BUCKET O' EXCUSES
"In the case of the City of Bakersville versus its Irregulars, the Jury finds the defendants…" the Judge took a breath. Laser beams shot from his pupils, burning neat lines across the defendant's table.
"I find the defendants…" He skipped over the words, unable to belch a verdict from the bowels of his being.
In a blink it turned to a cloudless, bitter morning. Alex stood atop the Police Station steps, framed by neo-classical columns, her arms spread wide.
"Good citizens of Bakersville," She smiled. Flashing cameras washed out the crowd. "Too long our city has been a boy's club, deals made in smoky back rooms. Today marks a new start in Bakersville history…"
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Alex opened her eyes. The elk, the sassy one nearest the door, looked askance from its oak mount.
"Like you've never napped at work."
Loose-leaf and photocopies cluttered Alex’s desk. Papers and folders pushed Alex's laptop to the far corner. The computer tottered over the desk's edge.
When Alex closed her eyes, she saw the case as vibrating, neon strings. Each played a different note. "Harris' shoelaces," "planted fingerprints," "Irregulars' stories," "Barbara Ann Leslie." Alex plucked them one after another, desperate to find the chord to tie them into a single, pleasing song.
When no amount of noodling could produce Alex's Stairway to Heaven, let alone Mary Had a Little Lamb, she worked backwards. She imagined the courtroom. She built its Star Trek aesthetic from mental Lego and plopped a Judge Highley minifig at its center. She had him pronounce the Irregulars innocent by jury. She imagined his tossing the case from lack of evidence. She imagined him breaking all precedent and simply ruling from the bench that the whole thing was bull-patootie. But every time Highley came to the 'why' explaining his 'what,' his breath caught. His eyes glazed over and he turned back to plastic. She couldn't find the notes and the song wouldn't play.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
"Hello? Sergeant Detective Dalkowski? Are you in there?"
Alex shot upright in her chair. The knocking at the door set her heart off at a sprint.
"Yes?" She said, hoping the sleep wasn't too apparent in her voice. "Yes. Come in."
A mousy girl slouched in the doorway, round face framed by flaming red curls.
"Sheila," Alex put a hand to her chest to stop it buzzing. "You scared me."
"Were you asleep?"
Alex opened her mouth, intending to find an appropriate excuse. But reaching down into her bucket o' excuses and finding only air, she shrugged.
"It's been a long few days."
"I'm sorry but they're only going to get longer." Sheila strode to Alex's desk and flopped down a manila envelope. "I need you to promise you'll protect me."
"I've already seen this, Sheila," Alex said. "Harris showed me. You're lucky we didn't book you for obstruction."
Sheila scrunched her face. "Harris?"
"Like I said, it's been a long few days."
"This is a new envelope. A second one. I want to come clean. I want to help, but I need you to promise me police protection. I want officers at my window. I'm afraid—"
Something in the look of the envelope, the plain typewritten address, its lack of a return address, played a low, sonorous note in Alex's brain. She sat upright.
"It's a story, isn’t it?" Alex said. "One of Kite's."
Sheila nodded. "A riot during a prison break gone wrong. The prisoners disappear. What time is evening mess at the county pen?"
Alex felt her body falling sideways through space as she pushed up from her desk. "Mess? I don't know. Five I think?"
"Well, then," Sheila slid stapled pages from the envelope's mouth, "you've got about ten minutes before the gates of hell open on Bakersfield. You can read it on the way."
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