If I was lucky, Chad or another cop would be available to intercept them on the far side of town.
They pulled over before I made the call. And when I walked over to the vehicle, I was treated to a truck full of shocked expressions on the faces of four teenagers.
Oh, yeah, I thought. Surprise, surprise. Those lights and sirens were for you. Don’t you ever look in your rearview mirror? Is your music cranked up so loud that you can’t hear sirens? Were you so busy talking that you missed seeing a police car with its lights flashing?
Minus the sarcastic edge, I asked the driver just that.
“Um, yes, ma’am,” he said as a bright red flush spread up his neck to his cheeks and ears, then tinted the scalp beneath his blond crew cut.
Obviously embarrassed. And probably not actively delinquent, just thoughtless and bored. Which described most of the teenagers and some of the adults in town.
I wrote him a ticket and took his driver’s license away.
All the while, his friends sat quietly. A few nervous giggles, male and female. But no snotty comments and no attempt to talk their way out of trouble. They were polite. Very polite.
Maybe they recognized cranky when they saw it.
I walked to the rear of the truck, pulled out a cornstalk that was trapped in the bumper, held it up as I asked whose field they’d torn up.
One of the girls volunteered the farmer’s name, which made things easier.
I left them sitting in their truck while I called dispatch, requested the farmer’s phone number, and then dialed it on the driver’s cell phone. After I explained why I was calling, we chatted for few minutes. Then with the line still open, I walked back to the truck and handed the phone back.
“Talk to him,” I said, using the stern, I’m-not-your-friend-or-your-social-worker scowl that I regularly practiced in front of the mirror. “Work out fair compensation for damages. Then pay him. I promise you, the traffic court judge will ask you about it. So be sure you do the right thing.”
By midmorning, I’d had more than enough of traffic patrol. So I cruised into town on 146, swung left on Dunn Street and rounded a curve. Without warning, the road fell away from beneath the vehicle. Out past my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the only view was a wide expanse of river a deadly distance below.
Then, within an adrenaline-driven heartbeat or two, the familiar illusion was gone. I no longer fought my instinctive reaction to slam on the brakes. The earth, in the form of a steep gravel road, still crunched solidly under all four tires of the SUV and I could see that the road angled acutely downward, then abruptly curved to the right. Easy enough, now, to notice and heed the series of warning signs and the stretch of reflector-emblazoned guardrail that alerted drivers to the sharp turns that the road made on the way down to the riverbank.
Dunn Street was a dangerous road. If the town’s economy had been better, it would have been a closed road. But the town needed the tax revenues generated along the strip of riverfront where Dunn Street dead-ended and trouble began. Narrow, floating docks on the river and a weedy gravel lot at the base of the bluff provided ample customer parking for a maze of bars and restaurants built on permanently moored barges.
The local ministers held that Dunn Street was a road to damnation. From their pulpits, they condemned the street’s loose women, drugs and plentiful booze. Certainly, there was no doubt that if you were looking for a good time, the strip on Dunn was the place to be. Especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Thanks to Dunn Street, Maryville had a reputation as a party town and drew people from a hundred-mile radius.
Dunn Street’s best customers tended to be the jail’s best customers, too. Court costs and fines added revenue to the town’s coffers and helped pay my salary. The bars were open six days a week, from 4:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., though Friday and Saturday were the big nights for cash receipts, drunken brawls and city revenue. On Sundays, thanks mostly to pressure from Maryville’s religious leaders, all the businesses on Dunn Street were closed.
At a spot where road, river and the base of the bluff intersected, Dunn Street ended at a pile of fallen rock, illegally dumped trash, discarded needles and rotting river debris. I made a U-turn,