'You're pretty smart,' Lula said. 'You're always thinking. You know all about manipulative female shit.'
Lauralene looked right and left, and Lula and I froze. We were just a couple houses down. Easily in sight. Fortunately, we weren't under a streetlight, and Lauralene didn't appear to have picked us out. She was wearing the same pink sweat suit. She wasn't carrying a purse. She set off down the street, walking away from us.
'She's going to meet him,' Lula said. 'And she don't want her mama to know.'
Lauralene turned the corner, and I started the car engine. I left my headlights off, and I carefully followed after Lauralene. She walked two blocks and got into the back seat of a parked car. The car was in shadow, hard to tell the make, impossible to see the occupants at this distance. It looked to be a compact, possibly dark green.
I stopped several houses back and idled at the curb. There were no cars parked between Lauralene and me.
'We're sort of exposed, sitting here like this,' Lula said. 'She could turn around and see us.'
I agreed, but I didn't want to drive past Lauralene and risk having her recognize me. Better to take our chances being parked in the dark.
After a short time, the car in front of us started to rock.
'Look at this,' Lula said. 'She's seven months pregnant, and they're doing the nasty in the back seat of a friggin' compact. They didn't even bother to go out of the neighborhood.'
They must have been in a hurry,' I said.
'Well, excuse me, but I think that's tacky. He could at least of had the courtesy to steal something with a bigger back seat. This here's a pregnant woman he's slippin' it to. I mean how much effort does it take to find a Cadillac? All those old people over in Hamilton
Township got Caddies. Those cars are just sitting around waiting to get stolen.'
'He's doing more than slippin',' I said. 'I've never seen a car rock like that.'
'He's gonna ruin the shocks if he keeps this up.'
Some loud groaning sounds carried back to us, and Lula and I rolled our windows down so we could hear better.
'Either he's real good or else she's going into labor,' Lula said.
She leaned forward and squinted. 'Am I looking at a moon? What the hell is he doing? How'd he get his ass plastered against the rear window like that?'
The sight was both horrifying and mesmerizing.
'Maybe we should go get him before he finishes up,' Lula said.
'It'll be easier to get the cuffs on him when he's got a boner and can't move real fast.'
Lula was probably right, but I couldn't see myself slapping cuffs on Anton Ward while his flag was flying. Last month Morelli and I rented a porno flick, and there was some boinking in it. And okay, so it was fun in a car-crash kind of way. But that was film, and this is Anton Ward in the flesh, rocking the car with pregnant
Lauralene Taylor. Yikes. I was as close as I wanted to get.
'Uh oh,' Lula said. The car's stopped rocking.'
We stuck our heads out and listened. Quiet.
'He don't impress me as being the type to stick around,' Lula said.
We jumped out of the Lincoln and scurried up to Ward's car. I had cuffs shoved into the waistband of my jeans, and I was holding
Ranger's Maglite in one hand and pepper spray in the other. Lula was fumbling in her purse, looking for her gun as she ran.
I took a deep breath, prayed to God that Anton and Lauralene had their clothes on, and flashed the Maglite into the car interior.
'What the fuck?' Anton Ward said, bare ass gleaming under the
Maglite.