BENCHED (3 page)

Carrie watches excitedly, even if most of the politics stuff flies over her head. I spoon up the food and we clean out the skillet a plate at a time, Carrie sitting cross-legged next to me on the couch.

When she’s full, and too full for ice cream, she yawns and her head ends up leaning against me. I gently nudge her to wake her and start asking her questions about what we’re watching. If I let her zonk out at eight at night, she’ll be awake at three in the morning.

When it’s almost ten, I have to push her upstairs to her bedroom. She crawls into bed, and I fight the urge to let her stay up a little longer like she wants, forcing myself to surrender a bit more of a day with my child that will never come again.

Once she’s tucked in and the light is out, I pull her door half shut and flop onto my bed. I’m fortunate enough to pull day shift at work. Bill loves to remind me that if they fire me they don’t meet the quota, so I get what he calls preferential treatment. I can get up with Carrie unless I’m called to cover a shift.

Okay, I need to clock out of reality. I grab my e-reader and open a book. I’m halfway through a Vanessa Waltz novel,
Dirty Prince
. The premise is a little odd, but it’s a really fun book and it gets my motor revved up.

As soon as I try to take care of things, the prince in the book morphs into Alexander, and I set it aside for a moment, then keep reading it for the plot.

I end up waking to my alarm with the e-reader lying on my chest and drool on my cheek. At least I remembered to set it. I guess I should be happy I didn’t dream about my jackass neighbor.

I’m dressed and geared up before Carrie is awake. After I rouse her from sleep, she plods down the stairs, yawning and droopy until she gets some Pop Tart and milk in her. By the time she climbs into the Tahoe to ride to school, she’s wide awake and chattering excitedly about the school day.

I give her a pat on the head and send her off, then drive to work. When I arrive, Bill is the only one in the station. “Once more into the breach,” he says, looking up from his newspaper.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Good job on the tickets yesterday. Keep it up.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You’re a superstar now.”

“What?”

“Look.” He holds out the newspaper. I walk over and my jaw drops.

What am I doing on the front page?

He’s not reading the Sylvester Register, our weekly small-town mostly-a-joke newspaper. It’s freaking USA Today. My picture is on the front page next to Alexander’s.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Story about you busting Broadside.” I shudder at that stupid nickname. Broadside. Because Corsairs are pirate ships and pirate ships have cannons.

It’s not funny if you have to explain it.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Nothing negative,” he says, in a sarcastic tone. “It really shows off your investigative prowess. The FBI will be knocking down your door in no time at all, I’m sure. When do you finish your degree again?”

“I’m working on it.”

Taking a class here and there has not exactly sped me toward my criminal justice degree. I frown when I think about it. I need to schedule the upcoming semester and it’s going to be hard. They want me to take a morning class on Saturday. That means day care for Carrie. I can’t send her off to my sister like I do for emergencies, not every week for eight weeks. I can afford it but…

I only get so much time. As I tie my hair back tightly, Bill looks up.

“On a serious note, doll face. No interviews, got it?”

“Yeah. No comment, yada yada. Our counsel will respond to any inquiries.”

He snorts. “Our counsel. Like we can afford a counsel. We can’t afford a new coffee pot. I hope you did everything by the book. We’re up shit creek if Broadside decides to sue us.”

“Can we stop using his affectionate nickname? It’s getting irritating.”

Bill snorts. “Whatever.”

At least he didn’t call me doll face again. I have to tolerate all these people treating me like a joke if I want to keep my job. I really need to get that degree. Once I have that plus four years’ experience at the department here, I can apply for a better one.

I shake all that out of my head and get set up.

Setting up consists of the same daily routine. I drive to the spot half a mile past the speed limit sign, back into a well-worn patch of grass, set up the radar gun, open up the computer, and sit there.

And sit there.

And sit there.

And sit there some more.

Traffic picks up around eleven a.m. I get my first speeder not long after that. He races past me going sixty in a thirty five. That’s a good one.

I pull out after him and flip on my lights. He weaves to the shoulder and I pull up behind him, angled in case he decides to peel out and run for it.

I approach from the passenger’s side with my sidearm unsnapped. I can’t be too careful. Doesn’t matter what they think of me.

He rolls the window down and gives me an amused look. “Somebody send me a stripper? Are the cuffs part of the act?”

I keep my expression neutral. “License and registration, sir.”

“Honey--”

“Now.”

This guy--there’s at least one a day--driving a Mercedes, flying between whatever bedroom community he lives in and downtown Philly. Probably doesn’t even realize there’s a town here, that kids play on these roads. None of them care.

“All right,” he says and produces the documents.

They’re all bark, this type. He sits in the car, hands at ten and two on the wheel, wondering if I’m going to do the step out of the car routine.

One of my august colleagues would respond to sass like that. They’d make him do a sobriety test, search him, whatever they could come up with.

I’m a professional. Sassing me isn’t a crime. Speeding is. I write him up for it, hand him his ticket, and send him on his way. He says something I’m either supposed to or not supposed to hear, some wiseass remark, but I let it roll away, get back in the car, and get set up.

Traffic is sparse today. The next several cars that pass me are all obeying the speed limit. Locals or people who’ve been dinged before. You only get two kinds that speed out here, the ones that don’t know or don’t care.

I stop myself from nodding a few times.

At first, I think it’s a mirage. Here comes this news van covered with all the antenna crap on the roof. It rolls right up to me, and a woman in a pantsuit gets out, followed by a guy with a camera.

“What are you--”

“Officer Maguire,” she cuts me off, “why did you arrest Broadside Wright?”

“What? I didn’t, I cited him for a traffic…” Oh, damn it. “No comment,” I correct myself.

“Can you give us any insight on--”

“No. Comment.”

As she talks, my radar gun bleats. A speeder goes flying past. “Get out of the way,” I shout. I put the SUV in gear and start to move, only to slam my foot on the brake and stop dead when the camera guy runs in front of the car. “What are you doing?”

“Officer Maguire, how does it feel being the only woman in the Sylvester police department?”

“What? I’m not answering any questions. You need to move or I’ll place you under arrest for obstructing an officer in the course of her duties.” The camera guy does not budge. “I’m not joking.”

This is a nightmare.

If it were anyone else, I’d call for backup and get ready to pull on them if I have to. You can’t just stand in front of my cruiser while I’m trying to pursue someone committing an offense right in front of my face, yet here this jackass stands blocking my path.

I sigh and thumb the mic. “Jimmy, I need backup.”

“Yeah, Feebs. Where at?”

“My usual spot. Put a motor on it.”

About five minutes later, Jimmy rolls up. He’s older than Bill, the oldest guy on the force. He was a cop in Sylvester when I was Carrie’s age, and looks mostly the same as he did then, except for a wider belly and whiter hair.

I hate calling him in. It feels like calling my dad for help at work. He radios me before he exits his car.

“Hop out and help me on this. I want you to look like you’re taking point in case this ends up on the news. You cuff the camera guy.”

“Ten four.”

I get out and they both rush over to me. Jimmy trips his siren.

“Okay, folks,” I announce as loud as I can. “Camera and microphone on the ground, keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You heard Officer Maguire,” Jimmy adds in his professional, even tone. “Ya’ll gonna comply, now.”

The reporter and camera man look at each other a little incredulously, then realize I’m serious when I stare at them.

“Go on then,” I add.

He lowers his expensive looking camera to the ground, and Jimmy keeps an eye on the woman while I cuff her camera man. I cuff her and we put them both in the back of my Tahoe, then lock their stuff in their van.

“Radio Chief. See if he wants this impounded,” I tell Jimmy. He nods and heads back to his car. I get in with these two.

“You can’t do this,” the woman says, sharply.

“Okay, listen up. You have the right to remain silent…” I want to get smartass about reciting Miranda to them, but I keep it by the book. It’s all being recorded.

Jimmy comes up and leans on my windowsill. “Yeah, he called up Joe’s. They’re on their way out now. I’ll sit here with the property and follow him back to the impound lot.”

“Thanks, Jim.” I give him a curt nod. He nods back, and I see a hint of a smile on his face when he turns away.

Jim is the only one I know isn’t mocking me. When he smiles in my presence, we’re sharing genuine humor. I like that about him.

He was the one who made me want to do this in the first place, even if I had other plans originally.

The drive to the station is short. The paperwork, however, is not. I call my sister, Grace, on my lunch break.

“Hey,” she answers.

“Hey. I need a favor.”

She sighs. “Pick Carrie up and watch her, yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I got it. I’ll see you after work.”

“Thanks, Gee.”

“You got it, Feebs.”

I can’t rely on her forever. She’s going to be moving away, sooner or later.

I sigh and get back to work on the write-up. I swear it takes longer to describe something than the amount of time it took to actually happen.

The reporters give me a forlorn look as I pass by the holding cell with the paperwork.

“This is a gross violation of our first amendment rights,” the woman shouts.

I let it roll down my back and submit my work to the boss.

“You realize we have to let them go,” Bill says without even reading the write-up.

“Yeah.”

“Mayor’s going to crawl up my ass and lay eggs over this. He’s already pissed at you and that judge.”

“Tell him to be pissed at Wright. He’s the one who was speeding.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “Can we skip the Dirty Harry routine today, sugar? We’ve all got work to do. If you think this counts as giving out tickets, you’ve got another thing coming.”

I huff.

“Don’t get all petulant with me with your soft rosebud lips.”

I look past my boss at the shelf next to his desk. The chief of the Sylvester Police Department reads romance novels. In paperback. And keeps them on a shelf in his office. He buys a dozen at a time at the used bookstore and there’s a Sylvia Day novel sitting on his desk right now. It’s seen better times.

“Chief, I couldn’t do my job with these idiots sitting in front of me.”

He turns to face me. “Maybe you shouldn’t have arrested an internationally famous football star then. Did you think of that, Phoebe?”

It grates on me when he uses my first name. He calls everyone else by their last name. Only I get the first name treatment.

“What was I supposed to do, let him go? He should be in jail, not moving in next door to me.”

His eyebrows rise. “What?”

“Yeah, the dickhead rented the house next to mine. He’ll probably start harassing me now. I was doing the right thing.”

“I know, I know,” he says in his “humoring you” tone. “Equal justice under the law and all that. At least it was a big fine. I should give you a sticker.”

My colleague Howard once demanded an award for bringing in what he called a huge collar, that is, intercepting an old Subaru with a pound of weed in the trunk. The boss bought a sheet of stickers at the dollar store and put a gold star on Howard’s badge. Howard was not amused.

He would do the same, now, but I think he’s afraid I’ll sue him if he touches my chest.

“Right. I’m off shift in a couple hours, or did you want me to put in overtime on traffic?”

“Nah, finish up with the due diligence and go get your kid. Sylvester will survive without Officer Maguire patrolling the land on her steel horse for a few hours.”

I give him a curt not and storm past the locker room and out to the Tahoe.

Grace answers her phone on the first ring. “Feeb, you better get over here.”

“What, why?”

“I couldn’t take Carrie back to the house. I’ve been circling the block for the last--”

I toss the phone on the seat, pull out my sidearm, check the chamber, reholster it, back out, throw on my lights and sirens, and make for my home like a bat out of hell.

Since it’s about four blocks, it takes all of two minutes.

I jam up on the brakes when I see what Grace meant. My house is surrounded by news vans like the one we impounded earlier. They’re set up with broadcast towers on my lawn.

Rage seethes up my face, burning to my hairline. Yeah. I flip off the lights and siren and roll up slowly. They run up to me and I roll my window down.

“Get out of my way,” I snarl.

They just ignore me.

My chest tightens. I start to feel helpless. I’m surrounded, they’re pressing in from all sides, surrounding the car. I don’t know where Carrie is. Where’s my baby?

Suddenly, they rush away from me, crossing the neighbor’s lawn.

Oh, Alexander’s lawn.

I’ve come to think of it as “the neighbor’s” house, using a generic term since I don’t know the owners. It’s Alexander’s now, until he leaves.

Great.

That clears enough of a path for me to pull into my own driveway.