I took the flashlight and searched the street, hoping to find a wallet or paper or anything that might identify the woman, but was stopped by one of the patrolmen, who led me over to Mary Louise with the comment that searching the accident scene was police business.
Mary Louise kept a protective arm around Emily while we answered questions. The officers joined me in an inspection of the Trans Am. The fireplug had popped the hood and bent the front axle.
“You the driver, ma’am?” one of the cops asked. “Can I see your license?”
I dug it out of my wallet. He slowly copied the information onto his report, then typed in my name and plate numbers to see how many outstanding DUI’s I had. When the report came back negative, he had me walk a line toe–to–toe—much to the amusement of the pointing, snickering crowd.
“Want to tell me how this happened, ma’am?”
I glared at Mary Louise but went through my paces: no streetlights, didn’t see body until almost on top of it, swerved to avoid, impaled on fireplug.
“What brought you down this street to begin with, ma’am?”
Normally I don’t let the police make my business their business, but normally I don’t have a white–faced sixteen–year–old in tow. Poor Emily, her thrilling adventure in ruins around an accident victim—I didn’t need to prolong her misery by fighting with cops over the Fourth Amendment. I meekly explained that I was running Mary Louise and Emily home and that we were taking a shortcut through side streets. A long cut as it turned out, but who could have known that? And at least our stumbling down this street might give the young woman a fighting chance at survival. All I really grudged was my damaged car. I felt ashamed: a young woman lay close to death and I was worrying about my car. But major repairs, or even a new vehicle, were definitely not part of this summer’s budget. I thought resentfully of Murray, rolling with the punches and coming up roses.
“And where had you been with the young lady?” A narrowing of the eyes, what were two grown women doing with a teenager they weren’t related to.
“We had an invitation to the Lacey Dowell event downtown,” Mary Louise said. “I’m Emily’s foster mother and I don’t let her go to events like that alone at her age. You can call Detective Finchley in the First District if you have any questions—he was my commanding officer for four years and he knows how Emily and I came together.”
After that the atmosphere thawed: one of the men knew Finchley, and besides, if Mary Louise was one of them she couldn’t possibly be involved in anything criminal. The officers helped me push the Trans Am away from the hydrant so that it wouldn’t be ticketed. They even gave us a lift home. I didn’t mind being squashed between the cage and the backseat: it beat waiting for a slow ride down Clark Street on the number twenty–two bus.
As we pulled away from the curb the people on the street watched happily: a satisfactory end to the outing—three white women carried away in the squad car.
3 House Call
My father was lying in the road in the wasted final stage of his illness. He had left his oxygen tank on the curb and was gasping for breath. Before I could get into the street to pick him up, a squad car rounded the corner and ran over him. You killed him, you killed him, I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Bobby Mallory, my father’s oldest friend on the force, climbed out of the car. He looked at me without compassion and said, You’re under arrest for creating a public nuisance.
The phone pulled me mercifully out of sleep. I stretched out an arm and mumbled “Is it?” into the mouthpiece.
It was my downstairs neighbor, his voice rough with anxiety. “Sorry to wake you, cookie, but there’s some cops here saying you was involved in a hit–and–run last night. They was hanging on your bell and the dogs were going crazy so I went to see what was going on, and of course Mitch bounces out to see who it is, and the one guy, he starts carrying on about Mitch, don’t I know there’s a leash law in this town, and I says, last I heard you don’t need to keep a dog on a leash in your own home and who are you, anyway, disturbing the peace like this, and he whips out his badge—”
“Did he really say hit–and–run?” I demanded, pushing my sleep–sodden body upright.
“He holds out his badge and demands you by name, not that he could pronounce it right, of course. What happened, doll? You didn’t really hit someone and leave them lay, did you? Not that I haven’t told you a million times not to drive that sports car so fast around town, but you stand up to your mistakes, you wouldn’t leave no one in the street, and that’s what I told the one twerp, but he starts trying to act like Dirty Harry, like I’m scared of some tin–pot Hitler like him, when I beat up guys twice his size at—”