by Diane Kelly
Though I might be able to catch the fleeing thief myself, it was always best to be prepared, just in case. As quickly as I could, I yanked open the back door of the cruiser and let Brigit out of her enclosure. I issued her the order to stay with me as I took off after the man, who had a one-block lead on me.
“Stop!” I hollered after him. Not sure why I bothered. Nobody who’d ever taken off on me had experienced a sudden change of heart.
He ran past the hospital and continued onto St. Joseph Court, which circled behind an adjacent medical building. My feet and heart were pounding, my ears flooded with the sound of blood rushing through my veins. Knowing I couldn’t keep up this pace much longer, I deployed my partner to go after the guy. She’d get the man, and quick. Brigit’s nails scrabbled on the asphalt as she took off in pursuit.
When the street ended at a parking lot, the man darted between the building and the train tracks, running along a row of trees that had been planted there. Brigit was gaining on the man when I realized a train was gaining on us, a northbound freight train roaring up the track to our right. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.
I glanced back and saw the engine coming under the Allen Street overpass. My heart leaped into my throat and I turned to holler to Brigit, to call her back to safety. No way in hell would I risk her life to catch some petty thief!
Though I yelled as loud as I could, Brigit didn’t hear me over the sounds of the train. Her legs ate up the ground ahead as she hurtled after the man.
The train sped past me now, kicking up dirt and pea gravel, and a warm rush of air.
“Brigit!” I screamed again, so loud it seared my vocal chords. “Come back!”
Still she didn’t hear me, running after the Lollipop Bandit with everything she had. Brigit reached the man just as the train reached the two of them. The man swerved to the right, directly in front of the train. I gasped, sucking in dust, as the conductor laid on the horn. WAAAAAAH!
“No!” I cried, as much to God as the dog. Dear Lord! Please don’t let Brigit follow him! She’ll get hit by the train, too! I fell to my knees next to the track, gulping air in terror, white sparks erupting like fireworks at the edge of my vision.
Brigit snapped her teeth at the thief’s scrub shirt in one last attempt to catch him, but instead veered off to the left, loping in a half-circle to head back my way.
My first and foremost thought was, THANK YOU, GOD!
My second thought was, The Lollipop Bandit is dead. Holy crap!
When Brigit ran up I grabbed her in a bear hug, inadvertently tackling her to the ground. I’d never been happier to see the furry beast, and I didn’t want her to get anywhere close to the train again. She didn’t seem to mind my embrace. She wagged her tail and wriggled playfully under me as the train continued on. I supposed it would take it a while to stop with all of the weight and momentum it had going. I could only imagine the gruesome gore that would be waiting for us.
As the last car went past, I released Brigit and sat back, wiping the tears from my cheeks. She sat up, too. Wait. What’s that in her teeth?
I reached out and pulled a white laminated identification card from her mouth. It was an ID tag featuring a photograph of the Lollipop Bandit, as well as information identifying him as Gregory Higginbotham, M.D. At least now we know whose remains we’ll be scraping off the tracks. I could hardly believe a doctor would risk his life to avoid arrest for such a small crime. But people did irrational things when they were frightened. I saw it all the time.
I looked down the tracks, surprised to see the train continuing on its way out of sight. The conductor’s not going to stop? He’d obviously seen Dr. Higginbotham run in front of the engine or he wouldn’t have blasted the horn. It wasn’t unusual for people driving cars to be involved in a hit-and-run. But a train? It didn’t seem to make sense. Then again, maybe another train was on its way and the conductor planned to stop somewhere safe down the tracks.
I clipped Brigit’s leash onto her collar and stood. Taking a deep breath to prepare myself, I raised my head and ran my eyes down the track, looking for a mass of bloody flesh that had once been Dr. Higginbotham. But my eyes saw nothing on the track other than a flattened copper penny gleaming in the sun.
What the—?
Leading Brigit, I jogged up the track. Had his body been carried away by the train? Maybe thrown to the side?
My eyes searched and scanned the surroundings but saw nothing. No fingers, toes, or limbs in the brush. No ears or nose. No severed head lying aside the tracks, a purple-stained tongue lolling out of it. My partner and I walked a full half mile of track but saw not a single drop of blood or body part.
I looked across to the other side of the tracks. “He made it across, didn’t he?” Lucky bastard. I supposed that I was lucky, too, though. Law enforcement officers had to make judgment calls, weigh the benefits of catching a suspect against the potential costs. Cops who pursued small-time criminals with deadly results often found themselves the subjects of internal investigations and lawsuits. The last thing I wanted was to garner the attention of the ACLU, especially now that they had millions upon millions of dollars in their coffers thanks to a deluge of recent donations inspired by the president’s executive orders. Heck, some of those dollars had once been mine. I was all for civil rights and liberties, but I much preferred to remain on the organization’s mailing list rather than their shit list, thank you very much.
I led Brigit back to the approximate place where the elusive doctor had run in front of the train and issued the order for her to trail him. She put her nose to the ground and snuffled around a bit before heading over the tracks. I jogged along behind her, keeping a tight hold on the leash.
She led me over several more sets of tracks until we reached a brushy area. Behind the brush was a fence. Brigit led me up to the fence and stood on her back legs, her front paws extended up on the boards, her nose scenting the air at the top of the fence. She looked back at me, communicating without words. This is where he hopped over.
“Good girl!” I said, giving her a liver treat. I put my hands on the top of the fence and pulled myself up to take a look over it. Without anything to leverage my feet on, I could only get a quick glimpse, but it told me the man was no longer in the barren yard. He must’ve escaped out the front gate. I pulled myself up for another quick look at the house, taking mental note of its features. Light blue. White shutters. Light gray shingles on the roof.
We stepped back and I scanned the fence in both directions, looking for a break that Brigit and I might squeeze through. Unfortunately, I saw none. Dang!
We hurried back to the cruiser, climbed in, and drove around to the neighborhood the Lollipop Bandit had escaped into. When I spotted a house painted light blue with white shutters, I pulled to a stop and retrieved Brigit. Leading her over to the gate, I again issued the order for her to trail the escaped thief.
She performed her usual preliminary sniff test, and headed off through the yard into that of the house next door. We continued on down Arizona Avenue, passing East Morphy Street, until we reached Magnolia Avenue, a major thoroughfare that ran north of the JPS hospital complex.
We’d begun to make our way west on Magnolia when my shoulder-mounted radio came to life. “Officer Luz, you and Brigit are requested for a vehicle search on I-30 between Jennings and Main.”
I let loose a frustrated breath. My partner and I were so close to nabbing the Lollipop Bandit! But I supposed there was no telling how far he’d continued to run. We could be tracking him for another hour or more. He might have even retrieved his car and driven off. Who knows? But what we did know was his name. There’d be no hiding from us now.
We returned to the cruiser and headed north, merging onto I-30. I could see Officer Hinojosa with a car pulled over up ahead. A black, high-end SUV with lots of chrome, the kind often driven by successful drug dealers. Really, if they didn’t want to stand out, they should drive minivans. Standing beside the car with his palms on the back of
his head was a white guy with short hair and a full, bushy beard in the same tannish-gold color as much of Brigit’s fur.
I put on my flashing lights and blinker and eased to a stop in front of the SUV, backing up to block the vehicle in case the suspect should get the dumb idea to try to flee in it. Keeping an eye on the guy, who was cutting me every which way with his sharp gaze, I let Brigit out of her enclosure. I walked her over to the car.
My eyes met Hinojosa’s, asking a silent question. He angled his head toward the driver’s window, which was open. I stepped closer and took a quick glimpse inside. I saw nothing that would give rise to probable cause. No drugs. No drug paraphernalia. No rolls of cash. What I did see was a scented cardboard pine tree hanging from the rearview mirror and four of those special automotive air fresheners that clipped on to each of the air-conditioning vents. My first intake of breath and I nearly became high on pine and lavender fumes.
Nobody needed this much scent in their car. Not unless they were trying to mask another smell. Fresh bud, perhaps?
Hinojosa chimed in. “He says someone got sick in his car and that’s why he’s got all those air fresheners.”
I looked back into the SUV, eyeing the floor mats. Looked clean to me. So did the leather seats.
I opened the door and removed each of the air fresheners. No sense overwhelming Brigit’s nose or making her job any more difficult than it had to be. I stepped back and gave Brigit the order to sniff for drugs.
She began at the driver’s seat, sniffing around the padded seat, the seat back, and the floor. No alert. I opened the back door and she repeated the process, working her way up and down. No alert. The same thing happened when I led her around the front of the car so that she could sniff the passenger side. But when I led her back to the door of the cargo bay, she took one sniff near the handle and immediately sat, giving her passive alert.
“There’s something back here,” I told Hinojosa as I opened the door. While nothing was immediately visible, all it took was me lifting the carpeting to find multiple bricks of marijuana in clear wrap tucked in around the spare tire and jack. I turned to my partner. “Good job, Brigit.” She’d earned two liver treats for her efforts.
Brigit followed me as I picked up one of the bricks and carried it over to Hinojosa. I handed it to him. “There’s a half-dozen more of them back there.”
The glare the man locked on me was so heated it was a wonder my skin didn’t catch fire. He began shuffling back and forth on his feet and clenching his fists, his eyes darting from me to my partner. Yep, he’s going to blow.
He charged at Brigit and cocked his leg back to kick her, but I was faster. I whipped out my baton and flicked my wrist to extend it. Snap! Before he could land his kick, I’d smacked his calf aside with a solid whap!
Nobody hurts my dog.
The dealer screamed in agony and grabbed his lower leg, hopping around next to the cars on one foot. Passersby probably thought we were performing an unusually difficult sobriety test on the guy.
Brigit and I kept watch while Hinojosa grabbed the man, cuffed him, and loaded him into the back of his cruiser, beard and all.
“Thanks for your help, Luz,” my fellow officer said.
As if she knew she was deserving of some sign of appreciation and praise, Brigit bent in half, backed toward Hinojosa, and looked up at him.
He looked down at the dog. “What the heck is she doing?”
“She wants you to scratch her butt.”
He chuckled. “All right, girl. You got it.” He reached down and scratched the sweet spot at the base of her tail. She lifted her snout and closed her eyes in bliss.
I raised a hand in good-bye. “See ya.” With that, Brigit and I loaded ourselves back into our squad car. One down, one to go.
I whipped out my cell phone and ran a search on the Internet for Dr. Gregory Higginbotham. According to my search, he was a pulmonary specialist with admitting privileges at both Cook Children’s Hospital and JPS. His medical office sat on Oleander Street, about equidistant between the two facilities. He was part of a practice that included two other pulmonologists.
I started the engine and turned back to Brigit. “Let’s pay the doctor a little office visit, shall we?”
I drove to his office, taking a spot near the edge of the parking lot where he’d be less likely to spot us approaching. I attached Brigit’s leash and we stepped inside. The waiting room was heavily populated. An adolescent boy in the corner sat wheezing alongside his mother, who was rubbing his back. A middle-aged man took a puff from an inhaler. An elderly woman coughed so hard it was a wonder her lungs didn’t collapse.
The receptionist looked up from behind the counter, her eyes moving from me, to Brigit, and back to me again. “May I help you?” she asked as we approached.
“I need to see Dr. Higginbotham. As soon as possible.”
“Would you like an appointment?”
“No. It’s not medical related. It’s a police matter.”
Curiosity sparked in her eyes. “He’s handling rounds at JPS today,” she said. “With all the ozone alerts we’ve had lately we’re seeing a lot of severe asthma cases. He’ll be back here in the morning.”
I thanked her for the information and turned to go.
As I stepped away, she craned her neck and called after me. “Can I let him know your name and why you stopped by?”
Though her voice was cordial and professional, I suspected her reasons for asking were more out of nosiness than any desire to keep her boss informed. I turned back as I reached the door. “No need,” I told her, forcing myself to sound casual. “I’ll catch up with him another time.”
I’ll catch up with him all right. In just a few minutes, at the hospital.
We drove the few blocks to JPS. I parked in the outdoor lot and led Brigit inside. We checked in at the desk in the main lobby. “I have a personal matter I need to discuss with Dr. Gregory Higginbotham. Could you page him for me?”
“Certainly.” The receptionist picked up a telephone receiver, consulted a chart posted at her desk, and dialed his pager. “I’ll let you know when he calls.”
I leaned in and whispered. “Don’t tell him there’s a police officer here to see him. Tell him it’s a patient with a question, okay?”
She stared at me a moment as she mentally processed my request, and nodded nervously.
I stepped aside to get out of the way, but remained close enough to overhear the calls the woman took. When a call came in a few minutes later, she turned my way and waved her hand to indicate it was Dr. Higginbotham on the line. “There’s a patient here to see you. She says she has a question.” She paused for a moment. “I think she said her name was…” She glanced around, as if looking for inspiration. She found some on her desk, where an African violet rested in a small pot. “Violet. Violet Potter.”
Nice improvising. I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell her.” She hung up the phone. “He’ll be right down.”
And we’ll be ready for him.
Brigit and I took up places against the wall next to the swinging doors that led from the hospital into the reception area. No sense letting him spot us through the window and attempt to escape out another entrance.
A minute or so later, the man we’d chased earlier in the day came through the doors. He glanced left and right ahead of him, but failed to notice me and Brigit behind him. He stopped at the reception desk. “Where’s Miss Potter?”
I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Here I am.”
When he turned, the smile on his face turned into a gape and his eyes bulged. Before he could bolt, I reached out and grabbed his bicep. Below me, Brigit issued a warning growl. Grrrrr. “Don’t even think about it,” I whispered.
“How’d you—”
I held up his badge, which bore two puncture marks from Brigit’s teeth.
He groaned. “I was wondering where that went.”
I l
ooked at his chest to see that he was wearing what appeared to be a recently minted replacement. After ordering him to turn around and affixing the cuffs to his wrists, I turned to the receptionist. “Get me someone from the hospital security team, please.”
She nodded and picked up her phone. “We need a security guard to reception,” she said into the receiver.
I squeezed my shoulder radio and called for transport. I also let Dr. Higginbotham make a call to one of the other doctors in his practice to let him know he’d need to put an early end to his golf game and cover the remaining rounds.
While we waited for security and transport to arrive, Brigit and I stood guard over the doctor. He stared at the tile floor in an attempt to hide his face from the patients and other medical workers going in and out of the facility. There were whispers and murmurs among the staff, people wondering what was going on. They’ll figure it out soon enough.
Shortly after security arrived, transport also arrived in the form of Summer and Derek Mackey. They must have been close by. While Summer waited in the cruiser in the drop-off area outside, Derek came into the building, walked up to the doctor, and looked him up and down. “What’s the charge? He kill someone or something?”
“Misdemeanor theft and resisting arrest.”
Derek scoffed. “What did he steal?”
“Grape Tootsie Pops.”
He looked from me to the doctor. “No shit?”
“No feces at all.”
Derek scoffed. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
As Derek led Dr. Higginbotham out to his cruiser, I turned to the security guard and asked to search the doctor’s locker. He led me to a dressing room for male staff at the end of the hallway, made sure those inside were decent, and allowed me to enter. He opened Dr. Higginbotham’s locker with a master key. Sure enough, I found a dozen grape suckers inside. Also a number of stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, and other medical supplies and equipment, many of which bore the names of other doctors or nurses.
The security guard whistled when he saw the stash of stolen property. “This guy’s got a real problem.”
