Do Wah Diddy Die

Chapter 4-2

The familiar mechanism of law enforcement soothed Mickey’s frustrations. At least there was hope that the wheels of justice would, in time, crush the aging jerks that trashed his car. With martyred mourning in his heart, he watched a uniform speak into a radio, then turn to say, “They found the Yugo abandoned outside Lakeside Mall. Same place it was stolen from. It’s possible they picked up their own car—or stole another one.”

“They dust it?” asked another officer.

“Yeah, but it looks wiped.”

“Can’t shoot straight enough to hit the side of a barn but know enough to wipe away their prints,” snorted a deputy from the Sheriff’s Department. “What’s crime coming to, anyways?”

“Oh, I dunno,” drawled another deputy. “Did a fair enough job of shooting up this here underpass.”

They all examined the erratic line of scoring in the cement over their heads.

“Can’t believe no one was killed!” exclaimed a young officer, his Adam’s apple rebounding with each word.

Mickey faced Luci and got the full force of her reproachful look over the shoulder of the EMT applying first aid to her scratches. In her lap was a fragment of pig snout. That’s when he knew for sure that twinge behind his eyes was a headache in the making.

“The press boys are asking if it’s a terrorist attack,” the young deputy added.

“It would be a mistake for any of us to jump to conclusions,” Mickey said, speaking with pain-induced passion. He rubbed his temples and scowled at the media hounds hovering avidly on the fringes of their much-too-public crime scene.

Somewhere just out of his reach, he knew something was bothering him about the attack. He groped towards it, but his subconscious refused to cough it up.

“Well, whatever the motive was, you were all damn lucky,” the cop said.

“So were they,” Mickey pointed out, looking down this time—at the jagged line of bullets scores in the roadway, marks that traced a path perilously close to the Yugo’s tire skid marks.