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December 2008 Busted
This broad looked like all the rest. Embarrassed. Bleary-eyed. Defiant. “You’ve got the wrong house.” “Listen, lady,” Murphy barked. “Just sit there and don’t speak.” She’d been giving him lip since they got here, and he’d about had it. One tiny screw-up on their last call, and he was stuck with perp-sitting duty. He watched her clamp chapped lips together and narrow bloodshot eyes at the sound of glass breaking in the rear of the house. “Does this look like a crack den?” Her voice was hoarse. He raked his gaze across the matted shag carpeting and the stained living room walls, which were covered with fingerprints and various splotches of foodstuff, before letting it rest on the cracked and peeling kitchen linoleum. “I’m the one who called in the complaint. About the neighbors,” she tried again, lifting a threadbare curtain and pointing to the house across the street with the boarded-up windows and the pit bull chained to the sagging front porch. She dropped the curtain, tightened the belt on her bathrobe, and mopped her runny nose with a wilted looking tissue. "Sinus problems?” he asked, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I have a cold,” she snapped, waving her snot rag in his face. When he didn’t respond, she pressed on. “Check the report I filed. There’s cars coming and going at all hours of the night, and most of their visitors only stay a few minutes. I’m trying to raise kids in this neighborhood.” He kept his face expressionless and did his best to ignore her. People would say anything to keep themselves out of prison. It was better not to listen to the lies, no matter how plausible they might sound. “Is it the bullet-proof vest that makes it hard to process information? Or are all those bulging muscles interfering with your hearing?” “That’s it! Turn around,” he snarled, whipping out his handcuffs, grateful she’d given him the chance to use them. “We’ve got something!” The triumphant shout came from the bathroom at the same time that the front door banged open. “Hey, Ma. What’s with all the cop cars? Are you being arrested?” The small boy’s eyes shone with either fear or excitement at the prospect of his mom going to prison. Maybe both. Murphy grabbed her arm and stepped between them as she moved to hug the kid. “Step back, son.” “It’s just a misunderstanding, Richie.” Detective Scott emerged from the bathroom, holding a dripping, plastic-clad package. “Found it in the toilet,” he announced his voice smug. The woman and her son froze as the other drug-enforcement officers trailed into the room to glare at her with open disgust. Murphy didn’t have to be a mind reader to know they were thinking the same thing he was. It was worse when they were parents. The kids were always the ones who suffered. She bit her lip. “Please. This isn’t what you think.” “That’s what they all say. Murphy, do the honors.” Scott tossed him a pair of handcuffs, which he watched tumble to the floor at his feet before continuing to fasten his own around her wrists. He could feel Scott’s self-important glare burning through his Kevlar vest, but he ignored it by pretending to care about the perp’s whiney request. “Wait,” she begged. “Don’t open that in front of him. Richie, go to your room.” “Mom?” It was both a question and a plea, and it would have broken Murphy’s heart if he hadn’t heard it dozens of times before from dozens of other children. “Now you want to protect him? I think it’s a little late for that, lady.” With that, Scott ripped the plastic covering off the box. His triumphant grin faded to a look of sick disbelief as they stared down at the electronic item on the table. “No, you idiot,” she snapped, struggling in Murphy’s arms. “I don’t want him to know about the MP3 player I bought him for Christmas. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hide a present from a twelve-year-old?” No one answered. “Now get these cuffs off me so I can call my lawyer.” Murphy unlocked the cuffs and bit back a smile as Scott found his voice and tried to stammer his way through an apology. He had a feeling he knew who would draw perp-sitting duty when they raided the house across the street, and it wouldn’t be him. THE END Shannon Schuren lives in Sheboygan Falls , Wisconsin with her husband and three children. She works at a child care center and finds writing in her spare time both emotionally rewarding and a great way to avoid cleaning her house. Her short stories have appeared in WRITERS’ Journal, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, Writer’s Weekly, The Chick Lit Review, and The Storyteller. Her first novel, How to Host a Ghost, is available through major online bookstores and through her website, http://shannon.schuren.org |