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“I’ll say,” she replied, recalling the many cases she’d seen back in Missouri when she worked for the Bureau.
“Feel like interrogating some suspects for me?” Jeff asked. “I’ve got a gas drive-away and two possible suspects. We have a photo from the surveillance camera that could be of either two men.”
“I’ll go grill them,” she said with a grin. “I’ll be back soon,” she promised, and went to work.
* * *
The drive-away at the gas pump was a sad case, a crime that grew more prevalent with gas prices rising and people out of work.
“I have to get to my job,” the belligerent young man groaned when Meadow showed up at his door with a copy of the surveillance camera photo. “Ma’am, the baby got sick and we had to pay the doctor up front. No gas, no job . . .”
“I understand how hard things can get,” she said gently. “But stealing is still against the law, regardless of the reason.”
He drew in a breath. “I guess I’m arrested,” he said with resignation.
“The owner is willing to drop the charge if you’ll pay for the gas.”
He brightened, just a little. He dug into his pockets and pulled out several one-dollar bills and a few coins. “I just pumped eight dollars’ worth,” he explained. He was counting money. “That’s all of it.” He flushed as he handed it over. “I’m real sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“Listen,” she said softly, “there are all sorts of places you can get help. Your local church probably has emergency funds for things like this. There’s the Sharing Place, which has canned goods and clothes. They have emergency funds, too. You should talk to them.”
His eyebrows were arching. “They help folks like us?” he asked. “I thought that was just for people who were homeless.”
She shook her head. “It’s for anybody who needs it. The local family and children services agency can help, too. There are all sorts of programs. There’s even a truck that comes once a week downtown to distribute groceries to people who can’t afford them.”
He looked as if he’d won the lottery. “We got a new baby and we been going without some things to buy that new soy milk he has to have—he’s allergic to cow’s milk.”
She smiled. “Ask your boss for an hour off and go talk to some of these people.”
“Ma’am, I’ll do that very thing. Thanks for not arresting me. And thank Mr. Billings at the gas station. Tell him I’m real sorry. If he ever needs anything, I’ll come do it for free, to help make up for stealing from him.”
“I’ll tell him.”
She went back to the office, sad at the state of the world.
“What’s got you so disheartened?” Jeff asked.
She smiled. “I guess it shows, huh? I was just thinking how hard life is for some people. The young man coughed up the price of the gas. They have a new baby and he has to have soy milk . . .”
His eyebrows were arching like crazy.
She blinked. “Was it something I said?”
“The young man’s name is John Selton. He isn’t married. He hasn’t got a child. In fact, he hasn’t got a job,” he added, holding up a sheet of paper. “He just got out of state prison for passing bad checks.”
She sat down on the edge of the desk. “Well!”
“Hey, at least you got Mr. Billings’s gas money back,” he said, trying to cheer her.
She smiled vacantly. “Do you think that some people should never be given jobs in law enforcement?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Sometimes we have to learn that not everybody is honest.”
“I’ve been in law enforcement for several years,” she pointed out. “I was a policewoman in Missouri and I was with the FBI for two years. If I haven’t learned to size up people by now, there isn’t a lot of hope that I’ll develop the skill.”
He almost bit his tongue trying not to say what he was thinking. He agreed with her. She was the least likely law enforcement officer he’d ever met, but he was basically a kind man. So he just smiled.
* * *
