Thriller: Eyes on the Car

For a few nights in September I woke up at three AM and decided to go downstairs to my office to work. I would open my screened porch door for air while working standing at my desk. One night I heard a car drive in to the parking lot behind my house. I can easily see the whole lot from my office. The car did not belong to any of the residents. I glanced at the clock. After five minutes the car left. Then another car drove in, parked in the same spot, and stayed for another five minutes. This happened each night. I began to notice this regular traffic pattern at all hours of the day, too. I suspected drug-dealing was going on and my neighbor confirmed it. She even knew who it was, and which apartment he lived in.

I emailed the local police chief and he connected me to a detective. The detective knew about the guy, a small-time dealer. The detective wasn't particularly interested in him, but asked me to stay in touch. One morning I was carrying my husband's coffee and lunch box out to the car at 6:30 AM and I noticed a shiny new black Impala with NY plates in the parking lot. I emailed the detective about it. "Can you get the license plate number?" he asked. I walked across the lot and back with my dog, glancing over at the Impala as I passed it. I emailed him back. "You won't believe this," he wrote back immediately, "I'm sitting here right now waiting for exactly that car!" All of a sudden my hands were shaking so much I could hardly write. "They're leaving now," I wrote back, "Do you want me to obstruct them?" I imagined, oh, taking my trash can to the sidewalk and tipping it over "accidentally" in the driveway, slowing the car's escape while the detective showed up. "NO!" he replied. "Please call me when you have a moment." He gave me his cell phone number.

I took a deep breath and phoned him. I told him that as soon as I had hit "send" on the last email I realized my mistake. "I just got caught up in the drama," I said, laughing. "Don't ever put yourself in harm's way," he warned me. I felt embarrassed. I was the Lucille Ball of amateur crime-fighters. "Don't worry," I tried to reassure him, "They won't suspect me. I'm just the lady with the big black dog who walks everywhere."

"Wow, so they were here at that early hour?" he asked. "The heroin addicts get up very early," he volunteered, thinking aloud. My heart pounded and I started trembling from head to toe. Heroin? I had visions of guys with tourniquets on their arms, veins popping, shooting up in dark alleys like in the movies of my 1970's NY childhood. He continued: "These guys make so much money they rent a car for a month and then turn it in for another. They think that with out-of-state plates they won't be noticed, but they stick out like a sore thumb." His voice was young and kind and I tried to envision his face from the tones. He sounded 20 years younger than me, with straight light brown hair, clean-shaven. "Yeah, those orange NY plates, you can spot them a mile away," I said, feeling like I already knew way too much about drug dealers. My confidence was quickly retreating.

For days I sent regular emails alerting the detective. "The black car is back here." "The black car is still here." "Now there's a white car." My pulse quickened every time I hit the "send" button. I sent him plate numbers if I could see them. I wasn't comfortable crossing the lot with my dog anymore. One day a scary-looking silver Ram wagon with tinted windows parked in what I had begun calling the hot spot. When it started appearing regularly I was terrified. My husband teased me: "You're just scared of the design of the car." I told the detective what my husband thought, but my hunch proved to be correct. The detective confirmed that the silver Ram was the drug-dealer's new rental car.

I was getting jumpy, fearing everything. How do the police do this? I'd walk my dog around the city as always but I couldn't shut off my hunting impulse. I learned to recognize car models and manufacturer's logos, to memorize license plates at a glance. I saw out-of-state plates everywhere, on fancy cars with tinted windows. Were they drug-dealer rentals too? Was I losing my mind? I sent the detective a Smithsonian Magazine article about an art historian who was training police detectives to observe using museum masterpieces. "I'd like this job!" I told him. One time he asked in an email, "You've got the black dog, right?" I didn't reply right away. I had mentioned my dog the first time we spoke on the phone. I was quite visible walking my dog around town, but he was still invisible to me. What do detectives look for anyway? How deeply do they research people? Was he reading my writing, looking at my paintings? I felt like I was in on a seduction. I was getting spooked. "Yeah she’s my dog,” I finally responded. "People see me walking her all over the city. She's practically a local celebrity." All I knew about the detective was that he drove around in an unmarked black Buick. He had told me that he'd be keeping an eye out on the parking lot. I was comforted, though, knowing there would be another set of eyes looking out.

The drug dealing seemed to escalate. I was monitoring the stream of cars and sending license plate numbers to the detective while continuing to brush up on the makes, models and logos of the cars. Now and again the detective would have a specific question: "Did you see the guy who drove the silver Ram?" "No, I saw him in the car as it was parked and then he got out and a woman got in and drove it away." The parking lot was like a shopping mall. Customers were sitting in their cars in the dark, their faces lit by their cell-phones. One night I saw a guy illuminated by his car light licking something from his fingertips. He held what looked like a white envelope. Another night I woke up in the night to pee and in the dark I peeked out the window through the gap above the curtain in the stairwell. I saw the dealer's car out back and raced down to my desk to email the detective. I was so full of adrenaline I couldn't fall back to sleep. "This is hunting, and you love the hunt," my husband said. "Yes, you're right," I admitted. "And you have an audience, the detective," my husband reminded me.

The dealers looked so young, they looked like little boys with their backwards baseball caps and shiny cars. They weren't even wearing winter coats, just decorative T-shirts. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, I wasn't out to get everybody incarcerated. It's bad enough that I already feel responsible for everything on the planet. I had no malice toward the dealers. My feeling was just please don't do this. As I told the Chief and Mayor at a meeting earlier in the year, I am speaking up on behalf of my tenant neighbors who are too afraid to call for help. This cul-de-sac parking lot had become a lawless wasteland because of the landlord's neglect. I wanted to improve the quality of life for everyone in my neighborhood.

Whenever my inbox showed the detective's name I jumped through my skin. It was almost like having a crush. I would hang on every word, read the message over and over. Stay calm, I told myself, breathe. Be safe, do not be seen. So much was unknown to me, but that's what made it verge on sexy. "I am freaking out with jitters," I told the detective, on the phone. "This is why I could never have an affair, too much adrenaline. I need my life to be calm and orderly." "Absolutely," he agreed, and laughed.

In time the scary silver Ram was replaced with a shiny silver sportscar, then later with a plain new red Ford with local plates. Maybe the dealers were beginning to feel exposed. "I think this is the new car," I wrote to the detective. He said, "I think you're right." "They park with authority, in the hotspot. They're sitting in the car with the seats pushed way back so they're hidden." "Important detail," the detective replied. Then I spotted the guys in question going in and out and was able to identify them. "Good job, Can you get the plates?" "I'm too scared to walk across the lot." "No, don't," he said, "I'll drive thru and get them in an hour."

At this point he had a search warrant for the apartment. An undercover cop had successfully bought drugs at the apartment, and now they were just waiting for the right time to execute the warrant. After eight weeks of team work I was still hanging on the front lines looking out from my perch. One Friday the detective asked me, "Can you keep your eyes on the red car for fifteen minutes?" "Yes, I'll set the kitchen timer since my sense of time is wonky under stress," I said. "Good," he replied. The bell rang and I wrote back, "Red car still here," but then the car immediately left. I phoned in a panic. "He just left!" I said, shaking like a leaf, imagining having botched the crew's efforts. "He must have the same timer," I said. The detective laughed. The stake-out was cancelled for the day but we'd be back at it again Monday. "We can be in casual alert over the weekend, making note of the red car's comings and goings. But Monday night, high alert." "Okay," I said. "By the way, I know I don't have to tell you but for your safety and ours, do not tell ANYONE you are working with us." Later I sat down and wrote the names of all the people I had told. Forty-five. I was spooked.

There's a part of me that always wanted to be a detective. Artists, writers, and detectives share lot in common: observe and listen. I told myself that my role in this was to keep paying attention and write down what I see. Just the facts ma’am, I told myself, and leave the interpretation to the experts. I was in a kind of training, I decided, doing my best to be a good and honorable witness to help solve the problem on behalf of my neighborhood. I wanted it to be over, though. "Believe me we do too," the detective said, "but it has to run its course. We need to get the right guys." I told myself it was a good but terrifying exercise for my writing. "My wife has a pen-pal who is a detective!" my husband announced proudly one morning while pouring his coffee into his morning to-go thermos.

Monday came. I was in self-imposed high alert, awake since 4 AM. I had been standing lookout in the empty tub of my cold office bathroom for hours. The detective and I were keeping in touch by email. It was now 6:30 PM. My husband appeared with two plates of hot spaghetti. We ate it standing in the dark, eyes on the red car. I was exhausted. "Go rest," the detective said. "I hate to do this to you, can you come back at 10:30?" "Perfect," I said. At 9:30 my husband woke me up. "The red car is back," he said. I emailed the detective, my heart pounding. "Okay, keep an eye out. Let's see if he stays," he said. The red car was in a different spot because of the ice in the lot. A truck partially blocked my view of the car, and the new spot was very dark. My husband got his binoculars. I could confirm the red car was red and I recognized the shape of the tail light. Then the truck left. Another guy pulled in to the hot spot to buy drugs. When he returned, he put the car in reverse and got stuck in the ice, tires spinning, but his back-up lights illuminated the red car. "It's DEFINITELY red," I told the detective. "A customer lit it up." He laughed. Another sedan drove in, a brown Crown Vic. Maybe this is the detective I thought. But it was a lanky guy in a Peruvian hat carrying a brown paper bag. Another customer.

The detective wanted to communicate now by cell-phone. "I'll have to wake my husband, it's his phone and I don't know how to use it." "He's not going to be too happy about that," the detective said. "Oh no, he'll be fine about it." I got back to my station just as the red car started to leave. I called in a panic: "Red car just left!" I feared the detective's team would move in on nothing. "Oh don't tell me!" he said. He was exhausted too. "Hey, a pickup truck just pulled in," I said. I noticed it was missing a rear light. "I think it's another customer. I'll bet the red car will be back momentarily to make a deal." Suddenly I was alert and wide awake. Sure enough, I called back with good news: "The red car's back! And now the truck is gone." "The truck is gone? You have eyes on the red car?" I could hear police radio in the background. A cop was saying he was staked out on the corner lot at the school. "Okay I have to direct my guys now," he said, hanging up. I went to the bathroom window. Two cars drove into the lot and stopped. One passenger got out carrying something really heavy and ran towards the apartment. I sure hope this is the police, I thought, and not the dealers because this looks dangerous. Then I saw another vehicle pull into the driveway and park, blocking the only exit. Okay, whew, it's the cops. Then I saw the detectives come out into the lot with a police dog to search the red car. It was late, after eleven. I finally went to bed.

The next morning I had a new message. "Call me when you have a chance." The detective told me the story over the phone. They got their guys, exactly what they wanted. The apartment was a classic crack house. "You won't believe the paperwork we have to do now, it will take all day," he said. I was blown away, exhausted, relieved. Was it really over? The Chief later sent me and the Mayor a follow-up note, and a personal thank-you note. "Community policing at its best," he wrote.