Going Too Far(18)
Author: Jennifer Echols

"All what would be worth it? Carting me around for a week? Or being a cop in the first place?"

There was more gentle lip-biting. He crossed his arms and looked toward the railroad tracks. He wanted to melt into the shadows, I knew, but too bad. He was standing in the beam of the police car headlights, as brightly lit as if he were number one in a police lineup.

"John, did you become a cop just so you can save people from the bridge?"

"It’s not that simple," he told the tracks.

"That’s screwed up, John."

He turned back to me. "It’s not that simple." he said again, through his teeth.

This was really a problem for him. I took in the whole picture of him, dark eyes, scowl, crossed arms.

Then I thought about what I must look like in the headlights’ beam. I had crossed my arms at some point without knowing it. I looked the same as John, but with the blue eyes of a dead girl.

We stood there by the bridge, at this impasse, for what seemed like a long time.

Finally I took a deep breath and uncrossed my arms with effort, letting them hang by my sides. I felt naked. "The Kia knows you’re looking for him and you’re probably working all night. He plans to hide out somewhere until morning, then blend into the rush hour traffic headed to Birmingham. In the meantime, he knows you’re the only one chasing him. He figures he’s not that important. So he’ll pick a hiding place that has two ways out, like I said."

John uncrossed his arms. "For instance?"

"The quarry. The airport. Behind the rental storage buildings."

He nodded at the car. "Let’s go."

On the bumpy drive back to the main road, I tried to gauge whether we were on speaking terms again, or whether we were going to spend the rest of the night plus three more in this uncomfortable silence. I tried it out. "Why are you bothering? He dumped the shit out the window fifteen minutes ago."

"Even if I caught him with something, it wouldn’t stick. Usually doesn’t. Or he’d be out in six months. I just like to scare them."

Right before he pulled onto the main road, he turned up the radio, probably so he wouldn’t have to talk to me again. He still bit his lip gently. But by the time we reached the dirt road through the woods that eventually would snake behind the storage buildings, he’d recovered. With a glance at me, he said, "You know an awful lot about hiding from cops."

"I don’t make daily drug buys, if that’s what you’re thinking. I go parking."

He grinned, showing his dimples.

"Don’t act like you’re above it," I laughed. "Next weekend, I’d better not find you in all my parking places."

"I don’t need to go parking anymore. I have an apartment."

"That’s right. I forget you’re the big nineteen." I had assumed he still lived with his parents. Now I wondered what it would be like to make out (or more) in a boy’s apartment. No cops to sneak up on you. No parents to walk in on you.

With Johnafter.

Who liked me only because I reminded him of a dead girl. So. never mind.

He cut the headlights, and the car crept to the edge of a cliff. Below us, we could see the roof of the Kia behind the storage buildings.

"If you drive down there," I said, "he’ll just escape the other way. That’s what he’s counting on. You have to walk down there, point your gun at him, and yell at him in that charming way you have."

John radioed to Lois and opened the door. As he got out, he tossed at me, "You have a brilliant criminal mind."

"Thanks, I think." I watched him walk down the road through the forest with his hand on his gun. The floodlights over the storage buildings hummed low.

Chapter 8

“We’re doing Mickey D’s instead of the diner tonight?" I asked as he steered the car into the McDonald’s parking lot.

"No, too early."

True. 11:30 p.m. was way too early for lunch.

"I just need to chase off these loiterers," he said.

The curly-haired loiterer I recognized as Will Billingsley, John’s alleged former friend from the track team. I didn’t know him that well, but I knew who he was. Everybody knew who Will was. Will was very friendly. The redhead was Skip Clark, and the hunky black guy might even have been Rashad Lowry.

John must feel cocky after successfully apprehending the small-time drug buyer. He’d impounded the Kia. Now he was going after his friends? Yes, they were standing where teenage loiterers stood to see and be seen, at the edge of the playground, by the picnic tables. But they also were eating trench fries, so they were patrons. They couldn’t technically be considered loiterers.

John waited for me to round the car, then crossed the parking lot with me. I was about to suggest he reconsider his tactics with the town’s youth when Will called, "Little Johnny Afterrrrrrrr!"

John broke into a huge smile, dimples and all.

As John reached their circle, Rashad leaned in to give him a bear hug, but Will held Rashad back. "Don’t touch him while he’s in uniform," Will said.

"Apologies," Rashad said. "I forgot I am not to touch the incredible expanding Johnafter."

The fit track team boys towered over me, and John was only a little taller than them. But they gave him more room than they gave one another. The dark blue uniform and broad chest and I’m-in-charge stance created a bubble around him. He was one of them, but not. One of these things was not like the others.

"Vat have you been up to, Governor?" Skip asked with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.

"The relentless pursuit of crime," John said. He pronounced crime with a long southern drawl and a wink. Then he burst into laughter with the rest of them.

Seeing him jogging at the park had cracked the window so I could peek into his soul. Seeing him with his friends threw the window wide open.

He was so nineteen.

As if he could read my mind, he turned to me and whispered, "You didn’t see me laughing." To the others he said, "Don’t make me laugh while I’m in uniform."

Skip asked John something else about work, and Will turned to me. "I know you from high school. Meg, right?"

"That’s right."

"Why are you riding around with John? I’ll bet you’re one of those suspects from the bridge."

John called across the circle, "No, she’s undercover."

"Oh, like Sydney on Alias," Will said. Of the possible comparisons, that was pretty flattering. He tugged a lock of my hair to see if it was a wig.

Disapproval flashed across John s face. I wondered whether no one was supposed to touch me while he was in uniform, either.

Will noticed John’s look. He moved his hand away. Loudly enough for John to hear, he asked me, "What do you think of Officer After so far?"