Chapter 8
Luke
Two hours on the interstate, driving alone, the road relatively quiet mid-morning on a state holiday. What could go wrong?
I slow the car to sixty-five, the speed limit, which is funny because nobody treats it as the limit.
Most people think of it as the minimum. They shouldn’t call it the speed limit.
They should call it “the optimal speed to stay within a reasonable approximation of,” but that’s a lot to put on a sign and it leaves a dangling preposition, which sends a bad message to our youth.
I pass the cop, going sixty-five, the minimum/maximum, and look in my rearview mirror. I see two things.
One, my sunglasses are crooked on my face, a recurring problem because one of my ears is slightly lower than the other. The human body is not symmetrical. My friend Billy Bauman has one hand that’s notably bigger than the other. We used to call him “Clock.”
Two, the state police vehicle has pulled into southbound traffic behind me. And not for some emergency, either. It’s staying directly behind me.
We drive like that for three, four miles. I keep my speed within a reasonable approximation of sixty-five. Still, I feel that universal dread that accompanies a cop car crawling behind you. It’s not like I’m driving some hot rod. It’s a piece-of-junk Toyota.
We had a Toyota minivan growing up. It always made me nauseated to sit in the back seat. A lot of people use the word nauseous instead of nauseated. Nauseous means inducing nausea; nauseated means experiencing nausea. You don’t feel nauseous. You feel nauseated.
Like when a cop is following you on the highway for a very long time.
Wow, I must be nervous. On a good day, my mind often wanders into irrelevant excursions, but when my blood pressure goes up, that problem kicks into overdrive. As coping mechanisms go, I suppose it beats chewing your nails.
I keep my eyes on the road and the speedometer, making sure my foot doesn’t jerk, my hands hold steady.
Staying in my lane and going the speed limit have never felt more challenging.
I could use the cruise control, but I’ve never tried it in this car, and the last thing I’m going to do is mess with the controls and have the hazards go off or wiper fluid fly back at the cop—
The rooftop of the trooper’s SUV lights up with dancing colors. Either he’s making a traffic stop or he’s opening a nightclub inside his squad car.
I pull over onto the shoulder and put the car in park, the interior awash in the flickering red-blue lights.
Awash is a funny word. It’s hard to say it without sounding pretentious.
It’s one of those words that’s okay to write but not speak.
Like octopi. Everyone knows you mean the plural of octopus, but if you say it, you sound like a douchebag.
While we were scuba diving, we encountered a number of octopi.
Maybe you could pull that off with a British accent. Maybe.
Yeah, I’m nervous.
I reach into the glove compartment for her registration and proof of insurance.
A pile of napkins nearly tumbles out when I ease down the hatch.
But there they are, among the hand sanitizer and small bag of airplane peanuts and travel tube of Advil and take-out straw still in its wrapping—Trinity’s registration and insurance card, clipped together.
Five minutes pass. The cop remains inside his car. What could be taking him so long?
I wonder what you call a group of octopi. Do they have a cool collective name like a murder of crows or an embarrassment of pandas?
A congress of octopi?
Not making any sudden movements, I remove my sunglasses and grab my phone from the passenger seat to text my sister, Allison: I got pulled over by police. The cop isn’t getting out of car just sitting there for like five mins. Any idea why?
Her text balloon bubbles for a moment before she replies: Why pulled over?
No idea, I answer.
On your way to dome?
The dome where we hold indoor practices, she means. The dome where I work part-time as an instructor when I’m not coaching baseball at Mortimer College.
On my way to Olivet Nazarene, I reply. Doing favor for Trinity.
She doesn’t respond immediately. For all I know, she’s in the middle of a court hearing or something. She’s a high-powered lawyer. She’s also the smartest person I know.
In the rearview mirror, I see the cop finally leave his vehicle and strut toward me.
I reach into my pocket, dig out the thumb drive, and toss it into the center console.
My phone buzzes with Allison’s response: When in doubt, don’t answer. Don’t trust troopers.
Scary thought, coming from a law-and-order former prosecutor, albeit a federal prosecutor who doesn’t have the highest opinion of most state-level law enforcement.
Albeit, that’s another of those words, though not quite as obnoxious as awash.
I remove my driver’s license and proof of my own insurance from my wallet, then buzz down the window, suddenly awash in the rush of cool air, albeit within the warmth of the automobile.
“Sir.” The officer stops short of my car and calls out to me over the noise of passing traffic. I crane my head to look back at him. “I’m gonna need you to put your hands on the steering wheel.”
I plop my hands against the steering wheel, ten and two, my driver’s license and registration and two insurance cards between the index and middle fingers of my left hand.
The trooper comes into view, a tall white guy, skinny, dressed in a tan top and chocolate-brown pants that match his goofy trooper hat. He looks like a colorblind forest ranger.
“Sir, I’m recording this interaction by body camera,” he says, gesturing to the black square device pinned to his chest. “This your car, sir?”
“No, this is my friend’s car,” I say. “Trinity Casto. I have her registration.”
“I’m gonna need you to hand me that.”
I give him all four items and return my left hand to the steering wheel. Why are my hands on the steering wheel? What am I, a trigger man?
That would be cool, to be an assassin. I mean, the killing part aside.
Being a dangerous, mysterious loner. Then you find redemption when it turns out one of your victims had an infant child and you raise her as your own and discover love and leave that life behind until the government that once sponsored you comes calling and threatens your daughter unless you do one last job for them.
“I’m gonna need you to turn off your engine, sir.”
I punch the ignition button to kill the engine. Again, why? I doubt this guy is concerned with environmental emissions.
“Where you headed, Luke?” he asks, reading my driver’s license.
So now we’re on a first-name basis? That feels quick. If we were speaking Spanish, I think we’d still be at the more formal usted phase.
“Bourbonnais,” I answer.
“What’s in Bourbonnais?”
“Olivet Nazarene University. I’m dropping off clothes for a friend’s brother.”
“What’s his name?”
I lean my head out the window. “Did I do something wrong, Officer? I wasn’t speeding.”
I see more lights flashing behind us. A second state police SUV pulls off the shoulder in front of me and backs up, basically blocking me in between the two police vehicles.
“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” I say.
The trooper, one hand resting on his sidearm, leans in toward me. “I’d like your permission to search the vehicle.”
“Why?”
“Do I have your permission?”
“Maybe if you tell me why. Since when is it a crime to drive to Bourbonnais?”
One of the officers from the SUV in front of me steps out and joins Officer Friendly.
“Sir, I am asking again for permission to search this vehicle.”
“Fine,” I say, shaking my head. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m gonna need you to step out of the vehicle.”
The officer opens my door like he’s my prom date, and out I go.
“Sir, I’m gonna conduct a protective pat-down for officer safety. Please turn around and put your hands against the car.”
“This is ridiculous.” I’m a threat to officer safety? But I don’t have a choice. He does a full frisk, actually tickling me under the arms.
“I’m gonna need you to take a seat in the back of that trooper’s vehicle for your safety.”
They put me in the rear cabin of the police SUV parked in front of my car, a cage facing me and passenger doors without handles. It smells like bleach, which I suppose is preferable to the many alternative odors one might experience in the back of a squad car.
The transmitter on the dash is squawking and belching out communications between troopers and dispatch. “This is 2101 responding to an 810 at a Holiday Inn off Exit 340.” “We have a possible 2410 at mile marker 311, a Ford Explorer…”
Through the rear passenger window, I strain to look at the nearby mile marker, a narrow, dark green vertical sign attached to a thin rusty post off the shoulder. The marker reads 320.
My phone buzzes a text from Allison: Everything ok?
Before I can respond, the transmitter squawks again.
“Dispatch, this is 3277. We have a 2014 at mile marker 320.”
Mile marker 320. That would be me.
I erase the message I was about to send.
In its place, I type, That depends on what a 2014 is.