"What's your cop's name?" she asked. "You said he seemed to know us at the bridge. Did he turn out to be someone's dad?"
"I don't know. His name is Officer After."
"After, as in before?'
"Yeah. In fact, I asked him if Barry B. Four was his maternal grandfather, and he didn't laugh. Then I asked him what he was after. He said he could tell me but he'd have to kill me."
"I think I know who that is, Meg. What's his first name?"
"As far as I know, Officer."
"Is he tall?"
"Not as tall as Eric."
"Nobody's as tall as Eric," she said. "Thin?"
I gazed ahead at his Matt Damon body. "Oh, no."
"Blond?"
"I honestly couldn't say. His hair is one-half of an inch long."
"Meg, I know who that is. It's—"
Chapter 5
Oh shit!" I squeaked. The passenger of the Caddy opened his door and dashed into the woods. Officer After called to him, drew his weapon, and aimed briefly. Then he swore, holstered the gun, and took off after the suspect.
"What happened?" Tiffany asked sharply. "The paramedics have been listening to Officer After on the scanner. Another policeman is on the way."
"Tell him to hurry." The driver, handcuffed and leaning against the Caddy, had seen me. He walked toward the police car, shouting things at me that I did not want to hear.
"Who is that?" Tiffany asked. "Surely he's not saying that to you? Where is his mother?"
He came closer. "Tiffany," I said, "Officer After is in hot pursuit of another suspect." The driver reached the front bumper of the police car. "I do not feel safe." He reached my door and gave it a solid kick. The whole car shook. I backed over the siren controls and into Officer After's seat. "I am full of fear."
There was a shout outside the car, and a flash of nightstick. The back door opened. Officer After shoved the driver into the backseat. Then came the passenger, simultaneously gasping for breath and moaning.
And that was that.
Officer After slammed the door and walked around the car. I slid to my side of the seat and reached for my door handle to escape from this jail containing other criminals. But Officer After opened his own door and squeezed himself under the steering wheel.
Now I felt safe.
Another cop car pulled up, blue lights whirling. Officer Leroy walked past us and peered into the Caddy with a flashlight.
From behind me, the driver suspect yelled at Officer Leroy, as if Officer Leroy could hear him. The passenger suspect continued to moan. Officer After shouted a few words into his CB at Lois. Then he turned up the Birmingham rock station on the back speakers. This drowned out the suspects with a rap about smoking pot. It did not seem to be an effective way to kick off the suspects' rehabilitation, much less mine.
Officer After was oblivious. Years as a cop must have taught him to tune things out. He reached for his clipboard and began filling out forms. A vein throbbed in his neck, but he was hardly winded.
"So, nice chatting with you, Tiff," I chirped into the phone.
"No problem," Tiffany said weakly. "Good night."
I clicked the phone off and stuffed it into my pocket, then reached down to the floorboard for my notebook. I had told Officer After I needed to take notes for my bullshit Goody Two-shoes proposal for the Powers That Be. Really I just wanted something to do while he crossed out forms on his clipboard in that annoying Official Manner he had.
I had already written Ides of March, police academy, get in your pants, and something I want you to see. Now I added vehicle, draw weapon, wounded, and suspect. Still scribbling, I asked Officer After offhandedly, "What was so dangerous about that? Herding cows was more dangerous."
"Don't laugh," he said. "Herding cows really can be dangerous. You don't want it to be exciting. You're lucky there wasn't a bull." He drew an A through a section of the form. "Chickens are also difficult." His dimples showed again when he laughed, just like he'd laughed for Tiffany that first night. He still wasn't laughing for me. He was laughing at his own joke. Aw, Hulk Hogan made a funny.
The passenger suspect kept moaning, and the driver suspect yelled more loudly at Officer Leroy. Without turning around. Officer After said, "Shut up, Zeke. Hang in there, Demetrius," and turned up the radio again—Ail-American Rejects, "Dirty Little Secret." He went back to his forms. I studied him as he wrote.
I wondered if I was developing Stockholm Syndrome, identifying with my captor like Elizabeth Smart. Or if I was having some preprogrammed biological cavewoman reaction to a caveman saving me from a saber-toothed tiger. Because at the bridge when he threatened me, I'd only noticed Officer After's dark uniform, white face, dark eyes. And his dimples. Now that he'd rescued me, so to speak, I noticed a lot more.
I noticed how smooth his face was, except for a scruff of five o'clock shadow (in this case, a bit after 5 a.m.) and some worry lines between his eyebrows. I noticed how sensitive and soft his mouth looked as he bit his lip gently, considering a section of the form. I noticed how long his blond eyelashes were, fringing his dark eyes. His lashes were not stubbly. This certified he had cut the hair on his head so short on purpose. He was not growing it back after losing it all to chemotherapy.
I’d never been attracted to older guys, my friends' fat dads. I had even wondered how their wives could stand to have sex with them. But with Officer After, it was strange. I could sort of see how it wouldn't feel like hell on earth to be his wife.
He probably got her pregnant when they were both a little older than me. maybe nineteen like my parents had been. Now Officer After had four children (down from fourteen—he seemed more responsible than that), with the oldest about to finish high school and get pregnant herself.
They lived in a triple-wide trailer and were very happy. His wife stayed up some nights, listening to the police scanner just to feel close to him. There was a lot of warm fruit cobbler. She cooked with butter, and this was one of the things that made him horny for her after all these years.
She went easy on the fruit cobbler herself so she could keep her girlish figure. She was one of the women around this town who looked like a hick but very, very pretty and carefully kept up if you could see past the big hair. Like Lois, twenty years ago. Oh, yeah, she turned Officer After on.
Unlike me. I glanced down at my shirt. No cle**age tonight. Though I'd fantasized about it a little, in the end the whole seducing-a-married-man thing had made even me uncomfortable. Tonight I was wearing a crew-neck skull-and-crossbones T-shirt to get across how I felt about my punishment, in case this was not already clear.