Part Four: The Lieutenant:

  “Sir, yes sir!” he answered, smiling. They chatted for a bit about the search for compass lady and the missing child. He then looked over at me with a puzzled look on his face. Yes it’s going just fine, no problems. He continued to look at me. There was a pause and then he answered with our location. Another pause, he looked over at me again, still puzzled. “Yes sir we can be there in about five minutes.”

He disconnected, then asked me: “Do you know the lieutenant?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Interesting, he said he’d like to meet you.”

“This doesn’t sound good.” I answered sarcastically, though I had a notion what this was about. Ted had said earlier that I wasn’t his first ride-along, apparently though, that the lieutenant wanted to meet a ride-along was new.

My thought was this; A couple of days earlier I’d published a blog about the citizen’s academy, and my impressions of the department. It was all good, complimentary, and sincere. It included some commentary about the edgy, almost-politically-incorrect sounding phrases that were used by the deputies, that in context were perfectly natural, but out of context might be considered harsh and coarse. For grins, when I sent out the notification of the post, I’d CC’d the Sheriff.  I figured he might like some candid feedback, I was sure of it in fact, since at the end of every class we are asked to fill out an evaluation form.

The next day, just as I was wondering if that was actually such a good idea, the Sheriff replied.

Dennis
Thank you for your blog. I found it frank and to the point and I like that.
I am also very pleased that our academy is doing just what we want it to
do, educate the people we serve. I hope you would be so kind as to let me
know when you print your first book I would like to read it.

Good Luck

Later that morning a comment was posted by a soon-to-retire deputy that started:

Sir,
As a soon to retire deputy I really appreciate your comments on my brothers and sisters and the dangerous, (rarely thanked), job.

It seemed that the Sheriff had not only read the blog, he’d forwarded it. Checking the page statistics later revealed that that post had received more hits in two days than other posts on that blog get in a month or more, nearly three hundred.

   We pulled in to the same convenience store where we had arrested Blondie earlier. AT the edge of the lot was an occupied SUV with a man standing at the front, his foot on the bumper. A large man, glasses, mustache, wearing shorts and a polo shirt. As we headed toward him the man lifted the hem of his shorts and performed a small burlesque wiggle.

“Yeah, that’s him.” Ted said with a sigh.

Ted Got out, and greeted his boss, the commander of the South Zone. He also acknowledged the lieutenant’s family in the SUV. The boss came around and greeted me as I stepped out.

“Good to meet you Mr. Bentley, I really liked your blog.”

I responded politely and respectfully addressing him by his rank. Showing respect for commissioned officers was drilled into me as a young airman, it remains to this day.

He escorted me to his vehicle and said he’s like to introduce his family. He did, his lovely and gracious wife, his two adult daughters, and a slightly younger son. One daughter he told me was trauma nurse at a large St. Louis Hospital and would be running a half-marathon the following day. His other daughter was studying veterinary sciences and was looking to work with zoo and zoo-like animals. She’d done some field work in Africa and had swam with dolphins as well.

We talked for about ten minutes. I quickly sized up my audience, and determined that these people enjoyed a good round of jocularity. I made one comment while being told about the half-marathon: “A half-marathon really doesn’t impress me that much, why don’t you get back with me when you think you finally measure up to a real one.” They loved it and it went on from there. Finally after about ten minutes the lieutenant said that he needed to get everyone home. He turned to Ted and said: "Mind your words Deputy, and please, please don't say things like ' I'll screw my Glock into his ear'!"
I shook his hand again, then turned to Ted and called out: “Let’s roll Deputy!”

“Sir, yes sir!” he replied, I looked back and saw that his boss had enjoyed it as well.

“You’re a writer?” Ted asked as we got back on the road. I spent the next few minutes giving him the backstory and assuring him that I wasn’t there looking for cops to burn.

The radio crackled with our next call: “Neighbor reports loud music and strong odor.”

(To be continued)       Go to Part Five