Moving Violation Read online

  Jeffrey and I don’t have a lot of issues that we’re willing to discuss with the others because they somehow always find our problems amusing. I don’t think there is anything inherently funny in what we do, and we have special headaches that they never face. For instance, none of them ever gets food or drink thrown at them when they are putting up signs or walking kids across the street. People do that to us all the time. The drunk ones throw up too.

  Instead of getting involved in the meeting, Jeffrey and I usually sit in the back and chat. When the time comes for our group to report our status, one of us stands and says something to the effect that all is well. Then we leave to begin our rounds. This happens after about half an hour of Eddie arguing work orders with the officer of the day who’s stuck running the meeting. Inevitably the chief needs to get involved to resolve the dispute.

  This day we took our seats in the back of the room but each decided to pay attention for a bit when we saw that the Chief, instead of Officer Bryce, was standing behind the podium.

  “Good morning, everyone,” he said just loud enough to be heard above all the shuffling. “If you’ll be good enough to take your seats, we can begin the meeting.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt this morning, and some of you may be wondering who I am. My name is Randy Wallace, and I’m the new acting Police Chief of Hope Falls.”

  This announcement was followed by polite applause and lots of murmuring and glances in my direction. Jeffrey raised his eyebrows and looked to me for my reaction. I tried to hide the embarrassment blooming on my face, but it is hard to look calm and inscrutable when you are blushing.

  “Ain’t he as slick as snot? Think they hired him ’cause he’s so pretty? Maybe they’ll kick him out in the November election,” Jeffrey whispered. I just nodded, not sharing his disdain of outsiders but unwilling to argue.

  “Anyway, I look forward to meeting each and every one of you individually as I settle in over the next several days and have one-on-one meetings. I’m sure that everything will work out fine under new management.” This line garnered him a brief laugh.

  Having spoken his piece, the chief exited the meeting room. Feeling that I had little more to lose, I slipped from my seat and went after him. I caught up with him just as he was about to enter his office. Reaching out a hand, I kept the door from closing behind him.

  “Mind if I have a word with you, Chief?” In for a penny, in for a pound. There was nothing to be gained by waiting, and it wasn’t like I could make a worse impression.

  Slipping around his desk to take his seat, the chief considered me for a moment before acknowledging my presence.

  “Officer Boston, I would love nothing more than to have another encounter with you this morning.”

  I smiled perfunctorily as I stepped into his office in case he was making a joke and not just being sarcastic. Then I quickly said my piece.

  “Chief Wallace, I feel the need to inform you of a major injustice and a gross inefficiency that is being carried out at this station. I speak, of course, of having the Parking Enforcement Officers attend the daily orientation meeting with Traffic & Safety rather than attending the Law Enforcement orientation. Crime affects all of us. If there are major investigations going on, we should be informed of them. For instance, if there is an APB out on someone, it might be useful to have us be one of the points. Jeffrey and I are on the street more than anyone.”

  The chief looked up at me as if he expected more. When I stopped speaking and remained standing at attention, he reached for his coffee cup and took a sip.

  “Well now. I can see how this is an important issue. I’m glad that you brought this to my attention and I assure you that I will give it the consideration it is due, Officer Boston.”

  When he stopped speaking I continued standing before his desk.

  “Is that all, Officer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well then, you may leave.”

  “I was hoping to receive the chief’s ruling on the situation.”

  “Were you now? Well, I’m afraid that given such an important decision, I’m going to have to think it over for a spell before coming to that decision.”

  That was more or less the answer I thought I’d get. Rather than push the issue on the first day, I decided to beat a hasty retreat.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll get back to the meeting now.” I had the feeling that the trajectory of my career was going from flat to downhill. But I was right, damn it. I just hoped it didn’t come down to a choice of being right or being employed.

  “You do that,” the chief replied. He looked as though he was uncertain about whether to be amused or annoyed. I get that a lot.

  Chapter 2

  Tara Lee says you should never have a digressive chapter for backstory, but I prefer doing one information dump to having dozens of flashbacks or mini-lectures about background history planted in the middle of dialogue or action. So here it goes.

  The town of Hope Falls lies on the White Water River just shy of Commander’s Gorge in the Cascade Mountain Range. As the Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Guide says: “The area is widely known for its tranquil pine forests, clean, fresh air, and clear-running rivers and streams.” Of course the scenery is dominated by the Falls. As we say here, there’s always the Falls.

  The town was originally founded by Oliver J. Hope in 1864, during a local gold rush of sorts, and later became a logging town and ultimately a favorite spot for vacationers. Providing services to the vacation trade and what little logging there is left is all that holds the town together while we wait to emerge as the next technology center. That’s actually a loaded phrase that requires some explanation.

  There are things the Chamber would rather not mention. For instance, Oliver J. Hope didn’t just found a town that just happened to lie at the foot of a mountain full of gold. No, he fabricated the entire gold rush story. He did this so that he could sell off parcels of land at ridiculous profits. All he needed to do was produce a sizable amount of gold that he claimed to have mined out of the surrounding hills, and he was in like Flynn. Of course, Mr. Hope retained ownership of the town after selling off chunks of the mountain. He used it as a base of operations to sell provisions to the miners and became even wealthier.

  It took the miners several years to discover that they weren’t drawing any more gold out of the surrounding hills than they could have anywhere else. By then logging was becoming a viable trade in the area, so many of them stuck around to do that instead.

  Fortunately for the town’s future trade in scenery, clear-cut logging was never used in the area. The forests are healthy and still cover the mountains. The hills do look a little funky in spots due to the mining, but most of that damage has grown over.

  Oliver’s two sons weren’t as business savvy as their father. In fact, they lost ownership of the town within a few decades through fighting amongst themselves.

  Which leaves us today with a pretty little town on the river named after a waterfall that’s named after a con man.

  The Falls are spiritual. So the local Native Americans say. You don’t have to get close to them to be enveloped in cooling mist. The sound is deafening as you draw near. And of course the sight of rainbows near town and at the Falls is constant. I remember as a child wanting to search for the pot of gold at the end of one rainbow but never being able to catch up with where it touched ground. That incident has become a metaphor for my life.

  Around the Falls are parks and bike paths, in addition to all the familiar sights and perversions of any tourist attraction. We like to think of ourselves as the Other Falls, second only in tourist activity to Niagara Falls. The Hope Falls—and efforts to control them—are part of this story.

  As the tourist facilities dwindle, the town of Hope Falls begins in earnest. Big Daddy’s Donut Shop on Lake Street is probably the first shop that locals actually frequent. It’s run by a large man named Don and his mother who is a grizzled witch of a woman. Then comes Meadows Avenue and Kenny’s Pizzeria. That isn’t the name of the place, but no one refers to the place by its actual name. It’s always Kenny’s. Locals prefer it to the chain parlor out on the highway. Smaller menu but better food.

  The town of Hope Falls is twenty thousand strong, large enough to sport its own hospital, police station, and two Starbucks. Much of the town is devoted to tourism while the rest takes advantage of the fact that we’re the county seat. That means that we have our own elementary and high schools, several administrative buildings, and courts. Of course, all this activity attracts swarms of lawyers like ants at a picnic, and I enjoy them about as much. Lawyers and cops—it’s sort of like the sheep and the goats.

  My life in Hope Falls is probably a typical one, with one or two notable exceptions that have become more obvious as I grow older. I was born in Hope Falls General Hospital at a whopping six pounds, eleven ounces. My dad says that I came out screaming and haven’t shut up since. After a stint in the elementary school it was off to Hope Falls High School, the home of the Fighting Miners. This always makes me snicker when I consider the town history. During high school I worked at the Dairy Queen near my home rather than getting into school clubs or becoming a cheerleader. Less teasing that way, but to this day I can’t stand soft serve ice cream.

  I spent my first two years of college at Hope Falls Community College. I worked as a waitress at Harley’s Bar & Grill back then. Harley required that all of his girls wore short skirts and tight blouses and boots like go-go dancers. Dad wouldn’t even let me waitress at Harley’s during the late night shifts when the exotic dancers came on. Only later did I start waitressing the strip shows. And I made good money doing it. In fact, it was almost worth the periodic pinch on the ass to be bringing home five hundred a week. But I had a dream and it wasn’t waiting tables, even for good money.

  Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to be a police officer. This is possibly due to the influence of my father but more likely due to my love affair with Kent McCord on Adam-12. In time my desires became more specific; I wanted to be a detective. I played detective the way some girls played house, and I came to believe that I had a special gift, one shared only by giants like Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe. That would be the gift of detection, of seeing what others fail to notice and organizing these clues into the answer to some baffling problem. This belief was partly due to actually having the gifts of logic and doggedness, and partly due to my nuclear family that largely lack the capacity for critical judgment and saw no reason to ruin my fantasy of being a great detective, especially since they were sure that I would outgrow it.

  Teachers at school also inadvertently led me to believe that I had a future in police work because I was very good at finding lost things and figuring out which of my classmates had performed some misdeed. I was better at this than making things out of construction paper and paste, playing kickball, or interacting with other kids who liked these things. I was into books and thinking, not games and singing. Mrs. Fane, my fourth grade teacher, had once called me an idiot savant—not to my face—to another teacher who had said I was a witch. That had made me cry, because being any kind of an idiot or witch seemed a bad thing. I asked my dad what it meant to be an idiot savant, and he said it meant I would be a good detective, so I didn’t think about it again until I was much older and my classmates started dating. I didn’t get asked out a lot, and the boys called me “the Computer.” Until my junior year when I got my braces off and bought some contacts to replace my glasses. Then they began to act stupid around me and overlooked the fact that I got better grades than they did.

  I noticed this shift in behavior but mostly ignored them. Especially after Theo Redmond explained that I was his favorite masturbatory fantasy. Like I should be honored or something.

  Young and untroubled by the requirements of dealing with the reality of police work and real policemen, and knowing that I was marked for a special destiny in the world of law enforcement, I set about making this happen. This was my perceived truth and I pursued it, though my mother was beginning to make protesting noises about my chosen career.

  When I was done with junior college, I entered an Internet course to get my Online Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice Administration from the University of Phoenix. By the time I was twenty-three I had my degree, and I was ready to take the Hope Falls Police Department entrance exam. This test was one of the easiest of my life, and I literally blew it away with a ninety-eight percent score—the highest ever.

  I wasn’t so fortunate during the physical test. Though I’d done great on the written and oral exams, I scored low on my interpersonal skills.

  I’m not bitter—not really. Every police agency in the United States, more likely the world, sets out basic physical requirements that must be met by everyone looking for a position as a police officer. Hope Falls has a basic requirement that the officer be able to lift one hundred pounds. Now, I’m a five foot, ninety-eight pound, introverted weakling with a trick knee and an astigmatism that contacts can’t correct. Try as I might, I just couldn’t seem to get that hundred pound sack of sand off the ground. The spirit was willing, but the body was definitely not able. What can I say? I eat my spinach, but I’m not Popeye. More like Olive Oyl. And since I am as God made me, and that isn’t in the typical form of a policeman in Hope Falls, who tend to be long on brawn and short on brains, they didn’t even let me on to the obstacle course, though I thought I would do better there because I am tiny and fast.

  Fortunately, I had one major leg up. You see, my dad was still the chief of police. So, rather than being rejected entirely, I was offered a position as a traffic enforcement officer, more commonly referred to as a meter maid. I jumped at the chance, figuring that I would be in the position for one or two years, then I would somehow manage to lift that bag of sand and get on with my life. Well, it’s been three years and I haven’t lifted that bag yet. I even joined the Hope Falls Fitness Center the moment I failed the test for the first time and had sessions with a personal trainer. I have actual biceps now. Still, I am unable and may never be able to lift my own weight in sand.

  Some officers, primarily the less than beloved Dale Gordon, took exception to the fact that I used my connections to get my current position. It doesn’t matter how well I do the job. Not a day goes by that Gordon and his kind don’t do something to make my day a little darker. This got worse when my dad was fired.

  It pains me to admit this, but of all my dad’s virtues and talents, none of them was being an exemplary chief of police. In fact, my father was a horrible chief of police. Mostly he was sloppy about paperwork, hated computers and liked to do things by the seat of the pants. This worked fine for his many private ventures but didn’t sit well with either his officers or the members of the town council or the lawyers looking for criminals to prosecute and not finding them because of missing paperwork. Then there were the rumors of corruption which he could never turn away because of careless record keeping. Yes, my father was and is a very popular guy with the townsfolk. Hell, he was popular enough to get himself elected three times. He just wasn’t big on documentation and discipline, the two mainstays of running an effective, modern police force.

  So just months after I donned the uniform my dad was fired. I didn’t take it well. I couldn’t help but feel that his firing was somehow linked with me being hired, that I had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Dad didn’t seem to care. He went right on with life as if nothing had happened. He opened a business devoted exclusively to sharpening blades. He does well in a place that still maintains a vestige of its former glory as a logging town. However, you can also make some dough sharpening scissors and knives and such, which he does out of his van that he drives all over town making house calls like an old-time peddler.

  To the fury of many on the force, my father is still very popular with the town’s general population. Most people still call him “Chief” in defiance of the dismissal and phone him for advice or help when they have minor problems. I have dinner with him quite often in order to keep up to date with his sometimes crazy plans for expanding his business. Dad is kind of quiet like me, and mostly I find him relaxing. And I needed him for a while because of another really bad thing that happened that same year: Thanksgiving of the Broken Hearts. I’ll probably come back to the matter of that horrible holiday at some point, but I need to work up to it. I’ll tell you one thing though, I made a vow that weekend that the next time I got involved with someone I would make sure that he was that rarest of beasts, an adult male. One grown into his responsibilities and not just his body, however handsome.

  Shy to begin with, after the Thanksgiving fiasco I became downright skittish around strangers. I mean, think of all the harm you can cause to someone during a simple introduction just by uttering the wrong word. And vice versa. I suppose it also shows how sometimes it’s best not to be too concerned with others’ feelings because it skews your perspective and can make you hesitant.

  In an effort to regain some emotional distance, I did the worst possible thing and started acting like a deaf-mute every time I got around someone I didn’t know. This hurt me very badly when it came time for me to pursue my dream of being a detective. My last reviewer pointed out that police officers are supposed to be able to talk to each other, but I always seemed to say the wrong thing. When I said anything at all.

  I know this all sounds bleak, but fear not. I’ve recently come out of my shell and gotten over my earlier disappointments. Suffice it to say that I’ve begun to loosen up and meet people. I have social interactions, whether I like them or not.