by Diane Kelly
He slunk the two miles back through the woods to his car. He felt disgusted and disappointed.
But by no means deterred.
SIXTEEN
THE BITCHES ARE ON THE BEAT
Megan
Though the six weeks of training were grueling, I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed working as part of a K-9 team. Brigit and I practiced building searches in both daylight and darkness. My partner could find a person, no matter how well hidden, in mere seconds, the fastest among her training group. We practiced searching for drugs in buildings, cars, and on people. Again, Brigit shined. She found a tiny speck of cocaine inside the instructor’s shoe. We practiced using our dogs to track suspects, to restrain those who resisted arrest. She proved herself to be faster, more nimble, and just as strong as her male counterparts. I felt proud to be working with the class standout.
Each day before training, we’d give the dogs a few minutes to play with one another, to burn off their excess energy so they could buckle down and concentrate during training. They chased one another around the field like schoolkids at recess, retrieved tennis balls, ran after Frisbees, and caught them in midair. Brigit continued to hump the male dogs, who escaped only when I ordered my partner off them. When the male dogs attempted to return the gesture, Brigit easily threw them off. Good for her. If they wanted to mount her they should at least give her some foreplay first to put her in the mood.
By the end of the sixth week, I knew all the commands and could direct Brigit properly. She was the epitome of good behavior in class, obeying each of my commands instantly, exhibiting perfect self-control. Off duty was still a different story, but we were working on it.
While Brigit and I had been in training, Seth and Blast had come to the facility several times to practice their drills. Although Seth had raised a hand in acknowledgment, we’d had no chance to talk. Our near misses left me feeling discombobulated. An odd word, isn’t it? I mean, you never heard about someone feeling combobulated, right?
I hoped to cross paths with Seth again. With my job once again secure, I was ready to work on improving my private life. After all this hard work, didn’t I deserve to have some fun?
Not only had I completed my K-9 handler training, but I’d finished the online anger management course also. I’d scored only the minimum 70 percent required to pass, but that was all it took to satisfy my obligation. Why try harder? I’d printed the certificate of completion to turn in to Chief Garelik. The stupid certificate featured smiley faces in each corner. I had to fight the urge to crumple the damn thing.
Fully trained now and allegedly anger-free, Brigit and I headed out for our first day together on the beat. We rode over to the station in my smart car to pick up our cruiser. Derek’s big-balled truck sat cockeyed in a parking spot as if he’d been driving too fast when he’d pulled in and hadn’t bothered to correct the angle. After parking near the end of the lot, I let Brigit out of the passenger door, grabbed her leash, and whipped my baton from my belt. I flicked my wrist and my baton extended. Snap. As we passed Derek’s truck, I swung my baton and smacked the rubber scrotum.
Whack!
Not a bad way to start the day.
My partner and I continued on to our specially equipped K-9 cruiser. Rather than a backseat, the rear contained a carpeted platform better suited for a dog. The front seat and rear area were divided by metal mesh to prevent the K-9 officer from jumping into the front seat and escaping when the officer opened the driver’s door. The mesh also prevented the K-9 from being thrown into the front seat or windshield should the driver have to brake suddenly. To prevent the dog from breaking out a window and to prevent someone on the outside from breaking in to access the dog, the back windows were also lined with the metal mesh. The car had sensors that would automatically roll the windows down if the temperature in the vehicle rose above ninety degrees for more than ten minutes. This feature protected the K-9 partner from heatstroke if the human officer was forced to leave the dog in the car and was unable to return to the cruiser right away.
I situated Brigit in the back and climbed in, motoring off to begin our patrol. Though I’d been assigned a new partner, I’d retained my same beat—Western 1 Division, or W1 for short. W1 comprised approximately nine square miles and was bounded on the north by I-30, on the east by Hemphill, on the south by Berry Street, and on the west by the Trinity River. W1 included Texas Christian University, the quaint older neighborhoods surrounding the college, and Colonial Country Club, which hosted the Crowne Plaza Invitational professional golf tournament, drawing huge crowds to Cowtown each year. Our beat also included Forest Park, the Fort Worth Zoo, and a new open-air shopping mall. A pretty sweet beat, even if I did have to share it with the Big Dick.
As a patrol officer, my job was to cruise my beat, keep an eye on the area, and respond to calls made to Dispatch. I would also serve as backup for other officers in my division when needed. Though our superiors might occasionally ask us to keep a close eye on a particular part of our division, we street officers mostly roamed freely and randomly about our beat, like balls in that ancient Pong game. All in all, not a bad gig for a mutt from the streets and a woman who sometimes had trouble speaking words with more than one syllable.
We spent the morning cruising around Mistletoe Heights and Forest Park without incident. Fine with me. While some police officers thrived on action and conflict and spent their days hoping for skulls to crack, I was not one of them. My plans were to lie as low as possible until I made detective. I’d do my job to the best of my ability, but I would not be at all disappointed if the people of W1 chose to behave themselves.
Around eleven, I decided to head over to the country club. I drove down Colonial Parkway, making my way into the exclusive neighborhood with the air conditioner cranked to full blast, the back windows of the cruiser rolled down so Brigit could sniff the air. Not exactly the environmentally conscious thing to do, but it was already ninety-six degrees outside, the sun was streaming through the windshield like an enormous laser beam, and my Kevlar vest was glued to my chest and back with sweat. My partner had clawed at the mesh on the back windows and whined incessantly until I’d rolled them down. She was probably bored back there with nothing to do. Brigit. Now there’s an inconvenient truth for you. Al Gore and the ozone layer would just have to forgive me.
FWPD didn’t require officers to wear their ballistic vests at all times, and few did. The vests were hot, heavy, and confining. I never went on duty without it, though. Perhaps I had less faith in humanity than my fellow officers, or perhaps I had less faith in my own abilities to survive a gun battle. When questioned, I told my coworkers that I’d promised my mother I’d always wear the vest and rolled my eyes at her alleged overprotectiveness. The truth was I was terrified to go out on patrol without it. Besides, I valued my life too much to be deterred by a little extra warmth and weight.
Brigit pressed her face against the mesh, her mouth open, tongue lolling out, the breeze blowing her fur. Occasionally she raised her snout up, her nostrils flaring as we made our way up and down the streets. I wondered what she scented. Flowers? Garbage? Cats? The sweet smell of success? Probably the latter. This place reeked of money.
Every house in the exclusive development was custom-built, each feature, from the porch lights to the doorknobs to the mailboxes, carefully designed and selected to be unique yet tasteful. The houses averaged at least four thousand square feet, plenty of room to ramble and roam. The residences ranged in style from redbrick colonials, to white plantation-style designs with black shutters, to modern asymmetrical structures of wood and stone. Many had three- or four-car garages, and all had lush landscaping. I spotted none of the driveway basketball hoops often seen in middle-class suburbia. The deed restrictions or homeowners association rules likely forbade them. Kids from this neighborhood were more likely inclined to play tennis or golf, anyway. Even the pets in this neighborhood were high-class, all purebreds with not a mutt—other than Brigit—in si
ght.
The country club was an idyllic place but, frankly, not one at which I’d aspire to live. Too many rules and restrictions, too much trying to keep up with the Joneses. My tastes tended to be simpler, my aspirations more intellectual and spiritual than material. I didn’t fault the residents for their lifestyle choices, though. It takes all kinds to make the world go round, and many of these people owned businesses that provided jobs to the citizens of Fort Worth.
My eyes scanned the environment, looking for anything suspicious. Thugs in beater cars casing houses. Unmarked vans or delivery trucks backed up in driveways, being loaded with property that belonged to a homeowner away on summer vacation. Crazed murderers carrying bloody axes or ice picks or severed heads. Though I saw none of the above, I did spot a yard with its automatic sprinklers running, a blatant violation of the city’s water-rationing ordinance. Blurgh. Why couldn’t people just obey the rules and let us cops spend our time on more important matters?
“Mr. Cuthbert’s at it again,” I told Brigit as I eased to a stop in front of the man’s house. Given the number of people a patrol officer dealt with on a daily basis, it was unusual for a cop to remember their names. Mr. Cuthbert was a different story. As much as I’d like to forget the jerk, he was branded into my brain. You don’t forget a pompous ass like him.
“Stay,” I ordered my partner.
As I climbed out and walked around the car, Brigit trotted to the other side of her seat. She stuck her nose up to the mesh, watching me as I headed up the driveway to the ch-ch-ch sound of the sprinkler. The sprinkler’s range covered not only a quadrant of the yard but also the walkway from the driveway to the front door. I timed my dash in the hopes of missing the spray, but no such luck. A jet of water cut a wet path across my thighs, the force of the spray stinging my skin. Perhaps this was some type of karmic payback for making Derek wet himself.
I rang the bell and added a few slams of the brass knocker as well, taking out my irritation on Cuthbert’s front door. A moment later the door opened. Mr. Cuthbert stood there in a pair of slippers, black dress socks, and a loosely tied bathrobe that exposed far more than I cared to see of his swarthy skin and moss-like chest hair.
“Yeah?” he snapped.
“Good morning, Mr. Cuthbert.” I forced myself to remain polite but drew the line at forcing a smile. He didn’t deserve it. “You may recall a couple of months ago I talked to you about the watering restrictions?”
Derek had remained in the car back then, finishing off a sub sandwich loaded with onion and banana pepper that had stunk up the cruiser and leaving me to handle the homeowner on my own.
Cuthbert shrugged. “I don’t remember that. Must’ve been someone else you talked to.”
“No”—I pulled a small notepad from my breast pocket—“it was definitely you.” I flipped through my pages until I found where I’d jotted the date, his name, and his address along with the words “sprinkler violation” and “pompous ass.” I put my thumb over the latter words to hide them and held up my pad. “My notes are right here.”
He glanced at my pad and crossed his arms over his chest. “So? What?”
Did I really need to spell it out for this guy?
“It’s not your assigned day.” I gestured behind me at the sprinkler. “Yet you’re watering. Again.”
Cuthbert issued a dramatic sigh, as if I were some type of pesky, persistent peddler trying to sell him a subscription to Entertainment Weekly rather than a member of law enforcement trying to serve the public good. He stormed outside, brushing past me to punch in a code on the keypad next to his garage door. Once the garage was open, he stepped inside and jabbed a button on the control box for the sprinkler system. With a final ch-ch-ch, the sprinkler spewed its last spray and turned off, the offending head popping back down into the ground like a groundhog who’d decided there’d be six more weeks of winter.
Cuthbert stepped into the driveway and raised his palms. “It’s off now. You happy?”
Grr. “I’d be happier if you’d stop turning them on when you’re n-not supposed to.”
He turned and keyed in the number sequence to close the garage door. “Don’t you have better things to do than harass homeowners who are just trying to maintain their property values?”
My mind briefly played with a vision of Cuthbert being crushed under the door, his black socks and slippers curling up and disappearing like the legs of the witch who was crushed by Dorothy’s farmhouse when she landed in Oz.
“As a matter of fact,” I barked back, finding myself instinctively toying with the handle of the baton at my waist, “I do have better things to do than deal with people who refuse to obey simple rules designed for the public good. I’d appreciate it if you won’t waste any more of my time.”
As I pulled out my citation pad, he brushed past me again, muttering something about the “public good” and “bleeding-heart liberal tree huggers” before stepping into his house and slamming the door. Awfully presumptuous of him. I’d given him no indication that our interaction was over.
I stood there, fuming, and debated my options:
1. I could write a citation, knock on the door again to deliver it to him, and hope I could refrain from whacking him upside the head with my baton.
2. I could make a note of this second infraction and issue him a citation if I caught him watering again.
As enraged as I felt, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself not to give Cuthbert the whack he deserved. Tasering my partner in the nards had been risky enough, but my career would be over if I inflicted major head trauma on a citizen who’d committed a relatively minor infraction. Of course Brigit would be the only witness. She couldn’t testify and if I hit Cuthbert hard enough he wouldn’t remember anything. Hmmm … tempting.
Though it left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied, I decided to go with option two.
As I returned to the cruiser, my eyes spotted a sprinkler head that hadn’t retracted. A swift but subtle kick was all it took to knock the head cockeyed and put it out of commission. I didn’t even have to break stride. Oops. Looked like that anger management class hadn’t quite stuck with me. At least I felt satisfied now. My frown had turned upside down.
I climbed back into the patrol car and Brigit and I continued on, driving through the country club and Tanglewood neighborhoods, noting nothing unusual. It was nearly one when we backtracked to University Drive. I pulled through a drive-thru and ordered myself a salad, along with a plain hamburger for my partner.
We ate in the car in the parking lot while listening to NPR. The Think program was on, today’s guest a medical researcher discussing how germaphobia and the overuse of antibiotics, antibacterial soaps, and hand gels were creating superbacteria and turning the human race into a bunch of immunity-insufficient wienies incapable of fighting off diseases and infections. In some cases, doctors had been forced to resort to primitive, pre-antibiotic treatments, such as amputation, to rid a patient of infection. Yikes.
When my lunch break was over, I disposed of our trash and turned south onto University. Knowing the college students sometimes crossed the main thoroughfare against the lights, I slowed as we approached TCU.
Fewer students were on campus in the summer than during the long semesters, though a good number milled about the sidewalks and green spaces, some rushing to class, others stopping to speak with friends and classmates, still more braving the heat and sprawling on the grass with laptops, tablets, or books. I stopped at a red traffic light, watching students cross in front of the cruiser.
While I wasn’t much older than most of these students, worlds separated us. I spent my days on the streets dealing with the dregs of society and hoping not to get knifed or pricked with a heroin needle during a frisk, while these students, the vast majority of whom came from upper-class families, spent their days on the pristine private school campus with other rich kids, their biggest challenge deciding between a caramel or vanilla latte at the nearby Starbucks.
Brigit
let out a soft whine. I turned to check on her. She looked at me and wagged her tail before nudging the edge of the mesh screen at the window and letting out a single bark: Woof!
“Do you need to take a potty break, girl?”
This open lawn looked as good a place as any.
When the light turned green, I pulled forward and turned down a side street that led into the campus. After activating my hazard lights, I exited the vehicle and opened the back to let Brigit out. As I bent down to attach her leash, her head snapped up and smacked me smartly in the chin. Damn, that dog had a hard skull!
Before I realized what was happening, Brigit sped off across the lawn, a black-and-tan blur as she hurtled toward a brown squirrel puttering around in the center of the grass. When he heard the trampling paws and jangling tags, the squirrel popped bolt upright, looked Brigit’s way, and scampered over to the base of a large oak tree. He didn’t ascend it, though. Rather, he stood there, flicking his tail as if taunting my partner. The squirrel was either extremely brave or extremely stupid, or perhaps he was simply suicidal.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Brigit!” I hollered, following it with the command for her to return to my side.
My partner ignored me. She was as bad as Cuthbert. Hot fury welled up in me again, and again I found myself toying with my baton. I’d never hit a dog, of course, but whacking the shit out of the tree would feel awfully good about now.
Brigit reached the tree, skidding in the grass and nearly colliding with the trunk as she attempted to slow herself down. The rodent issued one final flick and dashed up the tree in the nick of time. Brigit leaped repeatedly at the trunk, looking up into the branches and barking her head off: Arf! Arf! Arf!
While the students and professors looked on, I stalked across the lawn to my partner, who ran in circles around the tree, still looking up, trying to figure out where her prey had disappeared to.