ONE
The State Trooper
Ninety-nine per cent of traffic stops are completely routine.
Rudy Daniels knows the stats. He’s been doing this job for a while. All the same, that pesky one per cent is never too far from his thoughts, close as the sidearm on his left hip.
Not that he’s worried about this stop. In his learned opinion, it fits squarely in the ninety-nine per cent. He caught a glimpse of the driver as she shot past in her red pickup – she’s not the one per cent type.
Daniels pushes the accelerator, coming in close behind her and blipping the siren. The pickup swerves slightly, as if the driver had been on the verge of falling asleep. There’s the flash of an indicator, and the truck comes to a stop on the hard shoulder, the tyres sending up a burst of fine desert dust.
Daniels brings his cruiser to a halt twenty feet behind the pickup. He squints into the harsh afternoon sun, reading the plate, scratching it out on his notepad in case the driver decides to take off. Not that he’s expecting it. The worst he’s ever encountered on this particular road was the time a couple of kids got into a drag race, and thought they could outrun him. Spoiler alert – as his daughter Kyla would say – they couldn’t.
He keys his mic. “Dispatch, Charlie C3.”
Connie’s voice comes over the line cleanly. “Copy Charlie, what’s up?”
“Got an 11-95 out on the 10.”
“Anything serious?”
“Naw. Just letting you know what’s what.” Daniels reads her the pickup’s plate from his notepad.
“Goddamn slow-ass computer,” Connie mutters. “Sorry, Rudy. Give it a second to run.”
Daniels sighs. If he waits, he’ll be here for ever. “I’ll go have a look-see. Doesn’t seem like trouble.”
“Copy that.”
He grabs his hat from the dash, slipping it on as he clambers out of the cruiser. He wishes he didn’t need it – he’s six-two with shoulders like a linebacker, already scary enough without his shades and the wide-brimmed Highway Patrol hat. But both are essential out here, in the shitting-hot, baking hardpan of the Arizona–California border.
The sunlit sky above is completely empty. So is the highway: no traffic in either direction. Daniels adjusts his nametag, making sure it’s visible, knowing it is but doing it from habit anyway. Traffic stops go a lot easier if the subject has a name to hold onto. He’s heard of other patrolmen, even LA cops, taking their badges off before they head into action. It’s the kind of thing that makes him curl his lip every time he hears about it. God above knows, he’s not perfect, but even the thought of it makes him angry.
The truck has New Mexico plates, yellow on blue. The window is already down, which is good. The driver’s hands come into view as he approaches, still tight on the wheel. No rings – just a single gold bangle on her left wrist. The hands are veiny, fingers thin, the skin baggy around the knuckles. Daniels can’t properly make out the interior yet, let alone the driver, but the hands tell him plenty.
The rest of her comes into view as his eyes adjust. She’s younger than her hands suggest – a lot younger. Early twenties, maybe. Bleached-blonde hair with the brown roots showing tied up in a messy ponytail. High cheekbones, a splash of freckles across tanned skin. Daniels would peg her for a college senior heading out on Spring Break, if it wasn’t for the hands. And her eyes. They’re a little too big for her face, and she’s blinking too much.
For a second, Daniels is on edge – if she’s high, this is going to get a lot more complicated – but then he relaxes. She’s just nervous.
“Afternoon, ma’am. I’m Officer Daniels, California Highway Patrol. You coming from Arizona?”
“That’s right.” Said with a little upward tilt of the chin, like he’d accused her of something.
“May I see your licence, please?”
She starts, digs in her purse. Daniels flashes a quick smile at her passenger, the little boy sitting on a booster in the front seat. His tanned skin is dotted with freckles, untidy brown hair hanging down past his neck. He’s wearing an oversized white T-shirt with a bright hot-air balloon on the front, advertising the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. His head, which is a little too large for his scrawny body, is bent towards the iPad on his lap.
Usually, kids get interested when Daniels asks for a licence, ask if he’s a real police officer or if he can arrest them. Yes I am, and only if you’re mean to your mom. The answers are ready, but the boy barely glances at him.
“Here,” the woman says.
Daniels squints at the licence. Amber-Leigh Schenke, and she looks as nervous in the photo as she does in real life. “You folks on vacation?”
“That’s right. We’re visiting LA. I wasn’t speeding, officer…”
“No, ma’am, you weren’t speeding.” He leans down, hands on his knees, looking across the car. “What’s your name, young man?”
The young man in question says nothing. He ignores both of them, fingers tapping at the tablet screen. He’s reading an ebook, and not one with pictures. His finger traces along the text, his mouth moving silently. Daniels blinks – the kid can’t be more than four. He’s reading already? At that age, his Kyla had only just figured out the sounds of the different letters.
“Say hi, Matthew.” Amber-Leigh rests a hand on the boy’s leg. He doesn’t look up.
Daniels has always relied on his gut in the past, relied on it to send up a little warning signal when something isn’t quite right. It’s just given him the very slightest twitch.
He lets it go, annoyed with himself. His brains must be cooking. He’s stopped hundreds of drivers since he started the job, and he recognises the type. Law-abiding, nervous-as-hell, head filled with scare stories about rural cops.
“Well,” he says, hitching his belt, “you might not know this, being from out of state, but your son’s too young ride in the front seat.”
“He can’t?”
“No, ma’am. Against the law in California.”
“I want to sit up front,” Matthew says. He has a thin voice, high and reedy. He still hasn’t looked up from the iPad.
“He likes to sit in the front,” says Amber-Leigh.
“Sorry. No can do, my young friend.” He taps the pickup’s roof. “Better move on over to the back.”
“We’re sorry, officer.” Amber-Leigh glances at her son. “Would it be all right if he stayed? I’ll drive real careful.”
Rudy Daniels frowns. He’s not in the habit of letting traffic stops negotiate with him. And technically, he should be writing her up – something he wasn’t intending to do, until she started arguing with him.
His stomach rumbles. There are some nuts in the cruiser’s glove compartment, packed by his wife, who says they’re good for his cholesterol. Daniels happens to think that they taste like salted sand, and he’d be better served by a burger over at the diner in Ripley. He’ll have a salad instead of fries, though, to keep Stella happy.
He hands back the licence. “Just put him in the back seat, OK?”
“Is there no way we could—?”