It was a beautiful September day with not a single cloud in the sky. It was nice in the morning but it was going to be warmer than normal in the afternoon. That was okay with me and Slider. We'd be out of our uniforms and body armor by three and enjoying the warm fall weather at home in shorts and t-shirts. That was the plan, at least.
Plans in police work are tentative. All plans. When you will go to work, when you will go home, when you will sleep. They can all be changed with a ring of the cell phone or a call on the radio. Even seemingly mandatory appearances like court are tentative. It was early in the day and quiet so getting off on time and relaxing was the plan.
We got a tip that a guy (who we will call Billy in this series) was in town. Billy had a couple of warrants. Billy was a meth-head. Billy was the suspect, on a good tip, in the burglary of some firearms. In short, we wanted to have a bit of a chat with Billy.
Billy had obviously pissed someone off because we got a great tip. There probably weren't a lot of fine upstanding citizens that knew about Billy and all his antics. One of his "friends" must have made the call and gave us his location and a description of his vehicle, a purple Neon.
You have got to love neon purple Neons because you can't hide them. It probably wasn't Billy's because:
1. Billy wasn't the kind of person to own a car. It's hard to make payments on a car when every single penny you come across goes toward meth.
2. Only girls drive purple Neons and Cavaliers (something that Rabies had figured out from doing hours and hours of traffic enforcement).
Slider and I took different routes and headed for TVA (an apartment complex known for it's meth use - the landlord couldn't figure out why people were stealing the outside light bulbs and wasn't happy when we told him the reason).
Billy wasn't there or at least the Neon wasn't there. We split up and started down different streets. Tinytown is, well, tiny so if he was still in town, we would find him. Slider took main roads and I went to check grocery stores and c-stores. A deputy, Chuck, was headed for Tinytown to help us out as well.
Slider called in on the radio that he had found Billy on a main road by the fairgrounds. Sweet! I flipped on the lights and started that way. I didn't know it but our chief was out and about too and went that way. Chuck flipped on his emergency equipment to get there. We suspected if Billy hadn't borrowed the car, then it was stolen. We knew he had warrants. Odds were good that he was tweaking and there was a very real possibility that he had at least one of the stolen guns in the car with him.
Slider pulled Billy over and stayed in his car at gunpoint. The chief was next on scene. Chuck and I rolled up probably within a minute of the other two. I got out of my car, pulled my Glock, ducked and ran behind the chief's car (actually Ninja's car borrowed by the chief). I came up on the passenger side of Slider's car, popped open the door and put one butt cheek on the seat. I put the back of Billy's head, still sitting in the driver seat, in my sights.
Chuck got of his car and grabbed his rifle. There was a small bank to the right, separating the road from a canal. Chuck went up the burm where he would have a clear shot over the cop cars and took aim on Billy's car. He probably couldn't see Billy very well, if at all from there, but if Billy came out shooting, he'd have a beautful shot. If it went to crap with Billy in the car, his bullets would pretty much ignore the skin of the Neon anyway. He'd just have to aim for the area of the driver's seat.
"He ignored all my orders to get out of the vehicle," Slider said. "And now, well, you look . . ."
Chief was out standing in the middle of the road on the driver side of Billy's car, gun in holster, talking to Billy.
"Lovely," I said.
to be continued . . .
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