Clyde got out. He set Maggie on the hood of Ditzel’s unit, right in front of the driver’s seat, and stepped forward into the middle of the fray. He recognized the woman now: she was the one who had cleaned off Maggie’s pacifier. He had not recognized her at first because the scarf had been pulled down off her head during the action, and her face was distorted with tears of rage.
Ditzel had his knee in the middle of the husband’s back and his face about two inches away from that of the prisoner. He was holding his bloody nightstick up as if about to deliver an additional blow. Ditzel’s face was flushed, and speckled here and there with droplets of blood not his own. Clyde flinched as a whiff of pepper spray drifted into his nostrils.
Ditzel was fulminating into the prisoner’s face, spit flying from his lips. “You do not interfere with an officer! You do not touch or strike an officer! If you do so, I am justified in taking you down hard! You understand that, or you want some more of this?” Ditzel’s eyes were red, and clear fluids were streaming from his tear ducts and nostrils; some of the pepper spray had got into his face as well, and this had done nothing to brighten his mood.
The man said something Clyde could not quite make out. Ditzel’s eyes got even wider, this time in astonishment. “Very well, sir, I’ll just have to take some additional measures.” He grunted the last word, tensing his diaphragm as he swung the nightstick downward in the general direction of the prisoner’s kidney. But it never struck home because Clyde Banks, anticipating the move, grabbed the end of the stick before it really got going. Remembering a maneuver he had practiced during his stint at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, he twisted the stick round against the grain of Ditzel’s fingers and pried it out of his hand. Then Clyde flung the stick over the Toyota. It clattered on the sidewalk and slid to a halt against the boarded-up facade of Walgreen’s.
Ditzel was utterly terrified just for a moment, thinking he had been disarmed by an accomplice, and then he recognized Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks and was too startled to be angry just yet. “Clyde,” he said in an amazingly calm tone of voice, “what the fuck are you doing here?” Then, beginning to get pissed off: “What the hell did you do with my stick, man?”
“Giving you a chance to cool off and think about it,” Clyde said.
Just then the woman took her hands off the fender of the car. She flung herself toward the K-9 officer and his dog, who were also on that side of the car. The dog chose to interpret this as a hostile gesture and drove her back with violent barking and lunging.
Both Clyde and Ditzel went after her. Ditzel went all the way around the front of the Toyota. Clyde vaulted over the hood in such a way that he came to earth directly between Ditzel and the woman. Clyde moved quickly toward her, maintaining a moving pick between her and Ditzel, and put one hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off and windmilled that arm, trying to push him away, then turned around and recognized him.
“Look what the dog is being allowed to do!” she cried, pointing at the ground.
The box of meat had been removed from the Toyota and set on the grass of the parking strip, which was now littered all around with sheets of bloodied butcher paper. Some of the meat still lay in the center of its wrappings, and some had been dumped out onto the ground. A few cuts still remained undisturbed in the box.
Clyde caught the woman’s hand in his, tucked it under his arm, and trapped it between his arm and his body. In this fashion he led her forcibly to the flank of the Toyota. He took her hand and pressed it against the top of the car, held it there with one hand while he reached around behind her with the other, got her other hand, and put it next to the first. Now he was behind her, wrapped around her like a cape, though he was so big and she so tiny that there was an air gap of several inches between them. Into her ear he said quietly, “I can take care of this if you calm down and do not move. If you take your hands off the car again, I have no idea what is going to happen.”
“Well enough,” she said.
Clyde released her hands and backed off a few inches. When she did not move, he relaxed and turned his attention to the dog.
The K-9 officer pulled another cut of meat from the box, unwrapped it, and laid it out on the ground. The dog prodded it with its nose and licked it. The officer had donned clear plastic gloves, which were now smeared with blood, and as Clyde watched, he pulled at the meat, tearing it apart and letting the dog sniff at it some more. “Good girl,” he said, and tossed the dog one of the torn-off pieces.
While the dog was enjoying this well-earned morsel, Clyde stepped forward, picked up the box, and set it on top of the Toyota. It still contained one enormous piece of wrapped meat about the size of a large turkey. “Hey, what’s up, Clyde?” said Officer Morris, the K-9 specialist.
“Why?” Clyde asked after a long pause, turning to nod at the box of meat.
“Well, you know, Clyde,” Morris said. “You know why we got Bertha.”