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The Katydid Police Station is tucked into a corner of the Katydid County Courthouse, a solid, red-brick building that towers over one side of the town square. I’d been inside the police station often enough—sometimes to pick up my bicycle registration, sometimes with Bunny to pick up Tom. I always felt a secret thrill in there. A bulletin board hanging in the front room is covered with wanted posters, and I usually managed to slip over and examine the pictures of fugitives for a few minutes. My game was to try to guess the crimes they’d committed. I was never very good at it. Most often, the hardest faces would turn out to be accused of something like mail fraud, while the sweet-looking ones were wanted for armed robbery or murder. I always wished they’d include pictures of the criminals as children, just to see if you could spot something early on. Occasionally, I’d find a wanted woman tacked up on the bulletin board. Most of the women were accused of minor things, like writing bad checks, though once I saw a poster for a woman accused of shooting a man. The police apparently didn’t have a mug shot of her, so instead they used an old snapshot. She was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and posing with a beach ball—the picture of silly innocence, lined up beside men with numbers across their chests. A few of the wanted women hadn’t committed a crime but were being sought because they were believed to be “traveling with” so-and-so, some dangerous wanted man. I always tried to imagine what their travels were like—long silent stretches in big cars, nights at tiny, shingled motels, where bugs buzzed around yellow door lights, meals huddled together at truck stops or drugstore lunch counters. It was always summer in my imagination, and the fugitives were young, and there was something achingly wonderful in the way they passed over the country in constant flight.
Underneath the wanted posters, a long, wood bench was pushed up against the wall. I’d never paid any attention to the bench before, but Chief Springer told me to sit there while he phoned around to locate Bunny. He’d driven up to the Benedicts himself to pick me up. He’s old, and his back is bent from arthritis, and waiting alone in Butcher’s room, where Mrs. Benedict had left me, I had heard his slow, hobbling steps on the stairs. He opened the door without knocking and then stood with his hand on the doorknob, staring at me and breathing heavily. The walk up two flights had winded him.
“I didn’t expect this of you,” he said after a while.
“It’s not what it seems,” I whispered.
“What?” he said, still wheezing. “What?” He’s also a bit hard of hearing.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more. Deep inside, I felt a terror fighting to get out, and I struggled to hold it in. It wasn’t even so much that I was afraid of what would happen—I didn’t let myself think that far ahead. What really frightened me was a feeling I had that this had been bound to happen, that one day I’d make a mistake and from that moment everything would unravel. The feeling was terrifying, but calming in a way, too. It had always been just a matter of time.
I knew I had to keep my wits about me until Bunny got there. Above all, I must not cry. Bunny hated crying and she often warned me against it. She thought that when you cry, you lose all your strength, that tears flowing down your cheeks wash away your dignity. Through all her troubles in this town, refusing to cry had been her act of defiance. I wasn’t even supposed to cry at the movies.
Chief Springer watched me from Butcher’s doorway. He seemed unsure of what to do, and he took his glasses off and chewed on the frame. Finally, he said, “Well, come on, then, I’ll drive you to the station.”
I followed him downstairs. The hallway at the bottom was empty, and we got outside without seeing any of the Benedicts. In the car, he was quiet at first. After we’d g
one a few blocks, he asked, “What do you hear from Tom?”
“Nothing,” I said, in a tight, cracking voice. I almost started to cry. Chief Springer looked sharply my way. I’d frightened him.
Once we were at the station, he went in back to do the phoning and left me on the bench in the front room with Mrs. Donaldson, the police clerk. She was sitting behind a counter that’s protected by a tall, wire screen. After I’d been sitting there a few minutes, she unlocked the gate in the screen and walked around the counter to me. Her slacks and blouse were made of the same blue material as the police uniforms.
“What are you doing here?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. It seemed the easiest thing.
“There must be some reason,” she insisted.
“No.”
She shook her head and went back behind the counter.
Later, a policeman named George brought me a Coke. “Eugene V. Debs once sat on that bench,” he said. “Do you know who he was?”
“No.”
“He was a famous Communist. He started riots all over Chicago, so they put him in jail out here, where there wasn’t hardly enough people to riot with.” George stared, waiting for me to say something. “Didn’t they teach you that in school?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“That’s history,” he explained.
Chief Springer came out and told me he couldn’t reach Bunny at home, and no one was answering the phone at the bar at the country club. I suggested he try calling out to the room in back where Shorty the greenskeeper lives.
“Shorty?” asked Chief Springer, cocking his head back.
“Sometimes she goes there to rest between shifts.”
“Ohhhh.”
Chief Springer located Bunny at Shorty’s, but before she could get down to the station, Tony Wesnofske, the youth officer, arrived. Because of Tom, Bunny and I had known him for years. He’s much younger than Chief Springer, and everyone just calls him Sergeant Tony. He came quietly out of the back, and when I looked up, he was standing with his hands on his hips, examining me as if he expected to spot some evidence. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt, and his flattop looked freshly cut.
“Well, Martha,” he said. “This is something, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Maybe you better come with me.” He led me down the hall to his office. A sign by the door said YOUTH BUREAU. He sat at a small, gray desk and gestured for me to sit in a gray chair beside it. The room was tiny and crowded with metal furniture—a metal bookcase, a metal file cabinet, a narrow, gray metal table piled with papers and folders. One small window faced out on the square.
