The next morning, Josie couldn’t believe how tired she’d been when her alarm went off at four-thirty. Even her shower didn’t revive her from her first day as a cop.
She fed her bleary-eyed cat, Jackson, gulped two cups of coffee, showered, and threw on a white T-shirt over tan cargo shorts. She grabbed her purse, gun, and another cup of coffee and headed to the station.
Hopefully, with more time on the job, she wouldn’t feel the need to leave so early. Because she was new, she wanted to allow for potential traffic tie-ups.
She’d learned one of her classmates had gotten written up for being late on his first day of work. Of course, the guy had been a screw-up while in the academy, and she didn’t want to develop a similar reputation.
The closer she got to the station, the more she filled with adrenaline. Who knew what was in store for today? Things seemed to go well yesterday. Sergeant McKenzie had stopped her in the hallway, saying he’d heard she’d handled a 415 transient well.
It had surprised her that he remembered the call, but pleased he thought she’d done all right.
An hour later, all the excitement that had fueled her on her way to work had dissipated once she and Bender hit the streets. He was on a roll about his time as a wide receiver.
Josie wanted to listen to the calls the dispatcher was assigning, and maybe run license plates while they drove around, but he kept blabbering on and on.
Eventually, she learned she could do the things she wanted while occasionally saying, “You’re kidding,” or “You don’t say?”
“17A67, 17A67, see the man at the northeast corner of Corbin and Roscoe for a recovered vehicle. The PR is the owner of the vehicle.”
“Aw, shit,” Bender said. “I was going to head over to El Mariachi for a breakfast burrito.”
Josie picked up the mic. “17A67, roger. Show us en route.” Then she turned to Bender. “How did the person reporting find his own car?”
Bender shrugged. “Sometimes the thief is just a joyrider and doesn’t drive far with the ride. Or the car runs out of gas or breaks down. Other times, the victim will cruise around looking for their vehicle and stumble across it.
“And occasionally, the owner was involved in a hit and run or other illegal capers and goes home and reports their car stolen. They want to be off the hook for the crime, and their ride recovered, so the insurance company has to pay the fees to get it out of impound.”
“Wow. It seems like such a simple call, but there are a lot of things to look for. Does it take a lot of time to do the vehicle report? We could get your burrito afterward.”
Bender waved his hand with impatience. “Nah. We gotta go back to the station and be sure the records clerk gets the vehicle listed as recovered. We can’t let the owner drive it around until it’s taken out of the system as being stolen. Otherwise, the poor victim might get pulled over and laid out in the street at gunpoint by LA’s finest.” He laughed.