Page 31 of The Girl from Devil's Lake
“‘Don’t need ’em,’” she said. “‘This is a free country, and I’m a sovereign citizen.’”
Joanna sighed. She’d heard all the sovereign citizen crap herself on occasion, always coming from people who claimed that the laws of the land didn’t apply to them. “Not that same old BS,” she said aloud.
“Yup,” Jenny agreed. “Same old same old. I told her I needed her to turn off the engine and step out of the vehicle. And what did she say to that? ‘No dice. It’s cold as hell out there, and I’m not wearing a coat. If you want me out of this car, honey bun, you’re going to have to make me, and I don’t think you can.’”
Joanna’s stomach tightened. “Wait, was she armed?”
“No, she wasn’t,” Jenny replied, “not exactly, but she weighed a good four hundred pounds. Even with the seat all the way back in the Tundra, her body was up against the steering wheel so tight that I don’t know how she managed to steer. Anyway, by then, Rick was coming around the vehicle to assist me, but at that point, the woman places the beer can in her cup holder, puts the car in gear, hits the gas, and takes off like a shot.
“Naturally Rick and I hopped into our vehicle and went after her. Since she was fleeing and most likely prepared to resist as well, he got on the radio asking for backup. A couple of miles later, almost at Three Points, she veered into the left-hand lane again before slamming into a bridge abutment hard enough for the airbags to deploy. When we got to her, she was bleeding some, but she didn’t seem to be badly injured. The pickup, however, was totaled. It was such amess that when we tried to open the doors, they were all jammed. At that point, the driver couldn’t have gotten out of the Tundra even if she’d wanted to.”
By then Joanna had pulled into her parking place at the Justice Center, but she made no effort to exit her vehicle. She needed to hear the rest of the story.
Jenny continued. “With the wreckage partially blocking the left lane, we had to slow traffic enough so other unsuspecting drivers wouldn’t smash into it. With our backup still ten minutes out, I positioned my patrol car in front of the wreckage with all lights flashing and then put on a reflective vest so I could direct traffic around that while Rick radioed in to Dispatch, letting them know that we needed EMS, somebody with the jaws of life, and a tow truck.
“As luck would have it, the first eastbound vehicle that came along happened to be a KOLD camera crew returning from covering a contentious school board meeting over in Ajo. As far as they were concerned, lucking into a car wreck was a big improvement over what had gone on during the meeting, so they set up shop and started filming.
“Eventually our backup showed up, and so did the jaws of life, but guess what? The womanstillrefused to exit her vehicle. In the end it took four officers and three EMS to drag her out. Then, when they tried to load her into the back of a patrol car, she wouldn’t get into that, either. She sat down on the pavement saying, ‘Are you nuts? My tits won’t even fit in that thing.’
“Unfortunately she was right about not fitting. They ended up transporting her by ambulance to the Pima County Jail. By then the guy running the camera was laughing his head off. He thought it was screamingly funny. As for the rest of us? Not so much!”
For someone not directly involved, Joanna could see that the cameraman wasn’t wrong—the situation really was funny, but she fought back her own urge to laugh.
“Did she actually resist?” she asked.
“Not really, but she didn’t have to,” Jenny replied. “She just sat there and wouldn’t move. She also refused to take a Breathalyzer, so she’s booked into jail on suspicion of DUI.”
“Well,” Joanna said, “that’s one for the books.”
“Isn’t it just,” Jenny agreed, “but if it hits the news, I’m pretty sure they’ll cut the line about her tits. I can laugh about it now, but last night it was no laughing matter.”
“It could have been worse,” Joanna said. “I’m grateful that you’re safe and glad no one was hurt. Now try to get some sleep while I go to work. After last night, your shift tonight is bound to be better.”
Once inside, Joanna passed through her office and stuck her head into the reception room. “Sorry I’m late,” she told Kristin. “Anything I should know about?”
“Actually there is. You’d best get over to the jail. One of the inmates found out where the work crew had squirreled away their lunches and made off with them. The workers are threatening to go on strike.”
“On my way,” Joanna said. “Get on the phone to Daisy’s and tell them my department will be putting in an emergency take-out order to replace those missing lunches as soon as I figure out what everybody wants.”
As she headed for the jail, it occurred to her that depending on where you stood, the case of missing lunches was probably almost as funny as dealing with a four-hundred-pound drunk, but this time the laughter shoe was on the other foot.
Offering to buy replacement lunches fixed things and quelled what had threatened to turn into a pitched battle between the workers and her inmates. Figuring out what everyone wanted and making sure it was ordered properly wasn’t easy, but eventually Joanna managed, promising the food would be there by the time the workers were ready for their lunch break. It was also determined that, for as long as the work crew was on-site, all their foodstuffs would be stored in a locked cabinet in the jail commander’s office wherethey would be safe not only from thieving inmates, but also from Mojo, the jail’s resident K-9.
Back in her office, Joanna gave Kristin her departmental credit card and sent her into town to place the order and fetch the food. Then she settled in to work at her desk. When she’d first appointed Tom Hadlock as her chief deputy, it had been something of a bumpy ride, but now that he’d settled into the position, he was truly her right-hand man and had relieved her of much of the routine office work that had once been the bane of her existence. There was still plenty of that, but these days it was doable rather than overwhelming.
Again, she had brought lunch from home—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich rather than turkey—which she ate at her desk. Joanna was relieved to learn that Elena’s cheek swab was now in the hands of the Department of Public Safety. The DNA results would arrive when they arrived and not a moment sooner.
A little before two, Deb Howell and Jaime Carbajal showed up. “How did the interviews go?” Joanna asked.
“Not very productive,” Deb replied. “We weren’t wearing uniforms, but the kids knew we were cops, and they live under a strict policy of loose lips sink ships. None of them had seen anything or heard anything. As for the kid in the photograph? They all claimed they’d never seen him before.”
“Which, since they all live on the same street, probably isn’t true,” Joanna put in.
“Exactly,” Deb agreed. “Arturo says he’ll keep asking around. He may have better luck getting through to someone in that bunch than we did. According to him, the Federales have an anonymous tip line that covers all Sonora, so maybe someone will make that call.”
“Let’s hope,” Joanna said. “Marliss Shackleford is all over my case because we haven’t solved it already when, in actual fact, we don’t have so much as a single lead.”
“Marliss Shackleford is a pain in the butt,” Deb said. Obviously Detective Howell, like her boss, had already had a few unpleasant run-ins of her own with the incredibly annoying reporter.
