where.”
The Herkaman house was in the zone Mike normally covered, and he was trying to think of any activities in that area that had really caught his attention. He finally scored.
“Wait a minute. Do you remember, oh, six months or so ago, that 10–50 out on C 23? The one where the gal tried to miss a deer and got the cluster of mailboxes?”
We didn’t.
“That was Phyllis Herkaman!”
“Okay.”
“No, no, there was a passenger in the car—a female, with a little cut on the bridge of her nose! She was withPhyllis. I know she was, and I bet it was the unknown woman.”
We checked. The first step was to go to Sally and have her run Phyllis Herkaman’s driving record. This had already been done, of course, to obtain her date of birth. But the copy had been given to Theo, so we’d probably never see it again. It was a chance to get the date of the accident, to help us find the accident report in the files. We are, thanks to repeated efforts of Lamar Ridgeway, decidedly low-tech. We were going to have to go through a stack of some six hundred accident reports, covering that period, which were rather loosely organized. Which means that they are put in as they are received, but even that order is disturbed when they are sifted by somebody who needs a copy of one of them. We needed a date.
Mike couldn’t remember if there had been more than five hundred dollars’ damage, which meant that if there hadn’t been, the state wouldn’t have gotten a copy of the report, which meant, in turn, that there would be no record of the event in the state computer.
We three had rushed out to Sally, who had caught the excitement. An actual lead, for God’s sake. The adrenaline rush came to an abrupt end.
“The state computer is down.”
A collective “Shit.”
Sally was encouraging, though. “It’ll probably be back up in an hour or so.”
We went to the main office and grabbed all the accident reports, divided them into four nearly equal stacks, gave one to Sally, and started to go through them.
Thirty minutes later, we had nothing.
“Mike, you sure you didn’t give Phyllis a ticket?”
The ticket stack was considerably smaller than the accident stack.
“No, there was a little deer hair on the car. No violation.”
We average about five hundred car vs. deer accidents ayear. Nothing unusual about it, and tickets are never issued, because the deer have a tendency to try to hit the car, not vice versa.
We exchanged stacks and tried again. Still nothing.
Mike was getting even more frustrated than the rest of
us.
“Damn it, I know that it was in November or early December, when the deer are so thick.”
“Well,” said Sally, “I can go back through the telephone logs, to see when it was reported …”
“No,” said Mike, “that won’t be any help. I drove up on it just after it happened. There was no report.” He paused. “You might try the radio logs, though. I had to call it in.”
Sally sighed. “Okay, you have a time?”
“Probably between 23:00 and 01:00.”
“One of you want to watch the radio while I go to the basement—all last year’s logs are down there.”
Being gentlemen, Mike and I went to the basement. The old radio logs were kept in cardboard boxes, most of which were labeled. It took about thirty minutes. The one we wanted was labeled, but the label was facing the wall. Figures.
Sally finally found the correct entry, at 00:19 hours on November 20. Mike called in that he was going to be out of the car at a motorist assist, called back a few minutes later, said it was a car vs. deer, and that he would be 10–6 for a while at the scene. Gave a plate of MKQ339.
The state computer was still down, but we did a manual lookup of Q339 in our own files, and found that it was on a yellow ’82 Dodge, registered to Phyllis Herkaman.
“Well, we got it.”
“Now all we need is the damned report …”
Armed with a date, we went through the reports again. Zero.
“Goddammit!
The Herkaman house was in the zone Mike normally covered, and he was trying to think of any activities in that area that had really caught his attention. He finally scored.
“Wait a minute. Do you remember, oh, six months or so ago, that 10–50 out on C 23? The one where the gal tried to miss a deer and got the cluster of mailboxes?”
We didn’t.
“That was Phyllis Herkaman!”
“Okay.”
“No, no, there was a passenger in the car—a female, with a little cut on the bridge of her nose! She was withPhyllis. I know she was, and I bet it was the unknown woman.”
We checked. The first step was to go to Sally and have her run Phyllis Herkaman’s driving record. This had already been done, of course, to obtain her date of birth. But the copy had been given to Theo, so we’d probably never see it again. It was a chance to get the date of the accident, to help us find the accident report in the files. We are, thanks to repeated efforts of Lamar Ridgeway, decidedly low-tech. We were going to have to go through a stack of some six hundred accident reports, covering that period, which were rather loosely organized. Which means that they are put in as they are received, but even that order is disturbed when they are sifted by somebody who needs a copy of one of them. We needed a date.
Mike couldn’t remember if there had been more than five hundred dollars’ damage, which meant that if there hadn’t been, the state wouldn’t have gotten a copy of the report, which meant, in turn, that there would be no record of the event in the state computer.
We three had rushed out to Sally, who had caught the excitement. An actual lead, for God’s sake. The adrenaline rush came to an abrupt end.
“The state computer is down.”
A collective “Shit.”
Sally was encouraging, though. “It’ll probably be back up in an hour or so.”
We went to the main office and grabbed all the accident reports, divided them into four nearly equal stacks, gave one to Sally, and started to go through them.
Thirty minutes later, we had nothing.
“Mike, you sure you didn’t give Phyllis a ticket?”
The ticket stack was considerably smaller than the accident stack.
“No, there was a little deer hair on the car. No violation.”
We average about five hundred car vs. deer accidents ayear. Nothing unusual about it, and tickets are never issued, because the deer have a tendency to try to hit the car, not vice versa.
We exchanged stacks and tried again. Still nothing.
Mike was getting even more frustrated than the rest of
us.
“Damn it, I know that it was in November or early December, when the deer are so thick.”
“Well,” said Sally, “I can go back through the telephone logs, to see when it was reported …”
“No,” said Mike, “that won’t be any help. I drove up on it just after it happened. There was no report.” He paused. “You might try the radio logs, though. I had to call it in.”
Sally sighed. “Okay, you have a time?”
“Probably between 23:00 and 01:00.”
“One of you want to watch the radio while I go to the basement—all last year’s logs are down there.”
Being gentlemen, Mike and I went to the basement. The old radio logs were kept in cardboard boxes, most of which were labeled. It took about thirty minutes. The one we wanted was labeled, but the label was facing the wall. Figures.
Sally finally found the correct entry, at 00:19 hours on November 20. Mike called in that he was going to be out of the car at a motorist assist, called back a few minutes later, said it was a car vs. deer, and that he would be 10–6 for a while at the scene. Gave a plate of MKQ339.
The state computer was still down, but we did a manual lookup of Q339 in our own files, and found that it was on a yellow ’82 Dodge, registered to Phyllis Herkaman.
“Well, we got it.”
“Now all we need is the damned report …”
Armed with a date, we went through the reports again. Zero.
“Goddammit!
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