Her face went thoughtful. “That’s certainly something to consider. Thank you.”
“The department can provide a home security check for you, too, if you wish.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Good night.”
Duncan went on high-band at Walmart and a short while later at the Co-op…probably out of the car to sneak up on parking couples. His touted theory being that if you embarrassed them enough, the couples would not come back. Garreth suspected Duncan just enjoyed catching them bare-assed.
Toward midnight, Sue Ann sent both Duncan and him to the Brown Bottle for a Drunk and Disorderly complaint. Garreth quickly caught the bottle-swinging menace’s gaze and took the fight out of him.
“The voodoo works with people, too?” Duncan said as they steered the staggering drunk to Duncan’s car. “Damn, man, you have to teach me that.”
“I wish — do you suppose Mom and Dad know he’s out this late on a school night?” Garreth pointed at Scott Dreiling’s Trans Am on the far side of the tracks, gunning down the southbound lanes.
Duncan snorted. “Of course not…because the little shit knows how to get around them. You go by the house right now and he’ll be in his room swearing he’s been there all evening studying. Mom won’t know better because she’ll have fallen asleep watching TV, if she hasn’t already gone to bed, and Dreiling is at the American Legion playing pool like he does every Monday.”
Garreth raised his brows. “One hand on the hood of his car will prove it’s been driven recently.”
“Yeah, but Mom won’t check, just raise hell about us harassing her baby.” He shut his car door on the drunk. “You understand I’m taking this bozo in because I’m headed for the station anyway, but if he hurls in my back seat, you have to drive this car tomorrow.”
That left Garreth alone the rest of the shift. Doris sent him to The Beergarten to take a stolen car report…only to learn from other patrons that the victim’s wife had driven it away after coming back from the restroom to find her husband plastered against another woman on the dance floor. Garreth had Doris call the wife to come back for her husband, then left not envying the gentleman that ride home.
At a quarter to one he started walking downtown…a virtual ghost town by this time with no one else on the street and just a handful of cars. Two in front of the hotel, one by the Brown Bottle — probably belonging to their drunk tank occupant — and half a dozen down by the VFW. Those began leaving as a group came out of the building, one man in a wheelchair. Then he did become the only living thing on the street. The stoplight had gone to cautionary flashing. A breeze brought in scents of grass and dust from the north, the distant lowing of cattle — reminding him he needed to make a blood run tonight — and some yipping and howling. Coyote songs? He remembered hearing that two or three coyotes could sound like a pack. These did. He turned down the radio to hear them better.
So different from Patrol in San Francisco, but…a difference he realized he liked. Peaceful. And free of any blood scents right now. He regretted this was only temporary.
His radio clicked. “Baumen Seven, what’s your twenty?” Doris said.
He keyed the mike. “Kansas Avenue. You have something for me?”
“No, just wanted to see how you’re doing. Ed serenades me when he’s worked this shift.” She sounded wistful.
Garreth smiled. “I won’t try competing with him.” Or risk some FCC voice breaking in to tell him his signal did not conform to regulations and now he needed to fill out a stack of forms explaining the violation.
Cutting across the tracks from the Sonic to work his way down the other side of Kansas Garreth took note of the vehicles parked in the lot beside the VFW. Employees inside cleaning up, but with an extra one tonight, parked close to the street. A Dodge Caravan that still remained when he drove up the alley later. He pulled in behind to check it and noted a handicap placard hung on the rear-view mirror.
“That van is Martin Lebekov’s, Maggie’s father,” Doris said when he ran the plates. “Has something happened to it?”
Garreth quickly moved to check inside the vehicle and found a man lying sideways across the front seat…snoring. The man in the wheelchair leaving earlier. The wheelchair sat where a rear seat normally would and the van had hand controls. “No, it’s 10-4.” He hoped. He shook Lebekov. “Sir…Mr. Lebekov. Wake up.”
It took shaking him several times for Lebekov to groan and push himself upright…white hair, weathered skin, big powerful-looking hands, both legs ending at the knees. Garreth recognized him now as one of the mechanics at A-1 Auto. He squinted at Garreth. “Who are you? What’s wrong?” Then the squint focused on Garreth’s badge and he groaned. “What time is it?”
“About two. Are you all right?”
“Not really.” He sighed. “A member died today, Rich Wiltz. He was a Navy pilot in the Pacific in World War II and broke his back when he got shot down. They said he’d never walk again but he did, and carried mail here for thirty years. We were toasting him and I got toasted, too.” He smiled wryly. “I thought maybe if I just rested a little I’d be okay to drive home, but…maybe not.”
“We can call someone to come after you, Maggie or your wife.”
Lebekov shook his head. “I lost my wife ten years ago and I hate to wake up Maggie. She worries enough about me already.” He grimaced. “But I suppose I have to.”
“Tell you what,” Garreth said. “I’ll drive you home, and if you give me your keys and tell me how to work the controls, I’ll come back after my shift and drive your van home. Maggie doesn’t have to know you broke curfew.”
Lebekov grinned. “Done.” On the way home with the wheelchair folded in the rear seat of the patrol car, he said, “Maggie’s talked about you, I mean, complained about you. She thought there had to be something wrong with you to come work here. But now I understand you had a bad experience out there?”
“Yes.” To change the subject he said, “You’re too young for World War II. Did you lose your legs in Korea?”
“Oilfield accident after Korea. Some pipe rolled on me. You’re single, right? You ought to ask Maggie out.”
That change of subject caught him flat-footed. “Ah, Mr. Lebekov — ”
“Call me Martin. Look, Maggie is too serious. She needs to get out and have some fun but she says all the single men here are neanderthals, either thinking her being a cop is a joke or they want to be humped in handcuffs. Not that a roll in the hay wouldn’t be good for her, just not that way.”
Garreth said nothing. He hoped that was alcohol talking, and Martin remembered none of it in the morning.
The rest of the shift passed quietly and after he delivered the Caravan, Garreth went for his blood run with four quart bottles tucked in a backpack. He filled them from six steers and by the time he finished had collected an audience of two coyotes. They stayed back at his orders but like the coyote that first night, seemed fascinated by him and accompanied him most of the way back to town. Falling into bed, memory of the run lingered with him, the exhilaration of moving effortlessly through a beautiful October night, the stars brilliant in a moonless black sky, the coyotes running like ghosts around him. All that spoiled it was the memory being his alone. With dawn pulling him into sleep, Garreth reflected that Helen Schoning had it wrong. Solitude was lonely if you never had anyone to share a memory with.
10
Maggie left typing reports that evening to follow Garreth into the locker room, face tense. “I woke up last night when I heard someone in the driveway and saw you getting my father out of your patrol car. What did he do?”