personnel that doubled as an interview room, and across the hallway from it, a look through a glass panel into Chief Kenneth Danzig’s office, which also held the evidence lockers. All of which could fit into Homicide’s office with room to spare. Upstairs they had three cells — male, female, and juvenile — and a drunk tank. Empty at the moment.
“These are basically holding cells.,” Nat said. “Anyone with real jail time goes to the county lockup in Bellamy.” He sighed. “I apologize for the reception you got from Maggie. It’s my fault. I was telling her all about you and Wayne, making it pretty clear I hoped I could talk you into applying here. If you come on, you’ll get the shift I have now, which she’s been wanting.”
A perfect shift for a vampire, but… “She would have seniority, though, so — ”
Nat cut him off with a head shake. “Nope. Danzig’s okay with female officers but he won’t let one patrol alone at night.”
Lebekov was gone from the officer area when they came downstairs again. Nat picked a portable radio out of a rack by the hallway. “Okay, Sue Anne, we’re going 10-8.”
She beamed at them. “Let’s be careful out there.”
He saluted and led the way down the hall out the rear entrance to the parking lot. After running through a check of the patrol car’s lights, siren, and shotgun, Nat steered out of the parking lot and east on Oak.
“Sorry you didn’t get to meet more of us tonight.” He peered in his outside mirror at a battered pickup which passed them going the other direction. “Briefly, Danzig’s been chief for three years. Came from the Wichita PD. He’s…pragmatic…prefers keeping the peace to law enforcement, following the spirit of the law more than the letter of it. He listens to complaints and ideas we have, cares that we have decent equipment and continued training… because good equipment keeps us safer, he says, and pride in it makes us better cops. But you need to always be straight with him. Don’t step out of line or he’ll land hard on you, and your arrests and evidence better not get thrown out of court for irregularities.
“Lieutenant Byron Kaufman is a twenty year man who definitely prefers peace keeping. I doubt he’s ever drawn his weapon except to qualify at the range. Never had to. If talk won’t work on an offender, he’s a ninja with a baton. He knows this town and the people inside out, and remembers every detail of every case since he joined. Bill Pfannenstiel, our other officer, is almost a carbon copy. They’re both a little old fashioned about women in police work.”
“Do they give Lebekov static?”
“Not as such, but they tend to be condescending…sure she’s just playing cops and robbers until Mr. Right comes along. She wants to prove she isn’t and is as good as any male officer. Danzig hired her not long after he came. She was a dispatcher before, on Sue Ann’s shift, wanting to be an officer…but Sewing, the old chief, didn’t believe in women cops. Neither did the mayor and council until Danzig argued we needed a female for handling juveniles, domestic situations, and rape victims.”
So they presumably had to approve him, too.
“She’s homegrown like Kaufman, Pfannenstiel, and me. Duncan’s semi-homegrown, from Russell. Came here after a hitch in the Marines to share a house with his sister and her two kids.”
“He’s not a peace keeper type.”
Nat shook his head. “But a big stick can be useful.” They turned on to Kansas Avenue. “Welcome to the teen cruise and, along with tomorrow night, our heaviest traffic of the week.”
It was, Garreth reflected, a matter of perspective and proportion. Hardly heavy traffic by Market Street or Embarcadero standards, but still…a stream of cars, pickups, and vans looping south to the Pizza Hunt and across the tracks north to the Sonic Drive-In and back across the tracks south again. The vehicles frequently pulling up alongside each other for the occupants to call across the space between. Considering Baumen’s size, the number impressed Garreth.
“Do you really have this many teenagers?” Every one with a vehicle and a driver’s license must be here.
“They come in from the farms and down from Lebeau, too. There isn’t much else to do Friday and Saturday night other than the movies, and football this time of year. And tonight the football team isn’t playing.” Ahead of them a girl leaned out a passenger window toward the car next to them. Nat burped the siren. “Stay in the car!”
She made a face but pulled back inside.
“Do you write them up for things like that?”
Nat shook his head. “Duncan sometimes does. I tend to cut them slack. I’ve — ”
“Been there?” Garreth said.
Nat grinned, then frowned. “Now he…” he said, pointing at a black Trans Am dodging between lanes on the other side of the tracks, “…is something else. Scott Dreiling, perennial offender…or at least perennially offensive.” He whipped the car over the tracks at the next crossing and worked his way toward the Trans Am. “Daddy’s on the city council, which Scott thinks entitles him to diplomatic immunity.” He pulled alongside the Trans Am and shouted across Garreth toward the blond boy at the wheel. “Scott, try driving like you want to keep those car keys. Officer Duncan is on duty tonight, too.”
They pulled ahead. In the side mirror, Garreth watched Scott raise a middle finger after them. “Does the threat of a big stick work?”
Nat rolled an eye toward him. “That was a reminder, not a threat. Just listen to Duncan run DL’s and registrations tonight to warn the kids he’s watching. And speaking of the devil…”
Garreth glanced over to see another patrol car overtake them on his side. Duncan grinned across at him. “You should have told me you were a cop the other night instead of letting me make an ass of myself.”
Garreth bit back the obvious reply.
“Is it true you broke every bone in Hepner’s hand? Good going! I wish I’d been there to see it. Has Nat convinced you to apply here yet? We need someone else who knows how to get physical.” Giving Garreth a thumbs up, he pulled on ahead.
Garreth stared after him. “Tell me you don’t see me as the next big stick.”
Nat laughed. “Nope. We only need one. The way you handled Wayne in the Main Street made me think of Bill Pfannenstiel talking raging drunks to their knees in tears.”
The radio crackled. “
Nat keyed the mike. “En route. It sounds like Mr. Halverson is wandering again.”
Mr. Amos Halverson turned out to be Mrs. Mostert’s father, a healthy but sometimes confused old man who regularly took walks and forgot his way home. By talking to people in yards along the street, they learned the gentleman had headed north. Twenty minutes later they located him working on his third beer in the Cowboy Palace and drove him home.
Returning to patrol, Garreth said, “I wonder if he’s all that confused. You realize we paid for his beer and gave him transportation home?”
Nat shrugged. “He’s earned it. He ran a grocery store when I was a kid and a lot of times gave me and my sisters free candy. Once when my dad was out of work for six months, he carried us on credit ‘til Dad could pay again.”
Not something that happened these days, although Garreth remembered being told that Mr. Campera, the bodega owner Wink O’Hare killed, had done that for some regular customers. A kindness which added to the outrage the neighborhood felt at his death.
Past the Pizza Hut Nat turned left onto 282 and checked the businesses along there. He had a conversation with a couple parked behind Walmart before letting them leave — “Minors,” Nat said — but found no one behind the Dillons supermarket and Co-op. Radio traffic indicated Duncan was indeed busy running car registrations and drivers licenses. Which did not include Scott Dreiling’s.
Another pass along Kansas at eleven found the cruise traffic down to a last few vehicles, the Sonic and Pizza Hut closed, and the last of the late show patrons at the movie theater leaving for home.
Nat returned to 282 and pulled into the American Legion parking lot. “Time for a break, before Ed goes off duty.” He keyed his mike. “Three Baumen, 10–10 at the Legion. We’ll come sometime when the dining room’s open. Best steaks in town. But the bar food is good, too, and that’s served until the bar and hall close at one.”
Garreth followed him inside. “I ate earlier.” Finished the last of his blood supply. Tonight he needed a cattle run. “I’ll have tea, though.”
