The Rookie_Boys in Blue

by Tessa Walton

  “Then you’d better not lose her.”

  “I don’t even have her yet,” Nate said.

  “You guys have kissed.”

  “But she’s not really, totally mine until I can scream about it from the rooftops. I want to be able to tell everybody, not just you with both doors shut. I want to be able to show her around the police station and go visit her during lunch breaks and meet her at school. I don’t want to have to hide anything, and I don’t want there to be anything to hide.”

  “We’ll get there soon,” she answered.

  “We’ll?”

  “By now I’m practically as involved as you are.”

  “I really don’t think that’s true,” he said, but he laughed, knowing exactly what she meant.

  “Tell you what: when I inevitably catch him first, I’ll let the arrest be yours.”

  “Who says you’re going to catch him first?”

  “I’m going to catch him first,” she answered. “And when I do, you can arrest him.”

  “Is that a promise?” he asked.

  “That’s a promise,” she answered.

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter

  Dove still hadn’t figured out what to do with herself with all the time off work. She read her Bible, and ran on the treadmill, and watched old television shows. Columbo was one of her favorites. But she didn’t see how long she could keep this up for. Most people would kill for a paid vacation, but Dove just wanted to get back to her classroom. It wasn’t as if she could even go anywhere fun.

  She was flipping through Proverbs, reading about wisdom incarnate, when she heard a knock on the door. Rather than answer, she grabbed her phone and peeked through a window. A man with a very straight nose. She quickly dialed 911, not caring about using the emergency number.

  “Hello, what’s your emergency?” a voice Dove thought was much too chipper asked.

  “It’s Dove Babcock, the stalking victim. My stalker is knocking at my door.”

  “Don’t let him in, ma’am.”

  “I wasn’t going to let him in! I need to know what I am supposed to do.”

  “Wait here. Stay on the line. We’re sending the closest officers your way. Stay away from the windows; pretend you’re not home.”

  “My car’s here. He’ll know the truth.”

  “Don’t panic, ma’am, just stay calm. Everything will be alright if you stay calm.”

  “How can you say everything will be alright?” she asked in an angry whisper. “The man that has been following me for weeks is knocking at my door as if he has a freaking package.”

  “Just stay on the line. The cops are coming.”

  “Which cops?”

  “Whichever ones are closest to you. Would you like to hear their names?”

  “Yes, I want to hear their names!”

  “Jessica Daniels and Nathaniel O’Bannon. Does that help you stay calm, ma’am?”

  Surprisingly, it did. But it didn’t stop the soft, incessant, yet somehow polite knock-knock-knock. Then, another sound. Glass shattering. “He just broke the pane of door,” she said. “My door has window panes. I could hear it.”

  “Just stay calm, ma’am. Do you have any room you could lock yourself in? Stay very quiet and go to that room.” She rushed up the stairs, thinking every footfall was much too loud, and slammed the bedroom door shut behind her without much thought for the sound. Then she realized what she had done. She locked the door and grabbed her desk chair, pushing it against the doorknob like she had seen in so many detective shows. She wasn’t sure if it would actually do anything to help her, but she had try.

  “Dove?” a voice called. A voice she didn’t recognize. A light, airy, slightly high-pitched, friendly voice. “Dove, I know where you are. Why don’t you come out, sweetie?” Dove wanted to scream at him to leave.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?” the woman on the phone said. Dove didn’t dare answer.

  Footsteps came closer, closer. Too close. A moment later, the doorknob jiggled. She heard someone tsk their tongue.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Dove, honey, locking me out, that’s not very nice. Do you know what happens to girls who aren’t very nice?”

  Dove found herself taking slow steps backwards until her back hit the wall. She couldn’t breathe. All the oxygen had left the room. If she breathed, she might die. If she breathed, he might kill her. She found with some surprise that tears were dripping down her cheeks.

  “I know an old trick,” the man said, jiggling the door handle once more. “See, for simple locks, such as these, one can unlock them with a dime.”

  Dove knew this was true, because her mother used to do it when she locked the door in her old house. She looked around frantically for where to go, what to do. She needed to hide. Get out of his line of sight. Get far away. The jump from the window to the ground was too long. She had to find a way to get out. Another way.

  She saw the closet and climbed in. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it would get her out of his line of sight. She closed it behind her as softly as she could, remembering the fiasco with the bedroom door. She heard the click of a lock. “Dove, my dear, I’m coming to see you now.” But the chair. It was still jammed between the handle and the floor. He shook the door, but she didn’t hear it move.

  “Hello? Ms. Babcock? Are you okay, Ms. Babcock? The police are on their way. They should be arriving momentarily.” Dove wondered if the phone was making enough noise to be heard, and quickly hung up. She gave no thought to how that would look.

  “Dove. Let me open the door. I just want to talk to you. Do you know how long it’s been since we talked?” Dove wondered who he was. How she knew him. Had they made eye contact at the grocery store? Was he the father of one of her schoolchildren? She didn’t recognize him, but he clearly recognized her. She held her breath. She wished she had left part of the door open, so she could see what was happening.

  She heard the sound of something being jabbed into the chair, of wood scraping wood. For a moment, there was more scraping and jabbing, until there was the loud sound of a chair clattering to the floor.

  “Oh, Dove,” he cooed. “Naughty, naughty, naughty Dove.” She heard footsteps go slowly around the room. The window opened with a sliding noise, wood on wood once again, then shut. “Dove.” Footsteps away, slowly, one after another, then back towards her. Close. Close. Closer. “Oh, there you are, my little dove.” The door creaked open, light sliding over her face, blinding her from seeing him.

  “Police! Nobody move!” Nathaniel screamed as the door slammed against its hinges. There was a red car outside. License plate PMCB12. He prayed silently, over and over, that they hadn’t come too late. He ran into the kitchen, looked high, low, high again, as if maybe she’d be hanging from the ceiling. “Clear!” he shouted, throwing open the pantry door with a clatter. The pantry had stairs leading down into the basement. He fumbled down the stairs in the dark, then felt desperately along the wall for a light. Everything was stale and the air was stagnant. He could feel the emptiness, and yet he needed to see it to be sure. Finally, finally, finally he found the light and flipped it on. The boiler, the heater, the foosball table. “Clear!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He left the light on and scrambled back up the stairs.

  Vaguely, he heard Jessica shouting “clear” in other rooms of the house. He channeled the cool, calm collectedness of Dove. Where would he go if he were her? He knew they were supposed to go through the house systematically, but did it make sense when he had thrown the system out the window? It was time to go to where it made the most sense. If he heard someone break in through the living room, he’d run upstairs. Far away from the man as he could get.

  He rushed up the stairs. Bathroom first. That locked, didn’t it? Didn’t they generally tell people to go in the locking rooms? He threw open the shower curtain. “Clear!” he shouted. He ran into one of the bedrooms. A window was open, the curtains moved quietly in the breeze. “Possible exit point!” he screamed.
/>
  The closet was ajar. He looked inside it. Neat, orderly, nothing to say anything might be amiss. “Clear!” he shouted. There was one more room upstairs. Another bedroom. He ran to it. There was a chair, scratched up, collapsed across the floor. There was Jessica, standing, with her gun drawn. There was a man with a very straight nose. And crouched on the floor, in silent tears, was Dove.

  “Make the arrest,” Jessica said. Nate wanted to ask Dove if she was okay, but he knew how this worked. He walked over, pulled the man’s hands into cuffs, and read him his rights.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter

  Dove didn’t think she had ever been so scared. She didn’t think anyone ever could be so scared. She had fancied herself cool, calm, and collected. Too good to be crying on the floor of a closet. And now, as Nate was yanking the man’s hands into handcuffs none too gently, it all seemed so stupid. The man hadn’t even had a weapon, unless you could count the discarded broom handle he used to unstick the chair. He grinned at her, almost jeering, the whole time, and it was more than creepy, but Dove mostly felt stupid. Stupid for running and hiding, stupid for calling the police, stupid for crying, stupid for not being able to handle it herself, and stupid for Nate seeing all of it. If only it had been a different cop closer that day. She was sure she had no chance with him now.

  She stood and wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself in the way she had as a child. An ambulance had come as well, and had given her a shock blanket and offered her something for stress. Nate had said one word to her the entire time, being entirely professional. Jessica told her another set of cops would take her to the precinct, since they had the man, and would get her statement from her once there. She just wanted Nate, wanted to be near him all the time, wanted to be as far from him as possible. She didn’t know what she wanted; she just knew it had something to do with Nate.

  It ended up being Lieutenant Leslie that picked her up. She had thought that she had a mostly behind-the-desk job, but she supposed it was not. After all, this was the second time she had caught her in the field. “Everything okay?” Leslie asked as she put her in the back of her car. As if everything could ever be okay after all that. “Are you sure you don’t want to take anything?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It really wasn’t so bad.”

  “Is that why you cried?” she asked.

  “I think almost anyone would’ve cried,” Dove said defensively.

  “Of course, of course,” she answered.

  Dove wanted to scream at her, but she told herself it was just because her nerves were wrought. Of course she was on edge.

  They pulled into the precinct, and Dove got out and walked into the building. For all the times she had called in, she hadn’t actually been there. Just imagined what it must be like. It was calmer than she expected. It didn’t look like a lot of people ran through there all the time, trying to deal with the worst emergencies.

  “We’re going to go into an interview room so it’s a bit more private,” Leslie said. She had led her into a room with a two-way mirror. She hated feeling as if someone was watching her. “Can I get you anything? Maybe some coffee?”

  “Do you think I could have some water?”

  “Of course.” Leslie got up and left the room, and Dove tried to compose herself. She wiped at her eyes once more, not wanting Leslie to see the aftereffects of tears. Maybe she’d stop making jokes that way. She didn’t have much time, though, before Leslie came back in and handed her a bottle of water. Dove opened it and took a long swig.

  Leslie pressed on a tape recorder. “Now, some of this will be similar to questions you were asked before, but we need to make sure we have a full record. How long have you dealt with this stalker?” Dove gave a very inclusive report of what the last two weeks looked like for her.

  “Okay, thank you,” Lieutenant Leslie said, “If this goes to court we’ll have to practice this quite a bit more, but for now this will do. I have a feeling there may be a plea deal anyway. This is a pretty open-and-shut case.”

  “How do you think he knew my name?”

  “Well, who knows how long he was stalking you for? He probably overheard it somewhere. It’s likely he followed you outside your home as well.”

  “Right. That’s not terrifying at all.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. We’ll take care of him.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Lieutenant Leslie stood, and so did Dove.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter

  Nate knew normally officers, especially rookies, were not often allowed to interrogate. They had lieutenants for that, since they were a little too small for detectives. But being the arresting officer had its perks, and Lieutenant Hilton helped him, doing most of the talking.

  “So, how long have you been following Dove Babcock?”

  “I want a deal,” the man said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you want a confession from me, I want a deal.”

  “Please. This is the clearest case we’ve had in a while. Why would we give you a deal?”

  “I can tell you who hired me,” the man said.

  Lieutenant Hilton stopped his slow, perfunctory gait for a moment. “You were hired?”

  “Of course. You think I did this for kicks?”

  “As a matter of fact, I think you did.”

  “How did I know her name?”

  “Easy. You’re a stalker.”

  “I’ll tell you who hired me, and I want probation.”

  “Sure, probation after a few years in jail, maybe.”

  “Fine. He’ll just hire someone else, though, and this will start all over.”

  The chief opened the door. “O’Bannon, Hilton, I want to talk to you.”

  Nate walked out, and Hilton followed.

  “I think we should make the deal. Tell him six months jail time if we get a conviction.”

  “Very well,” Hilton said, and walked back in. Nate followed. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

  “For no jail time? I want it in writing.”

  “It’s recorded. Six months jail time and three years’ probation, as well as a fine, on conviction.”

  “On arrest.”

  “No, on conviction.”

  “I don’t want to be punished for your poor police work.”

  “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. We can go to court. Between the stalking and the breaking and entering, you can get two years. Is that what you want? Because with how pervasive you’ve been being, we’d push for it.”

  “Fine. I’ll take it. Officer Trevose.”

  “What?”

  “Officer Trevose. He hired me.”

  “And why in the world would he do that?”

  “She held his kid back a year.”

  “It’s third grade.”

  “I didn’t say it made sense. I just said I was doing my job.”

  “Your job is to stalk people?”

  “Hey, I don’t insult what you do for a living. I didn’t have a weapon, and I didn’t ever threaten her life. I just peeked in her window a few times.”

  “In three different places.”

  “How do you think I always knew where she was? The precinct wasn’t exactly quiet about it.”

  “If this is some kind of joke, it isn’t going to help your case.”

  “I’ve already been paid by him. Why would I joke?”

  “Do you have any proof of this?” he asked.

  “I recorded all our phone calls,” he answered.

  Hilton looked at Nate. They both knew Officer Trevose. Nate didn’t know him well, but he did know he had a kid in the third grade, again. He didn’t know if he blamed Dove for that, but he supposed that wasn’t impossible. He didn’t like blaming a cop, but he didn’t see why the man would say he had phone calls if he didn’t, and he didn’t see how he could have phone calls without it being decisive. It only seemed to make sense.

  “Well, a cop can take yo
u to go get those conversations, and then we can make the arrest.”

  “The recorder was in my pocket. It’s in evidence now.” he said. “I try to always be prepared for an arrest.”

  “Go get it, O’Bannon,” Hilton said. Nate listened, and came back a moment later holding the evidence bag. Hilton pressed play through that.

  “Hello?” the man said on the recording.

  “She’s at the Rustic Motel now. Don’t go to her house till I tell you.”

  “Roger,” he said, and hung up.

  “I don’t know that that’s convicting,” Hilton said, but Nate thought it certainly didn’t look good.

  “Listen to the first one,” the man said. Hilton skipped a couple of messages.

  “Hello, is this Ice Tea?” Trevose said into the phone.

  “This is he.”

  “I have a job for you.”

  “Who’s the target?”

  “Dove Babcock, out on 332 King Street. Just some mild stalking. And maybe after a bit visit her at the school? I want her out of there.”

  “Which school?”

  “Ashford Falls Elementary, classroom 3.”

  “You got it. You should know I don’t do weapons or threats.”

  “Understood,” Trevose said. “I’m sending your initial payment to you now.”

  “Then you’ll hear of it soon,” Ice Tea said. Then he hung up. Ice Tea in the real world said, “See?”

  “What’s your real name, Ice Tea?” Nate asked.

  “Brandon Stottlemeyer.”

  “Well, Brandon, I think it’s time for us to talk to the DA,” Hilton said. Then he walked out of the room. Nate followed.

  “Go, make the arrest, O’Bannon,” the chief said. Nate was surprised. Lieutenant Hilton was there, after all. He also realized he didn’t know what particularly Trevose had done wrong, even though he clearly had made a mistake.