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The red Triumph.
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Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Sergeant Oberon
gets buggered…Part One.
“What?”
Gasped Sergeant Oberon in disbelief.
“We
got ‘im downstairs.” Constable Dick Fry told his superior. “Do you want to come
on down to the cells real quick, or should we bring him up to the room?
“What
do you like him for?” Asked the sergeant.
“Dangerous
driving is a little iffy, but he admits to speeding on the Lake Road.”
The
constable took a look at his note pad.
“He
borrowed his dad’s sports car, an antique. He didn’t have permission, but
parents typically don’t charge the kid for that. He had a couple of joints.
He’s insisting on talking to a police artist.”
“He
must be watching too much CSI on TV.”
The sergeant grinned.
The
popular TV show’s science-fiction lab was totally at odds with reality.
Crime
labs were grubby, disorganized little cubicles with old, broken-down equipment,
staffed by hack, over-the-hill technicians otherwise unemployable in any normal
industry. Still, it gave the public confidence in the system, and that’s always
good.
“Yeah,
yeah. We’ll get him an artist, and then charge him with making a false report.”
Oberon muttered. “What’s the guy’s name?”
“Mike
Anderson.”
“And
he turned up here drunk and stoned and with a borrowed car, no permission, and
insisted on making this report?”
“Yep.”
Agreed the other copper.
“Okay,
bring him up. Play it straight and serious, okay?” Raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,
sir.”
Sergeant
Oberon opened up the room, snapped on the lights, and arranged his notes. It
impressed the perps when they were brought in. The sergeant rarely relied on
written facts, and such. He preferred the impression
as they were presented to him.
Well,
the young man made a good impression, and that confused Oberon. He was
expecting something akin to delirium tremens, or a PCP-crazed psycho, or a high
school boy tripped out on LSD, recent sexual misconduct, and cheap wine. Pot
and stuff. Some kid high on Ecstasy, temporarily in love with the universe.
The
kid seemed all right.
Twenty
years old, the guy had a job and a girlfriend, and no previous beefs.
“Tell
me what happened, son, and I’ll do my best to keep you out of trouble.” He
suggested kindly.
“Look,
I’m sorry sir. I know I must have looked pretty drunk and crazy when I came in
here, but this is real.” The young man began, but Oberon held up a hand.
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Why did the giant mutant salamander cross the road.
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“I
know all that.” He said it calmly and coolly, letting the kid collect his
breath. “Just tell me what you saw.”
“My
old man’s going to kill me.” The kid groaned.
“Oh,
we won’t let that happen.” Joshed the sergeant. “Look, you were driving down
Lake Road, enjoying the, what was it?”
“A
Triumph TR-250. My old man’s heart and soul. Oh, I’m in deep shit now, man.”
“Is
that the red one?” Asked Oberon.
The
kid sat up straighter. He nodded.
“I’ve
seen your dad driving it.” Oberon noted.
A
real nice car, but the sergeant had a Corvette. Half the guys on the force had
Porsches, Corvettes, Jags, Cobras, Healeys...McLarens. One guy had a Maserati.
The other half of the force had yachts and stuff.
A
couple of the guys had planes. Link had a jet.
“Where
were you? What direction were you traveling?”
The
kid let out a deeply-held breath and after some hesitation, began anew.
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Mike Anderson, all of eighteen years old...
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“I
was out near Le Gran Binge, and it was getting pretty late.” Said the kid.
“Your
dad’s working in Kuwait?” Oberon, reading the notes provided to him.
“Yes,
sir.” Said the kid.
“Any
damage to the car?” Asked the sergeant. “Mike, is it?”
“No,
there’s no damage.” Acknowledged Mike.
“So
what exactly happened out there to upset you so much, Mike?”
“Upset?
Upset? Holy, Jesus.” Mike seemed about to go off again, but the sergeant calmed
him down by phoning out for a coffee for the kid, who slurped at it gratefully
when it arrived.
Finally
the guy got down to it. He was headed west, doing about eighty-five in a fifty
zone, eight or ten kilometres out of town.
“I
was coming over the brow of the hill, just before Dead Man’s Curve, and that’s
when I saw it. It was fucking huge. Excuse me, normally I don’t swear too much,
but I mean fucking huge. I jammed on the brakes and watched it go off into the
fields.”
“And
what do you think it was?” Asked the sergeant.
“A
fucking lizard, a fucking iguana, a fucking dinosaur. I don’t fucking know. I
know damned well you don’t believe me, sir. I swear to God, it was thirty or
forty feet long.” He seemed pretty miserable. This was no prank.
“I’m
sure you saw something out there, Mike.” Said Sergeant Oberon. “Promise me
you’re not on anything? Like a few hits of acid or something? Ecstasy? No?”
“I
don’t need to lie to you guys. I had a couple of beers in Le Gran Binge. Look,
you got to find that thing, man.”
“Only
a couple of beers?” Questioned the sergeant a little more aggressively.
“It’s
a borrowed car.” Said Mike. “I have some fuckin’ sense.”
“We’re
going to put you back in the cell while we try to figure out what to do.”
Allowed the Sarge. “Then we’ll just get you to sign for the impound of the
vehicle.”
The
kid put his head in his hands and moaned a little at that one.
“Look
Mike, play it my way, and maybe we can keep you out of jail, okay?”
Oberon
opened up the door and beckoned Fry in. As Fry led the boy out, he tipped him
the wink: ‘come and see me when you’re
done.’ Fry grinned over the kid’s head in acknowledgment. There was an
unspoken humorous comment that went around sometimes.
Looks like we got us a live one here.
Phillip
Oberon went to his desk and pulled out a Ministry of Health Form 42, an order
to commit an individual for three days of psychiatric observation. He looked at
the clock, and picked up the phone. He needed a doctor to sign it for him. At
this time of night, he was at a bit of a loss. Normally he worked the day shift
exclusively, but a fellow officer had fallen while trimming branches, and he
got tapped for the duty. Taking an unused sick day on Monday, and returning to
work Tuesday seemed like a good plan.
He
even came out a thousand bucks in shift premiums ahead on the deal, but the
lack of sleep was getting to him. He’d always hated the night shift. In the
early days, that merely spurred his ambition. Back then, he and Connie had big
plans, high hopes for the future.
Twenty-five and out, he had promised.
As
senior sergeant, it would look bad to refuse. A nap this morning, he hoped to
get back to sleep tonight, and then back to normal for work on Tuesday. But it
wasn’t working out. Normally a cheerful man around the workplace, he assumed
that he was liked and respected by his people. Tonight he was trying very hard
not to be grumpy.
Finally
someone picked up over there at the hospital.
“This
is Sergeant Phil Oberon over at Lennox Police Services.” He began to
smooth-talk the duty nurse at the hospital emergency department’s admitting
desk. “Who’s on tonight?”
“Well,
there’s Dr. Davy.” She began.
He
would insist on examining the patient.
“Nope.”
He said.
“Dr.
Haseltyne is in.”
“Nope.”
Haseltyne
had been burned once too often. Someone even threatened to sue him.
“Dr.
Chickadee is in.” She told him.
“Put
me through.”
New
guy, just over from somewhere…New Brunswick. Moved to town six months ago.
Immigrated from Africa, looking to set up in practice and let’s see…wife, two
kids, the whole gig. They had a file on every doctor in town.
“Hello?
Doctor Chickadee.” He heard on the line.
“Yes,
Doctor, it’s Sergeant Phil Oberon over at Lennox Police Headquarters. Listen,
I’m going to need you to do me a favour.”
The
doctor listened. He seemed okay with it.
The
Sarge had some time to kill. In the early morning hours the town was pretty
dead until crush-hour traffic got going. He began to chat up the young doctor,
who seemed a friendly enough type.
A
lot of police work went on behind the scenes and the general public had no idea
of how it was done. That’s one of the major reasons why, as a young officer, he
had volunteered to do public speaking. To kind of let the public know the cops
were human and that following certain procedures was the best way of
controlling crime. If truth be told, TV shows that led people to believe that
any crime could be solved by science, the problem with that was, some guy finds
a beer bottle on his lawn, he’s screaming for a DNA test to catch the perp.
A
three-thousand dollar test for a fifty-buck fine on conviction. Considering how
cranky some taxpayers could get, it might even be worth it in some cases.
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A simple country doctor.
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“The
key to police work is personal relationships.”
He
remembered the first line of his first speech in front of an actual audience as
if it were yesterday, and quite frankly it was no real trouble to re-iterate a
tired old speech for the umpteenth time.
“I
mean, let’s face it. Everyone wants to be in good with the cops,” et cetera, et
cetera, blah, blah-blah-blah, blah-blah, ad infinitum.
Oberon
was used to talking to judges and juries. A little old country doctor simply
couldn’t stand up to him. Immigrants, they were always scared shitless of
anyone in a uniform, any person with the symbols of authority.
“So
anyway, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Night
Court, like on TV, but the truth is we don’t have anything like that here
in Canada, and we’ve got this kid. He’s high on drugs or something, and we hate
to give a good young guy a bad police record or anything like that…” Blah-blah-blah.
“Lots of untreated mental illnesses here in this town. I don’t know if you’ve
noticed…”
Blah-blah-blah.
“That’s
right, Doctor. Claims he saw a giant lizard out the Lake Road. Alcohol,
pot…maybe something else. We just don’t know. No, he’s not violent…seems pretty
sincere.”
He
let the other guy talk for a while.
Blah-blah,
blah-blah-blah, blah.
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It's all about human relationships...
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“A
pretty nice kid. Really. That’s why we don’t want to take any unnecessary
chances. I’m sure you would agree? I’d sure like to get your impression before
we go ahead with any heavy charges on the boy.”
It
was like taking candy from a baby, in the final analysis. Fry stood at his
shoulder with his partner, Gottschalk.
“Get
all that?” He asked.
They
nodded.
“Off
you go then.” He nodded at them pleasantly, and that was that.
The
Sarge gathered up most of yesterday’s paper, and headed for the coffee urn.
The
bright lights of the lunch room and a cuppa
Joe would help him make through until dawn. The squawk of the radio and the
occasional buzz of the phone came and went.
He
began to read, feet up on his desk.
The
coffee was still way too hot after that first sip.
***
Crystal Waters
fined for leaky trucks…
by
Bill O’Keefe
Krystal
Waters hazardous waste facility received a $42,500 fine in a Lennox court
yesterday for operating trucks that leaked toxic chemicals and heavy metals. A
guilty plea was entered in response to numerous offences under the
Environmental Protection Act between June 9 and Oct. 4 at a landfill six
kilometres east of Schmedleyville. Toxic materials escaped from nine trucks,
reaching the ground but posing no environmental impact. This is according to an
agreed statement of facts presented in court by the company and the Ontario
Environment Ministry. Justice of the Peace Norbert Krapholtz indicated the
firm’s history of violations is ‘not that
bad,’ but he would not alter the penalty.
Krystal
Waters Inc. was fined $1,000 for each of the offences and the remainder on
other offences involving other vehicles. Krystal Waters has fourteen priors,
for offences in 2009 and 2010, resulting in fines of about $300 each. The
company has fifty-seven priors under its previous appellation, Sparkly-Green.
Government guidelines insist that vehicles be leak-proof. A Ministry of the
Environment employee inspecting the trucks on an ongoing basis found the
leaking trucks over the five-month period. One was spotted leaking a number of
times. The leaking materials included pesticide, paint, chromium and lead, as
well as phenols. The company was given sixty days to pay.
END
Chapter
One.
Chapter
Two.
Chapter
Three.
Chapter
Four.
Chapter
Five.
Chapter
Six.
Chapter
Seven.
Chapter
Eight.
Chapter
Nine.
Chapter
Ten.
Chapter
Eleven.
Chapter
Twelve.
Chapter
Thirteen.
Chapter
Fourteen.
Chapter
Fifteen.
Chapter
Sixteen.
Chapter
Seventeen.
Chapter
Eighteen.
Chapter
Nineteen.
Chapter
Twenty.
Chapter
Twenty-One.
Chapter
Twenty-Two.
Chapter
Twenty-Three.
Chapter
Twenty-Four.
Chapter
Twenty-Five.
Chapter
Twenty-Six.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine.
Chapter
Thirty.
Chapter
Thirty-One.
Chapter
Thirty-Two.
Chapter
Thirty-Three.
Chapter
Thirty-Four.
Chapter
Thirty-Five.
Chapter
Thirty-Six.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight.
Images.
Louis. He steals them from the internet.
Louis
has books
and stories on Barnes & Noble. He also has some art on ArtPal.
Thank
you for reading.
