15 Seconds

But something did come back to me with certainty as I took off after it. A kind of insignia. A dragon maybe-red, with a long tail. Or a winged bird of some kind. That might make it easier to find.

I swung a right onto Lakeview at the first break in traffic. I hit the gas, weaving in and out of cars, pulling ahead of as many as I could. The guy had a minute or so on me. But there were tons of lights. And traffic. So he couldn’t just take off crazily and risk being stopped. For all I knew he could have turned off onto a side street by now. Or pulled into a strip mall and switched cars. I fixed on that plate and that image I had seen. And looked out for the police. They’d tossed me in cuffs for a meaningless traffic violation. What would they do to me now if they thought I’d killed a cop?

I knew I had to call it in. Only a couple of minutes had gone by, and the police probably didn’t even know what happened yet. I reached for my phone and punched in 911, still no sight of the car. After a few seconds, a female operator came on. “Emergency…”

“I’ve just witnessed a murder!” I shouted. I placed my phone on speaker. “A policeman! In his vehicle. On…” Suddenly I realized I didn’t even know the name of the street Martinez had had me pull onto. “Christ,” I said, stammering, “I don’t know the street. It was off Lakeview. Near Bay Shore Springs Drive…”

“Sir, you say the victim was a policeman?” the operator replied, her voice responding to what she’d heard. “In his patrol car? I’m going to need your name. And the location you’re calling from. Are you still at the scene? Are you able to give us the patrol car’s number?”

“No, no.” I wasn’t sure what I should say. “I’m driving on Lakeview. The person who did it took off in a blue sedan. I’m chasing him now!”

“Sir, I am going to ask you to please pull over and go back to the scene,” the operator instructed me with urgency.

Damn. I had to stop at a light. I pushed myself up and tried to see over the tops of the stopped cars.

Nothing. The son of a bitch was getting away! I tried to concentrate on what I’d seen on the plate. A dragon or a snake, or a winged bird. Red, I was thinking. Yes, it was red. All I knew for sure was that the plate definitely wasn’t from Florida. But I couldn’t completely visualize it. Everything had happened so quickly.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to return to the scene of the crime,” the 911 operator said to me again. “And I’m going to need your name.”

The light changed. I drove on. My name…? I was about to give it, the accelerator pressed to the floor, doing sixty on a crowded, suburban street. Seventy. “It’s…”

Then I stopped.

A few lengths in front of me was a blue sedan that looked like the one I saw, and it was weaving in and out of traffic. “Hold it!” I said, as if I’d been jolted by EKG paddles. “This may be him!”

“Sir, I don’t need you to be a hero…” the dispatcher shouted at me. “Just give us some identifying characteristics. We’ll take care of it from there.”

Hero…? I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I was trying to do what was right and at the same time save my own skin! Go back to the scene? Without a plate number or some identifying characteristics. I knew I’d have one helluva time explaining myself back there.

I was forced to stop at another light. But so was the blue car, which was approximately ten cars ahead of me. I saw a road sign for I-10, one of the main highways, straight ahead! That’s likely where he was heading. That’s where I’d be heading! The light changed, and the blue car drove on ahead. I leaned and caught a quick enough glimpse of the plate before it was blocked, and again I noticed the light ground, just like I’d seen.

“Sir…”

I knew I’d lose the guy for good with the dispatcher continuing to bark at me. I waited a few agonizing seconds for the cars in front of me to move, every nerve in my body bristling with electricity and urgency.

Then I just said, The hell with it, Henry. Let’s go!

I swung into the turn lane and sped up to the intersection, and went right through the light. I was already in up to my eyeballs anyway!

“The guy is in a blue sedan heading down Lakeview toward the entrance to I-10!” I shouted into the phone. Which caused the dispatcher to warn me to stop for a third time.

I ignored her. I spotted the car again-maybe ten or twelve vehicles in front. I kept speeding up, dodging ahead of other vehicles in front of me, making up ground.

Eight cars now.

Then, to my astonishment, I spotted another blue car! This one was one or two in front of the one I was chasing.

Which was the right one?

Neither had in-state plates, but the second one-the one in front-did have something else on the back plate, and as I squinted in the sun, I saw it began with an A! I pressed on the gas. The speedometer climbed to seventy. Now I was only a handful of cars behind them. Five or six. We were rapidly approaching the highway. I yelled to the 911 dispatcher, “There’s a second car!”

If one of them got on the highway and the other remained on Lakeview, I’d have to make a choice.

The first car I had spotted put on its blinker and began to veer toward the highway, picking up speed. I couldn’t make out the plates, other than an AD or maybe a J or something… I couldn’t see part of the plate. The second car stayed on Lakeview. And it had that thing on the plate.

I had to make a choice.

I yelled to the operator, “One of them is veering onto I-10. West. The other is staying on Lakeview… I’m staying,” I told her.

The first car veered onto the ramp, heading onto the highway. I went past it, underneath the overpass, praying that wasn’t Martinez’s killer getting away.

I hit the accelerator, pulling myself closer to the second blue car. It had light-ground plates, just like the one at the scene. I started to make out the number. AB4… I didn’t know. That could have been it.

And some kind of image too…

I sped up, inching closer, until I could finally make out the plate number in full. AB4-699.

It was from Tennessee. And the image I saw… It was a U.S. Army medallion.

And there was a sticker on the back window. Honk if you support our troops.

Could that be it?

As I pulled up even, I saw a woman behind the wheel. And a kid in the back. In a kiddie seat. The one thing I was sure of was that the person driving the murder car was a man! I drove alongside of her, staring in futility and frustration. The woman leered back at me like I was some kind of nutcase and changed lanes.

“Fuck!” I slammed my palm against the steering wheel. The killer was heading away on I-10. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck!

All of a sudden reality sank back into me. I had to go back to the scene and tell the police what I knew. I had to face a bunch of pissed-off, angry cops who might well slam me onto the ground and slap the cuffs on me again.

“I need your name, sir!” the 911 operator kept insisting.

Would they buy for one second what I’d been saying? That I was chasing after a blue car. The killer’s car. With nothing concrete to identify it. These same cops who had just seen me in cuffs, in the back of Martinez’s car. Having argued with the very policeman who was now dead! And taken off from the scene!

“You have to find the car,” I said to the operator. “It’s heading west on I-10. It’s a blue sedan. Out-of-state plates. I think the first letters were AMD… Some kind of image on it, a dragon or winged bird. I’m heading back to the scene. Someone has to have spotted it.”

I hung up and began retracing my route along Lakeview, nervously going over what I was about to face. Up ahead, it appeared as if traffic was being diverted off the main road. By now they’d probably found Martinez’s car. They all knew who I was anyway and what car I was driving. I’d have some explaining to do. How I didn’t kill