I like a good story

I like short, and very sincere or emotional tales.  The kind that can talk a policeman out of giving you a speeding ticket.  I also like long, convoluted explanations that raise questions, where you must peel away some layers to get at the truth of the matter. Sometimes you never do get the whole story.

I just bought a yellow Coupe de Ville with black leather upholstery. I then experienced a delightful evening with a girl at the drive-in movies. Then I did a 70 mph power run up the half mile long High Bridge over the Mississippi in St. Paul.  When I slowed down at the top a St. Paul officer hit his lights and pulled me over. I had my license ready when he came up to the window. I spoke first, respectfully, “Hey, I’m sorry, I just got this thing and I guess I got carried away.” He answered with a smile, “I’m just going to check you for warrants.” A perceptive man. You can’t fake sincerity, it shows. 

I was a cop in a coal mining town in western Colorado.  Some people there liked to fight cops. One afternoon I was perched on the main drag with the radar gun. A pickup truck I recognized as being from town, but I didn’t know the driver, came blasting down the street at a clocked 50. I hit the lights and he pulled over right away. We both got out of our vehicles and he, about my age with six inches and 40 pounds on me, came stomping toward me all wild-eyed. I was getting ready to go to fist city when he stopped in front of me and started bawling with tears a flying. “My mother-in-law just died, and I have to go home and tell my wife and…”  “Go, just go, but slow it down,” I told him. I believed him. If it was an act, it was an Academy Award performance.

I was a detective taking a complaint from a guy whose pickup had a tire slashed and was heavily vandalized the night before where he usually parked it. I had asked him who might be mad enough at him to destroy his truck. He said he had no idea. 

 An off-duty patrolman that night before had happened on the crime and gave a foot chase to the subject but had lost him in a dark field. An alert patrol car team detained someone who fit the description of the subject later that night and retrieved a Swiss Army knife from him. He was ordered in for questioning the next day. The first patrolman could not make a positive identification.

I had asked the subject if he knew the victim, and if he had done the vandalism. He said no to both questions. I later asked the victim if he knew the subject. He said no. I submitted the knife and the cut section of the slashed tire to the crime lab. The lab later confirmed the subject’s knife had cut that specific tire.

“Ah, ha, gotcha!” I told the subject. When I asked him for the details as to why, he said, “If I tell you about that I’ll have to tell you about something else, so I’m just going to shut up.”  When I spoke to the victim again, he maintained that he did not know the subject.

So, the end of that story was a truck got vandalized and the slasher got caught. I could only guess what double-cross may have precipitated the hard feelings.