Chapter 37: Bat Signal
Officer Poulsen drove up the long dirt road to my house, much more slowly this time, in his own car, and with no more lights than Chevrolet had put on it at the factory.
He got out, dressed in a business casual outfit. He was clearly here in peace. I relaxed a bit and waved him up and into the house.
“So, how are my favorite nudists?” opened Officer Poulsen after we’d gotten sat down, everyone having a suitable drink.
“Dressed at the moment. Isn’t it an odd sight?” I quipped. He laughed. “So how about it, will you join us in stripping off, then? As you can tell, I don’t have air conditioning, and the night is still warm…” I trailed off.
His amusement quickly settled, and he returned to his normal straitlaced demeanor. “Ah, no, thank you, Mr. Bhat. I think I’ll stay as I am. But you two are welcome to…well, to dress however you like. Your house, your rules.”
“So we could demand that you strip off with us, then?” Kaitlyn teased.
“Well, I suppose if you put it that way, as a guest in your home, I would have to go along…?” He moved his hands down to his belt buckle uneasily.
I smiled and Kaitlyn laughed, she saying, “Relax, I’m just teasing. But when your answer is ‘yes,’ so is ours.”
“Um, yes, most accommodating of you,” he returned, clearly communicating with his tone that he had no intention of ever in a million years participating with us in social nudity. That’s fine; that’s proper liberty: both freedom-to and freedom-from.
“So, you called this meeting, Officer Poulsen,” I said. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Bat signals and bicycles. My lieutenant is getting rather cross with me about these bike thefts. Did Mr. Bhat tell you about them, Ms. Gutierrez?” She nodded. “Good. Well, something has to be done, and as the point man on night shift, the time these thefts always go down, the pressure’s coming down on me most of all. I’m worried that my lieutenant will do something rash soon like put officers on overtime, which will make him even more touchy, which will make me unhappy in turn. I’m asking you two, please, to see if you can put some kind of crack into this case. I’d consider it more than sufficient payment for my personal help in your recent troubles.”
“We didn’t really have plans yet this weekend, did we Kaitlyn?” I asked her. She shook her head. We looked back at him, and I said, “We’re on it.” Kaitlyn nodded sharply, a stern expression on her face.
“I’m most glad to hear it. But remember: no vigilante stuff. Find me some answers, but call me in when it’s time for the action to start,” he cautioned.
“Of course, officer,” I agreed. Kaitlyn nodded.
The officer then briefed us on what he knew: the thefts always happened at night, always in a tourist-oriented hotel, and always in a section of the parking lot uncovered by security cameras. “Other than that, we’ve got nothing. Jack squat.”
“Is there a pattern to the hotels they’ve hit?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Yeah, they tend to stick to the big new chain hotels up at the north end of town,” Poulsen added.
“Nothing down in the center of town, the old original hotels?” Kaitlyn pressed.
“Only twice,” the officer answered. “And now that I think about it, both times they were one of those that converted from some old local hotel to become part of one of the big chains!”
“That sounds important,” I put in.
“Yeah,” Kaitlyn agreed. “Why would a crew of parking lot thieves select targets based on the size of the business’ parent company? It’s the bikes they’re after, not the office safes. They aren’t targeting the hotels themselves… Weird.”
“Well, that’s something, anyway,” I said. “We’ll do what we can, officer.”
As we were walking Officer Poulsen back to his car, I asked, a bit nervous, “Do you think Ranger Ed has a case?”
“Oh, no, not a chance. He’ll be lucky to get off with only trespassing charges and not misdemeanor voyeurism on top of it,” Poulsen answered.
“I’m glad to hear it. It’s good to have someone we can call on to take care of such things,” I responded.
“Well, it’s very much my job. And I’m not even very annoyed that you called me directly, rather than through 911,” he said a bit critically to Kaitlyn.
“Sorry, officer. I just wanted someone I could trust to deal with this, the circumstances being what they were,” Kaitlyn said.
“Well, it’s okay.” He sighed, then said, “Good night, my batmen.”
“Hey, one more thing,” Kaitlyn broke in. He turned back. “Could I get you to pop into the BLM office and talk to my boss about this incident? Sherry Richardson? The Goat…um… Mr. Goetz is her employee, too, and I think you can see that this is an ongoing problem. I’d prefer she heard the skinny on this story from you rather than another way.”
“Yeah, all right, I can do that,” the officer agreed. “She’ll be in the office on Monday? Good. I can probably get in there by noon, when my day begins.”
“That’ll be fine. Ed works late, so he probably won’t get to her before you do,” Kaitlyn said, satisfied. “And thank you!” Kaitlyn added.
“Good night, officer,” we chorused.
He started rolling back into town as we started rolling back to my front door, intent on getting to bed. Just bed. We wanted comfort now, nothing more.