There are certain clues when you’re looking for DUIs.
Driving in a ditch. Driving without headlights. Driving the wrong way. All solid clues worthy of a patrolman’s attention.
But imagine you’re patrolling in a backwoods area near the Interstate, listening to Johnny Cash, windows open and singing to the cows, in an area where you’ve caught illegal hunters before. You go out there occasionally to see if there are others. Sometimes you find underage drinkers, sometimes couples laying pipe, sometimes nothing.
So this particular early morning, you’re coming around a corner of trees and in the near distance you see two unmoving taillights.
In the middle of the road.
Ah-hah, that’s a clue, kiddies.
Then the car moves about ten or so feet and stops again in the middle of the road. I pull up behind it when the driver jumps out and runs at me.
She’s covered in what I first took to be blood. She’s hysterical and running right at me so I jump outta my car. I don’t think she heard my orders to stop, but she sure as shit saw me finger my gun.
That stops her cold. She holds her hands up and starts babbling and I thought not only was she drunk, but she – or someone with her – is badly hurt, with that much blood.
Except it ain’t blood. It’s vomit.
It’s all over the inside of the car, the outside of the car, the road, her shoes and pants, her shirt, her hair.
“Oh, my God, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”
“What? No, I don’t need an ambulance…I need directions.”
Sometimes, I hear something from people that leaves me speechless. Usually, it’s not that their words are shocking in and of themselves, it’s the context makes them nonsensical.
Hence the moment before us.
“Uh…directions?”
“How the hell do I get to Chicago?”
Now, geographically, you have to understand we’re on I-180, which is exactly three easy miles south of I-80, which goes straight to Chicago.
“I was on I-80,” she says. “I was following my GPS. But now I’m….” She shrugs. “I have no idea.”
“Have you been drinking tonight?”
“What? No. Why do you ask that?”
I point at her clothes.
“Oh. No, I’m a little upset.”
“That’s from being lost?”
She nods.
Now, I wasn’t going to throw stones because I’ve been that lost before. After a signing once in a ‘burb of Chicago, I got so lost I had to follow a guy until he stopped so I could ask where in hell I was. He had the good grace not to laugh at me so I tried to offer her the same courtesy.
“I’ve been lost for a while.”
“How long?”
“What time is it?”
By my clock, it was after four in the morning.
“About four hours,” she says.
Turns out she’s from South Dakota and has never – NEVER – driven on a highway. After graduating from college, she hit the road for Chicago, thinking it might be a fun place to live. Her GPS gave her a route that was easy enough, but there was some roadwork and a detour sign.
The detour sign completely fucked her up. She’d been going on a loop of Interstate 80, Interstate 180, IL Route 6, and IL Route 26 for four hours. Basically, she’d been driving a square about 4 miles to a side for four hours.
She’d gotten so upset she’d thrown up…three times.
When I’d found her she was sitting behind the wheel crying.
I get her a towel and tell her in no uncertain terms to follow me. Don’t do anything but follow me. Don’t turn anywhere, don’t go anywhere, don’t look at anything other than the back of my squad car.
She’s over her fear and anxiety enough now that she sort of laughs. “Got it. Follow you.”
“Nothing but me. I’m the Pied Piper of Hamlin.”
She frowns. “The what?”
Kids today…what’choo gonna do?
“You must think I’m a total idiot,” she says.
“Well…not total, I guess.”
So she follows me and I get her into town. But by the time I get there, it’s like a freaking cop convoy. There are county cops, city cops, state cops, FBI, ATF, Conservation cops, officers from Iowa and Kansas and Texas and maybe a Mexican and Canadian cop, too. And Interpol was on the radio.
Did I mention she was young and drop dead gorgeous?
So of course, since it’s a slow night and there was a damsel in distress, all the chivalrous men of law enforcement are more than willing to help.
We get her sorted out and on her way – after she changed clothes and got some gas and a bite to eat – and then sit back while I tell them the story. We all laugh and it’s a good end to a slow night and everyone is relaxed and ready to end the shift and blah blah blah.
It wasn’t until I woke up that afternoon that I realized she had all the classic signs of a cross country drug trafficker.
Ooops. Damn.
But really…those OTHER cops should have noticed the signs. They’re trained after all, professional observers. It’s sad, really, how easily we – excuse me, they – were blinded by a pretty woman in need.
Them. Them. Not me. Just them.