“Was that near Cresthill High School, Professor Bannen?”
“That’s correct. The paper box is one block from the high school.”
“And during that time, did you drive in Price Avenue?”
“For one block, yes.”
“Between 32nd and 33rd Streets?”
“Yes. I used Price Avenue to swing back around to Elmwood for the drive back home.”
“Professor, while you were driving on Price Avenue, did you pull your car to the curb and speak with a young school girl? A Cresthill freshman?”
“No, I did not speak to a young girl in Price Avenue. I got my newspaper and returned directly home. I stopped for no one and I spoke to no one.”
“Professor, at roughly eight-thirty this morning, the mother of the girl in question called us. She said, she had just received a phone call from her daughter at school. The girl was upset, in tears. She explained to her mother that while she was on her way to Cresthill High in Price Avenue, a man driving a. green sedan pulled up along side of her and asked her if she would like a ride to school. When the girl refused his overtures, the man then asked what time she finished her classes and if she would like to take a, ride with him to Shell Shoal Beach.”
Bannen’s eyes were on Grace Speer’s hands, holding the information stapled to the manila folder. They were shaking.
“When the girl refused his second offer, the driver continued to keep pace with her as she walked to the end of the block. His suggestive statements continued until the girl warned him that if he did not stop bothering her, she would call the police. At this point the encounter was broken off. The driver of the car sped away, around the corner of 34th Street and Elmwood Avenue at high speed. Obviously he thought the girl would not have the time or presence of mind to remember his car or its license plate number.
“But she did have both time and composure. In the fly leaf of one of her text books she scribbled what she had seen. And what she saw was an olive green sedan, with the license plate number DFG 606. The color, model and license number of your car, Professor Bannen.”
The charge filled Bannen with anger. Obviously there was a mistake being made here, or a cruel joke being played.
“Can you tell me the girl’s name?”
Still the hard, feminine eyes would not meet his directly. “I’m afraid not, Professor Bannen. Since no formal charge is being made at this time, all the information I’ve received must remain confidential. The girl’s mother has asked only that I talk with you about the matter. She does not want to know your name nor anything else about you.”
Bannen rarely smoked. In fact he had given them up on the advice of his doctor six years earlier. But he needed one now. He motioned toward the half-filled pack near Lieutenant Speers elbow and she nodded consent. Still she looked in the vicinity of her suspect. The vicinity.
Professor Bannen spent a moment before he answered the charge, hoping the words would carry greater weight after the silence.
“It’s a complete lie.”
“Mr. Bannen, I am not discounting the fact that the girl, in her anxiety and fear, may have exaggerated the incident.”
“Exaggerated?” Bannen was aware that his official title had been dropped. He was now a Mister, stripped of a title he’d labored long and hard to acquire. “Lieutenant Speers, I did not stop in Price Avenue. And I did not speak to the girl in question. I spoke to no one.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Bannen. We have only the girl’s word so far.”
So far? Was she expecting witnesses to come forward at any moment?
“You said the girl, made suggestive statements. What exactly was I alleged to have said?”
“Again, I’m sorry, Mr. Barmen. Since this is only a complaint, the girl’s identity must remain confidential information.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve already told me. So what now? Do I walk around with a sign on my chest reading ‘Twisted Sex Criminal’? Will my neighbors understand that there is little chance of my perverting the neighborhood because I only do my dirty work near school grounds?”
“Mr. Bannen, I’ve been instructed only to discuss the matter with you. I’m quite sure the knowledge of this incident won’t stray beyond these walls, or beyond the confidence of a mother and her daughter.”
“Can you guarantee that, Lieutenant Speers?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bannen. When there is no charge, I can only warn the individual of his behavior; guarantees aren’t guaranteed.”
Bannen closed his eyes. He was sliding fast. From professor, to mister, to “individual”. Yes, he was sliding very fast.
The air was out of him now. A cruel, bogus file was thickening against him and there was nothing he could do to negate it.
“Is that all? Am I free to go now?”
“I have a few more questions, Mr. Bannen.”
Bannen endured them. How long had he been employed at Shoreline Community College? Were he and his wife planning children? Had he ever been under the care of a psychiatrist? Had his wife? Why had he not been in the military? What was the name of his immediate superior at the college?
Could he give six character references?
“Well, I think that’s all, Mr. Bannen,” said Grace Speers coldly, when she had closed the file on him. “You are free to leave.”
“What, no mug shots? No fingerprints to be filed under Dirty old men? Leave? When I leave here it will be back to a job and a community armed with every dirty little detail of this episode.”
“I really don’t think anything of the sort will occur, Mr. Bannen.”
“Can you guarantee that?”
Her silence told Bannen that the question was as patently unanswerable as the philosophical standoff in the timeless controversy of Chicken v. Egg.
“No stern lecture warning me to be out of Maidenbower Park by sunset? No admonishments about the dangers of going near schools where I might be tempted to commit sordid, career-ruining acts?”
“Officially, the current matter is closed,” Lieutenant Speers said.
“Then since no charge is being lodged against me,” Bannen said, “I now request that all the information you have gathered be destroyed.”
“The basic details must remain a matter of record, Mr. Bannen.”
“But shouldn’t I have been advised that I could have remained silent? And that I enjoy the right to retain legal counsel?”
A soft smile fell from Grace Speers lips. She was too good a cop to make a legal error in this regard. “This was not an arrest, Mr. Bannen. Merely an inquiry concerning a complaint. I suggest you now go home, Mr. Bannen and put the entire matter completely out of your mind.”
This was far, far too much. Bannen found himself on his elbows, glaring at her across the table. “Go home? And do what? Gird myself against the surge of rumor? Put my life back in order.”
Grace Speers stayed silent.
“Hell, even you think I’m guilty! I can read it in your eyes.”
“My job is not to decide guilt or innocence, Mr. Bannen.”
Bannen was close to tears, could sense them on the rim of his eyes. Yet they would not come.
“Can I tell you one thing, Lieutenant Speers?”
The woman nodded.
“I have to live in these shoes of mine. Not you. Me. Tell me what compensation there is for that?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Bannen.”
“Well, I know, Lieutenant. The compensation will be damn little. Damn, precious little.”
When two days passed without repercussions, Krieg Bannen’s fears began subsiding. There were no insinuating phone calls, no subtle cooling toward him by his students and fellow instructors at the community college, no unguarded, biting remarks overheard by Peggi on her shopping trips up to Cresthill Center. It was dying down and Lieutenant Speers had been exactly right. Whatever the reason for the unknown girl’s dark accusation, her family now wanted nothing else but to forget the incident had ever happened.