High Crimes Against the Crown Read online

  He owned a vintage Bell H-13 Sioux, made famous on television in M*A*S*H. He’d cram two passengers in the soap bubble canopy and fly them around the Fairgrounds for five bucks apiece. When asked how he made any money, he proudly announced he had not paid taxes since he’d gotten back from the Korean War.

  “Damn Army cost me my marriage. I figure I’ll start giving those bastards in Washington money as soon as I recoup my alimony.”

  In my altered state, I came up with a brilliant idea. “Let’s fly back over to the party and make an entrance.”

  Alec shook his head. Whirlybird said, “That’s extra twenty apiece. And ten more if I fly you back. I ain’t Allegheny Air, ya know.”

  Over Alec’s protests, I handed over forty bucks and Whirlybird fired up his machine. It coughed like an asthmatic, then sputtered to life.

  “She’ll take a good five minutes to warm up,” Whirlybird said. “You boys go get a beer and a dog and come back.”

  As he walked away, he yelled at us. “Bring me one too.”

  “Beer or dog?”

  “Yes!”

  Alec turned a little pale. “You think he should have a beer before he flies?”

  I laughed. “You think this will be his first one today?”

  We each chugged a beer and slammed down a dog. We got two brews each for the road and one for Whirlybird, and we headed back to where the eggbeater was waiting.

  “Thanks, boys,” Whirlybird said.

  He pulled a penknife from his pocket and proceeded to shotgun the beer like a frat boy during pledge week. He wiped his mouth and pointed to our seats.

  “Let’s go.”

  Alec got in like a skittish thoroughbred balking at the starting gate. Once I pushed him inside, I jumped in and fastened my belt.

  Whirlybird made a great show of toggling a lot of switches and adjusting his headset even though we knew he wasn’t in radio contact with anyone. He “hit the gas” or whatever ‘copter pilots do, worked the controls, and we rose into the air.

  “Gonna level off about a hundred feet, then take a spin around the lake before we head for your party. Might as well give you gents your money’s worth.”

  He banked so hard to the right I was sure I was going to fall out, but I didn’t care. The world was pleasant, hazy, and pastel. For reasons I have never understood, I began to sing Moon River at the top of my lungs.

  “I’m crossing you in style some daaaaaaay!”

  Whirlybird put us in a steep climb. I heard Alec screaming something about my mother as we rocketed skyward.

  “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your waaaaaaay!”

  We leveled off and flew in a long, sweeping circle. I threw back another beer. When Alec declined his, Whirlybird gladly took it.

  “Alright, boys, let’s go make an entrance,” he said, which is the last thing I remember him saying before he uttered the words no passenger in any conveyance wants to hear.

  “Uh oh!”

  I wasn’t sure if we’d hit an air pocket, a speed bump, or an albatross, but the helicopter bucked up and down and began to shudder.

  Alec’s voice was loud and shrill. “What the fuck?”

  “Not sure,” Whirlybird said. “Could be the fuel pump – the old girl gets a little finicky sometimes. We might have a bird stuck in the engine somewhere.”

  Everything suddenly became very black and white. We were about seventy-five feet above the surface of the lake and maybe a half-mile offshore.

  “Not gonna make it back, boys,” Whirlybird said. “Too much weight. Get ready to jump.”

  His voice was calm and even. He could have just as easier have said, “Run down to the store and get me a pack of Camels.”

  “I’m gonna get you to about thirty feet. When I say go, don’t hesitate. When you off-board, I’ll probably get enough lift to get back to land.”

  About a minute later he said “Go,” and Alec shot past me. I took a huge breath and jumped feet first. My limited remembrance of high school physics informed me I was going to hit the water at about 30 mph, so I pointed my toes and put my hands over my crotch.

  Alec and I surfaced at about the same time and watched Whirlybird coax his ship back to the land where he pancaked it into the ground. One landing gear went east, the other west—a gymnast splitting at the end of a medal-winning performance. For an old guy, Whirlybird got out of the cockpit PDQ, fire extinguisher in hand and spraying everything. Later he would claim it was precautionary, but both Alec and I were sure we saw smoke pluming from the back of the craft.

  We swam to shore and were greeted like Armstrong and Aldrin. People congratulated us on our bravery.

  When the crowd cleared, I turned to Alec. “I don’t know about you, but I think I need to change my underwear.”

  He cut short my laughter with his reply. “You got a bigger problem… the polygraph.”

  §§

  I arrived at the station fifteen minutes early as instructed and sat in the waiting room. Sergeant McMillan was hearing about the Crime of the Century from a red-faced man.

  “Damn, muffler’s so loud it scares my chickens. They won’t lay eggs. You gotta do something about it, Merl,” the man said.

  McMillan—his parents apparently hated him because they named him either Merl or Merlin (worse)—nodded patiently and tried to act interested. When the complainant departed complete with huffing and grumbling about “wasted tax dollars,” McMillan buzzed me through to the inner sanctum and began a tour.

  My conscience gnawed away—an energetic beaver of guilt chiseling at my soul.

  I’ll never pass the polygraph. I need to tell the Chief it was an accident.

  “I need to speak to the Chief,” I said.

  “You turning down the job?” the Sergeant asked.

  “No, sir.”

  But you guys are gonna boot me when I tell you about the brownies.

  “You decide you don’t like girls?”

  “No, sir.”

  I still don’t think you can ask me that?

  “You have a terminal illness?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then you ain’t seeing the Chief,” he said. “This here is Dispatch.”

  He rambled on about the daily logbook, tickets, and arrests. Apparently paperwork was more important than solving crime in Fort Henry.

  We saw the booking/fingerprint area, the breathalyzer room, the armory, and the most disgusting bathroom I had seen this side of a West Virginia bus station. The entire tour lasted fifteen minutes. “Okay, Caldemeyer,” he said, “see you tomorrow—0730 hours.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Something else, kid?” he asked.

  “I figured there was one more place to see,” I said.

  “That’s it—the whole enchilada. We’re a small force with a small HQ.”

  I did not want to ask, but…“What about the polygraph room?”

  McMillan’s face lit up. “Damn, kid, I forgot all about that. That’s just a stunt the Chief likes to use. You wouldn’t believe the kids we get in here who start crying the minute they think we’re actually gonna strap ‘em up and see if they’re lying about toking on a joint when they were in high school.”

  I went home greatly relieved; it was the last time I ever believed anything the Chief said.

  Chapter 4

  Other than having a tailor’s hand way up on my inseam for an intolerable amount of time, being fitted for my uniform was exciting. And, in truth, I looked a little on the dashing side. I had a trio of booklets from McMillan—mostly situational stuff—but some handy tips about New York State law.

  I got a quick lesson on operating the lights and the siren in a radio car, but McMillan held off on showing me how to disengage the center-mounted riot gun until after I passed my firearms training with Officer Halpen.

  The phone rang once before I heard, "Hello."

  “This is Conor Caldemeyer. I’m the newest officer on the force.”

  “Cadet.”

&nbsp
; “Pardon.”

  “One year probation. You’re a cadet.”

  “Yes, sir. Anyway, I need my firearms training.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you available?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anytime in particular?”

  “Yes.”

  After more monosyllabic conversation, I arranged to see the taciturn weapons expert that afternoon at 3:00.

  I arrived ten minutes early and rang the bell. He opened the door at precisely 3:00. I was expecting Yoda in blue. What I got was a rail-thin, bushy haired scarecrow of a man with an eagle’s beak for a nose and lips as thin as a pencil line.

  “Mr. Halpen?” I asked.

  “Officer,” he said.

  “No, sir—I’m a cadet.”

  “I know,” he said, “I’m an officer.”

  And so it went—short, snarky responses about everything from ammunition to target practice.

  His garage looked like a gun show. He had everything but a bazooka. There might have been one in any other of the half-dozen foot lockers he had standing underneath a workbench that ran most of the length of three sides.

  Halpen opened a door in the middle of the back wall to reveal a three station, thirty-meter shooting range. We stepped up to a table on which lay a .22 pistol, a Smith and Wesson Model 52, a .357 snub nose pistol, and a Smith and Wesson 380. He gestured to a pair of North Gun mufflers.

  “Show me what you got,” he said.

  I slipped on the ear guards, checked the clip of the S&W 52, inserted the clip, worked the slide, assumed a comfortable shooting stance like my father had taught me, and squeezed off five shots. I ejected the clip, worked the slide to ensure a clear chamber, placed the weapon on the table, and slipped off the ear protectors.

  Halpen pushed a button and the target—standard silhouette—made its way towards us.

  He inspected the target.

  “Everything center mass—three bulls. Total score 46. Not bad.”

  Not bad?

  He saw my skepticism.

  “Always gotta show you punks,” he said.

  Halpen then shooed me away from the table. Went through the same ritual I had just performed, then popped off five shots in half the time I had taken. When we looked at his target, it seemed as if someone had cut a silver dollar-sized hole out of the center with a pair of scissors – a perfect score.

  “I can do that all day, kid,” he said. “You’re good. But you ain’t as good as you think and that can get you killed, even in this one-horse town.”

  I worked with the other weapons but this time Halpen made small adjustments in my technique. We were on the range for two hours. The tally on my final target—this time with the snub nose—was a 49.

  He escorted me to the door of the house. As I walked out, he said, “I’ll call McMillan. You pass.”

  And he shut the door.

  Chapter 5

  My first few months were as exciting as life in a Benedictine monastery. Endless inspections, repetitious lessons on the 10 code and, as the lowest-ranking member of the force, daily cleaning of every vehicle.

  I spent my off hours fine tuning my “copitude.”

  It was a little frustrating.

  No matter how long I practiced in the St. Mark’s Lutheran parking lot, I could not perfect a J-turn. Jim Rockford had pulled one off almost every week in his gold ’78 Firebird. But my 1976 metallic green, 70-horsepower Chevrolet Vega would barely go 50 mph in drive. I could not break 15 in reverse even if I went downhill. After hours of frustration, I abandoned my quest.

  I fretted about developing a catch phrase. All the good ones were taken.

  “Who loves ya Baby” – belonged to Tootsie Pop sucking Kojak.

  “Just one more thing” – I had to make detective to use Columbo’s line.

  “Book ‘em Danno” – the minute I said that, someone would shoot me.

  “You can take that to the bank” – no one was tough enough to steal Barretta’s trademark.

  “Just the facts, ma’am” – I was not and would never be Joe Friday.

  I finally settled on staring at myself every morning in the mirror and issuing Sergeant Philip Freemason Esterhaus’s admonition, “Let’s be careful out there.”

  I saw my share of pain and I was more than occasionally disappointed by the basic crummy nature of the human condition, but Fort Henry was not NYC. No undercover drug busts, no huge shootouts, no Feds coming in and trying to take over some big case. Like any other job, most days were routine – and boring.

  Until the one that wasn’t. But that was later.

  §§

  The biggest scandal of my initial year was “The Great AC Fiasco.”

  It was a Sunday morning in August, and I was on speed trap duty. I was always on speed trap duty. My radar alerted me to an approaching car. It rolled by at what seemed a reasonable speed. Imagine my excitement when I looked at my dash mounted gun and saw “68.” I was patrolling a zone where the limit was 30 mph. Highly trained law enforcement officer that I was, I sprang into action.

  I was well aware of the Chief’s “Sunday Rule.” Since Longo did not want to be besieged by irate Christians complaining about how they (or worse, their mothers) had been cited as they rushed to avoid being late to the worship of Almighty God, Longo issued strict instructions. “No speeding tickets on Sunday morning, men, unless it is an egregious situation.”

  Fort Henry squad car

  Perhaps he meant gunfire, but I interpreted his instructions to include motorists who’d multiplied the legal limit by two. So I fired up the lights, hit the siren, and charged off in pursuit. The high-speed chase lasted less than half a block as the offender dutifully pulled to the side of the road—put a blinker on and everything.

  I exited my cruiser, donned my hat, and approached the window which, when I arrived, was already rolled down.

  The driver was female, young, pretty, and already beginning to cry. “Oh my God, officer, are those lights for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Please retrieve your license, registration and insurance card and step into my office.”

  I pointed to my car. The “office” line was as close as I ever came to an original tagline.

  “Certainly, but would you kindly turn those horrid red lights off? I don’t want people to think I’m in trouble.”

  I escorted her to the cruiser and she handed me her papers.

  “Sir, am I in trouble or something?”

  “Ma’am, do you know what the speed limit is in the village?”

  “Of course I do, it’s thirty miles per hour.”

  “That is correct. Do you know how fast you were going?”

  “Of course, I’m very careful when I’m driving. I was doing thirty-one miles an hour. Am I going to get a ticket for going one mile over the limit, officer?”

  I smiled and asked her to look at the screen of the radar gun.

  “Ma’am, how can you explain this? My radar gun says you were going sixty-eight in a thirty-mile zone. I just calibrated this gun at the beginning of my shift, so I know it’s right.”

  “Well, that is just not possible, officer. As you can see, I drive a four-speed Volkswagen Beetle stick shift. There is something wrong with the transmission. I can’t get it into fourth gear, so I can only use the first three. Tops me out about forty miles per hour. This is a straightaway—I couldn’t do 68 if I tried. You just have to believe me.”

  I’d heard it all before. As I reached for my citation book, the radio crackled.

  “Bravo 1-6, we have a report of shots fired at passing cars on state highway 32 near the Baker Street exit. Proceed forthwith using extreme caution. Backup is on the way.”

  I tossed the ticket book on the floor. “Ma’am, this is your lucky day. Here is your information back. I have to go—have a nice day.”

  She seemed reluctant to leave. “But officer, I don’t want you to think I was speeding like that when I wasn’t.”

  “That’s okay, I got
ta go.”

  She shut the door and I floored it—one of my best Adam-12 takeoffs ever. Approaching the intersection I spotted three cars parked on the side of the state highway. Each had shattered windows. I interviewed two of the drivers standing alongside their cars. One was crying hysterically, and the other was angry and screaming at me. They both said they were driving along when their windows blew out. I approached the third driver who was still in his car. By the smell wafting through the window, it was obvious he crapped himself when his window exploded. They all identified where the incident occurred. I called it in.

  I rolled up on the area and saw some movement in the woods. Whoever it was had flunked camouflage techniques at sniper school because his red shirt stood out like a neon beer sign. I was considering what angle of attack I should take when my passenger side rear window exploded all over the back seat. The word terrified couldn’t explain the moment. I’m surprised I didn’t crap myself.

  I roared about the block and parked where I could run into the back yards that abutted the highway. With my portable radio on silent, I scoped out the yards. As I cleared the third yard, a pop and a giggle came from what sounded like ten feet away. Just over the fence, a kid was loading a pellet gun. He pumped it and began scoping for another target. He was taking aim when I reached from behind him, grabbed the barrel with one hand and his right wrist with my other.

  Case solved. But not the mystery of the radar gun.

  After handing the youthful (and now sobbing) offender over to the sheriff’s department, I returned to the site of my morning assignment. I hadn’t been parked more than a few minutes when the radar beeped—“incoming.”

  It was a blue Dodge minivan. Even from my secret location I could tell it was loaded like a clown car and rolling along at about 25. Just for fun, I checked the gun. It read 68.

  I spent the rest of the day test firing at cars, all of which showed 68—until later in the afternoon. When the sun sank a little, a nice breeze came up. I shut off the car and rolled down the windows. First car that passed, I checked—42. The second one—35. Hmm. I rolled up the window, cranked on the AC and fired away at a sluggish Mustang. Well, what do you know—68.