I figured that night wasn't going to be much different from any of my other six hundred plus nights since graduating from the academy. At the briefing that Saturday night, Sergeant Marshall handed out the current list of stolen vehicles and another page of pictures of suspects we were looking for, and then reminded us to keep on the lookout for drivers who were in no shape to drive home. He then gave us his standard, "Be proud and be safe", and dismissed us. By eleven-thirty PM I was in my squad car and starting my regular route.
My route encompassed a small business district and some residential areas in what was once just a small town close to Nashville. As the city grew, it gobbled these little burgs into the city limits to increase the tax base. Along with the taxes that added to the city coffers came the responsibilities of police and fire protection, and hence, my job.
It was a great place to patrol. Unlike some areas of the city, there wasn't much crime to speak of. The area still had that small town flavor with some mom and pop shops in the business district and mostly well manicured houses in the residential area. In two years, I'd been called out to only one murder and maybe half a dozen domestic disputes. Most of my job was checking the alleys in the business district to make sure no doors were open and making people feel safer because I was driving around. While I didn't know it when I slid into the seat of the patrol car that night, that was about to change.
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It was almost four in the morning when I turned off a side street onto Main and behind a little white Honda. The driver was speeding, not quite five over, and I wouldn't have bothered to stop the vehicle if the driver hadn't quickly braked as soon as they saw me behind them. Even then I probably would have just followed them for a while. A lot of drivers get nervous when they see a patrol car behind them and slow down, so that wasn't unusual.
This one I decided to pull over because once the car was under the limit, the driver was doing some weird stuff. A lot of drivers wander on the road a little, but they usually don't leave their lane. This car was. The driver would drift across the centerline and then quickly pull back only to drift into the parking spaces on the right before getting the vehicle back between the lines again. That's one of the classic signs of a driver impaired by alcohol or drugs, or of a driver who's texting while driving. Either way, I couldn't let them keep doing that. There wasn't much traffic at that time of night, but one car driving erratically was a recipe for an accident even if it was just that one car.
At the next stoplight, I used the computer on my center console to run a check on the vehicle license number. The vehicle came back as belonging to a Holly Hastings of 2156 North Elm. Holly was twenty-four and had never had even a parking ticket. I followed the car for another block to confirm the erratic driving wasn't just a one-time thing. By the end of that block, it was obvious the driver was having problems controlling the vehicle, so I thumbed the switch on my light bar control to turn on the flashing red and blue lights.
The driver did what I'd hoped and drove half a block to the gas station on the corner, turned into the lot and stopped. I saw the backup lights flash as the driver put the vehicle in park. I figured this was going to be a routine stop, but you'd think by then I'd have realized there really isn't such a thing as a routine traffic stop. Every one is different. This one was more different than most.
I called dispatch and told them I was stopping a suspected DUI and my location, then got out to talk to the driver. The driver already had the window rolled down when I walked up to the vehicle and flashed my light through the rear window. I saw a passenger turned around and watching me, but I couldn't see the driver.
The passenger didn't concern me too much. Not being able to see the driver did. For all I knew, the driver could have a gun waiting for me when I walked up beside the window. It had happened before, not in my precinct, but it had happened. I'd stood at attention at Tim's funeral while the honor guard fired the salute, and after giving my condolences to his wife, was glad I wasn't married too.
I pointed my flashlight beam at the driver's side mirror to try to see what the driver was doing. The face in the mirror was female and it looked like she was just really small. She had both hands on the steering wheel. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked up to the driver's side door.
It still wasn't clear what was causing the erratic driving. I didn't see a cell phone and while she wasn't smiling, she didn't look like she's had too much to drink. After stopping a few drunks, any officer can tell if that's the case just by how the person sits in the seat and by their eyes, and usually by the smell of alcohol on their breath. Drugs, except for marijuana, don't have a smell, but the other signs are about the same.
This woman looked a little tired, but other than the tight, low-cut top that was showing me a lot of really nice cleavage, she didn't look much different than any other woman. I kept my flashlight on her as I bent down and asked her how she was doing.
"Hi there, Ma'am. How you doin' tonight?"
Her eyes looked scared, and her voice sounded the same.
"I'm fine."
"Well, you seem to be having some trouble staying between the lines. That's why I stopped you. You feeling OK?"
"Yes."
"Any reason you were driving all over the road?"
The passenger, a man, answered for her.
"She's just tired. We're going home to go to bed."
After a cop's been patrolling for a year or so, he learns to watch and listen to things people do that might turn a traffic stop into something worse. The guy's voice had a threatening tone to it, and that set off a warning bell in my head. I also didn't like it that he answered for the woman. I was talking to her, not him, to make sure she was indeed OK to drive, and his interruption led me to believe she probably wasn't. I pointed my flashlight in his face and started to tell him he should keep his mouth shut.
I hadn't really looked at him before except to make sure I could see his hands. Now, with him squinting against the bright beam of the light, I could see he didn't match the driver at all. That put me even more on the alert.
Like I said, the woman looked a little tired, but her blonde hair had that shiny look that said she'd washed it that day and she was wearing makeup. Her clothes, the top and what looked like jeans with a few holes, looked clean too.
He looked like he hadn't had a bath in a couple of weeks, or at least his long, brown hair looked that way. The fact his clothes looked like he'd slept in them for at least a few nights only confirmed that.
He also hadn't shaved in at least that long. He didn't really have a beard and he wasn't sporting that two-day growth that seems to be popular these days. I couldn't figure out how in hell a woman like this one could get hooked up with a jerk like him, but you see funny things these days, so I don't rush to judge anyone. The difference in their appearances just made me decide to keep him in sight. I couldn't let him keep talking for her though.
"Sir, I'm talking to the lady and I expect her, not you, to answer me. Please just stay quiet and we'll get this over a lot quicker. Now, Ma'am, why were you having trouble?"
"I don't know. I guess I am tired like he said."
"OK. Is he your husband?"
"No. He's my...he's my boyfriend."
"Oh? How long has he been your boyfriend?"
"Uh...I...I just met him tonight."
Another bell went off in my head. Most women wouldn't say a guy was their boyfriend if they just met. They'd say he was a friend, or a date, or they were just giving him a ride, but they wouldn't say he was their boyfriend.
I was starting to think maybe he was a john. I didn't know of any girls working that part of town and it's usually the other way around -- the john picks up the hooker in his car and drives them to some out of the way place for the fun and games, but maybe this hooker was different.
"I see. What's your boyfriend's name?"
Again the guy answered.
