Three weeks later, I was pulled over by a uniformed cop driving a marked car. It was two in the morning; I was five blocks from Haupmann’s home. He came up alongside my car and asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance. I gave them to him. He went back to his car and pulled out the microphone for the radio. He had turned his roof-mounted light bar off after he stopped me. Only the standard emergency flashing lights were on. I guess he didn’t want to upset the residents.
Ten minutes later, he came back to my car. He didn’t hand back the papers.
“Is there a problem, Officer,” I asked.
“What do you have in the trunk?
“Spare tire, jack, first aid kit, some bags of trash, a change of clothes.”
“Lemme see,” he demanded.
“OK, I’m going to reach down and pull the release.”
“Go ahead.”
I popped the release, the trunk lid swung up a little. The cop went back and shined his flashlight into the trunk. I could hear him shift a few things around.
He came back up to the side of my car. “Why are you driving around with bags of garbage in the middle of the night?”
I looked up at him. It was hard to tell, since he was shining his flashlight in my face, but he appeared to be a white guy in his mid-twenties, maybe. “Why, is it illegal to have garbage in a car, now?”
“If you’re going to dump it somewhere. You don’t live around here.”
Fuck this, I thought. I asked: “Are you arresting me?”
He stepped back. “Get out of the car.”
I did.
“Turn around.”
I did.
He handcuffed me and put me in the back of his cruiser. Ten minutes later, I was sitting in a holding cell at the police station. The young cop took me out of the cell, booked me on a charge of “suspicion of illegal dumping”, and put me back in.
Two hours later, I asked one of the other cops walking by if I could see the duty sergeant. The cop was suspicious, but I told him that I only needed thirty seconds and it would be worth the sergeant’s time.
Ten minutes later, a sergeant came to the cell. He didn’t have a nametag on his uniform. He was a white guy, a bit overweight, greying hair and he had an attitude of having to bear too much of the world’s burdens. He looked at me and said: “Whaddaya want?”
I handed him my PI license.
He looked at it and gave it back. “So, what?”
“Watch,” I said. I put my hands to my left leg and pulled up the trouser leg. That exposed an ankle holster, complete with a Smith & Wesson Centennial revolver.
The sergeant’s eyes widened. “Holy fucking shit. You, don’t do nothing. I’ll be right back.” He turned and all but ran away.
I let the trouser leg slide back down.
Five minutes later, the sergeant was back with his lieutenant. The sergeant had some papers in his hand.
“Show the lieutenant what you just showed me.”
I gave the lieutenant my PI license. After he handed it back, I pulled up my trouser leg.
The lieutenant looked, then turned to the sergeant. “What was he arrested for?”
“Says here ‘suspicion of illegal dumping’. The arresting officer reported that he had four bags of trash in the trunk of his car.”
“And where’s his car now,” the lieutenant asked.
“Impound lot.”
The lieutenant thought it over. “OK, get him out of here, right now. Take him over to Impound and give him his car back, free of charge. Take care of it personally, sergeant. If those fuckers say or do anything other than giving this man back his keys, I want to know about it and you tell them that I’ll deal with them if they don’t. Make it happen. And make this arrest go away. I don’t want any record of it, anywhere. Shred the fingerprint card, the booking photos and the negatives.”
The sergeant waved over another cop and ordered him to open the cell door. That cop went to get the keys.
The lieutenant took the papers from the sergeant, glanced them over and looked at me. “I apologize for any inconvenience, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Once I’m on my way, Lieutenant, as far as I’m concerned, this never happened,” I assured him.
He nodded. “Good.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to me.
I tucked the card away without looking at it. The clear implication was that as long as I kept my mouth shut, I had a favor owed to me. I liked it when cops owed me a favor.
The one officer came back with the cell door’s keys. He let me out. The sergeant drove me to Impound and got my car back for me. He didn’t say anything, he only nodded with I thanked him.
By six that morning, I was sitting in a diner, having breakfast and coffee. I yawned and almost dislocated my jaw. I had had maybe three hours of sleep before I had driven over to Haupmann’s place to switch out the trash. And I still had to go home and sort through the bags. That was a job that didn’t get any less pungent for postponing it.
The worst thing about it was that after all of that brouhaha with the Alexandria cops, I didn’t find anything in Haupmann’s trash that even remotely resembled a clue. I rebagged his trash, then I went upstairs and took a nice hot, long shower. I’d toss Haupmann’s trash into the restaurant’s dumpster on my way into the office.
-----------------------------------------------
On a side note, once I've run through the chapters that I've written of this story, then I'll be done. Writing for me was an enjoyable way to pass the time, but it's not any more. It's more like work.
No comments:
Post a Comment