by Diane Kelly
I noted two offenses on the ticket, the first for for driving 65 in a 30 miles-per-hour zone and the second for reckless driving. She had me feeling generous. I held the small clipboard and a ballpoint pen out to her. She took the clipboard, but refused the plastic pen, pulling an insanely pricey Montblanc from her purse instead. She didn’t bother to read the citation, just signed it, left-handed, with an exaggerated flourish. I took the clipboard back and looked down at her signature. Her handwriting slanted to the left and the T’s were pointy, the top line angling down on each side of the vertical one, resembling a sharp arrow. Instead of dotting the I’s in her first and last names she’d made fierce slashes.
Just for kicks, I added another charge to the citation, then tore the top copy off the ticket pad and handed it to her. She snatched it out of my hand. I removed her license from my clipboard and held it out to her. As she reached for it, I dropped it to the asphalt. “Oops.” I shrugged. “Looks like I’m clumsy, too.” My smile, unlike her earlier one, was sincere.
Tiffany shot me a look so hard and edgy I could’ve shaved my legs with it. I turned and walked back to my motorcycle, slid the citation pad in the saddle bag, and climbed onto the bike.
I started the motor and rolled to the lot’s exit, waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass so I could pull onto Main. The reflection in my side mirror showed Tiffany yanking her visor down to inspect her upper lip in her vanity mirror. Looked like my mustache comment had gotten to her. Heh-heh.
I headed down Main in the direction the Ninja had gone moments before, hoping I could catch him. At first I didn’t see the bike, then a pickup truck turned off the road in front of me and there he was, three blocks ahead, driving past the Laundromat. My heart spun and sparked in my chest like a police cruiser’s flashing light.
This is it. In a matter of seconds, I’d finally learn the identity of the Ninja rider.
I cranked my right wrist back to give the bike more gas. The engine had just kicked in when a school bus lumbered onto Main from a side street, cutting me off. Gah! Where do they get these bus drivers?
I slammed on my brakes, leaving a short skid mark on the road behind me. I eased over to the left to try to pass, but an SUV sat in the center turn lane waiting to turn into Burger Doodle, blocking my way. Dang, dang, dang!
I sucked bus exhaust for four blocks, ignoring the teenaged boys in the back windows, the two on the left pulling their noses up into pig snouts with their index fingers, one on the right mooning me with his fuzz-covered butt. Finally, the bus took a right turn and got out of my way.
The Ninja was five blocks ahead now, only a geriatric Dodge Dynasty with oxidized powder blue paint separating me from my dream man. Once I maneuvered around the sedan, I’d be home free. I was on the car’s bumper when it began to shudder and sputter, slowing to a crawl.
“Un-freakin’-believable!” I hissed. Frustration flared inside me, like a blow torch in my gut.
We neared the end of Main and the center turn lane petered out. I couldn’t pass on the right because the Dynasty would likely be pulling over to the curb at any moment. An eighteen-wheeler headed toward me in the oncoming lane. I wasn’t about to take on the truck. I was stuck.
Finally, the driver of the Dodge eased his way over to the right shoulder. I probably should have stopped to help the driver, but it was his own damn fault if he ran out of gas. I zipped past the car to find the Ninja sailing through the intersection and the traffic light hanging over it cycling to red. I slammed on my brakes again and stopped for the light. As the cross traffic began to move, the taillight of the Ninja grew faint in the distance until it disappeared entirely around a tree-lined curve in the road.
He’s not getting away this time.
I turned on my flashing lights and siren. Hey, if this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was. A green van and a silver hatchback screeched to stops halfway through the intersection. I maneuvered around them, gunning my engine once I’d cleared the cross street. Leaning forward to reduce wind resistance, I made it to the curve in eight seconds flat. My eyes locked on the road in front of me. I could see a full half mile ahead, but there was no Ninja. Gaaaaah! He must’ve turned off Main. But where?
Lights flashing and siren wailing, I circled through the parking lot of a shoe store. A toddler on the sidewalk yanked her hand from her mother’s grasp and put her fists over her ears to block out the siren’s earsplitting wail. Sorry, kiddo.
I headed back in the direction from which I’d come, racing up and down all of the cross streets, but the yellow and black bike was nowhere in sight. I turned off my lights and siren and banged my fist on the gas tank in front of me. Fate, you’re a frickin’ bitch.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHECKING THE MAIL
I spent the next hour slowly cruising the streets of Jacksburg, but it was as if the Ninja and its rider had simply evaporated. Eventually, I gave up my futile search and headed back out to the highway to wait for more unsuspecting prey.
A few cars went by and I clocked them with the radar gun. Fifty-six miles per hour. Fifty-three. Fifty-five. All law-abiding citizens. Where’s a speeder when you need one? At least the darn radar gun was working today.
An olive-green seventies model Charger came over the rise doing fifteen miles over the limit. Milton Broesh, speeding again. I must’ve written the guy a five tickets over the last year, four of them on this very stretch of highway. Didn’t he ever learn?
As he approached, I turned on my engine and started the lights flashing. I was poised to follow after Broesh when another car came over the rise behind him, a silver Toyota Camry weaving back and forth across the center yellow stripe. The car veered onto the shoulder and off into the grass, kicking up gravel and dust, before swerving back onto the road again. Larry Langley. Must’ve found Betty’s latest hiding place for his car keys.
It was Broesh’s lucky day. I couldn’t be two places at once, so I’d have to let him slide. I shook a finger at him as he drove past. He shook a finger at me, too, but it wasn’t the same finger. I’d have to let that slide for the moment, too.
I slid the radar gun into its sheath and squeezed the talk button on my shoulder-mounted radio. “Selena, call Betty Langley. Larry’s out again.”
I flipped on my lights and siren, though with as much macular degeneration and hearing loss as Larry Langley had suffered, he wasn’t likely to notice either one. If nothing else, my lights and siren would warn other drivers to keep their distance.
I followed Larry for a mile with no luck. He continued to swerve side to side. Praying he wouldn’t veer into me, I pulled up next to the driver’s window and tried to wave Larry over. He wore a rumpled undershirt and a dopey expression. His white hair was wild, sticking out all over the place as if he’d just climbed out of bed. He stared straight ahead as he drove. I waved again, gesturing for him to pull over. Larry glanced over at me, his eyes sleepy.
I turned the siren off, beeped my horn, and hollered as loud as my lungs would allow. “Larry! Pull over!”
Larry nodded to me then rolled onto the shoulder, into the grass, and—ping!—straight over mile marker 192, flattening the metal sign to the ground. He rolled on another hundred feet before coming to a stop in a large mud bog leftover from last week’s storm. Ugh. I’d just oiled my boots.
I parked my bike behind him and stepped up to the window as gingerly as I could, but my boots sunk in the muck anyway. I tapped on the window. Larry sat behind the wheel, his head lolled forward, eyes closed, fast asleep now. I tried the door but it was locked. I banged on the window with my fist. After a few seconds, Larry turned foggy eyes on me.
I made a circular motion with my hand. “Unroll the window, Larry.”
It took him a full minute to find the button and roll the automatic window down in short jerks, an inch or two at a time, as he jabbed a crooked, arthritic finger at the control on the door panel.
When he finally got the window down, I put my forearms on the ledge and l
eaned in. “Larry you can’t just—holy crap!”
I jumped back. Larry had an erection the size of the San Jacinto Monument sticking straight out of the front hole of his pale blue boxers. At the police academy, we’d been trained how to handle suspects wielding knives and guns, but there was nothing in the training manual about how to deal with a septuagenarian sporting a boner. I decided to wait this one out and let his wife figure out what to do. I retrieved his keys from the ignition, pulled my feet out of the mud sucking at them, and walked back to my bike. I sat side-saddle on the motorcycle, waiting, while Larry napped at the wheel.
A few minutes later, Betty Langley pulled up behind us in a Brady Bunch-era wood-paneled station wagon. She climbed out of her car, carefully picking her way through the mud in her tennis shoes toward the Toyota’s open window. She stuck a hand through the window and shook her husband’s shoulder. “Larry?” When he didn’t respond, she stepped closer. “Larry? Larry? Oh, good Lord!” Betty jumped back, too.
She came to stand next to me on the shoulder. Her eyes darted around even though it was clear we were the only people for miles. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Sorry about this, Marnie. Larry took a Viagra this morning but I wasn’t in the mood. I slipped a sleeping pill in his decaf, hoping he’d leave me alone and take a nap.”
With or without a sleeping pill in his system, Larry Langley shouldn’t be driving. In fact, Chief Moreno had confiscated Larry’s license months ago after Larry plowed into the Chief’s wife, putting a major dent in both her bumper and her social life. Luckily, no one had been injured. Mrs. Moreno was pretty ticked off, though. Thanks to Larry playing bumper cars with her, she’d spilled Diet Coke all over her dress. She’d been forced to return home to change, arriving late for the Jacksburg Red Hat Society’s monthly meeting at the VFW hall. All of Sally Brewer’s homemade oatmeal raisin cookies had been devoured by the time Mrs. Moreno had arrived and she’d had to make do with store-brought shortbread. Tragic.
I stood, putting a sympathetic hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Betty, you’ve got to sell Larry’s car. As long as it’s around, he’ll want to drive it. If I catch him out again, I’ll have to impound it.”
Betty glanced over at her dozing husband, her face growing tight as if she were finally acknowledging to herself he was no longer the virile young man she’d married years ago. She turned to me, her voice soft. “I’ll put an ad in the paper today.” She stepped to the car door. “Could you help me get him into the station wagon?”
“Sure.”
Betty tried twice to pull Larry’s underpants over his erection, but both times it popped right back out the hole. She pulled a Texas map from the glove box, unfolded it, and wrapped it around him like a skirt, tucking the edges into the waistband of Larry’s underwear. The odd topography indicated an unexpected mountain near Lampasas. Luckily for us, Larry was a spare fellow, not too difficult for two women to wrangle. I kept my eyes locked straight ahead, not daring to look down as we dragged him to the station wagon. Between the two of us, Betty and I managed to finagle him into the backseat. Betty strapped him in.
“I’ll send our son for Larry’s car,” Betty said.
I took Betty’s hand and looked into her sad eyes. “I’m sorry, Betty.”
“Me, too, Marnie.” She squeezed my hand. “But we’ve had a lot of good years, had three kids together, seven grandchildren. Even went to Hawaii once. What more could a woman want?”
What more, indeed. I could only hope to be so lucky someday. Oddly enough, when I considered my future, the family I might have, my first thought went to Trey.
Uh-oh. I wasn’t falling for Trey, was I? Chasing down that killer last week had been dangerous, but falling for Trey was far riskier. A Kevlar vest can stop a bullet, but it can’t protect a heart from being broken.
***
Later that morning, Selena contacted me on the radio about a reported burglary. After a brief investigation, I determined the stolen wind chimes were in the possession of the victim’s next-door neighbor, who’d had more than enough dinging and donging interrupting her soap operas. After a few minutes of boisterous negotiation, it was agreed the chimes would be retired to the garage and replaced by a hummingbird feeder. Bloodshed averted.
On my drive back to the office, I crossed over Renfro. On a whim, I circled back around and turned down the street. I parked at the old Parker place and climbed off my bike to take a look around.
There were no boxes on the porch today, though there were several sets of muddy footprints. Someone had been sneaking around the place. I peeked in the few windows that weren’t boarded up. A years-old calendar turned to December hung on the kitchen wall and a broom leaned in a corner next to the fireplace in the living room. There was nothing else in the house. No evidence of a squatter.
When I went in to the backyard, however, I noticed the padlock for Parker’s dilapidated tool shed lay on the ground and the hardware on the door was bent. I opened the double doors to the shed to find a rotting wood floor littered with beer cans, the butts of two joints, and a foil condom wrapper. Looked like the shed was being used for private parties, most likely by high school kids. Maybe whoever had been hanging out back here was the one who’d placed the order from Barneys that was delivered to the house.
Mental note: Instruct the night shift officers to make regular stops by the property, see if they can nab anyone loitering about.
I climbed onto my bike and prepared to drive off when I thought of one more place to check. I backed up to the dented mailbox, the victim of a round of mailbox baseball, its red flag hanging down like a flaccid pecker. The thought made me shudder, thinking back on Larry Langley’s morning wood. I reached into the box and pulled out the items crammed inside. A grocery store circular. A solicitation from an insurance company addressed simply to “resident.” A bill from a cable company addressed to Mr. Parker with “Past Due” stamped in red ink on the envelope. Good luck collecting on that one. I was surprised they hadn’t given up by now.
The final item was a MasterCard bill addressed to someone named Taylor Heidenheimer. I checked the address to ensure it hadn’t been mis-delivered. Nope. 612 Renfro. This was the place.
I tore open the bill. The statement showed charges totaling over two grand in the last month. The merchants included Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue. The situation was getting weirder by the minute. Something is going on, but what? I was a street cop, not a detective. Heck, I’d never even been able to solve the simple crimes in those Encyclopedia Brown children’s books. Maybe I should call the sheriff’s department and let them investigate. They had better resources than the Jacksbug PD. They could figure out what, if anything, was going on.
I slipped the bill into my saddle bag and headed off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GOOSED
As I rode, I radioed Selena. “Sel, do me a favor. Check the DMV records and see if there’s a Taylor Heidenheimer listed in Jacksburg.”
“Hang on.”
I waited a few seconds before Selena came back. “No Taylor. There’s a Martin Heidenheimer on Rural Route thirty-two and a Sherman Heidenheimer in an apartment on Newberry.”
She gave me the addresses for both men and I jotted them down. Newberry was closer so I tried that address first. Nobody was home at the apartment. I stopped by the management office to find a young woman with curly red hair sitting at a desk, flipping through last month’s Cosmo. Read that issue myself, learned the top ten sex tricks men love. Now I was just waiting for someone to try them out on. Maybe Trey would benefit from my recent literary education.
The woman glanced up as I stepped into the office. “Lookin’ for an apartment? We got a one-bedroom just opened up. Overlooks the pool. Bit of a roach problem, but we got a guy coming to spray this afternoon.”
“No, thanks. Actually, I’m looking for Taylor Heidenheimer. I think he or she might live here. Apartment 6B?”
She shook her head. “We got a Sherm
an Heidenheimer in 6B, but he lives alone.”
“You sure about that?”
Still sitting, she used her bare feet to roll her chair over to a two-drawer beige metal file cabinet. She pulled the drawer open, pried a file out of the tightly packed space, and handed me a copy of a lease.