“Okay, lady. Come on. We’ve warned your kind about snooping around down here,” the cop grabbing my left arm says.
Another cop grabs my right arm. “I can smell the alcohol on her. How much you had to drink tonight? You high?” He shines a light in my eyes.
“Do you know this lady, Ma’am?”
I blink past the spots in my vision and look at the woman in the doorway. She must be the new bitch. Emily was right. She’s not ugly at all. She’s actually really pretty. All sweet and rich looking in her satin robe with her perky nips trying to bust through the fabric.
“No. I’ve never seen her before. I don’t think my fiancé knows her either.” Fiance? “I’ll ask him, but I’m pretty sure she’s just another bum.”
“May we speak to him, ma’am?”
“He’s…indisposed at the moment.” Somewhere in the house, I hear Luke retching and can’t help but hide my smile. She narrows her eyes at me. Damn. She has some really great lashes.
I drop my head. If she’s done as much research on Emily as Emily has on her, she might recognize me from Emily’s Facebook pictures. As much as I want to take credit for pulling off the oldest prank in the book and for Luke to know it was me who caused his great freak out, I’m smart enough to know that everyone assuming I’m just some drunk bum is probably for the best. Besides, he’ll know it was me when I upload the video.
“We’ve been seeing this a lot in the neighborhood. The cold weather always brings the stragglers out of hiding. So we were patrolling the area when we saw the fire. Glad it wasn’t any worse.”
“Yeah, me too,” the fiancé says, stretching her neck like a damn giraffe to try and get a better look at me. Leaning heavily against the cop on my right, I dip my head even lower.
“We’ll take her downtown and let her sober up. If you want to press charges, you need to do it before nine tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”
I should be thankful, but I’m kind of pissed at her indignant tone—like I’m not worth her time. Fuck her. I’m good enough to press charges against…
“Have a good day, Ma’am.” I catch the officer ogling her tits and roll my eyes. He stares longer than any gentlemen would then leads me down the steps. I glance back at the pile of ash and unburned dog turds and feel a strange sadness.
We’d bonded...me and that bag of shit. I’d miss it.
I’m forced to look away when the officer places handcuffs on my wrists. Then, with his hand on my head, lowers me into the back of the car.
As the adrenaline wears off and the numbness fades, I realize how damn cold I actually am. I shiver and shake. My teeth chatter and my head twitches. This only adds to my alcoholic bum façade and even earns me a sympathetic look from the officers who talk as if I’m not in the car.
“Was that dog shit or human shit?”
“Never can tell with these people.”
“Did you see how that Duchanan prick freaked out? Funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.”
“Who the hell falls for that, anyway? It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“Hey sweetheart…” I don’t acknowledge the cop. “I’ll buy you a week’s worth of liquor if you can pull off your little stunt at 2189 West Beutreau Street. Hell it’d be worth two weeks’ worth of liquor to see my ex-wife stomp out a flaming bag of shit.”
They laugh, but they don’t know how hard dog shit is to come by around these parts.
Just as I start to get warm, they drag me back out into the cold and inside the police station. I’ve been to jail a couple of times. Nothing serious, but I’ve spent a few nights in county for some unpaid tickets. Been arrested once or twice for disorderly conduct. So I’m surprised when they don’t take any of my personals. Or take my picture. Or my name.
They simply lead me to a big cell that faces the front offices. Bunk beds line the wall, but only one is occupied. I’m given a pillow, sheet and blanket, gently pushed inside and then the door slams shut behind me—waking the only other person in the cell.
She’s as big as a damn house. Looks as mean as a rattle snake. When I try to take the bunk across from her—so I can keep one eye on her at all times—she shakes her head. I move to the next bunk. She shakes her head again. It continues like this—me stopping at a bunk, looking to her for permission, her shaking her head, me moving along to keep from having my face bashed in.
At the last bed in the back of the room, she lets out a grunt and rolls over. I make the top bunk the best I can and climb in fully dressed. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why she forced me to sleep back here. It’s colder than a damn witch’s tit.