Police Officer Kerrie McCord reported for roll call at 1:45 that Sunday afternoon. Lieutenant Bensinger, shift commander for North Division, briefed the fourteen officers and two sergeants on administrative items for the most part, including a reminder that anyone who had yet to qualify with his or her Glock handgun this quarter had to report to the range by Wednesday. He mentioned in passing a reported double homicide in Dalton County seventy miles to the south, adding he expected an update from the state police no later than five. The lieutenant ended roll call with his customary benediction to “stay alert and watch out for each other.” Kerrie and her brothers and sisters in blue collected their gear bags, checked their patrol rifles out of the station armory, and filed out the rear door to the parking lot.
Stepping into the brightness of mid-afternoon, Kerrie recalled leaving her Oakley sunglasses in her private car. By the time she located them in the center console, her brothers and sisters in blue had claimed the newer marked SUVs on the ready line. Kerrie had to settle for Car 531, a venerable Ford Crown Victoria with frayed seat covers, creased door panels and rust around the wheel wells. As she settled in behind the wheel, she noted at once the dash cam was missing. She waved over Sergeant Phil Garza.
“There a problem, Kerrie?” he inquired genially.
“Sarge, what happened to my in-car video?” she demanded.
He frowned at the empty bracket on the dash. “Oh, that’s right. You had Friday off. Fleet Services was here to pull the camera and hard drive so they can install them in one of the new SUVs they just took delivery on. They plan to retire this shit box by the end of the month, so they figured why wait?”
“That leaves me with no video camera for the next ten hours. What am I supposed to do if I make an arrest?”
“With luck you won’t have to,” Garza said lamely. “Lieutenant Keefe from day watch says it’s been quiet, even for a Sunday.”
“You and I both know that’s no guarantee it’ll stay that way.”
“Tell you what, you make a traffic stop or take someone to jail, make sure you have second unit with a working camera to back you up. Best I can do, Kerrie.”
“Copy that,” she said resignedly. Once her gear was stowed Kerrie checked on with Dispatch and drove toward her assigned sector. She spent the first thirty minutes of her tour showing the flag by cruising residential streets lined with pricey homes she could never afford on a cop’s salary. A decade ago this area had been farmland, small family-owned operations with their backs against the wall in an era of corporate agriculture. They sold out to real estate developers who wasted no time building subdivisions with names like Sylvan Meadows and Foxwood Pointe.
Kerrie had skipped lunch and began to feel hunger pangs around five o’clock. She pulled into the 7-11 on Remington Road to nuke a Hot Pocket in their microwave. The cashier was a high school kid whose fumbling attempts to engage her in small talk both flattered and amused her. Never one for false modesty, she knew that she looked damn good in her crisp midnight blue uniform, even better in the tank tops and running shorts she wore off duty. At 26 Kerrie Lynne McCord was a willowy, chestnut haired beauty with arresting (no pun intended) hazel eyes. She favored the cashier with a smile while he counted out her change, causing him to flush and stammer as he wished her a nice day.
Returning to her squad car with a bottle of grape Propel, Kerrie heard the dispatcher call her unit number. She keyed the shoulder mic of her portable radio. “173 Charlie, did you have traffic for me?”
“Affirm,” said Claudia in Dispatch. “Citizen report of a disabled vehicle on Ridgeline Drive, one-halfmile south of the Route 112 interchange. Reporting party advises it’s a gray van partly blocking the northbound lane.”
“Show me enroute,” Kerrie acknowledged. The outlying parts of Gage County had formerly been the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s office. Since then voters had approved a referendum merging the sheriff into Ravenspoint Police, creating Ravenspoint Gage Metro. As a result, Kerrie’s patrol sector extended nearly three miles beyond city limits. She drove east on Remington, crossing the Midland Pacific main line and continuing through a semi-rural landscape of rolling blue stem prairies with the occasional vacant farmhouse visible in the distance. Kerrie turned north onto Ridgeline, an asphalt two-lane wending its way along a densely wooded hogback. Rounding a tight curve, she spotted the hazard lights of a gray GMC utility van angled across the gravel shoulder. Two men knelt on the driver side of the van wrestling with a flat tire. She pulled in behind them and flipped on her blue roof lights.
“173 Charlie on scene,” she advised Dispatch. “Copy a plate number, Three-one-seven-Victor-Alpha-Tango.” She heard nothing but dead air. Kerrie belatedly recalled she was in the middle of a notorious “dead zone.” The hogback to her right was a natural barrier to radio signals. There were plans to place a repeater atop the ridge, which at the moment was no help whatsoever to Officer Kerrie McCord. She was entirely on her own.
The younger of the two men stood and sauntered her way. He was of medium stature and rangy build with crookedly handsome features and tousled brown hair, clad in a waist length denim jacket and boot cut jeans. “Hey there, Officer,” he greeted with a faint but discernible Southern drawl. “Some good Samaritan must have called in on us.”
“That’s right,” Kerrie said, typing the plate number into her mobile computer. She tapped ENTER and waited in vain for a response. The hogback evidently interfered with data as well as radio transmissions. “Have you been out here long?”
“A good twenty minutes. We had one hell of a time with that last lug nut.”
“I’ll be happy to stand by ‘til you’re on your way.”
“Thank you, Officer…” He squinted at the nameplate pinned over her right breast pocket. “McCord. Any relation to Kent McCord the actor? I’m dating myself here, but he played—”
“Jim Reed on Adam 12, with Martin Milner as Pete Malloy. Kent McCord’s still with us but Marty Milner died a few years ago. He was buried with full LAPD honors.” Kerrie laughed self-consciously.“I know, too much information.”
“On the contrary, I’m impressed with the depth of your knowledge about old television shows.”
“You should see me on Tuesday Trivia Night at Madigan’s Pub.”
“I’d like to,” purred Stud Puppy. “See you, that is.” It was Kerrie’s turn to flush. Was he hitting on her? She waited for him to ask whether she was free for dinner some night. No reason not to say yes. He was good-looking in an off-center way and besides, she’d always had a weakness for Southern accents.
“Hey, you gonna give me a hand with this fuckin’ tire?” roared Stud Puppy’s burly, black-bearded companion. He reminded Kerry of Bluto in an old Popeye cartoon.
Stud Puppy winced. “Ma’am, I apologize for my friend’s language.”
“I’m a cop, nothing I haven’t heard before. Go help your buddy.”
Watching him return to the van Kerrie was captivated by the lazy sway of his hips. She suddenly felt all warm and melty inside, wondering idly what he was like between the sheets. Her erotic reverie was interrupted by an alert tone from her radio. Kerrie boosted the volume, relieved that even if she couldn’t transmit at least she could still receive.
“RGMP units, prepare to copy a BOLO on two homicide suspects,” began Claudette the dispatcher. “State BCI has just issued a regional alert for Grady Lee Stack and Wayne Earl Jessup, wanted in con-nection with a double homicide believed to have occurred 0540 hours this date. Suspect Stack is five- eleven and one-eighty, clean shaven, brown over blue, DOB 5-14-85. Suspect Jessup is six-two and two-thirty, heavy build, black hair and full beard, DOB 9-30-81. Stack and Jessup last seen operating a gray GMC utility van, 2013 model, bearing plates One-three-nine-Golf-Sierra-Bravo. Both subjects are considered armed and dangerous. Do not approach without backup.”
Kerrie’s heart clenched. “Oh, fuck,” she whispered. Different plate number, but the van directly before her was indisputably a gray GMC and the suspect descriptions were a perfect match for Stud Puppy and Bluto. Before she could put the cruiser in reverse and back off to a safe distance, Stud Puppy reappeared at her window with a SIG Sauer semi-auto pistol. He pressed the muzzle to her left temple.
“Both hands on the wheel and keep ‘em there,” he commanded. The steely undertone in his voice belied the folksy drawl. “You’re more valuable to us as a hostage than a corpse.” Kerrie obeyed in numb silence, acutely aware of the depth of the shit she was in. “Good girl,” Stack said. “That police scanner app on my cellphone was money well spent. Wayne, why don’t you reach inside and relieve Officer McCord of her duty weapon?”
“Pleasure,” rumbled Jessup. Shouldering his way through the passenger side door her wrested Kerrie’s sidearm from her Level III retention holster, which told her he’d rehearsed disarmed cops in prison. Jessup admired the Model 23 Glock before stuffing it in his waistband. “Always wanted me one of these.”
“You shitheads had better think this through,” Kerrie said, grimly determined not to betray any sign of fear or weakness. “You’re already guilty of reckless use and disarming a law enforcement officer. Take this any further and I promise you’ll spend the rest of your lives in prison.”
Jessup reacted with guttural laughter. “Stupid cunt. We blew away two meth dealers who didn’t want to part with their Mason jars full of cash plus some pig farmer outside Dillon Corners who didn’t want to part with his license tags. What’s a couple more chickenshit felonies?”
Stack opened the driver side door. “Exit the vehicle, Officer McCord. Lace your fingers together behind your head, you know the drill.” Kerrie uncoiled herself from the seat, standing motionless as Stack snaked her handcuffs from the pouch on her duty belt. She tried not to flinch at the sensation of case-hardened steel snugging tight around her right wrist. Moments later both wrists were locked together behind her back; she was now at the non-existent mercy of two cunning felons with nothing to lose. Kerrie made a hasty visual sweep of her surroundings: no houses nearby, no car approaching from either direction. Barring some unforeseen stroke of luck she was totally fucked—and judging by the lascivious look Jessup was giving her that was no mere figure of speech.
Taking the handcuff key from her belt Stack double-locked the cuffs. “Officer McCord, I’d prefer we were on a first name basis. You already figured out my first name’s Grady, even if it wasn’t in time to do you any good. What’s your first name?”
No point in antagonizing him. “Kerrie,” she said sullenly.
“How come you don’t have a dash cam in your squad car, Officer Kerrie?”
“They removed it Friday. The car’s about to be retired.”
“Lucky for us, not so lucky for you. Wayne, you’re from around these parts. Where’s a good place to lose a cop car?”
“There’s a marsh half a mile up the road that’s deeper than it looks. Three feet of muddy ooze on the bottom. They’ll never find it there no matter hard they look, that I guaran-fucking-tee.”
“Shit!” hissed Stack. “Car coming from the north!” Kerrie lowered her head and lunged for the road—or tried to. Alert to such a desperation move on her part, Stack casually hooked his left ankle inside hers. Unable to break her fall with hands cuffed behind her, Kerrie hit the pavement in a graceless sprawl, shoulder and hip absorbing most of the bruising impact. Stack and Jessup hauled her roughly to her feet, marching her to the passenger side of the van.
“That was a stupid,” sneered Jessup. “You don’t value your own life think about the people in that car. You do anything to attract their attention Grady and I will kill every last one of ‘em. Man, woman, kid, don’t matter.”
“You assholes,” sobbed Kerrie, her cool demeanor fraying badly at the edges. “I hope you burn in fucking Hell for this!”
“Shut up, bitch.” Jessup snagged a blue bandanna from his back pocket. Folding it in thirds length- wise he swiftly knotted it between Kerrie’s teeth before tying it off at the nape of her neck. Hearing the car approach, she whimpered through her gag. A red Subaru Outback sped by in the southbound lane. Kerrie glimpsed a child’s face pressed to the window, obviously intrigued by the throbbing lights of her squad car. She watched in despair as the car disappeared around the bend.
“That was too close,” Jessup said. “We need to haul ass, and soon. If that dispatcher’s any good at her job, and this one sounds like she is, she’s gonna start wondering why Officer Kerrie here isn’t answering her radio.”
“How far to the farmhouse?” asked Stack.
“Two hours if we keep to the trunk roads.”
“Two hours with a kidnapped lady cop in the back is a long fuckin’ time, partner.”
“They’ll be watching the main roads for a gray van.”
“Not with these plates,” Stack pointed out.
“That buys us time, not much. Once they find that dead farmer in a burned-out pickup with no plates they’ll put two and two together in a hurry.”
“Wish we’d had time to bury the motherfucker.”
“What’s done is done. My point is, before long even the back roads won’t be safe for us. Sooner we find alternate transportation the better. Now let’s load this brainless cunt in the van before somebody else happens by.”
“Once we’re on the road we’ll have a chance to get better acquainted with her.” Stack dangled a coil of braided hemp rope before Kerrie’s dismayed eyes. “After we get her stripped down and tied up, that is.”
“Can’t wait to see what she looks like out of uniform,” Jessup agreed. He seized a fistful of Kerrie’s chestnut mane. “You any good at giving blowjobs, Officer Kerrie? You’ll be able to suck the chrome off a trailer hitch before I’m done with you.”
Officer Kerrie McCord’s distraught cry was reduced to a mrrrrmph! by the cleave gag. Overwhelmed by the crushing hopelessness of her plight, she offered no more than token resistance as Stack and Jessup bundled her inside the van’s cargo bay and slammed the door shut.
to be continued...