by Diane Kelly
I gave him a pointed look. “Looked to me like that’s what you were doing to her.”
“Well, yeah!” he scoffed. “In self-defense!”
Self-defense? “You weren’t blocked in by the curb. You could’ve peeled off.”
He said nothing for a second or two before responding with, “I guess I didn’t think of that.”
Spalding and I exchanged glances that said neither of us was buying Ryan’s story. Still, people who were in a panic often did things that weren’t reasonable. It was impossible to think straight when your pulse rate had skyrocketed. This could be a real problem for officers in high-stress situations. For that reason, we’d been taught tactical combat breathing at the police academy. Seth had learned the same techniques in the army.
“I’m going to search your car,” I told Ryan.
“You can’t do that!” He took a step toward me but Spalding put a hand on his chest to stop him.
“I’ve got probable cause,” I told him. “Anything you want to tell me about?”
He said nothing, but the fiery glare in his eyes was so hot it was a wonder it didn’t melt me on the spot.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and lowered the visor. Nothing there. A plastic bottle of Dr Pepper rested in the cup holder, twenty-seven cents in the ashtray. The glove compartment contained the usual registration and insurance papers, as well as the Camaro’s owner’s manual and a tire gauge. Nothing under either of the front floor mats. I opened the hinged top of the console.
Bingo!
Inside was a small black handgun. It was loaded with a full magazine. I left the gun in the console and climbed back out of the car. “What’s the handgun for?”
“Protection!” he yelped. He jerked his head to indicate Adriana. “She keeps trying to get me in trouble. I don’t know what that crazy bitch is going to do next!”
Adriana had rolled down her window and heard Ryan’s words. “I’m not crazy, you bastard!” she shrieked. “You’re the one who’s crazy!” She threw her door open to try to get out but with only inches between her car and Ryan’s all she succeeded in doing was bashing her door into the side of Ryan’s Camaro. Bam!
Spalding arched another brow, this time a discreet one aimed at Adriana that said You sure you’re not crazy?
Ryan’s face exploded in rage. “Watch my car, you stupid bitch!” He tried to take another step, but Spalding put a splayed hand on Ryan’s chest and held him back again.
Adriana shoved the door into Ryan’s car again. Bam!
“Cut it out right now!” I advised Adriana. “Or you’ll be in trouble here, too.”
We’d have to call another car for transport if we ended up having to take both of them in. If we put the two in the back of Spalding’s car together, they were likely to kill each other.
She let loose another sob. “Sorry!” she cried. “I’m just very upset!”
“Take a deep breath,” I told her. “Like you do in Pilates.”
She nodded, closed both her door and her eyes, and inhaled a long breath.
I turned my attention back to Ryan and his gun. It wasn’t illegal for him to own a gun, and under the Texas Motorist Protection Act, a person could carry a loaded handgun in their vehicle, even without a concealed-carry permit, so long as the weapon was out of sight and the person was not engaged in criminal activity. So, my next question was, Is Ryan engaged in criminal activity here? In other words, was he stalking Adriana? And if he wasn’t, if he was innocent here, why hadn’t he told me about the gun?
I turned back to the car and leaned the driver’s seat forward. There was nothing in the floorboard behind the seat. Behind the passenger seat, however, there was a plastic bag with the bright orange Home Depot logo on it. I grabbed the bag and pulled it out of the car, setting it on the hood to take a look inside.
My gut clenched and I gasped.
Whoa.
Inside the bag were a roll of duct tape, a package of zip ties, a box cutter, and a bandana, all the necessary tools for an abduction. Heck, someone could package these items together and sell it as a Kidnapper Combo Pack.
“Spalding. Check this out.” I pulled out my flashlight and shined it about the items on the hood so my fellow officer could get a better look.
After he took a look at the bag’s contents, my coworker’s gaze went from the hood to Ryan. He issued a derisive snort. “A person could do some evil shit with that stuff.”
I turned back to Ryan. “Want to tell me what you were planning to do with these things?” Some of that aforementioned evil shit, perhaps?
“It’s for work,” he said. “I use the zip ties and duct tape to keep all the cords gathered and out of the way.”
I had expected him to stammer and hesitate and give himself away. I hadn’t expected a quick and plausible explanation. Still, while his explanation was plausible, was it an honest explanation, too? Or was it a bold-faced lie? Maybe he’d had the foresight to have a reasonable excuse locked and loaded. “What about the bandana?”
“They come in handy,” he said. “For cleaning up and setting my tools on and stuff.”
Again, plausible. Still, that gun had thrown me for a loop. I mean, I carried one every day on the job, and sometimes I even took it with me when I was off duty. But when I’d been a civilian I’d never felt the need to own one. Then again, I’d never been involved in a tumultuous relationship. All of my breakups had been relatively clean, involving only a few margaritas or a decadent bar of dark chocolate to get me through. And, hell. Here in Texas guns were nearly as common as cell phones. Seemed almost everyone had one.
“When did you buy the gun?” I asked Ryan. If he’d had it a while, I’d be less suspicious. If he’d bought it recently, it could indicate he’d been planning to take Adriana out tonight.
“Yesterday.”
Hmm. “Do you own other guns?” I asked.
“No.”
“If you didn’t point it at Adriana, then how would she know you had it with you?”
He raised his shoulders nearly to his ears. “Hell if I know! Maybe she followed me to the gun store last night.”
That explanation was much more doubtful than his earlier ones. I spoke to Spalding now. “I’m going to have Brigit take a look. See if we missed anything.” Of course my partner “looked” with her nose.
Ryan pierced me with his gaze. “If you’re talking about drugs, she’s not going to find anything. I don’t mess with that kind of shit.”
“That’s a wise decision.” If it’s true. His aggressive behavior could be the result of any number of drugs for which aggression was a side effect. Meth. Crack. Spice, which was a synthetic form of marijuana. Ryan certainly had the skinny build of a drug user. Then again, his behavior tonight could just be anger. His eyes didn’t look glazed or dilated, and his speech, though kazoolike, wasn’t unusually slow or slurred. Still, better make sure I’d covered all the angles.
I retrieved Brigit from the cruiser and led her over to the Camaro, instructing her to search for drugs. She sniffed around the exterior, paying close attention to the wheel wells, but gave no alert. Inside, she sniffed the floor mats and seats, paying an unusual amount of attention to the gear shift. But in the end she found nothing. “Good job, girl.” I gave her a liver treat and a quick scratch under the chin as compensation and returned her to the car.
“Told you she wouldn’t find anything,” Ryan snapped, his face and voice smug.
I twisted everything around in my head, turning the facts inside out and backward, trying to look at things from every direction. At worst, Ryan had planned to abduct and possibly kill Adriana tonight. At best, he’d driven recklessly, endangering her and others on the road. But maybe she had followed him, maybe she’d tried to run him off the road first, like he’d said. Maybe she was the one at fault here.
Blurgh. I couldn’t make up my damn mind! And since I couldn’t make up my mind, I decided to consult my second-best decision-making organ. My gut.
My gut said to book him. I hoped my gut wasn’t only saying this because it was tired of all the indecision.
I turned to Spalding. He cocked his head in question.
I took a deep breath, hoping I wasn’t making the wrong call here, arresting an innocent man who’d been tormented by his crazy ex-girlfriend. I was tempted to mentally run through eenie, meenie, minie, mo, or challenge him to a game of rock-paper-scissors. C’mon, Megan. Be decisive! Your gut said book him, so book him! I gave Spalding a nod. “Take him in.”
Spalding gave me a chin lift in return. “Good call, Luz.”
THIRTY
GNAW KNOB
Brigit
The dog would never understand why humans used cow flesh for things like shoes and purses and couches and car knobs. Cow flesh was food! Didn’t they know that? She’d smelled cowhide in the car and had to fight the urge to gnaw on the knob it was covered in. She had a feeling Megan wouldn’t be too happy with her if she had.
Brigit had also smelled fear pheromones in the car and on the man who’d been driving it. He reeked of them. He must have been terrified. Brigit didn’t know what he’d been scared of, but whatever it was had made him fear for his life.
Brigit had smelled other interesting things, too. The familiar scent of the woman who lived at the possum house. She’d smelled her when Megan pulled the woman over in her car. But she’d also scented faint traces of the woman when Megan had taken her to the playground with the cedar chips on the ground. The woman had been across the street a few hours before they’d arrived. She’d sensed the information would have been important to Megan, but she didn’t know exactly how to tell her partner what she smelled. Since she was a mere human, Megan’s skills were limited. Though she understood some of the things Brigit tried to communicate to her, she wasn’t entirely fluent in dog.
Shortly after they’d searched the car, the two ended their shift and went back home. Brigit could tell something was bothering Megan. Her partner kept tossing and turning in the bed, making it impossible for Brigit to sleep. She finally climbed down from the bed and went to sleep on the sofa in the living room. She found Zoe sprawled across the center of it, her arms and legs stretched out as far as they would go.
Move over, cat. We’re sharing the couch tonight.
THIRTY-ONE
COPS AND SLOBBERS
Adriana Valdez, the Devoted One
It had taken everything in her not to burst out laughing when that stupid cop slapped cuffs on Ryan. That’s what you get for leaving me, you bastard!
That dumb dog had just stood in its cage in the back of the police car, wagging its tail and drooling like an idiot. What anyone saw in the creatures she’d never know. The hairy thing had shed all over her house. She’d swept and vacuumed a dozen times but was still finding stray fur here and there. Oh, well. A fur ball or two was a small price to pay to see Ryan being hauled away in the back of a squad car.
She wondered what he was thinking now as he sat in his jail cell, if he was sorry he’d pulled the prank with the marshmallow fluff. She couldn’t really blame him for wanting to get back at her. If anyone had tried to frame her for breaking their window and had tried to sneak into her house, she’d have wanted to even the score, too. Nevertheless, he’d added fuel to the fire, given her all the more reason to make sure he got what was coming to him.
He’d get it all right.
She’d make sure of it.
THIRTY-TWO
UNDER THE HOOD
Megan
I woke Friday morning around nine. That is, I “woke” if you could even say I’d been asleep. My mind had been working all night and I hadn’t slept worth a crap. I rolled onto my back and stared up at my ceiling, pondering things I’d already pondered to death.
I knew Ryan had been stupid to drive so recklessly, and had nearly caused an accident with Adriana. But people in a panic didn’t act rationally. If Adriana had indeed been swerving at him, he might have freaked out. And how would I react if an ex had been harassing me? Had followed me home from a date? If I were honest, I could see how my Irish temper might have gotten the best of me. I might have wanted to give the ex a little scare, to show that I wasn’t frightened, to give him a taste of his own medicine. I might’ve temporarily lost my mind and engaged in a game of vehicular chicken. Heck, road rage was all too common for a reason. And even though I was normally a rational, reasonable person, I had lost my cool and Tasered Derek that time. I couldn’t expect suspects to have more restraint than I had myself, could I?
Ugh.
On the other hand, there was the gun, of course. Still, while the duct tape and zip ties had freaked me out and added a nefarious feel to the whole thing, maybe I’d read too much into them. If Adriana was the one causing problems, if she were trying to frame Ryan by throwing bricks and uploading profiles of herself to sex sites, Ryan would have every right to feel threatened, to feel the need to protect and defend himself.
Another aspect that didn’t sit well with me was how the two of them had ended up on the road together. I’d driven by Adriana’s place several times last night. Ryan’s, too. While his car had not been at his apartment, I hadn’t seen it near Adriana’s place, either. Surely if he were keeping watch on her I would have spotted him lying in wait, right?
Weighed down with questions and anxiety, I rolled out of bed and left the bedroom in search of Brigit. She normally slept on the bed with me, but she’d been gone when I woke up. I found her dozing on the futon. “Need to go out, girl?” I asked.
She didn’t even bother opening her eyes, merely turning over to her other side to face away from me.
“Well, good morning to you, too!”
I went into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, leaving it to brew while I went to the bathroom to take a shower and get dressed. I returned a half hour later and poured myself a travel mug, adding a healthy dose of organic soy milk. Brigit padded into the kitchen, her eyes droopy. She wasn’t too tired to demand her breakfast, though. Woof-woof!
I filled a bowl with a can of wet food. She wolfed it down in a matter of seconds and went to the back door, giving me her “if you don’t let me out in three seconds I’ll piddle on the floor” look.
“You don’t need to give me that look,” I told her. “I know the drill.” I stepped over, turned the knob, and pushed the door open.
I took my coffee to the window and watched as she went outside. She engaged in a brief spat with that same stupid squirrel that taunted her every day—what a jackass—and popped a squat in the back corner. Once her load had been lightened, she trotted back into the center of the yard, flopped over onto her back, and rolled around, letting Mother Nature scratch her back. After a minute or so, she was sufficiently itch-free. She stood, shook the dried grass and leaves from her fur, and headed back to the door.
Frankie rounded the corner of the kitchen in her rumpled pajamas. Zoe chased after her, grabbing at her heels. You had to admire the cat’s ambition, trying to take down something fifteen times her size.
“Do I smell coffee?” Frankie asked.
“You do.” I grabbed a mug out of the cabinet and handed it to her. “Give me ten more minutes and you’ll smell cinnamon-raisin oatmeal, too.”
She slid into a seat at the kitchen table and Zoe hopped up onto her lap. I whipped up two quick bowls of oatmeal and set one in front of Frankie, the other in my usual spot. Given that first responders worked odd, inconsistent shifts, Frankie and I—like Seth and I—had been like ships passing in the night the last week or so. Eating breakfast together would give us a chance to catch up.
“You settling in at work?” I asked as I scooped up a bite of the steaming oatmeal.
“Yep,” she said. “They’ve put me in the regular rotations for cleaning duty, so I think that means the hazing is over.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m on cooking duty next week. I’ve never cooked for eight people before.”
They might put her back on cleaning duty
once she’d cooked for them. She wasn’t exactly Rachael Ray. Her philosophy was to coat everything in ranch dressing to make it palatable.
I stirred my oatmeal, seeking a raisin. “I’ll e-mail you my spinach enchilada recipe. It’s easy and loaded with carbs for energy.” No doubt it took a lot of energy to fight fires and run up and down ladders.
“Thanks.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You wanna come to our bout tomorrow? We’re going up against the Shreveport She Devils.”
“Count me in. Gabby, too. She’s been dying to see you in action.” I always enjoyed watching Frankie and the other members of the Fort Worth Whoop Ass team play Roller Derby, even if I did cringe on occasion and cover my eyes when a player wiped out in spectacular fashion. Hitting that rink at such high speed had to hurt.
She scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal and blew on it to cool it off. “What’s going on in that stalker case?”
I gave her an update. “I’m not sure which one of them is the actual stalker,” I said, “but I felt like it was time to make a move. And since I saw Ryan swerve at Adriana and found the gun and other stuff in Ryan’s car, well…” I shrugged and issued a weary sigh.
Frankie chewed her oatmeal thoughtfully and swallowed. “So if you could figure out who followed who last night, that could help you figure things out.”
“Yeah.”
“What about traffic cameras?” she asked. “Maybe they picked something up.”
“There aren’t any in the area where they were.”
“Security cameras, then?”
I shook my head. “Those aren’t usually mounted to t-take in street traffic. They’re normally aimed at the parking lots. Besides, the cameras would only catch a snippet of time. Unless we got really lucky and found a video that showed one of them initially setting out after the other, they’re not likely to tell us much.”
Video footage that caught only part of an event often didn’t tell a complete story. This fact was one of the arguments for body cameras for police officers.
