Part Two: First Contact.

I let Ted step out first. As he approached the people I could tell he was sizing up the situation. I know I certainly was. I stepped out but stayed by the cruiser, ever ready to duck and wet myself should the situation get ugly.

The woman spoke first, there was bitterness in her voice, something about her ex coming to pick up his clothes and his phone. She pointed to a laundry basket filled with jeans and shirts.

“And he made threats?” Asked Ted, eyes still darting around, taking it all in.

“Not him, his new girlfriend, the bitch he’s with did!” She shouted.

“And he hasn’t shown up yet?”

“They were about to, they were right behind you when you pulled in, didn’t you see them take off after you turned in?”

More words were exchanged, ID’s were requested and gathered. At first the young woman claimed not to have one, but Ted didn’t let her off with those words alone. Eventually he had a stack in his hands. He looked up at me and motioned for me to approach. I wasn’t prepared for that, I was doing fine being mysterious and invisible. I did as he asked though and he handed me the ID’s. “Hang on to these.” He said. I did. The group looked at me suspiciously. They couldn’t quite make out my presence. Here I was, un-introduced, obviously trusted and respected by the deputy, dressed in loose, faded jeans, a cheap button-down shirt and cheap, well-worn sneakers. Ted made no effort to explain my presence. I got a kick out of that and upon returning to the cruiser, leaned back casually on it with my hands in my pockets, as if I belonged there  and was just part of the process. This was a tactic that I repeated a few more times during the shift. It seemed to work for Ted as well.

The two men returned to yanking on the fender, Ted instructed the woman to call her ex.

Some heated, indecipherable words were exchanged, Ted took the phone.

“Do you know who I am?” He called into the phone in a very no-nonsense manner, he paused and repeated the question.

“Yes you do, You were right behind me when I pulled in to the driveway, then you sped off.” He used a voice that firmly established the pecking order for the whole matter.

“Here’s what you are going to do, you are going to turn right around and head back here, all of you, nobody leaves the car, all of you. Do you understand?”

Pause, repeat.

A moment later a dark blue Escort nosed into the driveway, female driver, no one else in the vehicle. This did not please Ted. He stepped up to the vehicle and started a stern lecture on the reasons for his displeasure. “I specifically told you that no one was to leave the vehicle, now where are the others?”

She replied, though I couldn’t hear the explanation/answer. He pointed down the road and came towards the cruiser. I was still holding the stack of ID’s. “Let’s go.” He instructed me. I complied immediately.

He warned the others to stay put. One of the young men painted a rigid, defiant look on his face, but it went away quickly when Ted stared him down.

“I’m going to bring them back here, all of them. There will be no trouble when we get back, none whatsoever, is that understood?”

At first some reluctance, but it too soon faded. Tensions were growing, lines in the sand were being considered. The general behavior of the men gave me the impression that there might be some recreational chemicals at work, words were a bit slurred, eyes that didn’t quite focus, delays in reactions. I didn’t like this, and we were about to pour some more gas onto these smoldering cinders.

I was immediately impressed with Ted’s total control. I recognized some of the practiced and well-honed skills and methods. He was in charge of this group and would not hesitate to thump some ears if not quickly and properly obeyed. He would not let any of them steer the events of the evening.

He climbed into the car and in a single fluid motion backed out, turned around and sped down the road toward the nearby convenience store.

We were very quickly on the bumper of the Escort. She nosed it into a parking spot, Ted pulled the cruiser in diagonally behind her, within inches of her bumper, blocking it in. Standing nearby was a couple, a tall, fit man, maybe thirty, and a tall, mostly thin blonde female, twenty-ish, wearing very tight jeans, a transparent patterned top, and a gold nose stud. She looked like she could have been, might have been pretty a couple of years ago. Both her and the man did not seem at all pleased to see us roll in. Ted jumped out of the car and warned the man against doing what he looked as though he was thinking of doing, running away.

Ted instructed the driver to stay put, then instructed the ex and the blonde to plant their butts against the car, one near the front, one near the back.

The blonde immediately started in with the lip. She had attitude and a vicious angry streak in her. The man on the other hand, seemed irked, but stayed pretty quiet. ID’s were requested, the blonde griped about that as well. This was simply not a happy young woman. Both only reluctantly handed over their cards. Ted came over to me and requested the ID’s I was already holding. While staring the couple down he radioed in all the information. The blonde continued to sporadically taunt him, but Ted had already told them he wasn’t getting sucked into a discussion about what the deal was with this group and the other, he didn’t care. He was working to make a solution to the drama, not caring a whit as to how it had gotten this far, and who called who, what.

Slowly the radio crackled and brought back details of the people. Ted had mentioned to me in the car that he was upset, but not surprised, that the two had bailed out when they saw him earlier. “Outstanding warrants, I’ll bet money on it. Why else would they bail?”

He knocked that forecast right out of the park. Blondie had two, one form Herky (Herculaneum) that she admitted to, one from Pevely which she denied. One had to do with her being over a thousand dollars behind in her child support payments. Yeah, somewhere in the county there was a former mate of hers that was deemed a more-fit parent than this precious princess.

The male, the original lady’s ex, had just recently been released from prison, I never heard what had landed him there, and was on parole. Some parolees apparently don’t like to be stopped or confronted by cops.

All the other ID’s proved clean, or at least clean enough. Ted instructed Blondie to turn around, which she did assuming the frisk position without even being asked. He cuffed her then did a quick pat-down. Ex loudly objected, telling Ted that it was illegal for a male officer to pat down a female. Ted just laughed, because it isn’t.

This meant that I’d lost my front seat. After Ted carefully inserted Blondie into the seat, I shifted things around the in the back. We’d learned this in class too. In cruisers without cages between front and back, as most of the department's are, the deputies put their detainees in the front, so as to be able to keep a closer eye on them.

I squeezed in behind the driver's seat, between file folders and equipment boxes. Ted had already instructed the remaining couple, the ex and the female driver, to head back to the trailer.

They followed obediently. Ted had established himself as undeniable pack leader. Once back at the home, he choreographed the exchange. Blondie dropped the 'bitch!'-bomb loudly and immediately upon seeing the woman on the stoop. Ted put a stop to that a couple of times. The Ex got his basket of clothes and his cell phone. Before he let them go, Ted dealt out the ID cards and sternly warned them all that this was the end of it, that the group in the car were not to come back for any reason whatsoever, and that the group at the house would not call, seek out or in any way intimidate the others. “This is now over, completely over!” followed with a warning about what would happen if he got another call about them.  Something to the effect of, “You’ll all go to jail and we’ll leave it to the slow-moving lawyers to sort it out.”

We returned to the cruiser. The Escort scooted on down the road and we headed toward the jail in Hillsboro. Blondie was not completely out of steam, even telling Ted how sorry he’d be when she called her uncle, the Sheriff.  She tried this brilliant tactic a couple of times. Ted just shut her down.

“Call whoever you like ma’am. I’m sure your uncle, the sheriff, will be pleased to know that I’m doing my job.”

She shut up for most of the rest of the trip.
 Arriving at the jail, we drove up to the intercom in front of the sally port. Ted pushed the button. There was no response, so he pushed it again, waited a few seconds, then again. When that didn’t work he treated it like a slow elevator call, punching it repeatedly. I knew that inside the booking control area, a klaxon-like buzzer was sounding with every push. I’d toured the jail (Yikes!) a few weeks earlier.

The sally port is like an attached garage. It’s a secured and protected entryway. Once inside, the heavy garage door closes behind the cruiser before any other doors are opened. This is no prison, but it certainly utilizes many of the same protocols in a slightly smaller building. There are several points in the jail where certain doors must be closed before others are opened.

On the ramp up to the holding entryway were a set of keyed, locked strongboxes like bus stations once had. Ted hooked Blondie’s cuffs to a pipe on the wall, opened one of the lockers, put his Glock and a few other potential weapons into the box, closed it, locked it, pocketed the key.

The Heavy steel door buzzed and slid open to a short hallway, at the end of which was another door and a walk-through metal detector.

Here he took a basket and instructed Blondie to empty her pockets and any place else that held stuff and place the items in the basket. She did so, still angry, but only that.

The next door opened, a corrections officer took the basket, tagged it and signed it in. Blondie was led to a wall just outside the fortified and thick-windowed control area and cuffed to another rail above a bench seat.

Also chained to the wall was a pale, redheaded young man waiting on booking. He didn’t seem angry, in fact he was quite cordial.

As one of the CO’s passed him he paused. “Kincaid, you’re back already?” 

The young man smiled. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You forget to show up in court again?”

“Yeah.”

The CO’s and Ted exchanged insults and greetings. Paperwork was filled in, one form required Ted to sit down across a table from the cinched blonde. “What’s your city of birth?” He asked.

“Whatever.”

“Is ‘Whatever’ in Missouri or Illinois?”

“Whatever!” She shouted.

“Where were you born ma’am?”

“Here! Right Here!” was her angry, shrill reply.

“You were born in the Jefferson County Jail?”

“Whatever!”

Apparently this marked the end of the conversation.  Ted got up, handed over the forms, and we left her there, still fuming, to the mercy of the experts at booking forms, the CO’s. They would continue the process once those in line ahead of her were done. She’d lost her only chance at a reasonably quick turn-around. Sometimes kids, it’s all about attitude.

I felt a little for the young folks. Not so much for the felon and his new, bitter girlfriend, but for young folks in general. These kids were already behaving used up, burnt out, torn down. They all seemed bitter and spiteful. I could tell they’d had it tough, like lady luck never even cast a thin shadow on their threshold. I don’t know where they came from or what exactly what made them so bitter so young. I’ve seen it before though, and if I could figure out how to fix it I’d certainly try. These were certainly not life’s lottery winners; they had something, or many things going against them early. It appeared a couple of them had given up completely on becoming average citizens. Instead they seemed hell bent on head-butting life with all their fury, clueless or uncaring about the fact that nobody ever wins the fight that way. I know bitterness and hatred can be a powerful, addictive intoxicant. It’s also a lousy, self-feeding, miserable way to live.

There were no more calls for that group for the rest of the shift.

(To be continued)        Go to Part Three