Petty Crimes & Head Cases

by Lola Beatlebrox

  “Pre-owned?” she repeated. With sudden understanding she said, “You mean used cars.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Melvin said, “but nobody wants to buy a used car anymore, Mrs. Prothero.”

  Grandma Prothero turned to her son. “I thought you said he was a gun salesman.”

  “I said he owns big guns,” said Jack. “He doesn’t sell them.”

  Grandma Prothero turned to Mel. “You a hunter?”

  “No, I like golf.”

  Grandma Prothero looked confused.

  Margaret flashed Mel a smile. “I like golf, too,” she said.

  She might as well have said ‘I like sex, too’ for the reaction she got. Mel looked as if he’d like to go for a hole in one.

  I cleared my throat and turned to Shelley’s husband. “Jack, what are the plans for tonight?”

  “Our visitors usually don’t come around until midnight,” he said, “so let’s play Apples to Apples while we wait. I’ve put up blackout curtains so they’ll think we’ve gone to bed. At midnight, we’ll go outside and wait and then POW!”

  “You ready for that, Mel?” I asked.

  “You bet,” he said.

  “You ready, Kayla?”

  Kayla looked a little troubled and Annabelle grasped her hand. “We’re ready,” she said.

  In a few hours, Grandma Prothero had gone to bed, Kayla was dozing on the sofa, and Gay Lynn was trying to convince Margaret that Dick Cheney was sexy in the Apples to Apples game. Then the grandfather clock chimed midnight. We went outside. I heard a rumbling in the west.

  If I hadn’t see this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. Five cars pulled onto the grass, headlights pointed at the house. Black figures tumbled out. When they were deep inside the property, Mel blasted them.

  Two huge dealership spotlights illuminated the figures, which froze in a kind of deathly tableau. Then they scrambled all over each other trying to get back in their cars. But as soon as Carl and Joe emerged from the light, they froze again.

  One boy’s mouth dropped open so wide I was afraid his jaw would unhinge. A red-haired teen dropped his toilet paper roll and reached for the sky. Another kid prostrated himself on the grass. Two more drivers extracted themselves from their cars, heads bowed, shoulders slumped.

  Carl and Joe did their work.

  I would not have liked to be their parents. Every parent dreads the phone call that wakes them and gives them news they never wanted to hear.

  Luckily, the news was not about an accident.

  No one was dying; no one was dead.

  But a little bit of innocence was lost that night.

  And would never be reclaimed.

  The summer breeze at Brinksman’s Pass was soft as doeskin. I gazed at the magnificent mountain backdrop and marveled at nature. Soren and Cholly came up the aisle flanked by all their friends. They stood under a metal arch decorated in floral finery. Gay Lynn was waiting for them with a smile that beamed brighter than the sun.

  I held Carl’s hand as she began the ceremony. Her words were surprisingly traditional. “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here to witness the union . . .” I would have thought Cholly and Soren would go for something more 21st century.

  The happy couple were dressed in white suits. The backs of their jackets were embroidered elaborately with their initials—SCC intertwined with vines. It was a testament to Cholly that Soren would take his name.

  I mused on the evolution of society—how a hundred years ago we women wore long skirts, couldn’t vote and didn’t own property; black people had Jim Crow in the south and the same but not in name in the north; backroom abortions were treacherous, the Pill was unheard of; the Industrial Age caused labor strife; and the Information Age was unimagined. Yet these mountains looked exactly the same. This view would endure here forever, no matter what we humans managed to do on our planet.

  Gay Lynn’s voice overtook my thoughts. “Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘til death do you part?”

  “We do.”

  “Then,” Gay Lynn said, “I pronounce you husband and husband.”

  I squeezed Carl’s hand.

  He squeezed back.

  Case 9

  Big Brother

  A peculiar scrabbling noise came from somewhere in the den.

  Was a potgut in the house again?

  Potguts are little ground squirrels that live in tunnels underneath the desert soil. One died in the walls once and stank up the house for a week.

  I rushed into the den where I found my son transfixed by his iPad. On screen, two huge white-headed birds shuffled around a large nest. He was watching the Florida Bald Eagle Cam.

  “Their names are Romeo and Juliet,” Jamie whispered, as if he might disturb them.

  One parent grasped a small silver fish in its huge yellow claws, ripped the fish’s head off, and passed strips of pink flesh to a little white eaglet. The baby telescoped its spindly neck and scarfed down his breakfast while his brother watched. I wondered why the other eaglet was waiting his turn so politely when I read the screen: They were born yesterday.

  Jet noise disrupted the mood. We scrolled down the screen to Eagle Cam 2. This camera shot upward from the forest floor so we could see the flash of metal wings behind the nest. All those people were flying to Miami and they had no idea there was an eagle’s nest below them or that we were watching their airplane from our little city out west.

  Technology is amazing.

  I was stirring milk into my coffee at the salon coffee station when the door opened. “Good morning, Sassy. Have you had your coffee yet?”

  “Is it ready now?”

  “You bet.” I poured Sassy Morgan a mug of Steep & Deep. “Full body wave treatment today?”

  “Yes, but I must be out in 90 minutes—I’ve got to open the store.”

  My Client Notebook reminded me that Sassy had taken a job at the Main Street Boutique. “I’ll have you out at quarter of eleven—plenty of time.”

  Sassy submitted to my expert hands. Within thirty minutes her hair was permed and rolled. The entire time, she checked her cell phone.

  “You seem anxious, Sassy.”

  “Can’t be late.”

  “Relax,” I told her. “Would you like to soak your feet in a warm bath with gardenia oil or lie on a warm massage table with a cool lemon eye compress while you’re processing?”

  “I’m too wired.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s my bosses in Florida. They know what time I open the store, what I’m doing, and everything I say.”

  “How?”

  “They’ve installed cameras with microphones and they’re watching me from their house.”

  My nose wrinkled. “That’s creepy.”

  “If I don’t sell, sell, sell I hear about it.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “They want me to push product, but most people want to browse. They’ll say, ‘Just looking,’ and I’ll say, ‘If you see anything you like, please let me know.’ But my employers want me to hover over them and talk about any item that catches their attention.”

  “I hate that kind of salesperson,” I said with a snort. “They’re annoying and then they disappear when you need them.”

  “I got a dressing down the other day like you would not believe. The store owners analyzed my every move. I felt like two cents afterwards.”

  Sassy is a beautiful girl, but her mouth had twisted upside down, her shoulders were slumped, and now that I’d finished her rollers, her head looked like a cluster of afterburners on a jet fighter.

  “I know it’s their shop,” she said, “but I feel like a bug under a microscope. I’ve worked there for quite some time and I think I’ve done a good job—sales are up and we have repeat business—but all of a sudden I’m back at square one. I feel like a teenag
er being tracked by Mom and Dad.”

  “Have you told them this?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Do the other salespeople feel this way?”

  “They’re newer—maybe they need supervision.” She paused and looked at the cell phone as if time were getting away from her again. “There’s been some shoplifting recently.”

  “Then that’s why they installed the system—not to spy on you.”

  “Probably.”

  I poured us both another cup of Steep & Deep. “Perhaps things will settle down over time. People love new gadgets, but they lose interest after a while.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Hang in there and don’t take it personally. Believe in your past performance.”

  I put the perm solution away and rinsed my mixing bowls.

  “Tracy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I’ll take that cool lemon compress now.”

  I led Sassy to my massage room, put the chilled citrus cloth on her face, turned on “Musical Healing Chimes,” and closed the door.

  Sassy Morgan is a wonderful person. She’d been a good friend to Orchid Fisher ever since we discovered Orchid was addicted to prescription meds. Sassy’s bosses were lucky to have her and they shouldn’t have been micromanaging her with surveillance cameras.

  Technology sucks.

  It was late afternoon when Rabbi Josh walked through the front door. He removed his yarmulke. “What can you do with this?” he asked.

  I surveyed his bald spot and snapped my fingers. “Keep your yarmulke on.”

  “You’re a big help, Tracy.”

  “We aim to please at The Citrus Salon.”

  Rabbi Josh stopped by every month to purchase massages for his wife Sharon, who wrote screenplays for the wildly popular science fiction TV series “Vagabond Planet.” Rumor had it that the Rabbi revealed clues about future episodes in all his sermons and this titillating notion packed the Temple every week.

  “How’s life, Josh?” I asked.

  “I got a speeding ticket.”

  I laughed at the face he pulled. “Were you stopped by someone I know?”

  “I wish.”

  “What happened?”

  “Those damn traffic cams. A ticket arrived in the mail and I couldn’t argue.”

  I smiled. Rabbi Josh was known for arguing. He did his thesis on religious polemics at Harvard Divinity School.

  “How fast were you going?” I asked.

  “Fifty in a thirty mile an hour zone.”

  “Rabbi!”

  “I was late for a lecture and I was the lecturer.” He observed my face. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “Cameras don’t lie.”

  “They’re expensive buggers. We just got a quote to replace the security system at the Temple—twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus.”

  “He has nothing to do with it. Our insurer wants every entrance and exit covered, every function room, the Torah Ark, the entire exterior, and the parking lots. I asked them why they didn’t want the bathrooms wired.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Some things are best left to God.”

  I giggled.

  “You know the trouble with being a rabbi?” he asked.

  “No, what?”

  “You think you’re in charge of people’s spiritual lives, but most of your time is spent as a building superintendent.”

  I handed Josh’s credit card back to him and wrapped a pink bow around a set of Divine Davina Dalliance gift cards. “Sharon will enjoy these.”

  “Annabelle does wonders for her back,” he said.

  “And you do wonders for your congregation.”

  Rabbi Josh winked and went out the door.

  Five minutes later, I realized I’d forgotten to ask the million dollar question: Why did the Temple need a new security system? I rushed out the front door, but all I saw was his car speeding up the street.

  My next appointment was Tina White Horse. She’d become a good friend. We double-dated and I could see that Joe Torgesen was very much in love with her. I expected him to pop the question any day now.

  Fragrant steam rose from Tina’s footbath. I was shaking a bottle of Happy Tulip nail polish when she said, “Do you think our guys should be wearing body cams?”

  I stared into the bubbling water. Another million dollar question. The answer was complicated and I was not sure I wanted to talk about it. “Tell me what you think.”

  “We don’t have many black people in this community, but there are Native Americans like me, and Hispanics. We have the potential for racial profiling and racial incidents.”

  “I don’t think our police force is like that,” I said. “Our chief may be laughable but he believes in community policing. He’s not like that martinet over in the next county.”

  Tina grimaced. She knew I was talking about a sheriff who acted like an army general and thought he was running a military unit.

  I plucked Tina’s shapely foot out of the warm water and perched it on the ledge in front of me. “Body cams can be invasive,” I said. “There’s no automatic technology to turn them off when innocent citizens are involved. What if I’ve been robbed? I call the police and consent to entry. They come in, cameras rolling. What happens to that footage?”

  Tina smiled wickedly. “I’ve heard there’s a lot of consensual entry going on at your house. We all want to see that footage.”

  I laughed and splashed water at her. “You should talk,” I said, spreading cuticle softener on Tina’s toes. After a while, I stopped smiling. “I’ve often thought a body cam would protect our guys, maybe even as much as Kevlar vests.”

  “I think so too,” she said. “If anything happened, there would be a record of it. Questions could be answered.”

  I reached for Tina’s right foot and applied my emery board. “It’s hard being a cop these days,” I said. “The media makes people believe police violence is pandemic and all cops are just a bunch of bigoted, authoritarian assholes.”

  “It’s despicable—the racism, I mean.”

  “It does exist.”

  “It’s about intergenerational post-traumatic stress,” Tina said.

  “What?” I stopped shaping Tina’s toes.

  “My tribe has PTSD. A hundred years ago we were forced to relocate to the only ugly place in this beautiful state. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten over it. There’s anxiety and depression among my people. We’re poor. We drink. We do drugs. We’ve been told ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian,’ and we’ve believed them. We are our own worst enemies because we beat down anyone who tries to climb out of the reservation and better their lives. There are some very smart people on the rez who never got anywhere. It’s sad to see.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  “I don’t know that I have. I still think of myself as inferior and suspect people are prejudiced against me. Every day I try to ignore this feeling and I’m not always good at it.”

  Tina had revealed the way her world worked. It was a sobering picture and I didn’t like it one bit. “Do you think there’s a parallel with blacks in our country?” I asked.

  “I can’t speak for them, but slavery is humiliating. Its effects are wounding and they last for generations. For the oppressors as well as the oppressed.”

  “So it’s always simmering under the surface?”

  “People don’t even know they’re doing it. Think of those frat boys singing on the bus. They’ve been chanting the same song for years and nobody called them out on it. But along came someone with a cell phone and the video went viral.”

  A bunch of fraternity students from the University of Oklahoma were caught singing sick, racist lyrics to a little-kids’ tune. Now when I hear ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It,’ I no longer clap my hands.

  Tina went on, “Our society has incarcerated more poor people and people of color than any other westernized country on the
planet.”

  We fell silent. The scratching of my emery board was the only sound in the room. I wished every wrong could be righted, but life wasn’t like that. At the moment, the only cure for the way we both felt was Happy Tulip nail polish.

  I started applying color onto Tina’s toes when she asked her original question. “Do you think our guys should be wearing body cams?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We need to know the truth.”

  Carl sat down at the dinner table and put his napkin in his lap. “Mrs. Oscar called me today on my cell phone,” he said. “No, Jamie, don’t reach across the table. Say, ‘Please pass the juice, Dad.’”

  “Please pass the juice, Dad.”

  Carl poured Jamie a glass and set the bottle on the table.

  I covered my grin with my own napkin. My son was obedient and adorable, but he routinely forgot his manners.

  “How’d she get your cell number?” I asked.

  “She has her sources.”

  I marveled at the way this little old lady operated. Whose ear did she twist this time? “What did she want?”

  “She’s got a new security system.”

  “Praise the Lord,” I said, remembering the useless VHS video footage of alien spacemen throwing things in her convenience bins.

  “She wants me to fix her gas station security cameras. Every single one is on the fritz.”

  “That’s a job for the security company.”

  “Stealth-Techt says it’s vandalism.”

  “Don’t tell me someone used them for target practice.”

  “They were disabled at five separate gas stations. The chief technician thinks it’s a crank with a laser.”

  “A laser?”

  “A security camera can be disabled with a pen laser—the kind lecturers use to illustrate PowerPoint presentations. The infra-red beam is pointed into the camera lens.”

  “If it’s that easy, why doesn’t every robber do it?”

  “There’s a little more to it than that. The state tech experts have the footage now. We’re hoping there’s an image of the laser shooter right before the picture goes blank. If there is and they can blow it up, we might be able to ID our guy.”

  “A Laser Shooter! That’s awesome,” said Jamie. “I’m building a robot with laser eyes. He just looks at people and they go blind. He’s got a bionic eye that can see like a microscope and another eye that can explore the moon. He’s off the clock.”