Penny squinted against the glare on her windshield. Every headlight smeared in the rain that washed across the glass. The wipers whipped back and forth, distractingly fast. She already had a headache behind her right eye which she now massaged. She pulled into the Royal Farm gas station and parked.
She had been with the client until late in the night, and still the contract sat beside her, in its folder, unsigned. She slammed her palms against the steering wheel repeatedly, then sat back in her seat. Her eye throbbed worse now.
Mr. Rassa should have sent Eric to this client. She’d known that, but she hadn’t said anything. It’s not that she didn’t have faith in her own ability. Nothing could be further. But she knew Lionel Johns. No matter how strong her presentation, LL Johns Holdings would not sign the contract. Not for a woman.
Oh, he didn’t say it outright. But he made no secret of it either, hinting that Mr. Rassa should have come himself or sent “a gentleman of consequence.”
The rain wasn’t letting up. Penny slid out the door and raced inside, her clutch over her head. It didn’t protect her from a pelting.
She made herself a late-night coffee, black, from the last dregs of the pot, and sipped. Her face screwed up, but still she relished the feeling that flowed through her. She might have coaxed a signature from Johns if only she hadn’t lost her temper. But if he had jammed his fingers into the buttons of her blouse, right into her breasts with knobby fingers, he couldn’t have pushed her buttons better.
Ultimately, she had been in the right. What he demanded was not only against company policy, it was borderline illegal. Now, with the chance to reflect, she realized he had demanded it intentionally.
She drank the entire coffee cup and crumpled it up. Not until after did she look around. She hadn’t paid for it yet, and maybe—she sidled over to the trash can and slipped it in. It had been utter garbage anyway, blackened mud with caffeine.
Rushing back to her car, Penny slid on the wet asphalt and planted flat on her butt with a whump. It stole the breath out of her, and she sat shocked for a moment that stretched to eternity, soaked to the skin and with a bruised tailbone to boot. She crawled into the vehicle and laid her head on the steering wheel.
She wanted to scream. Fantasies of tracking down Lionel Johns at his home, bursting into his bedroom, and cracking him upside the head with his own file flashed through her mind. She leaned back in her seat.
That wasn’t really what was bothering her. It had only been a week since Aaron abruptly let her down, and she was still reeling. A year down the drain, and not a moment’s notice.
Well, now that she’d had time to reflect, maybe there had been signs. He had missed several of their Friday night dates, citing illness. When he stayed over, he spent most of the time on her X-Box. But she’d never minded. She cuddled up beside him, clutching his shoulder if he let her.
Maybe that was her problem. She lived in the moment and missed all the subtle cues in realtime. First, that Aaron had grown apart from her. Second, that Mr. Johns was playing her like a fiddle. She hated herself for it.
She threw the Cobalt into reverse and screeched into a quick arc, slammed the brakes, and shot forward with a quick jerk of the shifter. Next to the station was an empty gravel lot used for trucks and overflow until something else went up. She careened into it, screaming her frustrations, and yanked the wheel, sending the car into a wheeling, donutting frenzy.
Finally, she came to a stop, panting. Someone had come out of the store and was looking toward her. The rain had abated some, no longer downpouring, but the air was still thick with it and the lamp-glow in dead of night did little to dispel the darkness.
Now she felt drained. Rather than the ecstasy she’d felt in the gravel lot, she felt ashamed. Like a sensible driver, she stopped at the edge of the lot and eased onto the two-way road, crossing and heading to her left.
Was this correct? In a moment she came to a roundabout and proceeded three-quarters way around it. Yes, she remembered the roundabout.
But no. Had she missed the exit? The highway passed beneath her, and nothing but trees and houses greeted her where the ramps should be. She woke up her phone and clicked on maps, glancing down at the bright screen in her dark car.
The car drifted and the center rumble strip growled beneath her, causing her to jerk the steering wheel back to true. She felt her traction skid for just a moment, then righted. Her heart beat a little faster. She raised the phone to her face so she wouldn’t have to look down.
Triadelphia Road, the GPS said. Yes, that would lead back up to Frederick Rd. She had turned the wrong way out of the lot, but this way worked too.
Through her rained-over back glass, two beady headlights appeared, far away at first, then increasingly closer. Alarmingly closer. She was already going fast enough, was she not? Even as she thought it, a 40 speed limit sign shone along the shoulder in the light of her high beams. She eased off the accelerator, drifting back down close to legal. The guy behind could pass, now, if he wished.
The car did not pass. It did not tailgate either, but kept a close, respectable distance for a good half-mile. Penny almost succeeded in calming her anxiety. Then those two headlights were capped by a mesmerizing blur of red and blue. She swore.
It was not a bar on top of a normal cruiser, but one of those swirling dashtop cop lights. If her heart had sped up before, it did palpitations now. Where had it even come from? Had she seen a parked car, maybe, in the entrance to that middle school, way back there where she rumbled the strip going—here she looked at the speedometer. If she was five over now, she must have been fifteen or twenty back at the school. She had still been too amped up by her meeting with Lionel and her subsequent rampage in the gravel lot. As if she could tell an officer that.
Yes sir, I’m sorry, I just got emotional over a business meeting, see, he was being sexist. And then I did donuts in an empty lot, and I thought I felt better, but I guess my foot was still feeling heavy….
That wouldn’t do. He would ask her if she knew how fast she’d been going, and she’d lie that she hadn’t known, and he would tell her how fast and to be safer, especially considering the rain at night. Then he would write her up a big fat ticket to go along with the ego bruising she’d already taken. Might as well tell him about the coffee, too, at this rate.
Woop-woop! Startled, she pressed the button for her flashers. This road’s shoulder was grass then a gully, and, in the rain, she didn’t think this the best place to stop. She would continue at a normal pace, not trying to escape, until she found a safe place to pull over.
Then a new thought occurred to her. Clearly, this was not a usual police cruiser, a squad car, a marked uniform car—whatever other term might qualify. It must be an unmarked car, maybe a detective or an undercover… no, not undercover, that wasn’t the right word. Well, it was something like that. A car in traffic that by all appearances appears to be Regular Joe until it flips on its flashing dash lights and pulls over Unsuspecting Jenny. Or Penny, as the case may be.
But… wait. Didn’t those also have other features? She remembered the headlights alternating, red and blue emitting from other hidden lenses, from the back window, from everywhere so one could not miss it.
Or—and here she shivered—be easily mimicked. What if this wasn’t actually a cop at all? She had heard of impersonators stealing away naïve women and children, offering help in the night, or pulling them over for infractions, imagined or real.
Her heart thudding so hard she wished she could loosen her bra, she punched 911 into her phone. Wasn’t there a non-emergency number, come to think of it? But that was the problem. She couldn’t think of it, not in these circumstances, and if a police impersonator isn’t emergency enough, then what is?
A woman answered the phone on the fourth ring, shortly before Penny was about to hang up. “911, what’s your emergency?”
“I…I’ve got an unmarked car and and it’s right behind me and I think, it might be, you know, not a real officer.”
“Okay ma’am, please remain calm and stay on the line. Could you tell me your name and exact location?”
“Uh yeah, I was looking at my phone and it’s, um, Triadelphia Rd?”
“Do you see any mile markers or a nearest crossroad.”
“Um, I don’t know, it’s dark and… oh! I left the Royal Farm not long ago, the one right off the Highway.”
“Okay, ma’am, I am checking for officers in your area. I don’t see… ma’am, could you tell me your name?”
“Penny. Did you say you don’t see? What do you mean—he’s got lights and everything, is he not—?”
The phone went digital, the dispatcher’s voice unintelligible. She caught “please stay on—” then complete, utter silence, the silence you only get from a dead receiver.
“Hello? Hello?!”
Boop-boop-boop. Dropped call. She threw the phone onto the passenger seat.
Behind her, the car with the flashing light in the dashboard was straddling the center line. Woop-woop! it sounded out again, chasing even the wet road noise away. Was he about to perform a pit maneuver on her? She had seen a video of an overzealous officer flipping a woman’s car for not pulling over quickly enough. In sudden panic, she threw on her blinker and swerved into the next driveway.
It was a nicely paved road, lined with mature trees and, in this rain, an illegible sign at the entrance. The road forked into an in-and-out shortly after entering, and she jammed on her brakes. Too quickly she thought, the rear of the car lurching up then harumphing down, but her heart pattered.
The car drew up behind her, warped and obscured by falling rain across her windows. A spotlight beamed onto her, interspersed with blue and red. The driver door opened, and the silhouette of a man stepped out.
He didn’t have on a hat. Didn’t officers wear hats? Or was that just some of them? He held a flashlight in one hand, the other hovered near his belt defensively. If nothing else, he impersonated a cop well. Maybe he used to be one, or had failed the academy, or simply watched too much True Detective and Blue Bloods.
Was she about to be dragged out of her car, screaming, by her hair? Struck with that giant flashlight and thrown into the trunk, never to be seen again?
She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths, and her hand dangling by her side brushed against an item she kept in the door pocket. Her fingers wrapped around it, gripping it until her knuckles hurt.
How would she do it? She leaned down to her glove box to retrieve her registration. Picked up the phone. She might still need it.
She looked in the side mirror. He was almost there. He rapped on the window, and despite herself, she jumped. Fumbling with the controls, she buzzed the window down.
Her body went rigid, staring straight ahead. She looked again, barely moving her neck. He was there, bright light pouring across her steering wheel. He asked for her license and registration. She raised her arm, extended it, registration in hand, and beneath it….
He reached for the registration, intending, she was convinced, to grab her hand and yank her out of the car. She let the registration card slip to the ground, and the canister beneath it, death-gripped in her hand, pointed directly at his face.
The man had no time to react. It took only a simple squeeze, a press of one fingertip, and the canister sprayed a stream of pepper directly into his face. With a scream, he dug at his eyes, reaching for his holster with the other hand. Her door swung open viciously, catching him in the midriff and sprawling him across the ground. His gun scooted across the pavement.
Penny hopped out of the car and ran to retrieve it. He lunged at her and she tripped, sending her phone skidding. She met the asphalt face-first. A burning sensation coursed through her, flaming on her chin, knees, and palms. She stared through double-vision at his gun before her face. She aimed between the two guns, and found the handle. She limped to her feet and turned around. Her vision was straightening. The counterfeit cop was struggling to his knees, still scratching at his eyes and flailing about, appearing untrained, unprofessional.
She could not afford hesitation. Gripping the barrel of the pistol in her palm, she smashed the grip down on the back of his head. A sound not unlike a crabapple crunched under heel emitted from his skull, and he crumpled to the ground. Her gut twisted.
For a moment, Penny stood there, unable to move, the man, this attempted kidnapper, rapist… murderer? A heap of man and uniform and pouring rain, lifeless at her feet. She was drenched herself, freezing, lips chattering unwilfully. Her whole frame racked with waves of shivers.
Like in every slasher or thriller, as soon as she would turn her back, she was certain this seemingly unconscious form would rise, slowly, inexorably behind her, a menacing form abstracted in sheets of rain and streaked with blue then red then blue again.
She backed away, shook herself, stumbled across the road to recover her phone. It would never ring again. Glass fell from it in chunks. She hobbled back to her car, tossed the gun and the phone on the backseat. She guided the car painfully around his still form, reversed and straightened, and gunned it to the main road.
She would call 911 when she got home. She would have service there, could use her old phone, if this sim card still worked. Right now, though, she couldn’t linger, not with that man here.
She pulled onto the main road and soon reached another roundabout. Where was she? This wasn’t Frederick Road. She read the signs as she passed, squinting against the rain and wildly reflecting headlights. Sheppard Lane, then Homewood Road on the far side of the roundabout, Folly Quarter Road on the next one. She turned here. This one, for sure, went to Frederick Road. Didn’t it? She could barely think, and now her phone was done for, she had no map, no text messages, no email…
By the time she reached her condo, she felt faint, as if she’d sprinted all the way home. So so weary. So so tired, like coming down from a high.
The rest of the night was a blur. She visited the bathroom and dressed her scrapes before heading to bed, swallowing a Tylenol or two. She was seeing double again, her skin burned, and her head a mass of confusion.
The following morning, though, she felt like a new person, aside from a few scrapes and bruises where she collided with the wet pavement. Had she gotten all the grit out of her wounds? Her palms felt inflamed. She would have to wash them, redress them. The warm water of the shower felt good, except where it stung her scrapes. She held the wounds away from the too-hot flow, especially her right side.
With a gasp, she realized she had never called 911 back. Would she be in trouble for failure to report? But no, she was a scared, traumatized victim in this incident. She had been attacked! A lone woman at night in the rain, under pretense of authority, isolated for an assault. An abduction. And who knew what else to follow?
She would call them as soon as she got to work. Her mobile wouldn’t work anymore, after all, and she didn’t have time to charge up her old phone, swap the sim card, hope it worked…
She snapped on the kitchen tv while she waited for her toast to pop up, for the steady drop of coffee to fill her mug. The eight-o’clock news was on. She closed her eyes to the smells of toast and brew. When she opened them, the tv diverted to a reporter on-site. Penny hugged her mug, took a sip. A woman was standing in the middle of a street, waving her right arm about.
The mug slid from her hands, bouncing off the linoleum with a thud and spill. It was light out now, the morning sun bright and cheery, trees glistening with the nighttime rain. But she knew that place. She knew that fork in an unmarked road. She knew that entrance, the brickwork, the wooden sign, indecipherable last night. The camera zoomed up on it. Shrine of St Anthony.
The Franciscan Friars behind me is the site of a grisly scene this morning. Last night, a Howard County officer met his untimely end right on this driveway during what is believed to have been a routine traffic stop. The body of Officer Brantley was found by policemen who arrived on the scene moments after his death in response to an urgent 911 by an as-yet unidentified woman. The officer was found lying here in the street (she pointed, not at him, to an empty part of the asphalt,) savagely beaten. His unmarked car sat by the curb (she pointed again, and the camera complied, showing a late-model Chevy, no lights anymore, cops all around), its lights still flashing. Time and cause of death not yet determined, but I have been told that the officer was struck from behind, suffering a concussion and a hemorrhage, which is believed to have led to his instant death. The matter is still under investigation, but anyone with information is urged to call…
Penny clicked the set off. She could feel the blood leaving her face, her hands trembling involuntarily. How was this possible? She had been so certain, the dispatcher had even said… well, what exactly had she said? She tried to replay the event in her head, but it had become so jumbled with her imaginings, with fragmented dreams last night, with fears.
Or maybe he had been a real cop, corrupt, a secret killer. Could that be it?
With fumbling hands, she brewed another cup and flicked the set back on. They were back in studio, but the scrawl on the bottom mentioned “Police officer found dead on Folly Quarter Rd.”
But wait. No. That couldn’t have been her. She had been on Triadelphia Road. She recalled that clear as glass, the map, telling the dispatcher…. But she also remembered the second roundabout, after fleeing the scene. Where could she have gone wrong? Where could the road have changed?
She prepared for work, trying to apply makeup, botching it utterly. At last she threw it down, exasperated, thought of driving to work anyway. No, she decided. She dug out her old phone and plugged it in, swapping sim cards. The red low battery sign flashed back. She waited. Waited some more. Finally it lit up with an apple and loaded. First, she checked the map, found that Triadelphia inexplicably veered to the left just after the highway. She found the Shrine on the map and the roundabout just past it. Folly Quarter Road. She collapsed into an armchair.
With a single press, the phone began to ring internally. She set it to her ear. “Teddy Rassa’s office, how may I help you?” came the overly saccharine voice of his receptionist, drawing out the you in a way that made Penny’s teeth hurt.
“Hey, Carla. I um, don’t—”
“Penny! Is that you? Mr. Rassa has been on edge all morning, waiting for those papers. Are you almost in, dear?”
The papers! Oh no! She had forgotten all about them!
“I, uh… I got them. Look, I’m not feeling too good.”
“We really need those documents. Is there any way—?”
“He didn’t sign them.”
“What?”
“He didn’t sign them, Carla. You can let Mr. Rassa know. I’m sorry, I don’t feel well. I need the day.”
The saccharine fled her voice. “Yes. Of course. I’ll let Teddy know right away.”
The phone went dead, and Penny let it sag. She fell asleep, waking to a knock on her door. No, more of a beating, actually. How long had that been going on? Faintly, she recalled a banging in her dreams right before she woke.
She stumbled to the door, flinging it open without second thought. An officer stood there, others around him. “Ms. Vailles? Could we have a word with you?”
“Um, uh… what is this about?”
“There was an incident last night. Do you know anything about that?”
“I um… no. I mean, I saw the news, is it…?”
“One of our own was killed, yes, ma’am.”
“How awful!”
“We found this at the site.” He held up a soggy card, no longer actually wet but limp from saturation.
Her registration card. Her heart hit her feet.
“Could you come with us? We have some questions.”
“Am I under arrest?” Her own voice sounded foreign, like some strangulated thing.
“Just questions for now.”
“May I, uh…”—she gestured back inside—”get a few things?”
He nodded brusquely, standing in her doorway like some great sentinel, glaring at her like some beast. Her mind raced through all the possibilities. They would dig up the 911 call, if they hadn’t already, and hear her panicked state of mind, her fears, rational considering the circumstances, she thought.
Still, she had killed an officer. They would crucify her.
She splashed water on her face, ran a brush through her hair, dried into tangles and knots. Took a great deep breath. Smiled at herself in the mirror, but didn’t feel it. She tried it again. There, that looked better. More genuine. Just the right notes of pity, sorrow, and innocence. Grabbed her purse, old phone inside, wallet rescued from the clutch.
The officer gripped her arm roughly. She flinched at his touch. Outside the condominium building, reporters lined the sidewalk, shouting her name. She stared straight ahead, trying to ignore them, wishing she had applied that makeup after all. In her current state, after sleeping on the couch with shower hair, surely she looked like a crazed killer, a maniacal mankiller, an insane broken woman whose ex-boyfriend would be next on the list.
“Ms. Vailles!’ they cried.
“Penny, could you tell us what happened last night?”
“Is it true you struck Officer Brantley?”
“Ms. Vailles, word is this was self-defense. You had every reason to suspect the officer was an imposter, and you told the dispatcher, who failed to assure you. Can you verify this report?”
She looked up, stunned.
“Is this true? Ms. Vailles, can you confirm or deny?”
She glanced around, feeling the shock stretched across her face, her eyes bugged out. They had just about reached the squad car.
“Penny, are you a victim in a male-dominated world, afraid for your life and always looking over your shoulder?” This from a spectacled young woman with sharp eyes. She thrust the microphone toward Penny, then back to herself when she didn’t immediately speak. “In a world of police brutality amidst utter immunity, can you speak to every woman who has ever looked over her shoulder when a man catcalls, or follows her in a park, or in Target, or on the road, like happened to you last night? Can you look in this camera and tell us that you are us, and we are you?”
This time, Penny composed herself. She smiled, the second one from the mirror, but more confident. More assertive.
“Yes,” she said. She said it firmly. She said it with strength. She was the victim. And she had come out on top anyway. She had done it for them all, for all women, every girl everywhere.
“Yes, that is exactly correct.” Her mouth spread wide for the camera, and she clasped her hands together, raised to her face. “Pray for me. More than that, stand with me! For us all!”
She could hear them cheering, could hear the mad applause in her head, as the officer gently pushed her head beneath the roof, and she fell with grace into the back of the police car. Cameras exploded outside her door, one after another. She offered her smile again, one more for posterity.
[Image Credit : Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash]
