The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

What followed next, Pitman would recount with laughter, in the years to come. I guess it was funny! Him demanding to see my “bike license” and me stammering I didn’t have one, didn’t know you had to have a license to ride a bicycle... Fourteen years old and scared as a little kid, calling Pitman “sir” and “officer” and Pitman had all he could do to keep from laughing. He’d say afterward he had seen me riding my bike on the Hunter Road more than once, looked like I was in this dream-world pedaling along on an expensive bicycle oblivious of other vehicles even when they passed close to me. He’d had a thought that here was a little blond princess needed a shaking-up for once.

I just didn’t get it was a joke. The way Pitman grilled me asking my name, my Daddy’s name, and what did my Daddy do for a living, what was my address and telephone number. These facts he seemed to be taking down on a notepad. (He was.) I was straddling my bike by the roadside trying not to cry staring at Pitman who so captivated my attention it was like the earth had opened up, I was slipping and falling inside. Pitman must’ve seen my knobby knees shaking but he kept on his interrogation with no mercy.

Daddy would say Pitman had cast a spell on his only daughter, when Daddy was being nasty he’d call it a sex-spell and I concede that this was so, Pitman’s power over girls and women was sexual but it was more than only this, I swear. For there was this Pitman-soul you saw in the man’s eyes when he was in one of his moods, or you felt in the heat of his skin, a soul that was pure flame: a weird wild happiness like electricity coursing through him. Just to touch it was dangerous, but you had to touch!

Can’t take your eyes off him, he’s beautiful.

“Well, now. ‘Lucretia Rayburn.’ Seeing as how you are a minor, maybe I won’t run you into headquarters. Maybe just a ticket.”

By this time most of the blood had drained out of my face, my lips must have been stark-white. Trembling, and fighting tears. I was so grateful, Pitman was taking pity on me. But before I could thank him, he said, as if the thought had only just occurred to him: how old was that bicycle, where had it been purchased and how much did it cost? “Looks like a pretty expensive bicycle, Lucretia, One of them ‘mountain bikes.’ You got the bill of sale for that bike, girl, to prove it ain’t stolen property?”

I did just about break down, at this. Had to say I didn’t have any bill of sale but my father might have it, at home. Please could I go home? Pitman shakes his head gravely saying he has no choice but to “confiscate” the bike and run me into headquarters after all — “See! they got to take your prints, Lucretia Rayburn, and run ‘em into the computer. See if they match up with known felons. For all I know, you ain’t even ‘Lucretia Rayburn,’ you’re just impersonating her” And I’m stammering no please, officer, please. But Pitman has climbed out of the cruiser to loom above me frowning and severe-seeming. He’s six foot two or three, a hard-muscled youngish man in a uniform made of a silvery-blue material and I’m seeing that he’s wearing a gold-glinting badge and a leather belt and holster and in the holster there’s a gun, and a roaring comes up in my ears like I’m going to faint. Pitman takes my arm, not hard, but firm, and Pitman leads me around to the passenger’s side of the cruiser, sits me down in the seat like I was a little girl and not this skinny-leggy girl of fourteen with a glamour ponytail halfway down her back. He notes the sparkly green toenail polish but refrains from comment. Takes from his belt a pair of metal handcuffs that are these adult-sized cuffs and says, still not cracking a smile, “Got to cuff you, Lucretia. It’s for your own protection, too.” By this time I’m sick with shame. I can’t think how this nightmare will end. Pitman takes my arms that are covered in goose pimples from fear of him, gently draws them behind my back and slips on the cuffs and snaps them shut. These cuffs twice the size of my wrists! Yet I still didn’t catch on that Pitman was teasing. There wasn’t much teasing in the Rayburn household where I was the only child, born late to my parents and so prized by them you’d think I was sickly or handicapped in some secret way. Pitman would say afterward he was beginning to be worried, I was some poor retarded girl, only looked like a normal blond-princess type with the most beautiful brown doe-eyes he’d ever seen.