My Kind of Town
>> State Capitol Mean suckers
As HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes' 1971 Barracuda slid out of control across the Capitol plaza, the statue of Father Damien was coming closer, the three escapees he was pursuing were running further away. He gunned the powerful 432 cubic-inch "hemi" engine, turned the wheels into the spin, wanting to catch the three bad guys almost as much as he didn't want to commit the sacrilege of smashing the statue of a saint. "Help me, Father," Gomes the good Catholic boy prayed, "because I need it."
God helps those who possess superior driving skills. The trio was almost to the rotunda when the forward thrust of the engine overpowered the momentum of the sideways slide, and the Barracuda leaped forward. The race for the rotunda was on. The bad guys were just steps away when Gomes put the car into another spinning slide at an angle that closed their path and forced them to leap into the moat or get hit by the car's right rear fender.
All three splashed into the moat, and instantly began to shriek in terror and pain as they were set upon by the fierce new strain of fish -- a barracuda-mullet hybrid -- recently brought in as part of the state's homeland security at the Capitol, as well as to fight the algae infestation.
Risking great personal injury, Gomes -- ever the gallant one -- reached down and dragged the three to safety, though not before each had received dozens of severe hickeys, some of which drew blood.
>> No one witness saw everything. It all happened too fast after the blue Bronco smashed into an HPD van, knocked it on its side, and five prisoners escaped out the broken back window. And the action spread too quickly. No individual could have seen everything.
Some people, like Lily Ah Sun, saw a green Barracuda chase down three escapees.
Some saw two other escapees fleeing down Punchbowl, a young man jogging after them.
So many eyes were following the two groups of fleeing prisoners, only one witness named Sally saw a black SUV stop beside the overturned van, two men get out and pull a sixth prisoner, obviously groggy, from the van, carry him to the SUV and speed off toward the freeway. Fifteen minutes later Sally told this story to her psychiatrist at Queen's during her twice-weekly outpatient therapy.
Dr. Susan Strain often heard tall tales from her patients. Exaggeration seemed to run through many of their perceptions. But there was something in the way that Sally related this story. She was delusional, it's true, but was genuinely agitated. And so at the end of their 45-minute session, Dr. Strain called 911 and reported what her patient said she'd seen.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com