A couple of the other desk guys laughed. Meanwhile the taller officer took a pad from his back pocket and went to Agent Diaz.
“What do we got?” he asked. It seemed like he and Agent Diaz had been through this kind of thing many times. He took notes off to the side.
The short officer entertained a little crowd by the desk.
It seemed like a good sign that no one was in a hurry. In fact, it was all feeling very friendly. Until Cricket saw the guns. The police officers sent to protect her from her confused grandmother both had guns. And handcuffs. She squeezed Dodo’s hand. How could Bunny not have answered her phone?
When the note-taking and the stand-up routine were over, both officers came to the bench. The tall one introduced himself first.
“Good afternoon, ladies. My name is Officer Coolidge.”
“I’m Officer Bryant,” the other one said, extending his arm to Dodo. “Mrs. Fabricant. Would you do me the honor?” Dodo willingly took his arm. She looked relieved. “We are going on a date,” Bryant said.
“Well, of course we are,” Dodo said. She winked at Cricket.
“I’m Officer Coolidge,” the other officer said again.
Cricket had heard him the first time. Was he nervous?
“It’s nice to meet you,” Officer Coolidge added.
“Hello,” Cricket said.
“Your name is Cricket?”
“Yes,” Cricket admitted for the second time today. Why hadn’t her parents given her a regular name?
“Okay, Cricket. Are you scared?”
“No,” she said. Of course she was scared. Duh. But Officer Coolidge smiled, making it clear that his primary intention was to make her feel at ease.
“I just want to make sure you understand what’s going on.”
“Sort of. Not really,” Cricket said. “I’m a minor and my grandmother is confused so we have to wait with you till you reach my parents?”
“That’s pretty much the story,” Coolidge said.
His manner was calm and kind and Cricket appreciated that.
“We want to keep you both safe. Sound good?”
It didn’t sound that good, but Cricket followed him anyway. He was the one with a gun.
She wondered if they were going to walk through the store in police custody, in front of all the shoppers and salespeople. But they walked through another hall and up a short flight of stairs, past a Dumpster full of mannequin legs and arms and heads and torsos, and finally through a door that was just for employees. A small crowd watched as the officers took Dodo and Cricket to the police car. Under different circumstances the novelty of entering a police car with a crowd watching would have thrilled Cricket. But not today. She just wanted to go home.
Officer Bryant opened the back door.
“Oh, man,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He leaned into the car, rearranging something on the backseat. Cricket hoped there wasn’t a bomb back there, or a bunch of other criminals he’d forgotten about. But it was just a backpack and a shopping bag from a children’s shoe store. He threw them into the trunk.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “There you go. Now there’s some room for you.” He patted the seat and Dodo climbed in.
She had to scoot across. She wasn’t nimble and sliding over made her skirt bunch up. But good sport that she was, she laughed at her own ineptitude.
“Dodo, do you want a little shove?” asked Cricket.
“I think that is exactly what I need, sweetheart.”
Cricket climbed in and pushed. It was funny. Hopefully laughing in a police car while in police custody wasn’t going to get them in more trouble. Nothing today had gone the right way.
Coolidge got in the driver’s seat, radioed something in, and turned on the ignition. Cricket helped Dodo with her seat belt.
“Mrs. Fabricant?” Officer Bryant leaned over from the front and smiled through the metal screen. “I’m trying to figure out how old you are. I’m usually pretty good with this. So I’m going to say, thirty-five? Forty?”
Cricket could not believe this guy. He was such a snake charmer. He must really think he could get away with anything. He was probably captain of every team in school. Or wanted to be.
“You know perfectly well I am not thirty-five,” Dodo said. She touched her hair. “You are a real flirt.”
“Amen,” Coolidge said. “Amen.”
“Let me ask you this then. Can we stop and get you a coffee, a pastry? You ladies hungry?”
Dodo looked at Cricket and Cricket nodded.
“That would be nice,” Dodo said. Coffee and dessert was where they had been heading when they’d been intercepted outside the bathroom and, come to think of it, they hadn’t finished lunch. How long ago was that? Cricket had no idea what time it was. The officers had a little discussion about where to go and Dodo smiled. It was like they were all on a date.
“Where are you officers taking us?” Dodo asked.
“To the precinct,” Coolidge said. He drove across Sixtieth and pulled up to the curb on First Avenue. Officer Bryant went inside a café.
“The precinct, you were asking, is on Sixty-Seventh Street between Lex and Third. As soon as we get ahold of your daughter, she’ll come and pick you up. But in the meantime, you’ll keep us company, okay?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Dodo said. “We had other plans for the rest of the day, didn’t we, Cricket?”
“We most certainly did,” Cricket said. “But I don’t mind going. I’ve never been to a precinct.”
“So you’d like to go, sweetheart?” Dodo asked.
“I bet it will be interesting. Have you ever been inside a precinct?”
“No,” Dodo said. “I don’t think I have. You want to go?”
“They seem very nice,” Cricket said, shrugging her shoulders.
“They do,” Dodo agreed. “They really do. And I do like an adventure.”
“Me, too,” Cricket said.
Dodo leaned forward and said to Coolidge, “We’ve decided. It’s settled. We will go with you.”
Cricket thought she’d handled the interaction well, because Dodo thought they were going voluntarily. The only way to improve the day was to make whatever happened from now on seem like it was good for Dodo. Which would be a nice distraction from feeling scared.
Coolidge caught her eye in the rearview mirror and smiled approvingly. Officer Bryant returned to the car with a bag of treats.
Dodo looked out the window of the backseat, like a dog on a long trip.
26
THE NINETEENTH PRECINCT
The patrol car continued north to Sixty-Seventh Street. It pulled up in front of an old-fashioned-looking police station four stories high and wedged between two much taller, newer buildings. The precinct looked like something out of a children’s book about progress and new things conquering old things.
Officer Bryant escorted Dodo out of the car while Officer Coolidge came around for Cricket.
“My partner is a real character,” he said.
“So is my grandmother,” Cricket said.
“She really is. You’ve got a nice thing with her. I like how you talk to her.” He offered Cricket his arm and she took it.
“She’s my favorite,” Cricket said.
“I can see why,” he said.
The minute they walked into the Nineteenth Precinct station house, Cricket had déjà vu. She’d never been to any police station, let alone this one, but the sergeant’s desk was located exactly where she remembered it, and the lighting fixtures were familiar. Why? It was driving her crazy. Then Officer Coolidge told them this was the precinct they’d used as a location in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Dodo had shown her that movie in California at least three times.
When this whole thing was over, they would have to watch it again.
Officer Bryant sat Dodo on a chair in the waiting area. Cricket sat, too. If it hadn’t been for the guns, she’d have almost been happy. But she couldn’t get over the gu
ns. All the officers in this building were wearing guns. Guns killed people. Guns were responsible for so many horrible deaths, some accidental, some intentional. Cricket hated guns. Her family hated guns.
“All right,” Bryant said. “You’re our guests. So please make yourselves comfortable. There’s a TV up there, here’s your pastries, your coffee. Coolidge is going to get you some water. I’ve got to fill out a little bit of paperwork and then try to get ahold of your daughter.” He showed Dodo and Cricket a piece of paper. “Is this the right number?”
Dodo didn’t say anything so Cricket answered.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you want my father’s number, too?”
“Sure, why not,” Bryant said. “Thank you.”
Both officers saluted.
The platform supporting the sergeant’s desk was at least a foot high. Everyone and everything on it loomed above the rest of the people in the station. Next to the platform was a gate that separated the public part of station life from the private part. Officers Bryant and Coolidge went through that locked gate when they said goodbye. Everything behind the gate was obviously where the real police stuff happened. Cricket hoped she wouldn’t end up back there. But she also really wanted to know what it was like.
The sergeant’s area faced the TV and the front door. His desk was an island, the circumference of which was a low wooden shelf covered with piles of forms in different baskets. Cricket could see over the gate. Bryant was back there filling out one of those forms. The sergeant lived on his island with three other people who answered phones and sent out dispatches over their computers.
A girl listening to headphones walked in the front door. She looked like a dancer. Her hair was piled up on her head in a topknot and her T-shirt was falling off one shoulder. At first Cricket thought they were about the same age. But she said hello to the sergeant, he buzzed her in, and she walked through the gate. She was a police officer! What if Cricket was a police officer? Would she be a detective? A forensics expert? Was that girl an undercover cop? Cricket wished the girl hadn’t disappeared. She wanted to follow her.
But she was on this side of the island, where a golf match on TV was her entertainment. Golf was probably the most boring game invented. A police precinct, however, was nothing but excitement. A man came in off the street and approached the island. He wanted to file a complaint about a stolen car. A few minutes later a cop car pulled up out front and two officers walked in with a man in handcuffs. Cricket tried to pay very close attention.
The prisoner looked angry. Or maybe he was in pain. He winced. Maybe it was the handcuffs? They must hurt. A lot. She tried not to look as he walked past her. Was he a criminal? Had he been falsely accused? Was he violent? Maybe he was like her and Dodo and hadn’t done anything. One officer and the man passed through the gate.
The other officer placed a cell phone, a wallet, a pack of gum, and a book of matches on the sergeant’s desk. Cricket guessed they had been taken from the prisoner. The sergeant picked each item up, described it out loud, and noted it on another form before placing each thing in an envelope.
It was just like on TV. Next the officer joined his partner in the back and led the guy down the hall to a room that was behind a large window. Cricket strained to see what was going on in there. It looked like his fingerprints were being taken. She saw another officer take something, a key maybe, from a desk. Then he opened up a cell that was along the back wall. She watched the man get locked up. She was terrified. Would she and Dodo end up in that cell? What if the man who was already in the cell didn’t like them? Were there separate cells somewhere else for women and children?
Officer Coolidge returned a few minutes later with two bottles of water and some napkins.
“How are we doing?”
“Did someone just get arrested?” Cricket asked. All the color had left her face.
“It happens,” Coolidge said. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. Yes.” Cricket wanted to be courageous.
“It’s all good, don’t worry. My partner got hold of your mother and she was already heading home with your father. They should be here soon. In the meantime, can I bring you anything else? Crayons? I got crayons. But you don’t strike me as the crayon type. Cards?”
Cricket was afraid to ask what was going to happen to the man in the cell. She really hoped that when Bunny came, they’d be allowed to go home and it would all be over.
“So what do you say? A deck of cards?”
“Dodo, want to play gin?”
“Yes! I love gin. That would be great.”
“We’d love some cards. Thank you,” Cricket said.
And Officer Coolidge said he’d be right back. Cricket hoped she’d sounded casual because if they did get locked up, it would be better to have a deck of cards than to not have one.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Cricket said.
“All right,” Dodo said. “I’ll wait right here like a good person.”
Cricket hoped that the bathroom would be behind the gate. And it was. She got buzzed in and walked by the part of the sergeant’s desk where the officer had filled out all the forms, and then she walked by the room that the holding cell was in. There was just a plate of glass separating her from that room. There was an actual person behind bars in there. She couldn’t get over it. The bathroom wasn’t much farther down the hall. Cricket hurried. Turned out she didn’t like being on this side of the gate after all.
27
MISSING
The gate buzzed and Cricket returned to her original spot in the waiting area. Dodo wasn’t there. Cricket asked an officer behind the desk if he’d seen an older woman leave.
“Nope, maybe she went to the bathroom,” he said, and went back to his paperwork. Cricket had just come from the bathroom. Dodo wasn’t there. Dodo had run away. Like she always did. Except this time they weren’t playing together. Cricket wasn’t accustomed to being on the opposite team. Maybe this was what Abby had felt like, being tricked constantly.
Why had Dodo done this to her? She had to find her. And ideally before Coolidge came back with the playing cards. If they hadn’t planned on locking them up in a holding cell, maybe they’d change their minds now. It couldn’t be good to be running from the cops. Oh, Dodo, what were you thinking?
When she thought the desk sergeant was distracted, Cricket walked outside. She was careful to stay on the left of the front window so no one inside could see her. Cricket looked down the block. Lexington Avenue was busy with cars and traffic and buses and people. If only Dodo weren’t wearing such a neutral-colored coat. She didn’t see Dodo. She turned and looked the other way, toward Third Avenue. At the corner was a shawarma cart. And lo and behold, Dodo was in front, paying for a sandwich. Cricket ran.
Dodo hailed a cab. Cricket imagined hailing another cab and then saying, “Follow that taxi!” What was she going to do? She didn’t have any money to get her own cab. She ran faster and reached the corner before Dodo had gotten all the way into the taxi.
“Dodo, where are you going?” Cricket asked, trying to catch her breath.
“To the airport. Are you coming?”
“Oh, Dodo. Please come back to the precinct with me. Let’s wait for Bunny and my dad.”
“Driver, the airport.”
“Dodo, I really don’t want you to do that.”
“Why are you trying to stop me? Let me close the door. Driver, let’s go.”
The driver was a young woman who didn’t seem to like conflict. She stared straight ahead.
“Dodo, please don’t leave me here. Come out. I want to talk to you.”
When they had run away earlier, she’d thought they were playing a game. It didn’t seem like Dodo was playing a game now.
“Dodo, I’m scared. Please come.”
The driver looked at Dodo from the rearview mirror. “Hello? Are we going to the airport? LaGuardia or Kennedy? I don’t have all day.”
“Just a minute, I’m t
hinking,” Dodo said, clearly getting more and more mixed up by the second.
Cricket saw her chance. “Dodo, just come out for a minute and we can catch another cab.”
“Oh, all right.”
Cricket helped her out of the taxi and the taxi sped away up Third Avenue with Dodo’s shawarma.
“I’m so turned around, where are we?” Dodo said when they reached the sidewalk.
“We’re in New York City. We’re together and we are going to be okay. I love you, Dodo,” Cricket said.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
“Don’t worry, Dodo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry about anything. And please don’t be scared. Everything is going to be fine. I promise.”
Cricket didn’t normally go around making promises. But the most important thing seemed to be making Dodo feel better, and she did think she could do that. “I think we have treats waiting for us at the precinct. Can we go back?”
They started back toward the station and Cricket saw Coolidge and Bryant, who must have been watching them from up the block. Fleeing from the police was bad. She’d never forgive herself if Dodo had traded escape for worse punishment at the precinct.
But when they walked in the door, Coolidge just smiled and led them back to their seats.
The bag of treats Officer Bryant had given them was still unopened on the bench. Maybe if they were put in that cell, they’d take these things away from them. She opened the bag and found a coffee, a smoothie, and a chocolate-chip cookie. She took out Dodo’s cup of coffee and put two sugars in. She stirred and checked to make sure it wasn’t too hot before giving it to Dodo.
“Cricket, what are we doing here?”
“Well, believe it or not, we got in a little situation at Barneys and now we’re waiting for Mom, for Bunny. Then we’re going home, right?” Cricket said. She looked at Officer Coolidge, afraid he wasn’t going to corroborate. She really hoped what she was saying was true.
“Yes, indeed,” he said.
The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen Page 12
