The Pink Flamingo

“That’s all I can remember.”

“We appreciate it. Perhaps you could think again for a moment, in case you might have forgotten a few names. We wouldn’t want to later find names you should have remembered.”

A sheen of sweat glistened on Mendoza’s forehead, as he bent down and added three more names.

“That’s really all I can think of,” he said plaintively.

Greta took back the notepad and the pen and stood up. Harpal did the same.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Mendoza,” Harpal said. “Sorry to have bothered you and Rhonda. Both of you have a good day.”

The two deputies left and walked back to the curb and their vehicles.

Harpal grinned. “That was fun to watch, Greta. He was almost eager to help there at the end, and you never even raised your voice or outright threatened anything. Nice job. So, what do you think? He a real suspect?”

She grinned back. “No. Oh . . . I’m sure Mendoza and Toompas engaged in some illegal activity together, but nothing big time. It also sounds like our victim was known as a general screw-up, which means others didn’t often team up with him on anything illegal. At least, we got more names to add to the list, and we’ll just see what happens.”

“Okay. Glad to be of help. Let me know if you want to grill him again or have any other leads all the way up here.”

“I will. Thanks again, Devan.”

They shook hands and went their separate ways. For Greta, it was back south on 101.

It was 1:47 p.m., and she needed to be at Cloverdale High School in forty-three minutes. She hated being late and especially when a group of students had gathered to hear her inspiring talk on

good citizenship.

She drove over the speed limit and used her siren twice to move slower vehicles out of her way.

She pulled into the school parking lot with two minutes to spare. Fortunately, the school was so small that she walked into the auditorium exactly at two-thirty.

She laughed to herself. No sweat. I wasn’t even close to being late.

The principal stood at the microphone with a worried look that vanished when she spotted Greta. Emily Sievers was a matronly looking woman in her early sixties who looked like she should be the grandmother making cookies in some TV commercial. As it happened, she was a grandmother and did make killer cookies. She could also scour the hide of a miscreant student with her eyes alone, as only the better teachers could do.

Sievers tapped on the microphone, as Greta approached. “Come to attention, please. We are fortunate to have sheriff’s deputy Greta Havorsford speak to us today. I’m sure we all know Deputy Havorsford from her previous talks and her help with the Cloverdale girls basketball team. Let’s all welcome Deputy Havorsford.”

The heartfelt cheers and clapping from half the students Greta counted as a major achievement. Whether the response was for her or for getting out of a class, she didn’t know. The other half applauded politely and probably wouldn’t have done more for the President of the United States.

She shook Sievers’s hand, and the principal took a seat behind her. Greta tapped on the mike herself.

“Thank you, Principal Sievers. The first thing I have to say is . . . GO, BOBCATS!”

As expected, the invocation of the school’s sports mascot elicited more cheers than she had—although not that many more, Greta assured herself.

She reminded the student body that she had spoken to them only six months previously on similar topics and voiced confidence that no one had violated any ordinances or laws or generally misbehaved in those six months. She accompanied her statement with an exaggerated rolling of eyes and mimed her nose elongating à la Pinocchio. The students rewarded her with the anticipated cheers and jeers. She then segued into a more serious tone to overview some basics of civic responsibility, interspersed with a few hopefully humorous anecdotes. Questions and answers followed the thirty-minute presentation. Greta usually managed to elicit enough questions to confirm her ability to connect with teenagers. At the end, Principal Sievers asked for a round of thanks, and the sea of young faces responded with reasonable enthusiasm, largely due to their being dismissed for the day.

As the students filed out, Sievers smiled gratefully at Greta. “Thank you again so much, Greta. I know the kids aren’t the most receptive to this kind of talk, but I think you can plant a few seeds in enough of them to make it worthwhile.”

“No problem, Emily. Part of my job. Can’t say I was totally comfortable the first couple of times I did this, but I guess it’s the old ‘practice makes . . . tolerable’?”

“More than tolerable for us and I hope for you. Now. To the important topic. Are you staying for basketball practice?” Sievers had no problem acknowledging what she was not, such as a basketball coach, but she was an avid supporter of her school.

“I am. I’ll log it as ‘community contact’ and student counseling. Always sounds good.”

“And has the advantage of being pretty accurate,” rejoined Sievers.

The two women walked over to the gym next door, interrupted all the way by teachers and students thanking Greta for the talk, commenting on the basketball team, and talking to Sievers about school issues—the general bustle at the end of a school day.