A Summer in Sonoma

“At this point, I just want to forget about it. I guess it’s going to have to be someone else who goes up against him. Or maybe he learned his lesson.” She grinned. “You might’ve put the fear of God in him.”

“I hope so. The dirtbag.”

“I was putty in his hands—I probably fed him all the information he needed to make up his lines, make his move.”

“You mind if I ask, how’d you do that?” Walt said.

“Well, I told him I was a nurse,” she said, sipping her coffee. “Emergency room. We do a lot of business with police and paramedics. I don’t remember exactly, but I might’ve told him that before he said he was a paramedic.”

“Ah, so that’s how that went down,” he said. “Makes perfect sense. So, you’re an emergency roomnurse? That sounds exciting. What made you decide to be a nurse?”

“At first, nursing seemed practical. I had to make a living. I wasn’t very far into it when I discovered I really loved E.R. nursing. I found out I like to be where the action is. I’m not very patient.” She sipped her coffee. “What makes a person decide to be a biker?”

He grinned at her and she noticed that in the midst of that scruffy face was a very warm, inviting smile. “In my case, a scooter,” he said. “I was pretty little. Then a bigger bike, and bigger…”

“You look like a pretty hard-core biker…” She stopped herself and bit her lower lip.

“I do, huh?” he said patiently. “Well, I am, I guess. I’m not a Hells Angel or anything like that.”

“Do you belong to a—”

“A bike club?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “Haven’t had time for anything like that in a while. I might go on a group ride now and then, but mostly I’m on my own. I kind of like just taking off—that’s the beauty of the bike. When I was a lot younger, I took eighteen months to tour the U.S., with just a bedroll and backpack. I met a lot of riders out on the road. Sometimes we’d hook up and ride together, camp together, for a week or so, then I’d move on. I learned a lot about the machine that way. About the people who are drawn to the machine.”

“Eighteen months?” she asked, astonished.

“Yep. It was awesome. There’s a lot to check out in this country. You can see a lot more of it from a bike. You like to read?”

“Uh-huh. Girl stuff.”

“Well, there’s this book—not girl stuff, but it’s good—Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It tries to explain the feelings bikers have toward their bikes, their freedom, the power of the open road, the whole experience.”

She laughed at him. “I know golfers who think it’s a spiritual experience to get the ball in the hole, but it’s still just a little white ball you hit around with a club.”

“Ever been on a bike?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“I hate them. The worst casualties in the E.R. are bikers.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Anyone on a bike who isn’t fully conscious, totally safe and has an accident, I don’t sympathize with as much as I should. But bikers who get hurt because they’re more vulnerable than the vehicle—that’s a calculated risk. We understand that. Being on a bike is so great, that’s why people take that risk. I mean, there’s no metal around us, no air bags. It’s not a tank. You have to be sharp, you have to be good. You should have a good machine.” He smiled at her. “If you’re riding, you better have a good driver.” He sipped his coffee. “Ever been on a bike?” he asked again.

She shook her head, her mouth open a little.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll get you on one someday.”

“I…ah…doubt it.”

“Never say never.”

It was pretty unusual for Walt to take a coffee break that lasted an hour and a half. It was unheard of for him to take that kind of time away from the store with a pretty woman. They’d had such a nice time, talking about his rides, her nursing. Walt didn’t have hobbies outside of bikes and rides—his hours were long and he enjoyed his work so much he never considered cutting back—but they discovered they both liked to read. Walt was drawn to the guy stuff; she went for the girl stuff. Before leaving the bookstore, they did a little browsing—first in his section, then hers. They left with a couple of books apiece—Walt bought her a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. They both admitted they’d had a nice time when they said goodbye. He told her any time she’d like to get together for a coffee or whatever, she should give him a call at the store. He’d love to hear from her again. She didn’t offer her phone number and, knowing what she’d been through, he didn’t dare ask.

After she left, he called his brother Kevin, the youngest in the family. The cop. “You working this afternoon, bud?” he asked.

“Yep. Going in around two. Why?”

“Okay, here’s the thing. I had a little incident that I never mentioned…”

“Aw, Christ, you got cops after you for something?”

“No! Could you listen for once? Here’s what happened. I was leaving this bar a couple of weeks ago and there was a woman in trouble at the far end of the parking lot. She was yelling for help from the inside of a car that was rocking off the shocks. I could make out two people in the front passenger seat and she was putting up a fight, so I checked it out. I knocked on the window and the guy slid it down an inch and told me to go away, but I could see he had the seat reclined and his hand over her mouth. So I broke the window and got her out.”

“You broke the window?” Kevin asked. “Is that how you hurt the hand?”

“Yeah…I don’t think we need to tell Mom about that, huh?”

“He coming after you for that? For breaking the window?”

“Oh, I wish. Nah, he ran for his life. The woman—nice woman, by the way—was out on her first real date with him. She’d met him for coffee, talked on the phone, and she was meeting him at the bar rather than letting him come to her house. You know, trying to be careful, I guess. She was real shook up, so I got her a cup of coffee. I gave her my business card in case she needs me to back up her story. The guy was assaulting her. He was going to rape her, Kevin.”

“You sure about that?”

“Nah, maybe he just wanted to hold her down and kiss her a little while she was screaming her brains out and kicking hard enough to rock a big old Tahoe. You’re right—he probably just wanted to talk about Greek philosophers and she was just so fucking uncooperative—”

“Okay, okay. What’s this got to do with me?”

“I saw her today. She dropped by to say thanks. She’s holding up okay. She hasn’t heard a word from him or anything. She’s getting past it real good.”

“Yeah?”

“But I think we should know who he is.”

“We? Got a puppy in your pocket, brother?”

“You and me, big shot. I got the license plate number, make and model. See, she’s an emergency room nurse and he told her he was a paramedic. It makes sense she should figure him for part of the family, you know? But a friend of hers who really is a paramedic checked and couldn’t locate him. Maybe he’s just some sick jerk who knows what lines to use to get women to feel safe.”

“Oh, I get it. You’d like to have a discussion with him about that?”

“Oh, no, that’s not what this is about. I’d like to know who he is, though. For safety reasons. And you—as a cop—might want to check and see if he has a problem in this area. Maybe you look him up and it isn’t the first time, huh? Maybe you’ll want me to officially report what I saw? Because I saw something real bad. Or maybe you’ll want to talk with the woman I helped out, see if she can corroborate that he’s just a lying slimeball who…” Walt took a breath. “I know you’re not supposed to tell me about his record. But you could check.”

“Why didn’t your girl call the police that night?”

“Well, that night, she was all shook up and just said no, forget it. But today, when we had coffee, she explained. She did call the police and left a message that she’d had a real close call and had information they might like to have, but no one called her back. See, because she tried telling the police and they ignored her, I decided it’s time to get involved, call you.”

“Probably because there’s no crime, except maybe you breaking the guy’s window…”

“We wouldn’t have wanted to wait until there was a crime,” Walt said a little hotly. Then, more calmly, he added, “She’s done a lot of rape exams for police in the emergency room and it turns out that even when the victim is all beat up and hurt real bad, it’s still hard to pin it on the guy. This situation never got there. She had a real bad feeling about what he was going to do, but he never even popped a button. I told her about you. I offered to call you at home, man. Get your opinion.”

“Doesn’t sound like there was that much to it, when you get down to it.”

“It was an assault,” Walt said. “I gotta wonder if it’s ever happened to some woman who wasn’t lucky enough to have a big, ugly guy leaving the bar just when she was screaming and rocking the car. I just gotta wonder.”