Hothouse Orchid

38

Jimmy Weathers was sitting at his desk when Chief Bruno appeared in his cubicle door. “Good morning, Chief,” he said.

“Somebody has vandalized my car,” Bruno said.

“How’s that, Chief?”

“Somebody cut one of my tires; I had to have it replaced yesterday.”

“Why do you think it was a vandal?” Jimmy asked. “Couldn’t you just have run over something?”

“It wasn’t that kind of damage; it was a clean cut or, rather, two clean cuts. The tire would have blown as soon as I ran over a bump of some sort, like a pothole, and if I had been driving fast-say, in a pursuit-I could have been killed or seriously injured.”

“Buy why would anybody cut your tire, Chief?”

“I don’t know; I’m asking you for ideas.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a clue,” Jimmy replied.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Chief. I don’t know anybody who would want to cause you harm.”

“What about the Cade girl?” Bruno asked.

“Lauren? Why would she…”

“Oh, come on, Weathers. You know about the false charges she brought against me.”

Jimmy colored slightly and decided not to deny it. “I just don’t think Lauren is the type to do that,” he said finally.

“She’s a woman, isn’t she? A woman with an imagined grievance?”

“I guess you could put a guard on your car,” Jimmy said.

“We don’t have enough manpower as it is,” Bruno said.

“Well, we have a surveillance camera pointed at the back door. I guess you could aim it at the parking lot instead.”

“Now that’s a damn good idea, Jimmy,” Bruno said. “Do it now.” He walked away.

Jimmy sighed. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? It was a fault of his that, around anyone of authority, he tended to talk too much. He got up from his desk, walked downstairs to the basement and found a ladder. He left the building through the outside basement door and set up the ladder on the back porch of the building, then he turned the camera so that it was pointing directly at Bruno’s cruiser.

He was about to get down from the ladder when he saw a silver Toyota across the street pull out of a parking spot and drive away. The driver looked like that man he and Lauren had questioned, Smithson, his name was.

Jimmy climbed back down the ladder, stowed it in the basement and went upstairs again. He went to Bruno’s office. “Chief, I turned the camera so that it points at your car.”

“Let me see,” Bruno said, turning to his computer. He tapped a few keys and a grid of images appeared on his screen, views of a dozen cameras set up inside and outside the building. “Yeah, there it is. What kind of tape loop do we have?”

“It’s either six or eight hours, I think,” Jimmy replied. “You’d have to call our tech guy for an accurate answer on that.”

“Good work, Jimmy. Thanks.” Bruno turned back to his desk.

Jimmy returned to his cubicle and sat, thinking about the tire and Bruno’s reaction to it. His phone rang. “Detective Weathers,” he said.

“Hi, it’s Lauren.”

“Hi, Lauren.”

“Bruno had the tire changed before we could get to it and take a cast,” she said.

“Yeah, he just told me. He noticed the cut and was afraid he’d have a blowout at speed. Now he thinks vandals are persecuting him. He made me turn the back door surveillance camera toward his car, so he can watch it.”

“Who does he think the vandals are?” she asked.

“You.”

“Me? He thinks I cut his tire?”

“He mentioned it, but I’m not sure he really believes that. He’s just getting paranoid.”

“That’s going to make it harder for us to nail him,” Lauren said.

“Yeah, I guess it will make him more careful, but if he’s the guy, he’s already being real careful; we still don’t have anything on him.”

“No, we don’t. But he’s going to make a mistake eventually,” Lauren said. “I just hope nobody else dies before he does.”

“So do I,” Jimmy replied. He took a deep breath. “Hey, uh, Lauren, would you like to… have dinner sometime?”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, “but I’m seeing somebody, and he’s taking all my time.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks anyway.”

“Call me if you get any more ideas,” Lauren said. “See you.” She hung up. Oh, God, she thought, how’s he going to take that?