Taboo

Keywords: Rookie, The,

I heard the bellow through the half open door of Sergeant Tallon"s office, "Morris, get your ass in here."

My five feet eleven inches untangled itself from the desk and I walked through his door and said, "A little voice said that you were looking for me. Is that true Harry?"

Harry laughed, "If you weren"t so fucking lazy you would have taken the sergeant"s test two years ago and you could be yelling too."

I didn"t answer. We both knew he was right, but the fact was that I loved the street; being made a sergeant meant one foot was off the street one promotion later there would be no street.

"What"s up?" I asked to change the subject.

Harry answered, "I"m making you the Field Training Officer of a rookie right out of the academy."

I wasn"t surprised; with my experience Harry often asked me to be the FTO for Metro West which was our division. I didn"t mind since it broke up the boredom of the day, and sometimes I thought I actually did help the rookies start out to be better cops.

Harry continued, "Officer Phelan should be here within the hour. Her dad worked the job for thirty years mostly in Metro North. He only retired a few years ago.

"Her?" I asked.

Harry grinned, "I think the first name is Laura. Good luck…I counsel you to read all the regulations on sexual harassment Joe; I wouldn"t want you to get in any trouble that you couldn"t handle."

I gave him the finger without saying anything more and walked out of the office back to my desk. No angel of mercy had appeared during my short visit with Harry—my paperwork was still there waiting for me.

Thirty minutes later I heard someone knocking on Harry"s door. I looked up and spotted the knocker; her back was to me: Brown hair cut short in a pageboy style, broad square shoulders with no slouch, very nice hips curving into a very, very nice ass, and long legs. I guessed she was five feet seven inches or so.

I thought, "If you were a detective, Officer Morris, I think you just saw fifty percent of your new partner."

Three minutes later I heard a female voice say, "Officer Morris?" I looked up…brown, serious eyes, nice face, exceptional breasts…she repeated, "Are you Officer Morris?"

"Guilty," I replied. "Let me detect; would you be Officer Phelan by any chance?"

"Yes sir," she replied.

"First mistake," I said with a grin. "The sir is in the office you just left. I"m Joe. And what should I call you officer?"

She grinned back in relief, "Laura would be fine."

I continued, "Let"s hit the street Laura. Sign out a car and meet me in the parking area."

Laura said, "Yes sir;" and then seeing the look on my face quickly said, "I mean, I"ll sign out the car Joe."

Minutes later I held out my hands for the keys and said, "I"ll drive half the shift and then let you drive the second half."

We got in and I headed out to the beltway for Laura"s first lesson. Ten minutes later I accelerated up the entry ramp and kept the car in the right hand lane going the speed limit of 55. I asked Laura, "Why did you join the department?"

Laura answered, "It"s in the family. My dad worked Metro North for thirty years and finally retired. My brother was signed up for the academy two years ago, but he was killed in a car accident, so it was almost ordained that I would replace him. I probably would have joined the department anyway. Dad says it"s in our blood."

I asked, "How did you do in the academy?"

Laura replied, "I came in second out of forty-five. I did well in almost everything except for unarmed combat. Relative to the guys I lack upper body strength, and that hurt me.

I paused for a second as a mile marker flashed by the car and then said, "I can give you a few tips on unarmed combat if you want. The secret is to use…" I abruptly put on the flashers and pulled to the side of the road well clear of traffic. Laura tensed up and looked around searching for the reason for the stop. Her eyes looked at me confused.

I said, "Laura, we just saw a car sideswipe another car right in front of us. One car is turned over. Call it in."

Laura looked around searching for the accident.

I quietly said, "Pretend Laura, pretend."

She reached for the microphone and asked me, "Where are we?"

I replied, "I don"t know; pretend I"m not even in the car."

Now Laura was confused, "But if I don"t know where we are, how can I call it in."

I said nothing. The silence lasted twenty seconds or so and Laura said, "I guess my job is to know where I am, right Joe?"

"Yep," I replied. "We might be having a great conversation on who is going to win next week"s football game, or telling each other jokes, but you have to always know where you are. The beltway is easy; there are mile markers. With a little effort you will start to remember them automatically. Until that happens, you have to concentrate. Now we just passed mile marker 138. Pretend to call it in."

She pretended and made all the rookie mistakes. Number of people involved; special equipment needed, direction the vehicles were going. She wasn"t that bad; she was just a rookie.

After thirty minutes or so I pulled out into traffic again and arrived at my favorite speed trap. It was by a viaduct. I pulled the car in so we were facing the traffic coming at us. The cars were coming around a curve and our car was in a little valley, so it usually took five seconds or so for the cars to spot the squad. I told Laura to take the driver"s seat and turn on the radar unit while I got into the passenger side.

I asked, "Laura, you are going into traffic court to testify against a whole bunch of speeders you wrote up. What"s the first thing that you are going to need?"

"That"s easy," Laura replied. "I have to have available a certification when the last time the radar was calibrated."

"Give the lady a prize," I replied. "Now pretend I"m the judge and you are testifying against the first speeder. What do you say?"

Laura thought for a moment and said, "Well, I guess I would say something like judge, the radar said the defendant was doing 72 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone and…

"Nope," I interrupted.

She looked at me puzzled.

I continued, "Judge, I observed the defendant doing what I estimated to be 72 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone, and checked my observation with the radar unit and it confirmed my observation."

Laura was still confused so I said, "Depending on the judge and the defense counsel, the radar unit can still be attacked many ways. This way you made the observation and the unit backed you up. It is much more difficult for them to wiggle out of the ticket that way."

Laura asked, "But aren"t you lying when you say it that way…that you observed someone going 72?"

I pointed at a red car coming around the corner and said, "64…what"s the radar say?"

"65," replied Laura.

I continued, "Green car, 70"

Laura answered in a surprised voice, "70. You can really do that."

I answered, "In a few months, you will be able to do that too. It just takes practice. I"m generally within two miles per hour either way over 95 percent of the time which is about average for the traffic guys. Let"s spend thirty minutes here. First guess the speed and then check the radar. We are not going to ticket anyone unless they are outrageous, so don"t worry about it. Just try to guess the speed correctly."

We spent thirty minutes with Laura guessing the speeds; I spent thirty minutes checking out her breasts. Since I was an experienced officer, she never caught me. If she could read my mind, the politically correct sex police would have put me away for a good number of years. At the end of thirty minutes Laura"s grouping was four miles per hour either way. I knew she would improve on that with practice.

"Time for a stop," I thought, "And then maybe a lunch break." I took the wheel again and watched the traffic coming at us. Finally I said, "White car Laura, how fast?"

"70," she answered.

"71," I guessed out loud. I looked at the radar. "70," I admitted. "You are about to write your first ticket."

I hit the flashers and swung the car in a tight turn to chase the speeder. A few miles later we pulled behind the white car which was now going a very proper 54 miles per hour; which of course was much too late. He pulled over onto the grass and I pulled the squad behind him slightly closer to the pavement.

I said, "Laura, I will back you up, but pretend you are by yourself. Write up a speeding citation."

We both got out of the car. I came up the passengers side and checked the inside—only the driver. Laura walked up to the driver who had rolled down the window. She said all the right things and went back to our unit to check out the car and the driver. I stood in front of the unit listening to her call it in and watching the driver. Finally, Laura got out of our car and stood beside me as she said, "He owns the car. No wants or warrants, but he really is nervous."

I replied, "Did you write up the speeding citation."

She said, "Yes."

I continued, "Well why don"t you ask his permission for you to search his car?"

This time I stood behind Laura on the driver"s side. I had also noticed the guy was a little kinky, so I unsnapped my holster and eased my Glock out; hiding it behind my leg.

She went up to the car and I was impressed when she asked the driver, "Mr. Brown, you have to sign the citation. It is not an admission of guilt; only an acknowledgement that you received it. By the way, you don"t have any atomic bombs or biological weapons in your car, do you?"

Brown of course said, "No officer."

Laura continued, "Then you don"t mind if I take a minute or two to search your car, do you."

Brown agreed. When presented that way, almost everyone agrees even if they have something to hide. "Academy teaching must have gone up a notch," I thought.

Laura asked the man to get out of the car. He did. She presented the citation to him and he signed it. She gave Mr. Brown his copy of the citation and his driver"s license back. She leaned into the car to check the seats, the ash trey and the floors.

Keywords: Rookie, The,