“Waiting to give someone a parking ticket.”
“Bobby, that’s predatory.”
He shrugged and gave me a pointed look.“The no-parking zones are clearly indicated.”
Since I had accumulated my own fair share of parking tickets—the majority of them written by a certain deputy—I chose to say, “No comment.”But then I immediately asked, “What do you do while you’re waiting for someone to make an honest mistake?”
Bobby’s look was slightly more pointed this time.“Patrol.Talk to people in the community.I was reading an APB when you called.”
“Is it something exciting?Is there a serial killer on the run?Oh, no, even better: please tell me there’s a wolf-man situation.”
“Jewelry robbery,” he said.“They hit several Portland jewelers this morning, and the state police think they might be trying to run.
“They?Oh my God, like a gang of international jewel thieves?Wait, did I already tell you about myPink Pantherreference?”
“Yes, you did, and no, not a gang of international jewel thieves.A man and a woman working together.They’re Portland locals.”
“Oh,” I said.“That’s kind of a letdown.”
“I’m sorry.Do you want me to make up a more interesting version?”
And here’s the thing—that wasn’t sarcasm; he was being a hundred percent serious.
“Yes,” I said, “and let’s loop in the wolf-man situation you hinted at earlier and—oh my God, that’s her!”
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the wig thief earlier, but it wasn’t hard to identify her: she was elbows-deep in a box of wigs set on the back of an ancient Buick Cutlass.She wore dirty sneakers, ripped jeans, and a spangly top cut very low, and she had a lumpy shag of red hair.Commercial buildings lined this street—storage units, warehouses, a transfer yard with mounds of gravel and mulch and soil.Someone was working somewhere on this stretch of road, but it was about as close to abandoned as you could get mid-afternoon on a summer day.
Bobby slowed the cruiser.He had the windows down to take advantage of the nice weather, and the woman’s voice floated in to us.
“I didn’tabandonyou,” she said.“The car died, and I’m stuck.”
A buzzy little voice answered, the words indistinct.A phone lay on the trunk next to the box of wigs.
“No, no, no,” the woman said.“Don’t do that!Stay where you are—I’ll call you when I figure this out.”
The voice buzzed again, but the woman reached over and tapped the phone, and it went silent.
Bobby stopped the cruiser and reached for his seatbelt.“I want you to stay in the car—”
Before he could finish, the woman glanced over her shoulder.Her whole body seemed to lock up when she saw the cruiser.Then she grabbed the box of wigs and broke into a run.
3
“Should we run after her?”I asked.
Bobby shaded his eyes, watching the woman run into a maze of light-industrial buildings—the closest sign said Ferguson Tire Services.“No.”
“But what about the wigs?”
“We’re going to call this in,” Bobby said, “and you’re going to stay safely away from it.”
He grabbed his radio and began speaking into it.
I opened the car door.
“—fleeing on foot,” Bobby was saying.He broke off to say, “Where are you going?”
“I’m just going to take a look.”
