Looking properly enlightened, I nodded slightly and started to work on my eggs. After a moment, Donna began to eat, too.
Perhaps two minutes passed before she said softly, “I have another condom."
Shaking my head slightly, I answered, “Thanks anyway."
"You're sure?"
Around some egg, I replied, “Yup. Miller wants us to stop by the cop shop for paperwork."
Looking up from her food, Donna asked, “I'd like go to the hospital and see Jenny first."
"Okay. Call me when you're ready to leave and I'll go with you to talk to the cops."
That startled her.
"You aren't coming to the hospital with me?"
"Hadn't planned to. You may want to take a car instead of your board. Jenny'll probably be ready to leave this afternoon."
Donna's mouth fell open. “What?! Are you nuts?! She was beaten and stabbed, Ed!"
"Yeah, but not too badly, and Steph patched her up some before she took her to the hospital."
With a truly angry look, Donna set her fork down rather firmly on her plate, scooted her chair back, and stood up.
I admired the view as she snapped, “You may be pissed because things didn't work out in the bedroom, but that's no reason to try to use Jenny's condition to get back at me."
She was still hung up on the rubber issue. Oh, well. I'd been about to pull up a field screen and tell her about nanobots, but I was suddenly tired of Cap'n Donna's tendency to jump to rock-solid conclusions without much data, and her visit with Jenny would disabuse her of at least one of them.
Around a bit of egg, I said, “I wasn't ‘trying to get back at you', Donna. Why do you think Jenny's doctors were so confused last night? They discovered she was healing way too fast. Let's just finish breakfast and saddle up."
Donna eyed me angrily for another few moments, then stalked out of the kitchen. I heard noises from the bedroom for a minute or so, then she came striding out of the hallway and headed for the front door.
Tiger stopped eating and jumped to the kitchen window just as Donna called up her board and soared away.
He watched her go for a moment, then turned to me and said, “She didn't say goodbye."
I got up to put a piece of Donna's bacon in his saucer as I replied, “She was upset, Tiger. Sometimes people forget their manners when they're upset. But she left you some bacon."
Tiger jumped down and went to his saucer, eyed the bacon strip, and said, “When she comes back, I will thank her."
Scooping the remnants of Donna's breakfast onto my own plate, I answered, “Good idea."
Interesting. Used to be, Tiger'd ask me whether someone would return. Now—at least in Donna's case—he simply seemed to assume she would.
He was probably right. Jenny would be out of the hospital in record time and Donna would want to know how that happened. It seemed unlikely that Steph would have explained much to a semi-conscious woman during pre-transport treatment, so Donna would probably at least give me a call later.
The phone rang and I answered it rather than let the machine take the call.
"Hi, Ed,” said Marie Michaelson, “Is your offer to help me pick out a computer still good? I got the day off."
"Yup. I can be there in an hour or so. I need to run by the bank first."
"Noon would be better, if it's all right with you. I have some errands to run, too."
"Good ‘nuff. How about lunch, while we're at it?"
"Sure! I'm buying, though. Thanks, Ed!"
"De nada, ma'am. Later."
"Okay. Bye!” she hung up.
Heh. Lunch with Marie would probably be at a burger joint. She'd just moved into a new place and sprung for some car repairs, and on her salary as a lab tech, she'd be stretching every buck. I decided we'd ‘find’ a twenty on the sidewalk.
Throwing on some clothes, I made a fresh coffee for the road and told Tiger I'd be back later, then called up my board and my three suit and went to the bank.
It occurred to me that simply appearing by the bank's front doors might create problems; the cameras would see me not there one moment and there the next, and that sort of thing can be disturbing to security people.
Landing between an SUV and a pickup with a camper shell near the end of the second row of cars, I almost turned off my three suit and board, but I heard a woman's voice saying, “...spend all damned day like this. I just wish to hell they'd picked somebody else."
Hm. A stakeout? I moved to the next row and turned things off, then stepped in front of a car, fished in my shirt pocket for my little white Post-It pad, and wrote, ‘The lady said she wishes they'd picked somebody else. If I could hear that, so could someone else,’ on the backside of the top sheet.
Walking between the camper and the SUV on my way to the bank's front doors, I lightly slapped the tiny sheet of paper against the curtained sliding window by the camper's door.
As I continued on, I heard the window slide, then slide again. Holding the door for a woman, I glanced back at the camper and saw it rock slightly.
After dumping all but two hundred of what I'd made selling boards into my slush account, I was folding bills to fit my money clip when the bank's assistant manager came over to ask for a few minutes of my time.
When we got to his office, two men in casual suits stood by his desk. One of them nodded to the assistant manager and he backed out of the office.
The other suit put himself between me and the door, reached to yank my coffee mug off my pocket, and set it on a small table by the door. Quickly patting me down, he took my belt knife out of its sheath, set it by my mug, and then he shoved me forward toward one of the office chairs.
I turned his shove into a twist, then put him into a forward tumble that sat him on the floor by his partner's feet. He got up quickly, angry as hell.
When he grabbed at me, we played slappy-hands for a few seconds as I blocked his attempts to get a grip on me. His partner seemed rather amused with the show.
After a few moments, he said, “Dave,” with no effect, then he put a hand on Dave's shoulder and repeated more insistently, “Dave! That's enough."
Dave stepped back, but he looked unhappy about doing so.
"That's a pretty big knife,” said the other guy.
"But the blade's legal, even under federal rules."
"What's in the cup?"
"Coffee, if you're gonna take my word for it. If you won't, you'll have to taste it and see."
Dave cranked off with, “You'd better lose that attitude."
I ignored him and kept my attention on his partner, who produced the note I'd stuck on the camper's window and held it up between us.
"This was real cute,” he said.
"It wasn't supposed to be. I heard her yakking and tried to let her know without making a scene. I stuck it on the side of the window that slid back so she could grab it without having to reach too far."
Dave snapped, “What you did was interfere with an investigation."
Looking at Dave, I thumbed at his partner as I replied, “He has the note. That means that someone in the camper called in and somebody walked past it to get the note—likely through the same window unless someone opened the back door in the middle of an op."
Switching my gaze to the other guy, I asked, “How about it? Did they open the back door?"
He chuckled, “No, they didn't. We used the window."
Again looking at Dave, I said flatly, “Then the op is still on, there's been no interference, and what's-her-face will keep her voice down from now on, right?"
Dave's partner snorted a laugh and asked, “Did you get that, what's-your-face?"
From the speakerphone on the desk, a woman's voice said, “Yeah, I got it. Gavin says not to bag him."
In an incredulous tone, Dave snapped, “What?! Why the hell not?!"
She replied, “Don't ask me, damn it. I'm just the loudmouth in the camper. Out."
There was a click and she was gone. Dave's partner re
ached to poke the ‘off’ button with another chuckle and looked at me.
"Well, that's it. You're outta here."
With a little two-finger salute, I said, “Kewl. See ya,” and turned to pick up my knife and mug.
"Don't you want to know who we are?"
Shrugging, I said, “He's Dave. You're his partner. You're cops of some kind, but if you're not gonna bust me, it doesn't matter what kind, does it?"
Seeming vastly amused, the guy laughed shortly and gave one of those grinning little half-nod, half-headshakes as he said, “No, by God, I guess it really doesn't. Have a nice day."
Chapter Thirty-three
The local office of the Sheriff's Department is only a block and a half east of the bank in a county-owned building; I decided to walk as I considered that someone named Gavin had declined to arrest me for reasons unstated.
No big mystery. If they hadn't known me before I walked into the bank, the assistant manager knew me by name. One call and all of five minutes or so would have told the team leader enough about me.
Hm. They'd installed some new hedges between the bank's shopping plaza and the county offices. No more walk-through gaps. I took a run at them and boosted the height and distance of my jump by creating a wide field platform beneath me.
Looking back, I guessed with a grin that my long jump had been about six feet high and fifteen feet in distance. Let the camper kids figure that one out.
A woman's voice softly murmured, “Damn!” and I turned to see a cute blonde woman in a green deputy's uniform. Her nametag read ‘Handlon’ and she stood about five-seven.
She came to stand beside me and eyed the distance from where my feet had dug into the ground on landing to the spot on the parking lot where I'd started the jump.
When she turned to stare at me, I shruggingly said, “High school track. It tends to stick with you,” and continued toward the building's doors.
"Not like that, it doesn't,” she said as she caught up with me. Peering at me, she added, “And I've seen you before, but I don't think it was in person, so tell me; if I call you in, will I find out you're wanted for something?"
Shrugging, I said, “Doubt it. I'm here to see about some paperwork. Want to come along and make sure I get there?"
I checked her for a wedding ring and didn't see one as she asked, “What kind of paperwork?"
"Don't know. Whatever didn't get done last night, I guess. It's Detective Miller's case, but he's night shift, so I'll probably have to see someone else about it."
For a moment, her peering gaze continued, then she gestured for me to go ahead. I held the door for her, but she nodded me on through the entryway and followed me. Another lady deputy at a desk near the doors issued me a visitor's badge and pointed out the elevator down the hall.
A few three-hole bricks from a pile where they were patching a wall were lying outside the taped-off area. I stopped to punt them closer to the pile and examined the pipes and wires they'd had to hack open the wall to reach. Stupid architect? Asinine county building codes? Whatever.
Tapping my elbow, Handlon said, “Second floor. Third office on the right."
When we got there, a rather haggard-looking guy in a suit stood up and extended his hand to me.
"I was there last night,” he said, “Didn't get a chance to talk to you then. Glad to meet you now. Have a seat."
He was hyper as hell, likely from too much coffee and too little sleep. I shook his hand and sat down beside the desk he indicated, then looked up at Handlon.
"See? I'm really not a criminal, ma'am."
She smiled. “Okay, so you're not a criminal. See you later."
The guy's name was Carter. He produced a short stack of forms and we got started. Half an hour later, he put the finished pile of paper in his ‘out’ basket and sat back.
"Now I can go home. For a while, anyway. I figure I'll get about four hours of sleep before the old lady drags me off to her sister's party."
"If I were you, I'd consider sacking out in a cell. There's not much difference between being drunk and being strung out on no sleep and coffee."
He shook his head. “No problem. I'm not driving. Detective Scott will take care of Mrs. Perrin when she comes in. Thanks for your cooperation."
After another handshake, he saw me to the corridor. Deputy Handlon excused herself from a conversation in a nearby doorway and came to escort me back downstairs.
On the elevator, I asked, “Got stuck with me coming and going, huh?"
"Could be worse,” she said, “You could be a criminal."
"Ah. Good point. Are you married? Got a boyfriend?"
With a sharp look, she asked, “Why do you want to know?"
As we left the elevator, I turned in my visitor's badge and laughed, “If you really have to ask, you're still a helluva long way from a gold badge, ma'am."
She gave me a wry roll of her eyes and said rather flatly, “You're twice my age."
"So? I don't have a problem with that."
Laughing, she said in a low tone, “Maybe I'm just worried that you'd kill yourself."
"Nah. I'm in pretty good shape, really. Check this."
Picking up one of the nearby repair bricks in my left hand, I balanced it lengthwise and slammed the heel of my right hand into the center of the brick.
Handlon had actually started a move to stop me. Now she just stood staring big-eyed at the bits and chunks of brick falling from my hands.
Dusting off my hands on my jeans, I asked, “See what I mean, milady? Youth isn't everything."
She grabbed my left hand and turned it over to examine it thoroughly, then checked my right hand. There was only some redness along the heel of my palm.
The lady deputy at the badge desk eyed the broken brick, then me, and said, “Twenty bucks says you can't do that again with a brick I pick out."
Shrugging, I said, “Go ahead and pick one, but I don't want your twenty bucks. I want a date with her."
She grinningly looked at Handlon and asked, “Well? What about it? I wanna see him do that again."
Handlon yelped, “You shut up!” then turned to me and snapped, “And you! Outside! Now!” and took my elbow to hustle me to the front doors.
Looking at the ladybear at the badge desk as Handlon hauled me past it, I said conversationally, “Ow. Help. Police brutality. All that stuff."
She chuckled and gave me a grinning little ‘bye-bye’ wave. Putting her back to the door and shoving it open, Handlon hauled me outside. On the sidewalk, she angled us past a couple of deputies coming in.
I said, “Jeez, you're kind of pushy, lady. If you go for your handcuffs, I may have to reconsider my offer."
One of the incoming deputies asked, “Is there a problem here, Handlon?"
"No, sir,” she replied in a confident tone, “It's just a little personal matter."
He gave me a stern look, then went into the building with the other deputy. Handlon tugged my elbow to pull me to one side of the doorway.
Fixing me with a glare, she snapped, “What the hell did you think you were doing?"
Giving her a vastly incredulous look, I asked, “You really don't know? I was showing off for a cute blonde."
With an exasperated roll of her lovely blue eyes, she almost yelled, “Of course I know that! But what the hell ever made you think I'd even vaguely consider dating a civilian?!"
Shaking her head with yet more exasperation, she added, “And not just a civilian, but a guy twice my age!"
Grinning at her, I asked, “Still hung up on that age thing, huh? I could fix that for you."
"Jesus! How do I get through to you?! Look, mister..."
Raising a finger, I said, “I'm Ed."
"Ed. Right. Look, Ed, I'll make this real simple for you. I'll only go out with a guy who looks like he might make a good husband. You know what that means? It means...” she took a breath and said in an insistent tone, “He won't be sixty-five when the kids come along!"
Shrugging
, I said, “You want kids? Okay, forget it, then. I really don't think I could handle that."
I guess my capitulation came too easily for her.
She eyed me suspiciously for a moment, then asked, “You're really gonna knock it off?"
Raising my hands protestingly, I replied, “Sorry, but you just said the magic word, ma'am. ‘Kids'. Big bills. Diapers. No sleep. Lots of screaming. Nope. No way. Not for me."
There was silence between us for a time, then she said, “You weren't really making a pass at me at all, were you?"
"What? Sure I was! Well, unless you're going to arrest me for trying to put the make on you, that is; in which case, I wasn't, of course."
Handlon sighed, “That wasn't a trick question, dammit. What was all that about?"
Sighing back at her, I said, “You really are pretty cute, ma'am, but never mind. Board on."
Her gaze narrowed as she asked, “What? Board what?” then she saw the board by my feet, scampered back a couple of paces, and almost yelled, “What the hell is that thing?!"
I hopped aboard and replied, “It's my ride home. Bye, milady. Have a good day."
Nosing the board upward, I aimed it in the general direction of my house and waved to her as I accelerated away at about forty. As I'd expected, there were a lot of faces at windows; all the people who'd clustered to see how their pretty fellow deputy would deal with the enamored civilian.
Good. On other occasions, only a few deputies had seen the board, but now word would get around about the board just as it had about the flitter. Knowledge of it would eventually become part of daily routine.
I felt a nearby presence only moments before someone yelled from somewhere above me, which I have to admit startled me a bit. Looking up, I saw Donna descending. She lined up next to me and asked where I was going.
"Home,” I said. “I've already talked to the cops. When you get there, ask for Detective Scott. He's got your paperwork. How's Jenny doing?"
Pretending deep shock, Donna sarcastically exclaimed, “Oh, my God! I can't believe you actually asked about her!"
Sighing for her benefit, I said, “Never mind,” and increased my speed about ten miles per hour.
3rd World Products, Inc. Book 7 Page 19