The Lake, the River & the Other Lake by Steve Amick

Author:Steve Amick
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780375423765
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2005-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

42

SHE WAS OUT IN THE CRUISER, doing a routine patrol along Fifel Drive, the old unpaved road that served the older houses, like the bootlegger’s place, along Lake Michigan. The sun was bright and high, with a slight breeze that shimmered the silver poplar leaves, but there was something else ahead, kids on bikes, pulling out of the unkempt driveway. They turned in her direction and she let them pass—two boys, maybe ten, and a little girl maybe seven. Janey kept going to the end of Fifel Drive, watching the kids in her rearview mirror. She thought it looked like they were stopping in the middle of the road, looking back at her, checking to see if she was following.

This is the extent of my police work, she thought, outwitting small children. I’m a regular Angie Dickinson here . . . She kept going till the dead-end turnaround, executed a sharp three-point and put it in park, giving them a full sixty seconds on her dive watch. When she drove back, they were gone. But she wasn’t buying it.

It wouldn’t take much to flush them out, she figured. She pulled into the dark drive, past the two stone posts now dwarfed and overshadowed by the big beech trees, staying off the siren but making the big dropped-in 427 roar, keeping it in second and letting it tach high. Thing sounded like a dragon to little kids. Then she backed out of the drive, looked to her right and there they were: still half in the trees, their front tires pointed out, little mouths gaping at being busted, unsure which way to go now, the boy in the lead stamping on the brakes and skidding, dumping his bike. She’d blocked their only exit and forced them to the woods and now they were surprised to see her.

The boys recovered fastest, cleared the underbrush and the dip in the shoulder and took off, pumping fast and screaming. But the little one in the back was stuck, her bike, bubblegum pink, hung up in the tangle of brush. She kept struggling with it, looking down at the problem, then up to yell “Tommy!” at one of the older boys, who were now in full retreat and shaking their heads, then back down at the problem, then “Tommy!” and so on.

Janey put the cruiser in park and got out, slipping off her shades to put the child at ease. It didn’t help that much: she could see the panic increase tenfold in the little girl’s face as she approached. Janey suspected it was that leather cop squeak, the belt and holster. She knelt down, keeping a few yards’ distance till the girl relaxed a little. “Stuck, huh? Maybe I can take a look?” There was a long pause and then the girl nodded. At least she’d stopped yelling for Tommy, who was now a dot at the end of the road. Janey moved closer and saw the problem was her training wheels, which were caught in the roots of a knobby-looking birch.

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