Armstrong One-Nine was southbound on County V, as was her routine, some eight or ten miles under the posted forty-five limit. At a mild seventy degrees and clear, it was also her habit to have the patrol car’s windows down so she could not only see what was happening around her but also hear it and even smell it. It was important to Fort Armstrong County Deputy Sheriff Ro Delahanty to know her patrol area.
In her little over six weeks as a deputy, Ro had already come to think of this flat and straight stretch of two-lane blacktop as the county’s “horse country.” Every few hundred feet was a “ranchette,” which is what the real estate people called the five-acre home plots. Fronting the road were modern, rambling ranch-style homes, this time of night most lit up by grass-level floodlights. Behind were low, pole-style barns and hundreds of feet of white rail fencing. If she drove through the area toward the end of her shift soon after dawn, she could usually see horses grazing or rollicking in the pastures.
As was also her practice, Ro noted changes on her route, even little things like the “for sale” sign in the front yard of one of the ranchettes now with a “sold” sticker pasted across it. On the market for many months, Ro muttered, “Hmm, I’ll have to look up how much they actually got, because their original $499,000 asking price had seemed way high, unless, of course, the bathroom fixtures were gold plated.”
Her plan was to spend the next hour working some of the little-used gravel secondary roads serving the corn and bean farms in the southern end of her patrol sector with curious names like Danska Road, Veasey Road, Two-Mile Road and Tangier Road. Her self-imposed goal was to visit them several times a week.
A quarter moon meant much of what she was passing was only varying degrees of black – open fields tended to be a dark gray, illuminated by the Lee’s Landing city glow a short distance to the east, while wooded areas were a deep, shadowy black.
About to signal her right turn onto County Road M, another two-lane blacktop, Ro’s radio squawked. It was Midge Evans, one of the third shift dispatchers, her southern drawl obvious as Ro’s call sign of “Armstrong One-Nine” came out sounding more like “Ahmstrawn Won-Nie-un.”
Ro lifted the mike from its dashboard bracket, “One-Nine.”
“One-Nine, 10-10 Corky’s. Back-up 10-76. 10-B.”
Which in police lingo translated as: Fight in progress at Corky’s; back-up en route; fight involves Big Foot.
“One-Nine, 10-04. En route, 10-77 five” – message acknowledged; estimated time of arrival five minutes.
Corky’s was a popular Country-Western bar on the outskirts of Lee’s Landing, but out in the county, thus in Ro’s jurisdiction. It had a reputation for being a rough place. The “back-up” meant at least two of the other deputies on duty were heading her way.
County V continued south to intersect with Iowa Rte. 20, a four-lane, and almost literally bumps right into Corky’s – it was not over two miles from her present location. With lights and siren, which were activated by flipping a couple of switches below the patrol car’s mobile data terminal (MDT), Ro could be there in five minutes, probably less.
“Well, Mr. Pete, this is it,” she said aloud to her patrol car, with both relief “the call” she knew was inevitable had come and more than a little apprehension at the prospect of having to face Big Foot, finally.
The black and white cruiser was nicknamed in honor of a three-foot tall teddy bear, named Peter Panda, received as a gift on her second birthday; it still sat in an honored spot on the dresser in her apartment’s bedroom.
“It” was a call Ro herself had made more than a few times as a third shift dispatcher and knew sooner or later would be on the receiving end as a sworn deputy.
“10-B” was a unique ten-code made up years ago by the local dispatchers to warn deputies that the fight call at Corky’s involved Big Foot, but without having to say his name over the air. What it really meant was wait for at least two more deputies as back-up before going in.
Big Foot was a regular at Corky’s. Most of the time, while a little boisterous, he was a law-abiding citizen. However, when he got his temper up, and had had a few drinks, which seemed to happen every few months, it often resulted in broken furniture, maybe a broken nose and at least a trio of deputies needed to wrestle him to the floor and into handcuffs.
Approaching the stop sign where County V ended in a T-intersection at Iowa 20 – Corky’s fronted on Rte. 20 a hundred yards to her right on the other side of the highway – Ro picked up the mic, “Fort Armstrong One-Nine.”
“One-Nine go.”
“What’s 10-77 on my back-up?”
“Fifteen” − fifteen minutes.
Checking both ways for any oncoming traffic, Ro slowed down, went through the stop sign, and turned right onto the highway, pleased with herself at not leaving any squeal marks behind; screeching tire turns were for movie cops.
With a shrug, Ro muttered to herself, “Damn, the guys must’ve been on the other side of the county. Lucky me…”