Megan
Tuesday morning, I was ready to return to the store with the damaged quilt. But first, I had to sew my message into it. The night before, I had taken the quilt with me to a fabric store, where I carefully selected the shade of thread that most closely matched the trim. I’d bought a package of the thinnest needles they sold to minimize the marks the needle would make on the fabric. I had also purchased a quarter yard of cotton fabric similar to that used to make the blanket. Other than patching the occasional small hole in my clothes, I’d never sewn much of anything. I’d need to practice on the sample before sewing the message into the blanket trim.
Now that I had all of the necessary supplies, there was the matter of the message. What, exactly, should it say? I sat down on my bed, holding the needle and thread aloft, and placed a call to Detective Jackson. “What should I write on the quilt?”
“The message needs to be cryptic,” she said. “Something that only the woman who stitched the cry for help would recognize as a response to her earlier message.”
I pondered things for another moment. “What if I write ‘how, when, and where’?” After all, we’d need to know how to help her, when to do it, and where she’d be when we executed the plan. “You think she’d get it?”
“I think she will. After all, she was sharp enough to think of sewing the message in the blanket in the first place. She seems to be a smart cookie.”
We ended the call and I readied the swatch of cotton. What font should I use? With its straight lines, block lettering would be easier to sew and probably take fewer stiches, but it was also more likely to stand out among the curved lines on the trim of the quilt. A script style would blend in better. I spent fifteen minutes sewing the words “how, when, where” in different sizes, comparing them to the quilting pattern on the blanket. Though shorter stitches made more needle marks, they also held the thread tight to the fabric, unlike the loose stitches the baby’s mother had been forced to sew in haste. Once my technique was perfected, I stitched the message along the trim near the damaged section.
When I finished, I laid the blanket down on my bed to take a look. Knowing the words were there, they seemed obvious to me, like flashing beacons. Better to get an unbiased opinion.
“Frankie!” I called to my roommate. “Can you come here a second?”
She’d been working a double shift to cover for someone on vacation, so I hadn’t yet had a chance to tell her of my ingenious plan. If she didn’t notice the words, maybe nobody else—other than the baby’s mother—would, either.
Frankie stepped into my doorway, still in her pajamas. I waved her in. “Look at this quilt and tell me what you see.”
She walked over and looked down. “I see Brigit got a hold of it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Notice anything else?”
She turned from me back to the quilt, leaning over it. She ran her eyes back and forth for a moment or two before standing back up. “Nothing’s catching my eye. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
I pointed out the tiny words I’d stitched along the trim.
“Wow,” she said. “I never would have spotted the words if you hadn’t pointed them out.”
Ugh. Now I was worried I’d made them too inconspicuous, that the baby’s mother wouldn’t notice them, either. But I had to take a chance and get things moving along.
An hour later, I was back at the country store. The clerk I’d spoken to originally was at the counter, but there was no flicker of recognition when I showed her the blanket. Being out of uniform and without my K-9 partner, I likely made a very different impression.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did a dog get a hold of this?”
I decided it was best to leave the dog out of things, lest she put two and two together, remember me as the K-9 officer who’d come by previously, and inadvertently out me to the People of Peace. “No,” I said. “It was the bedsprings. I’ve got the old-fashioned kind. The quilt got caught in them and when I tugged it out it tore the corner to pieces.”
She looked over the rest of the quilt, which remained intact. “I assume they can fix this,” she said. “I’m not sure how long it will take, and I have no idea what they’ll charge, though.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “I’m sure whatever it costs, it will be less than buying a new one.”
I left her my cell number to call once she had some information.
“I won’t know anything until next Monday,” she said. “That’s the day the guy from the church brings the stuff in each week.”
“No problem,” I said, though to be honest, I was screaming inside. Why does this case have to move so freaking slow?!?
* * *
As I was out on patrol Tuesday afternoon, a request for assistance came in from the Fairmount neighborhood. “We’ve got another stolen remote,” the dispatcher said. “Who can respond?”
I grabbed my mic and squeezed the talk button. “Officers Luz and Brigit responding.”
I aimed for the address the dispatcher had provided, keeping an eye out for a Suburban along the way. I saw none. I saw no ugly guy with a nose like raw meat, nor a Latino guy in need of a haircut, either.
As I drew near the house, my eyes spotted a late-model white Chrysler 300 in the drive. Nice. The car, as well as the professional landscaping, told me whoever lived here wasn’t hurting for money. Unfortunately, it would tell the thieves the same thing.
I pulled up to the curb. The curtains on the front window parted an inch or two as someone peered out. The drapes closed as I climbed out of the car. I let Brigit out of her enclosure and took her to the door with me.
I’d just raised my hand to knock when the door swung open.
Looking up at me was a woman sporting an abundance of gold jewelry and well-coiffed, champagne-hued hair. It was no wonder she’d peeked out through the curtains. She was probably too short to reach the peephole. She looked to be in her late sixties or early seventies, around Ollie’s age.
Her eyes moved down from me to Brigit, who was nearly as big as she was. I’d even say the dog might outweigh her. “My goodness!” she cried. “You’re a big pup, aren’t you?”
Brigit wagged her tail.
“May I pet her?” the woman asked.
“She’d love it.”
The woman reached out a hand and stroked Brigit’s head for a moment. When she returned her attention to me, I held out a hand. “Officer Megan Luz.” I angled my head to indicate my partner. “The big girl is Brigit.”
The woman took my hand. “I’m Beverly Rubinstein.”
Introductions complete, I said, “I understand someone stole the remote for your garage door?”
“Yes. It happened just a few minutes ago,” Beverly said. “It was the strangest thing. I was bringing in my groceries from the car.” She gestured back to the kitchen, where several bags stood on the countertop. “I’d left the back door open on my car so I could get the bags out. After I carried the first load inside, I was coming back through the living room when I spotted someone through the front window. A young man’s heinie was sticking out of my car. He was halfway in the backseat, reaching over to the front. I had no idea what he was doing, and I was so surprised I couldn’t move or even speak! He backed out and hurried off. I don’t think he even realized I’d seen him. When I went out to my car and looked things over, I found the remote was gone.”
It was broad daylight and the car had been left open, the driver certain to return. In other words, the thieves were getting more brazen. That wasn’t a good sign. “There’s been a rash of these thefts in the area. The burglars steal the remotes with the hopes of using them to get into the houses and steal valuables.”
Beverly frowned. “What will they think of next?”
“No telling.” Unfortunately. Seemed that criminals often stayed a step ahead of law enforcement, figuring out new and crafty ways to rip off other people.
I glanced around the space. There were dozens of pictures of what I presumed to be Beverly’s children and grandchildren on the walls and shelves. Given that they all resembled each other fairly closely, it was difficult to tell how many she had. The photos might have chronicled the lives of only two or three kids over the course of decades, or they might be recent photos of twelve different children. At any rate, there didn’t seem to be much of value in the living room where we stood. The adjacent dining room, though, was a whole other story. The china cabinet was laden with silver pieces, everything from chafing dishes to platters to a tea service for twelve. She had an extensive collection of crystal, too, and it didn’t look like the cheap stuff. In fact, when I stepped over to take a closer look, I noticed most of it bore the Waterford mark.
I gestured to the cabinet. “I see you have a lot of valuable pieces here.”
“My husband and I were both the youngest in our families. Everything got passed down to us, eventually.”
“Is your husband home?” I asked.
She walked over to the mantel and put a loving hand on a large urn. “He’s right here.”
He wouldn’t be much help if a burglar broke in. Not unless she used his urn to konk the thief over the head. “So you live alone, then?”
“At the moment, yes. This is actually my son’s house. I’ve lived here with him and his wife and their three kids going on five years now. He’s a political science professor at Texas Wesleyan University. He’s on a sabbatical in Spain until the end of the spring semester. Took the family with him. They invited me to go along, but I decided to stay put. Someone would need to keep an eye on the house. Besides, I’ve got a dressmaking business here.”
She held out an arm to indicate the study through the open French doors to her right. The room apparently doubled as her sewing room. Four rolling garment racks lined the walls. Hanging from them were dozens of colorful costumes in various sizes, ranging from child-sized to adult. Judging from the sequins, netting, and ruffles, they appeared to be dance costumes. Some seemed to have already been altered, while others still bore the telltale pins indicating where the material still needed to be taken in. At the end of one of the racks hung what looked to be the bodice of a yet-to-be-finished wedding dress. A sewing machine sat on a sewing table in the back corner. The broad cherrywood desk was covered with ivory satin, tiny cloth-covered buttons, shiny sequins, and pearlescent beads.
“You make wedding dresses?” I asked.
“I sure do,” she said. “Sometimes brides come in with a pattern. Other times I work with a custom design of my own. I do alterations for several of the dance studios in town, too. Sometimes I even make costumes for theater productions or the Renaissance fairs. My daughter-in-law used to help me while the kids were at school, but now that she’s gone I’ve got more work than I can handle.” She gave me a hopeful look. “You don’t happen to sew, do you?”
The only thing I’d sewn recently was the message in the quilt. “Sorry. Never learned. Maybe you can put an ad online for a helper.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
Returning to the matter at hand, which was Beverly’s safety, I asked, “Do you have other children in the area? Someone else who can come stay with you for a few days to make sure you’ll be safe?”
“Not really,” she said. “My son is my only child. All my friends are my age. Not sure they’d be much help. I’m in better shape than most of them.”
“What about a neighbor?”
“You know how it is these days,” she said with a sigh. “Nobody stays put for very long. They move in and out so quickly I hardly learn their names before the houses go up for sale again.”
I cut a glance at her front door but saw no keypad mounted beside it. “Does the house have a security system?”
“No,” she said. “My son tried to talk me into getting one installed before they left, but I didn’t want to fool with it. I’m not good with all those high-tech gadgets.”
If the house didn’t have a high-tech security system, maybe it had a low-tech one.
“What about a dog?” I hadn’t heard one bark, but maybe she had an outdoor dog in the backyard. If so, I’d suggest she let it inside.
“I’ve got Pumpernickel.” She gestured toward the corner of the room.
I followed her arm to see a chubby Chihuahua asleep in a round fleece doggie bed. He hadn’t stirred when Brigit and I came in, and had continued to lie there in total oblivion since. Brigit wandered over and gave the dog a thorough sniff. Still he didn’t stir. Disappointed, or perhaps insulted, Brigit stared at him and issued an insistent Arf! When he still failed to respond, she looked up at me, her expression saying, This dog has really bad manners.
“He can’t hear, can he?” I asked.
“Not well,” Beverly said. “He’s seventeen years old.”
Darn. He’d be useless as a watchdog. He’d make a good doorstop, though. Or maybe we could drag his bed out into the middle of the floor. The thieves might trip over him.
So no family, no security system, and a potential victim who’d be unable to defend herself. All of this information worried me. Any thief who set his sights on this woman’s house would have a jackpot waiting for him. I wondered if the thief had seen the woman, realized she’d be easy to overpower. I feared what could happen if the thieves surprised her, or vice versa. Sometimes, what began as a simple burglary ended up as a homicide when a homeowner unexpectedly got in the way.
I whipped out my pad and took some notes. When I finished, I gave Beverly the usual warnings. “Keep your doors and windows locked,” I told her, “and manually lock your garage door so that they won’t be able to get it open.”
“How do I do that?” she asked.
“I’ll show you.”
We went into her garage from the kitchen. She flipped on the lights. Inside the garage were the usual implements. A lawnmower. Leaf blower. Yard tools. A large plastic cooler and folding lawn chairs. A white baby crib had been disassembled and leaned against the wall next to a padded high chair. Perhaps Beverly’s son and his wife planned to go for a fourth child at some point. There was also an ancient dress form, the expandable kind with a hand crank to make it expand or contract, as well as wheels so it could be moved around. Beverly must have used it in her dressmaking business at some point. Someone, probably one of her grandkids, had improvised a head by placing an orange plastic pumpkin on top of it, the type with a handle and a jack-o’-lantern face that kids used for trick-or-treating. They’d also strapped a bright red nylon water vest on the form and draped a hula hoop slantways across the shoulders. The look was simultaneously creepy and amusing.
While Brigit sniffed the storage boxes and garbage cans, I walked over to the garage door and slid the metal bar to the side. It locked into place with a click. “There,” I said. “Now the thieves can’t get in, even with the remote. Call a garage door company as soon as possible. They can come out and reprogram your unit, give you a new device.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do that right away.”
“If anybody comes to your door selling magazines,” I told her, “call 911 immediately. We suspect the burglars have been going to the victims’ doors posing as magazine salesmen to see if anyone’s home before they break in.”
“Oh, I don’t open my door for anybody I don’t know.”
“That’s a good policy,” I told her, “but if they think nobody’s home, they might try to get inside. Since they won’t be able get in through the garage now, it’s possible they might decide to smash a window.”
“Oh, my!” Beverly clutched her hand to her chest, her diamond rings glinting in the light from the overhead bulb. “I hope they don’t do that!”
“That why it’s best to speak to them through the door, tell them you’re not interested in whatever they’re selling. That way they’ll know someone’s home and hopefully they won’t take a chance on trying to get inside.”
The woman looked pensive. “You think they’ll come back? Really?”
I hated to tell her the truth, but I knew I had to. “Yes,” I said. “I think the chances are good. I’ll be sure to swing by as often as I can, okay?”
“Thank you, Officer Luz. That would be right nice of you.”
Guilt cramped my gut as Brigit and I left the woman’s house. Beverly would be a sitting duck here, alone and defenseless. I could only hope that if the thieves came back and found the garage door manually locked, they’d give up and move on.
After taking Brigit on another fruitless tracking expedition through Beverly’s neighborhood, I returned my partner to her enclosure in the back of the cruiser. Sliding into my seat up front, I grabbed the mic and got on my radio, giving the woman’s address to my fellow officers. “Please increase patrols by her house,” I said. “The victim is an older woman who lives alone, and I’m afraid what might happen if the thieves try to get in.”
My fellow officers replied over the airwaves, promising to keep a close eye on the residence. But would it be enough? Burglars could be in and out of a house in mere minutes. Even if a squad car rolled by every twenty minutes or so, we could miss the thieves entirely. My heart wrenched at the thought of something happening to Beverly, of having to explain to her son and her grandchildren at her funeral why we’d been unable to keep her safe. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
Still, I spent the rest of my shift worrying. First I’d worry about the young woman in the blue knit hat. Where is she? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Is she scared? Then my mind would shift to the older woman. Did the burglars try to break in? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Is she scared? It was one of those days when I wished my job only required me to ask, Do you want fries with that?
As I patrolled, a call came in on my personal cell phone. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local so I pulled into a parking lot to take it. It was the man who ran the sports memorabilia booth at the flea market.
“Bad news,” he said. “I’ve put out feelers everywhere, but nobody can get their hands on a Steve Nash bobble-head from when he played for the Mavericks. Any chance you’d be interested in one with him in a Phoenix Suns jersey?”
“Sorry, but no,” I said. “I appreciate you taking the time to look into it, though.”
“No problem,” he replied. “If you come across anybody else looking for sports memorabilia, send them my way.”
“I certainly will.”
So much for tracking the burglars through the bobble-head.
When my shift was officially over, the worry I’d been fighting all day overtook me. I couldn’t go home. Instead, I drove back to Beverly’s house and knocked on her door, Brigit by my side. The curtains spread just an inch or two, but then she opened them wide and gave me a smile and a wave through the window. After closing the drapes again, she came over to open the door.
“If you don’t have plans this evening,” I told her, “I thought my partner and I could keep you and Pumpernickel company.” Not that Pumpernickel would even know he had company. He was still asleep in his bed. Heck, he’d hadn’t even changed positions from earlier. I squinted. He is still breathing, isn’t he? Yep. His bloated belly went slowly up and down, letting me know he was with us, if barely.
“I’d love company!” Beverly said. “Come on in.”
I led Brigit into the house. “Something sure smells good.”
“It’s butternut squash,” the woman said. “I’ve got one baking in the oven. I’d planned to make some squash soup tonight. It’s one of my favorite fall recipes. Maybe you and I can make it together.”
“I’d like that. But first, I’m thinking we should turn out the lights and put both your car and my cruiser in your garage. That way, if the burglars come by, Brigit and I might be able to catch them.” I was more than ready to get the guy or guys off the street.
Beverly’s eyes brightened and her mouth gaped. “You’re going to run a sting operation? Right here in the house?”
“I’d like to,” I said, “if you’re game.”
“I sure am!” she cried, her lips spreading in the broad smile. “Wait until the gals at the beauty parlor hear about this!”
I went out to her garage and stacked her storage boxes along the back wall. I moved the garbage cans and recycle bins aside, and rolled the heavy dress form into the back corner. Once the floor was clear, I unlocked the manual lock and Beverly and I moved our cars inside, out of sight.
The vehicles dispensed with, we went back into the house, leaving the manual door lock unlocked. While I left the outside porch light on, I extinguished the others inside, lighting my way back to the kitchen with the flashlight app on my phone. Brigit padded along behind me.
Beverly had turned on a small night-light next to the coffeepot. Though the illumination seemed insufficient at first, as my eyes adjusted I was able to see reasonably well.
Beverly poured us each a glass of iced tea, and we took seats at the kitchen table. She asked about my career history, how I’d become a cop and K-9 handler. Of course I glossed over the part where I’d Tasered my former partner Derek Mackey in the crotch, saying only that we’d been “reassigned” when it became clear we weren’t a good match. In return, I asked about her grandchildren.
“Don’t get me started on them,” she said with a grin. “I’ll never stop!” She proceeded to tell me that the two older ones were girls, the youngest a boy. “The oldest is as girlie as they come. She likes to play dolls and dress-up. Her younger sister is a total tomboy. She’s into sports and loves to spend time outdoors, camping and such. My grandson turned two right before they left for Spain. I hope he’ll remember me when they come back at the semester break.”
“I bet he will,” I said. “He’s probably missing you right now.”
Her face looked wistful. “I hope so.”
The timer went off on the oven. Beep-beep. Beverly stood to turn it off and donned two oven mitts, the things looking as large as boxing gloves on her small hands. She opened the oven and pulled out the squash. The enticing aroma wafted through the kitchen, making my stomach growl in anticipation.
She removed the mitts, retrieved a large pot from the lower cabinet, and placed it on the stove. Pulling the silverware drawer open, she rounded up a spoon and held it up. “Mind scooping out the squash? It’s a little hard on my wrists.”
“I’d be happy to.” I took the spoon and proceeded to scoop up chunks of baked squash, dropping them in the pot. Brigit stepped over to see if I might offer her a taste of whatever I was cooking. “Sorry, girl,” I told her. “This is too hot. It would burn your mouth.”
Brigit cast me a disappointed look and padded back over to lie under the kitchen table.
Beverly went to her pantry and retrieved a carton of vegetable stock, pouring it into the pot. Next she went for the ginger and nutmeg, tapping the jars over the soup and eyeballing the spices rather than meticulously measuring them. She added a dash of salt before pulling a container of heavy cream from the fridge and pouring some into the pot. “Now we’re ready to rumble.” She turned on the burner under the pot.
I stirred the soup as it simmered. Pumpernickel finally woke from his nap and waddled, bow-legged and bug-eyed, into the kitchen. He looked up at me with eyes cloudy with cataracts. I wondered what I looked like to him. Probably like a magic genie emerging from a poof of smoke.
Brigit waltzed over and put her nose to his in greeting. His tail began to move back and forth. Awkwardly, he sniffed along Brigit’s side, making his way to her back end to get to know her better. He had to raise his head as high as he could to sniff her hindquarters. After doing so, he attempted to wrap his front paws around her back leg and began to hunch. Brigit looked back at him and then up at me, her expression one of surprise and distress.
“Stop that!” Beverly scolded, gently pushing Pumpernickel away with her foot. She shook her head. “What can I say? He’s a lover, not a fighter.”
She turned off the burner and, when the soup had cooled sufficiently a few minutes later, had me pour it into her blender.
I held up a hand to stop her before she pushed the buttons. “Let me take a look outside first. If the burglars hear the blender, they’ll know someone’s here.”
I walked through the dark living room to the front door and put my eye to the peephole. Nope. Nobody in my field of vision.
I returned to the kitchen. “Let ’er rip.”
She jabbed the puree button on the blender and let it run until the soup was smooth. She poured two generous bowls, one for herself and one for me, before pouring a couple of ounces of the soup into Pumpernickel’s bowl and stirring in an ice cube to cool it down. She set it on the floor and called him to dinner. “Come here, boy! Suppertime!”
Before the slow-moving Chihuahua could get to it, Brigit scurried over and lapped it all up.
“Brigit!” I scolded her. “That was rude.”
“Let’s get her a bowl, too,” Beverly said. After refilling Pumpernickel’s bowl, she retrieved another metal dog bowl from under the sink and poured some soup into it for Brigit, once again adding an ice cube. She set it on the floor in front of my partner. Brigit scarfed it up in seconds. Slup-slup-slup.
Beverly and I continued to make small talk over our delicious dinner. I learned that while she’d been a homemaker and Girl Scout leader, her husband had been an executive at the Radio Shack headquarters here in Fort Worth back in the company’s heyday. “We were very fortunate,” she said. “We lived quite comfortably.”
In return, I told her about Seth.
“He’s on the bomb squad?” she said. “He must be a very brave guy.”
“He is. Handsome, too.” I decided not to mention his broad, muscular shoulders and the sexy army-eagle tattoo on his back. Unlike Pumpernickel, Seth was both a lover and a fighter. But no sense giving the woman a visual image that might send her blood pressure over the edge. “He works with an explosives detection dog named Blast. Sometimes Brigit and I go on double dates with them.”
Beverly smiled. “Sounds like an ideal relationship. Maybe I’ll be sewing you a wedding dress someday.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But not anytime soon. I want to make detective before I settle down.”
“Detective, huh?” Beverly replied. “Well, if you need anyone to vouch for how dedicated you are to your job, tell them to give me a call. I’ll put in a good word.”
“Thanks.”
When we finished our soup, I helped her clear and rinse the dishes. We’d just put the last bowl in the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. Ding-dong.
She clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle her squeal of excitement.
I raised a finger to let her know I’d be right back and gave Brigit the hand signal to stay where she was. Her nails would be loud on the wood floors, and if it was the burglars at the door, I didn’t want to give them a heads-up that a dog was on the premises.
I tiptoed across the dark living room and put my eye to the peephole. There, directly in front of the hole, was a nose that indeed appeared to be made of raw meat, the result of drug addiction and slapdash skin care. It was no question where his problem area was—right in the middle of his face. I wondered if he’d tried the stolen Nouveau Toi cream on himself.
As I spied through the peephole, he tried the doorbell again, following it up with a knock. Ding-dong. Rap-rap-rap.
I tiptoed back into the kitchen. “It’s him,” I whispered to Beverly. “Go into your bedroom and lock the door. Keep the light off. Brigit and I are going to the garage to intercept them.”
Beverly made the “OK” sign with her thumb and forefinger before scooping up Pumpernickel, scampering down the hall, and closing her bedroom door behind them.
I motioned for Brigit to follow me out to the garage, and closed the door behind us. It was pitch-black with the doors shut and the light off. I pulled my flashlight from my tool belt and turned it on. After ordering Brigit to lie down so she’d be hidden by the cruiser, I hunkered down behind the dress form in the back, next to the wall-mounted door control. My heart pulsed like a blender on high power. Sensing my anxiety, and probably smelling my adrenaline, Brigit quivered as she crouched, ready for action. I turned my flashlight off and, once again, we were in complete darkness. My fingers felt around on my belt for the loop, and I slid my flashlight back into it.
Whirrrrr. The remote device was activated and the garage door began to rise. The bare bulb in the center of the ceiling turned on, providing dim light in the large space. The vehicles cast shadows around the edges, where Brigit and I hid. I yanked my baton from my belt and extended it, the snap drowned out by the ruh-ruh-ruh rumble of the motor and chains lifting the door. I leaned the baton against the wall in easy reach.
Two pairs of legs appeared as the door rolled up. One belonged to the guy who’d rung the bell. The other pair belonged to someone with scuffed shoes tied with yellow laces. It has to be the Latino man Felicia Bloomquist mentioned.
When the door was halfway up, the two men ducked under it, stopping for a brief moment to get their bearings. Sure enough, it was Meat-nose and the Latino-in-need-of-a-trim.
Before they could realize there was a police cruiser in the garage, I pressed the button on the wall next to me to stop the door’s ascent. Putting my hands to the back of the dress form, I shoved it with all the force I could muster. The two froze as they stared wide-eyed at the limbless, pumpkin-headed apparition streaming toward them.
“What the—?” Hamburger nose didn’t have time to finish his sentence before he took a full frontal hit from the pumpkin-headed dress form, folded in two, and fell back on his butt on the concrete. The hula hoop slid down the dress form and over his head like a plastic snare.
I gave Brigit the order to follow me. Together, we rushed the men. Their mouths fell open and they stared at us for a split second, frozen in place. Then, the reality of the situation kicked in.
“Run!” yelled the Latino. He turned and bolted. Unfortunately, his feet were quicker than his mind, and by the time he processed the fact that the garage door was not fully up, it was too late to stop his momentum. His body kept moving while his forehead smacked the bottom of the door with a resounding clang! Dazed by the impact, he rocked on his feet and put his hand to the bloody gash on his forehead. When he pulled his hand back and saw the blood, he crumpled to the ground, inadvertently pushing the button on the remote in his hand.
Meat-nose, who hadn’t yet made it up from the floor, seemed to realize his only chance for escape was to scramble under the descending door. He pushed the hula hoop off his shoulders, turned over onto his belly, and attempted to soldier-crawl through the narrowing space. Unfortunately for him, but luckily for me, the garage door moved faster than the thief. He screamed bloody murder as it came down on his back, probably afraid he’d be crushed. The door held him in place for a couple of seconds before the safety mechanism activated and it headed back up.
I grabbed at his legs, but he kicked my hands away and pulled his legs through before the door was fully up again. By the time the door rose enough for me to duck under it, he was already halfway down the block, heading for the silver Suburban parked there.
“Stop!” I hollered. “Police!”
Despite my order, he didn’t stop. If anything, he picked up speed now that he knew a cop was on his tail. There was no way I’d be able to catch him before he reached the vehicle. My partner, on the other hand, could have him facedown on the asphalt in six seconds flat.
I gave Brigit the signal and off she went, her nails scrabbling on the concrete. Lest he awake and attempt to escape, I quickly cuffed the unconscious, bleeding man at my feet. Oddly, when I pulled his right hand back, I noticed it was still holding Beverly’s remote. Once he was cuffed, I reached out and plucked the remote from his hand. It would soon be going in an evidence bag.
One down, one to go. I took off after my partner, feeling every bit her inferior sidekick.
On hearing the pounding footsteps gaining on him, the burglar twisted around to look behind him. Not a smart thing to do. The move put him off balance and he got tangled up in his own feet. As Brigit leaped up to take him to the asphalt, he went down on his own. She ended up sailing through the air over him, performing an improvised K-9 long jump, landing several feet past him. She scrabbled on the street, turned around, and charged back in his direction. By that point, I was on him, too, and she and I met over the guy’s back.
He started to push himself to a stand, but I put a foot to his back and forced him down. “Don’t move!” I shouted. “Or you’ll get the baton!”
I pushed the button on my shoulder-mounted radio and called for backup. With help on its way, I bent down to cuff the guy. He wasn’t cooperating. No matter how many times I shoved him down, he tried to get up again, making it impossible for me to get the handcuffs on him. Brigit danced on her feet next to us, wanting a piece of the action, her expression reading, Let me at ’im! Let me at ’im!
Trying to keep this guy down was wearing me out, and very soon I was nearly out of steam. I stepped back to let Brigit take a shot. “Do your thing, girl.”
As the guy pushed his torso up, Brigit leaped onto his back. With nearly a hundred pounds of dog on him, he collapsed to the ground again. Brigit grabbed the back of his shirt in her teeth and sprawled across his shoulders, pinning him down.
Now that my partner had disabled the guy, I could grab his wrists and get the cuffs on him.
Woo-woo-woo! The sound of the siren grew louder as my backup approached. A few seconds later, a cruiser careened around the corner, its tires squealing and headlights playing about as the car pinballed off the curb. The cruiser swerved too far in the other direction before straightening out.
The burglar, Brigit, and I were in the middle of the road, the cruiser coming right at us at warp speed. There was no time to get Meat-nose out of the way and, frankly, he was the least of my priorities. I shoved Brigit off the thief’s back and in front of the parked Suburban, then dived after her, my face and hands skidding across the pavement.
SCREEEEECH!
The stench of burning rubber met my nostrils, but no sound came from the burglar behind me.
Uh-oh.
Had my backup run him over? Oh, God, I hope not. We’d both be in deep doo-doo for sure.
I mustered every bit of courage I had and forced myself to look back at the street, expecting to see a hundred and sixty pounds of roadkill. Instead, the burglar lay there intact, his left cheek flat on the asphalt as he stared bug-eyed at the tire that had stopped a mere three inches from his face. His mouth flapped, but no noise came out. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp, passing out.
The passenger window came down on the cruiser as I leveraged myself to a stand, my scraped-up palms looking as much like raw meat as the burglar’s nose.
“Is he dead?” Derek called through the window.
I picked a pebble from my bleeding palm. “Get out here and see for yourself.” You dumb-ass Dale Earnhardt Jr. wannabe.
Derek shoved the gearshift into park and climbed out. He circled around his open door and looked down at the guy. He nudged the man with his toe. “Hey, buddy. You dead?”
When there was no response, he knelt down, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and turned him over. The man’s entire face looked like uncooked hamburger now, and the crotch of his jeans was soaked. He might not have died in actuality, but he’d probably die of embarrassment when he came around.
I bent down and checked Brigit. “You okay, girl?”
She wagged her tail happily. She had no idea how close we’d just come to being mowed down in the street by my former partner.
The man on the ground began to moan. As he came to, I helped him to a sitting position, then assisted Derek in getting him into the back of the squad car.
I pointed down the street. “There’s another one back at the house.”
While Brigit and I jogged back down the street to Beverly’s home, Derek climbed back into his cruiser and headed down the road, stopping at the end of her driveway. As my partner and I ran up, we found the old woman repeatedly poking the prone suspect with the business end of a push broom. Pumpernickel stood stiffly next to her, looking off in a random direction, probably unsure where he was and having no idea what was going on.
“I peeked out my bedroom window,” Beverly called as we approached. “I saw this guy trying to get away while you were dealing with the other one. He was wobbling all over the place like a drunk, so I thought I could take him. Turns out I was right.” She gave him one last, solid, bristly jab and stood the broom up proudly next to her. It was taller than she was.
I gave the woman a pointed look. “You know I have to give you the lecture about how dangerous it was for you to confront a suspect, how you should leave the policing up to the professionals, right?”
“Of course,” she said. “Consider me lectured.” She broke into a big grin. “It was worth it. I was excited before, but just wait until the girls at the salon hear I beat the guy with my broom!”
I called an ambulance for the suspect with the head injury, asking dispatch to send another officer to accompany him to the hospital to be checked out. Derek took off for the station with the other suspect, and I jotted down notes for my report.
When we finished, I bade both Beverly and Pumpernickel good-bye. “Take care!” I called from the cruiser, my raised hand waving out the open window.
“Come back for a visit anytime!” Beverly called.
Though I wasn’t technically on duty, and hadn’t been in hours, I wasn’t about to go home. Instead, I went with a team to the apartments of the two men we’d arrested. Meat-nose’s place was filled with stolen electronics, including a laptop with the logo of the company the first victim had worked for. I hoped the computer was still operational. The shaggy Latino’s apartment was filled from floor to ceiling with silver items, jewelry, and box after box of Nouveau Toi products. The Vestments and Eleanor Neely garments were draped over his dinette. The Steve Nash bobble-head stood proudly atop his refrigerator.
Though they’d likely sold some of the stolen property, with thousands of dollars in stolen items still in their possession, these two idiots would be going away for a long time. I was glad I could finally put one in the “win” column. And with this case out of the way now, I could focus fully on the People of Peace investigation. I was more determined than ever to find the baby’s mother and get some answers.