I tripped on the last step out of the police station. Oh yes. The mighty Detective McBrennain had decided there was nothing to charge me with after all and released me. Bully, that’s what he was: accusing me of things I knew nothing of, twisting my words, and stealing my sleep. I felt like I’d lost half my weight and part of my mind in sweat and anxiety. And now, here I was, picking myself off the ground, wondering if anyone would see me on my middle of the night hike back home, and hoping my wild floral combination of red, orange, and spring green wasn’t sticking out from under my sweats. I was absolutely too tired to do anything about it.

“Miss?”

I looked up and a policeman motioned me to his car. I had the crazy urge to make a run for it, and I’d like to say common sense prevailed, but who are we kidding? It was fatigue.

“You look tired. Can I give you a ride home?”

Seriously? I began to regret ever going for a mani-pedi and Sunday School cursed everyone involved, including the lovely Lolita, my manicurist. Despite my newly-found mistrust of detectives in general, I got in his car.

“My name is Sergeant John Don. And you are . . .?”

I gave him my name and address, leaned my head back, and, I’m embarrassed to say, immediately fell asleep. I must’ve been roused by the engine turning off. And there in front of me was my boring apartment building. I’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Good grief. I was so very tired, but not so tired that I didn’t care if people saw me sitting in a police car at 3:00 in the morning. I invited him in.

I flipped the switch to heat the coffee I’d made for McBrennain. Sergeant Don would not get a fresh cup.

Two hours later, I’d not only made a fresh pot, but was more awake than I’d been since my mani-pedi. I’d shown the Sergeant the pictures from my phone, I’d told him everything I’d told McBrennain, and more. I’d even told him how glorious the stranger had been. John D. was a very attentive listener, and I couldn’t seem to stop talking. The coffee didn’t help.

And he had told me something that not only washed away the shame I’d felt as I was questioned by McBrennain, but gave me hope and energy. It turns out, my interview with McBrennain was the final nail in his coffin. Oh yes! Apparently, he’d been so cock-sure of my pitiful vulnerability, he’d revealed more than he realized. According to Sergeant John D., McBrennanin was a bad cop they had been investigating a long while on the suspicion he covered for the car trafficking ring, one of whom was Mr. Glorious. Huh. Well he certainly was in a good position to do so.

Voltaire said, “Fear follows crime and is its punishment”. I believe that it does, but not for everyone. As I warmed my hands on my third cup of coffee (don’t judge unless you’ve had a Why Wine incident of your own), I thought to myself that, as glorious as the stranger had seemed, he didn’t seem the kind who would ever know regret. Or maybe even fear. And McBrennanin? I couldn’t say. Some people love criminality, either outright or cloaked in authority.

I signed something that said I’d testify to everything I told Sergeant John Don, who by now was beginning to develop his own sort of gloriousness. I swallowed my thoughts, gave him a little smile, and closed the door behind him with my beautifully and dreadfully manicured hand.

I left our coffee on the table, grabbed a blanket to cover myself, and fell asleep on the couch. I’d need my beauty sleep if I was going to have another mani-pedi: and I mean the minute Salon de Beauté opened. Why Wine was my new least favorite color. Maybe I’d replace it with Siren Red.

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You know how when you know you should do something but don’t want to do it, you find other things to do? Within an hour, my kitchen was sparkling down to the chrome on the water faucet at the sink and refrigerator grate.

I scolded myself, and, sinking down into my most comfortable chair, called the police. Detective John McBrennain was in charge of car trafficking and, I was told, he would be given the message and would contact me.

The next evening a loud knock on my door startled me, and, although the moon hadn’t yet risen, I had my pajamas on – a wild floral combination of red, orange, and spring green. I flew into my bedroom, pulled sweatpants and a sweat shirt over my pjs and raced to open the door before I realized I should look through the peek hole first. My first hope was that it was the rough stranger with gray eyes even though he might be a car trafficker. How desperate was I? It wasn’t.

Detective McBrennain showed his badge and stepped across the threshold. I invited him to sit at the kitchen table, made coffee (my policy was no decaf, but he looked like someone who preferred the dark of night to the light of day anyway), and told him my story. I told him about the car, the man with glorious gray eyes, and seeing the same car on a Facebook post of a missing car. I told him the car must have been given a paint job, otherwise – and here I held up my beautifully manicured nails – it had been white. I told him I recognized the car by a triangle of tiny dings on the door handle.

Okay, I didn’t describe the trafficker’s eyes as glorious. I do have some sense. As I waited for John McBrennain to finish his furious scribbling in a little notebook, I looked down and noticed wild red, orange, and spring green sticking out from under my sweats. I tried pulling the bottom of my pant leg down with my foot, then gave up, reached down, and gave it a yank.

When I looked up, Detective McBrennain had placed a picture in front of me on the table. His eyes looked dead as he stared at me. “Are you playing games with me, Ma’am?”

“What? No!”

“We have been trying to track this guy down for years. And now I’m called to a house and given a story by someone who is next to him in a picture dropped at my office just one day ago. It certainly looks current.”

He gave me a perfunctory once over, clearly unimpressed.

“May I see your phone?”

I wondered if he could actually ask for it, but I couldn’t think of a reason to refuse. He gave it a couple of taps and frowned.

“You’ll need to come down to the station with me.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. “No! This . . . this . . . guy, the car owner or trafficker or whoever he is took the picture with my phone.”

John McBrennain raised his eyebrows and tilted his head.

“Look, I know how this sounds . . .”

“Do you know how it looks, too?”

I paused, my mind racing. Someone who looked that glorious wouldn’t be as awful as I was beginning to think he was.

My mouth was dry as I said, “He set me up, Detective.”

The Detective rose as if he hadn’t heard me, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and led me to his car.

to be continued . . .

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I bent at the waist, held my hand next to the rear passenger side of the car, and with my other hand held up my phone. As I was just ready to tap the little white thingy that takes a picture, I felt hot breath on my neck and a strong hand squeeze my wrist so hard I dropped my phone.

“Hey!” I spun around and looked straight into the most angry and glorious set of gray eyes I’ve ever seen.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” the glorious set of gray eyes said.

“I . . . I . . . I was admiring the color of this car – is it yours? And . . .”

My mouth was dry and my heart was beating much too loudly for me to think, so I held up my newly manicured hand, hoping he could figure out the rest of my sentence for me.

He pressed his lips together. I have to say here and now even that was beautiful. Stooping to pick up my phone, he turned, grabbed my shoulders, spun me around so that he and I were facing the car, hugged me close, and took a picture of the both of us. Then he punched in some numbers, tapped once or twice, and tapped again. Handing me my phone, he jumped into the car and started a purring engine. A perfect triangle of tiny dings on the passenger side door handle caught my eye as he pulled into the light afternoon traffic.

I shielded my eyes with my beautifully manicured hand and watched as he disappeared from sight while Tracy (my friend) made gurgling noises that ended in a gaffaw.

“No worries.” She held a small slip of paper in front of my face. “I got his license number.”

“Well that isn’t creepy at all.”

“What? It won’t hurt to see if you can at least find his name.”

Later that evening as I was munching on chips with a lovely little loaded cream cheese and salsa accompaniment, and staring at the picture of the two of us on my phone; he, with his chiseled good looks and me with a startled look on my face and no car in sight, I wondered what else he’d done besides take it. I mean he’d tapped a couple of times. Maybe he sent a copy to himself! Wouldn’t that be exciting! Why would he do that anyway, unless he thought I was just a little bit glorious, myself? The deafening silence of my little apartment holding no steamy or romantic memories asked me an awkward question: Who was I kidding? Still, I couldn’t think of what else he would’ve done.

I scrolled through my messages and contacts. A new number was nowhere to be seen. He’d either not sent the photo to himself or he must’ve deleted the number he sent it to.

I knew I shouldn’t, really I shouldn’t, but Tracy’s slip of paper was calling to me from my purse. I rummaged around, pulled it out, and sat down at my computer. A few taps would give me a name, right? Before I pulled up the DMV website, I checked Facebook to see what everyone had for dinner, their vacation pictures, and anything else that was better and more exciting than my little corner of the world.

As I sped past the political posts and inspirational memes, something caught my eye, so I backed up. It was a picture of someone’s baby. Not a real baby, mind you, but a car they had fixed, spit and polished ’til kingdom come. The post said it had been reported stolen, but to please repost and keep our collective Facebook eyes open for it. It had been a gift from his father, and, from the long post, the writer was heartbroken.

I squinted at the picture to convince myself it wasn’t the same car outside of Sissy’s Diner. After all, the posted car was white, not Why Wine. I know, I know. That’s not a real car color. They probably named it something like candy apple red, but, like most of the population, for now I’m sticking with what I know, even if I’m wrong.

But I wasn’t wrong. Not about the car. Because there, on the passenger side door handle was a perfect triangle of tiny dings.

to be continued . . .

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