The University of Irvine police sub-station was a single story wooden structure located on the outskirts of campus. A female officer in her twenties was working the front desk. She had on a cop uniform from the waist up, and cop shorts from the waist down. Her legs were thick and well muscled. Nothing says sexy like cop shorts.
She asked if I was here to pay a parking ticket. I showed her my P.I. license and told her who I was and what I was doing here. Without looking at the license, she told me to wait. I snapped my wallet shut. Her loss; she missed a hell of a picture. She disappeared through a back door.
I struck a jaunty pose at the counter and waited, ankles crossed, weight on one elbow. Surveyed the room. Wasn’t much to survey. Typical campus sub-station was designed mostly to accept payments for parking tickets, which, I think, funded much of UCI’s scientific research. Behind the counter were a few empty desks, the occupants probably out giving more parking tickets.
Soon enough I was sitting at a small desk watching a small cop eating a bowl of Oriental noodles. Judging by the way that he recklessly slurped, he seemed irritated that I disturbed his meal. His name was Officer Baker.
“Caught me on a lunch break,” he said, wiping his mouth carefully with a folded napkin.
“I hadn’t realized.”
“Professor Darwin said you might come by, and if you did, to fill you in with what’s going on.”
“She knows I worry.”
“Quite frankly, I’m a little worried, too.”
In my lap, I realized I had balled my hands into fists. My knuckles were showing white, crisscrossed with puffy scars from too many fights everywhere. Grade school, high school, college. Just last week. My fists were wide, a hell of a knuckle sandwich.
“Any leads?” I asked.
“None.”
“Any other professors targeted?”
He shook his head. “No. Just Professor Darwin.”
“Did the surveillance cameras catch anything?”
He briefly eyeballed his noodles. “No.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Again, no.”
I inhaled, wondering what, if anything, had been done about this.
“How about protection for Professor Darwin?”
“We offered to escort her across campus, but she declined. She said she has pepper spray and wasn’t afraid to use it. And that you had taught her self-defense.” He was a really small man, made smaller by the fact that he had yet to do anything for Cindy. He sat forward in his desk. “I know you are concerned. But I am personally looking into this. We patrol Professor Darwin’s office, her lecture hall, and her car regularly. I assure you, sooner rather than later, we will find this creep.”
“You have any objections if I come by a few nights a week and poke around?”
He looked at me. “You the same Knighthorse who played for UCLA?”
“One and only.”
“Then I have no objections,” he said.
I left his office. Sometimes it’s good to be me.