
“I don’t know. Wait, I’m listening. Ugh, they say there’s twenty-two ammunition all over the vehicle, that he’s armed. They got twenty-two long-rifle shells in the Suburban.”
“I don’t know what to do,” said Mary, sounding real worried. Her worry made Michaud feel real good. The tide was turning.
“Did you call your husband, John?”
“I paged him and I tried his cell phone and he hasn’t called me back. Oh, my God!” And she hung up, only to call Darling out of nervousness a few minutes later.
“Witnesses saw him jump out of the vehicle,” Darling reported.
“Who’s the witness?” Mary asked.
Michaud and Rainey looked at each other.
“Whoever’s house they parked in front of.”
“Oh. Do they have him?”
“No, not yet. They can’t find him.”
At that moment, Doris Schneider happened to be looking out the back door of her home and saw a young man fleeing across her lawn. She immediately called police.
“Some lady just called and said there’s somebody in her backyard,” Mark reported.
“Oh, God!”
Mary didn’t know what to do, so she hung up. A moment later Larry Martin called.
“Where are you?” asked Mary.
“I’m at home,” Larry responded.
“Lisa turned ’im in.”
Michaud smiled broadly and took the headphones away from his ear. “I think our worrying about compromising the wire was for nothing,” said Michaud. Rainey, who had continued to listen, motioned to the headphones and Michaud put them back on.
“Yeah. The cops are chasing him through the south hills as we speak,” said Mary.
“Damn! Did she turn me in too?” Martin asked.
“Huh?”
“Did she say diddley about me too?”
“I don’t know.”
“’Cause I’m gonna f—ing disappear right now.”
“I don’t know what she said.”
“Stay calm. Take a pill. Take two pills. Damn …”
He hung up and a few minutes later, Mary phoned Mark Darling.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re trying to find the lady that called in so she can identify ’im.”
“Is he in custody?”
“I’m not sure. It’s confusing.”
“I’m thinking maybe we should drive up around there.”
“If you go up there and look for him, leave your cellular on so if they say something I can call ya.”
“Okay, bye.”
It had not been a good day for Beau Flynn. First, someone informed on him. Then a wild chase with the cops in pursuit from South Eugene into East Eugene. Then getting out when the cops were closing in, and now, the dragnet was out for him. But he was nothing if not resourceful.
Beau managed to make it to Sam Warthan’s house. He talked Sam into driving him out of the police search area. Cops, though, had set up roadblocks and when Sam pulled his car abreast of the police stop, no amount of hiding on Beau’s part could stop the cops from identifying him.
Taken into custody, police found the .22 caliber pistols Lisa had handed him under the back seat. Mary got there in time to see her son already captured, hands cuffed behind his back, in police custody.
“Ma!” Beau screamed, as he was being shoved into the back seat of a squad car.
“Beau!” Mary screamed back.
Local stations regularly monitor the police frequency. One of them had heard the chase and capture on the police scanner and had already arrived with a camera crew. The reporter had seen the exchange between Mary and Beau.
“Turn it on,” the petite, titian-haired reporter said to her cameraman. “Let’s go.” Carrying the equipment, trailed by the cameraman, she went up to Mary and shoved the mike in her face. On came the light on top of the camera and for a moment, Mary was blinking, blinded by the light.
“You’re ‘Gang Mom,’ aren’t you?”
“Well—”
“Our station did a story about you.”
“I—”
“Is Beau Flynn your son?”
Mary muttered something, and then said: “If you don’t get that muthaf—ing camera out of my face, I’m gonna break your muthaf—ing camera!”
She pushed the reporter out of the way and barreled up to the squad car. The window was open. Beau leaned forward, his head barely making it to the open window.
“Keep your mouth shut!” Mary whispered, and then the car, with siren wailing, drove away through the crowd.
“What are you arresting him for?” Mary asked a p
lainclothes cop.
“I can’t talk to you,” the cop answered.
“Hey, wait a minute …”
Mary tried using her status as “Gang Mom” to get the cops to talk to her, but to no avail. All they would say was that Beau was being taken downtown for questioning.
With nothing to do until Beau was processed through the system, Mary returned home. At 4:08 p.m. the DNR came on; Michaud and Rainey reached for their headphones.
“Hey, is Mary there?”
“Hold on,” said a voice, probably her husband John, who had answered.
“Hello?” said Mary.
“Hi,” said Lisa Fentress. And then she giggled. “Did you hear what happened?” She giggled some more. “Did you hear what happened?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think it’s very f—ing funny either,” Mary answered dryly.
“Neither do I,” said Lisa, sobering up. “Like, what happened?”
“All I know is Beau is sitting in custody.”
“Why? What for?”
“I don’t know,” Mary answered suspiciously. “They won’t tell me.”
“That’s f—ing up, ’cause he …”
“What did they ask you?”
Mary still thought it was Lisa who had turned Beau in but she wanted to pump her to see what she had given the police.
“They asked me who was in the car and I was like, ‘I don’t know. I was just giving directions.’ And they asked, ‘Well, was Beau Flynn in the car?’ And I said, ‘I never said that.’ And they’re like, ‘Why do you hang out with people like that?’ I’m like, ‘Beau’s turning his f—ing life around and he’s going to college and stuff.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, then, why was he in the car?’ And I go, ‘I never said he was in the car. I want my lawyer!’ And they took me, handcuffed me and stuff, took me to City Hall and they arrested me. And then they took me back to school and they might press charges for stealing a car.”
“Were you in the car?”
“Kind of.”
“Just giving them directions?”
“Yeah.”
“Just don’t say anything.”
“I know, I was giving directions. I didn’t really look at him. I was just giving directions. On how to get to Spencer Butte Middle School.”
“Okay.”
“I’m gonna sue ’em. They f—ing …”
Mary barely heard the rest of what Lisa said, so keen was her anxiety about what was happening to Beau. It was anxiety well-placed.
Remanded to the custody of juvenile court, Beau was quickly charged with conspiracy to commit burglary. Pending disposition of the charges, he was sent back to MacLaren for violating his parole. He would eventually be tried and convicted as an adult and sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary. He would finally have to do hard time for his crimes.