Clearwater Journals

Another Day-Another Problem

Another Day-Another Problem

Once more, I was swimming laps alone in a beautiful Olympic size pool. This time, not only was Jaws closing in on me, he had brought some of his more hungry relatives. There were some sharp loud shots. Jaws is armed with a 30/30 Winchester? Can't be!

I sat up in bed and tried to remember where I was. I was helped in that endeavour by an impatient voice just outside my barred exterior door.

"Holiday-Joe Holiday-I know you're in there. Open up! Now-I mean it. I'll break this door down if I have too."

I checked my watch-seven thirty. "Who are you and what do you want?" I replied as I slid over the edge of my bed looking for any kind of weapon. Smart, I thought to myself. I have a Sig Saur automatic handgun in perfectly good working order hidden in my toilet and some guy is yelling at me to open my door immediately. I quickly slid into the bathroom-then stopped.

"My name is Jansen. I'm a police officer. Deputy Chief Kemp told me to come and pick you up. You are supposed to be meeting him in twenty minutes in his office down town."

"Oh yeah," I said as I peeked through the gap in the heavy navy coloured curtains covering the one small window in my room. "I guess I forgot. I'll just pull on some clothes and be right with you."

"Well Sir, you better get a move on. We're gonna be late as it is," Officer Jansen said impatiently as he turned and walked back towards his cruiser. I could just see the nose of a police car parked back from the garage.

I pulled on a pair of clean, but badly faded, blue jeans and a fresh navy blue "I Love Clearwater Beach" T-shirt-another of the shirts from the clearance bin at the souvenir shop's "going out of business" sale. I thought about putting on the New Balance trainers I'd worn the night before. "Screw him," I thought, "maybe I can piss Kemp off a bit wearing my flip-flops to his meeting."

I went out to join the waiting police officer. Maybe top cop Kemp will have a buffet breakfast waiting for me when I get there. It doesn't hurt to dream. I started to pull open the front passenger door, but Officer Jansen shook his head adamantly and pointed at the back door of his cruiser.

"I won't try to play with the siren if you let me ride in the front," I said like a spoiled five year old.

"Policy-and do up your seat belt. Nice outfit." Jansen, the cop fashion critic, had just defined our relationship. We didn't have one. He was a cop doing what he was told to do to make a living. I was cargo.

Twenty-five minutes later, Jansen led me, with my official "Visitor" tag stuck to my T-shirt, to a closed door on the fourth floor of the police building on Madison. The cop shop was only a very long throw from the park where I'd had my chat with Billy Ray the night before. I guess Fred Cooper must have had some pull in the police department because his name was on the door of this cubbyhole. Jansen knocked on the door and opened it when he heard a reply.

"Joe Holiday Sir," the young officer said.

"Thank you Jansen," Kemp muttered with a quick nod of dismissal before he did a slow head to toe scan on me. "That will be all."

The room was Spartan. There was no window to jump from-just peeling green paint, dark green filing cabinets, a cheap metal-legged desk and three hardwood chairs. It was pretty depressing. Maybe Cooper didn't have as much juice as I thought.

"Thank you for coming in Joe," Kemp said trying to keep it polite. "Detective Sergeant Cooper and I thought we should have a little discussion with you this morning given the events of the last few days. It's a little more formal setting than a Clearwater restaurant."