Mortal Pursuit

9

“All units.” The dispatcher’s voice crackled over the radio.

“We’ll take it,” Pete Wald said.

Leaning forward, Trish unclipped the microphone and keyed the mike. “Four-Adam-eight-one. What’ve you got, Lou”

Lou was Louise, one of two night-watch dispatchers. The other was Thelma. They’d both caught their share of grief about that.

“Caller reports a possible ten-seventy,” Lou said in her cigarette-froggy rasp. “Twenty-five hundred Skylark Drive.”

Wald gunned the engine, the Caprice speeding up. Trish’s heart accelerated with it.

A 10-70 was a prowler call.

“Get the details,” Wald said.

Lou didn’t need to be asked. “Nine-eleven operator says the caller was sort of vague. Might’ve seen an intruder in her backyard in some bushes or trees. Just a glimpse-dark clothes, no other description. Funny thing is, they’ve got a security fence, and the alarm didn’t ring. You want backup”

Trish looked at Wald, his face lit from below by the spectrum of colors from the dashboard. He shook his head.

“Negative,” Trish said into the microphone. “We’ll handle it.”

“I’ll have another unit in the area just in case.”

“Copy that. We’re en route, code two high. Ten-four.”

In answer Lou read off the time military-style. “Twenty-oh-five.” It was the one formality she consistently observed.

Wald shot onto a side street at sixty but left the light bar and siren unactivated. Only a code three call permitted their continuous use.

“The Ashcroft place.” He frowned to himself.

Trish replaced the microphone and waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she asked the obvious question. “Is that where we’re going”

Wald nodded. “Actually I’m the only one who still calls it by that name. It’s been the Kent place ever since Charles Kent became man of the house. Maybe sixteen, seventeen years ago.”

“Where is it”

“Way up in the mountains.”

As if to punctuate the thought, Wald veered onto a branching road that came out of nowhere, a two-lane rural route twisting northwest into the foothills.

“Lake there,” he added. “Most of the area around it is woods. State park and a picnic area. Mr. and Mrs. Kent’s house is the only residence. Only one for miles.”

“Isolated.”

“Very. Twenty-five hundred Skylark is the end of the world.”

Half hidden in stands of pine, trailers and mobile homes swept past. The Chevy’s high beams carved twin funnels out of the dark, illuminating a double yellow line to the left, a smear of guardrail to the right. Ruts bounced the sedan on its shocks.

“Why’d Lou think we needed backup” Trish asked.

“On a prowler call it’s not a bad idea to have more than one unit on hand.”

“So why’d we turn it down”

“Because the alarm wasn’t tripped. Caller just saw a dark shape. Could be anything. Out in the boonies, like where we’re headed now, nine times out of ten it’s a raccoon. They grow pretty damn big out there, and they prowl at night.”

“I see.” Her voice caught on the second word.

Wald gave her another, sharper look. “Nervous”

She wanted to deny it, but after all, he was her training officer, and she had to be honest with him.

Even so, she hedged a little in her answer. “Sort of.”

“You should be.”

“I thought it was probably a raccoon.”

“Nine times out of ten, I said. But there’s always that tenth time. That’s when you need to be fully alert.”

“I’m real alert right now.”

“Good.”

The Chevy barreled higher into the mountains. Through the open windows the warm night rushed in. It was the final weekend in August, but in southern California summer lingered to the end of October. The worst heat was still to come.

Trish watched the last homes melt away, and then there was only a dark blur of trees.

“How much farther” she asked.

“Three, four miles.”

At this speed, no time at all.

The wire mesh partition behind her rattled loosely. On a switchback curve her shoulder harness locked, exerting brief, painful pressure on her right breast until the strap disengaged.

She swallowed, wishing her mouth weren’t so dry.

Nervous Sure. Frightened, even.

But below her fear she was conscious of a not-unpleasant thrill of adrenaline.

This was what she’d wanted, after all. This was why she’d sweated and trained, why she’d endured long days and sore muscles and relentless hectoring-to wear a blue uniform, to charge into danger in response to a distress call in the night.

She only hoped …

Hoped she wouldn’t …

“You get over it.” Wald’s voice startled her.

“What”

“Opening night jitters. You get over it.”

She tried a smile of her own. “I thought it was good to be scared.”

“There are two kinds of fear. Fear of what might happen-and fear of how you might screw up. You get over the second kind.”

How you might screw up. That was it, all right. That was the real fear coiling in her stomach and stopping her breath.

Trish wondered how Wald had known about that, how he’d been able to get inside her head and dissect her feelings.

Then she realized he must have trained a dozen probationers just like her, as raw and green as she was.

And once, long ago, Wald had been a rookie cop himself, answering his first priority call. Funny how she hadn’t ever thought of him that way.

“It’s just …” She hesitated. But remember: honesty. “It’s just that I’ve never really been tested.”

“You’ll hold up fine. Officer Robinson.”

Trish sat tensely in her seat, fingering her holster strap, and hoped Pete Wald was right.