Darkness the Color of Snow (18 page)

Ronny didn't think he really had the authority to arrest the guy and shut down the job. And the driver was probably right about the consequences. Still, he had made the threat.

On the next trip, the excavator came forward and suddenly dropped the bucket down to about four feet from the ground and swung the bucket toward Vanessa. She yelled, turned, threw the stop sign at the excavator, slipped on a pile of dirt, and fell. Ronny took his radio and called for backup. Then he ran to the excavator, holding his hand up, and turned it counterclockwise—­turn off the machine.

The driver lifted the bucket all the way up and drove the excavator into the one open lane of traffic. He shut the machine off, jumped out, and threw the keys to Ronny, who missed the catch. The keys landed somewhere behind him.

“Fuck you,” the driver said, now enraged.

“No. You're fucked. You're going to jail. You're under arrest.”

“Bogus. Completely fucking bogus. I am not going to jail.” The driver climbed back into the cab.

Ronny walked over and tapped on the glass again. “Get out.”

“I know who you are,” the driver shouted.

“Good. Get out.”

The driver crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, uncrossed his arms, gave Ronny the finger, and then recrossed them.

Less than a minute later Ronny saw the cruiser coming, lit up. It stopped next to his cruiser. Pete Mancuso got out. Thank God for Pete. No one was going to fuck with Pete. In the meantime, the foreman of the construction company came up in a hurry, asking what was going on.

Ronny held up his hand to the foreman and walked back to where Pete was coming toward them.

“What's going on?” Pete asked.

“This idiot was charging cars and the sign girl with his excavator. Really dangerous. I warned him, but he kept doing it.” He turned to where Vanessa was brushing herself off.

“He hit her with the excavator?”

“No. Chased her. She fell trying to get out of the way. I warned him.”

“That all you did? Warn him?”

“No. I arrested him.”

“For what?”

“Reckless endangerment. He was going to hurt someone.”

“Why isn't he in cuffs?”

“He ran back to the excavator and shut himself in.”

“What was he doing? I mean, is he drunk? High? Sunstroke?”

“I think he was showing off for her.” He pointed to Vanessa.

“Shit.”

Pete walked over to the cab of the excavator. “Get out,” he told the driver.

The driver wasn't so sure now. It was one thing to have the kid cop threaten him with arrest, but this big cop seemed another matter. He stayed in the cab.

“Now I told you to get out. You get out. There's no other option for you. If you don't get out, I'm going to snatch your skinny white ass out of that seat and haul you out. I promise, you won't like that.”

“What the hell is going on?” the foreman asked.

“That's what we're finding out,” Pete said. “Now you go stand back over there somewhere.”

“I've got deadlines.”

“Then move over there faster. You,” Pete said to the driver. “You coming out, or am I coming in after you?”

Slowly, the driver opened the cab and crawled out. “I didn't do anything.”

“Then this will work out OK for you. Do you understand that you are under arrest?”

“I didn't do anything.”

“He was being a complete asshole,” Vanessa said.

“Tell you what. Turn around and put your hands behind you. I'm going to cuff you for your own safety. Once you understand that you are under arrest, we'll talk about what you did or didn't do.”

“What are you doing to my driver?”

“You stay back. You and I will talk later.” Pete turned again to the driver. “You have any weapons on you? Guns? Knives? Brass knuckles? Bazookas or bombs? Anything sharp I might stick myself with?”

“Pocketknife. Front right pocket.”

Pete fished out the knife and cuffed the driver, then took his shoulder and turned him around. “OK. Now, what didn't you do?”

“Anything. I didn't do anything.”

“Miss? You all right?”

Vanessa smeared some blood from her scuffed knee. “Yeah. I'm all right.”

“That young lady is bleeding. That look like you didn't do anything?”

“She tripped.”

Pete looked up and down the road. “Patrolman Forbert, get this traffic moving out of here.”

Vanessa hopped up from the dirt pile she was sitting on. “That's my job. I'll do it.”

“There's a first-­aid kit under the dash of my car. You'll want to clean up that knee.”

Pete moved the driver back so he could lean against the excavator. “My officer says you were grab-­assing and fucking around with that young lady and menacing traffic doing it. He wrong about that?”

“I was just joking.”

“That's what I thought. Tell me. Just how stupid are you? How you figure that charging ­people and cars with twelve tons of equipment is just joking?”

“It was. It's all that it was.”

“Fool. You're going to jail. You were warned to stop by an officer of the law, and you didn't. How damned foolish is that? You're going to jail for being a nitwit. Come on.” Pete walked the driver back to his cruiser and put him in the backseat. “Going to be hot in there. Another price for stupidity. Think the young lady likes you better now? Fool.” He slammed the door.

“Where are you taking my driver?” the foreman asked.

“Jail.”

“Who's going to finish this job?”

“You know how to operate this thing?”

“Of course I do.”

Pete shrugged. “Problem solved.”

“I'm the foreman here.”

“And a damned fine job you did, letting your driver fool around and jackass himself right into jail in the middle of a job.”

“Shit. Where are the keys?”

Ronny pointed to where he had been standing. “I don't know. In the dirt where he threw them.”

“Officer. Officer,” the foreman yelled. Pete turned. “When you take him to jail, tell him he's fired, too.”

Pete smiled and shook his head. “It would be a pleasure. But I only do my job, no one else's.”

Ronny walked back to where Vanessa was standing by the road. “Are you sure you're OK?”

She looked down at her knee where the blood was coagulating. “Yeah.”

“That guy was a class A jerk.”

She nodded. “Yeah.” She walked over and picked up her sign. “Let's get back to work.”

T
HEY BROKE AT
four thirty with the foreman handling the excavator and supervising the cleanup for the night. Forbert arranged traffic cones and signs around the dug-­up section of the road. It would be another two days, he figured, to get the work done and the road repaved. He headed back to the station. The holding cell was empty.

“Where's the prisoner?” he asked.

“Probably in a bar somewhere. Don't know, don't care. We let him go half an hour ago.”

“Aren't we charging him?”

“Gave him a summons. Let the court sort it out. But you and I, Patrolman Forbert, need to have a little talk. Get a ­couple of things straightened out. I will get your back. I always will. But I don't want to be hauled out of an air-­conditioned office for this kind of foolishness ever again.”

“I needed help. He wasn't going to cooperate.”

“But he did, didn't he? He cooperated with me just fine. It's part of your job to make him want to cooperate.”

“What was I supposed to do? Draw my weapon?”

“Did I draw mine? Hell, no. You played your biggest card first, and you left yourself with no alternatives. Understand?

“You tell someone you're going to arrest them, you better be prepared to arrest them. Got that? But don't just jump right into that. Talk to the guy. Don't put him on the defensive. Try to reason with him some. Give him a chance to back down, gracefully. Try not to arrest ­people. It saves us a lot of time and aggravation. Next time you call for backup, you better be in danger. You weren't in any danger at all here. You just had an uncooperative jerk.” He leaned toward Ronny and lowered his voice. “When you called me, you lost points with that fine young lady out there. You think about that? Bad move, son.”

“I wasn't trying to impress her.”

“What? Are you blind? She's fine. Way fine. Hell, I was trying to impress her. She's fine, and not all inked up. I, myself, prefer women with sensible skin.”

“I know her.”

“And you want to know her better, don't you?”

F
OR THE NEXT
two days, he kept his eyes on Vanessa as she moved the traffic through the construction zone. The jerk driver had returned the following day and behaved himself.

“I thought he was fired,” Ronny said to the foreman.

The foreman shrugged. “He's good at what he does. He's on notice, though. He won't give you trouble.”

Ronny nodded and went back to his post next to his cruiser. Everyone, it seemed, knew more about handling ­people than he did. He supposed that he would have to learn that. He held himself straight and tried not to look like the kid just out of community college that he knew he was.

He watched Vanessa. Even she seemed to understand things that he didn't, and she was a few years younger than him. But to him, she was a hot, rich girl. She lived in the world he looked at from the outside. As least, that's what he had always thought. She had a nice house, and her father, formerly a town councilman, drove a new Accord.

She was going to the community college, not the university, and her job was worse than his. He had been surprised that she even had a job. He supposed that her father just gave her money for whatever she needed. And now it was he who was on a career path. He was a cop, and he intended to rise through the ranks and, someday, be the police chief, like Gordy.

It bothered him that she had been Matt Laferiere's girlfriend. He couldn't make sense of that. Laferiere was a loser. He seemed like a very cool guy in high school, and maybe he still was. But he was going nowhere. He would end up broke and drunk, maybe even in jail. Matt Laferiere didn't have much to offer someone like Vanessa Woodridge.

He guessed she kind of liked bad guys. A lot of girls did. He thought of her as the kind of woman who would marry well. Have a good job. Maybe a ­couple of kids. Drive a good car and live in a nice house. Maybe belong to a country club. Laferiere would never be able to give her any of that. But, he thought, maybe Patrolman Ronald Forbert could swing it. Matt Laferiere was something she just had to get through.

He had seen her house a ­couple of times. It was a raised ranch with a split-­rail fence and a mowed lawn and flowers and bushes and trees that had actually been planted, not just ones that came up. He had never been inside, but he imagined they had nice furniture, not old beat-­up couches like his, but good ones, ones you could sit in and be comfortable. Probably even wall-­to-­wall carpeting, maybe air-­conditioning. He wanted to have a house like that someday, a house where he could live with someone like Vanessa and raise a family that wouldn't fall apart like his had.

And Vanessa herself. She was, as Pete said, “Fine.” And maybe Pete was wrong about the tattoos. Maybe she had some. Some you couldn't see, ones just for the special guy. And, maybe, that could be him.

He really wanted to talk to her, to ask her out. But she seemed like she was from a different world than his. But she had gone out with Matt Laferiere, and Matt was no better than he was. Definitely worse. He lived in a trashed-­out house surrounded by junk cars and farm equipment. Ronny was going to be someone. He was going to be Officer Ronald Forbert, Lydell Police Department.

A
T THREE FORTY-­FIVE
the foreman came to him. “We've got another two and a half, three hours before we're done here. I just talked to the office. They want us to finish tonight. They're willing to pay the overtime to get us out of here and on to another job. We're going to need you or another cop until around seven, plus cleanup. Can you get clearance to stay?”

“I don't know. I want to knock off. Get dinner.”

“What? Are you fucking kidding me? She'll stay, too. Maybe you can make up your mind about her.”

“What do you mean?”

“You've been watching her like she was the last quarter of the Super Bowl. She'll be gone tomorrow. You'll have a ­couple more hours to figure it all out if you stay.”

Ronny reddened and frowned.

“I mean it, man. Tomorrow, she's fifty miles from here. You can make your move tonight, if you're ever going to. You really want her to slip through your fingers?” He nodded at Vanessa. “And I'm buying dinner.”

“I can't force you to do it,” Gordy said when Ronny called him. “I mean I can't order you to take an overtime shift, if you really don't want to do it. But I'd like them out of here tonight. It'll put a ­couple extra bucks in your next paycheck. And I would appreciate it. I don't want to have to call in another officer for a ­couple of hours of standing beside the road. If you can swing it, I would like you to do it.”

“Chief says OK,” Ronny told the foreman.

“Outstanding. I'd like to tell you we might be done early, but once they go on the double bubble, they slow down. But we should be done by seven. I'll go up to that place on 417 and get dinner. You want anything special?”

“Get me the turkey dinner plate.”

An hour later the foreman was back with several bags. He sorted through them and started handing them out. “Eat while you work,” he said as he passed out the Styrofoam go-­boxes.

Ronny walked over to the foreman's truck.

“Here you go. Turkey dinner plate. Grab some utensils and napkins from the other bag. And here. She wanted a salad. Take it to her. Ask her if she'd like a better dinner later on. It might work. Not a terrible move.”