grover was on duty when the call came in about the new report of a possible abduction, and directing him to pick up the witness.
it sounded halfway plausible. he thought one of the reporting officers should have stayed with the witness, but he'd let henderson worry about that.
he called henderson - she wanted to be called immediately on anything connected with the abductions - and was only mildly surprised when she picked up herself - did she ever sleep? she said she would be at headquarters immediately and told him to get going and pick up the witness.
she made it sound like he was dragging his ass - she wanted to be called, didn't she? grover's hatred of henderson was pretty mild - she could have been a lot worse - and it was hard to hate someone so boring - although he saw her almost every day it was hard to remember what she looked like when she wasn't around.
grover wasn't that far away and was the first person to reach frankie. he found frankie right where he was supposed to be. that was something anyway. this good first impression was quickly dissipated when he saw he was dealing with a flaming fruit.
for a moment he was pissed at the reporting officers for not warning him but quickly considered that any description over the air might have caused problems - he would have done the same. faggots were number one on grover's long list of hatreds. not that anything showed on his face. nothing, absolutely nothing ever showed on grover's face.
frankie started venting as soon as grover got out of the car. he didn't ask him to show his i d, but grover took it out and held it up as frankie went through his citizenly paces.
"i was terrified! i still am! i could have had a heart attack!" etc etc. no fear or respect at all. he sounded like he was on some citizens review board.
"i'm sorry, sir," said grover when he could get a word in. "the officers were chasing an almost certainly dangerous suspect or suspects and must have made the decision that maximum force might be needed to apprehend them" maximum force? that sounded kind of dumb even to himself.
"you did tell them that you saw two men, didn't you?" and they were both young and filled with adrenalin and wanted in on the possible kill, but you wouldn't know about that, would you, faggy?
"yes," frankie told him. "two that i saw. there could have more in the van. there could have been a whole gang! they could have split up and sent someone back after me!"
"sir, if you think this situation has been badly handled, you can contact the police review board at this number." grover put his wallet and i d in his jacket pocket and took out a pencil and little notebook and wrote the number down. frankie looked a little mollified when he tore the page out and handed it to him.
"thank you." frankie took the paper and put it in his pocket. at least, thought grover, he didn't say he already knew the number.
"and sir, for the record, you did see my i d, didn't you?"
"i didn't really get a good look at it."
without batting an eye, grover took his i d back out of his pocket and showed it to frankie.
"thank you," said frankie. this cop didn't really seem like such a bad guy.
"now," said grover. "you told the officers you might have known the victim?"
"well, i wasn't that close, but it looked like a woman from the meeting i just attended. i mean, who else would it have been? we just got out of the meeting and there aren't that many people out at this time of night."
"and this woman's name?
"
"i just know her first name - brenda."
at this point another squad car pulled up.
"excuse me," said grover and went over to talk to the occupants. they muttered a little bit and then grover came back to frankie with his notebook.
"all right, this meeting was what exactly?"
"apprehension anonymous." grover wrote it down.
"a twelve step organization or something like that?"
"it's a twelve step organization."
"those are fine people in the twelve steps," grover said with a straight face. a little too straight a face for frankie. maybe he wasn't such a good guy after all.
"do you have a phone number?"
frankie had it memorized and gave it to him.
"thank you. now can you show me exactly where the incident took place?"
"right by that alley up there."
they walked up to it. a couple of other police cars arrived.
ernestine was long gone.
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