Chapter 17

Before I went to the station the next morning I knocked quietly on Darlia's door. It was early, and she might still be asleep, but I thought perhaps not – and she wasn't, for the curtain twitched and then I heard the lock turning. She opened the door and let me in, then locked it behind us. She was in what passed for pajamas with her – a pair of jeans that she'd ripped the knees out of falling on the sidewalk one day, and a t-shirt that had once been big enough on her to serve as a nightgown but now was beginning to be a bit too small.

I sat down on the bed while she got into a chair, her feet dangling over the edge. "How you doin', Weightlifter?"

"I couldn't sleep, Daddy. Every time I went to sleep I woke up dreaming about that big cop."

"It scared you yesterday, didn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there, 'Lia, but I had no way of knowing what was going to happen."

"I know, Daddy – but I kept wishing you were there. Daddy, you won't let him hurt me or Mommy, will you?"

"I won't lie to you, 'Lia – you know that some things I can't guarantee." She nodded her head. "If I'm not around, I can't do much. But I do promise this: I will do the very best I can to make sure he doesn't do anything like that again, and if he does hurt you or Mommy, I will hurt him."

"Will Mommy carry her gun?"

"I hope she does, 'Lia, but you know I can't make her do it."

"Would she shoot a police if she had to?"

"If she had to – yes, she would. But she won't unless she has to. She won't ever shoot anyone unless she absolutely has to, or else I wouldn't let her have a gun."

"So we'll be okay?" Darlia's a strong girl, in her mind as well as her body, but she sounded scared and worried.

"Yes, you'll be okay."

She hopped down off the chair and climbed into my lap. "I want everyone to be okay."

"We'll be fine, 'Lia."

I stormed into Harry's office and slammed the door. He looked up from his paperwork as I sat down in the chair that was now far more familiar than I'd ever wanted it to be. "Have you heard about yesterday?"

"What about yesterday?"

"You mean your buddy Stryker hasn't filled you in yet?"

"Darvin, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about."

I glared at him. "Stryker tried to roust my wife yesterday afternoon – with my daughter in the car. 'Badge heavy' ain't the word, Harry – that guy's a maniac waiting for a place to make a jerk of himself."

"He rousted your wife?"

"She don't roust real easy – she told him to walk north till his hat floats. But he pulled her over on a garbage speeding rap, when she's never broken the speed limit once since I've known her and he's not a patrol officer. And when she called him on it, he told her to take me and get out of Red Hawk."

Harry ran his hand over his head. "Darvin, I've got a hard time believing that. Stryker's aggressive, sure, but he's not a bully."

"What do you call intimidating a woman significantly smaller than him, with a child in the car - Sesame Street?"

"Look, maybe you misunderstood—"

"Garbage, Harry. My wife isn't stupid and she isn't blind, and she doesn't lie. What she told me happened, did happen."

He drew in a breath. "Okay, tell me about it."

I did. The account wouldn't be admissible in court, and probably wouldn't carry a lot of weight in an administrative hearing, because I was telling Harry what Cecelia had told me, not what I'd seen myself. But I didn't much care; I knew that what I was telling was the truth. Harry leaned back in his chair, his collar brass and shield winking in the fluorescent light as he breathed.

"If that's what Stryker did," he said when I finished, "he's gonna be finished as a cop in this town. I'll see to that."

"He did it, Harry, I guarantee that. Cecelia don't lie."

He held up a hand at me. "I don't say she does. I don't say you do. But you know as well as I do that I can't fire an officer on just your word. I've got to investigate this. And I will do that, personally. And if the investigation backs you up, he's out of here."

"Okay, fair enough. But you tell that creep—" and I put my finger in Harry's face "—that if he so much as looks at my wife funny, or my daughter, I'll put his face into a wall."

Harry couldn't help smiling a little. "That's more like the fiery guy I knew way back when."

"Take it from me, Harry – you do not want to see how angry I can get when someone messes with my family."

He looked at me for a few seconds. "No," he said slowly, "I don't believe I do. I remember what you did when that guy just whistled at Tina..."

I grunted. I wasn't proud of either being so sensitive to what was, in fact, a compliment, or of what I'd done to the guy. I hadn't hurt him much, but I'd scared him silly. "Whatever I felt for Tina," I said, "however protective I was of her, I guarantee you that anyone wants to harm my family's gonna have to deal with me, and I won't play fair, not no way, not nohow."

Harry sighed again, and picked up the phone. He dialed a three-digit number, and said, "Call Stryker in from wherever he is. I don't care what he's doing, I want him in my office forthwith."

When he hung up the phone I said, "Was I you, I'd check the dispatch logs for yesterday afternoon. I bet you money he never called in that stop."

"No bet, Darvin. No cop's going to put that kind of thing on record. And now I suggest you find someplace out of the way. I need to investigate this, and I can't do it with you sitting there breathing fire."

I was still angry, but I knew he was right. "Okay, Harry. I'll find someplace else to be. Just nail this slime." And I walked out.

I'd told Harry that investigators don't do traffic stops, and that was true. A detective doesn't even carry a citation book, not having any need for one; all he can do, therefore, if he does stop a car is either let the driver go, or make an arrest – or look extremely silly calling for backup just to write a ticket. But I had to do something away from the station, for I didn't want to meet Stryker. It wasn't just that Harry did indeed need to be able to investigate without me hanging over his shoulder; I was so mad I might do or say something I'd regret if I came up with him. It's been a long time since I was a wild kid fresh out of California, putting on the uniform and thinking it made me invulnerable. I now know the dangers involved in law enforcement work – most of which don't come from the perps themselves, but from the nature of the work and what it can do to you. I'd quit the police department because I didn't want to be that way, and I certainly didn't want to be that way now. And as much as my family loves me, I wasn't sure that if I became such a person, they would be able to stay with me.

So I found myself a good spot for a speed trap on the road north, and called the dispatcher to let him know – the days when women were dispatchers while men did police work are long gone – that I'd be calling in occasionally with the vehicle descriptions and plate numbers of people who were conspicuously breaking the traffic laws, which he could then pass on to cruisers further down the line. Of course this was Oklahoma; when I mentioned plate numbers the dispatcher, to be sure what I meant, said, "You mean tag numbers?"

That was indeed what I meant, though when I was growing up in California I never heard of tags; we had license plates. Plates still exist, of course, but in Texas and Oklahoma at least everyone calls 'em tags, even though the tag is actually the little square of reflective material you stick in the corner to indicate the expiration date. In Oklahoma you register a car, get a driver's license, renew your plates, or whatever at a tag agent; in Texas they call 'em tax agents and I never did get used to that even though I'd lived there for a couple of years.