Once he has the prisoner handcuffed and belted into the backseat, he says, “At least now you’ll get to see the jail.”
It takes nearly twenty minutes to drive to the Southeast Jail, where prisoners arrested on minor complaints are held. After they arrive, they have to wait another ten minutes for the garage door to open on the sally port, which is little more than a glorified parking garage with a few podiums. Here, the prisoner’s handcuffs are removed, he is frisked again, and a jail employee asks in a bored tone if he has any medical conditions or any forms of mental illness and if he’s ever attempted suicide. The guy is cooperative and untroubled by the process, which leads Brett to believe he’s been through this before.
Brett ushers Meredith into the small office behind the podiums, where he hands over his paperwork. The other officers waiting in line look her over approvingly and give him subtle thumbs-up signs or winks.
By the time they leave the sally port, it’s nearly six o’clock. Normally he’d have dinner with one of his buddies, but he called to cancel when Meredith was in the powder room at the jail. He doesn’t want to share her with anyone.
“Hungry?” he asks. “There’s a place up here I’ve been meaning to try out.”
“Sure. My treat.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s the least I can do. You must be getting tired of all my questions.”
“It’s good to have the company, to be honest.”
“On TV they always show the cops riding with partners.”
“If we weren’t so understaffed, maybe. You saw how many people were at roll call today? That was a big turnout for a Saturday. Usually we have two or three less than that. A couple of nights ago, there was a house fire, and another unit and I had to do traffic control. You should have seen the call slips piling up. I had nineteen when I got back to the car. Some of them had been holding for eight or nine hours from day shift.”
He wheels into the restaurant parking lot and escorts her into the dim interior. It’s a place where he knows he can get good food and quick service, two important factors to someone who could be called out at any moment. He likes the way she looks in the flicker of the candle on the table, and he takes the opportunity to discreetly appraise her while she studies the menu.
“This must be boring as hell for you,” he says. “Nothing like what you see on TV.”
“That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Reality, not drama.”
She focuses her attention on him, as if every word he says is gospel. Normally it’s the uniform that makes him feel noticed. Today, it’s being seen in the company of this beautiful woman. He wonders if it’s too soon to ask her to join him at a nightclub after he gets off shift. He usually goes out on Saturdays because he has Sundays off. Maybe he should work that into the conversation first.
“You’ll get a kick out of this,” he says after they give their orders. “A woman was chasing a sexual-assault suspect the other day in her car. She calls 911 and tells the call taker where they’re headed. Then she goes, ‘I’ve got a pistol and I’m going to shoot him… I’m getting ready to shoot him.’ It goes out on the radio, and the responding officer calls back in this deadpan voice, ‘Um, ask her to hold off on that.’” It’s a funny story, much older than he lets on and always good for a laugh. A burst of adrenaline rushes through his veins when she reacts as if it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
He tries to ask her questions, but she always turns the conversation back around to the job. Departmental hierarchy and the size of his beat, boring stuff like that, but if that’s what turns her crank, he’s only too happy to explain. He outlines the subtle but important difference between drawing his weapon – which he does occasionally – and actually pointing it at someone, which happens far less frequently. He admits that he has never fired his gun in the line of duty.
“I’m all for the Taser, as long as we can use it the way I feel it should be used. I shouldn’t have to fight anybody anymore, because when you do, you sprain or strain something. People complain when some perp dies after being zapped because he refused to follow orders, but they don’t want to pay officers injured on duty to sit at home because things got out of hand, you know?” It’s one of his pet rants, and he stops himself before he really gets rolling. She has a few questions about the way the Taser works, which he answers simply and directly before changing the subject.
After dinner, he responds to a noise complaint – a band playing outside a restaurant – investigates a missing sewer grating, and calls a wrecker to tow an abandoned vehicle, identified by a chalk mark he made on the left rear tire during the previous shift. The work is so mundane, he’s embarrassed. She’s probably not going to think much of the reality of the job when all she sees him doing is writing tickets and getting cars impounded. If she expected Cops, she must be terribly disappointed.
He scours the screen for something a little more adventurous, a little sexier. Normally when he has a ride-along, he picks calls that are unlikely to turn ugly. Now he wants something that might give him a chance to impress her.
“What’s that one?” She taps a coral-red fingernail on a new entry.
“Silent alarm on Westheimer.”
“Like a break-in or something?”
He can tell she’s intrigued by the way her breathing changes. Her right foot taps on the floor mat next to her burlap satchel.
Against his better judgment, he claims the call, knowing he could end up spending the rest of the night filling out paperwork instead of catching the perps in the act. He has a brief fantasy about Tasering a guy while Meredith watches in fawning adoration, after which she agrees to meet him at Numbers for a couple of drinks before sidling up next to him and suggesting in a steamy whisper that it’s time to go somewhere else. Somewhere private.
“No lights or siren?” she asks. She sounds disappointed.
“Don’t want to warn them we’re coming,” he says.
“Is another unit responding?”
“I’ll call for backup if I need it. After I check out the situation.”
“Do you get scared, answering calls like this?”
He considers lying but thinks the truth might impress her more. A chance to show his sensitive side. “I get scared every time I pull someone over for a traffic stop. You never know who’s behind the wheel, what their day’s been like. If they’ve just had a fight with their wife and are looking for someone to take it out on. Or if they’ve just robbed or killed someone and the only thing standing between them and freedom is me. I’ve got two rules for every shift.”
He pauses, waiting for her to ask what they are. When she does, he continues. “First, to go home in the same condition I was in when I came to work.”
“And the other?”
“Get a bite to eat sometime during the shift. That one doesn’t always work out.”
She laughs gently, tossing her long dark hair back. It’s a good moment. He’s about to broach the subject of nightclubs and drinks when he realizes they’re a block from the scene. He keys in the code to let dispatch know he’s on the scene and then focuses his attention on the surroundings. The address corresponds to a jewelry store squeezed between an antiques shop and a joint with a neon condom hanging out front.
The place is dark and looks empty. After wheeling around the corner to check the alley, he stops and uses the handle near his head to direct the spotlight at the back door. He’s about to get out to make sure it’s locked when a set of headlights materializes in his rearview mirror. His chest tightens when he considers the implications of a vehicle suddenly pinning him in.
Meredith bends over in her seat. Brett wonders if she saw something that alarmed her and is trying to get out of the way. Then he realizes that she’s fumbling in her canvas satchel, though he can’t imagine why.