Oceanside Chronicles: Season 6, Episode 5

Nov. 1, 2016
Max recollects the events of Halloween evening and realizes just how eventful it COULD have been, even in light of how exciting and enjoyable it actually was.

All characters and places in this series are fictional.  Any resemblance they bear to actual people or places is purely coincidental.

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Max woke up slowly.  It was something he was teaching himself to enjoy, but had to admit that it was all JP’s fault that he’d even thought about it. Thanks to his time as a volunteer firefighter and then his time in the service, sometimes in combat zones, he had long learned to wake up instantly and be ready for action. When the bells sounded at the fire house, he had to be out of bed, in his turn out gear and ready to go in thirty seconds or less. In a combat zone, sometimes what woke you up was the attack you needed to defend against – and he’d ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’ as the saying goes. After he was out of the service he had never dropped the habit. When his alarm clock sounded he’d hit the button to turn it off and spring out of bed.  It was just how he’d conditioned himself.  Even after the academy, when he was working evening or midnight shifts and had no reason to set an alarm, he still did.

JP was what changed that. The first time she’d spent the night at his place she’d only grumbled the next morning when his alarm went off.  He turned it off, got up and started making coffee.  She had finally convinced him to get back in bed to… snuggle.  The second time she’d spent the night and his alarm went off, she’d been closer to it than he was – and her response to the alarm was to throw it across the room.  JP was NOT a woman who liked being woken up unnecessarily by something as unpleasant as an alarm. Max was a bit miffed at first that she’d destroyed his alarm clock, but JP had put a lot of effort into convincing him he didn’t want to get out of bed anyway… and then she bought him a new alarm clock as along as he promised not to set it when she was spending the night unless they had a good reason to be up at a specific time the next day.

Now here it was, the morning after what seemed like a very long Halloween night, and no alarm had gone off.  Max had woken up realizing that sunlight was streaming around the curtains that blocked his bedroom windows.  JP was next to him, lying on her side, facing away, softly snoring. Her long curly brown hair was quite the mess all over her pillow… his pillow… part of the headboard of his bed. On at least one occasion he’d been awakened by her curses when she’d rolled over and pulled her hair because it had been tangled and caught in the headboard.  He suggested she cut it a bit shorter. She laughed at the idea. He shrugged, tangled his hand in it and pulled her into a kiss.  End of discussion about how long her hair was.

Trying not to wake JP, Max got out of bed to tend to the usual morning needs, padding softly to the bathroom and then to the kitchen to set up his coffee pot before going back to bed.  Climbing carefully back into bed and under the covers, he snuggled up behind JP and closed his eyes, letting his memories from the night before either pass the time or lull him back to sleep.

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Halloween evening had started early for Max and JP.  They had both worked day work and were off duty by three in the afternoon.  They had met back at Max’s place and gotten ready for their evening. Max had been invited to a costume party by his workout partner, Vince. A fellow Oceanside officer, Vince apparently threw a Halloween party every year but was selective in who he invited. The party was by invitation only and Max had RSVPd with his “attending” and “+1” about three weeks earlier.  Then he had asked JP to go. She had scoffed. They had haggled and argued. She had said she’d only go if she had complete freedom to pick a costume without any argument from him. He had agreed… which she’d totally not expected and was shut down.  In her favor, she’d tested his patience and commitment to taking her to the party.  The only rule Vince had set was that no police ‘costumes’ were allowed.  It was too easy for off-duty officers to put their uniform back on and claim they were in costume as the police.

So, back at Max’s place after work, he showered and shaved and put on the basics of his 1930s era suit. He was going as Clyde to JP’s Bonnie, but she had told him it would take her quite some time to get into costume and she wanted him out of the way while she did so.  The cool thing about going as criminals, and having legitimate costumes as such, was that it still allowed them to carry their preferred off-duty guns and not have to worry about anyone seeing them at the party; in fact, in this case it allowed them to carry a number of guns EACH and not have it look odd.  Neither of them drank much so they weren’t worried about carrying weapons while drinking, and ‘Bonnie’ had promised ‘Clyde’ that he wanted to be completely sober for everything she had planned AFTER the party.

Dressed in his freshly shined classic toe-cap oxford shoes, his “tall” pants and the pin-striped, pointed collar, French-cuffed dress shirt.  Max carefully tied his wide tie in a triple-Windsor knot and put on his thin black leather belt with its gold-toned buckle. The belt matched his socks and shoes and the tie matched the pin-stripes in his shirt. When JP was ready to go, he’d put on the suit jacket that matched the pants and the final touch – the black Fedora hat that perfectly matched his belt, socks and shoes.  One gun was in a pancake holster just behind his right hip, and he mildly regretted the fact that the holster itself was not costume-appropriate.  The gun, however, was: a government model 1911 .45ACP, vintage World War I was common in the 1930s.  In a shoulder holster he carried another gun appropriate to the time: a Smith & Wesson K-frame .38 Special with a four inch barrel, blue finish and walnut grips.  In the left pocket of his suit jacket was a spare magazine for the .45.  In his right suit jacket pocket was a speed-loader for the .38.  Idly he wondered what gun JP would be wearing and how she’d carry it, since she was dressing as Bonnie and Max had no idea about 1930s fashion for women.  Knowing JP, he thought, she’d find a way to make the outfit look sexy while still somehow hiding her gun.  Maybe she’d not worry about hiding it since guns were part of Bonnie’s every day attire?

It was almost an hour later when JP / Bonnie came out of Max’s bedroom.  She had obviously spent a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror doing her hair and makeup.  Her long curly hair – which she put into a braid and then bun for work – was braided and wrapped artfully around her head, held in place with several bobby-pins.  The overall look was very retro and had allowed her to add a lace-looking thing that Max couldn’t identify as a headband.  She had a matching lace choker with an ivory looking broach upon it at her throat.  Her make up gave her a slightly pale appearance but with quite a rosy look to her cheeks.  She had put on false eyelashes, thickened and extended dark, with eye liner, shadow and whatever else properly applied.

The dress she wore was both retro and not.  It fit her snuggly from the waist up and was a combination of what looked like cotton, satin and lace.  The lace parts exposed an awful lot of her skin and were the equivalent of see-through.  It might as well not have been there.  Max liked it but wasn’t sure it would have been socially acceptable anywhere except a brothel in the 1930s. Below the waist the dress was a bit looser and had none of the lace components, although the lower half stopped about mid-thigh. She had on fishnet stockings and Max wondered if they were thigh highs or… never mind, he reminded himself. He’d find out at some point later.

She had on a shoulder-holster with a .45 very similar to his in it and a garter holster that held a Walther PPK/S on the inside of her left thigh, low enough that it could be seen beneath the hem of the dress.  She had on three inch black patent pumps, increasing her overall height to five feet six inches – and that was her only real set back from being ‘Bonnie’ for Halloween: the original Bonnie, as far as Max knew, was actually less than five feet tall.  Clyde wasn’t all that tall either from what Max recalled.  It was not, however, a point he’d argue or worry about. JP looked sexy and correct all at the same time and Max was more than happy with that.

As they went out to Max’s Jeep, he thought how cool it would be if they could have gotten a period-appropriate vehicle for the evening as well.  But… 1930s vehicles, or even replicas of such, were not easy to come by and he hadn’t even looked into renting one.  The cost, he was sure, if he could find one, would have been astronomical.  Loaded up they headed out for the almost forty minute ride to Vince’s.

As they headed out on Route 64, Max and JP chatted light-heartedly about the party, who might be there and what costumes might be popular. Inevitably there would be a pirate (or several) and at least at least one woman would show up as Elvira.  As they drove, Max had his scanner on and, like most officers can, they heard it but didn’t register what was said unless it caught their attention. They were quite adept at filtering out all the communications traffic that didn’t apply to them, and since they were off-duty, unless it was a specific officer or an event near their location as they traveled, it disappeared into the background noise of the drive.

The one thing that they both did notice was how many calls the emergency dispatch center seemed to be getting for creepy clowns.  The latest “craze” that was sweeping the nation and made absolutely no sense to either of them, was this group of idiots who dressed up as clowns and then wandered around with no apparent purpose other than to creep people out. It had gotten so out of hand that the agency had expected, and had been correct, that Halloween afternoon and evening would be accompanied by a huge number of creepy clown calls. The Chief’s office had even taken the extraordinary step of putting extra officers on duty whose only purpose was to respond to such calls.  They were jokingly referred to as “the clown squad.”

As they drove, Max ended up behind a panel truck and, after about a mile, JP spoke up and said, “Max, can you see a tag anywhere on that truck?”  It wasn’t something Max had even paid attention to. He was off duty and doing his best to think about NOT working, but some things just never go away and one of them was noticing deficiencies if they existed on nearly any vehicle officers got behind.  Max looked and realized that JP was right.  He looked closer and realized he could easily see the mount where the tag SHOULD have been, but wasn’t.

“Call it in?” Max said to JP.  The question was obvious in his voice. He wasn’t saying she SHOULD; he was suggesting it as a course of action if she wanted to.  He was driving and his Jeep was old enough not to have a blue tooth connection between his phone and his radio, so he couldn’t easily call.  Had he driven an automatic it would have bene far easier, but driving a stick-shift, steering and dialing / holding a phone wasn’t a juggling act he saw need to try at the moment.

JP pulled out her phone and dialed the non-emergency number for the police department.  A computer answered the phone and JP hit “0” to get put through to the desk.  “Oceanside Police Department. This is a recorded line. Cheegan. Can I help you?”  Linda Cheegan was one of the most appreciated and liked emergency communications specialists at the PD and JP was happy to get her on the line.

“Hey, Linda,” said JP. “Happy Halloween. It’s JP.”

“Hi, JP.  We’re kinda busy,” said Cheegan. “What’s up?”

“Max and I are on 64 west behind a panel truck with no tag displayed,” said JP.  “Anyone out here that it’d be worth putting the information out?”

Linda knew what JP meant. It was Halloween and a typically busy day.  A truck with no tag might well be low enough priority that the information about its description, location and direction of travel might not even be worth dispatching.  “Give it to me,” said Cheegan.  “I’ll pass it over to dispatch and they’ll put it out when they have time.”

JP quickly gave the description of the truck, their location and direction of travel.  The fact that the truck had “Eat More Bananas,” painted in big blue letters on both sides and the back ought to make it easy enough to recognize she thought.

“Okay,” said Cheegan and then she got JP’s cell phone number in case she needed to call back for anything.  JP told her that they’d be behind the truck for about another ten miles if they needed anything else and both women hung up.  Max and JP went back to their conversation, mostly forgetting about the truck, but Max insured that he stayed behind it until they got close to their exit. At the exit before theirs an Oceanside cruiser pulled out onto Rt. 64 going west and almost immediately saw the truck.

Max backed off enough for the cruiser to come over behind the truck.  Both Max and JP saw that there was only one officer in the cruiser.  It was a unique and enjoyable experience for them, purely a side effect of sharing a profession, that Max knew JP wouldn’t care if he stopped to back up the officer on a traffic stop, if one ensued.  JP knew Max would stop to back up the officer because it’s what she would do.  Both of them inwardly chuckled at the reality of backing up an officer while they were in costume as a criminal pair from the 1930s.

As expected, the cruiser activated its emergency equipment and touched its siren to make sure the truck’s driver both saw and heard the police car signaling it to pull over.  Because the highway was four lanes wide in that section and the truck was in the lane closet to the fast lane, it took it almost a mile to get over to the right shoulder and pull over as indicated.  When it finally did, the cruiser stopped about three car lengths back and at an angle.  Max stopped behind the cruiser and was getting out his badge even as he opened his jeep door to step out.

Dressed as she was, JP planned to get out only if she was needed.  Max, no matter what era his suit was styled for, still looked (mostly) appropriate and both his guns were concealed. That was probably best for the roadside on a state highway.

The officer who affected the traffic stop got out and glanced back at Max.  Max was holding up his badge and recognized Patrolman Kevin Murphy even as Murphy recognized and acknowledged Max with a nod of his head.  Max went between his Jeep and the back of the cruiser to get on the passenger side of the truck while Murphy approached on the driver’s side.  It was still daylight so neither officer needed a flashlight – yet.  Both were aware that any “routine” traffic stop could turn into something completely different and they could end up on the scene for hours.  Max didn’t have that expectation because if the stop went in that direction, on-duty officers would show up to backup and assist Murphy.  Max didn’t expect to be there more than 15 to 20 minutes at most.

As Murphy approached the driver’s door, Max did the same on the passenger side.  The truck wasn’t overly tall and Max could see, via the passenger side view mirror, that there was no one in the passenger seat. The driver looked to be alone, but that didn’t mean he was. There could be someone on hiding beneath the window line on the passenger side.  Just as Murphy did on the driver’s side, Max stepped up onto the sidestep, holding the door handle as he did so, and looking down into the cab.  The driver actually saw Max before he saw Murphy and he visibly jumped in his seat.  Murphy was there a half second later and the driver jumped again.

The typical back and forth occurred between Murphy and the driver while Max scanned the passenger compartment of the vehicle for anything that might indicate a threat or crime. He saw nothing and kept his eyes on the driver anytime his hands left the steering wheel. Murphy received the driver’s license and the vehicles registration.  It turned out that the truck was a rental and the driver was simply using it to move office furniture from his old office to his new office location. The registration showed that the registration plate that SHOULD have been on the truck was valid and current. The driver claimed not to even be aware that there was no tag on the back of the truck. Virginia law didn’t require one on the front, but there was one there just the same and the plate number matched the registration.

Murphy told the driver to stand by for just a few minutes and went back to his cruiser to run the driver for open wants or warrants and to double check that his driver’s license was valid. Thanks to modern technology, Murphy didn’t even have to bother the dispatcher with such requests. He scanned the barcode on the driver’s license and hit the right buttons on his mobile data terminal (MDT) to automate the requests.  As Murphy did that, Max stood to the passenger side of Murphy’s cruiser and kept an eye on the passenger side of the truck.  He was also positioned so that the driver could clearly see him standing there watching.  It was both a deterrent and a “better safe than sorry,” action on Max’s part.  It would keep the driver from climbing out the passenger side to run away, if he wanted to for any reason, and it let the driver know he couldn’t get away with that anyway.

Within a minute or two the MDT had replied to all of Murphy’s inquiries.  The driver, while not having the best driving record in the world, was properly licensed and valid. He had no criminal history that was related to officer survival concerns and he didn’t have any open warrants. The truck was registered and insured and there was no report on file with regard to the apparently missing rear license plate.  Murphy wasn’t going to write the driver a ticket for failing to properly display the registration plate. That would be punishing a client for the business’ failure.

Max stayed in place as Murphy went back up to the truck and gave the driver back his license, the vehicle registration and the copy of the rental agreement.  As a temporary fix, Murphy suggested that the driver might want to move the front registration plate to the back and then let the rental company owner deal with reporting the theft of a registration plate.  The driver was very thankful that he wasn’t getting a ticket and delighted to be on his way.

Max and Murphy exchanged waves as Max headed back to his Jeep and climbed in.  on the radio, the calls for creepy clowns continued, but Max and JP let them disappear into the background noise as they headed to Vince’s.  The party turned out to be boisterous and fun.  Finger food was abundant and Halloween themed. Max and JP snacked on a wide variety of zombie brains (spaghetti creatively served), severed fingers (interestingly shaped Halloween sugar cookies) and other tasty treats.  Max limited himself to iced tea while JP had one beer, one shot and then limited herself to iced tea as well.

It was well after midnight when Max and JP left the party.  Their costumes had been well accepted and Max had caught a number of the men in attendance checking JP out.  He knew she loved it and he didn’t mind it. On the one hand, he was a bit jealous. On the other hand, JP worked hard at keeping herself in shape and was proud of her physique. If she liked to show it off, it wasn’t his place to be critical in any way. Besides, he liked looking at it as much as the next guy AND he knew he’d get to experience it firsthand… again… once they got back to his place that night.

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Max realized he must have fallen asleep as JP stirring next to him woke him up again. The day was brighter outside his windows and he was thankful for the closed blinds and curtains.  JP rolled over, threw a leg over him, draped an arm across his chest and said, “Good morning, Clyde.”

Max chuckled softly, pulling her leg farther over and said, “It’s about to be, Bonnie.”  JP chuckled a little louder than he had and the day began without an alarm clock.

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