Busted

by Diane Kelly

  “Hell, no.”

  I eyed Glick’s crotch. Didn’t look like there was anything in his pocket other than a set of keys. I’d let him slide this time.

  After we locked Glick in the freezer, Andre drove me back to the Watering Hole to pick up my police motorcycle. By that time, it was a quarter after six, my shift was up, and it was too late to intercept the Ninja. Looked like my mystery man would remain a mystery for the time being. Damn!

  I drove the police motorcycle back to the station. Through the front windows I saw the swing shift dispatcher, Bernie, on duty now, watching dinnertime reruns and assembling a model car, this one bright blue, what looked to be a ‘72 Barracuda. Bernie’s spongy, once-red hair had faded with age and was now the color of a Creamsicle.

  I parked the bike and headed through the glass door into the station. “Hey, Bernie. How’s it going?”

  Holding a tiny white tube, Bernie squeezed a dab of clear glue onto a miniature tire and grunted in reply.

  “Glad to hear it.” I retrieved my purse from my desk and walked back out to the parking lot to my personal vehicle, a vintage Harley Sportster. The bike had belonged to my mother before she passed away and Dad had hung onto it for me. On reaching driving age, I’d chromed it up a bit and added a pillowy touring seat to better accommodate my badonkydonk butt, but I think Mom would’ve approved. The small brass bell Dad had given Mom back when they were dating still hung from the foot peg, alongside the bell Dad had given me, protecting me from evil road spirits and general bad luck during my journeys. Catholics have Saint Christopher medallions. Bikers have bells.

  I stowed my purse in the fringed leather saddle bag and slid my head into Mom’s helmet, a pink model adorned with daisies. The engine kicked in right away, the motor’s distinct and predictable rhythmic cadence having a calming effect on me, like a motor mantra. The burdens of the workday seemed to ease away as I motored out of the parking lot and pulled onto Main. I dialed up some end-of-the-workday music on my phone, Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. After all, that’s all I really wanted. Some fun. Know where I can find any?

  After making a quick stop at the Piggly Wiggly for a few grocery items, I turned down the rural road that marked the final stretch in my drive home. It was dusk and the June bugs flew aimlessly about, like Scud missiles searching for a target. A bug on a windshield is nothing, but hitting a bug at forty miles per hour with only a thin piece of clothing for protection could sting something fierce. I slowed in the hopes of avoiding any suicidal insects. I got lucky, arriving home free of bug shrapnel.

  I turned into the dirt driveway of our yellow double-wide mobile home. Next to the house sat a group of haphazardly parked vehicles—dad’s last-century green Jeep Cherokee SUV, four pickup trucks of various makes and models, and Uncle Angus’s metallic blue Kawasaki. Looked like the whole gang had shown up for poker night.

  I pulled my bike into the detached garage behind the house and parked between Dad’s Harley, a touring model with high-arching gorilla handlebars, and his flat-bed trailer, loaded with an assortment of chainsaws and pruning tools he and Uncle Angus used in their tree-trimming business.

  Bluebonnet, my furry white Great Pyrenees, was lying on the front porch as I came up the steps with the groceries. After Chet and I divorced, I’d adopted her from the pound to keep me company. Bluebonnet had been relinquished by a cattle rancher who’d gone bust and could no longer afford to feed the hundred-pound beast. My marriage to Chet hadn’t lasted, but Bluebonnet and I had a true for-better-or-worse, ‘til-death-do-us-part relationship.

  Bluebonnet’s tail thumped against the floor when she saw me. She raised her enormous head and looked at me with hopeful baby blue eyes.

  “Hi, girl. Got something for you. Come inside with me.”

  The dog rolled to her feet to follow me in, her collar and tags jingling. I headed into the kitchen to unpack the groceries, Bluebonnet padding along behind me, her toenails clicking on the lime-green and brown checkered linoleum.

  The six men sat at the round pine table, four of them in kitchen chairs, a couple in lawn chairs brought in from the backyard.

  “Hey, Dad. Guys.”

  The men offered a variety of greetings—a nod, a two-finger salute, a lift of a beer bottle—but none took his eyes off his cards. If there was one thing these men took seriously, it was poker. It certainly wasn’t grooming. There wasn’t a properly shaved face or a decent haircut among them.

  I set the bags on the counter, pulled a rawhide bone out of a bag, and held it out for Bluebonnet. She grabbed it between her teeth and trotted off into the living room where she could chew comfortably on the colorful braided rug.

  Dad laid his hand face-down on the table and stood to help me unload the grocery bags. At one time, Dad had resembled a member of ZZ Top, with long brown hair and a wooly beard. As time passed, his hair had turned gray and he’d trimmed the beard. Like me, he’d taken to wearing his hair in a single, simple braid. These days he looked more like Willie Nelson, or a skinny, hippie version of Santa Claus.

  I pulled a six-pack of Shiner Bock longnecks out of a bag and plunked it on the table in front of Uncle Angus, my mother’s little brother. Angus had been born years after my mother, had the same sturdy build as Mom and me, and the same dark hair with hints of auburn, though he wore his shoulder length. I looked more like him than I did my own father, and Uncle Angus was like a second father to me. Or maybe a big brother. If he wasn’t getting me out of trouble, he was getting me into it. On my eighteenth birthday, he’d taken me to Dallas to get a tattoo, a tiny yellow rose behind my left ankle. He’d then confiscated the bottle of Apple Blossom wine I’d hidden under the seat of Dad’s Cherokee, telling me I was too young to drink. Talk about mixed messages.

  Angus looked up with a smile. “That’s my girl. Just in time, too.” He handed me his empty beer bottle and grabbed a fresh one from the table, twisting off the cap and taking a sip. I bent over and gave him a kiss on his rough, weather-worn cheek. “Ouch. You need moisturizer.”

  He made a face. “I don’t need soft skin. I need a woman.”

  I gave his shoulder a squeeze. Poor Angus. He’d never met the right woman, never married, had no family to go home to. Dad and I were all he had. Well, us, his silver Airstream trailer, and a three-foot tall phallic-shaped potted cactus he called Señor Pepè.

  If Uncle Angus hadn’t come around and dragged my father kicking and screaming out of the house after my mother died, Dad would probably still be sitting on the couch, staring at a blank television screen, tears streaming down his face, his young daughter on her Sit ‘N Spin at his feet, whirling frantically in futile circles, pretending the plastic disc was a time machine that could take them all back to a point before her mother found the lump in her breast.

  Gah.

  I tossed the empty beer bottle in the trash, noting the toe of Angus’s black boot tapping under the table, a sure sign he held a good hand. I stepped behind him. A quick glance at his cards confirmed my suspicions. Three Aces. Maybe things were finally looking up for him. God knows he deserved it.

  The groceries now properly stashed, Dad reclaimed his seat at the table and picked up his hand. “How was work?”

  No sense telling him about Fulton shooting at me and Dante. Dad had already lost his wife, he didn’t need to worry about losing his only child, too. “Work was fine.”

  Dad discarded a couple of cards and gestured for replacements. “Chip Sweeney at the Grab-N-Go says Sheriff Dooley busted some killer from Chicago in a pasture outside of town.”

  Angus tossed a couple of quarters into the pile in the center of the table. “I heard the guy opened fire with a machine gun. Took ten deputies with nightsticks to subdue him.”

  Ten deputies, my ass. Try one hard-headed woman. I turned away so the men wouldn’t see the look of disgust on my face. Once again, Sheriff Dooley would bask in the glory of a Jacksburg PD bust, refusing to share credit with the officers actually involved in t
he arrest. What a jackass.

  I set about making dinner for myself and the men, pouring three cans of baked beans into a stock pot and adding a package of sliced hot dogs. I pulled out a loaf of white bread from the breadbox, as well as a tub of margarine and a jar of baby dill pickles from the fridge. Not exactly Wolfgang Puck, but nobody would starve to death, either.

  When the beans had been bubbling for several minutes, I turned off the stove and spooned up servings onto plates. I didn’t mind feeding the gang since I had to cook for myself anyway, but no way would these guys stick me with a sink full of dishes to wash. I whipped my nightstick from my belt and pointed it at the men. “Rinse your plates when you’re done and put them in the dishwasher.”

  Uncle Angus gave me a salute. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  I returned the baton to my belt and aimed for the fridge. The night before I’d had a rare moment of domestic inspiration and baked a cake, my mother’s signature recipe, what she’d called her Thunder Thighs Fudge Cake—chocolate cake with a hint of Mexican vanilla, topped with fudge frosting, chocolate chips, and chopped pecans. I helped myself to a huge slab and carried it into the living room to eat on the couch, a velveteen floral number that was both hopelessly outdated and endlessly comfy. I’d seen the same couch advertised for sale on E-Bay, described as “retro chic.” Yeah, right.

  With my uniform stretched to capacity, I should have felt guilty eating the fudge cake, but I refused to. The older I got the slower my metabolism seemed to become, but with a pair of thirty-eight double-D’s on my chest it wasn’t like I’d ever look thin anyway. Besides, I’d risk toppling over if my butt didn’t balance out my front. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

  When I was done, I held out the plate so Bluebonnet could lick the few crumbs I left behind. She finished licking the plate clean, and I carried it into the kitchen, rinsed it off, and stuck it in the machine. I searched through the cabinets and found my Wonder Woman thermos, ladled another serving of beans and wienies into it, and buttered a couple of slices of bread. I wrapped the bread in foil and stuck everything in a grocery bag along with a paper napkin and a warm can of root beer. I didn’t bother with the cake. Glick wasn’t worth it.

  I gave Dad a kiss on the forehead and waved good-bye to the men. “Later, guys. ‘Got a prisoner to feed.”

  Angus looked up from the table. “Lucas Glick do somethin’ stupid again?”

  Don’t be too impressed by Angus’s discerning skills. It didn’t take a psychic to figure out who was cooling off in the department’s freezer cell.

  I nodded. “Got in a bit of trouble at the Watering Hole this afternoon. Broke a six-hundred-dollar custom pool cue.”

  Angus shook his head. “That poor kid didn’t stand a chance. His mother beat all the sense out of him.”

  Dad and the other men murmured in agreement.

  My grip on the bag tightened involuntarily and a sick feeling invaded my stomach. “What are you talking about?”

  Angus’s eyes met mine. “Frieda Glick used to knock her boys around something fierce. Child protective services must’ve been out to their place a dozen times. Called ‘em three or four times myself.”

  When he wasn’t crashing on our couch, Uncle Angus lived in his travel camper at the trailer park behind the post office. Before Frieda Glick left town, she and her five boys had lived there, too. Lucas, the youngest of the five, still lived in the same trailer he’d grown up in, though now he lived alone, his brothers scattered to parts unknown.

  Angus rearranged the cards in his hand. “Government never done nothin’ about the situation. Freida’d give the social worker some sob story about how hard it was to raise five boys without any help from their daddies. She’d cry and wail and promise she’d never lay a hand on them again, then she’d be back at it again before the social worker hit the highway.” He took a swig of his beer. “Where’d you think Lucas got all them black eyes?”

  So Glick’s stories about kicking ass over in Hockerville had been nothing more than him blowing smoke, covering up a shameful secret, the embarrassment and stigma of domestic violence. The abuse had apparently been common knowledge among the adults of the town but never trickled down to us kids, kept quiet, probably out of our parents’ desire to protect us as long as possible from life’s harsh realities.

  My heart wrenched, as if twisted by unseen hands. Despite everything I’d seen during my nine years in law enforcement, I’d never grown immune to the violence. I’d learned to put up a tough front, pretend it didn’t get to me. But it did.

  Angus plunked a stack of nickels down, placing his bet. “Frieda took off the day Lucas turned eighteen, just a few months before he would’ve graduated. Never seen such a selfish woman.”

  I turned and set the bag back on the counter. I cut an enormous slab of chocolate cake, put it on a paper plate, and covered it with cellophane. I added it to the bag and headed out, stepping over Bluebonnet, now settled on her blue Indian blanket in the front hallway.

  “Bye, girl.” I bent over to give her a kiss on the head. “You be good now. Hear?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  CELLMATES

  Ten minutes later, I waited at the traffic light at Main and Renfro, the cool evening breeze carrying a faint scent of garlic and onions from the pink stucco taco stand on the corner. Dang. I’d forgotten all about the package delivered to the abandoned Parker house on Renfro that afternoon, the package I’d made a mental note to check on. That’s the problem with mental notes. They tend to be misplaced among the mental clutter.

  I detoured down Renfro, climbed off my bike, and checked the porch for the package. The white box was nowhere in sight. I made another mental note to ask Eric about the package the next time he stopped by the station. Hopefully, this mental note would stick.

  A few minutes later, I pulled into the station. A confused woman in a mini-van bearing Arkansas license plates sat in the drive-thru, tapping on the closed glass window. Bernie ignored her, focused instead on putting a pinstripe on his model.

  I nodded to Bernie as I came through the front door and held up the plastic bag in my hand. “Got dinner for Glick.”

  He glanced up at me, grunted again, and turned his attention back to his model.

  Glick lay on his side on the bottom bunk, facing the stainless steel wall. On the wall next to the bunk, an intricately etched eagle soared across the stainless steel, carved into the metal by the open pocketknife lying on the floor next to the bunk. Next time we arrested Glick, we’d definitely have to empty his pockets.

  Defacing public property was a class C misdemeanor, but Glick’s etching was surprisingly intricate, well-proportioned and detailed, betraying a natural yet unrefined talent, even more impressive given he’d accomplished the task with such a rudimentary tool. Maybe Glick wasn’t as worthless as everyone, including himself, thought.

  I pocketed the knife, set the bag of food on the floor next to Glick, and nudged him in the butt with the toe of my boot. No response. Probably still sleeping off the whiskey. Might as well let him rest in peace.

  I turned off the light in the freezer but left the door cracked, the pale light over the dispatch counter casting soft shadows in the room. I pulled the plaid blanket off the top bunk and folded it, making myself a cushion on the floor. I plopped down on it and leaned back against the steel wall, cool against my back through the shirt of my uniform.

  If I was going to be stuck here awhile, I might as well listen to some music. I slid my headphones into my ears and scrolled through the song list. What better to listen to in the dark than Billy Squier’s “In the Dark”?

  Closing my eyes, I listened to Billy’s resonant voice sing about loneliness, illusions, and memories, guarded hopes and pocketed dreams. My mind wandered to my own loneliness, my own illusions and memories, my own guarded hopes and pocketed dreams.

  It had been twenty-five years since the death of my mother, one since the death of my marriage. Both had been slow, draping out over time l
ike a long shroud, beginning as a transparent covering, growing increasingly dark and opaque until becoming a final, smothering black. Fate was an evil bitch. First, she deprived me of a mother-child relationship with my mom, then she deprived me of a husband-wife relationship with Chet. You know that saying about how it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Pure bullshit. Having known love, then having it ripped from you, was hell. If you’d never experienced love, you wouldn’t know what you were missing.