Characters in From a Buick 8

Andy Colucci was watching a sitcom on television and a couple of Troopers who had the graveyard shift were snoozing; Sandy could hear the snores. He pulled back the curtain to check.

… out there in the parking lot was really Arky Arkanian’s responsibility. Arky was the custodian. He was one of us as well, though, and he never got shirty or went territorial about his job. Hell, when it came to snowblowing the drifts, I’ll bet Arky just about got down on …

The crew chief was Bibi Roth, one of the oldtimers (men joked that Bibi had learned his trade at the knee of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson). He and Tony Schoondist got along well, and Bibi didn’t mind doing a solid for the Troop D SC.

The drunk, Bradley Roach, didn’t mean to hurt anyone; drunks so rarely do. That doesn’t keep you from wanting to kick their numb asses all the way to Rocksburg, of course.

… to the barracks to shoot the shit with Brian Cole, who was in the SC chair that shift. The two of them started on the Buick, moved on to their families, and had just gotten to baseball when Orville Garrett stuck his head in the door. “Either you guys seen …

“His name was Brian Lippy,” Eddie said at last. “Him and me, we went back a little.” “Did you?” I asked. “I didn’t know that.”

fourteen . . . twenty. Beside him, Buck Flanders said: “I think it’s ending.” Mister D barked and made as if to start forward. Sandy grabbed him by the collar and held him back.

… Captain Diment came down from Butler, presumably because someone felt his stripes would lend a little extra tone to the event, and he later told Tony Schoondist in a low growl: “That toupee-wearing touchhole asked me to fix his wife’s speeding ticket.”

Carl Brundage dubbed it Headache Green. Because, he said, the bugs were the color of the migraines he sometimes got. They were dead when they showed up, the whole half-dozen.

Curt stripped off the gloves. “The problem is that I haven’t cut anything up since Chauncey, my fetal pig in high school biology. That was nine years ago and I got a C in the course. I don’t want to fuck this up, Sandy.”

… even the usual suspects like Jackie O’Hara and Christian Soder. It was very quiet, especially once the shirts-and-skins touch football game was over. “I remember sitting on a bench under an elm tree with a bunch of guys, all of us moderately toasted, listening to Brian Cole tell about these …

… My call the following morning was to Colonel Teague in Butler, which is our regional headquarters. I explained the situation, and waited while he made a call, presumably to Scranton, where the big boys hang their hats. It didn’t take long for Teague to get back to me, and the …

Currently, the last name on the stone is Curtis K. Wilcox. July, 2001. Line of duty. It wasn’t nice to have your father’s name carved in granite when what you wanted—needed—was the father, but it was something.

… at the back of the main room, and Cynthia Garris came over to take my order. She was a pretty blonde thing with big, beautiful eyes. I’d noticed her making someone a sundae when I came in, and was touched to see that between delivering the ice cream and bringing …

“That’s not a tongue in her mouth, that’s a Ginsu knife,” Dicky-Duck Eliot observed once. Curt, who saw the lady more than the rest of the Troop (Ennis was usually his partner; they got on well despite the difference in their ages), was of the opinion that Edith was the …

I took her by the elbow, stopping her. Eddie Jacubois was out there on a county road, he’d just stopped a Jetta for some violation—speeding was the logical assumption—and he wanted to know if there were any red flags on the plate or the plateholder.

The Dragon was Edith Hyams, Ennis’s sister. She was eight or nine years older than Ennis, a longtime widow-lady. There were those in Troop D who opined that she had murdered her husband, simply nagged him into his grave.

… ’54, according to Tony Schoondist, Curtis Wilcox, and Ennis Rafferty. Sort of a ’54. When you got right down to it, it wasn’t a 1954 at all. Or a Buick. Or even a car. It was something else, as we used to say in the days of my misspent youth.

… collided with a schoolbus, killing the schoolbus’s driver, Mrs. Esther Mayhew. George Stankowski had been close enough to hear the bang of the collision, so who says there’s never a cop around when you need one? “We are Code 15 and 17-base, copy?” Asshole in custody and headed home, in …

“Nothing wrong,” I said. “If anything comes up, call Frank Soderberg. It’s his turn in the barrel.” “Very good, sir. Have a nice night.” “Thanks, Steff, right back atcha.”

… a Trooper down—like your father, last year—or one who’s used his weapon, or an accident, like when George Morgan was in hot pursuit of that crazy asshole who snatched his kids.” We were all silent for a moment. Cops have nightmares, any Trooper’s wife will tell …

… with two Troopers flanking her: Huddie Royer and George Stankowski. All of them looking as serious as a heart attack in their gray uniforms. Huddie and George were wearing their lids, making them look approximately nine feet tall. “You don’t mind?” Ned asked Shirley. “Really?” “I’ll teach you everything I …

I would have said that was impossible. Henry there”—he pointed to young man number one—“kept trying to wedge a pebble between two of them and it kept falling out. Now what is that? Why is that?

Brian Cole checked in from Unit 7, Herb Avery from 5 out on the Sawmill Road, George Stankowski from God knew where. That one was almost entirely lost in a windy burst of static.

The weedy redhead, Homer Oosler by name, wanted to do a feature story on all of this and go back to college with a bang. Sandy thought the young man could imagine a front-page headline with the words MYSTERY CAR in it. Perhaps even RUSSIAN SPY’S MYSTERY CAR.

“Hudson Royer—would you see a lady to her car?” “My pleasure,” he said, and took her arm. “See you tomorrow, Sandy? You still on days?” “Bright and early,” I said. “We’ll do it all again.” “You better go home and get some sleep, then.” “I will.” He and Shirley left.

… for his Snickers bars and RC Colas was Hugh Bossey. NO MECH ON DUTY BECAUSE OF TOOTH-AKE, said the sign taped in the window of the garage bay. The pump-jockey was a high school dropout named Bradley Roach, barely out of his teens. This fellow, twenty-two years and untold thousands …

… two (perhaps even three) generations of Troopers, from Jackie O’Hara to Eddie Jacubois. I could remember guys standing at those roll-up doors like kids at some scary sideshow exhibit. Shirley had taken her turns, as had her predecessor, Matt Babicki; come close, darlings, and see the living crocodile. Observe his …

“Anyhow, this Dockerty …

Some of the Motor Pool guys know. The County Road Commissioner, I think—” “Jamieson?” Huddie said. “Yeah, he knows.” “—and the Statler Township Chief of Police, Sid Brownell. Beyond that, not many.”

I didn’t realize my legs had gone rubbery until I sat down and felt them trembling. * * * His sisters, Joan and Janet, were identicals.

Jeff Cutler with vandalism over at Statler Middle School, but he’s just assisting, the local police have got that one.” “That it?” “Paul Loving is 10-98 for home in his cruiser, his son’s having an asthma attack.” “You might forget to put that on the report.”

… went nuts and started running all over the place, pulling off his clothes and yelling about Jesus Penis. That’s what the guy called him; I’ve got it in a report somewhere. About four different Troopers called in, a couple who were on-scene, a …

* * * It was while Curt Wilcox was learning the fine art of dissection from Dr. Maturin that Jimmy and Rosalynn took up residence in the Buick 8. They were Tony’s brainstorm.

I didn’t realize my legs had gone rubbery until I sat down and felt them trembling. * * * His sisters, Joan and Janet, were identicals.

I don’t.” The tow-truck parked in front of Shed B. There was a hydraulic whine and the Buick came out of its snout-up, tail-down posture, settling back on its whitewalls. The tow driver, old Johnny Parker, came around to unhook it, wheezing around the Pall Mall stuck in his gob.

That was the day Herb Avery and Justin Islington brought me the bouquet of field-flowers. Just before everything went crazy, that was. They were in my bad books, those two. They’d ruined a brand-new linen skirt, horsing around in the kitchen.

Also Mark Rushing—I think, anyway. Don’t bother Loving in dispatch, I don’t trust him. Too wet behind the ears. But you go on and tell the other two what’s up.

He was already better than Matt Babicki, Shirley’s predecessor. * * * In early July—it could have been a year to the day since his father had been killed, for all I know—the kid came to me about Shed B. There was a rap on the side of my door, …

… and his sisters were short a daddy and Michelle Wilcox was short a husband. * * * Not very long after the funeral, Curt’s boy started showing up at the Troop D House. I’d come in for the three-to-eleven that fall (or maybe just to check on things; when you’re …

… in order to have a little chat with Mike Sanders, the County Attorney. They had a particularly nasty hit-and-run trial coming up, Sandy the prime witness for the prosecution, the victim a child who had been left a quadriplegic. Mike wanted to be very sure that the coke-snorting Mr. Businessman …

Mister Dillon, his name had been, after the TV sheriff played by James Arness. A good dog. “I know that feeling, Ned.” “Do you?” He looked at me hopefully. “Yes. And it gets better. Believe me, it does.

Because I’m alone when I wake up in the dark. Mr. Grenville—he’s the guidance counselor at school—says time heals all wounds, but it’s been almost a year and I’m still having that dream.” I nodded.

“I just hate getting fooled. It’s like when Mr. Jones came down and got me out of World History class to tell me, but even worse. Because I’m alone when I wake up in the dark.

That was Ned Wilcox’s senior year at Statler High. He must have quit off the football team; when it came time for choosing, he picked D Troop instead.

None of them did. Just about then Orville Garrett joined the group. He’d been over by the county line, at a building site where several pieces of heavy equipment had been vandalized the night before. Ambling along behind him came Mister Dillon, the Troop D mascot.

Paul Loving fell out of it and sprained his knee.” We all laughed at that, Eddie as loud as the rest of us. “A lot of talk and not one single conclusion,” I said. “But what conclusions could we draw?

Peter Quinland, who owned the restaurant in those days, loved The Chairman of the Board, and a steady stream of Frank Sinatra songs rained down on us from the overhead speakers as we ate and drank and smoked and talked: “Luck Be a Lady,” “Summer Wind,” “New York, New …

Next to her was Phil Candleton, who had just clocked off and was once more dressed in his civvies; he was also staring in my direction. In the dispatch cubicle, the radio crackled. “Statler, this is 12,” a voice said. Radio distorts, but I still knew all of my men.

“Get Randy Santerre. And didn’t I see Chris Soder mooning around?” “Yeah. He’s technically off-duty, but his wife’s two sisters are still visiting from over Ohio and he came here to watch TV.” Buck lowered his voice.

… report on those marijuana plants we found in Robbie Rennerts’s back field on your desk. So I’ll just be heading on home, if it’s all the same to you.” Heading down to The Tap was what he meant. His home away from home. Once he was out of uniform, Eddie …

“Not everything goes on to somewhere else, Sandy. Take the other gerbil, for instance. Rosalie or Rosalynn or whatever her name was.” I sighed. “Have it your way. I’m going down to The Country Way to bite a cheeseburger.

One of the crafts teachers, Rosellen Nevers, was in more serious straits—George saw her on the sidewalk, lying on her side, gasping and semiconscious, digging at her swelled throat with weakening fingers. Her eyes bulged from their sockets like the yolks of poached eggs.

… Trooper Samuel Stamson, who died in the seventies and is sometimes known in the PSP as the Shotgun Trooper. Until Stamson’s death, we carried our shotguns in roof-racks—if you needed the gun, you just had to reach up over your shoulder and grab it. Trooper Stamson was rear-ended while parked …

… enough, but to begin with it was only Sander Freemont Dearborn, standing by the gas-pump with his mouth hung open and his eyes squinched shut, sure that in another few seconds the whole bunch of them, not to mention the Amish and few non-Amish farmers in the area, would be …

And Sandra McCracken would see it happen. Not a good thing, letting your bitch see you get cuffed. Bad enough she saw you getting busted. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” said Brian Lippy, and got into the back of the cruiser. George slammed the door and looked at me.

Law enforcement in western Pennsylvania would fall apart without Shirley Pasternak, and you can take that to the bank. Come winter, Ned was apt to be around back in the parking lot, where the Troopers keep their personal vehicles, running the snowblower.

“Yeah, he knows.” “—and the Statler Township Chief of Police, Sid Brownell. Beyond that, not many.” We were walking back to the bench now, most of us lighting up. Ned looked like he could use a cigarette himself. Or something. A big knock of whiskey, maybe.

Steff was Stephanie Colucci, Shirley’s second-shift replacement in dispatch and old Andy Colucci’s niece. The DSS was our little satellite dish, paid for out of our own pockets, like the exercise equipment in the corner upstairs (a year or two ago someone tacked a poster to the …

… later Sandy himself was rolling again, along with Steve Devoe, to the scene of a two-car collision out on Highway 6. * * * Bibi Roth made his report to Tony and Ennis as the members of his crew (there were three of them that day) sat at a picnic …

I nodded. I was remembering Ten-Pound, shot by a hunter one November, growing stiff in his own blood under a white sky when I found him. A white sky promising a winter’s worth of snow.

I nodded. “I got a letter from Tom McClannahan last week, saying he was holding a place open for me. He mentioned coaching Little League, but that’s just the carrot on the end of the stick. Mostly it’ll be swinging a spade and setting out sprinklers, just like last year.

… test that qualified me for Sergeant Commanding when Tony Schoondist suggested it, so I must have had a reason back then, but these days it seems to elude me. Around six o’clock I went out back to have a smoke. We have a bench there facing the parking lot. Beyond …

… back in ’96, on the day Travis and Tracy O’Day started firing their fancy militia machine-guns out of their farmhouse windows. Curt had to break cover and yank him to safety by the back of his jacket. And now here he was trying to squiggle out of his part in …

Eddie froze back in ’96, on the day Travis and Tracy O’Day started firing their fancy militia machine-guns out of their farmhouse windows. Curt had to break cover and yank him to safety by the back of his jacket.

… presenting himself that day had been case-hardened old Trevor Ronnick, who owned the County American and had forgotten more stories than the redhead would ever write. “Car’s gone,” Tony said, and there it was: lie told, Rubicon crossed. “Gone?” Homer Oosler asked, clearly disappointed. He had a big old Minolta …

“Jetta is registered to William Kirk Frady of Pittsburgh. He is previous . . . uh . . . wait . . .” It was his only pause, and I could hear the hurried riffle of paper as he looked for the card Shirley had given him, the one with …