J. Jance - Betrayal of Trust

I reached in through the open window and tried to grab him. But the car sped back fast enough that all I got was a handful of tracksuit. He slipped out of the shirt like a snake shedding its skin. Then, leaving the Camaro still running, he slid across the seat and charged out through the door on the passenger side of the car.

As he took off, I saw him reach back to pick up something from the passenger seat. For a sick moment, I thought it might be a weapon. He paused, as if considering his options, then ran off down the driveway, loping along at a speed that would have left me in the dust twenty years ago. But not Mel Soames. She runs every day-every single day-and she can run my socks off. I’m sure Ron Miller was counting on being able to outrun me, but he never anticipated that the suit-clad, high-heeled woman standing next to the front bumper of his car would kick off her pumps and take after him like a shot in her stocking feet.

Knowing my gimpy knees would make it impossible to keep pace, I switched off the ignition in the Camaro, grabbed the keys to that, and clambered into the Mercedes. I knew I couldn’t keep up with either Mel or Ron, but I could sure as hell outdrive them. I turned off the alarm, pulled a U-turn, and went after them in hot pursuit.

At the end of the driveway, Ron paused long enough to throw something Frisbee-like up into the tall laurel hedge that lined both sides of the drive, then he darted off across the street and headed into the capitol campus.

Had it been a half hour later, people would have been streaming out of their office buildings. As it was, the path in front of him was relatively deserted. So was the path in front of Mel. And that slight pause was all she needed to close the gap between them to within that magic fifteen-foot margin.

“Police,” she shouted. “Stop or I’ll use my Taser.”

I saw the jerky image of the bright red laser aiming light appear on Ron Miller’s back. He didn’t stop, but Mel had warned him once, and one warning is all punks like that get. She pressed the switch on her Taser, and Ron fell to the ground, flopping spastically to the concrete sidewalk and howling in outrage. By then Mel was on top of him, handcuffs in hand.

“Your arm,” she ordered. “Give me your arm.”

I slammed on the brakes, left the Mercedes sitting idling in the middle of the street, and ran to help. I could see that the spasm from the first Taser shock was starting to fade. By the time I reached them, Mel had one of Ron’s hands in the cuffs and was struggling to grab the other while he tried desperately to buck her off. I reached into the melee, grabbed his free wrist with one paw, and handed it over to her. Then I grabbed Mel’s Taser.

“Be still,” I ordered, “or I’ll Taser you again.”

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” he exclaimed. “You’re hurting me. What’s this all about? I wasn’t really going to hit you with the car. Can’t you guys take a joke?”

That’s when I saw the scratches on his bare arms, scratches that were a couple of days old. That’s when I knew for sure we had him.

“It’s no joke,” I said. “What did you throw up into the hedge back there?”

“Nothing,” he said. “You made that up.”

I could hear the sound of sirens. Someone had used their cell phone to report a disturbance. A squad car with a Capitol Police insignia was first on the scene. I was more than happy to have a local cop presence. I sure as hell didn’t want to have to throw the guy into the backseat of my Mercedes.

A uniformed campus cop with a name badge that said OFFICER MARGARET WOOD leaped out of her squad car. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

Mel stood up, straightened her rumpled suit, dusted her hands, and produced her ID wallet.

“Book Mr. Miller here on assault with a deadly weapon and resisting for starters,” she said.

Seeing Mel standing there barefoot, wearing torn panty hose and with two bleeding knees, you’d have thought that she’d have a hard time commanding respect. She didn’t.

“Help me haul him to his feet,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Officer Wood said, and the two of them did just that.

“When you book him, be sure they get photos of those scratches on his arms,” I said. “They could be important, because there are likely to be other charges to follow those.”

Officer Wood looked at me, standing there with not a scratch on me. Then she looked at Mel-a one-raised-eyebrow look that was evidently an understandable question even though she said nothing aloud.

“My partner,” Mel explained.

Officer Wood took charge of Ron Miller and loaded him into the backseat of her squad car. I followed them to the car in time to hear Ron muttering something about police brutality. His snide old-man comment to me still rankled. It sounded like something an immature seventh grader would say. It also sounded a lot like some of the text messages that had been sent to Josh Deeson.

“Too bad, tough guy,” I said. “You were taken down by a girl, fair and square.”

“What’s this all about, anyway?” he wanted to know.

“It started out being about some text messages,” I said. “But now it’s turned into something else-like arson and murder. Just to let you know, you may have set fire to all the computers in Janie’s House, but it’s too little, too late. We’d already copied everything on the hard drives just to be on the safe side.”

He gave me a snarly stare and then turned away. I slammed the door shut and then walked back to the laurel hedges. They were flat on top, densely leafed and at least eight feet tall. Mel trailed after me as I attempted to peer up through the leaves.

“What are you looking for?” Mel asked.

“He threw something up there,” I said. “Didn’t you see it? He tossed something up into the hedge right here, just before he crossed the street.”

Mel shook her head. “I stepped on a piece of gravel and looked down at my feet. When I looked back up, I had gained a lot of ground on him and I didn’t know why.”

I went back over to Officer Wood, who was on her radio and in the process of explaining to her sergeant that she was transporting someone to the Olympia city lockup. I waited until she finished.

“I need a ladder,” I said. “Do you know where I could find one?”

“Someone from Physical Plant,” she said. “How tall?”

“Tall enough to see the top of that laurel hedge.”

She nodded and got back on her radio. An Econoline van with state license plates, a uniformed driver, and two kinds of ladders arrived within a matter of minutes, just after Officer Wood drove away in her squad car. By then, the interested crowd of onlookers had dissipated. Interestingly enough, among the people who had gathered around, I had seen no one I recognized from the governor’s mansion. Given the proximity to all the excitement, that was a little surprising.

“Where do you want the ladder?” the guy from the van asked. I pointed, and he unfolded it where I thought it needed to be.

“Do you want me to do it?” Mel asked.

Ron’s comment continued to play inside my head: “You and who else, old man?”

“No, I will,” I said, speaking to Mel far more harshly than she deserved. “You don’t know what we’re looking for.”

I wasn’t sure I did, either. I knew it was small and round and had flown through the air like a Frisbee. I went up and down the ladder three different times. Going up was bad enough. It hurt like hell, but it was doable. Coming down was a killer. Mel watched me go up and down the ladder the first time. As I wiped away tears, she shook her head and said nothing. Then, walking away and leaving me to it, she activated her iPhone and began making arrangements to have Ron’s vehicle towed to the crime lab.