Gun Shy

by Lori L. Lake

  As if they’d known her forever, Erin and Amanda each reached up and took a hand. Dez smiled at Janet and led the two girls out of the locker room. Jaylynn and her mother followed. In a quiet voice Janet said, “She’s seems very nice, Jaylynn. She’s not at all what I expected. You never mentioned she’s seven feet tall.”

  “Oh, mother.”

  “She’s, well, she’s really tall, hon.”

  For the first time since joining the police force, Jaylynn went back to work reluctantly. She hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to her mom and the girls when they’d left the day before, but of course she did, trying not to cry at the airport as she watched them walk away from her down the long ramp to the plane. She was filled with such contradictory emotions. On the one hand, after five days of little girl energy, she was ready for a break, but on the other hand, she wished it wouldn’t be months and months before she saw them all again.

  She was pleased to find Sara at home when she got back from the airport, and they went to see a movie, Life Is Beautiful, which she decided might be one of the most wonderful films she’d ever seen, despite the Italian subtitles. Then she spent a quiet evening reading in her room, went to bed before midnight, and slept until nearly ten in the morning. She awoke feeling groggy, remembering violent, scary dreams. By the time she got to work in the middle of the afternoon, she was feeling more chipper, but still, she was out-of-sorts.

  Fortunately, the shift with Crystal went by swiftly, and when midnight rolled around, Jaylynn parked the cruiser and they strolled toward the station. With a twinkle in her eye, which Jaylynn missed in the dim midnight light, Crystal said, “Hey, how ’bout we stay an hour or so and lift some weights? We’ve been on our butts so long I feel like I need a bit of a workout.”

  “Sure. Good idea.” Jaylynn took off her hat and tipped her head forward to stretch her neck. “I feel pretty dang stiff from all that sitting.”

  They went to their lockers and changed into shorts and T-shirts and reconvened in the gym. The dim overhead lights cast weird shadows on all the equipment, and the reflection of the mirrors ringing the room multiplied the odd light into strange specters. At 12:15 a.m., all was quiet.

  Crystal asked, “You want to work out together or go at it alone?” She held her arms out to the side and stretched them, rolling her neck in circles.

  “Together. I’m still learning stuff, so it’ll be good to watch you, okay?”

  “Muy bueno, chiquita. I’m doing chest and maybe triceps today. That all right?” Jaylynn nodded and followed Crystal to the benchpress.

  “What weight do you start with?” Crystal asked.

  “I’m only up to sixty-five pounds max. I’ll do some light stuff and work up to that.”

  “Okay, you start, and I’ll add weights when it’s my turn.”

  Jaylynn lay down on the blue bench and situated herself. “Let me warm up a bit with just the bar.”

  “Yeah, then I’ll slap on the weights for you.”

  Jaylynn lay on her back and gripped the forty-five-pound bar, lifted it off the rack, and let it drop slowly to her chest. She pressed it with ease ten times. She racked it, and Crystal slipped tens on each end and stood over to spot for her. After a brief rest, she repeated the ten reps and replaced the bar. Crystal put a twenty-five plate on each end and changed places with Jaylynn.

  “That’s real good,” Jaylynn said. “I’d die doing a hundred and fifteen pounds.”

  Crystal gripped the bar. “Have you ever seen Dez do two-twenty-five?”

  Jaylynn shook her head.

  “She can. Makes it look easy, too. And you know what? She can leg press six plates on a side over there, you know, like six hundred pounds. Spot for me now, okay? I’m trying for eight reps. I might need help at the end.” Crystal pressed the bar up and began her set.

  Jaylynn watched Crystal closely from where she stood above, ready to help if needed, so she didn’t notice Dez enter the gym and then stop abruptly when she saw the two cops. Dez wore tight black shorts, black shoes and socks, and a heavy-duty black sports bra with crisscross straps on the back. She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and donned on a pair of soft leather Ocelot workout gloves, cinching them around her wrists. Moving to the lat pulldown bar, she adjusted the weights to warmup settings, got a wide grip, sat on the seat and tucked her knees under the pad. She warmed up slowly, keeping her back arched and pulling the bar down to her chin, letting her back and shoulders get used to the motion. After she did two sets of fifteen light reps, she let the bar back up and stretched her arms and neck. Readjusting the weights to a heavier setting, she got situated to work the heavier weight.

  Crystal racked the weights she was benchpressing and sat up. She looked back at Jaylynn and was amused to see her watching Dez intently. She cleared her throat. “Guess I’m lucky I didn’t need your help on the last lift, huh, partner?”

  Jaylynn shook herself and blushed. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.” She jerked her head toward Dez and in a whisper said, “Crystal, will you look at her? How does she do that?”

  As Dez moved the bar, the muscles in her broad back and shoulders bulged and rippled smoothly. Each lat pulldown revealed muscle definition Jaylynn had never before noticed on a woman.

  Dez set the weights down and let go of the lat bar, and Jaylynn took that moment to stride over and lock eyes with her in the mirror. “How did you do that, Dez?” She came to a stop directly behind her, crossed her arms, and waited demandingly.

  “Do what?”

  “Get such incredible muscle definition in your shoulders and back? How in the world did that happen?”

  The pale skin of Dez’s face went from white to pink to crimson in the few seconds it took her to answer. “I—well—I worked at it hard. Ate right. You know, stayed at it. It just happened.”

  “How long did it take for it to ‘just happen’?”

  Dez spun on the seat to face Jaylynn. “I don’t know. A couple years or so.”

  Jaylynn continued to stare at her, fascinated, completely oblivious to Crystal who sat on the bench behind them and watched with an amused expression on her face. “How did you learn what to do to build up like that?” Jaylynn asked.

  “Books. Magazines. And from Ryan. Mostly Ryan. He pretty much coached me.”

  “Can you teach me?”

  Dez shrugged. “I guess,” she said, doubt in her voice.

  “You don’t think I could learn?”

  Dez smiled a full smile, her white teeth twinkling in the low light. She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that at all. I didn’t think you’d be interested. You’ve got a lean runner’s body. And you’re fast. Wouldn’t you rather work at wind sprints and cross country type stuff?”

  “No, not really.”

  Crystal sidled up to the two of them. “Are we getting a back lesson from the master? ’Cause if we are, I’ll stop working my chest right this minute.” Both women stared at her blankly. Crystal observed that the air about her fairly crackled with energy. Ooh baby, she thought. Any fool can see these two got it bad for each other. She looked at her good friend, then at Jaylynn and back to Dez again. She wanted to laugh but forced herself not to. “You know, on second thought, my back has been bothering me. I think I’ll do a quick chest routine and be on my way.”

  Crystal returned to the benchpress and sat studying Jaylynn as Dez grabbed the lat bar and explained something, a serious look on her face. Crystal couldn’t quite hear what was said, but Jaylynn nodded and asked questions, watching closely as Dez demonstrated.

  Crystal lay back on the bench and gripped the free weights. She managed to eke out seven reps before racking it again. When she sat up, she noticed Jaylynn was now seated at the lat pulldown station, holding onto the wide bar with Dez standing behind her, hands patting Jaylynn’s shoulders as she explained something intently. Neither Dez nor Jaylynn paid Crystal the slightest bit of attention. She wondered if she should feel hurt, then decided they needed very much to patch things up. She co
ntinued with her presses, moved on to dumbbell flyes, did some push-ups, and decided to call it a night. When she exited, she looked back to see Dez squatting next to Jaylynn to encourage her as she worked at the seated row. Neither of them gave any indication that they noticed Crystal leaving.

  Right on time for roll call, and as usual, Jaylynn found Dez already perched on a chair in her regular back corner. They nodded at one another, and Jaylynn sat in a seat in the middle of the room and waited for the flow of cops to settle so the sergeant could start.

  Cheryl entered full of vigor and excitement. “Hey, Jaylynn,” she hollered across the room. “Guess what? Stevens is back to work. I didn’t expect him until next week, but his wife’s doing so well, he’s back tonight.” She helped herself to a doughnut and came over to sit in the chair next to Jaylynn. She leaned over closer and said quietly, “He also says he’s up every night with a crabby wife and baby anyway, so he may as well come to work.”

  The duty sergeant stomped into the room and hollered at everyone to listen up. In the daily updates, he brought up the latest rash of burglaries. “You all know about the Bat Boy Burglaries from this morning’s paper. There’ve been six break-ins in six weeks, usually on Saturday or Sunday evenings. Witnesses ID them as kids with baseball bats. They knock—if no answer, they whack in a window and take money, jewelry, and small items of value. Keep an eye out for three white boys dressed urban style. So far all the burglaries have taken place in the Selby-Dale neighborhood.”

  The sergeant called roll and made assignments. Jaylynn was paired with someone she didn’t know at all named Calvin Braswell who didn’t often work their sector. After roll call Cheryl gripped her forearm and leaned over to speak in Jaylynn’s ear. “Good luck tonight. He’s a dinosaur, that one,” Cheryl whispered. “You’ll have to put up with some bitchin’ from him. He despises women cops. I rode with him a couple of times, and he’s a disrespectful, foul-mouthed jerk.”

  “Great. Just what I need.”

  Cheryl said, “Maybe you’ll have better luck charming him than I did.”

  Cheryl slid past and headed out the door with Stevens. Jaylynn rose and fell in line behind the rest of the cops. She sauntered up to the front where Braswell, a rotund sandy-haired man with 1970s sideburns, was engaged in a heated conversation with the duty sergeant. She saw Dez pause behind Braswell, and by then Jaylynn was close enough to hear for herself.

  Braswell was saying, “I’m not riding with some fresh-faced punk—’specially not a female one. What a pain in the ass. Rather ride alone!”

  “Why don’t you do that, Braswell?” Dez asked in a deep voice over his shoulder.

  He jumped and half-turned. “Jesus Christ, Reilly! Whatchu doing sneaking up on a guy like that?”

  “Since it offends your masculine sensibilities so much to ride with a woman, I’ll take Savage tonight. Okay, Sarge?” she asked as she nodded toward her superior officer.

  “No skin off my nose. I’ll update it on the roster and let the lieutenant know.”

  Dez flicked a glance at Braswell. “You oughta buy me lunch or something though.”

  “Bullshit. You girls should stick together, leave us guys alone.”

  “Yeah, right.” Dez turned with a twinkle in her eye to find Jaylynn behind her wearing a puzzled look on her face. “Let’s go, Savage. We need to make sure we don’t get the car with the broken heater.” Loudly she said over her shoulder, “I hope Braswell snags it and freezes his fat ass off.” She took off out the door, her long legs beating a staccato sound on the tile as Jaylynn raced along behind her.

  Dez picked up the keys and loped out to the parking lot. She slid into the driver’s seat and Jaylynn got in and buckled up. She waited for Dez to say something, but after they’d traveled a good mile she couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Why did you do that?”

  “Why not?”

  Jaylynn pondered for a moment. She wasn’t satisfied with that. “I’m serious. Why?”

  “You would’ve hated riding with Braswell. He’s a sexist, mean-spirited asshole. Not a very good cop either. You can’t trust him with your back. I figured you didn’t need the kind of grief he’d put you through.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Dez asked irritably. She took sunglasses out of her breast pocket, flipped them open, and put them on.

  “And what else? What do you care if I have to ride with some old dinosaur?”

  Dez hesitated. She shook her head and looked over at Jaylynn. “All right. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time we put this cold war behind us. Call it a gesture of good will and concern.”

  Jaylynn frowned, then looked away. She caught sight of something out the window and did a double take. “Dez, you see ’em?”

  “Yup. Do they match the description or what?” Two slender white boys and a fatter tall boy, all in mid-teens, walked away from them down the alley between Selby and Victoria Street. They wore oversized sweatshirts and huge baggy jeans. One skinny kid carried a cardboard box in his arms, and a taller boy juggled two awkward-looking grocery bags. The third boy held two shiny aluminum bats. Their baseball caps were pulled low, and they looked around constantly, surreptitiously checking out the houses along the row.

  Dez hit the gas and circled the block. “This is too good to be true.” When she arrived at the mouth of the alley, the boys looked up, surprised. They dropped the bags and box and ran.

  “Damn, they made us.” Jaylynn wrenched her door open and decided on a hunch to go after the biggest kid, hoping he might not be as fleet of foot. Dez grabbed the radio to report as the two skinny boys split, one going through a yard on the left of the alley, the other through a yard on the right side. The big kid did an about-face and ran down the alley. He cut through a yard, struggled over a waist-high chain-link fence, stumbled, and fled out onto Ashland Street. Dez saw Jaylynn vault the fence in one fluid motion and start to gain yardage.

  Dez hit the siren and lights and followed down the alley issuing descriptions over the radio to dispatch. Once Jaylynn and the kid veered off into a yard, Dez lost sight of them. She gunned the car forward and drove back onto the avenue, hoping to pick them up on Laurel Street. Wrong direction. The rookie and the boy were nowhere to be seen. They must have crossed another street and run through more than one yard.

  She wheeled the car back around the block and up to the next street. As she turned the corner she caught sight of Jaylynn bolting away from her and across the pavement, mere yards behind her quarry. Dez couldn’t help but smile. Perfect sprinter’s form. Jaylynn hardly looked fatigued. The fat boy was ready to have a heart attack and, from all appearances, Jaylynn wasn’t even warmed up yet. Dez accelerated and drove up onto the parking strip. She leapt out of the car in time to see Jaylynn grab the back of the kid’s sweatshirt and drag him down with a nicely executed tackle. She wrenched his arms behind his back and had the cuffs on before he could even get his face out of the grass. Dez leaned against the door and grinned, then radioed in to report to dispatch.

  There were sirens close by, and Dez hoped they’d snag the other two boys. But with just this one, they would likely get the names and information they needed. She’d bet money the Bat Boy Burglaries were over. As she stood watching, neighbors peeped out windows or came out on their porches to watch.

  Jaylynn hauled the kid up. He staggered, but she kept hold of his arm, dragged him over to the cruiser, and stuffed him in the back seat. After slamming the door, she leaned back against the car’s rear panel and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

  Dez held back a grin. Wow! Great collar. Look at her—if you don’t count her shirt coming partly untucked, she escaped the chase with only a grass stain on one knee. She couldn’t help but study Jaylynn with admiration.

  After a moment, Jaylynn became aware of Dez’s gaze. She looked up to see Dez smiling, her bright blue eyes merry. Dez stood facing the rear of the car, one foot in the car and one on the ground with her right shoulder draped over the open
door.

  “Couldn’t have done better myself,” Dez said.

  “Let’s go back and get the goods.” With a satisfied look on her face, she added, “That’ll be a good collar for us.”

  “No, that one’s all yours. You spotted them first. You took him down on your own. It’s yours. And you know what that means?”

  “No, what?” Jaylynn stood up and tucked her shirt in.

  “You also get all the paperwork.” Dez laughed and got in the car.

  Processing juveniles always took longer than adult collars, and well over an hour passed before they got back to the car again. By then eight o’clock had rolled around, and Jaylynn was desperately hungry.

  “Where do you want to go for meal break?” Dez asked. “Burger King? Mickey D’s? Taco Bell? Your choice.”

  “Let’s hit the The Cutting Board and get some of those sandwiches.”

  “I can swing by there later. Pick where you want to go.”

  “That is where I’d like to go,” Jaylynn said. “I don’t eat fast food anymore.”

  Dez was surprised. “You don’t? Why?”

  “I hate to admit it, but you were right. I can’t sit around on my butt in a squad car night after night and expect to maintain my girlish figure. I could tell I was putting on weight. So I took your advice before I developed an ass the size of Mankato.”

  Dez laughed heartily. “And you’ve been working out, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No wonder you were flying earlier. You looked so—so effortless. Just think what would have happened if you’d been paired with Braswell tonight for that.” Dez started laughing. “You’d have made Mr. Pot Belly look so incredibly bad. I almost wish I could have seen that.”

  Jaylynn looked at Dez out of the corner of her eye and wondered what the hell had gotten into her. This was hardly the taciturn, distant woman of the last several weeks. Why the change? “Hey, I’m starving here. You driving or do I have to?”

  “Should I put on the siren?”